I'm not even going to bag on the Society today. Their absurdity is really just a gag-reel of surprisingly successful grifts, and more opportunities will be available tomorrow. But I am cognizant of them anyway as I write this.
In less than a year, my parents will observe their 50th wedding anniversary. The countdown begins to the party that will inevitably occur, and which my sister is taking the lead in organizing. There is a massively extended family who will undoubtedly be in attendance. Scores of friends that are too numerous to count will be present. There will be stories. There will be laughter. But what there will not be are their children.
You see, among Jehovah's Witnesses every gathering is a "meeting". There will be accolades and thanks given to God for such a joyous occasion, public prayer, and fellowship with spiritual brothers and sisters. There may even be drinking and dancing. But the rules of acceptable association will still be upheld. Thus, those who have been removed from the congregation will not be invited to attend. Thus the exclusion of me, my older brother, and younger sister.
My mother was one of 9 children. She has 5 living siblings, of which two were never baptized into the congregation, while the other three were. There is a small army of cousins, nieces, nephews, her own grandchildren, and then her sons and daughter.
Among the people who will be welcome, if they are at all present, are a known pedophile, two domestic abusers, countless alcoholics and drug users - and those are just the baptized Witnesses. I would like to say there is some tongue-in-cheek humor in that statement, but I'm completely serious.
Taken separately, those character flaws are enough to make most people hesitant to keep company with such ones. Taken together, you might mistake my parents for people of ill-repute. Or, in a very oblique view, Christlike. He did, after all, minister to whores, thieves, and murderers.
A fleeting glance at this guest list probably raises the question of what type of character would not be welcomed. That's an unfortunately easy question to answer - I, for one, and only for the egregious sin of no longer counting myself as a Witness. Yes, people who studied, practiced, but then disavowed the religion because it didn't suit their spirituality will be unwelcome.
Also unapproachable, my cousin and her wife. There's really no way to forgive being gay if you're a Witness. There is no act of charity or compassion that will redeem the soul of a wilful homosexual. Not even donating a kidney to a practicing parent. No, my one-kidneyed gay cousin is shunned.
My brother, God love him, has a child out of wedlock. No criminal history to speak of, but he made a baby with his high school girlfriend. If he isn't just the worst of the worst, I don't know who is.
Before I begin rambling, I hope you see my point. Perfunctory disagreements with lifestyle only begin to have gravity for Witnesses if you've first agreed to abide by their rules. They magnanimously hold out hope for you if you've never been baptized, but will draw the line if you've first become a believer and subsequently become an unbeliever. Until that happens, they will lovingly show you the way of Christ. They aren't interested in your sins at all.
The disparity between one who committed acts of sexual violence being welcomed with open arms and a child who simply disagrees with the faith being shunned is difficult to illustrate. We don't have a secular analog for that. Why? Because it's just that absurd. As a society, we've seen past that; made laws to make such biased discrimination illegal. And yet, it is possible to be a Witness who is "jailed" for disagreeing with a law that has not been broken, while actual offenders are pardoned for being ignorant of the same law.
And this is the face that outsiders do not see. In the absence of children who are shunned, my estranged parents will talk of my apostasy to fellow believers who will, in turn, nod understandingly. My mother will let others know how heartbreaking it is to have offspring led away from Jehovah by the devil. She will remind everyone that she and my father tried to bring us up to love Jehovah. They will speak of us as though we're long deceased because, in their eyes, we are certain to be. How sad it is that their children will not be in the New System with them, while with almost deliberate irony they ignore them in this doomed one.
Perhaps they'll even share these stories and knowing nods with people who have committed egregious sins. They will laugh and clap them on the back. They will have forgiven those who sinned the sins of base and destructive selfishness. They will condemn those who have acted with honor and dedication to discernment and critical thought, if only because their conclusions incorporate empirical data that disproves the ones promulgated.
I am not a drunkard. I am not violent. I am not a thief, rapist, murderer, or child abuser. But, neither am I easily fooled. And that is the sin that makes me more reprehensible than those who are any of the things that I am not. I wont agree to a faith that I've sufficiently disproved just to appease my isolation.