Anyone want to share emails that they wrote to the BBC about the program this morning?

by brotherdan 36 Replies latest jw friends

  • brotherdan
    brotherdan

    I know many of you have sent emails to Emma Britton, who hosted the show this morning with our own cantleave and Angus. (BTW, you guys did amazing!)

    I sent my email to her as well and wanted to see if anyone else wants to share their emails. Here is mine:

    Dear Emma,

    I want to thank you so very much for your program and interview with Nathan and Angus (former Jehovah's Witnesses) this morning. The interview was done very tastefully and respectfully and I appreciated it very much.

    I am currently a Jehovah's Witness and I cannot leave without losing my family. I no longer believe in it and have seen how dangerous it is. If I was to tell an elder that I don't believe that the men in Brooklyn New York are God's direct channel of communication on earth, I would be disfellowshiped immediately, and lose my family within the week. My mother, father, brother, and friends would cut off all contact IMMEDIATELY. My wife has made it known that if I was to leave this organization that she would divorce me and take full custody of my 2 children.

    The letter that you read on your program today was very cleverly written by the London branch office, but it was far from the truth of the matter. It was disingenuous and was not transparent to say the least. To illustrate the deception in their statement to you, please research what happened when Raymond Franz, former member of the Governing Body, was found eating a meal with his employer who was disfellowshiped. Ray himself was disfellowshiped for continuing this association with his employer and dear friend. What is more, his employer (Peter Gregerson) had not engaged in any wrong doing. Peter had merely decided that he did not believe any longer that Jehovah's Witnesses had the "truth".

    This organization has the potential to destroy families which are the backbone of our society. The interview today just touched the surface of the dangers that exist in this organization. Because of its policies, thousands have died. They have a history of forbidding vaccination, organ transplants, and blood transfusions, even in the case of small children that cannot make the decision for themselves. And yet they deny all of this. I wish to direct your attention to a statement that the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses submitted to the European human rights court in 1997. It says:

    "As regards the alleged involvement of children, the [WatchTower Bible and tract Society] submits that children cannot become members of the association but only participate, together with their parents, in the religious activities of the community. In respect of the refusal of blood transfusion, the applicant association submits that there are no religious sanctions for a Jehovah's Witness who chooses to accept blood transfusion and that, therefore, the fact that the religious doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses is against blood transfusion cannot amount to a threat to public health." {Sworn testimony submitted by the Society in evidence before the European Human Rights Commission Jul 3 1997}

    All Jehovah's Witnesses and former Jehovah's Witnesses know this to be an outright lie. I cannot fathom how they avoided a declaration of perjury in this case. I was baptized at 12 years of age and thus appointed an ordained minister of the congregation. I personally know of hundreds of cases where members have been kicked out of the organization for accepting blood transfusions. This statement above is an outright lie.

    And yet, most people do not know the dangers that exist. It has largely gone unexposed. Dateline attempted to do an expose on the horrible child molestation policies that the Watchtower organization has. But it was soon forgotten. Most people think of Jehovah's Witnesses as the nice people that come by to leave magazines at their door and talk about the Bible. But this is a destructive mind controlling cult.

    I apologize for the length of this email. Mainly I want to say thank you for your hard work on this topic! If you are able to bring more information to light, I know that it will help many people to safeguard themselves and their families. Perhaps it may also help current Jehovah's Witnesses, like my family, to see that the policies of the Watchtower are not only wrong, but dangerous. Thank you again, Emma!

    [edited to remove disruptive code - Lady lee]

  • cantleave
    cantleave

    Bro Dan, That is simply superb.

  • cantleave
    cantleave

    BTW I am Angus

  • brotherdan
    brotherdan

    It's hard to keep everyone straight when you've got their screen name and real name all that. :-) Sorry!

    But you did fantastic. I was thinking, "I know that guy! What an awesome thing he's doing!"

  • cantleave
    cantleave

    BTT - would be good to read others.

    Thanks Dan.

  • brotherdan
    brotherdan

    Yeah, I know a bunch of people said they were going to email her. It has been sort of a slow post day so far...

  • compound complex
    compound complex

    BroDan:

    Cannot open this thread to see replies ... is it just me?

    Thanks,

    CoCo

  • Amelia Ashton
    Amelia Ashton

    What's going on. I can't see any replies?

  • AndersonsInfo
    AndersonsInfo

    Using Firefox, I can see all of this thread, but using Windows Explorer, I can't. I've had this problem before so knew what to do. Anyway, here's my email to Emma Britton:

    Dear Ms. Britton,

    Thank you for presenting such a fair-minded and reasonable interview with former Jehovah's Witness, Nathan Phillips, and also the former Witness elder.

    I'm writing from the US and live in the State of Tennessee. We were Jehovah's Witnesses. My husband, who held supervisory positions in the religion since he was in his 20s, and I were extremely active Witnesses for nearly five decades and know the religious teachings inside out, especially about the ramification of being disfellowshipped which is complete shunning by family and friends.

    We were baptized as teenagers and disfellowshipped in our 60s for "apostasy" and consequently shunned by all the people who were previously in our lives. In fact, we have not seen our son (a JW elder for around 20 years), and his wife and child for 9 years due to the Watch Tower's shunning policy. Recently, a now former Witness, who saw our son in 2006 in Indiana where he lives, called us. During the conversation, we learned that we have another grandchild, a girl, who was born in 2006 but kept secret from us. We cannot even verify if the information is correct because of Watch Tower’s shunning policy.

    The reason for my disfellowshipping was because of going to the media accusing the Watch Tower of harboring and protecting pedophiles by not reporting accusations of child sex abuse to the authorities.

    My accusations were based on facts because when we were living and working as volunteers for eleven years at the world headquarters of JWs in Brooklyn, NY, I was assigned to the Watch Tower’s Writing Dept. where I was a researcher. In that capacity, I discovered that there was a world-wide problem within the religion of not reporting accusations of sexual child abuse to the authorities and nobody was the wiser. I consequently left the religion in 1998 when I could see that there were not going to be any changes in Watch Tower child abuse policies.

    In 2002, just before I appeared on NBC's Dateline TV program discussing the problem, I was disfellowshipped and then shunned, and a few months later, my husband was disfellowshipped and shunned for speaking out too. Were we the sinners that the Bible said not to eat with or say hello to? Yes, if the Eleventh Commandment is, "Thou shalt not go public!" Our son told me before I was disfellowshipped that my concern and aid to child abuse victims was a noble thing, but that I should never have gone public. See http:// www.watchtowerdocuments.com /documents/2000-present.html Scroll down to the third or fourth document in the list. Both are videos of the Dateline program I appeared in.

    To put it another way, I was a whistle-blower, not a sinner by the standard set forth in the Bible verse that the Watch Tower partially quoted in their letter to you. But in the eyes of the Watch Tower, because of what I did, I should be viewed as a sinner, and as dead or as if I never existed, by my son and his family and our now former friends, which did literally number in the thousands because of our positions within the religion.

    Watch Tower claims in its literature that disfellowshipping is an act of love because shunning will cause “sinners” to realize what was lost and then change their ways and return to the religion. However, that's not true in my case because in 2007, I appeared on NBC once again, this time on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. The discussion was centered on the Watch Tower settling out-of-court, nine (9) lawsuits with sixteen (16) victims of child sexual abuse. From secret court documents I obtained, the settlement amount was for over twelve (12) million dollars. Watch Tower leaders did not acknowledge responsibility, but by settling these cases, they acknowledged their liability for not reporting molesters to the police; hence, they certainly were responsible for more children being molested.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=N9Xjw_sk7tA

    In addition, both my husband and I appeared in a documentary produced in Geneva, Switzerland that aired in French, November 11, 2010, discussing the child abuse cover-up. http://www.tsr.ch/emissions/temps-present/2482487-grandir-avec-jehovah.html

    Please don't let Watch Tower's persuasive and manipulative words explaining shunning be accorded any favor. The facts are that they spin and tweak their harmful beliefs for the press and expect everyone outside of the Witness religion to think that disfellowshipped folks are all liars when we say we are shunned by our loved ones. In reality, if Jehovah’s Witnesses didn’t shun the disfellowshipped, they would be disfellowshipped and shunned too.

    In the past, I actually wrote articles for Jehovah’s Witnesses Awake! magazine. I knew then how to spin the baloney because I was taught by the best, and I recognize Watch Tower's baloney when I hear it now!

    Barbara Anderson

    http://www.watchtowerdocuments.com

  • Amelia Ashton
    Amelia Ashton

    Thanks for fixing the problem so fast Lady Lee. It's still not viewing quite the normal way on my computer but at least I can see the posts now.

    Here is the very short email I sent which is nowhere near as eloquent as the other two but possibly it will be quantity that persuades the BBC to do a follow up story. I am sure they will be surprised by this global response and the interest shown by people from as far away as America, Canada, Australia and wherever else you guys come from. The power of the internet is fantastic!

    Congratulations on your programme and thank you for bringing to attention the vile practise of shunning by Jehovah's Witnesses.

    I am letting you know the spokesman for Jehovah's Witnesses LIED when he said shunning is not practiced. (I am JW, not disfellowshipped or dissassociated or marked, all terms of disgrace and humiliation that get announced to the rest of the congregation). It hurts those that are not disfellowshipped too to sever all ties with friends and family who are kicked out and it is a cruel and barbaric practise used to bully and intimidate its members into being obedient. There is a very very secret 12 chapters elders book and 7 of those chapters are on disfellowshipping! (Most JWs are not even aware this book exists). I can send a pdf copy if you want. The ex Jehovah's Witnesses (the ones I am NOT ALLOWED to associate with like Angus and Nathan or else I will be shunned too) were the ones telling the truth.

    There are thousands of people in pieces because of what they do and "normal" people don't know anything about it. Once one is baptised as a jehovah's witness one is trapped into the religion like a bird in a cage. Speak out and you risk losing all your friends or family.

    More people need to know what they do. Please help us. Many are only in because of their families and lead double lives to avoid being d'fd. (We call it being dee effed, its easier

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