One of my uncles who has never been a JW is visiting for Christmas. My dad who has stopped being an elder and has stopped going to meetings started explaining to my uncle why he finally left the Watchtower religion. My dad had tried for years to convert my uncle but never succeeded.
My uncle was surprised that his older brother who many times warned his younger brother that Armageddon was close and if he didn’t act, would be destroyed for not choosing Jehovah. Now my dad was eating crow.
Both dad and mom told my uncle all the stories on the news regarding the sexual child abuse cover-ups in Australia and the lawsuits in the U.S.A. Both dad and mom got real emotional as they told story after story to my uncle. My mom even started crying.
I was laying on the floor watching the whole thing and I could tell that my uncle couldn’t understand why my parents were all disturbed. So he asked them why they were so upset about the whole thing.
My parents went on to explain that all their close friends refuse to see what’s happening and refuse to see that the Governing Body is not who they claim to be and that when the Watchtower comes crashing down with all the lawsuits, probably many of the friends will commit suicide.
My uncle looked at me and kind of smiled. He then went on to tell my parents that nothing like that is going to happened. He told them that it’s just religion and it’s always been like that with organized religion from the very beginning when Christianity started to form in Rome and probably before that. He explained to them that the Watchtower is just another religion with the same problems other religions have always faced—sexual abuse of children. Religion a pedophile paradise.
He told them, “Let me give you an example. So my uncle googled news on his phone for about 5 minutes and found this;
Then he told my parents to read the story and my parents read it. After reading it my parents starting saying how disgusting it was and blah, blah, blah.
My uncle told them these stories happen all the time. And then he asked them; "you know what happens?"
Nothing!!
You still have 1.2 Billion Catholics who will continue with the religion. And the Catholic Church will pay the fines-and life will go on.
The same with the Watchtower. They got caught, they will fight tooth and nail to escape punishment, and when they lose, they will pay the fines and continue to take monies from the faithful to pay those fines. And life will continue just like it has for thousands of years.
All these lawsuits the Watchtower has to fight-is just a hiccup. In time the members will just deal with the regularity of the lawsuits just like the Catholic Church and life will go on for the faithful.
I kind of feel bad for my parents; they are having a hard time dealing with the whole thing. They still think Jehovah is going to execute the Watchtower because it has gone apostate.
I’m not getting involved either, they need to work it out on
their own. I know it’s just going to take some time. But my uncle is doing a good job of explaining things to them and giving them a lot of reading material that will help them see how all religion, (including the Watchtower) is just a big racket to pull monies from the members. Some of the books he recommended include Bart Ehrman. So I think eventually my parents will be OK.