People chose to associate with a religious organization for its ability to:
- Focus attention on God and his everlasting purposes
- Outline moral guidelines
- Provide community
One of the enjoyable aspects of being a Jehovah's Witness is the friends that can be made through the congregation and the broad variety of people that can be met through District Conventions. However, this is not unique to being a Jehovah's Witness. I have friends of different religious denominations that have developed extended global friendships through the activities of their Church.
The concern with being a Jehovah's Witness is the many lives that have been greatly damaged. The fault lies not with the followers but with the system, particularly the manner in which the Watchtower Society forces followers to think and behave.
The focus of what is wrong revolves around a single point, the high control that the Watchtower Society has over its members, affecting both spirituality and day-to-day living. This predominates the following areas;
- Day-to-day lives
- Strict shunning of former members, including family
- Banning of certain medical treatment
- Short term planning for the future regarding education, finances, marriage and children
- Demeaning view of 'worldly' people
- Fear and negative view of life in the Last Days
- Control over information and questioning
- Stunted emotional development of members born into the religion
- Spirituality - Two class system
- Bible was written principally for the leaders
- Salvation only comes through close alignment with the leaders
- Jesus is mediator solely for the 144,000
Being in control of ones life is a fundamental key to happiness; particularly control of relationships, health and finances. Freedom is of primary importance and regarded as the highest aspiration of mankind. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights preamble states;
"Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,"Likewise, in one of the great speeches of the 20th century Martin Luther King concluded;
"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!""High control religious groups greatly limit the freedom of their members, based on the belief system of the leaders. The high control the Watchtower Society demands over the lives of members goes beyond the bounds of Christianity, the law and healthy development. This section looks at how this control is manifest.
Shunning
Shunning as a form of control is common practice amongst totalitarian groups. Watchtower shunning is a destructive practice that has destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives and families."No more fiendish punishment could be devised, if such a thing were physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof. If no one turned around when we entered, answered when we spoke, or minded what we did, but if every person we met 'cut us dead' and acted as if we were nonexistent things, a kind of rage and impotent despair would before long well up in us, from which the cruellest bodily torture would be a relief; for these would make us feel that, however bad might be our plight, we had not sunk to such a depth as to be unworthy of attention at all." (The Principles of Psychology Volume 1 pp.293-4 William James Dover Publications)I know that feeling from personal experience, numerous times. On one occasion, I attended an event with Witnesses present. As I stood holding my three year old child, an old friend walked up, and without catching my eye, or acknowledging my presence, started to speak to my son, and then walked away. It was as though I did not exist, an inanimate object supporting my child.
Common amongst high control groups is the demand to shun former members, taking away the freedom of members to choose who should or should not be associated with. In Combating Cult Mind Control, Steven Hassan advises that the first question a person should ask before joining any controversial group is;
"Does your group impose restrictions on communicating with former members? This is one of the most revealing sets of questions you can ask any cult member. Any legitimate organization would never discourage contact with former members." p.109As discussed at disfellowshipping, the Watchtower practice of shunning goes well beyond scriptural guidelines and exists as a method of control. A Jehovah's Witness can be disfellowshipped for numerous reasons, including doctrinal disagreement, smoking, gambling, drunkenness and fornication. Once disfellowshipped they are not to be spoken to or even greeted by their friends, including in the street, socially or at the kingdom hall.
A person who openly questions Watchtower doctrine is referred to as an apostate and described in the Watchtower 1993 October 1 p.19 as a rebel against Jehovah; Jehovah's Witnesses are to ""feel a loathing" toward those who have made themselves God's enemies, but they leave it to Jehovah to execute vengeance." The Watchtower 1994 July 1 p.12 claims those who stop following the Watchtower Society are feeding "at Satan's spiritual table, the table of demons, [and] will be forced to attend a literal meal, no, not as partakers, but as the main course-to their destruction!"
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