Its old and we dont use it anymore. That takes us to 27. I have observed that children in families like this most often never thrive, and are swiftly on their way out by the time they reach teenage years. But why have they stopped knocking on our doors? And when youre a member of the Church Of Christ, the peace that you have in knowing that the promise that God has made to you will be fulfilled is everything. Getty Images 08 . The Witnesses still experience growth, but at a huge expense. The carts also provide the public with the choice of approaching us or not, which some people appreciate. And they actually tell you that you cant read the Bible alone that you need these other publications written by them to be able to understand scripture because it comes down from the governing body, and what they say goes. (Translation they are on their own: no health care, no jobs, no training. The Supreme Court of Canada will rule this year in a case involving shunning and discrimination, and if Watch Tower loses this case, the repercussions will be felt worldwide. Literature carts are being used not just in the Newcastle area but all over the world and we foresee them being a regular feature of our public preaching for many years to come.. At death, that life-force leaves the body. Change in teachings? As she started to lose trust in the unsteady teachings of JW, Andrea turned to the Church Of Christ for doctrinal stability because, in the Church Of Christ, everything that they follow is written in the Bible. The verdict has since been overturned, but the case is still being litigated. What are you doing? On February 4, 2019, rumors of the release of a new Elders manual, meant only for the eyes of the top leaders in each congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses (JW), began to surface on ex-JW forums across the Internet. No other religion can do that. It is all about their money. Jehovah's Witnesses must believe and teach that their group has been directly appointed by God and Jesus. Less than 24 hours later, the manual was leaked and seemingly non-stop analysis and comparison to previous versions began. Many elders have questioned this vocally, and have described the amount of money charged to each circuit as an invoice. Much of their growth from these nations is from people being born into the religion. But I will say this each one of us can play a part in sharing what we know with the public. The leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses has never admitted that any valid reasons to leave the religion exist. Today it has 252 members, with those who have been associated with Pentecostalism, the Anglican and Baptist churches and the Jehovah's Witnesses dominating the group. it is one to really be avoided at all costs and it is really dangerous. Followers famously wont accept blood donations - nor do they celebrate birthdays, claiming such celebrations displease God. On top of this, many Jehovah's Witness adults expect children to silently sit still through long convention talks on Daniels prophecies or the nuances of the word parousia. Beside simple boredom, what we also see in the Watchtower organization are many emotionally troubled people and single parent families who join the religion for the promises of relief that it holds out for them. They still teach that everybody else is doomed except for them. (Rutherford must be having a meltdown in his grave). The major damage has been done and it will only continue to spread throughout the organization as more and more proof of this religions terrible practices are leaked out and spread all over the Internet. I just want you to listen to the doctrines. For Ali Millar, the experience of writing her difficult life story wasn't cathartic, it was traumatic. Clearly, these eight men will lie just to protect their money because thats their first love. In a recent private video for Bethel members only, this war against questionable pants, socks, and tights was restated, with Watch Tower doubling down on matters which would baffle Jesus himself were he to walk the earth today. Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian denomination with an estimated 175,000 followers in Russia. The lawsuits are piling up, the fines are compounding, the public awareness of Watch Towers dangerous and controlling cult influence on followers will become a spectacle in 2018. Because I love my sister so much, I felt like I had to give her the opportunity to just listen. Most Jehovah's Witnesses - roughly two-thirds (65%) - are . And so after learning from the Bible that God commissions or sends people to communicate the truth, Andrea came to the conclusion that those who wrote the Let God be True book could not have been commissioned by God. I just want you to listen, Cynthia begged. There was always an air of mysti'c never seeing them except on occasion at a district convention. The Jehovah's Witnesses congregation is a millennialist restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs. Furthermore, followers of the sect are three times more likely to be diagnosed as suffering . A big part of the JW organization's power comes from keeping dissenters isolated until they give in due to loneliness. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that they have the one and only true religion and that their Governing Body is appointed by God himself. Not even Watchtowers huge lawyers can stop it. As a matter of fact, theres absolutely nowhere in all of scripture that even remotely leads to anything that the Jehovahs Witnesses are the true faith. The life of the Jehovah's Witnesses is guided by those forbidden things and more. No religion can claim that. All Jehovahs Witnesses will be given a number and tracked unless we can stop this invasion of privacy here in the US and around the world. Religious fact, faith and delusion, home> She was convinced shed lost me and that Id be changed for ever now, no longer the daughter shed always loved and cherished. Watch Tower was spending tens of thousands per year to New York City just to maintain their tunnel and air-bridge spaces between buildings. . Press J to jump to the feed. Was Russell a Freemason? Truth Be Told Documentary Many of us here paid that price, only to wake up to it years later. Watch Tower has taken over responsibility of all kingdom halls worldwide, but many sit in disrepair awaiting renovations in excess of what congregations can afford. He grew up in a Strong JW family in the USA but now thinks most of it is BS and Nonsense, By the way he does love Sweden and I need to go visit him. Jehovah's Witnesses, a sect formed in the 1870s and eventually incorporated as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, maintained for much of their early history that 1914 would mark the end of . Basically it is in the process of imploding. And, as is human nature, it is much easier for Watchtower leaders to put all of the blame for this on invisible metaphysical characters such as Satan, instead of dealing with the elephant in their own living room. Sparlock Warrior Wizard These doctrines made perfect sense to me!. Nothing is added, subtracted, or changed to conform to societys standards because, in the Church Of Christ, the Bible is the basis of their faith. Now if they all say this, surely not all of them could be the truth huh? All the books in the Bible.. They govern every aspect of your life from cradle to grave. Does a recession/pandemic/war indicate Armageddon? As she grew up as a third-generation Jehovah's Witness, there were certain things . If id seen in the 70s or 80s morons like Lett rambling or the arrogance of Tony Morrison or the incredulous lies that Geoffrey Jackson spews, id saved alot of years of headache. Its the reason they emphasise the dangers and repercussions of searching for answers to faith-related questions in any place except their own literature, calling anything outside this apostasy. , Productivity Hacks for the Creative Christian, Three (Unexpected) Life Lessons from College, Dear Teenage Self: Finding God Changes You. Nearly all WT published material does not hold up to even a freshman's college essay in terms of sources cited, strawman arguments, and avoidance of logical fallacies. I was born into it which means of course that I completely missed my childhood and early adulthood. Beginning in 2018, JW.org will implement a program in which every single JW will be assigned a database number and their information will be in JW.orgs global database. Sherrie and Naomi were Jehovah's Witnesses. With multiple documentaries being filmed, protests being organized, news reports being written and lawsuits being filed, Jehovahs Witnesses can choose to buckle up and attempt to survive the crash or they can release that belt and get the hell out of the vehicle which is about to catch fire. 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According to Watchtower's own figures, know the number of Jehovah's Witnesses decreased 0.6% from 2019 - 2020 (this represents 46,823 average publishers, for anyone interested) BUT I found a few other interesting facts that indicate, to me at least, that this cult's days are numbered and you can see you feel about it as well. I believe this is a huge factor in the turnover of young people leaving the organization. "I would be sick. According to the organisation, there are currently more than 70,000 Witnesses in Australia. We also may change the frequency you receive our emails from us in order to keep you up to date and give you the best relevant information possible. I was lucky enough to have parents who brought me up more loosely than most Jehovahs Witnesses. She converted a lot of people to that religion.. I have been giving a lot of thought to the young people who are leaving the Watchtower organization in recent years. I knew the Bible back and forth. If anyone defected, the leaders simply blamed it on American influence, the defectors lack of gratitude, or on some horrible personal defect of the defector. We grew up together. SALT LAKE CITY The Utah Supreme Court has revived a woman's lawsuit alleging she was forced to listen to a recording of her own rape. Only ten years ago, every single member, that is 28 members were Jehovah's Witnesses. The faith discourages more than the bare minimum education, advising that higher education is a waste of time that could be better dedicated to ministry (a practice that is deemed so important every individual is required to submit a report card of the amount of hours theyve spent preaching each month), and that it fosters a materialistic and selfishly ambitious attitude. The important thing for us is to show them that there is a great life to be lived after leaving the Watchtower. The Let God Be True book was written by imperfect men, and imperfect men make mistakes, and it was a mistake. Moving to Warwick eliminated these costly payments. While I tried to maintain the utmost respect for their beliefs and not attempt to preach my own, they refused to extend me the same courtesy, and many assumed Id left so I could experience more freedom for worldly things. 6 months later in a private seminar, branch officials announced that Letts plea resulted in 30 million extra dollars in donations, but this would not stem their financial issues and would continue with layoffs and cutbacks. That our faith is true. It should be noted that the Soviets used the same methods of argumentation and reasoning claiming that nothing was lacking in Mother Russia. JWs in Eritrea have been rotting away in prison cells some for decades while the coalition of overweight, business-class-flying governing body members feign tears for the men and women who are effectively their slaves. Mr. Lopez alleged he was abused by a church elder named Gonzalo Campos. A survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a member of a Jehovah's Witnesses congregation in Pierce County recently sued the organization. However, the rate of growth has almost certainly also been dependent on child baptism for several years and, with the average age of the membership growing older and decades of discouragement from current members having children, there are also simply fewer children to indoctrinate. JW.org has been spinning the cutbacks as simplification, and have coerced dozens of those who lost their full-time jobs to give testimonials about how happy they were to accept their new assignment in the field. Brother Eddie San Gabriel challenged Andreas beliefs, and in the process she learned two powerful things that peeled her away from remaining a Jehovahs Witness. 239) In this video I share the story of my transition from believing. Boom Boom Boom! Jehovahs Witnesses can now be found in Birmingham city centre. Jehovah's Witness 'ordered to renounce faith and join Russian army' Europe. Those few born-in Jehovah's Witnesses who do stay in will pay an enormous price in that they will never have gotten to know who they really were. The Holy Spirit is the name of God's active force in the world. I have seen a lot of creativity and progressive thinking when it comes to how they design ministries for young people. Issues such as shunning and adjusting to normal life outside the faith can prove challenging to those wishing to leave. She has never found a discrepancy between what is written in the Bible and the teachings taught in the Church Of Christ. They have their little pet scriptures that they have taken out of context of course and they use those to try and convert you to their brand of religion. Watch Tower demands their freedom of speech but attempts to deny it to those sharing their publicly available materials which, by the way, are not being distributed for monetary gain. Are Watchtower reasons for being the only true religion valid? Watch Tower has made it clear these records are to be destroyed according to their new records management and destruction procedures. Watch Tower is very upset and concerned about all the leaks coming from their headquarters. In the book, they [JW] taught that Jesus Christ is a Mighty God. The graph below shoes how the 18-29 crowd have aged up, but new young adults are not replenishing the numbers. More than that, though, it infuriated me the way my most important reason for leaving was brushed aside because it was the most irrefutable: I simply did not believe in the Bible and God, and by extension any Christian belief. Believers honor Jehovah, the God and Creator of all things. Jehovah's Witnesses across the nation moved to letter-writing and phone-calling instead of door-to-door evangelizing when the organization suspended door-knocking in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Other programs that would make for a much stronger, robust, and enthusiastic membership are pushed aside and dismissed due their possibly interfering with proselytizing. It is already collapsing under its own weight. Two years later he founded Zion's Watch Tower and Tract Society, which was incorpo-rated in 1884 in Pennsylvania. He focused on his defense, like a narcissist who believes they are the center of the universe, unable to empathize with real people with real problems. Leaving the faith at 18 changed my life completely. Andee. Nothing can be allowed to take any time away from the Watchtowers sole purpose of existence: proselytizing. The "soul" is simply the life-force within a person. Is it any wonder that the turnover among the young people is so high? Many teenagers in the organization have issues that require a little more remedy than sitting with a notepad at the assembly and counting with tally marks the number of times the speaker says Jehovah. Contrast this to the July 2009 issue of Awake! Sawyer and many others like her are now denouncing the church's shunning practices in the wake of a recent murder-suicide in Keego Harbor that killed a family of four ex-Jehovah's Witnesses who . Its psychology 101. Yes, one would think so, but this would involve the Watchtower leadership reinventing, and rethinking matters that they are convinced have already been settled. I have just loaded my spiritual cannon, and I am about to fire away! How many schools do you know of, that stick preschoolers, high school students, and graduate students all into the same classroom together? Those eight men up in New York are worshipped because they follow every single word they say. (Immediately prior to dates the end was specifically expected, such as 1914, 1925 and 1975, growth increased to as high as 20%.) Jehovah does not mislead us. (source: Pew Research: https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/jehovahs-witness/) and https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/26/a-closer-look-at-jehovahs-witnesses-living-in-the-u-s/). You dont need to mourn me, I told her once. Jesus Christ is his firstborn son, is inferior to God, and was created by God. His wife's parents are among the 130,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Ukraine. Jehovah's Witnesses, a millenarian denomination of Christrianity, follow strict guidelines regarding the use of blood in medical practices. Reportedly, one of the rules is that unless a perpetrator confesses to committing a sin, two people must witness the commission of the sin. She learned she couldnt get that from being a Jehovahs Witness. Andrea started to panic and pulled Cynthia aside. The turnover in membership is something that is only going to grow; as is the percentage of the young Jehovah's Witnesses who eventually leave. Every time I . She was especially close to her sister Cynthia. THE Jehovah's Witnesses religious denomination has been accused of selling assets and sending cash offshore to avoid paying Australian child-sex abuse victims. Right away, Andrea recognized that there was nothing Biblical about her grandmothers answer. They really have no proof of God giving them this high and mighty position of being Gods only spoksperson on Earth. They use Office 365 now and embed data into PDF files in an attempt to track where the leaks are coming from. The Watchtower organization is like a restaurant that keeps serving the same bland menu even though many of the patrons dont like the food and arent coming back. ITV Dancing On Ice judge Christopher announced Jayne is out of surgery - and it was a success. The establishment of Jehovahs Witnesses is not in the Bible. She listened and protected her faith and the teachings of the Jehovahs Witnesses until her beliefs could no longer defend her. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right. A former Jehovahs Witness shares why she walked away for good, We would have Bible studies, and I even preached from door to door. With a spacious trunk, with low clearance to fit that pesky literature cart! 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Animal Suffering Witnesses hold a number of traditional Christian views but also many that are unique to them. Andrea sat down. Other churches give single parents some relief by offering activities and programs for their children to get involved in and bond with other young people. However, today, information is in the form of aTsunami which cant be stopped. Sections: politics business autos jobs career education romance computers phones travel sports fashion health Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. You know what its like to have no hope. However, the Seventh day Adventists say that theyre the only true religion, the Mormons say it and so do the Catholics and so on. But it's a way of thinking that is ingrained in you by the faith, and it's this mentality that makes it so difficult to leave. Sitting through hours upon hours of talks and Watchtower studies is not going to help them with many of the emotional and social challenges theyre grappling with. Well, the reason for the recent increase is simply due to a change in tactics, according to our sister title the Chronicle. This means that we may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. Within ten years, a For years, members have gone door-to-door to spread the word about the faith. When commenting on the young people who leave the organization, another common tactic that the organization uses is to cynically compare them with the ungrateful Israelites who found Jehovahs manna to be undesirable. Its not hard to figure out why so many Jehovah's Witness children are conditioned from an early age to associate drudgery with the meetings and assemblies. But in another respect, its quite sad, when considering the young people in the organization who desperately need and yearn for something more. When you stand in the public square and represent a religion, its just a matter of time before the public connects the dots, and the carts are sent to the junkyard, one at a time. But fortunately, after having been out for a number of years, many of us are getting to know who we really are and what gives our lives meaning. Its hard to say. The present study of 50 Jehovah's Witnesses admitted to the Mental Health Service facilities of Western Australia suggests that members of this section of the community are more likely to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital than the general population. I would love it if the young ones were leaving in droves, and I believe because of the Internet this will happen, but I don't see a great deal of evidence at present. Shunning seams to be one of their favorite topics and favorite things to do. The Russian Supreme Court's shocking ban of the Jehovah's Witnesses on 20 April 2017 also violates Russia's own Constitution which, in words, guarantees freedom of religion. Yet, ironically, its clear that their growth is already suffering due in part to this stubbornness. ", BBC Beyond Paradise star Jamie Bamber is married to Eastenders actress. The rest will live forever in a paradise on Earth, never meeting the person who died for them - Jesus Christ. Many churches offer separate classes, services, or groups for children that are compatible with their maturity level and that get them acclimated to going to church. JWs are leaving in droves, all because of the internet. If the Jehovahs Witnesses were the true religion, sanctioned by God, there would be no room for error and no mistakes!. I can never forgive them for betrayal. They are not allowed to question the Watchtower leadership or teaching. The Holy Spirit is . This is where the Watchtower is at. Are you inspired yet? Instead of adjusting the menu, or admitting that the chef isnt as good as he thinks he is, the owner simply blames the customers, and claims that the patrons taste buds must not be working properly. I eventually left the faith at 18. Copyright 2023 Jehovah's Witnesses. In March 1997, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the nonprofit organization that oversees the Jehovah's Witnesses, sent a letter to each of its . Well here goes. A lack of education is also essential to keep members locked in. My Story of Leaving Jehovah's Witnesses Lloyd Evans 108K subscribers Subscribe 7.2K 232K views 4 years ago (Cedars' vlog no. This is not to say that there are no enthusiastic young people in the Watchtower organization, because there truly are. In 2017, Russia banned the denomination, whose members believe in nonviolence and refuse to take up arms in war; Russia . Young Korean Witnesses languish in prison for no reason. Much like Kim Jong walking out and clapping his hands, the Watchtowers idea of motivating its people is to deliver talks denouncing college, Watchtower articles ridiculing those who disagree with them, and the repetitive promise that the end is just around the corner.