My wife asked me to attend the special talk with her because she wants to attend something like this as a family and feels that she "enjoys worshipping together" as a family. I have not been to church for at least a year and have pretty much abandoned the practicing of my faith but I can remember how I used to want to have a church going family so I obliged. I feel kind of apprehensive about doing these things because she wants the kids and I to be on our best behavior and has even fussed at me for playing tablet games during other talks. Nevermind the fact that she played Ms Pac-man on her phone when she went to my cousin's church to watch her get baptized. Witnesses have double standards.
Anyway, the talk was okay, nothing earth shattering. Just how to have a happier family life. I even listened a little and felt I got something out of it. We were out of town visiting relatives that weekend and at the end of the day we go for our long drive back to home.
Not even a half hour into the drive she says that she wants to have family studies at home. I said, sure, but I do not want to be led by Watchtower material. I told her that I was sure she would not permit me to bring any Christian material to the "study" so I felt it only fair that we also used no Watchtower material. She said I could bring one Christian publication if she could bring one Watchtower publication. I said no and insisted that a Bible study should be nothing more than that, a BIBLE study. I told her that I did not want any religious influence tainting our reading of the Bible and telling us what the Bible says and quoting a few verses here and there to support that religion's views. I wanted a simple reading of the Bible that would permit us to see only what it says.
She vehemently refused and went on and on about how my understanding of the Bible from all those "atheists" would somehow taint my reading. It went on for at least five minutes with how I had no way of actually learning about the Bible by merely reading it and how she insisted that if I wanted to just read the Bible I could do it on my own but under no circumstances was I to try insist on it being done during family study. Out of shear frustration I finally said, "Fine, if that is the case then I absolutely forbid you to have any kind of family study with my kids and I have the authority to do that." Her response was, "Well, you know that you gave up that authority by not taking up the role of the spiritual head," just to get me goad even more.
Then I laid it on her. "If you insist on sneaking around and teaching my children your Watchtower teachings then I will tell them everything I know, and I mean EVERYTHING! I was holding back, but since you insist of being this way I won't hold back anymore. You see, if you had at least agreed to the strict Bible reading I would've allowed for some of the independent stuff you already do with them." Just to make it clear what EVERYTHING is, it encompasses my knowledge of Watchtower history, the false dates they laid forth, the changed teachings, the murderous and contradictory blood doctrine, the false 607 BCE year, the overlapping generation, and so on. It would also continue with everything I know about the Bible itself such as the documentation hypothesis concerning the authors of the five books of Moses, the anonymous authorship of many of the Pauline epistles and of all four of the gospels as well as the early history of Christianity (not the JW version either). While we're at it, let's discuss the atrocities found in the Bible like God condoning slavery and promoting genocide and bashing baby's heads upon rocks and Jesus mutilating a fig tree when it was out of season for figs, etc..
Fifteen minutes later, she agreed to allow for a simple reading of the Bible for our family study but insist on a single translation, the NWT obviously. I agreed.
Perhaps many of you, being or having been witnesses yourselves, can explain to me why a Bible study cannot be a simple reading of the Bible? During our argument I recall stating that if we had been a family that attended another church there is a good chance that we would have been okay with simply reading the Bible and asking for guidance from the Holy Spirit. Not these people, not my wife at least, to her it is impossible to learn anything about God from simply reading the Bible alone. Is it really a common viewpoint amongst witnesses? To a Christian who has been to protestant churches, this notion is absurd.