| Although
nominally still one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I have not considered
myself one for some time. I am in my early thirties, with a 'loyal'
wife and a young son. Several of my wife's family are Witnesses, as
are most of our friends and family. The fall-out from a formal
disassociation or disfellowshipping would be serious, which is why I
prefer anonymity for the time being.
My
journey away from the Watchtower Society began with the change in late
1995 of two major teachings (the 'sheep' and the 'goats' and the
'generation'). These changes caused me to wonder how reliable the
'spirit direction' which is claimed to guide the Governing Body really
is. Over the course of a year, I re-examined many of the teachings I
had previously accepted, and found severe problems with some of them.
Later in the year, I discovered some critical sites on the Internet,
and found, to my relief, that many others had had the same problems.
A
local elder was very helpful to me at this time (I was serving as a
Ministerial Servant), and we discussed many of my concerns. It soon
became apparent that some were more important than others, and in the
end, we agreed to focus on just one. Having exhausted every avenue in
terms of study, we jointly wrote to the Society for answers to some of
my questions. After a very unsatisfactory exchange over the course of
1997, I was essentially told to 'wait on Jehovah.' Since we had only
tackled (unsuccessfully) one of my 'key' issues by then, I became very
doubtful that most, if any, would ever be resolved. I began to look
further afield for answers, and eventually steeled myself to read Crisis
of Conscience (Ray Franz). I believe this was the straw that broke
the camel's back as far as my association with the Society was
concerned. From that time on, my days as a member of the congregation
were numbered. I stopped going out in field service, stepped down as
MS, and started cutting back on meetings.
At
that time, my feeling was that the only authentic form of Christianity
was to be 'born again', as this was my understanding of most of the
Pauline and Johannine epistles. [The emphasis on the holy spirit in
some of these, especially 1 John, was one of my other major sticking
points, in contrast with the rather sterile (I think) 'spirituality'
of the 'great crowd'.] However, the conclusion grew in me that I
hadn't really asked myself all the questions I needed to. I had never
in my life asked "Is the Bible really God's word?" (I
had been brought up as a Catholic), and had certainly never asked
"Does God really exist?" Of course, I had studied the
relevant publications, but this had always been from the point of view
of confirming what I already believed. When I looked at them from a
critical point of view, I found them unconvincing to say the least
(eventually I was to rebut part of the gm book on H2O).
I
began seeking out information on the errancy / inerrancy debate, and
found much evidence which undermines the inerrancy view. I read Thomas
Paine's Age of Reason, and found myself wondering why more
people hadn't come to the same conclusion that I did; that the Bible
is a man's book. Hugely important? Yes. Valuable? Yes, but a man's
book all the same, and prone to the errors that all men make. At this
time, I was beginning to feel that I was perhaps too ready to accept
the ideas of others (the Society, and earlier the Catholic Church, had
taught me to do that all my life - provided it was their ideas!). In
order to establish for myself whether the Bible is infallible, and to
improve my own skills in study and reasoning, I handwrote my own
parallel Gospel for most of the major events leading up to and
including the Passion. I found problems that can only be explained
away by the farfetched theories that most of you will be familiar with
from Bibleman's posts on H2O.
I
now consider myself an agnostic, and no longer attend meetings. I am
deeply fascinated by that part of human experience which has been
'explained' in the past by the religious model. I still consider
myself spiritual, and enjoy discovering more and more about that side
of human nature. The main reason for my presence on H2O is that I have
benefited (and still benefit) enormously from the help, advice, and
debate there, and hope that my contribution (however small) will repay
these to some extent.
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