I was simultaneously compelled and repelled by Narkissos’s suggestion that it may be healthy to present a story of how we became Witnesses that we can now “own” as former or disillusioned Witnesses. If we can now “own” it wouldn’t it necessarily be a betrayal? Whose story is it, mine or a former self or just wishful thinking? Since every story is a fabrication, isn’t one we can “own” simply a more unashamedly convenient telling? I have deep misgivings about the authenticity of the “account”, but I am also aware that unless something is first formed no criticism or deconstruction can take place. So in order to reach that more significant phase in self-understanding here is something I have fashioned in order to make a long-overdue introduction of myself to this forum. I am often petty and certainly superficial and – largely unintentionally believe it or not – rude to some of the people here. So it may be hard to believe for some that I harbour a deep respect for many of the people who have found their way here, and I want to respect many who have given so much of themselves by giving a little “explanation” of myself and how I arrived here also.
This is my story, or a version of it as best I can give. I am 25 years old but I think three particular days and their aftermath are all I need describe.
Day 1
This competes with a rather innocuous attempt to climb out of my cot as my earliest memory. I was two and a half and it was late at night as I found myself in a taxi with my mother travelling at speed towards my dad the other end of town. They could not live together any more and my mum tells me I had made my choice to stay with my dad. I now reckon that at two years old I could not have made that choice and all I can remember is that I wanted both my mum and dad at the same time. When I was with one I would cry for the other, and for whatever it means my mum was more obliging in these circumstances and so I ended up with my dad for good after that taxi ride. What I can remember most is the terrible orange of the old-fashioned street lamps as they whizzed by, cold and unforgiving. More than any other event I believe this has coloured every relationship I have ever had. It manifests itself in a deep wish always to be with “the other people”. I am never happy with present company. It will always be better with the other set of friends rather than this one, with other cousins rather than these ones. But when I am with the others, then I want the previous ones back more than ever. I also deeply dislike people being mean about others behind their back. I follow the rather disastrous social practice of being very kind about people behind their back, and telling them exactly what I think of them to their face. I feel it is a reaction against a lot of what I witnessed when I was young between warring factions of grown-ups.
I had rather uncomfortable occasion to remember that particular day with my mum in the taxi when in Chemistry class at 15 years old. The regular teacher was ill and we had an Arab supply teacher Mr Yusuf who surfaced from time to time, or Mr Useless as we called him because he never taught us anything. Instead he would just converse with a few to pass the time and let the others do what they liked. I took the opportunity to preach to him, but he was having none of it. He would not engage me within the frames of discourse Witnesses are comfortable with, instead: cults are always relied upon to aid psychological weakness or satisfy sexual desires. Do you get a lot of sex belonging to the Jehovah Witnesses? I laughed it off and tried to talk about the end-time signs. What is your relationship with your mother like then? I was stopped in my tracks. I tried to get back to the end-time script, but he simply kept insisting, with a rather superior smug look on his face, I should give up this sex-starved cult and try work out my issues with my mother instead. That’s where the root of my cult problem lies. I can’t say I agree even now with his conclusion or method, but I can’t say I haven’t thought about it a lot either.
Day 2
It was not long after my thirteenth birthday, the last I celebrated. I had great friends. I had a great time doing things kids do in the giant playground we made out of our little town. It was wonderful. The best friend of a friend was moving to New Zealand, so this friend of mine said to me lets be best friends. Fine. Then I don’t know what happened. A new member of our crowd disliked me and they turned against me. One day they didn’t come in for me and didn’t play with me any more. I went from best friends to no friends overnight. It was very traumatic and I cried like never before or since. Strange and childish maybe but I still think I changed deeply over all that, and it still seems painful even now. Everything changed utterly inwardly then outwardly. We moved house and I was incredibly lonely. I became shy and introverted, and I thought a lot about Native American “spirituality” that I had an interest in since I was very young. It seemed they had a great notion of the underdog having the final supernatural victory: reinforcements from over the hilltop at the very precipice of disaster. That always appealed to me, as well as the closeness to the natural world and sheer esoteric nature of it all. But it was still very lonely so I gave that up and decided to worship Jehovah instead. My aunt is a Witness and was very pleased I wanted a “Bible Study”. That started when I was 13 and after two years faithful meeting attendance I was baptised. Alone in my family making a stand for the truth at 15 I was an inspiration to the congregation!
Virtually all the Witnesses I met are very nice people, but I never found deep friendships there - apart from my wife who I met at the Kingdom Hall. I was in a half-way house. I was a bit cool toward friends at school because of bitter previous experience cloaked shamefully under the notion that they are “worldly” after all. I had a low opinion of myself, but somehow an even lower opinion of schoolmates. When I made friends I put this down to the “new personality” and when I failed this was wickedness on my part and theirs in nearly equal measure as I recall. When I think back my schoolmates suffered all my talk about Armageddon with good humour all considered. But I kept them at arms length. I thought I did it for Jehovah, but I suspect I did it for me and for fear. Rather embarrassingly my adolescence was also filled with an extremely awkward and tenuous relationship with a beautiful girl at school. Mostly she rejected me, but when she didn’t I duly rejected her for Jehovah. We were friends of a sort for four years. We never came close to “fornication” but that did not stop me from feeling deathly afraid of where we had gone, and intensely guilty at the meetings.
Day 3
I went on an adventure to Aberdeen to see the city and plan to go to University there. I was 17 and I think it was the first time I stayed at a hotel on my own. It was good fun. I also went to the new Kingdom Hall to introduce myself. It seems they had some experience with youngsters moving in to go to University in their town, and had also formed an opinion about that type. But the significant event of the trip came when I strayed into a Christian bookshop, talked/preached to a Baptist minister I met in there, and came away with the first hardcore apostate literature I had ever come across. It turned my world upside down, not all at once but in a way that has been working its way out ever since. I did not believe all the apostate lies at first of course, but it meant I could never again sit at the meetings in the same sweet innocence, or pious self-righteousness – however you want to call that feeling of absolute certainty and self-assuredness that seems utterly alien to me now.
The book struck some deep cords with previous misgivings about the lack of freedom of thought among the Witnesses. That is the issue that has persistently bothered me more than any amount of “facts” or empirical refutation of doctrines. Unfortunately the book was also heavily Christian-orientated and also contained a lot of simple errors of fact. Like a good Jehovah’s Witnesses, for some considerable time I found solace sniping at the criticisms from between the footnotes. But it was only for so long I could hide from the bigger picture I guess. I joined the online Jehovah’s Witness apologetic community, such as it was, and wrote some pages defending various doctrines and scripture viewpoints, also engaging in debates with evangelicals and so on. But there were casualties of the struggle all around losing the faith while engaging in the onerous task of defending the truth amidst harsh online terrain. Notably Greg Stafford and Hector Schmidt fell by the wayside and lots of others gave up too. (Firpo Carr recently succumbed as well I believe) Some are still going God love then, I don’t know how they keep it up. One online apologist told me in private conversation he did not believe in 1914 but felt the core doctrines were the foundations of the truth and that chronological appendages would pass in time. You would not guess it from his online scribbles, but I suppose he just keeps clear of the topic and defends what he can in good conscience. Best of luck to him, but I can’t operate on that basis. It is the lack of freedom that bothers me most.
My faith was more deeply undermined by reading large amounts of the scholarly literature on the history and sociology of Jehovah’s Witnesses: Penton, Beckford, Stroup, Stevenson, Singelenberg, Holden, I have read most of the scholarly literature on Jehovah’s Witnesses in existence. Especially in relation to JWs in Nazi Germany which I wrote about for my final dissertation at University in Aberdeen and got top marks.
But I am straying from the confines of the three-day structure I began with. So I’ll end it now with a 4th day as a possibility.
Day 4?
Last week my wife and I were only meters away from an attempted terrorist attack you may have heard about in the news. If the attack had gone as planned we would both be dead. It seemed a small thing at the time, and no harm came to us, but increasingly is causes me to contemplate my life. Although we have kept irregular meeting attendance over the past few years I now have no appetite for going there any more. Time is precious. I want to try rebuild my life in shapes more to my own pleasing. Is it possible that unlike the previous three day-turning points I can turn this one to my own advantage?
Thanks to any who have taken the time to read this story, which I owned briefly while writing it, and am now busy criticising.
SBF