I passed two pleasant young JW women with their literature rack displayed on a busy main street this past Friday morning before the New Year’s weekend. Of course, Christmas and New Year are holiday celebrations that JWs do not observe, among others. At least now they only say hello instead of trying to aggressively proselytize or hold you up in unwanted conversation.
I was prompted by the post from ‘amiable’ above to look up WatchTower and child abuse. Of course, I’ve known before about the accusations. This (long) article below, from The Atlantic, lays out a lot of information, and proof:
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/03/the-secret-jehovahs-witness-database-of-child-molesters/584311/Two people quoted in the article are Lloyd Evans & Mark O’Donnell, two men with a mountain of documented evidence against The WatchTower Society (WTS) about child abuse in their ranks and the society’s deliberate cover-ups spanning many years.
Excerpts – CAUTION: Potentially disturbing material about child abuse:
First - an example of how the WTS is dishonest about its own history and has no problem with twisting reality to meet its own needs (i.e. to preserve the myth of unchanging and 100% accurate doctrine).
“In 2010, it [WTS] introduced the Overlapping Generations theory, which claims that the end will come before the death of everyone who was alive at the same time as anyone who was alive in 1914.”
Comment: I left before 2010 and haven’t kept up with all the changes, especially with their doctrinal teachings. I’ve never heard of the Overlapping Generations theory before.
Apparently, they’ve been able to modify their previous predictions/doctrines without losing much traction, perhaps partly due to JW members being well trained to avoid asking questions and to trust the leaders over and above any other source in this universe.
Article: “Kimmy [a female ex-JW] had grown up believing that overzealous Witnesses, not Watchtower, had chosen that date.”
Comment: “That date” refers to Armageddon – The sentence above shows how the Society can fool its members by dispensing inaccurate (i.e. lies) about its own teachings and other aspects of the WTS and its inner workings. It seems unbelievable that a member could be so uninformed as to believe this flagrant falsehood about their calculations and their long-held belief and teaching re 1914 and Armageddon.
What is so stupid about lying about their prophesied date of the coming of Armageddon is that one can easily check the WTS’s own literature on this, a topic they spout about incessantly. It’s their entire raison d'être you could say.
This mindset that WT leaders encourage, as seen in that one example above (i.e. encouraging ignorance by instructing that members should only source info from the WTS) allows the events described below to exist and flourish.
From the article, re WTS and child abuse:
“In 2016, a royal commission in Australia found that Watchtower demonstrated a “serious failure” to protect children, including not reporting more than 1,000 alleged perpetrators of sexual abuse (more than half of whom have confessed to committing the abuse) and at least 1,800 victims in that country since 1950.”
“Rooted in Deuteronomy 19:15—“No single witness may convict another for any error or any sin that he may commit”—the two-witness rule states that, barring a confession, no member of the organization can be officially accused of committing a sin without two credible eyewitnesses who are willing to corroborate the accusation. Critics say this rule has helped turn Witness communities into havens for child molesters, who rarely commit crimes in the presence of bystanders.”
Comment: I’ve never heard this before either – that there has to be two witnesses to abuse – how realistic is it to expect that a perp will bring a witness along? This condemns the victim to silence (why speak out if you don’t have a corroborating witness?) and/or to being re-victimized (because nobody knows that it occurred the first time or subsequently).
Article: “The elders told Conti [a woman who states that she was abused at age 9 by an adult JW man] that without a second witness to the molestation, there was nothing they could do.
“… she sued Watchtower, her former congregation, and Kendrick. During depositions, the elders admitted that they’d long known Kendrick had a history of child molestation—they knew before they paired him with Conti for door-to-door ministry, and before they rejected her story about the abuse. In 2012, a jury awarded Conti $28 million, believed to be the largest jury verdict ever for a single victim in a child-abuse case against a religious organization."
“Watchtower discouraged elders from reporting wrongdoing to civil authorities. “There is ‘a time to keep quiet,’ when ‘your words should prove to be few’ (Ecclesiastes 3:7; 5:2),” it read. “Improper use of the tongue by an elder can result in serious legal problems for the individual, the congregation, and even the Society.”
“In 2002, one former elder said the number [of alleged pedophiles] was 23,720."
“…the U.S., which has a Witness population of 1.2 million, the number of alleged American abusers in the database would be 18,000."
“As a 12-year-old, she [Kimmy] went to the elders in her congregation for help. They told her she couldn’t report her mother to the police, “because it would make the organization look bad,” she recalled. They discouraged her from seeking counseling, because a therapist might blame the religion or get the authorities involved. Finally, the elders asked Kimmy a question: If her mother did end up killing her, could that prevent Jehovah from resurrecting her at Armageddon? “Of course, I said no,” Kimmy said, rolling her eyes. “They told me, ‘Go home and obey your mother.’”
Comment: Kimmy said that her mother (who was mentally ill) abused her and her sister, as well as their cats. Kimmy has spent much time and effort in her life rescuing cats. She says it’s “easy psychology” to figure out why.
Article: “Kim’s husband, a former JW, was “wary of being labeled an apostate”.
Comment: I can relate to this. ‘Apostate’ is the most appalling thing you can be (apparently worse than being a child molester, as seen in this article – and others). The mere possibility of this keeps a lot of people quiet – me included (not that I ever knew about physical or sexual abuse – I hope I would not have ignored such).
ETA: Oh. I just recalled that my (former) friend, also in Quebec as a missionary, was excessively strict with his (adopted) son and would often spank him harshly for the flimsiest excuse. I spoke to his wife several times about it but she was deep into the 'obedience' thing - not only does a female have to obey the WTS but also their husband. I was living with them at the time and I had to move out because I couldn't stand it any more. (Her husband and I had been good friends before we went to Quebec. But something changed with him when he met and married her - in about a NY minute - and took on raising her son, his first time being a dad).
I regret not reporting this but I too was into the obedience thing for a while. Others in the congregation knew about it as well (because he would do it at meetings also).
When the crowd accepts something it can make you second-guess yourself and your own reactions.
So, I regret my statement above about how I think I would have reported abuse. Obviously, in this case, I didn't.
I didn't want to just edit out my comment above. I don't really know why. But it's there and so I'll leave it there.
Returning to original post:
Article: “In front of the [Australian] commission [investigating allegations of child abuse], Jackson became the first active member of Watchtower’s Governing Body to acknowledge that “child abuse is a problem right throughout the community.” He also admitted that in most cases, children who make such charges against Watchtower are telling the truth.”
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Three words spring to mind: Ignorance. Obedience. Isolation.
These words describe the environment I experienced within the WTS organization. At least the last two – obedience and isolation – work well to keep the ones in power in their places and the victims silent, seemingly beyond help. And ignorance seems inevitable when your entire world shrinks to include only the WTS.
It can take a great deal of strength to leave it all behind, especially if one’s family is in, if one’s entire life experience has been the organization (as it calls itself) and when members have been socialized to obey and believe without question. Too, the WTS keeps its members isolated by discouraging them from dating, marrying or even socializing outside the organization. Too, they aren’t even allowed to civilly greet any former member they come across. This happened to me in person twice, when former good friends scuttled away from me when we met in passing, and from a distance when my former pals, JW missionaries who I had gone with to Quebec to also be a missionary, shunned me when I left to come back home to help my non-JW family after a serious accident my Dad had suffered.
It can be difficult when you’re in to measure the amount of control they subtly and gradually exert over members, including converts.
When I left I still “co-operated” in a way with the WTS as I took measures to stay away from JWs I had known to avoid influencing them. {{slaps head}}
One example of that, which I still deeply regret, is when a JW friend who was a missionary in Quebec with me, wrote to me after I had returned home to ask me why I had left the WTS (over and above leaving Quebec to help my family back in B.C.). I was still in obedience mode and, as a former member, did not write back to her (because they disfellowship people for being in contact with apostates, meaning anyone who had left). I still think of her and hope that somehow our previous friendly interactions had prompted her to think and question and maybe get out herself. She obviously had my home address but I never heard from her again.
Some regrets dig in and never dissipate. Too bad for me – my chosen life motto was No Regrets. Big life lesson: That’s pretty much impossible. Because you don’t know what you don’t know until sometimes it’s too late.
I have often thought I would have lost my mind if I hadn't returned to a more vital, interesting, intriguing, changing, mysterious, enlightening world. Because how many times do you want to hear that Armageddon is just around the corner without at some point yelling which corner and how far away is the damn thing? And how many dull repetitious WatchTower magazines can you read without slipping into a coma at last?
After thinking about all this (again) and especially reading the Atlantic article, then I watched a documentary this morning on Jonestown. Disturbing, it goes without saying.
Kind of didn’t enjoy this last day of Christmas hols. I’d like to dial back the day, go back to bed and try it all over again. I’ve got a ton of brand new books to dig into. Time to open one of those {{slaps head again}}. I should have stuck with the mysteries. History hurts. Personal history anyway.
That's what I wanted to avoid with my longtime motto No Regrets. Kind of an impossible ask. Because as you live, you learn. And living involves inevitable regrets along the way.
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2023 07:38PM by Nightingale.