Frying pan, meet fire: recovery in a post-Jehovah's Witness life

Photo credit: Allison Achauer

By Joel Gunz

(Note: I published this in slightly different form, for a general audience, here.)

Let's be honest. None of us were disfellowshipped from the Jehovah's Witnesses because we were perfect in every way. Whether the judicial action was right or wrong, just or unjust, it's a safe bet that we'd committed some kind of "sin" that we swore on the dotted line we'd never commit. For some of us, that "sin" might have been part of a deeper addiction. If so, then it's also possible that we sought help through a recovery program. I know I did. I found that, as a former Witness, my relationship to 12-Step programs and therapy to be a complicated and evolving process. 

First off, I believe that all of us are addicted to something, no exceptions. Whether it's cocaine, exercise, coffee, meth, or comic books, we all have what we euphemistically call our "vices." How many Witnesses struggle with alcohol, overeating, TV watching or Internet use? Though she would never admit it, my mother (a pioneer and elder's wife) is an alcoholic. And how many might actually addicted to the religion itself?

I think the addictions we fall into say a lot about us. Alcoholism is often associated with external frustrations, e.g.: "my partner/job/neighbor drives me to drink." Conversely, sex addictions often revolve around internalized issues, e.g.: “I'm not good/beautiful/worthy/desirable/spiritual enough.” Less destructive addictions—TV watching, shopping, Internet surfing—also speak volumes about the architecture of our psyche. For that reason, I agree with psychologist David Bedrick, who wrote in a Psychology Today blog post that “people use substances for hundreds of different individual, almost idiosyncratic, reasons.” 

The 12-Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous is arguably the best alcohol treatment program yet devised for mass consumption. But it seems to work only for a specific type of alcoholic: the person who has reached a desperate "rock bottom" condition, possibly accompanied by homelessness, job loss, divorce, etc., because only then, it is assumed, will one finally be willing to engage in the total surrender to a higher power it takes to overcome his or her addiction. In fact, AA literature sees alcoholism, not as a problem of willpower, but as a disease of the Will itself. And until you've hit that existential wall, the program won't work for you: AA members who relapse are dismissed as having not reached that anti-grail. Those who are mandated into the program, such as by law enforcement, fare even worse. Still, that smaller, narrowly defined group of bottom-liners reports a high success rate. 

When you add the extreme moralism drilled into us as Witnesses, it's easy to see how we might beat ourselves up a bit too much for our failings. When I was in the religion, I "struggled" with masturbation/pornography all my life. Although I was hardly alone, it seems I was one of the few people who regularly confessed to this "secret fault." Over the years, well-meaning elders offered to support me in "overcoming" the habit. It would be years before I figured out that the more I resisted temptation, the more it would fight back. And then it would be a while longer before I realized that my real battles lay elsewhere.  (I can be a little slow on the uptake.)

When I was disfellowshipped from the Jehovah's Witnesses, I was convinced that I was a sex addict. (I was, I have to admit, looking at a lot of porn.) So I joined Sexaholics Anonymous. Then, concerned that my glass-or-two-of-wine-a-day habit was too much, I also attended AA meetings. Because my finances were a shambles, I attended Debtors Anonymous. 12-Step groups often recommend that newcomers attend 30 meetings in 30 days. Always an overachiever, I did a 180 in 180. In addition to all that, I enrolled in one-on-one and group psychotherapy. In fact, for nearly two years, hardly a day went by that I didn't attend some kind of recovery meeting and frequently I attended two or three. because I was trying to get reinstated, I was also attending all of the Witness meetings, sitting mute in the back row of the Kingdom Hall like a stuffed giraffe.

I learned a lot and grew from the experience; I wouldn't trade it in for anything. (Except for maybe more sex.) In the long run, however, practicing the 12 Steps didn't change my behaviors much. True, I actually got a one-year chip from SA for abstaining from masturbation for a year, but afterward I quickly made up for lost time. My drinking was never really a problem to begin with. My finances are still in chaos. For me, the problem was one of perception: believing I had these addictions actually fueled a Slinky-storm of downward spirals. Once I learned to cut myself a little slack and stop trying to please a legalistic, finger-wagging Jehovah, the destructive fury of these compulsions was diverted to more productive endeavors.

AA books reject such behaviorist or relapse-prevention approaches outright and emphasize the need for surrender to a spiritual higher power. This approach was actually recommended to one of its founding members by Carl Jung, who insisted that relief from alcoholism can only be found in a deep spiritual conversion. (Ironically, it's just this kind of God-talk that prevents many Witnesses fro  availing themselves of the program.)

While that’s what AA literature teaches, too often, AA—as a fellowship—isn't much more than the same-old same-old behavior accountability group found in recovery and high-priced treatment centers and Kingdom Halls everywhere. As Alfred Hitchcock wisely observed, “everything’s perverted in a different way.”

All of which is to say, my life is about as manageable as a sloppy joe is for an amputee, but I've never loved myself more—not in spite of these imperfections, but because of them. For instance, I still have a bona fide monkey on my back. He has a red demon face that's permanently twisted into a rictus of anger. Off and on throughout any given day, he gets up in my face and says, "You're a failure! A fucking failure!!" I've learned to love even him—after all, for better or worse, he is part of me. I quit fighting him and now he gives me the motivation I need to get up in the morning and put on my bigboy pants when I'd rather bury my head under a mountain of pillows. But that clarity didn't come through any 12-Step program. (Full disclosure: it was the result of a conversation with David Bedrick.)

As a result, I'm ambivalent about the efficacy of 12-Step programs. Many of my friends are convinced that working the AA program keeps them sober. I applaud that. And to these friends who might be reading this post, I say hey man, whatever works. I honor and support you 100 percent. In addition to these benefits, 12-Step programs offer something that most other approaches don't: they're free.

But 12-Step programs have become a huge part of the recovery landscape in this country and I feel the need to raise a critical question or two. 

Every AA member knows the Serenity Prayer by heart:

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

Penned by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, this prayer was originally untitled. Then someone (probably a reformed drunk) dubbed it the Serenity Prayer, which was unfortunate—that title throws the whole thing off balance, emphasizing "acceptance" over "courage." Such a lopsided reading might help some, but it doesn't help all.

AA certainly preaches only the first half of the prayer: members are urged to humbly accept the flaws of others and imperfections in the systems in which they live. Very little consideration is given to incite courageous acts of change in one's circumstances. That might be right and good for some alcoholics, but I have hard time believing it is true for all. And other types of addictions operate on a very different level. Some addicts might be better off applying the second half of the prayer, seeking ‘courage to change the things they can.’ For instance, in SA, I encountered members who continue to beat themselves up for sexual transgressions committed years ago. Consumed with guilt and shame over their past misdeeds they remained unable to find—much less hold—a healthy sexual relationship in adult autonomy even as they attended meeting after meeting to confess to lustful thoughts about the bare midriff they caught themselves gazing at on Hawthorne Boulevard. For them, the courageous change might be to leave their 12-Step program and try living life in its terrifying glory.

The point is, with a 12-Step group for just about every vice imaginable, including alcohol, hard drugs, soft drugs, gambling, debt, sex, overeating, cluttering (?), underearning and workaholism and beyond, it seems to me that at least some of these programs render a disservice to those they would try to help. AA principles just don’t translate that easily.

AA really is geared for the specific—i.e. narcissistic—issues many (but not all!) alcoholics deal with. It emphasizes the need to take one's own "moral inventory" and avoid taking the inventory of others. For them, such an intervention is often helpful. Sex addicts, by contrast, know their own weaknesses all too well and ritualized self-inventory could actually contribute to the shame cycle that fuels their addiction. Such an individual might actually be better off doing the exact opposite of what AA prescribes, taking critical stock of the character flaws of the people or institutions (church, employment) around them, with a view to 'changing the things they cannot accept.'

TV, video game or Internet addicts, on the other hand, might want to take an honest inventory of the quality of their real-life relationships. (Am I the only person who finds it both interesting and ironic that all successful video games involve the acquisition and exercise of power?)

True, 12-Step programs didn't help me deal with my behavior issues all that much, but they were by no means a waste. The way I see it, the real problem with humanity isn't addiction, but our weird push me-pull you relationship with Reality. Most of us claim to be realists or claim to be inclined in that direction. But as that purveyor of nightmares, A. Hitchcock, once said, "reality is something none of us can stand, at any time." The real insanity—the real addiction—is that retreat from reality. Some withdraw with a needle; others use that meta-drug, reality TV. 12-Steps' true raison is that it methodically and—if you work the program—relentlessly pushes its members to confront reality. It forces you to see your life as it is. No wonder its favorite locus is the purgatory of the church basement, with a libation of shitty coffee. It was in such basements that I caught fleeting glimpses of my true self and, just as important, saw, really saw, for the first time, the reckless beauty of my fellow hairless bags of humanoid flesh. 12-Steps' report card for addiction recovery might be a mixed bag. But as a spiritual path for the secular, western mind, it's almost without parallel, and it's these benefits that hit you like a sneaker wave.

As a Jehovah's Witness, I was indoctrinated from an early age with the belief that I and my fellow door-to-door ministers were the only possessors of spiritual truth and divine love. My paleomammalian brain was marinated in the religious arrogance of such canards as "We worship the Only True God!" and "Only Jehovah's Witnesses have love among themselves!"

And then I fell among 12-Steppers.

In that world, I witnessed (and was the recipient of) extraordinary acts of selflessness and love made all the more remarkable because they were offered routinely, without any expectation. I encountered members from a variety of faiths who'd had soul-shaking spiritual experiences. This wasn't supposed to happen. I'd joined these 12 Steps so I could become a new and improved Jehovah's Witness. Instead, I found that the tools I'd been given as a Witness fell short of my need, and where those needs ended and my behavior began was an enormous void that I'd been trying to fill with the styrofoam of religious fundamentalism and xenophobia.

I broke. And then I began to heal. I got what I needed from 12 Steps. And then I left. I still look at porn. I still drink, sometimes to excess. I really need to get caught up on my bills. I discovered that what Hemingway said wasn't necessarily true: you're not always stronger in the broken places, and the acupunctural meridians of my psyche can cough up surprising and poignant pains when I least expect it. That said, I'm not really a fucking failure. I just play one in the TV of my mind. I manage to find time to write and create and build businesses and otherwise make myself useful to my kids and those I love.

And make no mistake. AA members are just as prone to fundamentalism and cultishness as are Jehovah's Witnesses. There is a strong belief that sobriety depends on "working the program," which includes meetings, readings and, well, a lot of stuff that smacks of the Witness life.

But what, exactly, is an addiction? I have a friend who is a very gifted artist. She feels compelled take time to draw every day and insists that this is compulsive, essentially unhealthy, behavior. For her, it doesn't much matter that her artwork is astonishingly beautiful, because it’s a compulsion; presumably, she would like to have the freedom to be able to draw less. Other people are addicted to reading and, sure, if the books are good, this behavior will boost their IQ, but it may take them further from other, more valued, connections. In these cases where do we draw the line between good and bad, healthy and unhealthy?

For that reason, I'm wary of the term "addiction" itself, just as I view conditions such as ADD and Asperger's Syndrome with suspicion. The human mind works in mysterious ways, and who are we to pathologize behaviors that might actually serve a very useful purpose? As Bedrick points out, “people want to use [drugs] for very important and powerful reasons.” I would add that those reasons are deeply personal and that a one-size-fits-all solution is antithetical to what the situation calls for. Rather than squelching the individual’s voice through interventions, perhaps a better strategy would be to listen to the addiction. It seems to want to be heard anyway.

In fact, it's quite possible that our "addictions" (or whatever you want to call them) are actually a by-product of Witness life. Viewed in that light, I see hope, not only for recovery from our "addictions," but also in healing from the wounds inflicted on us by religious abuse. Stay in touch. 

Bible Warning Stickers from the Skeptic General

All right, so I appointed myself Skeptic General. But only because I got tired of waiting for the Bethel Service Department to make me a Circuit Overseer.

But don't you agree that a message like this should go on every Bible, whether it's the New World "Translation" or otherwise? Go ahead, print 'em and stick 'em!

Lesson 3: Obey Sparlock

In the second segment of the new Jehovah's Witness cult indoctrination video for children, titled Lesson 2: Obey Jehovah, Caleb learns how awful it would feel to make God sad by playing with a toy that only Satan could love. You see, his new action figure, Sparlock the Wizard, is a magician. And you know how Jehovah feels about magic. (It is bad.) Following that guilt trip, Caleb throws Sparlock in the trash. But that Happy Meal prize is coming back for seconds.

Sparlock aims to teach Caleb’s parents a lesson about recycling by taking them into a dimension of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. Caleb’s mom and dad don’t realize it yet, but they’ve just crossed over into...

That evening, Caleb’s dad came home from making a shepherding call on Sister Fiftyandnevergotlaid and poured himself an ice cold Budweiser. Then he poured another. After his third bottle he went upstairs to leer at his daughter while she slept. But he saw that Sparlock had snuggled up to her first!

Filled with righteous indignation, Caleb’s father snatched the toy up and decided to destroy the demonized creature—just as he’d done with his own Ouija board and Led Zeppelin albums years before! 

He tried squeezing Sparlock’s head in a vice, but to no avail.

He tried to cut Sparlock’s head off with a table saw.

But that didn’t work out so well either. He only dulled the blade.

Frustrated, Caleb’s dad threw Sparlock the Wizard in the trash once again—but this time he weighted the lid with concrete blocks for good measure. Chuckling to himself, he turned and flipped the light switch off, leaving Sparlock alone in the garage.

That evening, after finishing his six-pack and deleting his Internet history, Caleb’s father was ready to turn in for the night. Teetering at the top of the stairs, he didn’t notice that Sparlock had made his way out of the trash can.

Down Caleb’s dad went!

His final lesson, as the light faded in his eyes faded to black? Obedience to Sparlock is the beginning of wisdom!

God is a louse. People are mostly chill.

By Joel Gunz

(For more great memes like this, visit www. smarmy-platitudes-R-us.com www.idlehearts.com.) 

If you’ve ever exited a repressive religion like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, you know how painful it can be to feel first-hand the sting of betrayal and abandonment. It can be one of those gifts that keep on giving.

A decade after I was disfellowshipped, the Witness side of my family — i.e. almost all of them — still continues to do everything it can to drive a wedge between my own children and me because they’ve decided I’m an apostate, which means, when translated, that I'm "spiritual kryptonite." It hurts to see my son, Max, miserable and depressed, mainly because people have decided that it’s preferable that he be a fatherless (albeit Kingdom Hall-attending) boy. As a remarkably gifted and intelligent young man, the janitors and stockroom clerks at the Kingdom Hall can't make heads nor tails of most of what he has to say. Sadly, he is all but a pariah in the "spiritual paradise."

That said, I can’t buy into the Dollar Store spirituality coughed up by the “People Hurt You” meme  above. In fact, when I saw it posted on a Facebook friend’s wall — herself also an ex-Witness — my stomach turned about 18 degrees. Just enough to prompt a response that went something like this: (Click on the image to see it properly.)

Her response? (Not posted here, for reasons that will soon be clear.) She went on to insist that any goodness in people exists only because God put it there. Also, she accused me of having a pole up my rear. Um, okay, maybe I had that coming. Apparently, my misanthropic line went a bit too far.

Still, my point stands.

I preached that “People are bad/God is good” line myself for over 30 years. Creating my own reality around that belief, I was convinced it was true. And then, by means of a Judicial Committee, I was handed the gift of objective distance. That’s when the scales fell from my eyes, as it were and I came to see, for the first time, just how much goodness there is in my fellow man. I saw that people can be trusted.

In fact, in my new paradigm, bad people are such a minority that when an individual behaves untrustworthily, it comes as a shock and offense. (If mankind were truly as generically evil as Christianity insists, the subprime mortgage crisis would have been a boring non-starter in the news.) I feel sorry for people who have such a misanthropic view of human nature that they can't see all the wonderful acts performed on a daily basis by people who couldn’t care less about Jesus or any other genie-in-a-bottle. Like the grocer who corrects you when you hand him too much money, when he could easily have ripped you off. Or the hundreds of thousands of medical marijuana program members across the country who share what they have with other patients,simply for the good of the community.

Considering the vile treatment I’ve experienced in my and my kids’ lives, how could I possibly have such a rosy outlook? Do I even have that right? Or have I softened into a blissfully ignorant Pangloss? Maybe. All I know is, day in and day out, I encounter people who are good folk and who treat others decently—if not offering themselves up in profoundly self-sacrificing ways.

I’ve told the story before about how I was helped out of the Witness cult by countless individuals who played roles large and small, conscious and unwitting, in helping me to see that the religious community I’d grown up with did not have a monopoly on love. It was like finding myself the guest of honor at a new surprise party every day. Before long, the kindness and generosity of these pagans, miscreants and misfits outshined the hurtful behavior of the Christians I’d known. In less guarded moments, I even caught myself forgiving the Witnesses.

Within the Witness community, those who have been hostile to me are a minority. Most Witnesses are good, honest people who are unfortunate to be caught up in a high-control system. If they could grasp how hurtful and pointless their behavior is, it would trigger an existential crisis they might not be able to survive. (After all, isn’t that the real moral of the story of Judas, who grasped too late the consequences of his blinkered thinking?)

The world may feel like a shithole sometimes, but as Robert Jordan said in For Whom the Bell Tolls, it is still “a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”

But let’s get back to that little spat on Facebook. Christianity teaches that people will hate you, but that only God will love you. Again, my experience is quite the opposite. It isn’t difficult to read the Biblical God as a hateful sonofabitch. On the other hand, I’ve found humans to be, in general, noble and decent. The Christian Facebook friend on whose wall I wrote that comment didn’t seem to agree. In fact, it bothered her so much that she unfriended me.

Ah well.  Comme ci, comme ça.

Nevertheless, why do I feel shunned?

Four Lies Jehovah's Witnesses Tell Themselves

Like it or not, a measure of dishonesty is necessary for maintaining the social system. We all know that young George Washington didn't cut down a cherry tree and that Lincoln's path to the Emancipation Proclamation had less to do with the ideal of racial equality than it did with the pragmatism of reuniting a fractured republic. Men hide their sexual indiscretions from their wives, who themselves would rather not know the truth about their husbands. Dishonesty is so deeply entrenched in the social contract that language philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein downgraded it from a moral failure to a mere “language game.”

The Jehovah's Witnesses are no exception. Here are four lies all Witnesses tell themselves.

“I am loved.”
The Witness catechism brochure What Does God Require of Us says that “the most outstanding mark of true Christians is that they have real love among themselves.”

To be fair, Jehovah's Witnesses do a good job of promoting this value among their members. For instance, racism has been all but eliminated. Their literature points to the humanitarian work they perform in times of disaster and to the preaching work itself as an act of love. But in these areas, they are really no different from many other churches that also do good works. Good and helpful though their work may be, the love Witnesses have is not an “outstanding mark,” superior to that found in other religions. They are merely as good as many other religions.

On a personal level, however, many Witnesses complain of loneliness and isolation. Due to strict moral standards and the expectation to marry only within the religion, thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses remain single and have lost hope that they will find someone just right for them. Others may feel left out because they aren't part of the Pioneers' or Elders' club. Hoping to conjure up feelings of amity by force of sheer will, some will testify at the meetings to the love they have been shown or to the love they feel for the “brotherhood.” But all too often it's a sham, a Hail Mary pass at getting the human affection they crave.

Many Watchtower articles have been published to address this problem, most of which assume that if congregation members don't feel loved, it's their own fault; the Watchtower Society has never acknowledged that its own congregations could be the source of their disappointment.

Thus, out of one side their mouth they praise the Organization for having superlative love, while out of the other side of their mouth, they complain—if only privately—that they feel unloved. While a measure of love can be found in Witness congregations, to claim this as an outstanding characteristic of their religion is to ignore the love that abounds outside their Kingdom Halls.

Then again, any religion that describes the ritualized brutality of disfellowshipping as a “loving arrangement” isn't exactly going for what you could call a platonic ideal.

“I am in the truth.”
Jehovah's Witnesses claim to possess “accurate knowledge” of the Bible—that they alone know the truth—and this belief emboldens them to take their unique beliefs from door to door. The single most important doctrine in their theology is their belief that Jesus Christ became the messianic King of God's Kingdom in 1914—and it provides the basis for all of their interpretation of Bible prophecy. That date is arrived at through a series of scriptures handpicked from the books of Daniel and Revelation and whipped together into a dizzyingly convoluted compote of Bible Math. While Watchtower publications occasionally go over this material, few Witnesses can actually explain this chronology without resorting to cheat sheets such as those found in their book Reasoning from the Scriptures. Convinced though they may be about the doctrine, few really understand it. That isn't knowledge. It's mere belief. Consequently, while Jehovah's Witnesses criticize other churches for inducing their members to credulously believe incomprehensible doctrines, like the Trinity, the fact is that they do the same thing themselves.

In 2010, in order to reconcile the urgency of its belief that 1914 would be a prelude to Armageddon with the fact that that year is quickly fading into history, the Watchtower magazine (once again) revised the meaning of the word “generation” used at Matthew 24:34, this time completely removing its definition from the realm of sound logic and doubling it to actually include two generations whose lives overlap.

It is no coincidence that, as its belief system has lost credibility, the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses has shown less and less tolerance for those who would ask difficult questions. If it were secure in the truth, it would encourage—not fear—questioning and dissent. Instead, they drown out cross-examination with the cry “I am in the truth!” for to stop doing so would result in a crisis of faith from which, they fear, they could not recover.

“I am living a fulfilled life as a Witness.”
For someone youthful and ambitious, there are a few opportunities for personal fulfillment in the Jehovah's Witness world. Their missionary and foreign service programs afford opportunities for world travel. Males can advance into leadership positions. Still, the emphasis is on one paramount work: the public ministry, and all members are expected to make it their top priority. If a member balks at this, or finds that it is not his or her “gift,” it is seen as a spiritual weakness. Thus, having a fulfilling role in the Witnesses is something only a few enjoy. The rest are encouraged to make the best of it and are dissuaded from seeking the challenges and rewards that go along with traditional avenues for personal enrichment, such as education, professional development, entrepreneurship or the arts.

For most people, college is an opportunity to explore their interests and get to know themselves. But Witnesses see it as a threat to their relationship with God. The April 15, 2008 Watchtower says, “What, though, of higher education, received in a college or a university? This is widely viewed as vital to success. Yet, many who pursue such education end up with their minds filled with harmful propaganda. Such education wastes valuable youthful years that could best be used in Jehovah’s service.”

Pursuing fulfillment in any endeavor outside of service to the Watchtower Society is discouraged. In a chapter titled “What Career Should I choose?” the Watchtower publication Young People Ask stated:

‘WHAT shall I do with the rest of my life?’ Sooner or later you confront this challenging question. A confusing array of choices present themselves—medicine, business, art, education, computer science, engineering, the trades. And you may feel like the youth who said: “What I consider to be successful . . . is maintaining the comfort level that you grew up with.” Or like others, you may dream of improving your financial lot in life.

But is there more to success than material gain? Can any secular career bring you real fulfillment?

The chapter goes on to discourage such options, claiming that satisfaction “eludes those who build their lives solely around secular achievement.”

When it comes to relationships, Witnesses fare little better. If they are raised in the religion, they often get married too young, only to realize too late that they made an unwise choice. Fearing censure from the congregation if they divorce, they often remain trapped in a disappointing relationship.

Thus, for many Witnesses, finding real satisfaction in work and life is elusive. Yet, there is no room to say express those feelings openly, for to do so would only further isolate them from a community that would see their lack of fulfillment as spiritual weakness. So they maintain a facade that conceals a life of quiet desperation. They live a sad lie of thwarted dreams and aspirations.

“I think for myself”
Ask any Witness if she is in a cult and she will likely bristle defensively and insist that Witnesses think for themselves. As one Witness commenter said in an online forum: “WE ARE NOT A CULT! We are free willed people just like anyone else.” Methinks she doeth protest too much.

The test for someone's capacity for independent thought comes when he disagrees with established beliefs or deviates from expected norms. But when a member of Jehovah's Witnesses disagrees with something found in the Watchtower magazine, what is the expected course of action? Such questioning is seen, not as the functioning of a healthy, autonomous mind, but as the work of the Devil. Says The Watchtower of February 1, 1996:

Another sly tactic of the Devil is the sowing of doubts in the mind. He is ever alert to see some weakness in faith and exploit it. Any who experience doubts should remember that the one behind such doubts is the one who said to Eve: “Is it really so that God said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?” Once the Tempter had planted doubt in her mind, the next step was to tell her a lie, which she believed. (Genesis 3:1, 4, 5) To avoid having our faith destroyed by doubt as Eve’s was, we need to be vigilant. If some tinge of doubt about Jehovah, his Word, or his organization has begun to linger in your heart, take quick steps to eliminate it before it festers into something that could destroy your faith....

Do not hesitate to ask for help from loving overseers in the congregation. (Acts 20:28; James 5:14, 15; Jude 22) They will help you trace the source of your doubts, which may be due to pride or some wrong thinking.

Has the reading or listening to apostate ideas or worldly philosophy introduced poisonous doubts? … It is of interest that many who have become victims of apostasy got started in the wrong direction by first complaining about how they felt they were being treated in Jehovah’s organization. (Jude 16) Finding fault with beliefs came later. Just as a surgeon acts quickly to cut out gangrene, act quickly to rout out of the mind any tendency to complain, to be dissatisfied with the way things are done in the Christian congregation. (Colossians 3:13, 14) Cut off anything that feeds such doubts.—Mark 9:43.

Stick closely to Jehovah and his organization. Loyally imitate Peter, who resolutely stated: “Lord, whom shall we go away to? You have sayings of everlasting life.” (John 6:52, 60, 66-68) Have a good program of study of Jehovah’s Word so as to keep your faith strong, like a large shield, able “to quench all the wicked one’s burning missiles.” (Ephesians 6:16) Keep active in the Christian ministry, lovingly sharing the Kingdom message with others. Every day, meditate appreciatively on how Jehovah has blessed you. Be thankful that you have a knowledge of the truth. Doing all these things in a good Christian routine will help you to be happy, to endure, and to remain free of doubts.

In other words, Witnesses are told that if they don't agree with The Watchtower, they should do whatever it takes to start agreeing again.

[Independent] thinking is an evidence of pride. And the Bible says: “Pride is before a crash, and a haughty spirit before stumbling.” (Proverbs 16:18) If we get to thinking that we know better than the organization, we should ask ourselves: “Where did we learn Bible truth in the first place? Would we know the way of the truth if it had not been for guidance from the organization? Really, can we get along without the direction of God’s organization?” No, we cannot!—The Watchtower, January 15, 1983

Clearly, thinking for oneself is not highly valued in the Witness community. Nevertheless, Witnesses insist that they do, in fact think for themselves. Objective outsiders easily see it for what it is: Jehovah's Witnesses lie to themselves about their supposed freedom of thought.

Just admit it.
In 1843, Karl Marx described the fall of the French ancien régime as tragic “as long as it believed and had to believe in its own justification.” He saw a parallel between the end of that age and the then-current crisis rippling through Germany, which “only imagines that it believes in itself and demands that the world imagine the same thing. If it believed in its own essence, would it seek refuge in hypocrisy and [the plausible but fallacious arguments of] sophism?” The very same question can be asked of the Jehovah's Witness belief system.

In Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest, Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) contended that “in the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only expedient exaggeration.” That statement doesn't go far enough. The entire world revolves around the polite rituals of mutual deception, and Jehovah's Witnesses are no exception. Unfortunately, their refusal to acknowledge that fact makes them a laughingstock among pharisees, the butt of a self-inflicted, cynical joke.

This isn't to say that the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses will disappear any time soon, imploding under the weight of their falsehoods. Obsolete religions are like uranium: they can have an astonishingly long half-life. Sustained by delusion and falsehood, they are just as toxic.

Check Out My New Blog: A Year of Sundays

For the first couple of years after I left the Jehovah's Witnesses, my spiritual life was a gradual unpeeling of the layers of belief that kept me in the religion. One day I was shedding my reverence for the governing Body and the next I was realizing that I would one day die. Along the way, I tried a church or two, but my efforts to explore other beliefs were haphazard at best.

Then along came Amanda P. Westmont.

Herself a lifelong church-phobic agnostic (her father is a former Christian Scientist), Amanda was fascinated by my story as an ex-Witness. That, in addition to her own quest, inspired Amanda to go on a church tour. One thing led to another, and we decided to write about our journey. Next thing you know, it became a blog. It's called yearofsundays.com and you really should check it out.

Each Sunday for the next year, Amanda and I will visit a different church. One week it may be a variety of Christianity, while the next it might be Buddhist, Mormon, Muslim, Unitarian or Church of the Subgenius. After our visit, we will write about our experience as if it were a restaurant or movie review. The point isn't to evaluate theology or doctrine—frankly, we couldn't care less about that. We'll be writing about the experience itself.

Since we're both the kind of impious delinquents who get our thrills pissing people off, this blog won't be for the religiously faint of heart. If you're a believer, you might want to slip on a pair of steel toed boots before visiting our page. I admit that I may have issues with religion in general. So accept my apologies in advance for any snark, sarcasm, cynicism or otherwise bitter remarks. Hey, if you were forbidden to masturbate for 30 years, you'd get a little edgy too.

But that's not to say we don't have serious intent.

We write our reviews with one criterion in mind. Regarding humankind's amazing variety of music, Duke Ellington famously said, “if it sounds good, it is good.” That's the benchmark we will use to evaluate every religious services we attend. You're invited to agree, to disagree, or, if you really don't like what we write, to start your own blog. Comments are always accepted and unfiltered. Better yet, if you have a church in mind that we should visit, drop me a line in the comments section here or at A Year of Sundays and we'll try to work it into the schedule.

Just to show you how serious we are, we even wrote a manifesto:

WHY A YEAR OF SUNDAYS?

Because it’s fun.

Because Margarita Monday was already taken.

Because Joel thinks Amanda looks cute in her Sunday Go To Church dress.

Because we think it might be good for the kids.

Because everybody says they’re going to do it but nobody ever does.

Because there are worse ways to nurse a hangover.

Because, for Joel, it feels oddly naughty.

But for Amanda, it feels oddly nice.

Because, though we suspect that God is dead, we still like to hedge our bets.

Because we thought that if we could actually get through 50 posts, we could write a book.

Because sometimes you need a break from sex and happy hour.

Because we made a pact that if we break up, we’ll still write this damn thing.

Because Amanda needs a reason to buy old lady hats.

Because, frankly, we’re a little jealous of the people who believe.

Because Baptists can’t have all the fun, Buddhists can’t have all the peace, Jews can’t have all the guilt, Jehovah’s Witnesses can’t all the apocalypse fantasies and Catholics can’t have all the cute altar boys.

Why I love the Jehovah's Witnesses

According to unofficial Watchtower historian Russ Kurzen, God chose to put his earthly organization in New York – then the center of the world – to be a light to all nations. Maybe. But I think they stayed for the posh city view.

“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” --James Baldwin

It's easy to take a jaundiced look at one's years spent as a Jehovah's Witness – and I often do. But there's also a trunkful of great memories too, and I refuse to give them up, because to do so would entail denying huge swaths of the things that make me me. I'd like to talk about the love I feel for the Organization.

Funny as it may seem, I actually enjoyed going door to door, challenging the beliefs of others – and laying my own convictions on the line. For a while, my territory included the Reed College area, whose hypersmart students – a.k.a. Reedies – kicked my intellectual ass every Saturday morning. Most Witnesses hated working that area, but I loved it. After all, I possessed something unassailable – the Truth (or so I thought). Their relentless debates forced me to take a rigorous approach to my personal Bible study. At first, it made me a better pioneer. Eventually, it made me a halfway decent “apostate.”

Another great memory. Walking into the Tacoma Dome on Friday morning, Day One of the District Convention, and feeling engulfed by the love of 8,000 other like-minded people. Those conventions were a three-day high for me and even though I knew that soon enough I'd return to my endless cycle of whacking the Soprano and guilting myself for it, by the time the Sunday afternoon closing remarks rolled around, I could do nothing but savor the final moments of what seemed to be a spiritual paradise. Yes, I cried during the final song and applauded like a spastic gibbon when it was all over. I know how cult indoctrination retreats work, and maybe I was a victim of that. But the good feelings I experienced then were very real, and I feel no need to tag them with the graffiti of jaded hindsight.

One specific convention memory. Okay, make that two:

1) District Convention, July, 1983. Walking with my stepfather along the perimeter of Oregon State University's Gill Coliseum, headed to our Food Service table and munching a Muff-N-Egg, unwrapping the tin foil as we go along. We'd left the rest of the family behind and it was just us two, missing most of the program, attending the convention as workers. Not avid outdoorsy types, we called these working vacations our “annual fishing trip.”

2) Same place, the following year. Working the Food Service table again, handing a plastic carton of Swiss Miss vanilla pudding to Sandi Everly. After stalking her that day with a pair of binoculars and a pizza-faced chaperon at my side, I see her up close for the first time, framed in a simple blue cotton dress, her blonde hair pulled back into a French braid; a girl from Eastern Oregon whose sky-blue eyes, like heliotropic sunflowers, always seem to seek the horizon. If you and I happen to be in the Mid-Willamette Valley and it's getting to the end of a perfectly clear summer's day and you see me lost in thought, scanning the distant Cascade Mountain Range, no matter how much I love you, you'll know who I'm thinking of.

Like most people raised in the Witness world, I didn't go to college. For me, Bethel service approximated the experience (minus the education). As a young man in New York City, it was my first taste of life away from home. That's where I had my first drunk experience: thanks to (last I heard) missionary Jeff Taylor, I can't tolerate vodka in anything more potent than fancy spaghetti sauce. In the City, you can be poor as I, like most Bethelites, was and still have a rich experience – if you're getting three square meals and have a roof over your head. And let's get real – that roof happened to be in hoity-toity Brooklyn Heights. My room at The Towers hotel had an unobstructed 180-degree view of the East River and Lower Manhattan's financial district. Circuit Overseer Keith Kelley once complained to me that while he and his wife, with their combined 60 years of service, had to live in a travel trailer, punks like me got to live in nob hill luxury.

Hey Keith, guess what? I also lived across the street from Norman fucking Mailer.

The Bossert Hotel, once known as the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn. My room was on the 10th floor, fourth balcony from the left. Lavish, yes, but I called it home for a while.

Memory montage: Getting lost in Manhattan and discovering John & Yoko's Dakota apartments or just lolling around Central Park with friends like Jon Courson, Brian McCristall, Tim Norvell, Dave Schafer (now a "helper to the Governing Body" – GO DAVE (I guess)!), Paulo Flor, Joel Stangeland, Joel Sommers, Joel Sidoti and a bunch of other Bethelites named Joel. Or with blonde-headed Wayne Barber, tiptoeing our way through the projects in Bedford-Stuyvesant while residents jeered at us from the windows, yelling, "You boys are lost in the soup!" Some of these guys are still at Bethel, some are gone, and a few have left the Witnesses altogether.

My crew on the building 3, floor 4 burst binder. That's me on the far left, behind the multiracial gay couple.

As a Bethel tour guide, I got to meet Witnesses from all over the world, most of whom had scrimped and saved in order to make the pilgrimage to Headquarters. As I showed them along the preternaturally shiny factory floors and multimillion-dollar printing presses humming theocratically along, I could see the pride in their faces as they saw what their hard-earned contribution dollars were accomplishing. I felt it was an honor to tour them around then – and I still feel that way. Sure, there's plenty to disagree with in the Watchtower, but who am I to begrudge these people their stake in the only thing that gives their life meaning? That would be like refusing a dying drunk his bottle.

Stella and her daughters Martha and Mary, a.k.a. the Triplets of Brooklynville. I spent every Thursday at their Park Slope house for book study. Their spare bedroom became my base camp for weekends away from Bethel.

When I heard that the Brooklyn properties were going up for sale, my heart broke a little. Charles T. Russell moved the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society up there in 1909. There's a rich legacy of religious history bound up in those old brownstones and grand hotels. It's a shame that they would cash out and walk away from all that. The Society's coffers must really be hurting.* If that's the case, we might be witnessing the decline of a unique 19th century millennialist Bible society. I, for one, hope they don't disappear completely. To tell the truth, I'd miss them.

Of course, there's more to this trip down memory lane than just that. Gradually, things got ugly until it was time to leave the Witnesses behind or die trying. Still, I love the years I spent in the Organization like I loved high school. They were some of the best years of my life and wild horses of the Apocalypse couldn't drag me back.

*Since 2006, hundreds of U.S. Bethelites have been returned to the field.