SEVEN YEARS LATER.....
It is strange to find this thread after all these years. One of my brothers told me that he had Googled me and this had come up.
Here is my side of the story:
Dick Bennett was a professor of English at the University of Arkansas before he headed the OMNI Center for Peace and Justice. He and my husband were good friends who had campaigned against the Vietnam War on campus long before I married my husband. They went back along way. But as time went on the friendship went dormant. My husband had quit teaching at the Uof A to return fully to his country roots and we had a large family together of seven children. Very backwoods living really kept us out of the social/political groups he had been in before. We were not prosperous.
When I was 39 years old I became one of Jehovah's Witnesses,no one was happy, certainly not my husband. He hates religion generally, the Witnesses especially. His friends were one and all saddened for my him when they heard. Dick Bennett included. But he certainly was pleased to CALL ME when he wanted to have a panel discusssion of various churches' "peace traditions" as he called it.
I asked him what the format was. Was there going to be a prayer, who was moderating? There seemed nothing to indicate it was actually wrong to respond to his request. So I told him I would be happy to tell them how Jehovah's Witnesses had dealt with war. The U. S. at that time was going into Iraq.
At this time in my life my husband was living 8 miles away. Our plumbing was broke in the trailer and there were levels of distress in our household that mounted when Dick Bennett called a few weeks later and told me that he had received emails that were a disturbing to him. He read some to me which I now recognize to be from individuals on this board.
I was dumbfounded. I didn't get newspapers and had no idea that Dick had posted the panel dicussion in the newspaper, that it was billed as an "interfaith" meeting and that I was billed as a "leader" of Jehovah's Witnesses!
I lived in an old worn out trailer, with an outhouse, heated with wood in a smokey stove and just barely was holding my life together that winter. A leader of the Witnesses!
Well, I knew this was a problem. So I called Herb White, a respected elder from another congregation. Bro. White was alevel-headed elder and one of the Anointed. I explained what the invitation had been and asked him if he would represent the Witnesses since there were clearly some people being "stumbled" as the thing unfolded.
He declined and offered reasons that he felt it inappropriate to engage on the topic. He was not bombastic. He did not make me feel like an ass for accepting Dick's invitation to give a witness for my "church". But I remember him telling me clearly that "our brothers' had suffered a great deal in the past to avoid just such contamination with other's political agendas. And he carefully built the case that Dick's real intention was to further a political agenda. He didn't do a "slap down" on me. But it was clear that there was absolutely no good that I could serve on that panel.
Dick Bennett was not sure he should have asked me, I don't know what he thought because I guess he did have doubt that I should answer any questions. He didn't understand that certain phrases used in connection with the discussion made it impossible for me to participate. Certainly he didn't like having a panel member's credentials suddenly called into question. I was also wondering what all this meant.He asked if JW women were ministers. I told him we were but that this forum was a little unusual. But considering the spin that the newspaper had put on it I can see why there was a reaction. It was pretty miserable.
All the way around, the comments that I received were negative and disturbing. I learned via the email responses that Dick received that many saw my participation as irregular and out of line. Ther seemed no good to be served by my presence on the panel. Whether I did it by phone as Dick says or not, I did decline.
The panel discussion was held without me. I made sure to find a newspaper to see how it went. There was no"interfaith"worship if that was the problem, or any attempt to reconcile beliefs. It sounded pretty boring.
Ironically, about three years later Bro. White and his wife came to an OMNI sponsored presentation at our local library that featured an older Witness woman from the Farmington, Ar. congo who was one of the subjects in a paper presented on "persecutions for conscience in Arkansas" or something to that effect. I am sure there were different considerations in her case. But I saw that she was simply enjoying herself. Other Witnesses were there and had cookies and punch afterward. Bro. white didn't stay for any. And he didn't talk to me.
The rigid control and the sense of personal guilt and incompetence built up over time. Everywhere I turned there was implied blame for not doing enough and then doing too much.Not having your kids turn into Witnesses. And everyone who wasn't a JW just wondered why everything you did you had to worry about how it would or wouldn't "stumble" others. We were trained to think of it as theocratic obedience. It all just wore me out.
Maeve Courteau
