If you listen carefully as the literature is read or comments made at meetings, WTS publications and the Bible are almost always mentioned in the same breath. The implication is clear: the two are of equal weight. When a person has questions, he may be directed to the Bible, but almost always he will be told to do research in "Christian" or "Bible-based" publications for the answers.
When I was a boy growing up in the Roman Catholic Church, I was told that while the Bible was certainly of divine origin and the source of Christian teaching, I should not be so bold as to read it on my own with the expectation of gaining a full understanding of our Creator. No, that was what the priests and other clergy were for. I should consult them if I had serious questions about my faith.
In the past, not all Witnesses were so dependent on WTS literature, especially when it came to their door-to-door preaching. One example of this was in the former Yugoslavia under the rule of Josip Tito. Even though Yugoslavia was a communist country run by Tito's dictatorship, he allowed Witnesses a great deal of freedom. They could travel abroad to district conventions in Italy and Austria. They could preach from house to house. Tito, however, imposed this one condition on the preaching work: no WTS literature of any kind could be offered or displayed. The only book a Witness could use in the field service was the Bible itself. I thought that was very interesting.
When I pioneered, I didn't use the literature that much in the field service. I preferred talking about the Bible and engaging householders in real conversations. As a consequence, I never had that many Bible studies, but I really did enjoy the preaching work. The meetings were another matter, however. I studied the publications very hard and usually was well prepared and could make good comments. I think that was because, like so many Witnesses, I implicitly trusted the Governing Body and the literature they issued. I never thought they would lie, distort, or whitewash anything, that what was in the publications was reliable and trustworthy. So linking the publications and the Bible together was a logical thing in my mind and I had no trouble with such linkage...then.
It was only when I began reading the Bible on my own and associating with an elder who had learned many exciting things from his own reading that I began to realize that I had been hoodwinked. That was when I saw how WTS literature distorted other people's words and meanings, how it selectively quoted from its sources to make them seem to support its viewpoints, and how, in some cases, it outright lied to its readers. Since I left, I retained very few of the WTS publications I once proudly owned. The rest I consigned to the trash--where they belong.
Quendi
