And here is mine.....
This is in response to your recent article on Jehovah’s Witnesses and their efforts to help rebuild the homes of their fellow believers.
As a former Jehovah’s Witness with over 30 years as an active member, my family, friends and I have spent many volunteer hours in doing this type of work, as well as building Kingdom Halls (as Jehovah’s Witnesses call their ‘churches’), door-to-door evangelizing, and other organization-related activities. I know from experience that the people you talked to most likely have a sincere desire to help their fellow believers, many times at their own expense – both monetarily and in time taken from families and leisure activities.
However, I feel that your article, while pointing these things out, paints a glamorous picture of an organization that is corrupt and dishonest at the expense of its individual members. Visit websites such as www.freeminds.org, www.jehovahs-witness.com, and www.silentlambs.com for detailed information about how the Jehovah’s Witness organization, known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society based in Brooklyn, NY protects pedophiles within the organization, forces an inconsistent and unscriptural blood ban on its members that results in thousands of deaths, and uses its perceived standing as God’s only ‘true’ organization to heavy-handedly rule the most intimate details of its members lives.
Your article highlights the proclaimed love shown by the members of Jehovah’s Witnesses. What is left out is how conditional this love is. The organization uses an unscriptural, unloving, shunning procedure (known as disfellowshipping) to ‘discipline’ any member who chooses to exercise any amount of free will in their own lives. This means that anyone associated with the organization, even the offender’s own family members, cannot speak to or even acknowledge this individual. Anyone critical of the organization is labeled an ‘apostate’, is removed from the organization, and subjected to shunning. I guarantee that none of these individuals received any assistance from the organization.
Further, the gentleman that stated that they would ‘like to help’ members of the community is at best naïve, at worst a complete falsehood. Witnesses are discouraged over and over again from spending time or money on anyone outside the organization, unless it is to preach to them. Joining, or even donating to, ‘worldly’ organizations such as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the YMCA or others will result in disciplinary action against that individual. The WBTS has repeatedly railed against organizations such as the Red Cross in their magazines, The Watchtower and the Awake!, which makes their acceptance of aid from these organizations the utmost in hypocrisy.
Your article also states that “ Jehovah's Witnesses who can't drive to Southeast Texas donate money to help the cause, Avila said, which is used to buy supplies and food.” This is not technically true. Congregation members are not allowed to donate to individual ‘causes’. They donate their money to the “Worldwide Preaching Work”, which is collected by each congregation, sent to Brooklyn, and then the money is dispensed by the WBTS as it sees fit.
Again, to be clear, the individual Witnesses that you interviewed are doing what they feel is right at great personal sacrifice to themselves. They are very sheltered from the reality of the organization that they are a part of since they are not allowed to talk to ex-members or read anything negative about their organization. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is a multi-billion dollar corporation built on the backs of ‘volunteers’, such as I used to be. Volunteers who are told that this is their way to salvation. Please do some research into the other side of being a Jehovah’s Witness and I think you’ll be shocked and appalled of the reality of the lives of the ‘happy’ workers you met.