When You Were A JW Were You Disturbed By "Apostate" Literature or "Apostates" At Conventions? (page 5)

minimus

Based upon the new light on the FDS, maybe these folks were never "Evil Slave".....what do ya think?

jws

I remember having different reactions. I remember protestors shouting at us and my reaction was something like anger that they should just leave us alone.

But even earlier, when I was probably around 10, I remember being curious. While we were inside, somebody had put things on peoples windshields that looked like fake watchtowers. At 10, a Mad magazine fan and Wacky Packs fan, I LOVED parody. I wanted to see what they said. But my parents told me not to try to read one. There were people gathering them up to be tossed.

Afterwards, I asked my parents what was so bad and they tried to explain. My response was something like, why don't we take it and show them where they are wrong? I was confused why, if we had the truth, we should be afraid of this literature. Truth should stand up to anything, right?

After that, at each assembly, I kept an eye out. If I ever saw one, I was going to snatch it and hide it so I could read it later. But I never saw it.

When I first heard how to find a copy of Ray Franz's book, I ordered it from an arch nemesis of my dad's. There was a local guy running a center to combat the cults. People would call him in for return visits with JWs and my dad encountered him more than once and took keen interest in the stories other JWs told of run-ins with some sharp guy. That, I believe, was the guy I saw on TV and ordered Crisis of Conscience from.

minimus

I always felt that thesedemonstrators were counter-productive. But perhaps they subliminally did a job on us.

hemp lover

This is for Broken Promises and no one else

I grew up in a very small town in Illinois, pop. 10,000. Fred and Kate Gholson were the cool, younger elder and wife. They would have parties for the teenagers where we'd dance to the Bee Gees in their super neat basement.

We always looked forward to Fred's talks because he was funny and not boring. They owned a security company and anyone in town who had a security system would hire them to install it. They gave me my first job when I was 14 and paid me less than minimum wage to sit in a tiny office on weekends and monitor alarms.

Right before everything went to shit, Fred had a local needs talk at the service meeting. He had interviewed all the teenagers in the congregation. Well, almost all, because he didn't talk to my brother or me since we were the PO's kids. Fred got on stage and read really awful statements from the "youth" of the cong, such as "The elders are Nazis." and "Why are they always calling us youths?" lol

It was devastating. There was total silence in the hall and my dad had the next talk. All I can remember is that his voice and his hands were shaking as he tried to address what had just happened and I was really worried that he was going to cry.

The next thing I can recall is that Fred and Kate disassociated themselves after a prolonged battle to avoid it and then they started picking off fringe members of the cong. They took out ads in the local paper every day attacking the Watchtower and giving a number to call for more info. There were billboards up in our tiny town denouncing JWs and bumper stickers, letters, etc. They picketed the Kingdom Hall on Sundays. I tried to read their signs but my parents were insistent that we not look. I remember seeing something about 607, but that didn't mean anything to me at the time.

This seemed to go on for years, though I don't know how long it really lasted. The KH was out in the country and there was only one road to get to it and Fred and Kate lived on that road, so it was a huge deal when they started putting up holiday decorations. It was also a huge deal when they got divorced years later. I can still hear the righteous vindication in my mom's voice when she announced this momentous news.

I haven't thought about any of this for years, but it was really very traumatic when it happened. Getting the paper every day and turning to the classified ads to see what they were saying now. But my intellectual curiousity just didn't exist then, and I was a stupid teenager and never followed up on anything I read. I wish I had. Could've saved myself years in this religion, but then my daughter probably wouldn't have been created, so I guess it all worked out okay in the end. I'd love to talk to them today though.

When You Were A JW Were You Disturbed By "Apostate" Literature or "Apostates" At Conventions?

minimus

jws

minimus

hemp lover

minimus

hemp lover

stillajwexelder

Broken Promises

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