My parents started attending the Glendora Congregation in 1961. My mother had a strange feeling about the congregation. There was something going on there that just didn’t feel right. There was a huge exodus going on of people leaving the Kingdom hall too. So my parents (probably mostly my mom) decided to go to the Azusa Kingdom Hall instead. The funny thing is, we lived about a hundred yards from the Azusa congregation’s territory line.
She requested her publisher record cards to turn in to her new kingdom hall. In those days you would have to go to the Bible Study overseer to get your publish record cards. These cards reported all your field service active and any other information a new congregation might need to know about you. They like to keep close tabs on everyone.
They don’t give this cards to the publishers themselves any more. Now, they mail them to your new congregation. The reason is people would get their cards and throw them away and stop being Jehovah’s witnesses. The society wants to know if you quit now a days. Why is that? The only reason I can think of is so they can punish you. They want to be able tell everyone that “brother or sister so in so is no longer a Jehovah’s witnesses.” This way they can make sure everyone knows when you leave. No fading allowed, let the shunning begin!
Something strange happened. Instead of getting their cards the “brothers” in charge said they wanted to meet with my parents. Back in the nineteen sixties there were three brothers in charge of the congregation. There was the overseer, the assistant overseer and the theocratic ministry overseer or the bible study overseer.
At the meeting the three brothers requested my parents to stay and not leave the Glendora congregation. In essence they needed to stop the exodus out of the Kingdom hall. Since my family was well known in the hall they choose us to make an example of. There really was no rule about going to a congregation outside your territory, so my parents held their ground.
My parents ended up writing a letter to the Brooklyn Bethel, the headquarters of the organization to complain about these overseers. My parents didn’t know it at the time but the letter that they wrote was not confidential. The society forwards all letters to your overseers or elders. So these overseers got really mad. There were more meetings and more yelling. A one point they called my father “a monkey on a string.” I’m not sure what that means. Whatever it meant, my dad didn’t like it and let them have it. I heard there was a lot of yelling and name calling that went on in those meetings.
All my parents wanted to do was go to a different kingdom all. It ended up with my mother being “publicly reproved” and my father was “dis-fellowshipped for slander and rebelliousness against the organization.” They said they would have dis-fellowshipped my mother too but she had a bad heart and the shock might kill her. They were right, it would have killed her.
Back in those days when you got dis-fellowshipped or publicly reproved. The presiding overseer would announce your sin to the whole congregation. That’s right. “Brother Jones has been dis-fellowshipped for immorality!” “Sister Smith has is publicly reproved for gossiping.” The society stopped doing that years ago. Why? Because they thought it was a cruel and unloving thing to do? No that’s not the case. I’m sure they would still love to do it that way. They stopped announcing the nature of the sin because they were being sued for defamation of character and losing these court cases.
I’m guessing my father could have done some activity that might have deserved this kind of punishment. So maybe on some level he did get justice. On the other hand, my mother was the perfect JW follower and what they did to her stabbed her to the heart.
This totally destroyed our family. My father blamed my mother and her religion for his public humiliation. My mother was in total shock and disbelief that there could be such an injustice in in Jehovah’s loving organization.
My father ran a crew of about thirty men on a construction site. One day he overheard one of his men tell another. “You know Marty got kicked out of his church. What kind of terrible thing do you do to get out of a church, have sex with farm animals?” My father had a lot of pride, so this cut him to the core.
He stop going to most of the meetings. My mother was a die hard. She was never going to give up. She was more diligent than ever. All of us were of course shunned. So we got the looks at the kingdom hall and the whispering behind our backs. She never flinched.
We ended up going to the Azusa congregation anyway. Why not, we had paid the price for wanting to go there already. Six months of faithful meeting attendance in her new congregation and her “public reproof” was lifted. My mother was “in good standing” again. True she was forgiven but do you really think people in a small congregation really forget stuff like that?
My parents went to the circuit overseer to get justice. He was on his last trip through and didn’t want to get involved. The next circuit overseer wasn’t much better. Since these three “brothers” are appointed by the society and thus it is thought they were appointed god himself. They were untouchable.
In 1964 my parents flew back New York City to the world headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses which is called Bethel. They wanted to plead their case to the big boys. They talked to Harley Miller in the service department. After hearing their story he set up a special committee to retry their case. Finally after for four years the matter was reopened. My parents were not just reinstated they were exonerated. I didn’t matter anymore for my father. He would never be an active Jehovah’s Witness ever again. He would lead my mother on by going to the meetings now and then and of course the memorial every year. He was done. He would never let them hurt him that way again. He told me years later. “If that is what they call love I’ll go somewhere else.” I thought my father was stupid and foolish back then and I didn’t believe him. I saw at Bethel how right he was.
What happened to the three “brothers” the three overseers who did this to my parents? Nothing happened to them. Oh guess what? They all left the religion years later also.
According the society all elders and servants are appointed directly by god’s Holy Spirit. So I guess it was god who made the real mistake here not these guys. Of course whenever things like this happen in the organization, the Witnesses will be the first to tell you “we are all imperfect.” Yet, why are you telling your people that your leaders are appointed by god?
Just another catch 22 in action.
Bottom line even though my parents and I did nothing wrong we were all still shunned by the Witnesses. So shunning is not just reserved for wrong doers. Anyone in good standing or not, can experience this unique Jehovah’s Witnesses punishment.
In high school I was shunned by my witness friends because of my parents and dislike by fellow class mates too. A rock and a hard place.