My wife and I stopped going to meetings in 1988 and sent in a letter in 1989. I now recognize that we had some advantages others did not. We were both converts and we no longer had close family and friends in the org. We sent a letter because we wanted everyone to know we did not believe the Watchtower. We've never regretted it.
Posts by JeffT
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31How get out of watchtower?
by Hellothere inhow do you get out of watchtower?
am i supposed to write letter to bethel or local congregation telling them i don't want to be a jw anymore?
how are the steps.
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JeffT
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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JeffT
It is very hard to make "activism" your primary income, especially if the target is something as elusive as the Watchtower's prophecy and doctrine. Eventually a person's first hand knowledge of what goes on inside the cult is past it's pull date, buried under all the "new light" that appeared after you left.
This is exactly what happened to me. I left in 1989, by the mid-to-late nineties my first hand experience was no longer meaningful. These days I come here to see what's going on because it interests me. I'm a consumer, not a provider.
Lloyd's personal problems probably accelerated this process. He does hot have personal experience with anything now coming out of the Watchtower. He can offer his comments on it, but his information isn't any better than that of about a million other people.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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JeffT
Personally I think it’s a system that is vulnerable to abuse which this case is emblematic of.
I agree 1000% I have to wonder how many Croatians find themselves counting cash into the hands of a cop to make the "criminal case" go away.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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JeffT
All I was saying was that (in the US at least) sending that letter is not a crime. All the issues raised are the kind of thing that get settled at trial, and would be included in the court documents when filed.
So far nobody has seen the court documents, so arguing about it is moot.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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JeffT
Your accountant showing up again.
I don't know anything about the Croatian legal system, I know a lot about how the US legal system deals with debts and torts.
In the US it is common practice (frequently involving smaller amounts of money) to send a "demand letter' outlining the nature of the problem and the proposed cure. Example "Your kid threw a rock through my window and did five hundred dollars damage, invoice for the repair included. Please pay this amount within thirty days to avoid further action." This puts the defendant on notice, if the case goes to court the plaintiff can point out they made a reasonable effort to settle the problem outside the courts.
I think this letter should be read as a demand letter not a threat. It is poorly worded (a good lawyer would try to sound friendlier) but otherwise not that far off the mark. One telling factor is the low ball statement of damages. In the US $3K (or whatever it was) is chump change, a matter for small claims court. No lawyer with brains is going to give up the big money coming out of the starting gate.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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JeffT
You had the audacity to ask abuse survivors to pay you for including their story in your book so you can profit off their stories, twice, with that payment and then when someone buys the book.
A correction from your friendly accountant:
He's triple dipping not double dipping.
1) Patron $
2) charging people to put their story in his book. Usually it's the other way around.
3) Book sales.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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JeffT
Maybe find a good book to read if you long for an “ending”.
I can't help myself. I have six novels for sale on Amazon.com. Two of them have some connection to my time as a JW. No two of them come up to the page count of "The Reluctant Apostate." PM me if you want a link to buy one.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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JeffT
SBF Caro writes biographies. What Evans wrote was a memoir of sorts, although the reviews sounds like he blurred the boundaries between genres, another no-no in the publishing world. I think his whole approach probably screamed "unprofessional" at whoever he was sending proposals to.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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JeffT
Side note - since when does a publisher give a random former JW elder an “advance”? Advances are given to celebrities or prominent people for their memoirs.
Advances aren't just for celebrities. Unless you're dealing with a really small Indie publisher an advance of some sort is typical. Five hundred dollars would be a big advance for a first time author. Lloyd's big problem with publishing "The Reluctant Apostate" is that the thing is 200,000 words/800 pages long. The publishers know that NOBODY wants to wade through that to learn the story of some guy stuck in goofy cult.
Edited to add, I just looked up industry standards. A typical memoir runs 60,000 to 80,000 words.
So to people who say "but his videos help so much jw to get out of the cult" I say OH HELL NO!
It's been pointed out before, and his worth mentioning again, a person who is watching anti-watchtower You Tubes is already on their way out, even if they don't know it. My wife and I left the WTBS years before the internet became a thing. The information has always been out there, you just needed the nerve to go look at it.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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JeffT
why did Evans soar to prominence?
Was he ever important anywhere other than his own mind?
I first noticed him (and dismissed him almost immediately) with the flap over AAWA and the outing of many PIMO's who didn't want to be outed. And then there was the fake signature on the incorporating paperwork for that entity. Then we had his attempt to gain control of "Crisis of Conscience."
I'm not impressed at all with his videos, they are bloated and rarely contain much in the way of new information. I have not read all of "The Reluctant Apostate," what I have read screams "unprofessional" A 200,000 word memoir? Somebody call an editor.
Maybe I'm alone on this, I never thought of him as some sort of leader. He doesn't bring anything to the table that can't be found elsewhere Ray Franz comes to mind immediately, by virtue of his place in the Watchtower organization. Evans was no where near that level within the organization. When I was in the process of leaving I read several academic works including those by Walter Martin, and Anthony Hoekema come to mind. To the best of my knowledge Lloyd Evans doesn't have any academic credentials.
I don't know why I should listen to this guy.