leavingwt:
How long has it been since you DAd and have you gotten over the rejection factor?
I was mostly prepared for it when I left.
I'm sure that as long as my parents are alive and in the cult, I'll never put it completely out of my mind.
-LWT
I am considering disassociation. Those who already have please reply.
by The Berean 38 Replies latest jw friends
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leavingwt
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passwordprotected
Sorry to hear that gordy. No, Jehovah's Witnesses don't break up families....Liars.
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leavingwt
Berean,
A couple more things...
I do not regret it.
For me it was a choice between the Comfort of a Lie and Liberty. When a person sees it like that, the decision is easy, NO MATTER the consequences.
-LWT
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FuzzyPaul
Finally-Free said : "
the elders weren't content to let things happen peacefully" WOW! Did you owe them money or something? Or run over his dog?
Dear "The Berean",
You need to have faith that you are making a WISE choice to remove yourself from the WT org. I grew a beard after an ugly divorce WT-style and they "marked me" ever since that. Over the next decade when I started discounting the WT editors sincerity and contradicting their doctrines and stupid comments they black-listed me and treat me as D-F'ed or D-A'ed even though no meeting with a team of three ever occurred or any letter was sent or received. They didn't really want the truth just their version without any competing ideas.
I prayed over the choice to wear a beard! I asked, "Is it OK?" The Lord told me it was OK, their was nothing to worry about.
When I learned, by accident, that the Watchtower joined the United Nations as an NGO in 1991 and left in 2001 after being exposed - I began to research them on the I-net and at the library. Penton's book and Raymond Franz's (I have corresponded with him) are great sources of information to bolster your resolve. Leaving the Watchtower is a WISE CHOICE!
I have found excellent Bible study and discipleship programs - which I can choose from a variety of offerings - at my local Southern Baptist Church. Baptists don't have an organizational like the WT's with centralized CONTROL. Each congregation is more or less autonomous. The Baptist Faith and Message is a pocket sized pamphlet with 17 topics and over a thousand scriptures referenced. That's the source of Baptist doctrine -The Bible - not The Doctrine Of The Month Club. Get a copy. There is a web site or any Baptist Church should have them. Read it at http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp .
I have taken two years to unravel the spider's web of deceit and trickery of doctrine that the WT taught me. Jesus is god, our god and he is called such in Isaiah 9:6 "And he will be called ... Mighty God", he has THE GOD (ton theon - Gk) as his God but nevertheless is ours. (Use http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search= for a choice of numerous Bibles with an easy look-up feature and search. I use the Holman Christian Standard Bible - The NIV is OK but Calvinistic.) Salvation is by faith in Christ alone. I believe that a person is qualified for salvation only by faith but is disqualified by serious sin or failing to care for other people. Matthew 25 : 31-46 is not about being sheep-like or goat-like, it is about being separated as a shepherd might do. The only criteria JESUS GAVE for adverse judgement is failing to care for other peoples needs, and without discriminations.
Read the plain words of Holy Scripture. Face value reading is usually the only meaning however it may sound. Imagine what a Hebrew thought about Isaiah 7 : 14. A virgin having a baby is nonsensical but it happened as written - "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us." - Matthew 1 : 22, 23
"When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak whatever He hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. He will glorify Me" - John 16 : 13, 14
Other entries here note how the WT thanks Jehovah and the FDS for their "truth" but not Jesus! You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You will have the guidance of the Holy Spirit just for asking The Father. The Holy Spirit and those who follow his leading will Glorify Jesus. He is fully in charge. "Then Jesus came near and said to them, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth." Matthew 28 : 18
Take communion - its really OK.
DON"T BE AFRAID!
Verses 17-19 are about the Messiah, Not The G-B. Verses 20-22 area about the G-B of the WT, Not Bible believing Christians in the Domain of Christ (Christendom).
17 The LORD said to me: "What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. 19 If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death."
21 You may say to yourselves, "How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD ?" 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him. - Deut 18
The perversity of being in the Watchtower is that one is afraid to leave. You are told to abandon your friends and family outside the org and become a J-W so that when you leave them you will have no-one - and when you are in you have so few friends that its lonely, especially for kids. Go to different churches and you will get instant relief. Only one out of 14 different churches here in this county felt cool. All the rest were filled with the most loving and God-loving Christians.
It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near
and their doom rushes upon them." Deut 32 : 35Read my bio about finding faith.
I will Pray for You.
Love and Best wishes,
Paul
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AK - Jeff
I Da'd about 2 1/2 years ago.
I probably would not have forced the issue. But the elders came after me, and wanted to JC me for 'apostasy'. I declined and gave them a letter instead, buying a few days so that I could forward the letter to a few Jw's in the cong first.
I had been a Jw for most of my first 48 years. I lost all my social network before this - once one leaves Jw it is likely that no one will stay in touch. They didn't. But the shunning became more intense after that. I eventually lost my best friend, my cousin. We had been absolutely inseperable for the better part of our entire adult lives. Now he won't speak to me.
Likely, most of that shunning and hatred would have followed my leaving. In order to maintain relationships within, it is neccessary to play games and pretend. I could never do that anyway.
It is a tough decision. I wish you well as you weigh it carefully. I do not regret my decision. I knew that leaving Jw would be painful, though I underestimated the depth of the pain it would bring. Still, I have to be true to what I know.
Jeff
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Homerovah the Almighty
Personally I think its morally vulgar for anyone to be placed into subjection and control by such a corrupt organization as the JWS are.
The reason is they take peoples lives and force a bunch of misinformation crap down their throats, exploit them to gather more people to be put
those too in their grasp of control and also bring them money.
The general population needs the JWS like they need cancer of the liver.
By all means write out a DA letter and get your mind back they will only use it to create power and money for themselves.
After all that really was their intension from the beginning and it hasn't changed a whole lot.
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Marjorie
Berean: I, too, have been contemplating disassociation. I know that it's really not necessary to formally DA, but in my opinion, it gives closure.
Gordy and AK - Jeff: {sigh}.
Paul: I believe that a person is qualified for salvation only by faith but is disqualified by serious sin or failing to care for other people. Matthew 25 : 31-46 is not about being sheep-like or goat-like, it is about being separated as a shepherd might do. The only criteria JESUS GAVE for adverse judgement is failing to care for other peoples needs, and without discriminations. I agree.
Berean: Sea cruise, huh? Tell us the details!
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truthsetsonefree
I would have faded if my wife and the elders didn't make that impossible. But I refused to be DF'd when I had broken no moral principle. So I wrote "the letter" when they chased me down and gave me the judicial hearing dates. As has been already mentioned, you WILL be regarded like Public Enemy No 1, even and especially by your very best friends. Some family as my parents did MAY view "blood as thicker than water" and continue to have a relationship with you. But don't count on it unless you know for sure that they will.
As for regrets I have none. I regret that I lost those friends, even though they were only so close when you consider that they could shun me over the word of an organization. But that was inevitable, even if I had only faded.
Isaac
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Finally-Free
WOW! Did you owe them money or something? Or run over his dog?
Worse than that. I no longer meekly tolerated their shit. They took away all my "privileges" because I was taking some part time computer courses, which are necessary for my work. I responded by refusing to do any more free computer work for them. I told the PO he had no business criticizing my taking courses while at the same time expecting to benefit from them for free.
Then they counseled me for being "materialistic". I responded by kicking the book study out of my house. If my material things are so bad, they shouldn't expect to benefit from them. After waiting a month for them to remove the BS chairs from my house, I took them to the elder's house myself and stacked them in front of his door, blocking the entrance. I thought it was funny since his back door didn't work and it was raining that day. He wasn't amused. When he tried to give me shit for it I told him he should consider himself lucky that I didn't bill him for a month of storage.
Then I had the pleasure of kicking the BS out of my mothers house. She had moved in with my sister some months earlier, but left a key with her congregation so they could keep using her house. I changed the locks, put the chairs in the driveway, and told them to pick them up.
W
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Marjorie
Issac: Oh yes, all of my JW 'friends' have already abandoned me, except one very kind elder from my previous congregation. That gentleman is definitely the exception, not the rule.