I disassociated last month after 21 years in the organization. Because I had had a remarkable experience of finding that God was truly THERE and because I felt bound to express what I knew about him even if it was not in the LITERATURE, the brothers banned me from speaking to other witnesses. Our P.O. asked me if it was not true that everything I knew about God I had learned from the Faithful Slave. I said I would be a liar if I agreed that were true. I had known God before I knew his name and before I had heard of Jehovah's Witnesses. That in itself is heretical evidentally.
The chief issue that broke me away in the beginning was on the need for us to recognize that Jehovah may have used the scriptures to communicate with us , but we humans invent the words--a handicap for even God when he wants to communicate with us. I told them that everyone who comes to God must accept a measure of personal responsibility for listening --and not throught the filter of the Society's publications. but through our understanding of the words and through our ggod-faith efforts to respond as we understand. Jesus in being called the Logos was the living utterance of God. Jesus didn't trust words --even his own writings--to do what parables could do. Jesus left us his example because words fail us all the time, don't they?
Jesus did live, fellows. Pliny the Elder knew that this "Christus" was the one for whom early followers gathered to honor. Rome under (I think) Trajan punished them for these gathering where they pledged their determination to defraud no one and to commit no fornication, etc. Around that time Polycarp was discipled by the apostle John who was an eyewitness to the existence of Jesus.
If we ever rely on the words or histories of others, would we not find it hard to accept the existence of Jesus for the reasons that we have accepted the witness of other writers on other topics.
The organization so mediates what they call "the Truth" so completely that many cannot conceive of the existence of God except by the declaration of the Society. There is no good that this organization can do to offset this singlre damning effect. They completely deny anyone a relationship to Jehovah or Jesus that is not mediated by the few in the Governing Body of the Faithful Slave. I pointed out to them that Rev. 14 says that the anointed follow the Lamb where ever he goes; yet this cannot be done when the anointed are under the direction of the governing Body no less than the rest of us! Their own relationship to the Lamb is compromised, nulifed be the arrangement of obedience under the governing body. The brothers cannot nulify the scriptures. But they cannot say a word at all.
This organization has betrayed their commision at a fundamental level. I had a tough time. I lved in the extreme hardship of a poor household and a very rural home. I had seven children and I thank God that non of them are still Jehovah's Witnesses. Nor did they marry any. But it left scars on us. There were some fine times, and some fine people. But none of them talk to me now. I is a small price to pay for religious freedom.
I would be glad to discuss this further. I find God has been kind to me in this long dark trial of leaving this cult. i even had to write the Branch to see if there were a way to maintain my conscience toward God. Their answer was laughable and really set me free.
The Bible is an ancient text and no one should ever try to tell us what the Hebrew Scriptures definitively say in most cases. Check out ancient Hebrew script. To draw theolgical inferences and try to make them super refined and never allow for a measure of open discussion on some things that are NOT CERTAIN is arrogant pedantry. It is what is claimed that the Catholic Church denied its members hundreds of years ago--the freedom to read the bible for themselves.
Don't give up Christianity until you get the chance to detox from the Witness indoctrination. Go toe to toe with God.
