“You must be strong to make that decision”, is something I have heard quite a few times from people when they hear of my deciding to walk away from my family’s religion, Jehovah’s Witnesses.

For the majority of Christians, familial bonds would be stronger than those of the church, and whilst family members would be disappointed in a decision of a son or brother to no longer practice the faith, for Jehovah’s Witnesses the reaction is markedly different.
For Jehovah’s Witnesses, one’s leaving after being baptized is seen as an act of betrayal, an unfathomable decision that merits disdain and the cessation of any further association.

My faith as a young person

In my case, I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness in Winnipeg, and I was happy in this upbringing.

I embraced the beliefs, adhered to the strict rules limiting association to fellow believers and eschewed common childhood pursuits like playing on the football team or going to the graduation party. I believed that I was protecting myself from ‘bad associations’, guarding myself from corruption. I was baptized at 15.

I graduated high school with good grades, and could have followed my classmates into university, but again, I deferred to the wisdom of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the legal organization behind the Jehovah’s Witnesses movement, and the source of teachings, the ones described at Matt. 24:42-46 as ‘The Faithful and Discreet Slave’.

They taught in the pages of the Watchtower magazine and other publications that attending university would only expose youth to more bad associations and could lead one astray, a nobler pursuit would be to use the energy of youth to preach the word full time as a ‘Pioneer.’

The requirements for this ministry were to spend at least 1,000 hours per year—roughly 90 per month—preaching; whether it be door-to-door, over the phone, or by writing letters.

I decided to enter this work, and spent almost 18 months doing it. But then the strain of working two jobs to support myself, although living at home, and preaching on average of three hours a day got to be too much and I had to step aside from this work.

My zeal was intact, however; and I progressed through the ranks until I was appointed as a Ministerial Servant, essentially one with added responsibilities in the congregation.

Trouble

I was married at 21 to another Witness and expected to continue in the Witnesses for life.

At 24, I became involved with a woman at work and my marriage ended in divorce. I was repentant for my actions and was ‘publicly reproved’, essentially stripped of my privileges and counselled to focus on recovering my spiritual health. My ex-wife then levelled accusations of fraud against me, and the local elders made the decision to disfellowship me. I was stunned, and following my brother-in-law’s counsel, I chose to appeal the decision and a council of more senior elders reversed it.

My faith was restored and I decided to recommit myself to what I was convinced was truly God’s organization, one where errors by sinful men are corrected in the fullness of time.

This was until one of the elders who had been on the original committee which disfellowshipped me told me, “We know we made the right decision, you got off on a technicality and we will be watching you closely to make sure we catch you the next time”.

I was stunned, where was the love? The supposed empathy?

I tried moving to a different congregation, but the elders, who were convinced I was trouble waiting to happen, soon spread the word and I was even asked to not participate in the Jehovah’s Witness ice hockey games, which were happening fully 50 miles from Winnipeg. The elders at this session took me aside, after I was dressed in my gear, and had greeted all of my friends, and said it would be better if I didn’t come out any longer until the ‘local situation’ was resolved.

I asked to stay to make this my last session, to save the humiliation of taking all my equipment off and having to walk past all my friends, and was denied this dignity.

The moment of truth

These events led me to question how this could really be God’s organization? How could God allow such events to take place? How could he not see the fact that I was trying, and wanted to remain in, what I felt, was the ‘Truth’.

It was that summer, 1996, when I decided that I no longer believed this faith, I could no longer say in my heart that this was the ‘Truth’ and in the axiom of ‘to thine own self be true,’ I made the decision to divorce myself from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I thought about the consequences, the act of disassociating oneself carrying a huge cost. My friends, family, my entire world was the Jehovah’s Witnesses. By leaving I would face rejection and abandonment by everyone and everything I knew. I realized, however; that I had to be able to look myself in the mirror, and that this was what I had to do.

That was eight years ago, and I can’t recall the last time I have seen my two sisters or brothers-in law. I come from a family of five, my being the ‘baby’. My elder sister actually left the Jehovah’s Witnesses before I did, however; as she was not baptized (Jehovah’s Witnesses are Anabaptists, not practicing infant baptism), it was permissible for the family to remain in contact. I suppose she benefited from a ‘technicality’ of her own.

We were an exceptionally close family; the husband of my eldest sister was a surrogate brother and mentor to me.

He taught me to golf, to play hockey, to fix cars, in some respects, to have the strength of character it took to be true to myself.

He has not spoken to me since.

My sister wrote me a letter shortly after I left, advising me that her and her family’s shunning of me was ‘God’s just punishment’, and her prayer was for me to ‘see the loving nature of Jehovah and humbly return and beg for forgiveness.’

My mother still spoke to me on occasion, telling me that I knew the consequences of my decision, in a defacto manner saying the families’ shunning of me was of my own doing, and they, in fact, had no choice in the manner, it was God’s law.

I have made efforts to re-establish communications, writing letters, sending e-mails, to no reply.

The impacts of this experience are with me still. Upon leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I rushed into another marriage, I exhibited all the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress disorder, I snapped up the chance to work overseas, anything to distract me from the pain.

I kept running, moving my new wife to England, but spending 18 of the first 24 months voluntarily working away from home, my passport is full, and I have set foot on nearly every continent.

My wife could not take this kind of life and we divorced in 2000.

This event convinced me to seek counselling, and after two years I am starting to feel again. I can now admit the pain the separation from my family causes, instead of dismissing it. I have learned how to love and have found a wonderful woman with whom to share my life.

I still harbour the effects of my upbringing; I am skeptical of religions, having been taught how to shred any belief in a matter of minutes with logical arguments, a tool used in the door-to-door ministry work. I am still struggling with trust, after my experience I find it exceptionally difficult to trust anyone, I was programmed to believe the world was evil, and everyone has an agenda and is under the influence, conscious or not, of Satan.

I read about ‘extremist’ religions, Islam being the target of western attention. My experience demonstrates that extremism exists in what is widely considered to be an odd, but harmless Christian sect, those funny people who knock on your door and don’t celebrate Christmas.

I feel that this harmless sect tears apart families, friends, marriages and lives. Shunning blows apart your world emotionally, as a bomb would tear through a physical one.

Am I strong? I don’t know about that, I don’t see myself that way.

Am I a survivor?

Yes.