Why I Left
the Watchtower Society
and Jehovah's Witnesses
(JEHOVAH'S
WITNESSES ARE FAR FROM BEING THE BEST DENOMINATION)
May 24,
2003
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Hi
Frank,
I
do Bible study with JWs, and most of the things I see on the internet claiming
JWs are bad are not true.Your comments seem a bit more informed than most. - and
even a little credible. However, on the issue of the disfellowshiping of 1% per
year being the tip of an ice berg, I ask: How can JWs expel sinners whose sins
are not known? At least JWs expel people who don't keep the commandments when
they find out. Most other churches don't expel anyone, or don't expect the
congregation to be as sinless as the elders. I gather the Catholic Church has
still not expelled Hitler. What religion is better than JWs? I dont know any.
John
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Hi John,
I don't look at what others are saying on the internet about JWs, but I probably would agree with you if I did. I don't see JWs as bad people. I was one for 50 years, and I know in my heart that during all that time I tried to be a good person. It wasn't until my later years that I began to detect my motive was not the best. As I went door-to-door I met many other persons that I considered to be good people. I found some who knew the Bible better than the average JW does and who had children who behaved better than the average JW children do. What came across to me was that those people did not need to belong to a special organization and to attend 5 meetings every week year-after-year for all their lives. They were people who studied the Bible without having an organization or other men "spoon feed" them on what to believe and how to live.
My point is this: As JWs, people are led to conform to what a man-made organization wants them to do and believe. The same thing happens when people belong to an organization like Amway or work for a Japanese company where company spirit is constantly kept at a high pitch. People will be good in order to promote the general atmosphere or reputation of their company, organization or church. But that is not the best of motives.
When I was a JW, I thought I had a good relationship with God. I still think that I did. I prayed frequently, and I read from the Bible often every week, even in addition to what the WT Society recommended. I loved God and wanted to be like Jesus. I spent most of my life trying to do good things for other people. But as I thought back about my early childhood, I realized that I was pretty much the same kind of person as a Presbyterian and a Methodist. I picked up my love for God and the Bible from my Presbyterian Sunday School teacher and from my Methodist church minister. And being honest with myself, I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that those two showed far more interest in my spiritual progress than any JW ever did. The difference was that those two loved God and people due to the Bible alone while the JWs loved God and people only to the extent they had time for it while trying to keep up with other aspects of JW activity. The life of a JW is such a constant flurry of hustle and bustle that many years pass by before one realizes that he or she is no closer to being like Jesus than at the beginning. All one has become is a better member of an organization but not a genuine Christian who really cares from the heart about other people in the way that Jesus did.
I received answers to my prayers as a JW, but I can honestly say that I get more and better answers now. Now I have time for God because I am free of living according to the way the organization constantly ruled my life. At that time, my relationship with God was indirect. I lived as though I could reach him only through his organization. For example, if I missed a meeting or was low in my field service time - or if I had not studied my Watchtower lesson thoroughly - I ended up with a guilty conscience. That happened often because a person has to be nearly perfect to keep up with everything the WT Society expects a person to do week-after-week.
Now life is so different. I can learn from the Bible what I want to know. I don't need to depend on what the WT Society says, some of which is true and some false. I'm now free to read what other religious writers, including genuine Bible scholars, have to say. I know how to use Bible dictionaries, concordances, interlinears, lexicons and other aids such as the writers of the WT magazine have in their office libraries. The difference is that the writers are not screening the material. Now I'm able to get the whole story - the complete picture. This is so much more refreshing because I am not getting God's thoughts as they are funnelled to me by other men. Instead, the full brilliance of the Bible's message is available direct from the Scriptures themselves.
The difference is awesome. For example, I am no longer told that this passage of Scripture applies to the WT Society and that passage applies to other religions that the Society refers to as Babylon the Great. Instead, I see the Bible as applying to individual people, not to an organization that conceitedly and arrogantly sets itself up as God's one and only organization and channel.
I also discovered that some of the teachings of the WT Society are not from the Bible at all. The disfellowshipping doctrine is an example. So many people are thrown out of the organization on the flimsiest of excuses. Smoking is certainly unhealthy and wrong, but nowhere does the Bible teach that smoking is a sin punishable by such a severe measure of penalty. People are also thrown out due to the WT Society's distorted view of birthday celebrations. The Bible tells us to take the lead in showing honor to one another, and a birthday is a fine opportunity for doing that, just as is a wedding or a wedding anniversary. (Romans 12:10) Job and his family celebrated their special days. (Job 1:4) But the WT Society condemns birthdays for the silly reason that pagans are mentioned in the Bible as celebrating theirs!
Instead of helping people who fall into sin, the WT Society unlovingly is quick to get rid of them. That is definitely not the Christian way, as so many scriptures plainly show. (2 Corinthians 2:7; Galatians 6:1; Ephesians 4:32) The resulting hardships that often result to the individual and his or her innocent relatives and friends is scandalous. Newspapers have shown that it has resulted in murder and suicide in some cases.
Why does the WT Society disfellowship so quickly? It is so that it can boast about having a clean organization. But what it fails to acknowledge is that those people committed those offenses while they were in the organization. It disfellowships far more people than any other organization, and this is an admission that it offers no true motivating power for righteousness. If its people were being taught how to be genuine Christians, they would be truly motivated by love for God not to do any of the things that could get them expelled. My experience with many people in the organization over many years convinced me that JWs try to be good merely to please the organization, not to please God and Jesus. If they do wrong, they fear that the elders will find out. God already knows the wrongs that they did, but comparatively few take the initiative to confess to the elders. Instead, they hide from the elders what they've done, and they make their confession only when their wrong deed is finally exposed. There are many who secretly live in sin for many, many years without being caught. If the organization had truly taught them to love God and Christ and their neighbors too, they would not hide what they are.
You are perhaps correct about the Catholic Church and Hitler. But are JWs any different, really? The organization is very unfair about who it disfellowships. I knew of persons who were big contributors to the Society who escaped being disfellowshipped for that reason. Others escaped because they were good friends with district and circuit overseers or others high up in the organization. On the other hand, those with little money, education or influence have been treated quite differently.
You asked what religion is better than JWs. I know of many. They are better because their focus is on the Bible rather than pride in an organization. Here is where the WT Society commits one of its worst sins. It convinces people that God works through an organization when he does not. The Bible clearly says: "But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you also look down on your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written: '"As I live," says Jehovah, "to me every knee will bend down, and every tongue will make open acknowledgment to God."' So, then, each of us will render an account for himself to God." (Romans 14:10-12) The sin of the WT Society is its demand that people answer to it and its representatives as judges instead of leaving the judgment to God.
There are many sincere Catholics and Protestants and others who love and serve God to the best of their knowledge and ability. Some churches have built hospitals and nursing homes, and many church members serve as doctors, nurses, police officers, firemen, in soup kitchens for the poor, and in other volunteer services for the benefit of the community in which they live. Some involve themselves in government or other institutions because they want to improve the conditions of their fellow citizens. The WT doesn't teach its people to do any of these things that show true love for others. Instead, it even condemns some of that activity as "participation in the Devil's world." The WT Society doesn't build nursing homes or health care facilities even for its own people who have given their whole lives in service to the Society. For example, I knew of one elderly missionary couple who returned to the U.S. because their health had deteriorated while living in the conditions of a Third World country. They had no money and no JW relatives, and they were shy about approaching their "worldly" relatives for help. So they lived out their days alone in a run-down shack that was unheated in winter and had no air conditioning in summer. The WT Society and even the JWs in the area had completely forgot about them.
I am almost certain that many JWs will be very ashamed when Jesus returns. He may say to them, "Be on your way from me, you who have been cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels. For I became hungry, but you gave me nothing to eat, and I got thirsty, but you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger, but you did not receive me hospitably; naked, but you did not clothe me; sick and in prison, but you did not look after me." (Matthew 25:41-46)
The problem with being a JW is that one's focus is always on what the organization teaches rather than on what Jesus taught. Even what the organization claims is the teaching of Jesus is often extremely false. A prime example is what it says about Jesus' return in 1914. That message is so false and so foreign to what John the Baptist, Jesus and the apostles taught about the kingdom that this one teaching alone proves the WT Society is a false religion. But "the kingdom and 1914" is another topic, and already this letter is much longer than I planned it to be. Please don't hesitate to write if you have any further questions.
I assure you of my Christian love and best wishes as you search for God's truth and for wisdom from above.
Frank
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