Branding Myself

I haven't really tried to hide from the fact that I'm an apostate. There's no sense in it at any rate. I am who I am, without apology, and those that have something to say about my views are as free to read my thoughts as anyone. They simply don't extend the effort.

When the convention program for 2016 was made public, there were several voices that decried the idea that inactive persons (faders) would be treated as disfellowshipped, with all the rights and privileges therewith. It raised a question in me, which was "and...?"

I waited dutifully for the punchline of that particular joke, but it never came. It's about as elementary-school-playground as you can get when it comes to a religion. They threatened to what... ignore me if I didn't talk to them? Pffftt!

We all know that there are three titles you can have as a former Witness; A) Inactive, B) Disfellowshipped, C) Disassociated. B and C may as well be the same thing as they are effectively no different. Heretofore, you could be an "A" without much repercussion. You were just encouraged to return as often as someone thought of you. Since the convention season came to a close, being an "A" is as bad as anything else.

In a way, they have decided to brand anyone who isn't active and productive in the fold. There is now a single status that a person can have among Jehovah's Witnesses that is not worth shunning, and I am not one of those.

That got me to thinking about what identity really is. If I say "identity", it immediately conjures the notion of who a person is, but that's not really correct. Identity is how other people know you, or who they think you are. Your drivers license, birth certificate, or security badge at work all tell other people who you are. How you know yourself, or what you know yourself to be is of little interest to the world. In similar fashion, the Society has decided on your identity, at least as much as it matters to them. You are either acceptable, or you are not.

But is that who you are?

Frankly, I don't have two shits to give for what the Society thinks I am. My identity will be whatever I cultivate and what I use to meet the world. I am the only person who gets to decide what labels I will wear. I decline to wear theirs. They have used hateful speech for generations to ostracize and obfuscate critical thinkers, dissenters, and self-assured people. Their first duty is to homogeny, and with that goal in mind, they crush any sense of autonomy or ability to trust their environment. As I have mentioned in previous posts, even the word "apostate" carries a different meaning for them than it does for the world at large. The are utterly dependent on their own language and etymology to define their reality, and with that, their ability to relate to the world around them is compromised. Every label they can bestow is only meaningful in their dialect. As such, those labels can carry no weight or recourse.

I call myself an apostate now, and I am proud of it. Not because I give the big middle finger to the Organization, but because I know what it actually means to be one. I have no real malice towards the Organization, and only pity for its members. What I do have is certain modicum of integrity. I did not change my faith for light or transient causes. There was no slight, or petty insult which led to my independence from the Truth. No. I underwent a revolution.

Everything I have endured, researched, and toiled over has been an upheaval to my very foundations. There is no part of me that wasn't rent in two by the process of discovery, or the truth it bore. As such, I declare that I am an apostate because I am first a survivor.

That's my brand.