by goingthruthemotions 23 Replies latest jw experiences
If your JDub is like most JDubs forget doctrine. JDubs DO NOT know doctrine. In the past (as in decades ago) I'd say that maybe 10% of JDubs actually understood and could espouse WT doctrine. NO MORE! Those people left the religion once it became apparent that the GB was pulling New Light outta their asses. Most of the new doctrines are indefensible. Trying to do so will cause the dominoes to start to fall.
Doc
show me in the bible where Christ became King in 1914
Its in the Bible because WT says so. If you ask for more proof, you are questioning God.
It was sometime in the fall of 1964 (my memory is disappearing, but I think that is about right) that my wife (converted to JW the year before [raised a Catholic]) and I (an active JW since the age of eight) met a nice couple while doing door-to-door preaching in Riverside, California. (You like that long and convoluted sentence?)
After our normal presentation and answering a few questions offered up by the wife at the door. She seemed to be in awe of my quick responses. Her husband joined the conversation shortly afterward and invited us into their apartment. We did not sit down, but he quickly asked me a couple of softball questions. I don't remember what they were, but I seemed to have provided quick and credible answers that appeared to really impress him. He invited us back one night later that week to have a "Bible Study" with him and his wife.
We selected the current study book and focused on the first two chapters. We underlined significant parts that we wanted to emphasize during our new Bible study. This would be the first time my wife had been engaged in a field Bible study with me.
[Those of you who were JWs in that era probably experienced the same format that we all used when conducting "Bible studies with householders." JWs from that era will likely recognize our situation and the set-up. Newbies may not realize that in those days the whole "home Bible Study" process was very scripted. Any deviation was frowned upon by the "Kingdom Hall servants" and the "society."]
So we showed up at the appointed time. I was wearing a suit and tie; my wife was in a very nice dress and heels. We were prepared and ready to make two new converts to Jehovah's "number one favorite religion." [Yeah, that one...]
After sitting down at their dinner table, I suggested that I lead the four of us in prayer. [After all, I was the "senior" Bible expert among the group.] Instead, the wife suggested that since we were guests in their home, her husband should say the prayer. [Oh, oh!?!] He agreed and immediately began to pray. We all bowed our heads and clasped each others' hands as the prayer progressed.
While I do not remember anything specific about his prayer, I do recall that it was relatively short and to the point and included pleas to God to "enlighten us all "and not restrict us to any particular subject, but rather to have all of us to group together with "open minds." I was impressed [and intimidated a bit] after his prayer was finished.
The man's wife asked mine how long she had been a JW. "About a year. I was raised a Catholic," she responded. The husband asked me the same question. I replied, "Ten years." That's the way the rest of the evening went. The two of them turned our static "Bible Study" into a face-to-face question and answer exercise.
Most Jehovah's Witnesses (both past and present) would simply have stopped what they were doing and try to exit as quickly as possible and just write the evening off as a failed attempt - but more like having been set up by the couple. My wife and I decided to stick it out and see what happened.
What happened was that I never again looked at being a JW the same way after that evening. My wife actually became more active than I over the next year or two. I slowly began to rethink things and reconsider spending the rest of my life as an active JW. I realized how formal and unnatural the whole JW Bible Study process was (and still is). I realized how difficult it was to really explain and support JW teachings about 1914, the 144,000 going to heaven, "life everlasting in a paradise earth."
I do remember a set of questions that the fellow asked me during our "Bible Study" and it has stuck with me ever since...
"OK - 144,000 are sucked up into heaven. What do they do up there? Why would they want to go up there? Does God need Jesus, his angels, and also 144,000 more newbies all worshipping him constantly to keep his ego boosted? What about those who live in the new world? After they turn the earth into a paradise and their kids grow up - do they still preach to each other? Spend most of their free time petting lions and tigers? Spend most of the day praying to Jehovah? Do they ask for forgiveness of their sins - when they no longer commit sins? Going to Yellowstone Park is a real pleasure for a short vacation, but would I want to live in that environment for eternity? How boring would that be?"
Let's just say that my wife and I tossed and turned in our beds for the rest of that week. We were really shaken by the experience. We had long conversations about what happened and how helpless we were to answer those questions posed by our hosts. It took all of my zeal for door-to-door service and conducting Bible Studies and just flushed them out of my system.
While we both continued as active JWs for a while (I was totally out about a year later; she left five or six years later after our divorce (I was DF'd three years later for inactivity and failure to attend meetings.)
But I can trace everything that changed my life from being a dedicated JW back to that experience. I found real personal and mental freedom thanks to that second "Bible Study" visit with a young, bright, and engaging young couple who wouldn't let me conduct a boring, static, one-sided attempt to convert them and change their lives.
"Juan V"
I was DF'd three years later for inactivity and failure to attend meetings. ~ Juan V
Wow! I didn't know that was a DFing offense!
(Of course, now I know you can be DFd for anything that 3 Eldubs agree upon.)
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Interestingly enough, it was a "Bible Study" that planted, not just a seed but an entire garden of doubt in my mind. Identity of Michael? (Does it really matter?) The New Light on the Sheep & Goats. (Realizing I never really believed that WE (JW's at the door) were the deciding factor in deciding who was who.) But the Blood issue was the biggie. Transfusing blood is NOT "eating" blood. If you were starving to death and received a blood transfusion would it nourish and save your life. NO. Two totally different things. Domino #1.............
