Did any of you have a family member or close friend become an apostate first and you shunned them for it only to eventually see the light? If so, how did your eyes become opened?
Two questions for all "apostates"
by sloppyjoe2 12 Replies latest jw friends
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OneEyedJoe
AFAIK I'm the first apostate I've ever known. I do have a couple never baptized cousins that I've shunned (and feel terrible about it still) for having a revolving door of "worldly" live-in boyfriends. I only saw the light due to my own issues with the doctrine and the passage of time.
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Vidiot
A guy I used to know had become an "apostate" while I was still in, but in retrospect, I was well on my way myself when I found out.
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jws
There was a guy at the hall. A little older, but we were both into computers back in the 80's when home computers were fairly new. We'd talk and while we didn't do things together were friends. Then he disappeared and sent waves throughout the local congregations. He was even a pioneer. Yes, people ostracized him. Stories made it seem like he was being cruel to his JW mother.
My thought was always reserve judgement. If I ever see him, I want to ask him about a lot of things. First off, what made him leave? What did he find out? Then, was he really doing all the things we heard about?
I haven't seen him since he left. All he did was make me wonder. Reading Crisis of Conscience a few years later did it for me. Probably he left me with curiosity.
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Vidiot
jws - "All he did was make me wonder. Reading Crisis of Conscience a few years later did it for me."
Maybe that's what had done it for him, too.
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dgeero
Yup one of my best friends became "apostate", started going to other churches, joined the military etc. He tried to reach out to me on Facebook and I told him I couldn't talk to him until he "returned to Jehovah". He told me he never would and he would never be a part of a religion that 'followed men in Brooklyn and not Jesus'. At the time I tried to argue with him we weren't following men or an organization lol.
His words stuck with me for about a year and a half before I started waking up. He planted a seed that grew into full blown doubt. Right after the RNWT came out there was a watchtower article containing the overlapping generation teaching. I remember looking at the article with the explanation and there was not a single scripture sighted and something felt off. I realized I was just trusting a group of men and they weren't using the bible for this teaching so I started to research slowly dipping my toes into 'apostate' sites like jwfacts. Within 4 or 5 months I was pretty sure it was not "the truth" and after getting half way through COC I was 100% convinced.
One of the first things I did was contact my friend and apologize for shunning him and tell him he was right. We no longer live near each other but we keep in touch and if he had never said anything who knows if or when I would have woken up. Fast forward to today and I am free of any religion and am for all intents and purposes a practicing atheist or a 6 on Dawkins scale.
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nicolaou
I had a good friend in the cong' who had doubts. I tried to 'help' him but in the end I became convinced of his apostasy. I was so indoctrinated that I went to see the elders twice as I felt the congregation needed protection from his influence.
I look back with shame and embarrassment at how I behaved.
I shunned him for a few months, I was the only one in the cong' who did and it was awful for him and his wife and me and my Mrs too. The four of us had been good friends, camping trips, meals out, babysitting each other's kids . . .
Eventually, (with many thanks to Ray Franz, Randall Watters and Simon Green) the penny finally dropped. I knocked on the door of my friends house and he was so cool about everything that had happened, almost like he'd been waiting for me to catch up.
There's a lot more to tell but twenty years later we're still friends. Here's to you J!
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Vidiot
nicolau - "...almost like he'd been waiting for me to catch up."
I especially liked that bit.
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FayeDunaway
That's the thing. They understand our reaction, because they were there once too. It's the funny thing about leaving the religion. Once you're in it, you can't see the other side clearly. Once you leave, you can see both sides clearly. There's no resentment for us being jerks, there's just 'im so glad you're out too!!' -
nicolaou
There's no resentment for us being jerks, there's just 'im so glad you're out too!!'
Exactly.