I've had a few people ask me to post this letter. This was sent to a small group of people whole friendship I have valued over the years. All in all, I sent only about 12 copies of this letter worldwide. The elders in my hall received a much simpler one-page letter. I sent the following letter only to people that I believed to be sincere and honest enough to read the whole thing and consider its contents carefully.
Enjoy!
#########################################
Dear [Recipient],There are a few times in a person's life when entire future directions are defined by a single weighty decision. Often, we hide from these moments because the prospect of change can be so overwhelmingly frightening. This is particularly the case when the change involves one?s fundamental system of beliefs ? a system that has provided the framework for understanding and interacting with the universe for years, even decades.
We see the world around us - life, the universe, and everything - through a filter that is the body of our belief system. For many years now, I had grown to feel that the filter through which I was seeing the world was presenting an increasingly distorted picture. It was a gnawing feeling, a vague uncomfortableness somewhere deep in the pit of my stomach. Difficult to identify. Difficult to dismiss. Increasingly difficult to live with.
In an effort to save my status quo, I spent the past summer in intense study, meditation, and prayer. I prayed for faith. I prayed for signs. I studied and re-studied. I spent huge amounts of time in the field service. But I felt my heart and conscience being drawn inexorably toward a single fate.
Often, we refuse to see something honestly when we sense that doing so could change our lives in a way we are not willing to consider. A person may be unwilling to hear an awful truth about a cherished family member because it would upset his world too much. In such a case, a person deliberately blinds himself to an unpleasant fact as a sort of survival mechanism, a defense mechanism. But once a person begins to understand consciously that this is occurring, it takes a great deal of effort to rationalize allowing it to continue. After all, it is dishonest. If one is dishonest with oneself, how can one be honest with anyone else?
On September 5, my body held my mind hostage through physical illness and demanded that I throw my cards down on the table and honestly consider all that I had been running from. It is difficult for a person who has been so conditioned to recognize, but each of us has invisible barriers to what we are willing to consider. We may follow a logical path for a bit, but when we sense it leading somewhere ?dangerous? (to the status quo), we quickly abort mission. For the first time in my conscious life, I decided on September 5 that I would no longer do that: I would examine everything objectively, and I would apply as ruthlessly strict a logic as possible, and follow it all the way through, regardless of where it led. No presumptions.
The initial thing that I was concerned with was a feeling that I was being intellectually dishonest. For example, my universe-outlook required me to have a very critical view of many areas of science. Any time science seemed to contradict my set of beliefs (as in the raft of evidence against any global deluge ever occurring), I was to view it with extreme skepticism, if not outright scorn. This troubled my conscience for two reasons: First, I felt that if I were to hold that same standard of critical thinking to my own beliefs, they would be utterly obliterated. Second, I knew that many of the theories and facts I was being asked to dismiss were not only totally reasonable, but they gave every impression of being absolutely in line with the available facts. I had the extremely strong sensation of being the last man in the play ?Ten Angry Men,? who stubbornly refuses to accept what is so plainly obvious to any dispassionate observer.Another example of this is the chronology for 607 BCE. No one, and I mean no one, uses this figure except Witnesses. All the available evidence points to a date 20 years later. Historians have no vested interest in promoting a certain date; they use the one most in line with the facts. The Witnesses are the only ones promoting this particular date, not because it has factual support, but because it is vital for doctrinal chronology. This fact is very disturbing to me.Be those types of issues what they may, they provided only the stimulus for me to examine the true state of affairs. I finally came to the point of decision after much soul-searching with regard to two points.Love
Witnesses often point to the worldwide brotherhood they enjoy and the love that exists within it. However, it has been my painful experience that true love is almost wholly absent among Jehovah?s Witnesses. The type of love that exists is extremely conditional. If you doubt this, watch how fast even life-long friends will turn on you if you express doubts about a Watchtower position. In my own case, I was absolutely shocked by the light-switch manner in which people that were hugging me last night at meeting could today write me off completely. My own sister, on hearing a rumor that I had been reassessing my belief system, disowned me via proxy, unwilling even to confirm personally what my state of mind might be.This was not the reaction of just one or two people. In the past three months, only on one occasion did someone from my congregation see fit to associate with me in a friendly setting, and at my initiation, even though my status was not in question. I still find it difficult to imagine the thought process: ?What? You say he?s having serious doubts and that your replies didn?t satisfy him? Oh well. I guess I?ll never see him again. Anyway, how about service tomorrow morning??It has been heart-rending to discover just how cold the Witnesses are. Conditional love ? the type of love that is only extended only as long as one conforms to narrowly defined guidelines ? is unhealthy because it manipulates a person by threatening total withdrawal if the person should stop dancing the prescribed dance. It does not value the person, but only the actions that person produces. If the person should begin to even entertain thoughts ? even conscientiously and honestly ? that are contrary to accepted dogma, love is withdrawn.The experience has been one of jolting painfulness to have my illusions so shattered. The shock of feeling the ferocity with which life-long friends can turn on a person is something it is simply not possible to express in words. (A notable few of you have continued to act with kindness, though a guarded one. You know who you are ? thanks go to you.)Such reactions are not normal. I do not hold them against any person. They are the result of a particular culture: a culture based not on love, but on outward appearance, legalism, and fear.I have begun to learn what true love is, what it truly means to respect and honor another human being, what it actually is to believe that others have valid points of view, even if they differ from one?s own. This type of love is more refreshing than anything I ever experienced in the organization. This is the kind of love that causes people to flourish.Organizational deception
More than anything else, it was clear, unavoidable evidence of a history of deception on the part of the organization that caused me to feel that I must conscientiously take action. I include a single instance of such as a representative example, not to convince you of the rightness of my course, but to make you understand why a person such as myself could make a moral choice to resign from associating with an organization.I will begin by a remark about slander. Slander is a serious offense, not one that I would ever want to be found guilty of. The definition of slander is not simply ?injurious remarks,? but rather, ?oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.? Notice that only false statements qualify as slander. It is actually morally necessary to divulge true statements when they actively concern another person?s interests. The following facts are all verifiable.No doubt you are familiar with the decades-long mistreatment of the brothers in . For something like 30 years, they were chased out of their homes, their women were raped by the thousands (literally), they fled on multiple occasions to multiple other countries, and generally their lives were destroyed. Although I do not lessen the culpability of the Malawian authorities in allowing these things to happen, I believe that the facts show that all of this happened totally unnecessarily, because of actions of the Society.
As you know, the main issue was the refusal of the Witnesses to purchase party cards. was a single-party country, and the card did not carry any affiliation with a particular political party. Apparently the government wanted to create a sense of unity by enforcing that everyone simply possess a card. The legitimacy of this administrative decision is certainly not in question: I think we can agree that such a policy is unlikely to produce actual results. Be that as it may, however, the position of the Society was that the brothers should not purchase the cards, under threat of disfellowshipping.
I think this position merits discussion. After all, such a situation is clearly not covered directly by any scripture. It could easily be reasoned that purchasing such a card made one a part of the government to the same extent that procuring a passport does. Any decision on the rightness of the position is clearly something that must be made by considering various principles, and it clearly must be made by the individual affected. In this case, the right of the individual to make a conscientious decision was absolutely withheld. There was only one way of viewing the matter; violators would be outcast. I ask you then, how much choice did a person truly have? Where was Christian conscience? It was a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Therefore, the Society's decision on a matter that the Bible clearly does not speak to, led directly to the suffering of tens of thousands. However, there is another aspect to the story. Previous to the situation in , and running concurrently with it, a drastically different situation was occurring in . had something similar to the party card of . It was called a cartilla, and it designated the holder as having completed military exercises. The card was not necessary to have, but it was needed for certain movement, such as movement out of the country (necessary to attend assemblies for many of the brothers near the border).
The common practice at the time was for a young man to bribe a military official to give him a cartilla without actually completing the year-long military exercises. The official would note the man's attendance on roll sheets, and the young man would receive the cartilla without having actually done the exercises. The practice was officially illegal, but it was not well enforced. Witnesses commonly availed themselves of this practice, even though holders of the cartilla were officially in the first reserve for the draft, in the case of any conflict. This point was known by the Society, and in fact, was standard operating procedure in all of .
What this means is that the Society approved of activity that was illegal, dishonest, and clearly connected directly with being a part of the military. They allowed it, saying that it was up to the consciences of the men involved. However, when it came to something in that was not illegal, not dishonest, and not clearly against scripture in any way, they enforced their view under pain of expulsion. If this is not double standards, then what is? If this is not a case of mere men acting in a way that caused material harm to tens of thousands, what is?
The reasons given for the hard-line stand were that "we must be no part of the world in even the slightest way," "we must not give even the impression of being part of the world," and so on. Of course, none of those statements applied to their position on , and later events revealed that they did not even apply to themselves. Why?
Write the registrar of the Department of Public Information at the UN and you will learn that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society was a member of the United Nations as a Non-Governmental Organization from 1992 until October 2001. As incredible as it may be, it is true. (The stated purpose was so that the Society could have access to the library there.) So while they felt that purchasing a party-card in a one-party country as required by law would amount to a major compromise which should result in expulsion, they were content with being a member of the UN, which they demonize as the Wild Beast. I will remind you that persecution of Witnesses in continued into the 1990s.
This is one example of the way the Society has consistently used its control over people's lives in ways that have been arbitrary, harsh, and inconsistent. I find this behavior to be, not indicative of human frailty and imperfection, but utterly unconscionable ? especially for a body that recognizes the amount of control they have.
This behavior is typical of the way the Society has acted throughout its history through the present. It constantly misrepresents its history. It never makes a genuine apology for incorrect doctrines of the past and the hurt they have often caused to real people, if it even acknowledges them at all. It controls and hurts people with impunity.
The proof for the things I have written about is easily obtainable, mostly through the Society's own literature. However, even this is made difficult because the Society removes references in its Index to uncomplimentary articles. I know of one instance where the information printed in the bound volume is even changed from what appeared in the paper magazine so as to obscure a failed prediction. (This occurs in the Jan 1, 1989 WT, page 12, paragraph 8, last sentence.) Why such dishonesty?
The best way to find references that are less sanitized is to consult non-Society sources. I urge you, as a fellow human, to read Crisis of Conscience, by Ray Franz. Regardless of what you have heard about the book or its author, please set prejudice aside and read it. I cannot conceive of any honest person who would not be moved very, very deeply by this book. There is not the slightest trace of bitterness or resentment or vindictiveness. It only recounts events as they occurred, and with incredible warmth and understanding, with bountiful references and photocopies of evidence and letters. Conclusion
My decision to disassociate myself rather than simply to ?drift away? springs from the desire to make a moral statement. To lend my name to an organization that I believe generates a harmful culture and controls and deceives people would be to lack integrity.It is my sincere hope that you will understand ? even if you do not agree with ? my position. I hope that you will respect the conscience of another human. I seek neither prominence, nor glory for self, nor anything else commonly attributed to people leaving the organization. I act out of the sincere drive to be truthful and honest with myself and others.My door remains open, as it always has been, to you.Warmly,Brian Rak
Enjoy!
#########################################
Dear [Recipient],There are a few times in a person's life when entire future directions are defined by a single weighty decision. Often, we hide from these moments because the prospect of change can be so overwhelmingly frightening. This is particularly the case when the change involves one?s fundamental system of beliefs ? a system that has provided the framework for understanding and interacting with the universe for years, even decades.
We see the world around us - life, the universe, and everything - through a filter that is the body of our belief system. For many years now, I had grown to feel that the filter through which I was seeing the world was presenting an increasingly distorted picture. It was a gnawing feeling, a vague uncomfortableness somewhere deep in the pit of my stomach. Difficult to identify. Difficult to dismiss. Increasingly difficult to live with.
In an effort to save my status quo, I spent the past summer in intense study, meditation, and prayer. I prayed for faith. I prayed for signs. I studied and re-studied. I spent huge amounts of time in the field service. But I felt my heart and conscience being drawn inexorably toward a single fate.
Often, we refuse to see something honestly when we sense that doing so could change our lives in a way we are not willing to consider. A person may be unwilling to hear an awful truth about a cherished family member because it would upset his world too much. In such a case, a person deliberately blinds himself to an unpleasant fact as a sort of survival mechanism, a defense mechanism. But once a person begins to understand consciously that this is occurring, it takes a great deal of effort to rationalize allowing it to continue. After all, it is dishonest. If one is dishonest with oneself, how can one be honest with anyone else?
On September 5, my body held my mind hostage through physical illness and demanded that I throw my cards down on the table and honestly consider all that I had been running from. It is difficult for a person who has been so conditioned to recognize, but each of us has invisible barriers to what we are willing to consider. We may follow a logical path for a bit, but when we sense it leading somewhere ?dangerous? (to the status quo), we quickly abort mission. For the first time in my conscious life, I decided on September 5 that I would no longer do that: I would examine everything objectively, and I would apply as ruthlessly strict a logic as possible, and follow it all the way through, regardless of where it led. No presumptions.
The initial thing that I was concerned with was a feeling that I was being intellectually dishonest. For example, my universe-outlook required me to have a very critical view of many areas of science. Any time science seemed to contradict my set of beliefs (as in the raft of evidence against any global deluge ever occurring), I was to view it with extreme skepticism, if not outright scorn. This troubled my conscience for two reasons: First, I felt that if I were to hold that same standard of critical thinking to my own beliefs, they would be utterly obliterated. Second, I knew that many of the theories and facts I was being asked to dismiss were not only totally reasonable, but they gave every impression of being absolutely in line with the available facts. I had the extremely strong sensation of being the last man in the play ?Ten Angry Men,? who stubbornly refuses to accept what is so plainly obvious to any dispassionate observer.Another example of this is the chronology for 607 BCE. No one, and I mean no one, uses this figure except Witnesses. All the available evidence points to a date 20 years later. Historians have no vested interest in promoting a certain date; they use the one most in line with the facts. The Witnesses are the only ones promoting this particular date, not because it has factual support, but because it is vital for doctrinal chronology. This fact is very disturbing to me.Be those types of issues what they may, they provided only the stimulus for me to examine the true state of affairs. I finally came to the point of decision after much soul-searching with regard to two points.Love
Witnesses often point to the worldwide brotherhood they enjoy and the love that exists within it. However, it has been my painful experience that true love is almost wholly absent among Jehovah?s Witnesses. The type of love that exists is extremely conditional. If you doubt this, watch how fast even life-long friends will turn on you if you express doubts about a Watchtower position. In my own case, I was absolutely shocked by the light-switch manner in which people that were hugging me last night at meeting could today write me off completely. My own sister, on hearing a rumor that I had been reassessing my belief system, disowned me via proxy, unwilling even to confirm personally what my state of mind might be.This was not the reaction of just one or two people. In the past three months, only on one occasion did someone from my congregation see fit to associate with me in a friendly setting, and at my initiation, even though my status was not in question. I still find it difficult to imagine the thought process: ?What? You say he?s having serious doubts and that your replies didn?t satisfy him? Oh well. I guess I?ll never see him again. Anyway, how about service tomorrow morning??It has been heart-rending to discover just how cold the Witnesses are. Conditional love ? the type of love that is only extended only as long as one conforms to narrowly defined guidelines ? is unhealthy because it manipulates a person by threatening total withdrawal if the person should stop dancing the prescribed dance. It does not value the person, but only the actions that person produces. If the person should begin to even entertain thoughts ? even conscientiously and honestly ? that are contrary to accepted dogma, love is withdrawn.The experience has been one of jolting painfulness to have my illusions so shattered. The shock of feeling the ferocity with which life-long friends can turn on a person is something it is simply not possible to express in words. (A notable few of you have continued to act with kindness, though a guarded one. You know who you are ? thanks go to you.)Such reactions are not normal. I do not hold them against any person. They are the result of a particular culture: a culture based not on love, but on outward appearance, legalism, and fear.I have begun to learn what true love is, what it truly means to respect and honor another human being, what it actually is to believe that others have valid points of view, even if they differ from one?s own. This type of love is more refreshing than anything I ever experienced in the organization. This is the kind of love that causes people to flourish.Organizational deception
More than anything else, it was clear, unavoidable evidence of a history of deception on the part of the organization that caused me to feel that I must conscientiously take action. I include a single instance of such as a representative example, not to convince you of the rightness of my course, but to make you understand why a person such as myself could make a moral choice to resign from associating with an organization.I will begin by a remark about slander. Slander is a serious offense, not one that I would ever want to be found guilty of. The definition of slander is not simply ?injurious remarks,? but rather, ?oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.? Notice that only false statements qualify as slander. It is actually morally necessary to divulge true statements when they actively concern another person?s interests. The following facts are all verifiable.No doubt you are familiar with the decades-long mistreatment of the brothers in . For something like 30 years, they were chased out of their homes, their women were raped by the thousands (literally), they fled on multiple occasions to multiple other countries, and generally their lives were destroyed. Although I do not lessen the culpability of the Malawian authorities in allowing these things to happen, I believe that the facts show that all of this happened totally unnecessarily, because of actions of the Society.
As you know, the main issue was the refusal of the Witnesses to purchase party cards. was a single-party country, and the card did not carry any affiliation with a particular political party. Apparently the government wanted to create a sense of unity by enforcing that everyone simply possess a card. The legitimacy of this administrative decision is certainly not in question: I think we can agree that such a policy is unlikely to produce actual results. Be that as it may, however, the position of the Society was that the brothers should not purchase the cards, under threat of disfellowshipping.
I think this position merits discussion. After all, such a situation is clearly not covered directly by any scripture. It could easily be reasoned that purchasing such a card made one a part of the government to the same extent that procuring a passport does. Any decision on the rightness of the position is clearly something that must be made by considering various principles, and it clearly must be made by the individual affected. In this case, the right of the individual to make a conscientious decision was absolutely withheld. There was only one way of viewing the matter; violators would be outcast. I ask you then, how much choice did a person truly have? Where was Christian conscience? It was a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Therefore, the Society's decision on a matter that the Bible clearly does not speak to, led directly to the suffering of tens of thousands. However, there is another aspect to the story. Previous to the situation in , and running concurrently with it, a drastically different situation was occurring in . had something similar to the party card of . It was called a cartilla, and it designated the holder as having completed military exercises. The card was not necessary to have, but it was needed for certain movement, such as movement out of the country (necessary to attend assemblies for many of the brothers near the border).
The common practice at the time was for a young man to bribe a military official to give him a cartilla without actually completing the year-long military exercises. The official would note the man's attendance on roll sheets, and the young man would receive the cartilla without having actually done the exercises. The practice was officially illegal, but it was not well enforced. Witnesses commonly availed themselves of this practice, even though holders of the cartilla were officially in the first reserve for the draft, in the case of any conflict. This point was known by the Society, and in fact, was standard operating procedure in all of .
What this means is that the Society approved of activity that was illegal, dishonest, and clearly connected directly with being a part of the military. They allowed it, saying that it was up to the consciences of the men involved. However, when it came to something in that was not illegal, not dishonest, and not clearly against scripture in any way, they enforced their view under pain of expulsion. If this is not double standards, then what is? If this is not a case of mere men acting in a way that caused material harm to tens of thousands, what is?
The reasons given for the hard-line stand were that "we must be no part of the world in even the slightest way," "we must not give even the impression of being part of the world," and so on. Of course, none of those statements applied to their position on , and later events revealed that they did not even apply to themselves. Why?
Write the registrar of the Department of Public Information at the UN and you will learn that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society was a member of the United Nations as a Non-Governmental Organization from 1992 until October 2001. As incredible as it may be, it is true. (The stated purpose was so that the Society could have access to the library there.) So while they felt that purchasing a party-card in a one-party country as required by law would amount to a major compromise which should result in expulsion, they were content with being a member of the UN, which they demonize as the Wild Beast. I will remind you that persecution of Witnesses in continued into the 1990s.
This is one example of the way the Society has consistently used its control over people's lives in ways that have been arbitrary, harsh, and inconsistent. I find this behavior to be, not indicative of human frailty and imperfection, but utterly unconscionable ? especially for a body that recognizes the amount of control they have.
This behavior is typical of the way the Society has acted throughout its history through the present. It constantly misrepresents its history. It never makes a genuine apology for incorrect doctrines of the past and the hurt they have often caused to real people, if it even acknowledges them at all. It controls and hurts people with impunity.
The proof for the things I have written about is easily obtainable, mostly through the Society's own literature. However, even this is made difficult because the Society removes references in its Index to uncomplimentary articles. I know of one instance where the information printed in the bound volume is even changed from what appeared in the paper magazine so as to obscure a failed prediction. (This occurs in the Jan 1, 1989 WT, page 12, paragraph 8, last sentence.) Why such dishonesty?
The best way to find references that are less sanitized is to consult non-Society sources. I urge you, as a fellow human, to read Crisis of Conscience, by Ray Franz. Regardless of what you have heard about the book or its author, please set prejudice aside and read it. I cannot conceive of any honest person who would not be moved very, very deeply by this book. There is not the slightest trace of bitterness or resentment or vindictiveness. It only recounts events as they occurred, and with incredible warmth and understanding, with bountiful references and photocopies of evidence and letters. Conclusion
My decision to disassociate myself rather than simply to ?drift away? springs from the desire to make a moral statement. To lend my name to an organization that I believe generates a harmful culture and controls and deceives people would be to lack integrity.It is my sincere hope that you will understand ? even if you do not agree with ? my position. I hope that you will respect the conscience of another human. I seek neither prominence, nor glory for self, nor anything else commonly attributed to people leaving the organization. I act out of the sincere drive to be truthful and honest with myself and others.My door remains open, as it always has been, to you.Warmly,Brian Rak
I'm sure that each person read the whole thing. I hope you will let us know about any responses you get over this letter, or if you see any movement toward exit doors by any recipient...
bebu
).Take care,Narkissos