Hi, this is non-denominational, i.e. promotes no particular church but is intended to help persons regardless of beliefs. Please make copies of this to give away to LIBRARIES, leave about etc. It can help free some who are now trapped by cults and keep others from ever becoming trapped - possibly your own loved ones! It's short enough to be printable as a small flyer, leaflet or booklet. Feel free to add other materials such as songs if you want to give it more bulk.
THE REAL TRUTH: Shunning, Blood, Holidays, Trinity, Cross, Etc
By Charles B Hutson, Troy Brown, Rita LeMans
Published on the internet at jehovahs-witness.com
Uncopyrighted For The Public Domain 2002
Please make give copies as gifts to other persons and libraries)
About 2,000 years ago Jesus Christ said families would be divided by some members doing good and others doing wrongs, but he never ever advocated the destruction of families. 1 Corinthians 6:1 only says judge "trivial" things as in business, James 2:4-13 calls judging harmful, and Paul says the "majority" (2 Cor 2:6), followed his advice to shun a wrongdoer, meaning a minority chose not to & yet he nowhere condemns them. So we ask why some groups as diverse as the Amish and Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) actually use formal Judicial Committes which destroy families via their numerous formal renderings of disfellowshipment (shunning)? Isn't that a major tragedy?
Now here's another tragedy. Acts 15:20 says abstain from blood but 1 Samuel 14:32-5 says Saul's army ate unBLED meat to not starve and no verses show God not forgiving them; further, Christ (Mat 7) says God also forgave David's eating temple holy bread and that God wants Mercy Not Sacrifice. So how saddening it is when we note that the May 22, 1994 Awake tells of 26 Witness kids who died without transfusions, and by common sense in massive bleeding as in car wrecks blood expanders won't save lives (ajwrb.org). Did you know that an estimated 3 JWs die daily earthwide from the unscriptural policy promoted by the Watchtower Society (read Blood On The Altar) and some other doctrinally very different groups have also started going by it! How sad if we, our children, or grandchildren were to also be endangered by a misunderstanding of the scriptures?
Are most holidays really pagan as some church groups claim? What's the real truth? Let's start with Christmas. Some groups opposed to it say Christ was likely born about Oct 2; so why do those opponents, in particular the lead teachers in their groups, seem to ignore that he was therefore conceived 9 months earlier by Mary and God's own Spirit? Which, counting backwards therefore points right back to late December for his conception, that is his birth by God's Holy Spirit? And why the common insistence that Christmas is from the pagan Saturnalia since John 10:22-3 says Christ also celebrated the Festival of Dedication or Lights, i.e. Hannukah, which first began Dec 25 but has varied since because lunar-based? And Santa is from Nicholas, a Christian, not a wizard or pagan god. Why call "compromises" holidays that attacked and replaced paganisms? Doesn’t Colossians 2:16 say let none judge you about a holiday.
And the truth about birthdays is that Job 1:3, 3:1 and 3:3 show Job's kids celebrated birthdays if you read all 3 verses to see that they are speaking of "day" as the day of birth. And for that matter, didn't angels celebrate Christ's birth? There is no Biblically sound reason to deny children and families the joy of birthday celebrations, so why ever do so?
Some groups also claim incorrectly that the the view of God called Trinity is where one believes that Father, Son, Spirit are one "identical" person; and yet the real truth is that most churches accept it as three totally different entities or persons forming one "Godship" (Ro 1:20), Son and Spirit sharing inherited age, power, knowledge from God just as an acorn may be only 1 day old but also have its genes inheriting its ancestral oak tree's age, capacity & information. Whether Trinitarian, Unitarian or other, is it not true that Christ emphasized the narrow road which is The Way of neighborly LOVE for God and our fellow equally imperfect humans rather than the impossibility of sameness in all beliefs?
The leaders of some groups have called the cross symbol a repugnant murder weapon. Well, what's the real truth about that? In fact human remains and inscriptions show archaeologists that the item which slew Christ, often called "stauros" in Greek, indeed was a cross not a stake, Dr F Zugibe's research shows suffocation would be in minutes if on a stake but in hours if on outstretched cross per Luke 23:44 and Matthew 27:45-6. (more on http://freeminds.org) The truth is that Paul said boast in it as a symbol of resurrection over death. (Ga 6:14, 1Cor 1:17-18)
A really really hard truth is that some groups have Babylonishly hidden secrets such as the fact that some of their clergy - whether called priests or elders etc - have been guilty of pedophilia, and even tried to cover this up. For example this has been documented regarding some Catholic priests, but it has also come to light among the Watchtower Society as reported by numerous newspaper articles in 2001-2, Christianity Today, on http://www.silentlambs.org, observer.org etc. Television journalist investigators for Dateline NBC have aired such horrible tragedies for various churches.
No, this does not mean that all churches, whether Catholic, Protestant or others are bad, but it does mean that you have to be careful, especially when dealing with groups where image is everything. As said, in bad groups or even good groups badly in need of reform, the clergy are instructed to keep negative things "in-house" to protect their mother organization or headquarters staff and officials. That was also true for example of the PTL where Jimmy Baker's doings were hidden so long, in the Armageddon doomsday cult of Jim Jones which caused the suicide deaths of nearly 1,000 followers etc.
Sometimes the real positions of church leaders also get hidden like when Watchtower heads taught that God does not like the United Nations and yet from 1991-2001 associated with the UN without most members being aware of it. After this was exposed they claimed the liason was simply to get a library card for research even though anyone who read their Nov 22, 1998 Awake magazine closely could and can see otherwise. Also see http://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/archive_db.cgi?tablet-00577, freeminds.org, observer.org
So what can Survivors Of Abusive Religion do who have been shunned, disfellowshipped, excommunicated, expelled, kicked out or voluntarily quit a particular church? Sometimes they are told they will have "nowhere to go" and they are also told to note that Paul said there's only "one faith," meaning that unless they beg to be allowed back, they are doomed to some bad fate such as everlasting hellfire or Armageddon.
In fact sincere Christians can try a different church, start their own, go by the idea that true Christianity is all the true Christians over the centuries regardless of their name groups, and look not for somewhere else to go to, as when a fish jumps from a frying pan into a fire, but instead go on to the one person we can all go to, namely Christ, the Son of God whether you choose to call God Almighty by God, the Lord, Jah, Jehovah, Yah, Yahweh or some other title or name. If fact Christian freedom means not just freedom from wrong ideas or conduct but freedom to believe what really is true and things that are good.
