Hi to everyone on the forums. This is my first post, so I hope you’ll all bear with me.
My dad passed away in Oct 2004 and a customer called me shortly afterwards. I'll call her “Ellen”. She is around my age and a repeat customer (the kind that all salespeople like!) Ellen wanted to place an order, usual chit-chat, and she enquired why my daughter wasn’t at playgroup for the last few weeks. Our kids were then attending the same playgroup, but usually my MIL brought her as I was often working. So Ellen and I were still acquaintances at that stage.
I explained my dad had been seriously ill and passed away, but I got quite emotional as it was hard telling people in the early days. I said what was helping me through was the knowledge that dad was in heaven. I don’t remember the exact words but Ellen said something along the lines that according to the Bible, my dad could not be in heaven now although he was ‘at rest’. BTW, I was raised Roman Catholic and that is contrary to our beliefs. I asked if she meant that my dad’s soul was in purgatory / limbo while we prayed for his earthly sins. Ellen explained what JWs believe and offered me some reading matter. She left the “What happens to us when we die?” magazine with me soon afterwards. I read it and had no reason to disbelieve it, because it seemed to be a plausible commentary. I found it to be very unsettling that my beliefs had been “proven wrong” though. I wanted to investigate the Catholic doctrine further but didn’t know anyone who had studied it well enough. I also thought if I went to my local priest, he’d be angry that I was reading JW material. The next time I talked to Ellen, she asked me if I found the magazine interesting. I did find it “interesting” but in a disturbing way! She offered to come to my home to pick up her order and answer any questions I had about my reading. Now obviously this was going to save me some time, so I agreed.
Ellen turned up with a woman from her congregation, whom she said was very knowledgeable about the subject. Basically everything they said made sense and whatever I questioned was “backed up” immediately from the Bible. I told them it was disturbing to have a long held belief turned on its head. They said that they’d felt the same way when they had first “learnt the truth” about what they used to believe.
I’m sure you can guess the rest. Ellen offered to do a Bible Study with me if I wanted to learn more. I was searching for answers at that time and said yes.
The Bible Study was from the “What does God require of us?” magazine and the first few lessons were with Ellen alone. To me it was a sociable “coffee & cake” morning. Ellen brought her son along for playdates with my daughter. Later Ellen asked if another friend Kathy could join us. I am very easy-going and had no problems with this. We also ended up alternating venues for the study – my house and then Ellen’s but recently, we’ve been at Kathy’s house as well. Kathy has also become quite a good customer BTW. On a personal level, we all get along well. The kids have loads of fun together and we usually run way overtime because we chit-chat about the usual stuff that friends do. Ellen invited me to a jewellery party and I met more of her friends (and some family – not JWs)
In this time we have finished the “What does God require of us?” magazine and are now onto Chapter 2 of the “Knowledge” book. I haven’t always been able to do a study every week because of work commitments, appointments, visiting mum etc. At a certain point, I tried to set up fortnightly studies because it was tying up too much time, but Ellen would send me emails or ring me in between to see how I was doing that week (did I catch with work etc to fit it another study?) Being so easy-going, spineless, I took the path of least resistance and just fit it in!
After a few invitations I went to a Sunday talk, but haven’t attended any since. I was also invited to attend the Memorial but couldn’t go. There is a JW “state convention” in August and Ellen would really like me to go along for 1 day at least.
It has taken some time to develop serious doubts about the JW religion. (I also tried searching for JW sites for detailed information but initially found the official Watchtower site. I only discovered this forum last week…) Firstly, both my parents and in-laws lost touch with very good friends after joining the JWs (for no apparent reason). Early last year, the son & wife of my dad’s best friend suddenly began to visit my parents again after years of minimal contact. They learned of my dad’s health problems and “came back” into their lives. When I asked mum about this, she said that they had been asked to leave their congregation because of devoting too much time to their business.
I talked to Ellen & Kathy (E&K) about this at the next Bible Study. They said that no-one would be asked to leave JWs for that reason; that situation would happen only where a serious sin had been committed and there was no repentance. But perhaps I misunderstood and my friends had left voluntarily? I would call my parents’ friends about this but I’m afraid if it somehow slips I’ve been looking into JW, my mum would be distraught and she has enough stress right now.
I don’t think JWs are for me and I could never convert, but I am happy to continue Bible studies on occasion. I’m sure that E&K will try to persuade to me to ramp it up. Due to my limited Bible knowledge I can’t really argue Catholic doctrine vs JW, so I thought the best approach would be tell them of the problems I have with things like:
- How the JWs seem to attract paedophiles because of the “2-person witness” rule. I watched the 29/05/05 (Aussie) program of ‘Sunday’ that was linked here in the forums and was gob smacked. If only I’d seen it when it was broadcast, I would have mentioned it then so my objections won’t seem so “researched” now.
- JWs believe that they are Christians but other Christian religions are not? I can’t understand the reasoning on this one.
- Only baptised JWs will survive Armageddon (this is what I’ve picked up from lurking here for a bit – correct me if I’m wrong?)
- The whole disfellowshipped shunning thing is unchristian. It freaks me out that wife bashers and child abusers can be readily forgiven and people who communicate their doubts can be disfellowshipped. Go figure.
- Abstaining from blood means not eating/drinking it, right? How can blood transfusions (especially one’s own blood) contradict the above?
- The Bible doesn’t say “thou shalt not celebrate birthdays.” It only tells about the immoral practices of that time but I’m pretty sure I won’t be sacrificing small animals for my next birthday.
- Likewise the Christmas celebration is not mentioned; it doesn’t mean that Jesus’ family on earth would have plain forgotten about his birthday when he was a child. In biblical days there were no telephones, therefore they are not mentioned in the Bible, does this mean that using telephone are forbidden? I think not.
From the forums I get the impression that I need to be pretty strong with my objections in order to stop E&K’s conversion efforts.
- I suppose my question is will the above concerns be enough to have E&K accept my decision?
- The next one is have will I lose 2 friends and great customers in the process?
This is why I’ve asked for nice and polite ways of going about it, guys!!!
I apologise that this post has turned out to be longer than War & Peace. Many thanks in advance.
emcee
