I am a new to posting on this board though I have been actively reading your posts the past while and I thank some of you for the interesting viewpoints that you have verbalized and that I have enjoyed thinking on. I am still an active JW, in fact an elder of 20 years standing hence my need to limit information about my personal circumstances. I have served in a number of countries in Europe as a Pioneer and Elder over the past three decades. I realized many years ago, in fact in the mid/late 70’s, that what the WTS basically represented was just another extremist Christian philosophy, one of many around the planet. Like extremists in any situation, the WTS by definition will always feel the need to guard its borders by any means for the ‘good’ of their adherents. As long as we have a voice and are convinced about our own ‘truth’, then we are all open to behaving as extremists ourselves and frankly even some posters to this board are not exempt from the very motivation that seems to have driven the WTS since the 20’s. Any who feel the that GB are motivated by anything other than a total conviction that they are Christ’s right hand will never understand their mentality and subsequently their entrenched modus operandi. These men are very hardworking, deeply committed and totally convinced that they have the enormous responsibility of taking care of Christ’s interests upon the earth. This is not a viewpoint that can be reformed, as it is one that the very premise of an exclusive organisation is built upon. The WTS are unhappily caught on the barbed wire fence between Judaism and Christianity and are having great difficulty disentangling themselves from the theological turmoil that they have created. The ‘pattern of healthful words’ has become a turgid mantra that many seem to be finding harder to utter with each passing day, though it has to be said that most Witnesses are in my experience not terribly interested in doctrine.
Extremism and conviction walk as dangerous companions in any facet of life, whether this be pro-religion or anti-religion, pro-WTS or anti-WTS and unfortunately it seems that the damage done to many of you by your experiences within the WTS has left with deep emotional issues and many others with challenging practical problems to contend with in life. This is very sad and my heart goes out to you all, I am sorry for what has happened to you. I am especially sorry for those who have had their love and affection for God and Christ blighted by their association with the WTS. Unhappily, I am quite sure that these experiences can be duplicated by many others caught within equally extremist philosophies, both political and religious throughout history. Thankfully many of you are young and will find your own road in life once some sort of closure is achieved, to the older ones, who strangely seem more philosophical about their experiences in the WTS, I salute your instincts to survive and polish the crown of your collective wisdom.
I appreciate that it may puzzle most of you as to how I have been able to be part of and indeed support an arrangement for so long when I have been well aware of its theological and social flaws. As time passes I will try to explain this issue, so please bear with me. Needless to say, I have found in life that nothing is completely good nor completely bad. Some of the most wonderful good hearted people I have met have been JW’s and some of the most spiteful and deceitful that I have rubbed shoulders with have also graced this strange collective edifice. Is this experience any different from any other organization, religion, business, political party, neighborhood, indeed individual? I suspect not. Every man or woman is capable of everything and I feel that motives are absolutely everything in life. It is our true motives for which we will be judged and as an attempting Christian I wrestle with this issue daily as all of us, Christian or not should. Somehow, we must all find a way to leave this world a better place than we found it and we can address that aim wherever we choose to stake our claim. Looking forward to getting to know you better.
Bless you all
‘Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted’