TO INTRODUCE YOU TO THE EXCELLENT MEMOIR, "LEAVING THE SAINTS," BY MARTHA BECK, THE MAJORITY OF THE FOLLOWING THREE PARAGRAPHS HAVE BEEN COPIED FROM INSIDE OF THE BOOK’S FRONT JACKET, EXCEPT BRACKETED MATERIAL.
“Leaving the Saints is an unforgettable memoir about one woman's spiritual quest and journey toward faith. As ‘Mormon royalty’ within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Martha Beck was raised in a home frequented by the Church's high elders-known as the apostles-and her existence was framed by their strict code of conduct. [Her father was put on a high pedestal in the church ‘by virtue of his singular skill as an apologist.’ He was ‘an intellectual warrior who served eagerly and well at the behest of the highest Church authorities, vigorously counterattacking scholars and writers who cast aspersions on the Mormon belief system.’ P. 32]
Martha married in a secret temple ceremony. She went to church faithfully. When her son was born with Down syndrome, she and her husband left their graduate programs at Harvard to return to Provo, Utah, where they knew the supportive Mormon community would embrace them. [Martha stated on page 25: ‘I thought it would help to return to my people, people whose spiritual focus shone through in practically every action, every conversation.’” P. 25
However, soon after Martha began teaching at Brigham Young University, she began to see firsthand the Church's ruthlessness as it silenced dissidents and masked truths that contradicted its published beliefs. Most troubling of all, she was forced to face her history of sexual abuse by one of the Church's most prominent authorities [her father].”
THE FOLLOWING QUOTES FROM "LEAVING THE SAINTS" WILL SURELY REMIND JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES OF THE SIMILARITY BETWEEN THEIR RELIGION AND THE CHURCH OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS. FOR THE READERS CONVENIENCE, CAPITALIZED COMPARITIVE STATEMENTS FOLLOW EACH QUOTE FROM THE BOOK.
1. Page 25. “Mormonism is what sociologists call a ‘life world’ religion, not a back-of-mind relic that rises into conscious attention only during Sunday services but a way of living that flavors everything from watching television to choosing perfume to mowing the lawn."
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES CALL THEIR RELIGION THE “WAY” OF LIFE AND ONLY THEIR “WAY” IS THE “TRUTH.” THAT TRUTH COLORS ALL ASPECTS OF LIFE FROM BIRTH TO DEATH.
2. Page 60. “They [Latter-day Saints] don’t tell you you’re going to make this vow when you go in: They spring it on you after you’re already in so deep, having mimed your own death and all, that it’s pretty impossible to say no.”
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES DO NOT TELL PEOPLE THAT WHEN THEY ARE BAPTIZED AS A WITNESS, THEY ARE COMMITTED TO OBEY AN ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT WHICH HAS THE RIGHT TO INTRODUCE ANY RULE AT ANY TIME? IF THE RULES ARE NOT OBEYED, THE PENALTY IS EXCOMMUNICATION AND SHUNNING BY WITNESS FRIENDS AND WITNESS FAMILY MEMBERS.
3. Page 140. After remembering the sexual abuse Martha said, “After a few wretched weeks, I decided to confide in a close friend from Boston who was a psychotherapist as well as a devout Mormon. I knew I count on Laura to keep my secret and desperately hoped she might be able to help me feel a little less like blowing my head off. Laura’s response: ‘This could be a serious problem for the Church,’ Laura said. ‘The Church?’ I said, sounding young and stupid. ‘I mean it Martha,’ Laura said. ‘You can’t tell anyone anything. At all. Okay?’ ‘Maybe this is your mission,’ said Laura in a soothing voice. ‘To protect the Church. To honor the secret.’”
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES ARE TAUGHT NOT TO BRING ANY “REPROACH” UPON “GOD’S” ORGANIZATION. HENCE, TO PROTECT IT, THEY WILL GO SO FAR AS TO COVER UP CRIMES COMMITTED BY ONE MEMBER UPON ANOTHER.
4. Page 163. “I’d spent the better part of three years trusting external structures and organizations, keeping every rule of every spiritual discipline I could imagine, quieting my own resistance, aiming for total obedience and humility. But continuing to do this would mean protecting the Mormon Church by keeping a dark secret, which would isolate me in a life of smothered rage and hopelessness. It felt wrong. I was in what felt like a no-win situation: my internal moral system was directly at odds with my family, my community, my ancestral religion.”
EVERY WITNESS KNOWS SOME SORT OF A “SECRET” TO KEEP FROM THOSE ON THE “OUTSIDE” AND THEY KEEP THE SECRET SO “NO REPROACH COMES UPON JEHOVAH’S ORGANIZATION.”
5. The following is a very interesting account of Martha meeting a Mormon man in the grocery store who recognized her as her father’s daughter. He told Martha that her father was a liar. This said about the most important apologist for the Mormon Church. He explained that he used to have a job for her dad’s publisher and checked his footnotes. Martha noted that her father’s footnotes were part of his legend. He had hundreds in every book. Her father’s accuser went on to say that her father made them up, or at least 90 percent of them. He said:
P. 165. “I helped cover it up, you know.” “…At first I was shocked. I went to the guy in charge of our team and showed him a couple of the sources your dad said he was quoting. Sometimes what he said was exactly the opposite of what the author meant. Sometimes a quotation he’d footnoted just wasn’t there. My team leader told me your dad’s gift was that he could see anything on any page that needed to be there.”
Martha asked, “What did you do?”
The reply: “I just … pretended. We all did, everyone on the team.”
He went on to tell Martha he did it because he needed the job and if he made issues, he would have been blackballed by the church.
“In this state, he said, “you don’t just go around spouting stuff that may be a problem for the Church. Like, some of the other fact-checkers on my team got a little mouthy after we finished the project. They’re not doing well. Can’t get jobs. Incredible pressure from their families. Hints about excommunication, so I keep my mouth shut.”
WHEN ALAN F WAS A WITNESS, HE BEGAN TO DOUBLE-CHECK THE SOURCES AND FOOTNOTES IN SOME WATCHTOWER PUBLICATIONS AND FOUND A SIMILAR SITUATION. WHEN ALAN TRIED TO QUIZ A WATCHTOWER SOCIETY SENIOR WRITER ABOUT HIS FINDINGS, THE CONVERSATION WAS QUICKLY ENDED BY AN ANGRY WRITER WHO, WE SUSPECT, WAS VERY AWARE OF WHAT HE AND OTHERS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR—GROSS MISREPRESENTATION OF FACTS, QUOTES, ETC.
6. Page 176. “Mormons are discouraged from reading any materials about the Church that are not produced through official channels and approved by a panel called the Correlation Committee, notorious among Mormon authors (including my father) for its strict censorship. These are the folks who create the standardized teaching manuals for the whole worldwide Church, who carefully edit out even tangential references to the ‘alternative voices’ that teach things like evolutionary biology, modernist moral reasoning, and the wearing of nonstandard underwear—anything, in other words, that might shed the slightest shadow of doubt in the minds of the faithful.”
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES ARE TOLD THAT ONLY THEIR LITERATURE SPEAKS “TRUTH” ABOUT JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES; THAT ANY CRITICISM OF THE GROUP ORIGINATES FROM DISSIDENT FORMER JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES, OR FROM A WORLD CONTROLLED BY SATAN. THEY ARE CONVINCED CRITICISM IS PART OF THE PERSECUTION THEY, AS “TRUE” CHRISTIANS, SHOULD EXPECT.
7. Page 182. “What researchers found in modern Mormonism was similar to the attitudes expressed in my great-great-grandfather’s journal: Women who sought advice or help after being sexually abused were most often told to be silent, keep their secrets, and ask themselves whether they were really sure it wasn’t their fault—or their imagination. They experienced what psychologists call sanctuary trauma, the result of their running for protection to the very places and people who reaffirmed the message of the original abuse. Reading interview after interview with Mormon women who had been molested in various ways, then re-traumatized by the reaction of Church leaders, I often felt overwhelmed by despair.”
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES BRING ALL COMPLAINTS ABOUT CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE TO THEIR ELDERS AND HAVE TO PROVE THE ACCUSATION BY PROVIDING WITNESSES TO THE EVENT. IF NO WITNESSES—NO PROOF—AND THE ABUSED ONE IS COUNSELED TO REMAIN SILENT. OFTENTIMES VICTIMS ARE RE-VICTIMIZED BY THE TYPE OF PERSONAL QUESTIONS THE ELDERS ASK ABOUT THE SEXUAL ABUSE, OR ARE TOLD THEY HAVE TO FACE THEIR ABUSER AND MAKE THE ACCUSATION. IF THE ABUSER DENIES THE ACCUSATION, THEN IT’S FORGIVE AND FORGET.
8. Page 188. Martha says, “They would actually excommunicate someone for hating Elder Clement’s master’s theses?” I couldn’t believe it. Throughout my life, I’d heard of being “exed” as the ultimate shame, something that only happened to hard-core sinners.
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES’ POLICY IS TO EXCOMMUNICATE ONLY UNREPENTANT SINNERS. SINNERS WHO REPENT ARE NOT EXCOMMUNICATED UNLESS THEY ARE HARD-CORE REPEATERS. JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES WHO QUESTION THEIR RELIGION’S POLICIES OR BELIEFS ARE LABELED “APOSTATES” BY THE ELDERS AND EXCOMMUNICATED. AN ANNOUNCEMENT IS MADE TO THE CONGREGATION THAT “JOHN DOE IS NO LONGER ONE OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES” AND THE WITNESSES KNOW FROM THIS STATEMENT THAT JOHN DOE HAS BEEN EXCOMMUNICATED AND THEY ARE TO SHUN HIM. SINCE NO REASON FOR EXCOMMUNICATION IS EVER GIVEN TO THE CONGREGATION, AND JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES ARE TAUGHT THAT ONLY UNREPENTANT SINNERS ARE EXCOMMUNICATED, SO JOHN DOE IS BELIEVED TO BE AN “UNREPENTANT SINNER.” THIS IS IMPLIED DEFAMATION.
9. Page 188. “The Church isn’t after Orson because he hated the thesis,” Scott exclaimed. “They’re after him because he said he hated it. It’s the eleventh commandment. The most important one to the brethren. Thou shall not commit publicity.”
JUST LIKE THE CHURCH OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES DO NOT WANT PUBLICITY ABOUT THEIR PROBLEMS AND SHORTCOMINGS. GOING PUBLIC ABOUT PROBLEMS WITHIN THE GROUP MERITS EXCOMMUNICATION. FOUR MEMBERS WERE EXCOMMUNICATED FOR WHISTLEBLOWING ON THE NBC DATELINE PROGRAM IN 2002 ABOUT THE SERIOUS PROBLEM OF SEXUAL CHILD ASSAULT WITHIN JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES’ GROUP.
10. Pages 188-89. “The cold lump of fear that had lodged in my stomach during my conversation with Allen was growing heavier and chillier by the minute. As a sociologist, I understood that the Mormon Church was undergoing something common to most rapidly growing organizations: its leaders were having to work harder and harder to manage public image and that meant strictly controlling anyone who might damage the Church’s reputation.”
“They called in Jenny Knutsen last week,” said Eliza. “They don’t like the way she writes about polygamy.” Jenny (not her real name) was a passionately devout Mormon historian who wrote both inspirational and academic articles about the Church. “And here’s the creepy thing,” Eliza went on. “Jenny just moved to a new ward, right? So her bishop barely knew her. But he had a file on his desk about an inch thick, with copies of everything Jenny’s ever written, notes on every talk she ever gave in church, even a list of her friends and some of the articles they’d published.”
WHEN A WITNESS MOVES, THE CONGREGATION SENDS A RECORD CARD AND A REPORT TO THE NEW CONGREGATION WHERE THE WITNESS WILL ATTEND. AT THE WITNESS HEADQUARTERS IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, THERE ARE RECORDS ON WITNESSES THAT GO BACK DECADES. ONE WITNESS LEARNED OF THIS IN THE EARLY 1980S IN A RATHER STRANGE WAY. HE WAS A LONG-TIME ACTIVE MEMBER SINCE 1952. WHEN JOINING THE HEADQUARTER STAFF AS A VOLUNTEER WORKER, AND WHILE MEETING WITH AN OFFICIAL OF THE ORGANIZATION, HE WAS STARTLED TO HEAR HIS WIFE OF TWENTY-THREE YEARS BEING CALLED BY THE NAME OF HIS FORMER WIFE, WHO HE HAD BEEN MARRIED TO FOR ONLY ONE YEAR, TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS PREVIOUSLY. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN WHEN THIS OFFICIAL AND THESE PEOPLE HAD NEVER MET BEFORE? APPARENTLY, THE OFFICIAL LOOKED AT FILES KEPT SINCE 1953 WHERE THE NAME OF THE FORMER WIFE OF THIS MAN WAS RECORDED WHEN THE COUPLE WAS IN THE FULL-TIME MINISTRY WORK. THE OFFICIAL MUST HAVE ASSUMED THAT THE WOMAN HE WAS MEETING IN 1982 WAS THE SAME WOMAN THE MAN WAS MARRIED TO IN 1953.
11. Page 189. “I stared at her. ‘How is that possible? Where did he get that much information?’”
The Strengthening the Membership Committee,” said Sterling.
The what?”
It’s a squad of investigators who work for the Church. Very hush-hush. A lot of ex-CIA guys. Did you know the CIS recruits Mormons like crazy?”
They probably have files on all of us,’ Scott said matter-of-factly. ‘They gather information about most BYU professors. Anyone who might influence public opinion. Sometimes they stake out rebels’ houses and take down the license plate numbers of anyone who comes to visit them. Then those people are suspects. Next thing you know, they’re getting hauled in by their own bishops, maybe put on trial.”
RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT OF THE NAMES OF WITNESSES WHO ARE NOT VERY COMPLIANT. HOWEVER, JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES “MARK” MEMBERS WHO DO NOT TOW THE PARTY LINE AND APPEAR TO BE TOO OUTSPOKEN WITH THEIR COMPLAINTS. THIS IS MORE A PSYCHOLOGICAL THING THAN ANYTHING ELSE. MEMBERS WHO ARE MARKED ARE NOT USED FOR “SPECIAL” ASSIGNMENTS AND MEMBERS “WHISPER” THEIR DISSATISFACTION TO EACH OTHER ABOUT THE “IMMATURE” MEMBER.
12. Page 189. “Hey, here’s a good one,” said Sterling. “I know an assistant professor over in the English department who got called in a couple of weeks ago so his bishop could order him to stop ‘lunching with known dissidents.’”
THERE IS A STRONG PROBABILITY THAT LUNCHING WITH A JEHOVAH’S WITNESS DISSIDENT COULD CAUSE A WITNESS TO BE EXCOMMUNICATED. A WITNESS WHO IS SEEN LUNCHING WITH AN EXCOMMUNICATED MEMBER WOULD BE EXCOMMUNICATED.
13. Page 191. “The only thing scarier than telling my secrets would be keeping them. When the ‘sensitive information’ you carry is your own history, going mute to protect the system doesn’t keep you from being destroyed; it just means that you destroy yourself. ‘What profiteth it a man,’ Jesus said, ‘if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ For a long time I felt as though my soul was lost, hidden even from my own understanding, to protect me from the consequences of openness in a culture that demanded my silence. Now that I know what it feels like to be whole, my worst fear is not death, but a return to that soulless existence.”
A WITNESS, WHO IS A SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIM OF A JEHOVAH’S WITNESS MOLESTER, AND CAN NOT PRODUCE OTHER WITNESSES TO THE MOLESTATION TO PROVE THEIR ACCUSATION IS TRUE, IS INSTRUCTED BY THE ELDERS NOT TO TELL ANYONE OR THEY WILL BE EXCOMMUNICATED. ALSO, JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES, WHO ARE CHILD ABUSE VICTIMS, KNOW THAT THEY HAVE TO KEEP SILENT TO PROTECT THE REPUTATION OF THEIR RELIGION. CONSEQUENTLY, KEEPING SILENT USUALLY CAUSES THE VICTIM TO HAVE SERIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS.
14. Page 193. “Someone at the Church headquarters in Salt Lake City leaked a confidential copy of a speech made by one of the apostles, pinpointing intellectuals and feminists as two of the most scurrilous ‘enemies of the Church in the latter days.’”
INTELLIGENT WOMEN WITHIN THE MEMBERSHIP OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES ARE NOT ACCEPTED AND DO NOT FIT IN IF THEY EXHIBIT TRAITS OF INTELLECTUALISM AND FEMINISM. THEY BECOME “MARKED.”
15. Page 208. “There was, however, one type of perpetrator profile that fit my father like a glove: the charismatic religious narcissist, a man who believes himself to be specially chosen by God to do things that are forbidden to others and who has a profoundly split horror/fascination response to sexuality. The abuse I remembered wasn’t about lust. It wasn’t even about sex, except as a form of torture or even symbolic death. No, it was all about religion.”
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES HAVE PROPORTIONATELY A HIGH INCIDENCE OF DISENFRANCHISED, UNEDUCATED MEN. WHEN THEY BECOME WITNESSES, MEN ARE ENCOURAGED TO BECOME ELDERS. IT IS THEN THAT FORMERLY “POWERLESS MEN” ARE GIVEN POWER, AND WITH IT, CONTROL OVER WOMEN AND CHILDREN. MANY HAVE UN-RECONCILED CONTROL ISSUES THAT CAUSE DEEP FRUSTRATION WHICH CAN LEAD TO RAPE AND CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE. IT IS THOUGHT BY EXPERTS THAT SEXUAL CRIMES ARE POWER AND CONTROL ISSUES.
16. Page 229. “Mormons who leave the fold, unlike apostates from other faiths, tend to avoid joining any other church. I think there are at least two reasons for this: first, because Mormonism is so all-pervading, so exclusive of other creeds, and, second, because Latter-day Saints are actually taught to test religious claims against their own sense of truth. This approach to learning, encouraged by Joseph Smith and his successors, made Mormonism very appealing to the religious seekers of the nineteenth century.”
STATISTICALLY, A HIGH PROPORTION OF FORMER JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES AVOID JOINING OTHER FAITHS. OFTEN TIMES THEY TRY TO BECOME PART OF A CHURCH, BUT IT’S AN EMPTY GESTURE BECAUSE MOST RELIGIONS DO NOT CONTROL THEIR MEMBERS’ LIVES, SOMETHING JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES, LIKE MORMONS, ARE ACCUSTOMED TO, SO THE NEW RELIGION DOESN’T HAVE A GOOD “FIT.” IN ADDITION, MANY TIMES, JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES, WHO LEAVE THEIR RELIGION, ARE “BURNED OUT” AND DO NOT WANT TO BE ACTIVE IN A RELIGION AGAIN.
17. PAGE 231. “For months, John and I had variations on this conversation over and over again, with many different authority figures. Since we were both working at BYU, our regular job evaluations included questions about our religious practices and beliefs, the state of our ‘testimonies.’ Did we believe that the Mormon president was the world’s one true prophet? Did we support the General Authorities in all matters? Did we refrain from studying or teaching anything that might undermine the teachings of the Church?”
IF A WITNESS PUBLICLY QUESTIONS HIS RELIGION, ELDERS WILL CONVENE A JUDICIAL HEARING AND ASK THE QUESTIONER, “DO YOU BELIEVE THE GOVERNING BODY IS GOD’S EARTHLY SPOKESMEN? DO YOU SUPPORT THE GOVERNING BODY IN ALL MATTERS? DO YOU REFRAIN FROM READING OR TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING THAT UNDERMINES THE TEACHINGS OF THE GOVERNING BODY?"
18. Pages 239-40. “To the Mormon community, [excommunication] was worse than the death penalty; it could mean that the accused would spend eternity in the telestial kingdom (an ignominiously low level of the afterlife, without even visitation rights to the better kingdoms). More immediately, it meant literal excommunication, exclusion from community, from connection. If they humbled themselves, waited a year, and applied for rebaptism, they may once again become members of the Church, but they could never really redeem their tarnished reputations. For a pioneer people, accustomed to a level of interdependency rare in the United States, this was a horrifying prospect. It was similar to the penalty mura hachibut, ‘expulsion from the village,’ in feudal Japan, where many people found suicide preferable to living as exiles.”
TO JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES, EXCOMMUNICATION IS WORSE THAN THE DEATH PENALTY BECAUSE IN THE EYES OF THE WITNESSES AN EXCOMMUNICATED MEMBER IS VIEWED AS SPIRITUALLY DEAD, AND, THEREFORE, WILL DIE AT ARMAGEDDON. REINSTATEMENT CAN ONLY HAPPEN WHEN THE EXCOMMUNICATED PERSON PROVES BY HIS WORKS THAT HE/SHE IS REPENTANT. ONCE REINSTATED, THE MEMBER CAN, BECAUSE OF THEIR WORKS, EVENTUALLY HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR SOME “SPECIAL” SERVICE, BUT THE EXPULSION WILL ALWAYS BE ON THEIR RECORD. SOME EXCOMMUNICATED JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES HAVE COMMITTED SUICIDE BECAUSE OF BEING SHUNNED BY FAMILY AND FRIENDS. THEY COULD NOT ENDURE THE ISOLATION AND LONELINESS.
19. Page 240. “Throughout Utah, prayer groups formed to support the accused heretics, who quickly became known as the September Six. Demonstrators picketed Church buildings, wrote letters, and chanted slogans, hoping to convince Latter-day Saint leaders to call off the Councils of Love. Mormon authorities countered by privately hinting that all the accused were adulterers and by making public statements that likened the intellectuals to ‘ravening wolves among the flocks.’”
EXCOMMUNICATED JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES HAVE SUED THEIR RELIGION FOR DEFAMATION BECAUSE OF LIES SPREAD ABOUT THEM BY OTHER MEMBERS.
20. Page 242. “On the other hand, when I chanced to pass a distant relative or childhood friend on the street, they often turned quickly away, becoming obsessed with cracks in the pavement or tree trunks until I was safely out of range. I didn’t know if they had decided to “shun” me, or if they were simply afraid someone would catch them speaking to me. What I did know was that my life was coming perilously close to the condition of mara hachibu. Even though I knew this was a result of my own choices, my own failure to conform, it felt strange, alienating and confusing, to be a pariah.”
THE TREATMENT OF FORMER AND EXCOMMUNICATED JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS MS. BECK ENCOUNTERED. TO BE SHUNNED IS VERY UNCOMFORTABLE AND THAT’S EXACTLY WHY JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES DO IT.
21. Page 243. “John [Martha’s husband] handed me the letter, his face pale but determined. I read it. It was his official resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
“Look,” said John, “they’ve drawn a line in the sand. They exed those people to say that if you don’t believe certain things, if you know too much, you aren’t Mormon anymore. And, well, I don’t believe those things. I know too much.”
WHEN ONE OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES DISCOVERS ORGANIZATIONAL “SECRETS” AND “GOES PUBLIC,” THE WITNESSES ASSUME THAT THE WHISTLEBLOWER, BY HIS/HER ACTIONS, DOES NOT WANT TO BE A WITNESS ANY LONGER BECAUSE THOSE WHO WANT TO REMAIN WITNESSES WILL PROTECT THEIR RELIGION BY KEEPING “SECRETS.”
22. Martha writes about her father’s reaction when he finds out she is no longer a Mormon:
PAGE 146. “Then I realize that my father’s expression looks like one of personal insecurity, not alarm on someone else’s behalf. He looks nervous, a glib preacher who has just realized his audience is deaf. He may be somewhat concerned for my lost soul, but I strongly suspect that he’s much more worried about what a sociologist would call “loss of legitimacy.” If I’m not Mormon, then his work, his fame, his position mean nothing to me. I’ve chosen to ignore both filial and religious piety, so with me, he’s lost his foundation.”
WITNESSES ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH NON-WITNESSES BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT NON-WITNESSES DO NOT UNDERSTAND OR ADMIRE THE WITNESS VIEWPOINT. FOR EXAMPLE, WITNESSES BELIEVE THAT ACCEPTANCE AND APPROVAL BY GOD COMES ONLY FROM “WORKS.” ALSO, WITNESSES ONLY ACCEPT AND SHOW LOVE IF THEY SEE THAT THEIR FELLOW WITNESS CONTINUES TO “PERFORM” FOR THE RELIGION.
23. Pages 250-1. “It would be years before we realized how far the ripples spread from John’s hot-press apostasy. The immediate effects were obvious: mura hachibu. When we walked through our neighborhood, the people who had embraced us at church meetings now turned away, showing us their backs until we were out of sight. On the BYU campus, few people were brave enough to speak with us, much less do lunch. Our close friends were few, and we had no casual collegial relationships. When neighbors came for a visit, it was always an undisguised effort to convince us to repent, followed by stories about other who had left the fold and lived (though not long) to regret it.”
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES, WHO WERE EMBRACED BEFORE AN EXCOMMUNICATION ANNOUNCEMENT, WILL BE SCORNED AND SHUNNED WITHIN MINUTES AFTER THE ANNOUNCEMENT.
24. Page 251. “Even people whom we knew were having their own religious doubts, people who had shared dissident views with us or spoken up in Sunday school lessons about their disagreement with Church policy, seemed to draw the line at connecting with actual apostates. Former buddies awkwardly pretended we weren’t sharing the same sidewalk, using adjacent gas-station pumps, lining up at the same cash register. When we initiated conversations, they would sometimes give a frightened smile and a quick ‘hello,’ then all but run away. Mostly, we were simply ignored. We had become ghosts.”
ALL JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES GRIPE ABOUT THEIR ORGANIZATION—FROM THE LEADERS TO THE LEAST OF THE MEMBERSHIP. HOWEVER, IF A BUDDY IS EXCOMMUNICATED FOR GRIPING TOO LOUD OR FOR SPEAKING NEGATIVELY ABOUT THE GOVERNING BODY, HIS FRIENDS WILL BE AFRAID THAT THEIR NAME MIGHT BE DRAGGED INTO THE INVESTIGATION TOO AND THEY ALSO WOULD BE EXCOMMUNICATED. IT IS NOT UNUSUAL IN SUCH AN EVENT FOR A WITNESS TO TURN ON ANOTHER WITNESS, AND, EVEN LIE, IF NECESSARY, TO PROTECT ONESELF.
25. Page 262. “One of the nifty paradoxes of dysfunction is that the crazier the system in which you grow up, the more afraid and less equipped you are to leave it and stand on your own.”
FORMER JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES FIND IT EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO ORIENT THEMSELVES OUTSIDE OF THEIR GROUP BECAUSE OF THE YEARS OF PROGRAMMING DONE BY THEIR LEADERS TO CONVINCE THEM THAT EVERYONE OUTSIDE OF THE GROUP IS EVIL.
26. Page 267. “Everything that had been said in the meeting reinforced my own suspicion that if the whole Mormon establishment had witnessed what was done to me as a child, they would respond by saying, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is terrible. What do we have to do to make that kid shut up and take it?’”
MANY JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES LEADERS WOULD RATHER A CHILD NOT COME FORWARD AND MAKE AN ACCUSATION OF SEXUAL ABUSE AGAINST ANOTHER WITNESS BECAUSE IT WILL BE A BLEMISH ON THEIR ORGANIZATION, AN ORGANIZATION THEY WANT TO PORTRAY AS BETTER THAN ANY OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUP.
27. Page 283. “My father snapped back…, ‘We raised you in the Gospel. You might want to think about how you’re repaying us.’”
“’Oh, believe me, I’ve thought about it,’ I said, desperately wanting to lash out. I stopped. Breathed. Calmed myself. ‘In a way, you’re right,’ I said. ‘I am grateful you raised me to be religious, because at least you turned my attention to God. It’s like you locked me in the deepest dungeon ever made and then threw in the key. Thank you.’”
“I believed then, and still do, that I’d just described the function of religion in general. All faiths form around the same priceless thing: the Stream, the Silence, the Light. Then, human nature being what it is, that holy core begins accreting a shell of mindless corruption. It is, in a word, defiled. And since this power is the most precious thing in human experience, its dark side is the purest form of evil.”
AT ONE TIME, THE FOUNDERS AND LEADERS OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES WERE SINCERE, BUT EVENTUALLY THEY BECAME SO INTERESTED IN PRESERVING THE STATUS QUO BY ANY MEANS THAT THEY BECAME EXPERTS AT LIES OF OMISSION AND HALF-TRUTHS, THEREBY BECOMING DEFILED AND CORRUPT.
Mormon memoir, "Leaving The Saints" A reminder of JWs' religion-A long read
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