Only in the information age and with former JW's managing to get together
have those answers been easily shown to be flawed. But many members don't
see that yet. To keep them from examining things, the totalism is
enforced on the members.
That is so
true.
I’ve only
been out of the organization a little over a year. I remember in the late 60’s
there seemed to be a huge invisible wall that separated us from the rest of the
world. Regularly it was drilled in our minds that outside this symbolic wall of
protection, destruction was imminent, especially since 1975 was around the
corner.
A JW might hear of one or two persons climbing the wall and going into
the unknown. But all of us that stayed in the organization, dismissed it as “Crazy
people who lost all common sense”
I remember
several families, who sold their homes, pulled their kids out of school, bought
small mobile trailers, and moved to serve where the need was great.
After 1975,
we faithful JWs started hearing more stories of JW’s scurrying over to the
symbolic wall and making a run for it. Looking back in time I now realized that
it was tiny cracks that were starting to appear in the organization.
In the 1980s
I remember a friend from Bethel that told me a huge mutiny was happening in the
very headquarters of Jehovah’s organization. There was talk of books that were
being published by EX-JWs that promised freedom, and a better way of life from
a totalitarian existence.
The tiny
cracks in the organization were now getting bigger and more noticeable and “Mother”
raised the ante. (No more personal Bible Studies as groups, any talk against
the teachings of the WTS were met with an iron fist, etc.)
By the 90s the
tiny cracks had become fragments pieces that were falling with a great thump. The
internet was up and running. The stories of one or two JWs climbing the
protective wall and leaving were now increasing to tens and hundreds leaving
and surviving.
The Mother
Organization already had a barb wire fence to keep the rank and file in but now
they started to construct a symbolic concrete wall to keep the members in. The disfellowshipping
and shunning policies started evolving into firm, unyielding, rigid laws that
kept family members that had left the organization from being any type of
influence to their still trapped loved ones.
The world today
is a different animal than the world of the 50s and 60s. Instead of waiting in
line to get on the merry-go-round, 8 year old kids are clicking their I-Phones
to read or listen to the latest “THING” going on in the world. No matter how
much software protections parents “Buy” to shield their children from wrong
information, the kids today are one step ahead.
The totalitarian
construct of the WTS is coming apart. No matter how much concrete they use on their
walls to keep their population in, the little one that made a dash to freedom
has now become thousands.
Many JWs are
fed up with the totalitarian way of life. They are not scurrying to the wall
anymore. They are taking their time, packing, and walking calmly to the other
side of freedom. I used to hear just the husband leaving or the wife or maybe
one child. But now I am seeing entire families leaving at once.They don’t give
explanations and they don’t even say Good-Bye.
The JWTV, the JW.ORG, the silliness
of the Governing Members and their antics is waking up entire families. And the
youth today growing up in a totalitarian environment will just not put up with
that kind of life. Door to door work will just not cut it with today’s youth.
This totalitarian
organization is coming apart at the seams.
