Friends,
I was responding to another thread about whether the elders were happy to get rid of me, and my answer got so long, I felt like I was hijaaking the thread. So I decided to tell a little more of my story here as a way of introducing myself, and of course to tell folks here how happy I am to make your acquaintances on the forum. (And to thank, Simon, too, of course.) No need to respond to the thread since I've already been talking to many of you for several months now.
When I knew I was leaving, the elders were not happy at all, except for one who seemed to get wilder by the week with his own internal rage over my case.
They never got to a real Judicial Committee with me, but in informal "EBT"s when the other elders figured out we were probably going to leave, there were tears in the eyes of a couple elders, and they were against any ruse this "nemesis" elder wanted to use. But he was the only "Bethel Elder" and thus carried a lot of weight.
I had just left Bethel to get married and had moved from my previous NYC congregation (of several years) to my wife's congregation and I wanted a few more months, at least, of "good standing" or else the Bethel rumor mill would have quickly shredded the reputation of my Bethel Service where I knew about 300 people pretty well. I wanted to keep in touch with a few, and I still do. The elder in question began raising such a stink that he was assigning me talks at every meeting, even sending people to hear my public talks in other congregations. This was in 1981/2, a peak time for articles about 1914 and talks about the Organization and FDS. He even had the CO make a surprise visit to our congregation to hear me give a service meeting part about "The Organization." (Remember elders: when you think you have an apostate on your hands, make sure you put him up in front of the congregation to teach. Makes sense, right?)
He, this elder, was getting very desparate and wild -- pathetic and funny at the same time. The problem he seemed to have with me, is that I had learned to say what they wanted to hear without truly lying and, of course, they finally start asking stupid questions that they aren't even supposed to believe themselves. Like "DO YOU BELIEVE THE GOVERNING BODY IS THE FAITHFUL AND DISCREET SLAVE???" (and they asked it in all caps, too ) To which I could answer with annoying, good-natured humility , "Well I would hope that they are at least included, but I think technically, the Watchtower says that the slave is the entire remnant, and that the GB is only a part of that slave. Am I right? If I missed something new, I'm sorry."
Anyway, they never did disfellowship me, but it made little difference after I wrote them a nice letter DA'ing myself. After I wrote it, Brother R u s k and a few others were very angry at me because they DIDN'T want the letter and they even let me know that they were holding my letter in case I came to my senses. That message was given to me again a couple years later. So I can't say for sure if I'm a JW or not. They made an announcement in the congregation, which should be all that matters, but the WTS was, in effect, defying the authority of the congregations.
Brother S c h r o e d e r asked my brother at Bethel how I was doing a few years ago, and my brother said. Well you know [Gamaliel], he's sometimes an idealist instead of a realist. Albert just looked at him funny, but he, my brother, had already survived his own witch hunt and Bethel was tiring of all the hard work that Inquisitions carry with them.
I think I know the problem that made them not know what to do with me. My wedding kind of summed it up: the ceremony with a half-hour talk was handled by a brother from the conservative side of the Wriiting Dept and the main wedding talk was handled by a brother from the "liberal" (aka later dismissed as near-apostate) side of the Writing Dept. For people that don't know, the WTS couldn't handle the Writing Dept scandal and tried to move a few people out quietly so that it would never be known that up to half would have been considered apostate, if certain questions had been put to them directly. Since I was known to have had very good friends on both sides, it would only have directed more attention at the potential scandal they wished to avoid -- and conservative members might have felt tainted too.
Well, we've lived happily ever after for 20 years now -- soon I'll have half my life back -- and I'm happy to read about more people coming out with similar experiences.
Gamaliel