Who is the author of this blog? That is not really important. Too often, the Watchtower Society covers the truth by diverting attention from the real point of issue to the person making the claims -- an ad hominem attack. What should concern you is the truthfulness or otherwise of what is said. The claims made here and on many other sites can be verified and you owe it to yourself and your family to check them carefully. It will affect your life now and in the future.
I am a former Jehovah's Witness of 40 years' experience who has never been disfellowshipped or disassociated. I served in congregations in Britain and Europe and have visited others in several European countries. In other words, I haven't spent my whole life in one small, happy congregation up in the mountains!
I can recall and was a party to, many events of the Watchtower’s history and policies of the last 50 years. I can assure readers that, for 40 years of my life, until 1990, we sold magazines door-to-door for “a contribution”. In the 60s, we bought the magazines at the Kingdom Hall for 4d each (four old pennies) and sold them to the public at 5d. This was not a profit, but “for shoe leather” as Mother would say. However, money given for goods, even at a loss, is still selling. (Notice also, that the Watchtower Society always received its money by these direct, guaranteed sales to the congregation while we were often left with dozens of magazines unsold, which expense Mother bore while on a widow’s pension).
I was part of the Watchtower Society’s great campaign of the late 60s when millions of blue “Truth that Leads to Eternal Life” books were sold and the six months “Bible study” programme was introduced because of the “urgency” and “short time left”. This “urgency” started around 1967-68 when the Watchtower Society began focusing our attention on 1975. (which prompted me to leave a new and promising, well-paid career in the British Merchant Navy after just one year at sea. I was consumed with guilt over "missing meetings"). "Armageddon by 1975" was an ever-present topic at meetings and large assemblies. Now your "faithful and discreet slave" lies to its followers, telling them that such things never occurred and blaming my generation for believing what was clearly promoted in Watchtower literature, leading us to come to only one conclusion, under their sole direction.
Little is said here about Biblical interpretation. That is not because I believe JW doctrine to be sound. To the contrary! History rewritten, hypocritical policies and broken promises made in the name of God by the so-called "faithful steward" are matters of fact, not opinion or interpretation.
Although I am willing to discuss the contents of these pages with honest-hearted people who need help to remove themselves from the contamination of this disgusting cult and its leaders, I am not interested in arguing or debating with fundamentalist Jehovah's Witnesses.
If you have genuine doubts about the truthfulness of what you have read here or elsewhere, I shall willingly discuss those concerns with you - on one condition: that you read the Watchtower references and Bible passages I give you to check. That's fair enough, is it not?
But if you love the Watchtower and "the Organisation", I don't love you, right? I DON'T want to know you until you have repented of sharing in your Governing Body's crimes and deceit. So, GO AWAY, repent and start cleansing yourself of the Watchtower filth, then I will gladly help you.
Within a few months of leaving the Watchtower religion, I had read the whole Bible -- something I had never accomplished as a Witness, despite my knowing many proof-texts to support "the faithful steward's" heresy. I had been kept busy for 40 years, always up-to-date with my reading of Watchtower Society literature.
Now, in addition to reading widely since leaving 17 years ago, I have read the New Testament many times. I have also read the Wescott & Hort, Kingdom Interlinear, Greek to English text and have seen for myself that the (Revised) New World "Translation", promoted by Jehovah's Witnesses, is a false version, a fake Bible.
As I rebuild a life and faith and friendships, it has been difficult to put the past aside. Indeed, the past often comes back to haunt me, as I am constantly reminded of moments and events from my Watchtower cult past, as I walk through the streets of my city. I understand now, that I am suffering post-traumatic stress.
I hate organised religion because "organisation" brings out the worst in people.
Whatever good an organisation may do, whether it be Volkswagen Beetles with full national employment and Autobahns, there is always a downside!
I suppose that, like Fox Mulder in The X-Files, "I want to believe". But there are some things I am fairly sure about. So yes, I am a Christian.
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