On Wednesdays I often see JWs offering literature before the railroad station in the town where I live. Tonight I felt like stopping by.
"Have a look! Help yourself."
- "Thank you."
I pick up a book I had never seen. Turned out to be Mankind in Search of God, a 1990 rehash of an older version -- one of the most interesting as I recall. As I checked the title page I noticed a short bibliography starting with the Bhagavad Gita... in the French version published by the Krishna cult. Found that funny and told them. The girls didn't see the irony, and one of them told me:
- "My husband associated with Krishna before becoming a JW. Do you know our literature?"
- "Yes, very well. Part of my family were JWs, some of them still are."
- "And you never took a stand (French JW jargon for "getting baptised")?"
- "Yes I did -- in and out"
- "Were you disfellowshipped?"
- "Yes I was."
Curiously the conversation didn't stop there. And the next question (by the other girl) was: "Were you in Bethel?"
- "Yes I was. You do know your files."
- "Well, the first one said, Jehovah is willing to forgive you and welcome you back. My son was df'd too, it is tough but I am convinced it was necessary." (She went on to explain that her son was convicted for theft, but that she still had a good relationship with him, for which I congratulated her for acting less stupid than many JWs.)
- "When you say 'Jehovah', you mean the JW organisation, don't you?"
- "No, I mean God. I'm sure my son would not have followed this way had he had a personal relationship with Jehovah."
- "Then how do you know such a relationship cannot exist out of the organisation of JWs, so that any df'd person has to 'come back'? How do you know Jehovah has to 'forgive' me? Mind you, when I was df'd the only thing that was held against me was focusing too much on Jesus and being unable to agree with some WT teachings."
- "That must have been a long time ago."
- "About 20 years. But this is still happening."
- "You must get over it. People are people, Jehovah is Jehovah."
- "Is the JW organisation just "people," a human organisation? If so why should I come back to it? Or is it actually 'Jehovah'?"
- "It's not human... it's not Jehovah, but it's not human either."
Well the talk went on for some time... with repeated invitations to come to the KH "although I wouldn't be greeted at first". To which I answered that they had already talked quite a lot with me -- but I promised I wouldn't tell.