Atlantis, Insearchoftruth, Carla, and Lukewarm, You're most welcome!
Behemot, that's fascinating about the Italian Circuit Overseers who have written books on the JWs. Has any of their materials been translated into English? Which of their writings is the best in your opinion? Could you give us any insights into what they've produced?
As to Stevenson, the writer of The Inside Story of Jehovah's Witnesses. He was converted to them as a teenager. You can tell from his writing ability that he was very intelligent. On page 102, he relates how as a JW he ended up at Cambridge and the struggle he faced as to whether he should continue his studies. He writes:
Many young people in the movement with promising careers in front of them have in the past had such abruptly terminated by the insistent demand that they must pioneer. The writer is a case in point. Despite the Society's insistence on withdrawing from the pursuit of further education, which was repeated with great emphasis by my father, I gained a place at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where for a year I read English literature. However, the pressure of 'theocratic conscience', the feeling that I was misusing dedicated time, enforced by a continuous flow of counsel from the publications of the Society and from the talks given at the Witnesses' meetings, resulted in my leaving Trinity Hall after only a year of study. I could have had no peace of mind until the decision was made. I reasoned according to my theocratic training, that I was either for God or against Him. If I was lukewarm, God would spew me out of His mouth. I was a dedicated servant of God, and I felt that this could only be fulfilled by full-time preaching for the Society. And so, to ensure a complete severance of myself from Cambridge, when the examinations came round, I just sat through several three-hourly sessions, writing nothing on the papers but simply passing them in blank. The last words of my tutor to me as I left Trinity Hall were, "Well, Stevenson, I hope you never regret what you have done". I am quite sure now that this was the worst mistake of my life. But an even bigger mistake, of course, would be to allow myself to become embittered by the experience. However, I must say that I cannot deprecate too strongly the Society's attitude towards further education.
Stevenson eventually became a Circuit Overseer for three years. He later was disfellowshipped from the JWs. He gives this take on how that impacted his life on page 205:
I started to write this book with profound misgivings, mainly because I realised that since I had been disfellowshipped from the movement, it might be assumed that I was simply writing in a spirit of revenge or spitefulness. I hope that what I have written will dispel any ideas such as that Witnesses or non-Witnesses may have had. I bear no malice whatsoever towards those who performed the act of disfellowshipping me, because they were merely acting in harmony with the rules governing the Society. And now I am quite sure that they performed a great service to me in two ways. First, the discipline I received made me aware of the wrong course I was taking in life at that time, and my present happiness and peace of mind owes much to their action, severe though it was....And second, by cutting me off so completely from the movement, they gave me the opportunity of looking at the organisation in a new light, from the outside looking in rather from the inside looking out. For now no longer attending meetings five times a week, no longer engaging in house-to-house work, no longer filling every minute of my life with ceaseless activity, for the first time in fourteen years I have had time to take an individual look at life, and to form an objective opinion of Jehovah's Witnesses as a religious movement. The conclusions I have come to are the substance of this book, which I have written in the hope that it will prove helpful to all those who have had some experience or contact with this religious organisation.
I am sometimes asked if I do not consider that I have wasted the best years of my life in this religious movement. I suppose that I could easily look on the negative side of the matter and accept this outlook. But I always answer, I think sincerely, No. If this book which contains a record of these years of my life, performs a useful service in giving an objective view of this religious movement, then the past fourteen years will not have been a waste of time at all. They will have been most valuable.
One book that Stevenson credits in helping him get a different view of the Society's teachings was Anthony Hoekema's The Four Major Cults. For those interested, the section in that book on Jehovah's Witnesses can be downloaded from this filesharing site:
http://www.filesend.net/download.php?
f=1412ce79a53e9d44d44d460bbb229ddc
