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Spiritual shunning
When Jehovah's Witnesses
excommunicate, or
''disfellowship,'' a member,
even the closest human ties
can be severed without
question.
By SHARON TUBBS, Times Staff
Writer
St. Petersburg Times
published August 22, 2002
ST.
PETERSBURG --
As far as her
children and
6-million people
around the world
are concerned,
Shirley Jackson is
as good as dead,
has been for seven
years.
In 1995, Jackson, a
home health care
worker and a
nanny who lives in
St. Petersburg, was
"disfellowshipped,"
or
excommunicated,
from Jehovah's
Witnesses.
Disfellowshipping
is among the Witnesses' highest forms
of discipline, reserved for those who
disobey religious teachings and will
not repent.
Witnesses are told to immediately
shun the disfellowshipped, who are
said to be certain to die at
Armageddon. Witnesses must pass
them on the street without so much as
a hello. Sons, daughters, mothers and
fathers are expected to cut off
relatives, making exceptions only in
cases of family business or
emergency.
"No matter what they tell you, you
will always be my daughter and I will
always love you," Jackson recently
wrote in a letter to her daughter, to no
avail. Rather than strengthen families,
Jackson says, the Witnesses tear them
apart.
Disfellowshipping is little known to
outsiders, who recognize Witnesses
only as the people who pass out
magazines on Saturday mornings. But
scandal in the denomination has
opened a door to its core beliefs and
operations.
In recent months, at least three
Witnesses were disfellowshipped
after talking to Dateline NBC about
church leaders' handling of child
molestation allegations. The action
made national headlines and spurred
former Witnesses worldwide to step
forward with their stories.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe
disfellowshipping is an act of love,
intended to inspire sinners to change
their ways so they eventually can
apply to be readmitted to the faith.
The sanction is based on I Corinthians
5, which directs Witnesses to
"remove the wicked from among
yourselves" and is necessary, said
Witnesses national spokesman J.R.
Brown, to preserve the religion's
"moral integrity and cleanliness" in a
corrupt world soon to be destroyed by
God Jehovah.
* * *
Jehovah's Witness elders -- all are
men -- are the equivalent of ministers
in other religions. Though unpaid,
they take on responsibilities such as
teaching Bible lessons and passing on
denomination policy. They also
investigate Witnesses accused of
committing crimes against other
Witnesses. In some of these cases, the
police are never called.
Among the elders' primary tasks is
serving on small judicial committees
that hear confessions and decide
whether an offense is worthy of
excommunication.
Excommunications are announced to
the congregation, but elders never say
why a person was expelled. Witnesses
can only guess from a long list of
offenses that range from smoking
cigarettes to manslaughter.
Homosexuality, fornication,
drunkenness, slander, fraud,
gambling, apostasy, fits of anger and
violence, and adultery are others.
The excommunication announcement
tells members to begin shunning that
person. If they don't, they, too, risk
being disfellowshipped. Fear of being
disfellowshipped is gripping for many
Witnesses. Because they believe that
only Witnesses will be saved from
death, many don't associate with
non-Witnesses.
Being disfellowshipped, then, means
losing your circle of friends, not to
mention family members who remain
in the faith.
Elders disfellowship 50,000 to 60,000
Witnesses around the world each
year, Brown said.
"It's not an unusual occurence, as far
as we're concerned," he said.
* * *
Jackson, 54, had been a Witness for
nearly 20 years when she began
having doubts.
In 1993, she said, her husband
gathered his belongings in the middle
of the night and abandoned her as she
and her children slept. She said he
had been violent, and she decided to
divorce him. But Witnesses told her
the only biblical justification for
divorce is adultery, which she could
not prove he had committed.
Jackson was also on shaky ground
with the Witnesses because she had
close friends who were not in the
faith, she said. In interviews, Jackson
and several others said Witnesses are
not allowed to socialize with
non-Witnesses unless they are
proselytizing.
Brown, the Witnesses' spokesman,
said this is not true, although differing
interests sometimes make such
relationships difficult.
After her husband left her, Jackson
continued going to the Kingdom Hall
five times a week and performing 10
hours of door-to-door service each
month, but she didn't feel very
spiritual. One day while going door to
door, Jackson mentioned to another
Witness, "When I go into a Kingdom
Hall, I don't feel God's presence is
there."
She became even more disillusioned
in the mid 1990s when, she said,
elders dismissed her suspicions that a
fellow Witness was sexually abusing
his 8-year-old daughter. No one
called the police.
But law enforcement authorities
eventually got involved, and the girl
was found in a trashed home, having
eaten ketchup sandwiches to quell
hunger, Jackson said. Some months
later, Kenneth Donald Weaver was
arrested and placed on community
control in 1995 for sexual activity
with a child. Weaver, who has a
lengthy criminal history, is now in
prison.
Wavering in her beliefs, Jackson
decided not to attend an annual
assembly for Witnesses.
Her daughter was upset and told
elders. They went to her home for a
visit. They had charges against her,
Jackson said:
One charge was "speaking out against
a brother" with regard to the child
molestation, she said. She said they
told her to stop cavorting with her
non-Witness friends. And someone
had told them what she had said
about not feeling God's presence in
the Kingdom Hall.
The elders told her she had 24 hours
to change her ways, Jackson said. She
refused to comply and was
disfellowshipped, her name
announced in front of the
congregation. She was not present.
Her daughter was 17 at the time. She
moved out to live with other
Witnesses, has not held a
conversation with Jackson since and
is now married and living in Alabama.
Two of Jackson's three sons are also
Witnesses and don't speak to her, she
said.
[AP photo]
William Bowen, a former Jehovahs
Witness elder, stands near the Kingdom
Hall in Marshall County, Ky., where he
worshipped before he was
disfellowshipped for criticizing the
churchs handling of child sex abuse
allegations.
* * *
As with the Catholic Church, child
molestation cases have brought the
inner workings of Jehovah's
Witnesses to the forefront. One case
in Kentucky prompted former elder
William Bowen to start asking
questions.
At the center of the cases is the
two-witness rule. The Witnesses
abide strictly by their Bible, the New
World Translation. The translation is
published by the Watch Tower Bible
and Tract Society, the nonprofit
organization in Brooklyn, N.Y., that
acts as the Witnesses' headquarters
and overseer.
Deuteronomy 19:15: No single
witness should rise up against a man
respecting any error or any sin, in the
case of any sin that he may commit.
At the mouth of two witnesses or at
the mouth of three witnesses the
matter should stand good.
As far as the Watch Tower is
concerned, that means Witnesses
can't take action against someone
unless at least two people can verify
an offense happened.
That standard is difficult to meet in
cases of child molestation, where
often only the victim and perpetrator
are present.
About two years ago, Bowen began to
suspect that a fellow elder in his
congregation near Paducah was
abusing the elder's daughter. In a
review of Witness files, Bowen found
that the elder had previously been
accused of molesting someone else.
Bowen says he got further proof that
the daughter might also have been
molested.
In keeping with Witness policy, he
called the Watch Tower's legal
department in Brooklyn for guidance.
The department is staffed with
lawyers who are Jehovah's Witnesses.
When Bowen described the situation,
he says, he was told there was nothing
to be done -- the man had denied it,
so there weren't enough witnesses. He
would have to "leave it in Jehovah's
hands."
Other former Witnesses who served
as elders around the nation have since
reported similar experiences.
Disgusted, Bowen resigned as an
elder and started a nonprofit
organization and a Web site for
Witnesses who were victims of
molestation.
Thousands logged onto his "silent
lambs" site, he says. Many told stories
of abuse that elders did not believe.
Bowen, 45, went public with his
story. He and several other Witnesses
were featured on Dateline NBC. One
woman, Barbara Anderson, had
worked in the Watch Tower's
research department and was
concerned that the organization
wasn't following up on abuse cases.
Bowen contends that tipsters told him
the organization keeps a database
with the names of 23,000 accused
molesters.
Brown, the Witnesses' spokesman,
would not discuss specific cases, but
he scoffed at allegations that
Witnesses protect child molesters.
Yes, Witnesses believe in the
two-witness rule, he said, but that's
not the only way wrongdoers can be
caught.
"It cannot be said that we will do
nothing unless there are two
witnesses," Brown said. He said
Witnesses are not required to report
crimes to elders before calling civil
authorities. Victims and their families
are free to call police at will, he said,
although some don't choose to.
Elders' investigations work
hand-in-hand with what Witnesses
sometimes call "Caesar's law," Brown
said. "We're not handling the
criminality of this," he said. "We're
handling the sin."
The Watch Tower does keep records
of people accused of molestation, but
the number in the database is far
fewer than 23,000, he said, declining
to give a specific figure.
Watch Tower officials use the
database to ensure that a person
against whom a credible allegation of
molestation is made won't be elevated
to positions of authority. Also, Brown
said, if a person is accused in separate
incidents, Witness officials have a
record of that history and will look
into the matter seriously.
After the Dateline program aired in
May, Bowen, Anderson and
Anderson's husband were
disfellowshipped. A couple who said
their daughter had been abused by a
Witness were also threatened with
excommunication.
* * *
The modern Watch Tower Bible and
Tract Society began with a small
group of Bible students near
Pittsburgh and was incorporated in
1884. Back then, about 50 believers
traveled door-to-door full time,
spreading their beliefs.
They were largely successful in the
next few years in convincing people
that the end of the world, or
Armageddon, was imminent and that
only Jehovah's Witnesses would
survive.
Witnesses don't believe in a burning
hell. Non-Witnesses will simply be
killed in the end. The vast majority of
Witnesses will live forever on Earth,
which will become a paradise once rid
of the evil perpetuated by a society of
nonbelievers. A select group of
Witnesses -- 144,000, to be exact --
will live in heaven with Jesus Christ.
This, based on a passage in the Book
of Revelation, is referred to as "the
heavenly hope."
The denomination's governing body
and a workforce of other Witnesses
operate a massive and well-organized
religious base with a legal department,
publishing house and printing
facilities that ship Witness literature
and Bibles all over the globe.
The Watch Tower keeps detailed
accounts of the number of hours each
Witness goes door-to-door, the
number of home Bible studies
completed and records of those who
have been disfellowshipped.
The governing body also establishes
policy for Witnesses to live by that it
says is based on the Bible. Witnesses
cannot vote, receive blood
transfusions or salute the flag, among
other restrictions.
Not even the marriage bed is beyond
the Watch Tower's purview.
Brown said Witnesses believe that
sexual activity between men and
women should "follow the normal
course" of things. "We feel that oral
or anal intercourse would go beyond
that."
Couples are often counseled
accordingly before marriage, Brown
said. Guilt-ridden Witnesses have
gone before judicial committees to
confess wayward sex acts with their
spouses.
* * *
The Watch Tower predicted several
times in the 1900s that Armageddon
would occur. The organization grew
as people were baptized Witnesses,
hoping to join the only "true" religion
before it was too late.
Joseph F. Rutherford, once the Watch
Tower's president, was convinced that
1925 would mark the year that
forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
would return to earth. Rutherford had
a large mansion built in California so
they would have a place to live. The
mansion was later sold.
Decades passed. Then Witnesses
declared that the end would arrive in
1975. Some sold their homes, packed
up and hit the road, going
door-to-door to recruit as many
people as they could. Young adults
refused to go to college. Couples put
off having children.
Diane Gholson of Spring Hill was
among those anticipating
Armageddon. In 1974, she feverishly
wrote letters to her husband's Baptist
relatives, begging them to become
Witnesses before it was too late.
"When it didn't come, my husband
said, 'Maybe they're off by a year,' "
she said.
They waited. And waited.
By 1980, Gholson said, they'd had
enough. In 1982, they were part of a
group of Witnesses who participated
in a march at Watch Tower
headquarters. Watch Tower leaders,
they charged, were nothing more than
"false prophets."
Gholson was disfellowshipped.
Shirley Jackson, who had been
baptized in 1974 in case the end did
come, was unswayed, however. She
accepted the Watch Tower's
explanation that the "light" of God's
word was getting brighter.
* * *
Brown says disfellowshipping inspires
wrongdoers to come back to the
religion. Those who want to reapply
can do so, but they must adhere to
Witnesses' policies. They are allowed
inside the Kingdom Halls but are
ignored by the other congregants until
readmitted to the faith.
Each year, Brown said, 30,000 to
40,000 are reinstated, having "come
back to their spiritual senses."
Jackson now goes to Glad Tidings
Assembly of God church in St.
Petersburg. She is happy there and
says she can sense God's presence in
the sanctuary. She regrets ever
believing what the Witnesses taught
her.
Only her youngest child, a
17-year-old son, was not baptized a
Witness. He lives with Jackson and
her new husband.
"It hurts," Jackson said of her broken
family. "But I'm not bitter. I want to
help people who are going through
this."
-- Times researcher Cathy Wos
contributed to this report.
