Hello folks. I have struggled for a long time trying to write something to my former friends. I have about a dozen people I'd like to send the following letter to. As y'all know there is SO MUCH that one could write I just don't know what I should put in or leave out. What prompts me this time is the Bill Bowen et alia DFing about to occur. I want to say something to my old friends. I just want them to think about what's ahead. I'd apprecaite any comments that you've made that have stuck or made a difference.
Peace,
Glen who once was Deleted.
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Dear Kevin, Rhonda & Family
I have tried to write this letter hundreds of time and every time I do I get very long-winded and 12 pages later I have a chapter to a book. That isn't what I want to do.
I'd like to apologize for leaving so abruptly. I felt I had to, before I said something that I was going to regret. Somehow I thought if I wasn't DF'd or DA'd it would mean something.
What I do want to do is to let you know that I have been thinking about you almost every day for 3 years.
I need to say something before you are blind-sided by a series of wrongs that long-term Watchtower beliefs have molded over many years that the Internet has brought under a microscope.
These wrongs will affect you whether I say something or not. The Watchtower is due for its Armageddon and it is going to hurt a lot of people.
First on the list is the Dateline article on covering-up child molestation charges among a number of congregations in the US. Apparently (and unbelievably) the Society has records of 23,720 cases on file. This article is due soon since the four active (at that time) witnesses interviewed are about to be disfellowshipped. The Society seems to place more value on keeping its flock in the dark than the bad PR this will cause. Bad PR that you will all have to deal with next time you are out in service. It is grossly unfair to do this to you.
Secondly, I have been haunted by something Brother Kirkendoll said to me some time back. He said that he had heard from a long-time brother at Bethel that the congregations couldn't handle the truths yet to be told. I wondered what they were and I am afraid I have found them.
The truths that this brother was talking about was a series of misstatements made knowingly over the years by the ex-presidents and governing body members of the Watchtower Society, and they are legion.
For example, there are literally thousands of pieces of historical evidence that show that Jerusalem fell around 587 BCE and not 607. In fact there is no evidence whatsoever to support the 607 date. Which then means that the seven years prophecy ended in 1934, not 1914. Which then means that Jesus could not have chosen the WTS as its sole channel of truth in 1918/9. Which then means that there is no such thing as the Great Crowd. 1914 is the core belief and without that holding-up everything else fails too. The appaling thing is that people back at Brooklyn actually KNOW they lied and covered it up by disfellowshipping the brothers that brought it to their attention.
If you want to check any of this out start with www.freeminds.org and work your way around a very extensive network of Watchtower quotes and essays.
At the end of the day, you are the ones that are going to have to deal with the fall-out, either by leaving yourself (for your own sanity) or working on reform from the inside (to protect your relationships with family and friends and not getting DF'd).
And I am always here, if you'd like to talk about it.
My love always,
Glen James