Are you complicit if you stay in?

by mrhhome 49 Replies latest jw friends

  • mrhhome
    mrhhome

    I am going to throw down the gaunlet. Those who know the truth but stay in anyways are complicit in actions of the Jehovah Witness organization. While I am sympathetic to the very difficult choices that they have to make, their unwillingness to confront the JW enables the organization.

    Some of you may remember my story. Married a DA'ed JW. Dealing with JW mother and brother in-law. Father in-law is not a JW but gives them free reign. Wife was publically shunned by brother at uncle's funeral.

    One of my many issues with the situation is that I shouldn't have to be dealing with this. Someone else dragged me into it, and now, I have to figure out how to deal with it. Another issue is that the battle lines have essentially gotten drawn around my wife which creates friction in my household. She has a classic survior mindset. Why isn't the fight taken to the households of those who created this mess?

    If someone had stood up to these Witnesses 30 years ago, I would not have to deal with this now.

  • Giordano
    Giordano

    More people stood up to the JW's 30, 40, 50 years ago then you'd think.............. I was one of them. Anytime some of my JW's friends asked why I left they got an earful only they weren't listening. Now we have forum sites and active JW's do visit and get an earful. Any that want to can visit Freeminds2.org and/or jwfacts.com and read actually what the Society had to say. Think foot in mouth.

    Back in the day if you left you were not DF. You can still do that today but it takes planing and cooperation from close family members if they want to stay in contact with you. Marriages often fall apart, children are involved.......... there are a lot of factors at play....the biggest one is that a close family member (not husband and wife or children under the age of 18) is compelled not to talk, write, email any DFed person. The WTBTS is used to losing tons of peole.....they simply don't care.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Student_movement

    A number of schisms developed within the congregations of Bible Students associated with the Watch Tower Society between 1909 and 1932. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The most significant split began in 1917 following the election of Joseph Franklin Rutherford as president of the Watch Tower Society two months after Russell's death.

    Thousands of members left congregations of Bible Students associated with the Watch Tower Society throughout the 1920s prompted in part by Rutherford's failed predictions for the year 1925, increasing disillusionment with his on-going doctrinal and organizational changes, and his campaign for centralized control of the movement. [ 2 ] William Schnell, author and former Jehovah's Witness, claims that three-quarters of the original Bible Students who had been associating with the Watch Tower Society in 1921 had left by 1931. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] In 1930 Rutherford stated that "the total number of those who have withdrawn from the Society ... is comparatively large." [ 7 ]

  • DesirousOfChange
    DesirousOfChange

    So..........it's like WE should complicate OUR life to make YOUR life easier.

    Yeah, right.

    You married her. You get to handle her baggage.

    Good luck.

    Doc

  • Tiktaalik
    Tiktaalik

    I agree with the OP's premise.

    Those who know the TATT and yet continue to stay in are helping to prop up and enable this evil.

    It would greatly damage the organisation if those hypocritical people just left. There are elders who are disfellowshipping and destroying the lives of others (some are active on this board) who know the real truth about the society. This is just wrong.

    The jws thrive on numbers. They beat their flock around the head with the statistics of growth and the numerical weight of the amount of people attending. Everyone who goes along to meetings helps them in this regard. Your presence is noted, recorded and used to keep the rank and file in line. Even lowly "sisters" warming a chair in the hall assist in this.

    Yes it is difficult and painful and it can have long lasting consequences, if you decide to make a stand and stop being part of the organisation. But if you choose to stay in while knowing the TATT you have to acknowledge that you are contributing a small part to the misery of others.

  • mrhhome
    mrhhome

    You married her. You get to handle her baggage.

    Never was there a more true statement. I knew the whole story within the first week of meeting her. Never would I have imagined exactly what it all meant. She is worth it, but oh Gosh, dealing with JW is painful.

    So..........it's like WE should complicate OUR life to make YOUR life easier.

    It cuts both ways. Why is my life more complicated because you are unwilling to deal with your baggage? You deal with yours first. That is where this problem started.

  • villagegirl
    villagegirl

    Tiktaalik - You have stated this correctly. There is no excuse for the hypocricy

    of the thousands, possibly millions of people who lack the backbone to stand

    up to the Watchtower, especially Elders. Their only motive is selfish, prestige,

    position, power, and self aggrandizement all behind a mask of double lives

    and their own lies. Even spreading the literature and going in "service"

    Service to what ? They know its a sham and still participate.

    If they all suddenly walked out it would make an impact.

    Especially if they declared from the platform their reasons in front

    of the congregation, like real men. Those who left before the Internet,

    did so at great personal cost and with courage and honesty. And alone.

    The ones who stay in now and come here to vent and whine, are enabling

    the lies and false teachings , and helping the WT to ruin more young lives and

    keep people in darkness and slavery and poverty. For personal gain.

  • cofty
    cofty

    enabling the False Prophet, and helping the WT to ruin more young lives and keep people in spiritual darkness and slavery and poverty - VG

    I was pondering whether or not I agreed with you right up to when you started preaching.

  • villagegirl
    villagegirl

    Cofty- just for you, I modified the wording.

  • KateWild
    KateWild

    If someone had stood up to these Witnesses 30 years ago, I would not have to deal with this now.-mrrhome

    I think this is a bit of a simplistic view, Giordano has basically shown that no matter how many make a stand and leave the cult will grow. It's a machine an no one can control it.

    I left when I learned TTATT and so did my daughter, but we can't stop WT. Your wife would be suffering no matter what, there are always going to be people who will be recruited into the cult and stuck in the cult due to family reasons.

    There are many with the same view as you, but leaving a cult and deprogramming from a cult is not as easy as it may seem. I left and am very isolated and finding it hard to rebuild my life, my ex is making it hard and not letting my son have contact with me, and finding a job in my profession has been a challenge. Other JWs that were in my situation would just shut up and put up with it and avoid all the challenges I have had to face. I can understand why they would. Much of the time my close JW loved ones would try and hush me up, they could forsee the outcome, they wanted to keep our family together and keep us all loyal JWs, but I knew my ex was a liar and a fake and I would just not shut up. But that's me, I totally get why others would not do what I did.

    Kate xx

  • Billy the Ex-Bethelite
    Billy the Ex-Bethelite

    Personally, I appreciate those on this forum who are still in for whatever reason.

    Those who are still elders and post here are in the best position to share with us WT's ugly financial strategies. How would we know anything about their current money-grab if it weren't for the insiders that willingly disclose it here? Those who drag themselves to the Discrap Crapvention are able to recount the mindnumbing dramas and other details that I'm glad I don't have to sit through.

    Thanks to their contributions to this forum, I know what my family is being told by WT, by the COs, etc. It's the absolute best spy network that I pay nothing to benefit from.

    And for the minority of posters on here who are still attending meetings, if they suddenly chose to DA and never set foot in a KH again, it wouldn't somehow end the brainwashing of my friends and family. Rather, it would be a gift to WT if all "closet apostates" left. It would be their dream come true if they could put out an even crazier elders' manual and there wouldn't be anyone to leak it to the web. People like me would lose a valuable source of inside information.

    Consequently, to those of you that are still stuck inside and come here to describe all the craziness inside WT, I say, "Thank You!"

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