How did you feel when you found out Jehovah's Witnesses were a cult?

by The wanderer 45 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  fokyc

  Since 1949, I always felt certain that they were a 'cult', my wife came under their spell (1952) when I worked in the evenings to earn a living. They studied with her completely behind my back in secret.

  I actually saw my wife going from Twickenham Rugby Ground (1955), where the Assemblies were held, to Twickenham swimming pool for her baptism.

  I was working in The Odeon Cinema which had a balcony overlooking the centre of Twickenham, I saw this long queue of people walking along AND there was my wife.

  I have tried to ignore it, I have tried to join it, always finding some new disgusting thing taking place.

  It cannot be even a true religion, it can only be a mind twisting cult.

  fokyc
• 

  garybuss

  I was raised as a Witness in the 50's by Witness parents and it all seemed natural and normal. I didn't realize we were different. Martin Anderson told us at meetings that Catholics disfellowshipped people only they called it excommunication and that we weren't the only religion disfellowshipping people.
  
  It was decades later I found out Catholic excommunication means the person can't take communion in the Catholic Church and is not shunned. I thought all religions shunned.
  
  I was a believing walkaway for 18 years from 1974 till 1992 when I read Crisis Of Conscience. The first I associated Jehovah's Witnesses with the word "cult" was in Sioux Falls one day I was waiting for a clerk in a religious book store and I picked up a book about cults and was surprised to see Jehovah's Witnesses. I picked up other cult topic books and Jehovah's Witnesses were in them all. I went to the public library and looked in more cult topic books and found Jehovah's Witnesses well represented there too.
  
  As I learned more I saw the cult title was quite ambiguous and was applied by certain Christian writers to anybody they didn't like. Usually the same book titles found the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh Day Adventists, and the Mormons competing for text space.
  
  I read secular writers like Steve Hassan, and Margaret Singer and I learned from them too. All said and done, I don't like the word "cult". I much prefer the term "high control".
  
  I don't have a problem with all high control groups. High control has a purpose. I just don't think high control has any purpose in religion.
  
  
• 

  Mary

  BlueBrothers said: How did I feel when I found our that it was "just not true"? Disbelief, denial..fear that that I was thinking the unthinkable. Could all the people that I had known all my life really be wrong ? My world just crumbled. I felt like Jim Carey's charecter in "The Truman Show"

  I also felt a little scared - scared at the responsibility of taking my own decisions on issues and things. All my life I had been guided by the first question, "What do the Society say?" about anything from marriage to medicine to ethical questions. Now I had to think for myself.

  That just about sums me up. Reading Crisis of Conscience was the real eye opener.
• 

  purplesofa

  from Crisis of Conscience

  and page 274 last paragraph

  Similarly, I did not object to "organization" in the sense of an orderly arrangement, for I understood the Christian congregation itself to involve such an orderly arrangement. But I believed that, whateever the arrangement, its purpose and function, its very existance was only as an aid for the brothers; it was there to service interests, not the other way around. Whatever the arrangement, it was to build men and women up so that they would not be spiritual babes, dependent on men or on an institutionalized system , but able to act as full-grown, mature Christians. I was not to train them to be simply conformists to a set of organizational rules and regulations, but to thlep the to become persons "having their perceptive powers trained to distinguish right and wrong."

  I think this was the beginning of me figuring it out.

  purps
• 

  blondie

  I walked away more than 5 years ago knowing that the WTS was not the "only true religion." But a cult...perhaps a high control group. But as I educated myself about cults apart from the WTS definition, I realized that a group did not have to have all the traits of a cult, just many of them. Just like a person doesn't have to have all the traits of an alcoholic to be one.

  It is also similar to the thinking that just because someone doesn't beat you physically, that they aren't abusive...verbal, emotional, and spiritual abuse are just as painful and even more damaging.

  Blondie
• 

  mouthy

  awol.....You really lifted my spirits when you said >I forgive him. Thank you,thank you ,thank you, (said 3 times for emphesis!!!! )I made so many JWS & feel very badly about it. I pray all those who I pressed into service will have a heart like you & eventually will forgive ME..

  How did I feel when I found out it was a CULT!!!!!! DEVASTATED!!!!!
• 

  slimboyfat

  Jehovah's Witnesses are not a cult!

  Slim
• 

  moshe

  How did I feel?

  Happy!!-

  Yes, it was like being given an early discharge from the Army- I got my freedom back.
• 

  mouthy

  Comman Marks Of A Cult

  One of the most devastating experiences someone could face is to have a loved one involved in a cult.
  What are some ways we can know that a certain group is ain fact , a cult.
  The first mark of a cult is its manipulation of Scripture. The Bible is twisted to fit the leaders or the group,s interpretation. Private interpretations are forbidden because the leader of the cult is the only on,of course,who is able to understand Gods voiceproperly.Their teachings distort the historic,orthodox claims of Christianity.
  Second , many times cults manipulate people's minds .There is little concern for individual thought & development , Education is usually discouraged while the convert is bombarded with the cult,s doctrine& literature. Members are called to leave or neglect their old family & & lifestyle for a brand new one

  Third mark is the manipulationof timemSince salvationcome exclusively from the teachings of the group,on many cults memebers soend much ot their time working for their organization .Family school, leissure,sleep,& even food are most often neglected.

  Finally cults,typically manipulate reality.They tend to have an exclusive "Us" "THEM"mentality in which society & old associates are all out to get them Any one out side of the group is suspect.

  I WAS IN A GROUP SLIM!!!!!WHAT WERE YOU IN?????
• 

  mouthy

  bttp