How would you feel if this happened to you?

Island Man

Imagine you're a mentally out, physically in, awake JW who still attend meetings and occasionally do a little door-to-door perfunctory service just to please the still-in spouse and keep the elders off your back while you slowly and subtly try to free your spouse of the cult.

You're also a vociferous online critic of the JW organization and its harmful policies and false teachings.

One day while out doing your occasional perfunctory door-to-door service with a still-in JW, you knock on a door and the householder comes out and says:

"Are you Jehovah's Witnesses? I know all about your organization and how it has covered up cases of pedophilia, refusing to report confessed pedophiles to the police! And what's this crap about Jerusalem falling in 607 BCE? There's mountains of evidence showing that it actually happened around 586/587 BCE. I know all about your twisted cult thanks to the internet. And don't even dare give me this propaganda nonsense about apostate lies. That's just a grooming tactic to get people to disbelieve the ugly truth about your cult in preference for your self-serving lies! I know all about your cult thanks to many online ex-JWs like Mike and Kim, John Cedars and..."

. . . and then he mentions your online name! He actually mentions your name! You are out in service knocking on the door of someone you educated about the evils of Watchtower . . . and he's vocally refusing to hear the message you have come to "preach" to him and he goes back inside and shuts the door in your faces, saying he wants nothing to do with your corrupt religious organization.

How would you feel? Would any JW have anything even remotely approaching the feeling you'll have?

Or how about this:

You read an experience online of an ex-JW who was disfellowshipped/disassociated for accepting a blood transfusion to save his life. In the experience he relates how a certain comment or blog posting by a Watchtower critic exposing the folly of Watchtower's blood policy, made a lasting impression on him and gave him the courage to defy Watchtower and accept a blood transfusing, likely saving his life. He relays the points in the posting and you find it sounds . . . it sounds eerily familiar . . . and then it hits you: Wait a minute! That's my posting - I posted that! My speaking out against Watchtower's fanatical anti-blood doctrine likely saved this man's life!

Has anything like these happened to you or any awake (ex-)JW that you know?

OnTheWayOut

It's hard to imagine being the fake self and hearing praise for the genuine self.
I have met a few people who said that reading my book made a difference for them, and I was totally humbled, nearly speechless at their words. One said, "I read your book first while still in, before anything from Ray Franz or the like, and it allowed me to keep reading others." Another was already out, but said "I read excerpts from your book to my JW-wife because it's not about doctrine." A coworker's wife said she gave her copy of my book to a young JW girl questioning the religion of her parents and didn't know if she should keep questioning. The coworker's wife said it made her go to the internet and she will avoid baptism and get out when she moves out of her parents' home.

So I have to think in your fictional scenario, I would snicker and hold back "THAT'S AWESOME!"

sparrowdown

That would indeed be a surreal experience, but, I think if I was still engaging in perfunctory service I would scrawl on the back of the tracts I was handing out

Heeeeeelp I'm trapped in a cult.

redpilltwice

So cool, I envy you! Real succes stories, but not of the WT kind. We need more of that!

careful

Scenario number one: That would be "surreal" indeed! I'd probably have a good laugh, wink at the householder, and go on to the next door. You know, "wait on Jehovah"!

Scenario number two: This one would be harder. I know a bro. from one of my old congos who has been DFed for taking a blood transfusion. I've wondered what I would do if I ran into him. I think I'd probably talk with him, perhaps in some out of the way place in order to protect us both, in case he would ever want to try and get back in. I understand his wife left him over his disagreeing with the org, so he may still want to try and save his marriage by going back. I'd not like to be DFed myself since that would put that shunning stress on those I still associate with. But I'd probably talk about the issue with him.

This is a good post!

LV101

AWESOME! Island Man and OTWO are both heros along with many others onboard here.

Skedaddle

Wow it would be awesome...

Maybe we need a code for JW's that are out but still in:) Something they can do discreetly.

Island Man

Wow it would be awesome...
Maybe we need a code for JW's that are out but still in:) Something they can do discreetly.

See this thread

Island Man

Just to make a clarification: The scenarios I've given are not actual occurrences that I've experienced. They're just hypothetical scenarios for the sake of discussion and to elicit any real experiences from others along those lines.

GodZoo

Imagine you're a mentally out, physically in, awake JW who still attend meetings and occasionally do a little door-to-door perfunctory service.

As far as I try to stretch my imagination beyond all bounds of sense and personal integrity I just can't ever imagine myself being in such a situation. There are just way too many extreme polar opposites in your opening statement that it would require a complete breakdown in one's mental well being to even contemplate half of that.

How would you feel if this happened to you?

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