Here I was in happy-no one is really bothering me too much-lala land, Until yesterday when I had to go and open my mouth. A pioneer sister from our hall emailed me to inquire what was preventing me from attending the meetings, and asked what was holding me back from going.(This is about the 5th or 6th email asking this question) Welllllll, I guess I just reached a point where I couldn't pretend anymore. I was tired of pasting that fake grin on my face and nodding my head like an automoton in agreement with everything they said. This is what I wrote...
I won't be going to the hall on Sunday.I really don't think I will be back.
I love the friends, but there are just way too many things that I don't
agree with. The society requires a COMPLETE devotion that I don't feel
comfortable giving imperfect men. Their track record just isn't that good!
To me truth is truth! There isn't present truth, past truth, old light, new
light. The changing of the meaning of 1914 AGAIN, a few years back is what
was really the last straw for me. First 1914 was supposed to be the date for
armageddon, then when 1914 came and went the dates were switched around, and
1914 became the time when christ came to power in heaven, and 1925 was set
to be the date for armageddon. Of course this didn't happen...then the 1914
generation starts to get older and older til finally they have to accede
that ok, you just had to be ALIVE in 1914...then finally everyone got to old
for that to be feasable so of course they have to change the meaning yet
again. (We won't even go into 1975, or a slew of other dates) If Jesus was
indeed giving the governing body his explicit direction, it seems like he
would make it a tad clearer!
Then there is also the issue of things like wavering on matters of
vaccinations and organ transplants (For many years accepting either was a
disfellowshipping offense!) The blood issue...well, they said, you can't
accept any blood! Well, ok...certain fractions are ok....(Where do these
fractions come from? They are obtained from many, many pints of blood that
have been donated and stored) What right do these imperfect men have to
decide what fractions of blood are allowed and which are not? They have no
right. (Wavering on such things would seem to be treading on dangerous
ground, after all who would want to be blood guilty?)They even make what a
married couple does in the privacy of there own bedroom a matter of law!
They make what job you can and cannot have a matter of law! They make what
you can and cannot celebrate a matter of law! Everywhere you turn, there is
a rule! If you don't toe the line, you are either disfellowshipped and cut
off from all your friends and family (And yes you can be disfellowshipped
for things other than pornea or apostasy! There are many who believe in
Jesus and Jehovah with their whole souls, who's only offense was to question
some of the teachings of the governing body and not to back down in their
beliefs...things which later they (the governing body) themselves
changed!!!!) or deemed unworthy of privleges in the congregation.
I just can't blindly follow a religious council (which is what the governing
body is) Who try to control the christian consciences of it's followers to
SUCH an overwhelming degree. It's wrong. Jesus did not require such, and
even depised such law making (read any of the scriptures where Jesus is
speaking to the pharisees.) Don't forget the pharisees too thought they were
pefectly ok in their beliefs, and as a whole I'm sure they were not bad
people! It's just that they got SO wrapped up in their laws that love kind
of fell by the wayside. If one is really chrisitan, one would agree that
when Jesus died he did away with the law code. Christianity is a not a
complex maze of laws! Jesus basically said to Love God and Love Your
Neighbor As Yourself! Easy to understand (though not always easy to do)
Well, that is just the icing on the cake, but those are pretty much the main
reasons. I really, really do not want to be disfellowshipped, or to even
disassociate (Both actions have the same consequences) I find it sad however
that these are the only two options given to those who have differences with
the GB and voice them. One is just not allowed to leave quietly. I hope I am
wrong and that it will not come to that. We will see what the future holds.
For me, I have NEVER felt such peace. My nightmares have stopped (Ones that
I have had for as long as I can remember) And for the first time, I think I
am actually starting to feel some kind of spirituality. Please do not feel
pity for me! I am not losing anything! I am gaining my life back.I'll close for now...I hope I have not lost your respect, as I value your
thoughts and friendship. Your are a sweet, loving person who has a warmth
that one feels immediately when in your presence. I love you and thank you
so much for your concern and kind words.
Anywho.....that went over like a lead balloon. Here is her reply:
But now, What can I say to your unsettled and misunderstood words. When
you dedicated your life as I did you dedicated it to Jehovah and you
understood the organization that you were becoming part of. Or did you?I have no problems with understanding and accepting and appreciating all
that is involved in being in the truth. Yes the truth is progressive as
the light is progressive as Jehovah is a progressive.I ask you just one question in this regard. If you don't want to be in
Jehovah's organization what does it matter that you are in name only.?
As you expressed in your letter, you know it will have to come to
something. Jesus said one is either for him or against him, there is not
middle ground, and especially one who has voluntarily dedicated their
life to Jehovah and the doing of his will. When did that stop being the
real issue. Did anyone make you do that, Did anyone force you to accept
the truth and become one of Jehovah's witnesses. It is a decided thing,
certainly a choice for people who truly believe. Is that now what you
are saying you no longer feel to be true.The ideas you expressed in you e-mail sound like apostate thinking, I
mean really, what have you been reading? I really don't understand.
Where will you go, and how will you serve Jehovah?Who have you been associating with?
Yikes! LOL
Here is my reply back:
The one true God is not *progressive* as you state...he is has he always has
been! Rock solid! The truth is the truth! It doesn't change. Men's
understanding changes, but not the truth or God. That is where my problem
lies with the organization! We must go along with EVERYTHING as if it is
directly from God and Jesus not questioning of causing waves. Did the
apostles back track and change their thinking on things? Paul states
explicilty in Galations 1:8 "However, even if we or an angel out of heaven
were to declare to you as good news something beyond what we declared to you
as good news, let him be accursed" and verse 10 "Is it, in fact men I am now
trying to persuade or God? Or am I seeking to please men? If I were yet
pleasing men, I would not be christs slave. 11 For I put you on notice
brothers, that the good news which was declared by me as good news is not
something human. 12 For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught
it, except through revelation by Jesus Christ.
In Deuteronomy 18:20 it states "However, the prophet who presumes to speak
in my name a word that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in
the names of other Gods, that prophet must die. 21 And in case you should
say in your heart: "How shall we know the word that Jehovah has not spoken?"
22 When the prophet speaks in the name of Jehovah and the word does not
occur or come true, that is the word that Jehovah did not speak.
Those are from God's inspired word, not from me, or any *apostate*
literature as you phrase it.You ask what i have been reading. I would answer to you, The Bible!
You ask whom I have been associating with. No one different than I have
ever associated with. My family and my husband's family. My friend next door
moved away recently, but she had NO influence on my thinking whatsoever. My
doubts go much furthur back than my friendship with her. She never said one
bad word againt the witnesses. She asked me many times if I would like to go
to church with her, but I never did, nor do I now have any desire to.I did not dedicate my life to an organizition. When I was baptised in 1983
the baptism questions I said yes to were these:
"Have you recognized yourself before Jehovah God as a sinner who needs
salvation, and have you acknowledged to him that this salvation proceeds
from him the Father through his son Jesus Christ" and the second question
"On the basis of this faith in God and in his provision for salvation, have
you dedicated yourself unreservedly to God to do his will henceforth as he
reveals it through Jesus Christ and through the Bible under the
enlightenment of the holy spirit.?"The questions were changed in 1985, and I absolutely would NOT have agreed
to both of them...only the first. The new questions are thus: "On the basis
os the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, have you repented of your sins and
dedicated yourself to Jehovah to do his will?" And the second question "Do
you understand that your dedication and baptism identify you as one of
Jehovah's Witnesses in assosiation with God's spirit-directed organization?"Christ told his disciples to "baptize in the name of the Father, The Son and
The holy Spirit" When they (The governing body) changed the questions in
1985 they effectively replaced the holy spirit with "the spirit directed
organization" They are placing themselves in the place of intermediary!
Isn't that like a servent telling telling people that he can only have
contact with his master if he is there too? You state that Jesus says one is
for him or against him. Here in lies the problem with Witness thinking.
Jehovahs Witnesses equate faithfulness to *THE OGANIZATION* with
faithfulness to Jesus! That is DEFINATELY a different gospel than the one
the apostles preached!Matthew 24:48-51 says:
But if that slave should say in his heart, "My master is delaying" and
should start to beat his fellow slave, and should eat and drink with the
confirmed drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day that he
does not expect him an in an hour that he does not know, and will punish him
with the greatest severity and will assign him his part with the unfaithful
ones.I know that the society has applied this to those who don't except
completely their teachings. However...of the two slaves depicted in the
parable, which one indicates that he had a preconceived idea of a certain
time in which his master might arrive??? It was NOT the faithful slave. The
evil slave would not have felt that his master was delaying unless he
expected him within a certain time period. The faithful slave is not
represented as having any particular idea of how long his master might be
away.You make it sound like I have been have been engaging in something horrible!
I EMPHATICALLY state that this is competely and utterly not true. My only
crime is THINKING!As someone who was raised as a Jehovah's Witness from the time they were 3
years old, I was not allowed ANY other options. I was not allowed to think
beyond a certain boundry. When you are told from the time you are a baby
that the sky is green, you are going to believe that the sky is green. That
doesn't make it so....If you consider me apostate which according the the definition in the
dictionary is one who renunciates a religious faith, or abandonment of a
previous loyalty, then so to was Paul an apostate. He abandoned his Judaism.
Any early christian would be considered thus in that respect.I personally find the term ugly and would not use it do describe myself or
the apostles, it is only those who are scared of the real truth that resort
to name calling. The real truth has nothing to fear! I know there is nothing
I can say to make you understand where I'm coming from, as evidenced by the
appalled tone in your letter, so I will stop here. I expected as much, and
that is what I got.
I know that she is going to go straight to the gestapo with this, but I'm to the point where I almost don't care....almost. I absolutely refuse to go to any inquisitions that they might be brewing up. Which after reading many of your posts, I can see will lead to my DF in absentia. I'm just glad that it has taken me only 37 years to WAKE UP instead of the 60 that it took Ray, and some even longer.
(Sigh) I know this will be tough on my family (My mom, dad and brother and my husbands mom and dad) But I'm about 100% sure that they will still talk to me. My MILs sister is disfellowshipped and they still talk to her :) When they want to know what happened I will show them all the letters that I have written and tell them to read CofC and ISofCF for themselves. Who knows, maybe this will open the door to leading others in my family out of this mind control garbage.
Wish me well and maybe pop a few prayers in there too.
Thanks for listening
BW