As is the case with lots of Witnesses, I noticed problems for years, but pushed them to the back burner. My reasoning was that these were imperfect men, it's a wicked system, the light gets brighter, and where else are you going to go! Of course, this line of reasoning is based on a faulty premise--that the Watchtower was chosen by God to be his earthly organization.
If I can point to one thing that woke me up, it was this: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Nightly%20News/2007/11-Nov/statement.pdf . This is the press release put out by the Watchtower in 2007, after the child sex abuse settlements were reported on NBC News.
I was already shocked that the WTS had settled the cases. I recognize that an out-of-court settlement is not an admission of liability. But the WTS has a long track record of vigorously and successfully defending itself in court. Thus, with that history, it is reasonable to conclude that the WTS would have fought the cases if it was not at fault.
I was also shocked at my own initial reaction to the news. My first reaction was 'oh no, this is going to make the org/Jehovah look bad.' Then I stopped myself and was ashamed that my first reaction was not one of sadness for the victims and disgust toward the perpetrators. And then I started to think about what caused my first reaction be a concern about the organization's reputation.
Then when I read the statement linked above, I was even more dismayed. It was so deceptive, particularly this portion: "During the last 100 years, only nine elders have been sued for child abuse in eleven lawsuits filed in the United States." First, the modern elder arrangement has only been in place since the 1970s, not 100 years. Also (and more importantly), the statement only relates to elders being sued. This does not include elders that are prosecuted for a crime.
I think your average reader does not readily distinguish the difference between (1) an prosecution and (2) a lawsuit. But in the case of a crime (such as abuse), there are many more instances of prosecution than lawsuits. In other words, few victims of crimes sue the perpetrators--they may go to the police and they may testify in a criminal trial, but they do not typically sue their perpetrators in civil court.
(The OJ Simpson case is an exception that proves the rule. There was the criminal trial where OJ was acquitted, but then there was a civil case where the Goldmans sued OJ for money damages. This is a rare occurrence, which was borne out by how the news media was constantly explaining the difference between the two trials.) Thus, I felt that the WTS was being terribly deceptive and deliberately minimizing the problem.
This realization allowed me to ask the question: is the FDS/Society/GB what it claims to be? It did not take long for the house of cards to fall.
