A piece I wrote for the paper which never got in.
The death ethics I had as a Jehovahs Witness, and an apology.
It was just recently I realized that I had never grieved a very close childhood friend. We spent many an hour playing together when I was young. I grew to love this boy as my friend, just a few years younger then myself. In his late teens his father died and he went on a path of self destruction. He was Disfellowshipped by the local elders and I was now restricted from talking with him under the fear that I too could be Disfellowshipped if I did. A few years later he ended up dead. I was still a Jehovahs Witness then and no one even seemed to notice. I can not recall even a mention of it at the Kingdom Hall. It was as though he was not worthy of grieving for. I never questioned that or so much as gave it a second thought, untill this Christmas almost 26 years later. I was so overcome with grief I cried. For 26 years I had never grieved his death. I realized what he really needed in his time of loss and dispare was love. His life was out of control and he desperatly needed love, love of family and friends. From the Bible what comes to mind for me now is "the laying on of hands," connecting him with the Unconditional Love of Jesus. What I believe he recieved was being told that he was not acceptable, and untill he could attone for a year or more of shunning, he would remain unacceptable. During this time he was totally ignored as if he were invisible. And finally in his death, that also was ignored.
It seems that as a Jehovahs Witness my thoughts of death were pretty much either a state of total denial, or a state of personal fear. Taught that the end will be here very soon and that either you will die shortly, or if you are good enough you will live forever. If you are found by Jehovah doing enough in the preaching work, you will never die but live forever on the earth. You expend most of your effort trying to survive, trying to get you and your family through Armageddon. Believing that most of mankind will soon parish when this happens, you have little empathy for anyones grieving over the loss of a loved one to death.
Even with this belief it is hard for me to imagine what I myself have done in the past when I think about this. The JW's openly teach that only God does the Judging, not them or thier elders. They also teach that the only unforgivable sin is sinning against the Holy Spirit. This being a very obscure idea for them as I don't think they can even define just what the Holy Spirit actually is, they compared it to electricity as I recall, merely an active force. They practice a policy know as Disfellowshipping, which is describbed as a loving way to discipline those who have openly committed sins, sins that are forgivable but bring reproach upon the Organization, as I recall they explained it. On top of this they preached that if someone dies before Armageddon then they will be resurected afterwards and that such ones have not been judged.
Now the problem comes where someone is Disfellowshipped, undergoing this discipline, and then they die. Or even some who are on "public reproof", a lessor discipline, when they die. As an outsider you would think that as they and thier family are associated with this Religion that they would conduct a funeral service and allow thier family and loved ones to grieve the death of their loved one, as no one can say for sure whether or not this person has been judged by God as worthy of eternal life. As well as Jesus greatest command being that of Love, even showing love to your enemies. Irregaurdless ones who die before Armageddon are not judged, or so they claim. However nothing could be further from the truth. They would not give a funeral to such a person, and they would not attend any such funeral given by any other church. No one in thier group was allowed to grieve the loss of this person. Even family members were to ignore this death as unimportant.
To compound matters, it seemed to be the attitude of many if not most in the congregation that somehow this "bad" person had recieved what they deserved and now God had been saved the trouble of killing them at Armageddon, even though this is not what was openly taught. It seemed to be assumed that those who are Disfellowshipped somehow deserve to die and so there is no need to grieve them.
I can not communicate how terrible this makes me feel now, his mother must have grieved him secretly, but I never knew. 26 years later I now realize that the message I was preaching was certainly not so urgent that I could not have spent a little time crying for him with his mother and going through the natural grieving process with her. It would have been the sane and loving thing, and when I think of how Jesus would probably have handled it I am truly ashamed that I was blind enough to believe that the policy of the Jehovahs Witnesses was the right one. This was the most cruel and unloving act you could do to anyone who has lost a loved one. To judge that one as truly bad and not worthy of grieving! Even not knowing for sure whether this was doctrinally true. I now would sincerely like to apologize for my actions to his mother, I know he was worthy of love and so was she in her grieving process.
The JW faith also claims that if a non-JW dies before Armageddon then they will be resurected into the new order and given another chance to convert. Why then do they not allow thier elders to give funerals for such ones, or thier members to attend funerals given for them elsewhere? As I think back so many years to that mindset that I too once accepted while in the Organization, I am appaulled. It reminds me once again of how the JW's value life, how they value people, and just how much fear they live with on a daily bassis.
I urge anyone considering a Bible study with the Jehovahs Witnesses, or anyone considering joining the Jehovahs Witness Religion to please research them on the internet first. Read not only what they want you to know about them, but read what those who have left them say also. Read thier history and read about the harm that has been done to families under the guise of love, and under the fear of failing to be found faultless when the end comes.