What I Believe to Be True — and How I Have Come to Believe It — Medium

Although a month old (lost in the shuffle of my recovery), an excellent read concerning the Jehovah’s Witnesses and how one question led to a path of secular humanism based on critical thinking.  It is a well written piece specifically picking apart a foundational teaching of the cult as well as the practice of shunning.

This is when it really hit me that the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society is a completely unethical organization. No healthy organization emotionally blackmails their members into staying, instills debilitating phobias of life outside the organization, or promotes complete dependence on it. Because of a “contract” I entered when I was 15 years old, I now had to throw my life away and start over.

A huge H/T to Hemant Mehta for this gem. If you are a comment nerd like myself, Genser engages dialogue throughout the comment section.

I decided to stop going to meetings because my beliefs and values no longer align with the official policies of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society and their affiliate corporations. Since there is absolutely no room in the JW organization for dissent, I decided to withdraw, move on with my life, and start over.

This article is my explanation for why and how I have changed my beliefs.

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One of the defining moments of my childhood came when I was seven years old. My sister, at the age of 17, was disfellowshipped. I loved my sister — I even shared a room with her! Suddenly, though, she was a spiritual pariah, and my family was to have nothing to do with her.

I was too young to understand fully what was even happening at the time, but I remember my mom crying and crying. The arguments increased in the ensuing years over how much involvement our family should have with her as she got married and started a family of her own.

For the remaining portion of my childhood, I grew up not knowing my sister. At all. To this day, for all intents and purposes, my sister is a stranger to me.

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Without the 607 date, the 1914 doctrine is wrong, and the 1919 appointment of JW leadership as the “faithful and discreet slave” is mathematically impossible.

So what seems at first to be a relatively unimportant historical dispute about the date of Jerusalem’s destruction becomes critically important to the credibility and spiritual authority of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

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I was devastated to learn all this. I was angry, I was despondent, and I was scared. I was scared that my entire life had been built on a house of doctrinal cards, and the house was falling apart fast. I was also scared to discuss this with anyone — even my wife — because I knew there is no room for disagreement with Watchtower doctrine.

What I Believe to Be True — and How I Have Come to Believe It — Medium