I don't know if you would label these apostates per say. I don't know if either is baptized, and these interviews aren't overly negative. At the same time the WT's definition of apostate is standing away from the WT's teachings in any way, shape, or form. So these might be appropriate examples of JW apostates.
http://www.adherents.com/people/pr/Michelle_Rodriguez.html
Betty [interviewer]: You seem very grounded for your age. Can you tell me a little bit about your family background?
Michelle [Rodriguez]: My family background? Whew. That's pretty cookey. I was born in Texas and I lived there 'till I was eight. Then I moved to the Dominican Republic with my mom, lived there for two years and forgot every word of English I knew. From there, 'cause my brother just couldn't get the education he wanted, we moved to Puerto Rico for a year, and from there I came to Jersey City! I grew up a Jehovah's Witness because my grandmother was really influencing that lifestyle on me. That is a very morally intense religion. And although they keep you from experiencing a lot of the bad things that can really hurt you out there in the world, they are also depriving you from experiencing life. And a lot of things you learn from after being in life.
So, I had that Jehovah Witness influence 'till I was fourteen in Jersey City and whenever I would visit my dad, it was like Freud and Darwin, and "learn for yourself," and "play chess," and experience things for yourself. So I grew up torn. That's my background.
http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/2000/10/Double-Crossed-By-Religion.aspx
PR: So you were raised Jehovah’s Witness?
JR: Yeah, that’s a tough religion. You don’t have birthdays, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas, you know, because that’s not the day Christ was born. So there’s no need to celebrate. I would get like a gift a week after Christmas or a week before Christmas, because all the other kids would have stuff and then it would be like, "Why don’t I have nothing?" So my mom and grandma would get me stuff.
With Jehovah's Witnesses, you kind of go out and knock on doors, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did you do that?
Its called field service.
What age did you start that?
I used to do field service when I was young--8. I used to do it younger than that, but I remember the years when I was 8, 9, I really--we use to always try to skip field service, because sometimes you had to knock on your friends’ doors. That was embarrassing, to be in your suit and to knock on the door. You’re cool in school, and now you’re knocking on a door in a suit. Everybody in my family was Jehovah's Witness. My father was, too. I was never baptized, but my mom was, and she got disfellowshiped.
Why?
My mom had friends from work; they would hang out with her girlfriends and co-workers and they would have drinks and stuff, you know regular stuff, you know what people do, normal stuff.
Yeah, right.
And she got caught doing that stuff and then they disfellowship you. My mom, she was kind of tired of living like a double life, because she felt these things she was doing weren’t wrong like in regular society. She says she called them and she told them, and they disfellowshiped her. Now when you get disfellowshiped, nobody is allowed to talk to you--not even your family. My mom, she was real hurt by that. That’s how I kind of got like a cold feeling towards the religion and religions in general. Because I said I don’t think that is something God would want. I don’t think God would want to separate families.
Obviously there’s a lot negative there. What was positive in being Jehovah's Witness while you were in that?
What happened was, when I got into junior high school, I had this friend. His mom was heavy into religion. She was Christian, and I used to go spend the night at his house a lot. This was when Mom was already disfellowshiped, so I had outside worldly friends. I used to spend the night and weekends and stuff, and his mom used to always make us go to Sunday school. Now, you know I did not tell my mom at first.
She might be upset if she thought you were going to a different Sunday school?
Yeah, so I didn’t tell my mom at first because I was kind of scared. But I was curious. My religion was so crazy and strange and weird, I thought, well, maybe let me explore religions. So I started going to church with my friend. It was basically the same, not too much different.
You are about 11 now or--
About 11 or 12. But when I got older, I start hearing lots of this about Jehovah's Witness, the people I used to go to the Hall with. Such and such son just went to jail, she was selling drugs and not this regular-family s--t going on. You know, regular human problems, brother such and such hit his wife and he’s getting demoted from being an elder now. I’m seeing all these things happening in the Christian churches too. So now I’m looking at it as, you know, it's not just the Christian religion. The Jehovah's Witness used to make it seem that all the outside religion is f---ed up and they’re the best religion. But it's not everyone else, it's you too. I mean, everybody has their problems, because we are all human.
Now I am going to high school and its cool to be Muslim, five-percenter. So we start getting into that, so they made me preach hate the white man. I start getting into Malcolm X. I learned that he started feeling different about the Muslim religion because of the foul goings-on he saw. And I’m like, Well, damn, every religion there’s something foul going on, there’s foul play going on everywhere. I’m 20 here, and I’m thinking maybe religion is the problem. Because religion is some man-made s--t. It’s a man who said, "OK, you should go to this church every Sunday, you should go to the Kingdom Hall and go out to field service, you should go to the mosque. You should do all these things, this is what you should do. Who the f--- told you? In the Bible God said come as you are. Who made these laws, that’s what I want to know. So that’s why I wear two crosses now. I call it double cross. I believe in God and not religion, because I believe religion is the double cross. Because I’ve been double crossed by three religions, so I think I can safely say that religion--there is maybe something wrong with religion. Every temple that’s put up may not be a holy one, so watch out.
So, JA Rule...is JA Jehovah?
No, its funny--a lot of people think that, but JA is my initials. My name is Jeff Atkins.
Come on, you never considered--
I mean, it all made a good, it made a parody, whatever you want to call it. I didn’t think about it first, first. I thought, JA--that’s cool, you know it means Jah Rastafari, "God."
