Greetings from a recovering mormon

FormerMormon

Greetings from the other side of the street,

I just loved having you guys proselytizing on the other side of the street when we were tracting. I am a recovering mormon with a believing spouse / family. As I am sure you know, leaving a cult can be a painful experience, especially on family ties. I don't intend to pick on JW's, but if I could get my wife to recognize a PATTERN of cult activity in the JW's, then she might be able to recognize patterns of cult activity in the mormon church. Maybe "cult" is too strong a word for some. For me, it fits.

Specifically, I would appreciate video clips of your testimony meetings. Are they called testimony meetings? When are JW testimony meetings? How would they be searched on youtube? I know at LDS testimony meetings, we were programmed to use the words "I know that..." followed by a typical list...the B of M is true, J Smith was a prophet, Gordon B Hinkley is a prophet, etc. I would like my wife to see others saying they just "know" their church is true. Then I would like to ask her, if she had been born in the other church, how would it occur to her that it was wrong or damaging.

Thanks in advance.

I hope there is a God, and I hope he helps you in your recovery.

Former Mormon

AlmostAtheist

I don't know about equivalents to 'testimony meetings', but JW's refer to their religion as "The Truth". They will ask each other, "How did you learn the Truth?" or "How long have you been in the Truth?" They claim that the Bible interprets itself, so they don't "interpret" it -- God does. He's not very good at it, apparently, since their doctrine changes constantly. :-)

Welcome to JWD!

Dave

drew sagan

Welcome to the forum!

Don't worry, JWs use the mormons as examples all the time! Funny to see how this swings both ways.

We will be able to provide you with a ton of info showing how similar the two faiths can be.

drew sagan

Just wanted to add that the biggest similarities you will find are the practices they engage in to defend their belief systems.

- label apostate and demonic anybody that challenges their claims
- ban the reading of certain books and magazines
- teach people to watch the behavior of others

There are many more. I have actually searched the LDS website and found information that is amazingly similar to the JWs.

momzcrazy

Hey! Welcome to JWD. Don't worry about picking on JW's here. If you look at past posts you may be shocked. Raised in SLC here. My hubby's gfather was in the Quorum of the Twelve or something. I am even related to Brigham Young, but who isn't naughty man.

Here's a link for some things. The witnesses just call them meetings, but they each have different names. Public Talk and Watchtower discussion on Sunday. Bookstudy during the week. Theocratic Ministry School on Thursdays usually.

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=jehovah%27s+witnesses

Good luck!

momz

golf2

FM, my greetings and welcome to the forum. You'll get plenty of answers to your questions, so, hang in there.

Golf

FormerMormon

Over the past year or so, LDS leaders have been saying that "yesterdays testimony will be insufficient to tomorrows challenges". A common theme I hear from time to time on post mormon groups is that the internet could spell the doom or at least greatly damage "The Church". Why? Because the internet is an information hyway. Cults thrive on disinformation. As more people become aware of actual, unsterilized church history, they leave.

People google and compare when buying a car. They do the same when investigating religion. While difficult to get an admission from "The Church", I hear baptismal rates in areas of high internet saturation are going through the floor. Are JW's seeing the same phenom?

onacruse

Welcome FM.

Are they called testimony meetings?

Actually, many decades ago, they were called Prayer, Praise and Testimony meetings, and the standard format was to let each member of the ecclesia (as they were then called) stand up and offer whatever it was they desired. As you can imagine, not exactly a tightly structured arrangement! LOL

Eventually [edit to add: in the 1920s] that morphed into what is now known as the Service meeting, which is a tightly structured presentation of how and what to do in the public door-to-door work. No spontaneity at all.

drew sagan

One thing that may interest you FormerMormon is the differance in approach JWs take in regards to their history over Mormons.

From what I understand Mormons are very open about the 'testimony' of Joseph Smith and his 'revelation' from God. This revelation is the foundation of the Church.

The JWs have a very similar teaching. Their story goes that an invisible Jesus Christ came down out of heaven in 1918/1919 and chose them as the only true religion. This is their foundational story.

But the JWs do not give 'testimonies' about this. If you ask a JW that comes to your door about this teaching they may try to get around asking questions about it, or even possible lie about it.

The reason is because their technique is converting people over to theological opinions not attached to their foundational story. Over time they will get the potential member to trust them to the point where they can drop the 'whopper' story on them. By this poin the potential convert is so far on their way to joining the group the radical teaching (1919 stuff and other things) doesn't phase them.

I think this is one of the major differences between JWs and Mormons. Mormons embrace and proclaim their revelations they believe God has given them while JWs deny that they even have any.

mac n cheese

I started out on exmormon.org. The stories there were so eerily similar to my experience as a JW that I finally got the nerve to come over here. For me, it was just how you hope it goes with your wife. But I also kept quiet about what I read on exmormon,org, so I wouldn't cause trouble with my family, because they knew it was a slippery slope (internet research on religion equals BAD, APOSTATE). Best of luck with your wife, I am in the same boat with my spouse. I actually had that discussion with my spouse, asking that if they had been born a Muslim, Lutheran, Mormon or anything else, would they still stay that religion even after they discovered it wasn't the true religion? The response was "Yes, I guess so. Sad, isn't it?" There are small cracks in the armor, so patience is what you'll need most of all.

Greetings from a recovering mormon

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