As you may or may not know from previous posts, I am a born & raised JW who just drifted away (no df/da) from a father and two sisters who still keep the JW faith. And while my father is aware that I have "apostate" beliefs of some kind, he prefers not to hear of it. As a result, we still enjoy each other's company and nobody has "shunned" me. I have usually repsected his right to practice his religion, though I know it to be a false one.
Every now and then, he will make a tear-filled plea for me to come back. For in his heart, he is going to live in paradise with my deceased mother and he will have to explain to her that her boys are lost. She will never see us again. At such times, when he tries to pull me back in, I take off the gloves and tell him various reasons why I could never be a JW and preach those lies again. And, while I haven't changed his views and he still feels his loss, we go back to this sort of detant, not bringing up the subject for a while.
Over the past several weeks, however, I felt like he was trying to sneak it in subtly. He'd talk about the president wanting to go to war. Or he'd talk about all the starving in Africa. Maybe these are just things on his mind and he's making conversation. But in my mind, it started to feel like he's trying to make me feel like "look at what's happening! This proves the end is right around the corner! Think about what you're doing and come back before it's too late!"
So, last week, I started fighting back on topics. Like, when he'd mention these "signs", I'd always respond with things like, oh, that doesn't compare to this or that. That famine doesn't compare to the one in China in the 1800's where 50 million died, or whatever the figure was (I had it handy at the time). And last weekend, one thing led to another and I started saying I think that once the old GB dies off, there'll be some changes. That 1914, for instance, is known within Bethel to be unsupportable and it'd probably be dropped some day. To which he says it's well established. After laughing, I referred him to Jer 25:12 and asked him whether that jived with what his religion taught. If 70 years ended with the Jews returning to Jerusalem, how can the king of Babylon (dead for about 2 years) be punished after 70 years ends? I asked him to look that up. It's not wrong to look in the Bible, is it? No, he said, but I could tell he wasn't writing it down and wasn't going to dare even touch it.
Somewhat sorry for the way I handled it, this week, I talked to him about it and apologized for attacking his beliefs and we've agreed to back off. He says it was worrying him and if I continued, that it would split us apart and he didn't want to see that happen. I asked him, if I could show him that something the JWs were teaching was wrong, would he want to know about it or continue believing something false. He said he didn't want to know about it. But then dismissed it by alluding to the fact that there's many different viewpoints in religion. In other words, it might sound like the JWs are false, but they really aren't - it's some sort of fancy trick. That he doesn't want to hear about it because it's all BS anyway because the JWs are right, no matter what.
So, we dropped it, but I'm somewhat infuriated. Looking back, he doesn't acknowledge that his precious JWs could ever have any problems and threatened to cut ties with me if I insisted they did. But so be it, I still love him. And whatever keeps the peace.
But, makes me wonder about it all though. Let me first of all state that I do believe in God and the Bible. I'm not part of a religion and probably never will be. I don't have an answer or grand plan and don't feel I need to explain everything in the Bible. I don't feel that lack of an explanation for everything makes my beliefs invalid. But I do know some teachings are wrong and the JWs are wrong.
So the question becomes my father. What do you do with somebody like this? The man is very loving and is a very good person, but he's very tied to his religion. He's in his late 70's and this is all he knows. All his friends are JWs. All his social activities are JW ones. It's what keeps him going. Take it away and you take away his reason to live. I fear that if I somehow do find a way to make him see how wrong it is, he will feel deeply affected. Everything he's lived the past 50 years for has been for a lie. If he sees that, what hope does he have? That sort of thing can be devastating. The thing that makes people sit around and wait to die. And as a result, it happens sooner.
He needs to follow something, I don't have a replacement. I often wonder what God thinks. Does God think, here's this man who follows men and spreads lies about me to others, entraping them in service to men rather than me. This man doesn't deserve my Grace. Is that the way God would feel? No matter how sincere he is and kind? Or would he see this man for being kind and, though he serves men, see that he believes he serves God? Or does he need to be pulled away from the JWs? If I do, I fear for his reaction. Perhaps he will turn his back on God altogether and become a bitter old man.
Anyone else feel the same struggle I do with their JW friends/family?