I recently posted the progress of my fade. http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/130346/1.ashx
A recent face-to-face meeting with a JWD poster, AK-Jeff, caused me to reflect on how I arrived at
the decision to fade. While the short version is in my biography, I will stretch it out a bit here in
order to reflect on it, myself, and to help any doubters out there.
I was always asking too many questions when I studied the doctrine before baptism. I learned to
just blindly obey the WTS and keep those questions in my head. That allowed me to become an
elder by 1995, with considerably less than 10 years in the religion. It felt good to be such an
up-there company man, telling "sisters" who knew the Bible forwards and backwards (the likes of
Blondie) from decades of learning, that I would instruct them.
My questioning attitude resurfaced that same year when the 1995 doctrinal change for "This Generation"
came out in the WT magazine. I remember the meeting we covered the information. I thought this was
such a huge deal. People will be all abuzz about it. NOPE. It was covered in the typical Q&A style, and
we moved on. Afterward, I tried to converse with others about it. Some got it, while others didn't even
notice the change. The ones who got it just accepted it. "They must be right because it's been so long
since 1914." That didn't sit well with me. Their own teaching was wrong, but they must be right now, or
else the end would have come. That's circular reasoning. If they were right, it would have happened. They
changed their understanding, and it didn't happen, so they were wrong, but since they changed, they are
right now. No room for "wrong then, wrong now." I had already learned my lesson and decided that a
young new elder should just accept the teaching, but I vowed to get back to it, one day.
Even though I was accepting the doctrinal change, I decided to plan for my future. From that WT study,
onward, I wanted to be ready for this system to continue on into retirement. I didn't go to college, but
I planned and prepared for a good secular career, and I got a great career, I love it. I will refrain from details,
but it required dedication and missing meetings. I told the brothers that it would allow me to pioneer in a few
years after I was established.
I actually did pioneer for one year after establishing myself, as I told the brothers. I knew I kept saying I would,
and I hoped that Jehovah's spirit would bless me, removing any lingering doubts (still had them). I also started
allowing my wife to pursue an education goal of a master's degree after that 1995 WT study, as she would need
to retire in this system with me. She's still a faithful JW, but she has an education, and believes that all JW
children in the USA (and other places) really needs a good education.
Instead of eleviating doubt, the year of pioneering raised more red flags of doubt. I remember one day in recruiting,
I talked with a genuine hippy. He was very friendly. He asked if God was so vain that He expected me to spend
all my time praising him in this door-to-door work, and if God wouldn't forgive all the ignorant masses out there
for never believing the message of these strange Jehovah's Witnesses that come to their door with nice printed
hand-outs? It was a lengthy conversation, and I was polite, but I could not dispute his points. How could
Armageddon be imminent if the only warning God gave was nicely dressed nuts with nicely printed hand-outs?
Also, the year of showing no love was upon me. If a "spiritual family" needed help, sorry, I was pioneering. "Yes,
I have a pickup truck, but I have no time for helping you move." If a publisher needed spiritual guidance from an
elder, "You will have to come out preaching with me on Saturday, and we'll discuss it."
When it came time to go to pioneer school, I thought I would learn the Bible better. Instead, I learned the WT literature
better. My pioneer school was full of bored retired ladies and one retired man, and college-age girls still living at home,
with no real financial future in mind. I was already an upwardly mobile career-oriented person who was blowing his
vacation for this. I quit pioneering right after the course, but remained an elder, then moved to a different congregation.
I was reluctant to become an elder again there, but they insisted.
Along the way, I went to three different elder schools. Each was heaped in legalistic secretive "How to manage the
sins of others without a lawsuit" kind of stuff. I finally got back to study about "this generation" and I stuck with
WT materials or materials from non-apostate sources. I determined that Jesus might have been warning people
not to be misled by the "sign of the last days" type of people. I asked my mother (JW disfellowshipped over 1975, who
went back and got reinstated, but never made me go to the Hall as a teenager) about my concerns. She answered
me with her understanding of 1975 and why the end must be imminent, but we "don't know when Eve was created and
the 6th creative day ended....." I was confused by her understanding. I looked up what she said, and everything she
said was in the books. I could not find where the books said, "oops, wrong again." My mother, an avid reader still
thought this was right, so it must have been taught to her the same as "this generation is almost gone" was taught to
me when I studied. It must have been put in the back of her mind, the same as I learned to put doubts in the back of
mine.
By summer, 2006, I decided that I needed to step aside as an elder, and I put a date in mind at the end of Summer.
There's always something to delay such a big decision- one more CO visit, one more scheduled public talk, a visit
with JW friends, etc. so I was going to stick by that date, and I did. That same summer, I decided to google Jehovah's
Witnesses and see what I could learn. Up to that point, I was faithful to the counsel to avoid apostacy, but I knew it
didn't matter anymore.
Well, freeminds.org was fantastic. I learned about all these books I could read, some from a former Governing Body
member. I didn't know that. I never heard about the UN membership. I did know about pedophiles, as they taught
elders stuff about that. TALK SOUP was in the corner. It led me to JWD. I lurked. I learned.
I submitted my elder resignation before ever joining JWD. I wish I read it sooner, because I chose to alert them that
I was a doubter. I might have used depression instead of doubt if I read more JWD. No matter. What's done is done.
Now I have faded a bit too fast for their liking, but I continue to set goals. I am about to be "inactive" in field service (meaning
no time in 6 months) and I am at 50% meeting attendence for 4 meetings with Zero % attendence at the book study.
I hope that helps someone. It sure helped me to type it.