Yes, I was a JW. I was brought up with the C of E, not that this means much of itself. I was a misfit at school and felt I did not belong and wondered about the meaning of life. When I was in my teens I went through something spiritual which words cannot explain but I will try. The world is so ugly and hateful, yet some things in nature are so beautiful.. God was talking to me through nature that things were not meant to be as they are. I would go for walks in the countryside to think about things and the contrast between what mankind was doing and what I saw in my walks was so overwhelming that at times I was in tears.
So when the Witnesses came round (I was in my twenties by then), I invited them in and was very keen to learn. After a several years of study I was 100% convinced this was the truth and could 'prove' everything from the bible. I was convinced I had found the paradise I was looking for.. but it turned out that what I had with JWs was not the real truth.. not the meaning of it. I had mistaken ‘knowledge’ for the love of God.
Sadly, I did not find the love that Jesus said would be the mark of a true Christian among any of JWs when put to the test. There was plenty of talk of "Jehovah's righteous requirements" but little of what this means to a Christian (who is not under law).. to have the love (and mind) of Christ… which I now realized is something we cannot have by our own efforts… but is a gift we can never deserve or earn.
There was much emphasis placed on outward appearance both in the way we dress and in the way they think we are seen by the world. We had to put on our best suits and show ourselves to be an exemplary example morally to the world as “Jehovah’s clean people”, but many did not live up to that morality but instead were cold or even cruel and hurtful toward others… yet this was not reproved at all, especially if they held a position in the congregation. If you said anything, you had “a complaining spirit” and were questioning Jehovah’s arrangement or organization.
I saw people get hurt (including myself) and a girl I knew who was brought up a JW, committed suicide by jumping off some high rise flats. She was ‘just’ a friend but it really shook and upset me to think that “one of Jehovah’s happy people” could do this. Then around that time, when I was out “on the doors”, someone I met was very upset and told me how JWs had ruined their daughter’s life. I remember going white and feeling the cold as I thought the unthinkable... that they had literally ruined my friend’s life and I thought of how her mum and dad must have felt about this too. I didn’t want to admit that something was very wrong but my idealism was taking yet another blow.. “God does not do this to these sorts of people” I thought to myself.
Then there was the dishonesty of the Society.. like in the Paradise book I think it was, there were hidden (demonic) drawings within the pictures and this was pointed out at an assembly (convention) and it was said that some people in the art department had been disciplined for it. Yet a few years later the whole thing was denied it ever existed.. it was a false rumour they said. No doubt they quickly reprinted it but in my copy of the book, the hidden drawings were definitely there. It was not the drawings that upset me but that they denied it.
I wasn’t looking for a perfect ‘church’ but found that some people of the world had love which was more Christ-like than that of Jehovah's Witnesses, yet we were taught that the world is so wicked (which it is) and that JWs, because they have their doctrines so right (which the don’t), are in good standing with God… so its implied or even said that JWs are more righteous than people of the world. Do our doctrines themselves make us righteous? No but the JW implies this is so (yet he gets his doctrines second-hand). People in the world are looked on as “bad association” or at best not good association and this caused a barrier with my own family who are not JWs… my family still look on me as different after all these years and we have little contact.
There are many things that I now disagree with in the JWs teachings, but just one of the things that caused me to not take everything the Watchtower teach as being the same as the word of God is when they were saying that Christ will return invisibly at Harmageddon (there’s something behind that!). Nor do I believe that the 144,000 is a literal number, the remnant of which are conveniently said to be in the Watchtower Society, when all the other numbers in Revelation are symbolic… as their own "Aid to Bible Understanding" book showed.
JWs said I would die spiritually if I leave but I found that we do not need a "faithful and discreet slave class" conveniently placed in the WT Society for "spiritual food at the proper time" and although they started me reading the bible I have seen so much more since I left them. I firmly believe that God Himself has led me to the truth not governed by head knowledge and also some ‘truths’ as they would say. But I left mainly because of attitudes toward other people and the way their 'knowledge' is applied rather than any doctrinal teachings. They have a proud "us against them" attitude and the JW's faith is based on performance, not love. They may deny that they are trying to earn salvation but their attitude and practices show otherwise… "by their fruits you will know them."
I was offered paradise like a carrot dangling on a string and didn’t realize that no matter how hard we try, we cannot reach it… but instead of this, it is offered to us by someone who cares and is not playing those cruel games of the demons. The disappointment of not reaching that carrot broke my heart and for a moment I thought I had lost my hope of a future life. So for a while I didn’t want to know anything more about God and the bible but it was buried in the back of my mind.
Several years went by and I became stronger and eventually I returned to the search for “the truth” so I started looking at other religions. I have visited several churches over the years then started attending a Baptist church and enjoyed fellowship with them very much and got baptized (again) at a Pentecostal church. As I was going into the water the Pastor said, “Will you do what Jesus tells you?” and I said “yes”, not realizing that God would lead me away from all religious organizations… Rev 18:4
John