The other day, I was messaged by a young JW guy (using Yahoo Messenger, where I am breezyone2001; chat me up, gang!). His opening line to me was, "Why are you attacking the Witnesses?" I responded by asking him in what way I was attacking the Witnesses, and he said that he saw my name in a Yahoo club for ex-JW's. I asked how he figured that belonging to a club constituted an attack, and, to his credit, he apologized. We then started talking about my history (I was a pioneer and an MS in my day) and why I left. He argued with me about the organizational stuff, and we were having a halfway decent give-and-take until I made a mistake: I said that I believed that Jesus is Jehovah God. His response to that was, "What happened to you?" and I answered, "I found the truth." But he must have hit the "ignore" button about then, because after that he didn't respond.
In retrospect, I should have stuck to organizational matters, because he was obviously turned off by my rejection of what he considers Biblically "solid" doctrine. And, frankly, I'd have liked to have kept talking with him if for no other reason than that he seemed like a nice kid; I liked him. But any hope I might have had to show him the phoniness of the borg disappeared when I brought doctrine into the discussion.
Well, anyway, I told you that to tell you this:
Since then, I've been thinking a lot about the directions we take after we leave the borg. I see a lot of people here who have rejected religion entirely, and I think that's an entirely natural direction, particularly for people who may not have been especially religious prior to becoming JW's. After all, the Society demonizes all other religion, so the logical conclusion to reach is that, 'if this isn't the truth, then nothing is'. I've heard JW's say that very thing. Besides, the unreasonable restrictiveness of the borg may cause a reaction in many of being unwilling to accept any sort of religious restrictions in their lives. All of this, in many, leads to a total rejection of faith of any kind.
Others may leave the Watchtower without changing their minds about much of anything at all. They may have seen the falsity of the organization itself, but they still believe most of the doctrines. I think that this is why so many ex-JW's gravitate to the Bible Student groups - the doctrines are very similar, without the organizational garbage. Nothing against the Bible Students here; I have great respect for the ones I've met and think that the majority are wonderful people, with many fine Christians among them. But I do tend to think that an ex-JW who simply joins up with the Bible Students because the doctrines are familiar, hasn't really broken completely free of Watchtower thought processes.
Other ex-JW's have gotten into new age stuff; a few have become Catholic or gone into the more liberal end of Protestantism, though none of these seem to represent large numbers. I find it interesting that a larger number than I would have expected have gone into the Wiccan tradition, and I admit that I'm a bit curious what leads one to that particular path out of the borg.
I also know quite a few ex-JW's who have become evangelical Christians; I number myself among them. These, I believe, are the ones who actually did place their primary faith in the Bible, and who were able to maintain some mental distance between what the Bible says and what the organization says, an area in which many JW's become confused (as, I believe, the Society intends).
I became a JW because I believed the Bible to be God's Word, and I believed that the JW's taught the Bible more accurately than anybody else. When I realized, finally and unequivocally, that the Watchtower was false, the next logical step for me was to realize that nothing they had taught me could be accepted as truth without testing. The organization was a false prophet. So, no matter how "Biblical" I thought their teachings might be, every specific doctrine had to be explored. And, as I did so, I found that, not only were they wrong organizationally, but that most of their doctrines were based on twisted and out-of-context applications of scripture.
I haven't finished my exploration. I'm still studying. The Trinity doctrine for example - I accept it in a tentative way. It looks to me as if it is what the Bible teaches, but I have not yet explored it thoroughly enough to say I have a solid faith in it. The deity of Christ, on the other hand, appears to me to be rock-solid. A reading of the book of John convinced me beyond question that Jesus is God. But that's the way I see things now. More study, and who knows? After my JW experience, I'm not sure I can ever be arrogant enough again to say that I "know" anything. All I can do is accept what the Lord shows me.
The thing I wonder about sometimes is whether I've been too ready to reject JW teaching simply because it is JW teaching. I seem to have reached a point where there is little I can agree with the Watchtower on, all of their arguments seem so thin and transparent. Perhaps this is just the point one reaches after seeing the 'man behind the curtain'. It's not that I'm having a crisis of faith or anything, but this stuff has been on my mind for a while now, and I thought I'd put it out here to see what all of you folks think, and ask you what thought processes you went through on your way out of the borg that got you where you are now.
Tom
"The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure; to live it you had to explode." ---Bob Dylan