Below is a Timeline of ALL Barbara Anderson Newspaper Articles from the Newest to the Oldest!
If I have missed any Articles, please post them.
As always, you can FREELY DISTRIBUTE this information to anyone -- Family, Friends, JW's, MEDIA, Authorities!
The Tullahoma News
Banned church member sues Jehovah's Witnesses
By BRIAN JUSTICE, The Sunday News Staff Writer
November 09, 2002
A Normandy resident who was disfellowshipped from Jehovah's Witnesses is suing the organization for $7 million on grounds the alleged action against her was wrong.
Barbara Joanna Anderson filed the lawsuit Thursday in Coffee County Circuit Court.
She is seeking $2 million in compensatory damages, plus $5 million in punitive damages.
The defendants are listed as:
* Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York Inc.
* Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania Inc.
* Watchtower Enterprises LLC.
* Watchtower Foundation Inc.
* Watchtower Associates LTD.
* Kingdom Support Services Inc.
* Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses.
* Religious Order of Jehovah's Witnesses.
* The Watchtower Group Inc.
* Manchester Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses Elders.
* Lawrence A. Seely, Gary Hobson, Dale Dormanen, Robert E. Matthews, David Semonian, J.R. Brown, and John Does No. 1 through No. 4.
Mrs. Anderson and her husband, Joe, had publicly spoken about alleged sexual child abuse being widespread among the Jehovah's Witnesses denomination.
The Andersons are members of the Silentlambs, which was organized to stop what they say has been repeated sexual abuse permitted because of Jehovah Witness bylaws.
Mrs. Anderson had said the denomination has a policy that does not require pedophile incidences to be reported to law enforcement authorities. She added that Jehovah Witnesses say they handle such matters in house.
However, Mrs. Anderson said what in effect happens is pedophiles end up being protected by a cover-up which allows them to continue their illegal actions.
She added they are often moved about through the denomination's many locations, which allows them to continue their actions.
She said child sexual abuse cases have occurred in Coffee County.
Mrs. Anderson said her and her husband's efforts to help change the system have resulted in retaliation from the denomination.
The Andersons have been disfellowshipped by the Kingdom Hall in Tullahoma where they attended.
Disfellowshipping, the equivalent of excommunication, is the harshest punishment handed down by the organization against members. Shunning is included as part of the punishment, which separates families.
Mrs. Anderson said she is no longer able to see or communicate with her son, Lance Anderson, or his family who live at Mishawaka, Ind. She added that Lance is a practicing Jehovah Witness and is bound by the denomination's rules.
Watchtower spokesman J.R. Brown previously defended Jehovah's Witnesses' policies.
"Clearly, with us having 95,000 congregations around the world and three to five to six elders in each, mistakes may have been made," he said. "But that does not mean that we don't have a strong and aggressive policy that shows we abhor child molestation."
Brown said that anyone found guilty of molestation by a church judicial committee is removed from all positions of responsibility and cannot evangelize door-to-door without being accompanied by a fellow Jehovah's Witness.
Mrs. Anderson says in the lawsuit that she can "no longer pursue her work to assist Jehovah's Witnesses who are child abuse victims because they are prohibited from speaking to a disfellowshipped person.
"This has caused irreparable harm to victims who are barred from taking to her."
The suit says Mrs. Anderson has "suffered severe emotional stress as a result of all of the foregoing acts complained of and that she has incurred medical expenses for treatment of her emotional problems which in turn caused physical problems."
The suit says she has suffered "severe emotional stress and the resulting medical expenses and physical problems were caused by the defendants with the specific intent to cause emotional distress and with a reckless disregard of the probability of causing that distress."
The suit also says that "the conduct of the defendants acting in concert with each other was extreme and outrageous and would be considered as such by the general public."
The Tullahoma News 2002
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Associated Press (AP) News Story - September 26th 2002 (This Story was in A LOT of different Newspapers!)
Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses Speak Out
Thursday September 26, 2002
TULLAHOMA, Tenn. (AP) - Joe and Barbara Anderson have been abandoned by their peers. Their son won't talk to them, and won't let them see their 3-year-old grandson.
For more than 40 years, Joe and Barbara Anderson were faithful Jehovah's Witnesses, preaching door to door and winning more than 80 converts to the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
But now the Andersons are outcasts, excommunicated from the religion they served.
The couple's transgression: Sowing discord in the faith by alleging that the denomination has protected pedophiles and concealed hundreds of child molestation cases.
``Our son and daughter-in-law think what we've done is so horrible,'' Barbara Anderson, 62, said at her sycamore-shaded rural cottage about 65 miles southeast of Nashville.
Like the Roman Catholic Church, Jehovah's Witnesses are dealing with their own sex scandal that involves both rank-and-file and leaders of the faith.
The Jehovah's Witnesses shun the outside world in many respects and refuse to participate in secular government. Critics fear that child-sex allegations are generally not reported to police because of the church's insistence on handling problems internally.
Four Witnesses, including Barbara Anderson, were excommunicated after NBC's ``Dateline'' aired their concerns in May. Joe Anderson, 67, was disfellowshipped, as the church calls it, in July over a letter to headquarters questioning his wife's treatment.
Barbara Anderson worked as a researcher at Watchtower headquarters in the early 1990s and a church official asked her to look into the handling of sexual abuse cases. She said she found hundreds of allegations on record, but kept secret, in church files.
She said church elders used Scripture to argue ``you're not to make an accusation against an older man unless there are two or three witnesses,'' she said. ``No molester is going to have any witnesses, that's for sure.''
Watchtower spokesman J.R. Brown defended Jehovah's Witnesses' policies.
``Clearly, with us having 95,000 congregations around the world and three to five to six elders in each, mistakes may have been made,'' he said. ``But that does not mean that we don't have a strong and aggressive policy that shows we abhor child molestation.''
Brown said that anyone found guilty of molestation by a church judicial committee is removed from all positions of responsibility and cannot evangelize door-to-door without being accompanied by a fellow Jehovah's Witness.
Undeterred, Barbara Anderson co-founded Silentlambs, a support group for church victims. She expects to lead a rally outside Watchtower headquarters in New York City on Friday. Protesters plan to carry stuffed lambs to symbolize the children who have been hurt.
Silentlambs, headed by former Kentucky church elder Bill Bowen, claims the denomination keeps molestations secret, won't let victims warn other members about abusers, and shuns those who speak out.
The church puts its membership at 6 million worldwide, including 1 million U.S. residents. Silentlambs has received calls and e-mails from 5,000 Witnesses reporting mishandled molestation cases, Bowen said.
In the closed society, anyone who is a Witness must cut off contact with disfellowshipped members, even relatives.
``They will not speak to you,'' Joe Anderson said. ``I mean, if you are lying on the road, they will drive right past you.''
Their son, Lance Anderson, 41, a church elder in Mishawaka, Ind., said the intention isn't to punish his parents but to lead them to repentance.
``I have never seen a situation come up in which we have not handled it legally and biblically the best way possible,'' he said.
The son said pedophilia is a global problem but that only God - not man or government - can stop it.
``I love my parents dearly, but the message they have chosen to accomplish this is harming good people,'' he said. ``They are putting themselves, really, in harm's way.''
For the first time, Joe and Barbara Anderson say they're reading religious books and trying to draw their own conclusions.
``It's not that we don't believe the Bible or don't believe religion or don't believe God,'' Barbara Anderson said. ``But we're having fun ... having the freedom to look around and to think about it.''
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The Tullahoma News and Guardian (Tennessee) Newspaper -- Wednesday, September 11th 2002:
Couple plans to march against church denomination's policy
By: BRIAN JUSTICE, Staff Writer September 11, 2002
Barbara and Joe Anderson of Tullahoma claim sexual child abuse has been widespread among the Jehovah Witnesses denomination, and say they plan to do something about it.
The Andersons plan to participate in a nationwide march at the organization's headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Sept. 27.
The Andersons are members of the Silentlambs which was organized to stop what they say has been repeated sexual abuse permitted because of Jehovah Witness bylaws.
Mrs. Anderson said the denomination has a policy that does not require pedophile incidences to be reported to law enforcement authorities. She added that Jehovah's Witnesses say they handle such matters in house.
However, Mrs. Anderson said what in effect happens is pedophiles end up being protected by a cover-up which allows them to continue their illegal actions. She added they are often moved about through the denomination's many locations, which allows them to continue their actions.
She said child sexual abuse cases have occurred in Coffee County.
Mrs. Anderson summed up the reason why she and her husband plan to march in Brooklyn.
"We want them to change the policy that protects pedophiles," she said.
Mrs. Anderson said her and her husband's efforts to help change the system have resulted in retaliation from the denomination.
The Andersons have been disfellowshipped by the Kingdom Hall in Tullahoma where they attended. Disfellowshipping, the equivalent of excommunication, is the harshest punishment handed down by the organization against members. Shunning is included as part of the punishment, which separates families.
Mrs. Anderson said she is no longer able to see or communicate with her son or his family who live in Mishawaka, Ind. She added that he is a practicing Jehovah's Witness and is bound by the denomination's rules.
"They have shunned us," she said, referring to the church, then her son's family. "We'll never see them again."
Her husband agreed.
"You just can't imagine what this has been like for us. We can't see our grandchild any more. Our son and daughter-in-law won't allow it," he said.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson attended a Nashville news conference last week to explain their situation along with other Jehovah's Witnesses who have spoken out against the alleged sexual child abuse.
Two Nashville women were quoted in the media about their specific circumstances. They said they were abused as girls by members of their respective Kingdom Halls.
"We're speaking out now, as young women in our 20s, because we realize that what happened to us was wrong and that we are not alone. There are many of us who are suffering," one woman said.
A spokesman for the New York-based Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the umbrella organization that is headquarters for Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide, said they were aware of the planned march later this month.
A man who answered the phone in the press office at Watchtower headquarters was quoted in the media as saying that press statements would not be issued until the day of the march. He had asked that any statements be attributed to the organization's spokesman, J.R. Brown.
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Tennessean.com News - September 6th 2002:
Couple to protest Jehovah's WitnessesBy LEON ALLIGOOD, Staff WriterBarbara Anderson, a former Jehovah's Witness, places a toy lamb on the front doors of the Kingdom Hall on Bell Road as part of a national protest by ex-Witnesses who say the denomination has covered up child sexual abuse by members.
Placing a symbolic stuffed lamb on the steps of a suburban Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall, a Coffee County couple yesterday said they will help lead a protest march Sept. 27 at the headquarters of the denomination in Brooklyn, N.Y.
''We are going to let the whole nation know what is going on behind closed doors. There is a massive coverup under way, and we're not going to stand for it,'' said Barbara Anderson of Manchester, Tenn.
Anderson and her husband, Joe, made the announcement yesterday at a Kingdom Hall on Bell Road. The Coffee County couple have received national attention since May for questioning how Jehovah's Witnesses have responded to allegations of child sexual abuse.
Yesterday's news conference was one of 16 held in major cities across the country to announce the Sept. 27 march, which is expected to attract a hundred or more supporters. The meetings were arranged by ''Silentlambs,'' a support group for Jehovah's Witnesses who say they have been abuse victims.
The Andersons have been disfellowshipped by the Kingdom Hall in Tullahoma, Tenn., where they attended. Disfellowshipping, the equivalent of excommunication, is the harshest punishment handed down by the organization against members. Shunning is included as part of the punishment, which separates families.
''You just can't imagine what this has been like for us. We can't see our grandchild any more. Our son and daughter-in-law won't allow it,'' Joe Anderson said.
Attending the Nashville news conference yesterday were two local women who said they were abused as girls by members of their respective Kingdom Halls.
''We're speaking out now, as young women in our 20s, because we realize that what happened to us was wrong and that we are not alone. There are many of us who are suffering,'' one woman said. The Tennessean does not reveal identities of reported victims of sex crimes without consent.
A spokesman for the New York-based Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the umbrella organization that is headquarters for Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide, said they were aware of the planned march later this month.
''But we won't issue a statement until that day,'' said a man who answered the phone in the press office at Watchtower headquarters. He asked that any statements be attributed to the organization's spokesman, J.R. Brown.
Leon Alligood covers Tennessee for The Tennessean. Contact him at (615) 259-8279 or by e-mail at [email protected].
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WKRN Nashville, Tennessee News Channel 2 - September 5th 2002:
Sexual Abuse Allegations Within Jehovah's Witness DenominationReporter: Wisdom MartinThere are new allegations that a religious denomination is turning a blind eye to sexual abuse. This time, it is the Jehovah's Witnesses who stand accused.
"For me, it took away any concept of trust in religious figures, authority figures, and parental figures."
The woman who spoke to News 2 does not wish to be identified. She is a former Jehovah's Witness who claims she was abused when she was just 8-years-old by a congregation member. But when she spoke out, she said nothing was done. The women said she was also abused by a member of her congregation.
"They act like they are the law, they can take care of it. Something like this, it's abuse, and they shouldn't be the ones taking care of it."
Now, women like Barbara Anderson are ready to fight for change in their religion, so they've formed a victim's rights group called Silent Lambs. They believe the Jehovah's Witness sexual abuse polices are inadequate and harm children.
"We believe they are responsible for policies that make it possible for perverted people to come into this organization to get at Jehovah's witness children," Barbara said.
"We should of all persons, being Christians going by the Bible, we should do the right thing for these abuse victims," said Joe Anderson.
Joe Anderson was a Jehovah's Witness elder for over 50 years.
"In the organization, you have to have two witnesses, and of course it's almost impossible to have two witnesses to a child molestation. So if a parent comes with their daughter to the elder, they ask and he says, no, I didn't do it, then that's the end of the matter."
"I would like to see them recognize it, take it to the civil authorities and professionals that are capable and qualified to help the victims."
News 2 contacted the Jehovah's Witness national office in New York, but they did not return our calls. The Silent Lambs organization will hold a march to bring awareness to their cause September 27th in Brooklyn, New York.
News 2 at 5
09.05.02
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WSMV Nashville, Tennessee NBC Affiliate News Channel 4 - September 5th 2002:
Former church members march in protestPeople say they were molested as a child by a Jehovah's WitnessBy James LewisSex and religion make for a potent mix. And Thursday, some Jehovah's Witnesses are being targeted by former members about charges of child sexual abuse. They claim elders are covering it up. The worst part is that women say it's been going on for years.
The best part is that it is now public, and they have hope that the problem may be addressed publicly by Jehovah's Witnesses. At the Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall in Antioch, former member Barbara Anderson left a small stuffed lamb. It's her symbol of innocence lost. As a writer for the organization in New York, Anderson says she discovered multiple charges of sexual abuse being hushed up.
"They're kind of isolated in their ivory tower and they do believe that all the world is controlled by Satan, that theirs is God's organization. They can make the rules," said Barbara Anderson.
Nationwide Thursday in 16 major cities, demonstrations like this called for change within the religious organization.
"It was from another member who was there," said "Lisa", who was abused when she was young.
Lisa, not her real name, says as a 9-year-old child she was molested by a Jehovah's Witness. Despite telling the church - no one within the organization reported it to police.
"Now that you're an adult, Lisa, what would you like to say to your attacker?" asked Channel 4 Reporter James Lewis.
"I really feel sorry for him because as an adult I feel sorry that he has went through them because of his own way of trying to cover it up," said "Lisa".
Former member Joe Anderson grieves for his former friends, but he sees hope that recent exposures will correct some wrongs.
"Something is going to be done about it. And something has been done about it to a certain degree. But certainly more needs to be done but yeah I am happy to see them coming out with this," said Joe Anderson.
Channel 4 News attempted to contact the presiding elders at the Jehovah's Witnesses, but none of them returned our calls.
For more information about this cause, visit the Silent Lambs Web Site.
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"Dances With Cactus" Web Blog on Salon.com - September 4th 2002:
Wednesday, September 04, 2002How Many More?By Michael Morris (Mike Pence)How many more times must children of Jehovah's Witnesses suffer the humiliation and agony of sexual abuse before church leaders decide to change their policies? How many more lives must be broken?
It is not a question of whether charges of such abuse in the group have reached the ears of the leaders of the 6 million-member sect, which includes a million members in the US. One of those magazines in the hand of the earnest Jehovah's Witness at your door on a Saturday morning, Awake!, in the October 8, 1991 issue, featured a cover series on the problem of child sexual abuse in modern society. The series was in response to an influx of letters from members, recounting their tales of abuse and their concerns about its handling in the church.
Barbara Anderson, 62, of Tullahoma, Tennessee, was a staff member for Awake! at that time. She recalled in a recent interview that this October 8 issue seemed to give voice to a newfound tolerance toward psychotherapy, and displayed a previously unheard-of willingness to consider the validity of repressed memories in assessing charges of abuse. It was a ray of hope, a glimmer of progressive thinking in an insular and secretive group.
Nowhere did such thinking find more opposition than in the very building that published it. The governing body member who administered the writing department, Lloyd Barry, now deceased, and the governing body member who oversaw the Service Department, in charge of the congregations, Ted Jaracz, were entrenched in battle. When elders, lay ministers in the congregations, called in confusion to the service department, they were told, according to Anderson, that the magazine was a mistake.
Mistake or not, Awake! opened the floodgates and a torrent of correspondence came into the groups Brooklyn Heights headquarters. J. R. Brown, now spokesman for the group, was working in the writing department at that time, and personally passed on information to the governing body concerning this influx of response. In a recent interview, he acknowledged that these letters included claims that cases of child sexual abuse brought to the elders were not handled properly and that members were told that they should not make this known.
By early 1992, just months after the publication of the October 8, 1991 Awake!, the accusations of mishandled cases of child sexual abuse had reached a new level. According to Anderson, some of the governing body were aware in 1992 that there were confessed or convicted pedophiles, who claimed repentance, holding positions of authority in the organization. Meanwhile, abuse survivors who were able to muster the courage to come forward were being met with skepticism or downright hostility.
Ten years ago, if not earlier, church leaders knew that widespread allegations of child sexual abuse were coming in from their own members.
It is also not a question of whether the groups policies in handling allegations of abuse internally could lead to an abuser finding protection instead of accountability. The Witnesses live under the simple delusion that all outsiders are co-conspirators with Satan, so when faced with a serious problem members turn to their untrained lay ministers: the congregation elders. These men, appointed by Holy Spirit (by way of headquarters), wield the Holy Scriptures, rendering them completely equipped (1 Timothy 3:15, 16) for whatever problems members may have to bring to them, including child sexual abuse. The criterion for evaluating any charge is likewise simple and scriptural, if daunting (Deuteronomy 19:15): there must be two eyewitnesses.
The elders cross-examine the alleged victim -- often still a minor -- about the intimate details of the act. The intent is to identify what level of sin the charge entails, and whether the victim was somehow complicit in the act, by wearing seductive clothing or failing to scream while being raped. They may even require the accuser to face the accused and repeat the charge. When the accused denies wrongdoing, the elders then must ask for the nearly impossible burden of proof of two eyewitnesses to be met. Failing that, they declare the accused innocent before God. They also remind the accuser that malicious gossip like spreading accusations of abuse against someone whom God has declared innocent could result in their expulsion from the congregation, and subsequent shunning by family, friends and God himself. Then, they close with prayer.
The governing body codified such procedures in the secret elders manual Pay Attention to Yourselves and All the Flock, though it is obvious that such a burden of proof could provide a de factoshelter for secretive child sex abusers. The result for many is that victims are silenced while abusers are exonerated. The abuse continues.
Witness leaders also cannot feign ignorance to the dangers of having known child sex abusers in positions of authority in the group, or having them preaching in their emblematic door-to-door ministry. Instead, the seemed to move in a direction of excluding penitent pedophiles from leadership privileges, though explicitly prescribing evangelism as a token of faith even for convicted child sex offenders.
Both issues were addressed in the other journal published by the group, The Watchtower of January 1, 1997. It stated, for the first time, that a known molester would not qualify for congregation privileges, such as becoming an elder or ministerial servant (deacon). However, a secret letter to all bodies of elders three months later, on March 14, 1997, quietly backpedaled: An individual known to be a former child molester has reference to the perception of that one in the community and in the Christian congregation. As for determining whether those already in a position of authority had a history of molestation, the letter directed that the body of elders should not query individuals.
Unknown to the faithful, who would have taken the Watchtower as gospel, molesters could remain in positions of authority at all levels of the organization. The contents of that letter, though leaked on the Internet, remain a secret to the lay members of the group. It was explained to the elders, said Brown, and it is not a part of our standard way of handling things to always inform every detail of matters to the congregation in general. What is stated there [in the January 1, 1997 Watchtower] and the way its stated there, without the clarification, is certainly what happens most of the time.
The same issue of The Watchtower insured that not even a history of criminal child sexual abuse would exclude a penitent member from being required to engage in the Witnesses public preaching activity. Speaking of a molester who may have recently been released from prison, it states, if he seems to be repentant, he will be encouraged to make spiritual progress [and] share in the field ministry.
Brown reassured that a penitent predatory pedophile might be offered alternatives to going door-to-door, at the discretion of the local elders. "We consider just as valid if he sits on a bench in a mall with magazines and offers them to people there. Or, if he calls up on a telephone."
As a matter of policy, the governing body stipulated that known child molesters may hold positions of authority in the church and that even criminal child sex offenders must engage in public preaching.
Underscoring all of this is the refusal of church leaders to simply instruct their members to call civil authorities when allegations of child sexual abuse arise. Instead, a February 15, 2002 letter to all bodies of elders in the United States proffers the advice to immediately call the groups Legal Department whenever facing allegations of child sexual abuse in the congregation. The letter clarifies that the elders should never suggest to anyone that they should not report an allegation of child abuse to the police or other authorities. The simple advice that it may be the parents legal obligation to notify authorities, as caretakers of the minor, is never mentioned. Nor is a list of states that mandate reporting of abuse by clerics provided to the elders by their leaders, even though the US government maintains such information, and published it at the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information ( http://www.calib.com/nccanch/).
Why not encourage psychotherapy, take child sexual abuse out of the hands of untrained elders, refuse to allow know molesters to be in positions of authority, exclude them from public ministry, and inform parents of their obligation to notify authorities of allegations of abuse? Why not adopt a policy of informing authorities of possible child endangerment regardless of local statute? Why not take the moral high ground on child sexual abuse, when you presume to take Gods name as your own?
The leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses knows that today -- maybe even right now -- there is a child trembling beneath the hands of a child sex abuser among their members. They know that maybe a change in their policies could put an end to that, but they refuse to act in a way that consistently places child sexual abuse under those who are trained to deal with it. What do they have to hide? How many more victims, and how many more unspeakable acts will it take for them to see the need to change? How many more little children have to die inside to try to escape the horrid plague that their moral leaders are afraid to confront?
One child is too many. Two survivors of child sexual abuse among Jehovah's Witnesses already dwell under my roof. How many more will it take?
Copyright 2002 Mike Pence.
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"Toasted Cheese" E-Zine Story - September 3rd 2002:
An Unlikely David: Barbara Anderson's struggle to stop predatory pedophiles in the cloistered world of Jehovah's WitnessesBy Michael Morris (Mike Pence)While the Catholic Church is forced to publicly wrestle its demons of pedophilia, Jehovahs Witnesses refuse to acknowledge any similar problems in their midst. Barbara Anderson, a former insider from the uppermost echelons of the secretive sect, has stepped forward to reveal that such problems have been a source of denial, debate and division at the highest levels of the organization for at least a decade. While Witness leaders insist that sexual abuse of children is not tolerated or concealed in their congregations, as a former Jehovah's Witness, and as a parent who recently discovered my own childrens molestation within the group, I strongly disagree.
In the patriarchal world of Jehovah's Witnesses, Barbara Anderson of Normandy, Tenn., a sharp-witted lady from New York, rose to a level of influence that was unheard of for a woman. She assisted in compiling the official history of the group, and wrote articles that serve to instruct the 6 million Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide, including the 1 million in the United States (though her gender, under Witness rules, would not allow her to read aloud in a Kingdom Hall the very words that she wrote). She regularly rubbed shoulders with members of the Witnesses' elite governing body, a committee that currently consists of 11 men, charged with overseeing the group.
Anderson was also privy to the many letters and phone calls coming into the group's Brooklyn Heights headquarters from members of the faith, responding to published articles, or inquiring about various topics that had not been addressed in print. This feedback was reviewed in meetings among the writers to shape the content of future publications. For Jehovah's Witnesses, the printed word from headquarters provides a pharisaical canon, an ever-shifting lens through which to see more clearly the word, and will, of God.
The formerly taboo subject of child sexual abuse was entering the public discourse in the late 1980s and early 90s, and the correspondence coming into headquarters reflected the angst of those who now felt comfortable coming forward with their own recollections of abuse in the insular communities of the Witnesses. These abuse survivors were turning to their congregation elders for guidance, and these elders, too, were writing to headquarters, seeking guidance.
Parents of most denominations would not hesitate to call police first when sexual abuse of their child is reported. But to the Witnesses, all outsiders - even police and social workers -- are co-conspirators with Satan, part of the condemned world soon to be destroyed by God. As a Witness, when dealing with any wrongdoing "you go to elders first, and then elders make the decision for where you go [from there]. To bypass the organization would be treason," said Anderson.
But these same elders "volunteer, and are essentially untrained clergy," according to a Jehovah's Witness spokesman in the Paducah Sun. They attend no seminary, and have no minimum education requirements, beyond basic literacy. They are equipped for nothing more than enforcing organizational guidelines, delivering biblical platitudes and offering a moment of prayer. When encountering a case of child sexual abuse for the first time, their instructions are first to "call the Legal Department" at the group's headquarters.
The list of mandated reporters of suspected child abuse varies by state. Church spokesmen assert that in those jurisdictions that include clerics as mandatory reporters, the elders are instructed by the Legal Department to make such reports. A recent fax to the BBC in response to a program exposing sexual abuse among the Witnesses noted that "it can be quite a challenge to keep abreast of the reporting requirements, but our Legal Department makes every effort to do so." It should relieve their lawyers to know that The National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information is funded by the US government and tasked with maintaining a web site with just such information, which shows that only 16 states require reporting by clerics. The hand of divine justice apparently is cut short by a lack of supporting legislation in other jurisdictions.
The assertion that such reports are made by elders when called for by the law has been called into question. Two lawsuits recently lodged against the Witnesses claim that mandatory reporting laws were disregarded, and the abuse continued. In one case, a member is said to have been expelled for making such a report against the advice of the elders, after the elders failed to act. A taped telephone conversation from early 2001, between an elder reporting sexual abuse and headquarters, featured on a recent episode of NBC's Dateline, documented an official from the group advising the elder to "walk away from it," and to "leave it for Jehovah," even though the elder was calling from a state that mandates reporting by clerics.
Some particularly conscientious elders sought to step outside their restrictive bounds as spiritual counselors in seeking to assist those traumatized by abuse. They were holding sessions that amounted to group therapy with victims of abuse, but this was quickly ended by a March 23, 1992 letter to all bodies of elders in the United States, stating that elders are not to hold such sessions nor "spend time reading secular publications dealing with worldly psychology or psychiatry."
"Jehovahs Witnesses are a government that operates within all of the governments of the world. I believe that is the big issue here. They want to decide who is guilty or not guilty," said Barbara Anderson. Witnesses are well known for their defiance of secular governments. The Encarta World English Dictionary includes in its definition of Jehovah's Witnesses that the group "rejects secular law where it appears to conflict with the divine."
So, the investigation of the alleged abuse and the deciding who is guilty or not guilty, falls on the local elders. The burden of proof, barring a confession, is that there must be two members of the faith who can serve as eyewitnesses to the crime, no matter what the infraction. Otherwise, the accused is exonerated and the abused is admonished to treat the accused as innocent in God's eyes and not to repeat the charge to anyone else - even other potential victims, like younger siblings -- or face expulsion from the congregation and shunning by fellow members, including friends and family. Needless to say, child molesters don't usually seek an audience. So the cycle of abuse continues, while the victim, who summoned the monumental courage to come forward, is now forced back into silence by their spiritual leaders.
All members are guided by the two principal publications of the group, the Watchtower and Awake! journals. Each had different editors, with differing opinions, in the 90s, which can be problematic for a group that points to its unity of belief as a sign of exclusive divine favor. Awake!, on whose staff Anderson served, often presented the group's softer side, while the Watchtower delivered stern doctrinal dissertations. "They would sometimes contradict each other, especially on societal issues," said Anderson.
Barbara Anderson and other senior staffers knew that the age and cloistered lives of the governing body gave them no frame of reference to empathize with the plight of the abused and their families. Something more than arbitrary application of ancient edicts was required.
Stories of the disastrous results of similar policies awaited Anderson on her summer vacation in 1991. The Witnesses choose to apply certain Old Testament rules literally, such as the command that a woman who does not scream during a rape should be considered a fornicator. "I was gravely disturbed hearing accounts of Witness women who were disfellowshipped (expelled and shunned) for not screaming while being raped. To illustrate: A Jehovah's Witness came back to his house unexpectedly while his house was being cleaned by a woman who also was a Witness. The trauma of his raping her at that time was so severe that she completely blocked out the experience until she discovered she was pregnant. It was then she faced what had happened and went to the congregation elders. She accused her spiritual brother of raping her; however, he denied it until tests confirmed he was the father of the child. Then he said it was consensual sex. She denied it. Nonetheless, she was disfellowshipped because she couldn't remember if she screamed during the rape and her attacker said she didn't. So, when I came back from vacation, I went in to see the man in the Writing Department who I was working with and told him what I had heard. To me it was horrendous that this girl was disfellowshipped. She was victimized twice."
The implications of such policies were clear to Anderson. "I began to see how pedophiles could act easily within the congregations and get away with it," she said.
Members of the Writing Department began pushing for change. When the October 8, 1991 Awake! on child abuse seemed to reverse earlier feelings against psychotherapy and against "repressed memories," there was widespread confusion. When congregation elders called headquarters for clarification "they [the Service Department, in charge of the elders] did not go along with that," said Anderson. "That article was viewed as a mistake. There was a battle going on at Bethel [headquarters] between these two factions. The man who was the head of the Service Department and the man who was head of the Writing Department -- both members of the governing body -- didn't agree on these things." said Anderson.
An avalanche of phone calls and letters came in response to the October 8, 1991 Awake!. Even the cloistered governing body became aware of the widespread claims of abuse, not only abuse being perpetrated by lay members, but by church leaders as well. "The governing body knew in 92 that this was a very real problem, that men in authority were molesters, and they were molesting children. The accusations that were coming to them were not merely against average attendees, but against men in authority, and you couldnt get the Service Department to recognize that. They were having a terrible time," recalls Anderson.
Barbara Anderson and her husband would leave headquarters at the end of '92, after serving there for ten and a half years. She continued to support the writing staff as an outside researcher until '97. "It was during my last year at headquarters while doing research for a senior Awake! writer that I learned to my horror that the organization had severe problems with sexual child abuse. I knew when I left that it was understood that I would continue to send information in on child abuse. This was to try to influence the governing body to change their policies."
Anderson was also aware of the implications of such policies for those outside of the organization. Accusations of child molestation, even a known history of criminal child rape, would not preclude a member from engaging in the Witnesses door to door preaching work. "I begged [governing body member and friend] Lloyd Barry, begged him by letter in July of 1993, not to allow molesters to go door to door." said Anderson. Lloyd Barry, now deceased, never responded. Instead, some three and a half years later, speaking of a molester who may have recently been released from prison, the Watchtower of January 1, 1997 states "If he seems to be repentant [to the untrained elders], he will be encouraged to make spiritual progress [and] share in the field ministry [door to door preaching]."
Neither would a history of child molestation disqualify a member from being appointed as an elder, a leader and exemplar in the congregation. Although the January 1, 1997 Watchtower stated that a "known" molester "would not qualify for congregation privileges," such as becoming an elder or ministerial servant (deacon), a secret letter to all bodies of elders three months later, on March 14, 1997, quietly backpedaled: "An individual known to be a former child molester has reference to the perception of that one in the community [emphasis ours] and in the Christian congregation." And as for determining whether those already in a position of authority had a history of molestation, the letter directed that "The body of elders should not query individuals." Unknown to the faithful, who had taken the January 1st Watchtower at its word, pedophiles could remain in positions of authority, under this don't-ask don't-tell policy, at all levels of the organization. One is left to wonder who pushed for such a change, what they had to hide, and why the contents of that letter, leaked on the Internet, remain, to this day, a secret to the rank and file.
"I cant go to my grave knowing what I know." Anderson's struggle for change from within the group ended when a letter from a member of the headquarters staff in early '97 indicated to her that such symbolic changes were in response to a rising tide of litigation, not out of concern for the welfare of children. "I couldnt go to the Kingdom Hall and hear all of the bragging about how wonderful this organization was from the platform, and sit there and listen. I thought "I cant go to my grave knowing what I know." She resolved to continue to push for change from outside the walls of the Kingdom Hall.
Barbara Anderson came to be among five members disfellowshipped from the group in recent months, following a spate of media attention, for speaking out about rampant sexual abuse and cover-ups among Jehovah's Witnesses. "I had a very, very interesting life as a Jehovahs Witness. My husband and I brought eighty people into this organization," she remembers. While she takes exception to the policies of the leadership that harm children, she holds out hope that the voices that pushed for change in the mid-'90s may prevail. Among those voices are the group's powerful Legal Department, which pushed for a uniform reporting policy among congregations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia - perhaps to be relieved of the arduous task of keeping track of all those laws -- only to be shot down by the governing body. Anderson also cites a group of elders in Dallas, Texas, which worked with a local mental health facility to tailor care for Jehovah's Witnesses, only to be removed from their positions en masse by the leadership. And there were those elders who sought to bring a little therapy into their shepherding. To be sure, there were kindhearted people easily found in the group. "They are good people. I am not going to say they werent and they arent dear people to us," she said.
Perhaps if these people had succeeded in moving the organization to adopt a call-police-first policy in handling cases of child sexual abuse, just as they advise members to seek the help of a physician when ill, or of a fireman during a fire, there would not have been the chance for children, such as mine, to have been abused, their lives forever changed. Instead, we, like so many others, are left to fight a difficult and emotionally painful legal battle against a coy perpetrator in a position of authority, with the backing of his church.
In our case, the alleged abuser continues, to this day, to beam piously from the platform and to hold children on his lap during the services at our former suburban Philadelphia congregation, even as criminal and civil actions are pending, to the full knowledge of the local body of elders.
But it seems the short-sighted preservation of the image of the group has been the priority of the governing body, over the welfare of their flock. Better, they seem to think, to silence the victims, shun the whistle blowers, deny, deny, deny. I recall that Jehovahs Witnesses are expert in itemizing the sins of the Catholic Church, including the harboring of pedophiles. Perhaps now they will have the humility to turn that scrutiny inward, protect the victims in their midst, adopt a call-police-first policy everywhere, and stop allowing a de facto conspiracy of silence to protect pedophiles in their congregations, and on our doorsteps.
Michael Morris grew up a Jehovah's Witness punk rocker in the suburbs of Philadelphia in the 1980s. He spent several years serving as a full-time preacher in the Witnesses' door-to-door preaching work, unwittingly learning much about life and faith from those whom he presumed to teach. E-mail.
Michael posts at Toasted Cheese as Dances with Cactus. "An Unlikely David" was first posted at What I Tell You Three Times Is True, our non-fiction critique forum.
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NEW YORK TIMES - August 11th 2002 Edition:
Ousted Members Contend Jehovah's Witnesses' Abuse Policy Hides OffensesBy LAURIE GOODSTEINWilliam Bowen always considered himself a devout Jehovah's Witness. As a child, he felt it was his duty to go door to door passing out the church's magazine, The Watchtower. Later, as an elder in his congregation, he said he saw it as his duty to inform church officials that a fellow elder had abused a child.
But when Mr. Bowen contacted the church's headquarters in Brooklyn, he says, he was rebuffed. Frustrated by the church's inaction and by its confidentiality provisions, which he said prevented him from sharing the information with others, Mr. Bowen resigned as an elder in December 2000. A year later, he started a group to monitor child sexual abuse in the church.
Late last month, Mr. Bowen, 44, was excommunicated from the church. Behind a locked door, with plastic bags taped over the windows to ward off onlookers, he said, three church elders meeting at the church's Kingdom Hall in Draffenville, KY, found him guilty of "causing divisions."
The punishment was "disfellowshiping" complete shunning.
In the past three months, four other people have been expelled from the Jehovah's Witnesses after accusing it of covering up the sexual abuse of children by its members. For Mr. Bowen and other critics of church policies on sexual abuse, the expulsions are part of a concerted effort to keep such abuses quiet.
Expelled Witnesses say the church's own policies and culture conspire to conceal abuse. A panel of church elders, all men, meets in secret to decide each case, a procedure which critics say prevents members from knowing there is an abuser in their midst. To prove an accusation, a child must have a witness to the incident, a condition that is usually impossible to meet.
"This is evidence for the world to see how the Jehovah's Witnesses treat abuse survivors and those who try to protect them," said Mr. Bowen. "They silence them with the threat of disfellowshiping."
J. R. Brown, director of the public information office at church headquarters, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, in Brooklyn, said the church had exemplary policies for handling sexual abuse, which were based on biblical standards and had been widely published in church magazines.
"We're not trying to say we handled everybody in the right way and our elders are all-knowing, all perfect," said Mr. Brown, who declined as a matter of policy to comment on individual cases, including Mr. Bowen's. "But we say, if you take what our policy is for keeping our organization clean morally, it far outpaces anybody else's."
While the Roman Catholic Church has been engulfed in its own sexual abuse scandal, the same issue is beginning to plague the Jehovah's Witnesses, a denomination that claims one million members in the and six million worldwide.
But the shape of the scandal is far different than in the Catholic church, where most of the people accused of abuse are priests and a vast majority of the victims were boys and young men. In the Jehovah's Witnesses, where congregations are often collections of extended families and church elders are chosen from among the laypeople, some of those accused are elders, but most are congregation members. The victims who have stepped forward are mostly girls and young women, and many accusations involve incest.
The scope of abuse in the Jehovah's Witnesses is a matter of considerable debate. The church has recently been sued by eight plaintiffs in four lawsuits alleging abuse, one filed in July in Minnesota. Mr. Bowen says that his victims support group, "silentlambs," has collected reports from more than 5,000 Witnesses contending that the church mishandled child sexual abuse.
The church keeps a database of members and associates who have been accused or found guilty of child abuse. Mr. Bowen said church sources had told him the database contained the names of more than 23,000 people in the , and . The church says the number is "considerably lower," but wilot say what it is.
The church has a firm framework for handling sexual abuse cases. Members who suspect abuse are advised to go first to the elders, who are considered spiritual and moral leaders to whom the members are to turn with their personal problems. Mr. Brown said that the church's legal department advised elders to follow the law in states that have mandatory reporting laws, and in cases in which children appear to be in danger.
The elders are the ones required to judge whether someone has committed a sin like child abuse. If the abuser confesses and is forgiven, the only notice given to the congregation is an announcement that the person has been disciplined. No reason is announced. However, the elders report the person's name to headquarters, where it goes into the database so that abuser is banned from serving in a position of authority.
"If a person can cry a good tune, there are virtually no repercussions and nobody besides the elders ever knows," said Jean Kraus, who said she went to elders in her Queens congregation years ago accusing her former husband of abusing their daughter. She said that he confessed, was reprimanded and was still an active Witness. "They told me that he wasn't a wicked man, that it was a weakness," she said.
The church spokesman, Mr. Brown, said: "We view such judicial hearings as an extension of our shepherding work as ministers. In other words, we're there to save a person's soul. In these cases we are not going to be vindictive because these are our brothers, and we would hope that they would change."
If the accused denies the allegation, the victim's testimony alone is not sufficient unless there is at least one other witness to the act. The church says its policy is based on a scriptural injunction in Deuteronomy 19:15 that says two or three witnesses are necessary to prove a man has sinned.
Heidi Meyer, a third-generation Jehovah's Witness in Annandale, Minn, said she went to her elders in 1994, when she was 15, to say that from the ages of 10 to 13 she had been repeatedly molested by a fellow Witness eight years her senior, the older brother of a friend. The only eyewitness was her brother, who had once seen the man grab her buttocks as she got out of a car.
The elders asked explicit questions that made her uncomfortable, she said. According to an internal Witness document "Pay Attention to Yourself and to All the Flock," the elders must determine in which category the accusation fits: if it was "uncleanness," a one-time touching above the waist; "loose conduct," touching below the waist or more than once above; or the most severe, "porneia," direct sexual stimulation or activity resulting in orgasm. Each offense carries different penalties, with the most severe for porneia.
The man she was accusing insisted that Ms. Meyer had misinterpreted what happened. The elders agreed.
"I was expecting spiritual guidance," Ms. Meyer said. "I was expecting them to genuinely, sincerely attempt to find justice and protect the rest of the congregation from this same thing happening. And none of that happened."
She, like several other alleged victims and theielatives, said in interviews that the elders warned her against reporting the abuse or talking about it with other members.
"They told me if I spoke about it with anybody, I needed to be careful because I could face a judicial committee for gossip or slander," she said. "If they felt I had committed that sin, I would be disfellowshiped."
Ms. Meyer says she learned only years later that Amber Long, another young woman in the congregation, had at age 12 gone to the elders with her parents to report that she had been molested by the same man. Ms. Long, who is now 23, said she and her parents received a letter from the Witnesses advising her to "leave it in Jehovah's hands."
"They said we shouldn't hold ill feelings about our brothers," Ms. Long said. "Since there weren't two eyewitnesses, they said there wasn't much they could do."
Neither Ms. Long nor Ms. Meyer is still active in the Jehovah's Witnesses. On July 2, the two women filed suit against the man they accuse of molesting them Derek Lindala, 30, of South Haven, Minn,-- the local congregation, and Jehovah's Witness headquarters. Mr. Lindala did not respond to a message left at his home seeking comment.
Barbara Anderson, of Normandy, Tenn, said that when she and her husband lived and worked at church headquarters in Brooklyn in the 1990's, she was asked to gather information about child abuse in the congregations. She said she handed over to church leaders dozens of letters complaining about how cases were handled. For her it was a revelation.
"Jehovah's Witnesses like to say that we have one of the most crime-free organizations," Mrs. Anderson said. "But all problems are taken to the elders, and the elders keep them quiet." She said that the documents prompted an internal debate among church leaders, and that when there was no action, she left headquarters disheartened in 1993, after 11 years of volunteering.
Carl A. Raschke, a professor of religious studies at the University of Denver who has written about the Jehovah's Witnesses, said the group was no different from many other insulaeligions that aspire to theological and moral purity.
"Groups that tend to be very tight-knit and in-grown historically have a higher incidence of sexual abuse and incest," Dr. Raschke said. "That's an ethnological fact. When a religion tries to be thoroughly holy or godly, it's not going to acknowledge that people aren't living up to the ideals of the faith."
On July 25, Mrs. Anderson was excommunicated. A week later her husband, Joe, who had earlier resigned as an elder after 42 years, was also expelled.
"It is inconceivable to think elders would investigate an allegation of murder to determine guilt or innocence, so why would we investigate an allegation of child abuse?" Mr. Anderson wrote in his resignation letter. "This is just not our field of expertise. We are ministers of God, not police."
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