Grreat Teacher said: I would love to see the content of that letter.
I know many sent letters so perhaps others would like to share theirs here as well. I have removed my real name and replaced it with my JWN id. Here is my email:
Dear Mr. Stewart,
Thank you so very much for all you, Hon Justice Peter McClellan, and the rest of the Royal Commission team are doing in the investigation of institutional responses to child sexual abuse within the Jehovah's Witnesses. I am very impressed with your professional manner and depth of knowledge of this organization. Remaining composed during this is an amazing task you all manage to accomplish very well. This must be very difficult, if not exhausting.
I was raised in this religion but chose not to join for a number of reasons, misogyny being one of them. It has been a tough road where my Witness family are concerned.
I once started to document the known child abusers within this religion reported online from various news sources and after page one I had to stop as I was becoming physically ill.
Most Witnesses are unaware of the magnitude of the issue of child abuse as it is kept secret from them. They are not warned that there are abusers amongst them and are encouraged not to listen to outside sources of information including the news media. When they do hear of it, they believe these sources are telling lies or that the cases are very few. Preventing the "dragging of Jehovah's name through the mud" is really more important to this group than actually protecting people.
My Father once told me that children in Africa born with HIV must be pre-destined to be sinners in Jehovah's eyes after I challenged his idea that Jehovah is loving but then allows a child in utero to contract HIV. My parents also accused me of provoking a man at work who was harassing me. They felt I must have done something for this man to be behaving this way. I assured them I had not.
I have always hoped that the laws of various countries would change to remove the harmful, damaging, and destructive aspects of fundamentalist type religions and groups. There is more than child abuse going on within many of these, the Witnesses included.
I wish you and the RC much success in bringing about positive change. When a group is based on outdated principles such as Patriarchy, various abuses seem to abound. If laws are not enacted, though, as a result of these investigations, The Watchtower will not adopt any changes. Their authority is their interpretation of the Bible unless there is a law which prohibits them from using the Bible literally. They will view this investigation as persecution by Satan.
Regards,
Heaven