Cleansing of My Soul

To my parents:

By now, it should be no surprise that I’ve been in therapy since the end of last year [2013]. There have been a great number of things for me to get off my chest. Some belong to the therapist. Some belong to others. For my future health and happiness, there are some burdens that I have to give back to the people who first gave them to me.

Please know that what follows is not a reflection on the love that I have for both of you. It is simply a perspective of the lessons that you taught me as I grew up. Some lessons you taught explicitly. Some you taught silently, through your example. I have learned that some of these lessons are not healthy for me. They cause me to struggle to achieve the life that I desire, and so I must free myself of the sense of duty to those lessons. I must either change what I want, how I act, or both.

Mom:

The most persistent lesson I learned from you was manipulation. As I grew up, I often felt oppressed. Not physically, but emotionally. You freely expressed how hurt you were any time I chose something that didn’t honor your wishes. Too often, I would relent and give you what you wanted. I observed you, on numerous occasions, getting into a battle of wills and stomping off to sulk in your room when you couldn’t get your way. You knew that your pouting was always more effective than your yelling, and you used it. 

What was so incredibly consistent about your manipulation was that you always made yourself into the victim. I would lay money that you would turn your own anger around to make us feel ashamed. Our decisions, and even the decisions of our siblings, were used to embarrass us rather than teach us. You kept us close by keeping us afraid, which is ironic, but I’ll get that later.

I’ll even give you a good example of that. [Redacted] made an unannounced trip to North Carolina. He was, mentally and legally, an adult. He was of age and of means to make the trip. I was maybe fourteen at the time. I of course knew you would be mad at him, but you had a long history with his comparative rebellion, so it really shouldn’t have been a surprise. I made the decision to stay out of it. Of course you did find out when he didn’t return home that night, and when you found out that I knew, you woefully, and tearfully, exclaimed that your “children were conspiring against you”. I foolishly allowed myself to feel guilt for actions that had nothing to do with me. Why should I have done that? He was on the road twenty minutes after he came home. And what, in all practicality, could have been done about it? Would you call the police to report a runaway adult son? Cell phones weren’t even available yet, so there was no way to reach him. So you did the only thing you had the capacity to do… lay the blame on your younger, minor children. 

When you found out that I was dating, you couldn’t be interested with whether she made me happy. You could only concern yourself with whether I was committing fornication. You even asked me if I was, and then threatened to drag me before the elders to discuss my relationship.

The night I announced that I intended to marry, I sat on the couch, wringing my hands with fear over what you would say, because I knew it wouldn’t be positive. And when I shared what should have been happy news, you told me how foolish I was. You fretted over how it would appear to the congregation if I were to marry someone so soon after her baptism. Your concern was always focused outside of the family. The next morning, you stood at my bedroom door for twenty minutes, telling me how hurt you were by my decision, struggling with how you should tell me. Would you talk to me? Would you write me a letter? Frankly, I needed your support. Not your self-victimization.

Ultimately, in that process, I learned that my individual growth was not a priority to you, so long as I did what you asked of me. Your priority was always to teach me what to think, not how to think. Any deviation from that plan was met with bitter ridicule, using both personal and religious attacks. In so many ways, you were an emotional bully.

Rather than belabor you with examples (and I have many), I will simply say that in your disagreements with us children, you always made sure that we knew that you were the victim. As a father, I now know that my daughter cannot victimize me, just as we could not victimize you. Every tantrum, crying fit, and pouting session was a device of your own conjuring. We didn’t have any control over you to create those kinds of reactions. I no longer accept the guilt, responsibility, or false loyalty that go with them.

Dad:

What do I say to you? You’ve never looked at yourself as a good father or teacher. You were an excellent teacher by example, even if it was not always the lesson you wanted me to learn. You are a better father than you give yourself credit for. Even if you rarely acted on it, I know you saw your children through the lens of what you wanted for them. You could see what we needed; what you would have wanted if you were in our shoes, but I believe you never felt comfortable with taking a stand for that. Your faith is important to you, which I understand. You’re also statistically smarter than 98% of the population. The difference between your level of intelligence and the normal person is the same difference between a normal person and one who is legally retarded. I believe that some doctrinal things don’t make sense to you, and as a matter of faith, you have to bury those questions. I can only imagine the conflict.

The only thing I wanted from you was for you to stand up for something. You were peaceful, passive, and reflective. Sometimes reflection requires action when reaching an inescapable conclusion. Mom has problems. You have to know that she was emotionally abusive because of things that she cannot or will not say. She needs help. I didn’t realize it until I started therapy, so I don’t expect that you necessarily made the connection either. The fact remains, if there was one failing that you had as a father, it was in not stepping between your kids and a woman that did not have the emotional stability to nurture them in a healthy way. My therapist would tell me that I’m angry with you for not protecting us. I am not. I’m only sad that you were as abused as we were.

I believe, honestly, that many of your emotional struggles are tied to the conflicts you feel. Choose to speak up. Choose to be heard. It does wonders.

Faith:

This could be a book of its own…

I will begin with a premise that is hurtful, but true. You will scoff at it and call me ‘apostate’, which is also true, but not for the reason you think. My premise is that everything related to the faith I was raised to have is a lie.

Now you will both recoil at that...

Let me first address the apostasy claim that will undoubtedly come from mom. An apostate, by the Society's definition, is a person who works against God’s organization. Not just a person who has lost or given up faith, but one who actively countermands the authority of His organization. However, an apostate is simply one who “renounces a religious or political belief or principle”. I am an apostate. I do not believe that your organization is His earthly representation. I have not been shown adequate evidence to disprove some very glaring and logically sound criticisms I have of the faith. I am an apostate in every sense of the word. I will share with others why I left and why I cannot go back. I want people to ask questions of their faith. It’s the only way it can be an honest reflection of one’s beliefs. If this thinking requires me to be disfellowshipped, so be it. What am I really losing? I don’t need or want the approval of the congregation. I didn’t ask for it, and it was only by constant reinforcement that I ever believed that I was supposed to need it. That has turned out to be false. I will invest nothing into any advice, reproof, or guidance I receive from anyone representing Witnesses.

That brings me to my second point about the faith being a lie. I’m not writing this to inform you that what you believe in is a lie.  What I do want to make clear, however, is that the faith we were raised to have was not in fact faith. The faith we were raised to have was one which appeared unshakable from the outside, but had no solid foundation of practice or maintenance to validate the image.

Emphasis was placed on keeping the appearance alive. It became the responsibility of the family to make sure that no one outside of our circle of five really knew what things were like in our house. My personal favorite was mom’s occasional claim that “Dad can’t be an elder because of his kids…”

The truth was that Dad shouldn’t have been an elder because nothing about our family reflected Christian values. In a very real sense, we were super-fine apostles that Paul struggled with. We gave the appearance of righteousness, but abandoned that as soon as the we got back in the van to go home from meetings three times a week.

Consider the following:

• We lived in actual squalor. Our home did not even have the appearance of Christian cleanliness.
  
• Our home was cleaned only when someone outside of our immediate family members were going to be in it. Your children, their spouses, and your grandkids didn’t even get a reprieve.
• This is also why [Redacted] never visited your home much.
• Our family van was no different. On numerous occasions, I had to go ‘clean’ the van for impromptu Sunday field service. That is an example of maintaining the ‘lie’. No one could know except us.
• Dad’s parents were coming over so all of the mess in public areas was shoved into [Redacted]'s room. Grandpa saw this and scolded [Redacted] for it. No one else stepped up to take responsibility for that, and she didn’t tell on the rest of the family. [Redacted] maintained the lie.
• We didn’t study, either personally or as a family, but we sure pretended to. We maintained the lie.
• We struggled to make comments at the meetings on material that we’d never read. We maintained the lie.
• We didn’t do much public preaching, and even occasionally filled out time cards with false representations of time spent witnessing. We maintained the lie.
• Mom had literal mountains of novels with very graphic sexual content in them. We didn’t confront her about it, nor did we permit visitors to see them laying about. We maintained the lie.
• Dad (and mom, by implicit consent) would rent movies with the most explicit content that could be found in a Blockbuster and would hide them. We all knew. Hell, we watched most of them. We maintained the lie.

Ultimately, the only standard that we held ourselves to in the family was whether or not our secrets, indiscretions, or outright breaking of the rules ever became public knowledge. This is where my intense hatred and bitterness for “The Truth” comes from. “The Truth” is predicated on “The Lie”. “The Lie” is that we had any deep commitment to, passing interest in, or even casual respect for “The Truth”.

The only thing that is true about the faith adopted by this family is that the image of piety was more important than the healthy growth, development, or self-image of anyone in the family. Everything that was enjoyable about being is this family was expendable for the sake of what “people would think”.

Here is what I think now: Your faith, my faith of birth, the God of my youth, is nothing more than a cult. There are considerable resources written by extremely educated people who have identified signs and behaviors of cults that are dangerous and/or exert undue influence. 

Consider the following:

1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability
1. Every echelon of the hierarchy has no ability to question the level above it; Sheep cannot challenge elders, elders cannot challenge branches, branches cannot challenge the Society
2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry
1. Anyone who questions teachings is called unfaithful, punished, and at worst expelled; See 9.e below
3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement
1. Watchtower is an entity with over a billion dollars in holdings (based off of estimated values of just the Brooklyn real estate), yet has never been publicly audited, nor released financial statements to congregations; You don’t know what happens to your money and they don’t tell you; For giggles, research the Henriette M. Riley Trust fbo Watch Tower Bible and prepared to be amazed
4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions
1. Not even going to bother with this; This has been the basis of every meeting I ever attended and a number of JW Broadcasts on jw.org
5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil
1. Disfellowshipping, pure and simple; One may disassociate themselves, but since Governing Body Member Raymond Franz disassociated himself (and was then retroactively disfellowshipped) in the early 80’s, communication with disassociated persons is as strictly forbidden as disfellowshipped persons; Clearly, there is no legitimate way in which a person can officially stop being a Witness and not be shunned; Since the 2016 convention season, even inactive persons are now shunned
6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances
1. You’d have to be willing to listen to apostates or unjustly disfellowshipped persons to know this; I will vouch for this phenomenon
7. There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader
1. Again, you’d have to be willing to view apostate material to know the exceptionally well documented abuses carried out by the Society, which they will never openly admit to you, the congregants
8. Followers feel they can never be "good enough"
1. The constant admonition to be better is as ubiquitous as song and prayer at a meeting
9. The group/leader is always right
1. Here is where things get really absurd; The Governing Body has modified doctrine incessantly since J.F. Rutherford assumed leadership in 1917; Anyone who disagrees is kicked out (see my comment about Raymond Franz), even if arguments are valid
2. The January 8, 1947 Awake magazine unequivocally calls excommunication (disfellowshipping) a pagan practice which is unbiblical, yet in 1952 the practice is ratified and in modern times is carried out approximately seventy-thousand times each year by Jehovah’s Witnesses
3. The 1914 doctrine has been modified several times
1. It originally started out as the “end” of the period of trouble, which was calculated to be 1874; proved false
1. Calculated by taking measurements of the Great Pyramid of Giza (not kidding)
2. Revised to 1914 in the 1910 edition of Thy Kingdom Come with corrected Pyramid measurements
3. Changed to the beginning of end times, Jesus’ return, when Rutherford published it in Golden Age 1930 p.503; Through 1929, it was held that Jesus returned in 1874
4. 1914 is still clung to, but now incorporates the ‘overlapping generations’ since God’s inspiration to the Anointed was apparently misinterpreted repeatedly
4. 607 BCE is historically inaccurate as the date of Jerusalem’s fall to Babylon; Archaeological records of secular and astronomical events discovered in Babylon easily identify the date of Jerusalem’s overthrow being in 587 BCE
1. Witnesses openly criticize the accuracy of historians Barosus and Ptolemy when they disagree with Witness chronology, but freely cite them when they support Witness chronology
2. Witnesses openly reject both archeological and scientific evidence that conflicts with 607 because it’s the only way to make 1914 work with the prophecy of Daniel, a conclusion that started life as the ravings of a numerologist / pyramidologist as described in 9.c.i.1,2 above
5. Watchtower Society Vice President Hayden Covington testified during the Douglas Walsh trial in Scotland (1954) that dissent was grounds for disfellowshipping, even if the doctrine was proved false; See below:
1. Q: [Court] It was promulgated as a matter which must [have been] believed by all members of Jehovah’s Witnesses that the Lord’s Second Coming took place in 1874…?
   A: [Covington] It was a false statement or an erroneous statement in fulfillment of a prophecy that was false or erroneous.
   Q: And that had to be believed by the whole of Jehovah’s Witnesses?
   A: Yes, because you must understand we must have unity …
   Q: Back to the point now. A false prophecy was promulgated?
   A: I agree to that.
   Q: It had to be accepted by Jehovah’s Witnesses?
   A: That is correct.
   Q: If a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses took the view himself that that prophecy was wrong and said so, he would be disfellowshipped?
   A: Yes … Our purpose is to have unity.
   Q: Unity at all costs?
   A: Unity at all costs…
   Q: A unity based upon an enforced acceptance of false prophecy?
   A: That is conceded to be true.
6. But good luck questioning any of that...
10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible
1. This is pretty simple; If it didn’t come from the governing body, you’re instructed to treat it as a lie
2. Even vetted and documented court cases are called lies

Having come full circle on this issue, place everything above in a cohesive context. There is but a single theme. Your are collectively devoted to an idea that you are not willing to question, but also not willing to respect. That singular paradigm is what you believe can make a person happy, and that is incorrect. 

Pontius Pilate washed his hands of Jesus' blood, as I also wash my hands of this. What you pursue for the rest of your days will be your account settle, and yours alone. I am no longer answerable to your assertions that you are Godly and I am not. You have a form of Godliness, but continually prove false to its power (2 Timothy 3:5).

While you will find yourselves at the doctrinal crossroads of shunning me and claiming it to be love, I will love you without the need to cut ties. In this letter, I have spoken unadulterated truth and my conscience is clear. I can only hope that yours is as well.

Sincerely,

In Memoriam

Tonight will mark the celebration of Nisan 14, the traditional Jewish observation of the Passover. For the Bible literate, this was the manifestation of the tenth plague on Egypt wherein the firstborn of each family was slaughtered by an angel of Jehovah. That is, of course, unless one marked their door posts with the blood of a lamb, in which case their household was "passed over".

It's a dark tale in which the Hebrew God again murders people for his own glorification and cosmic chest beating. This time, however, the victims are largely children and cows. Ascribe whatever psychological complex makes you feel best.

As a practice, Jews kept this observation annually. Roman Catholics, upon codifying the bible and sanctioning Christianity as a state religion, turned it into a practice held with every Mass. This has traditionally been observed through the consumption of unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and wine. Unless you're one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Once a year for more than twenty, I would sit and listen to a discourse on the merits of Jesus' sacrifice. Wine and bread would be passed for me to observe, but not partake of. In fact, there were very few times that I ever saw anyone eat or drink during the proceedings. Those were the special ones. The Anointed. The only ones in my faith of birth that had an actual heavenly hope, and therefore any right or responsibility to partake.

It was our only holiday. The holiest of our holies. Tonight, I will not observe it.

That may seem overly dramatic since I haven't observed it in close to fifteen years. Over that time the pang of distress has weakened. The first year I did not attend, I drove into the parking lot of a local Kingdom Hall to pray for forgiveness as I looked upon the full moon. I was almost moved to tears over my transgression. Almost.

Each year since has been marked with less and less angst. There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is the feeling of complete absurdity over listening to substantially the same discourse, and merely looking upon wine and bread meant to represent the blood and body of Christ. How utterly pointless...

As with many aspects of being one of Jehovah's Witnesses, this was a practice in conformance. If a Witness were to miss any single meeting in the year, it had best not be this one. Repetition be damned, it was the only day Christians were commanded to keep. For some Witnesses, it was the only one kept. People you might never otherwise see would appear at the Lord's Evening Meal. It was that ingrained.

The recently released Convention Program for 2016 carries a deplorable overuse of the word "loyalty" and its variants. Every symposium that Witnesses will hear, and every stand-alone talk, will deal with this theme. It is literally becoming their mantra.

As with most discussion about cults, it's important to understand that their doctrine is not open for scrutiny. Loyalty is expected and enforced with respect to that doctrine. Progressive evolution of doctrine can only originate within the top levels of the organizational structure. Opposition of that structure or their doctrine is not permitted, hence the absurd emphasis on loyalty in the coming Convention season.

Meeting attendance is down. Growth is stagnating. Financial practices are becoming extremely conservative. And those are just the tangible metrics. I would not find it surprising to see that a) memorial attendance is unremarkable, or that b) more people are recorded to partake in the bread and wine tonight.

The number of supposed Anointed left in the world was once thought to be a good barometer of our proximity to Armageddon. Since the doctrine of the Last Days and their relation to 1914 have changed in the last few years, solidarity has begun to waver, and why I find the Convention program to be comically tragic. The bleeding of this organization needs to be staunched if it's to survive very long. Tonight will be very telling in how effective their measures have been.

Those not in attendance will surely be looked upon with pity as the rest look upon wine and wafers and remember something that may not have happened as depicted. It's arguable that the gospel accounts upon which Christianity and the Gentile observation of Jewish tradition are based were even recorded in the presence of the men after whom they were named. But that's a discussion for another time.

For my part, I will keep remembrance tonight of my years in a divisive and oppressive religion. I will remember that of the ten key characteristics of dangerous cults, they meet every single one. I will remember that my family will shun me if they ever learn my true beliefs. I will remember twenty-two years of thinking that there was no way to please the God of my youth, and that my only means of measuring that was the impossible-to-attain approval of His followers.

I will not go tonight because I wish to forget.

No, it's because I remember that I will not attend.