Jehovah’s Witnesses Ruin Families – Part I

Every now and then, we receive emails from users that would like their story told. This is one of them. Do Jehovah’s Witnesses ruin families? Read this three part true story and let us know if you think Jehovah’s Witnesses ruin families.

I have been meaning to tell this story for some time now. I feel that I would like to share it so that it may serve as a warning to anyone who thinks that the Jehovah’s Witness religion does not have a negative effect on children.

I have been out of the religion for 4 years now. I wasn’t brought up in the organisation. At the point I left only my wife and I and our 2 little children were active Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I left completely disillusioned with the whole thing. Badly treated and hurt by the actions of many witnesses. At the same time I had a few good friends who I still care for and love.

I left the organisation because I felt that what I was taught as a bible study ten years previously (I was 18 when my wife and I studied) was not what was practised in the religion. I felt a gross lack of love. I saw very angry and frustrated individuals in many congregations. I saw families that were a mess. But mainly, I was averse to believing and practicing some of the things that I was introduced to AFTER I became a baptised Jehovah’s Witness.

I knew the day that I bacame a parent that I couldn’t withold medical treatment from my kids if required to do so. I knew that I would rather cut my right arm off than SHUN my flesh and blood baby girl if she transgressed this religion as an adult. I hated having to look down on non witnesses and believe that their lifestyle sentenced them to death at the hands of a bloodthirsty god of ‘love’.

As I progressed as a pioneer and ministerial servant, I saw a side of this religion that disturbed me greatly. My disbelief in god grew day by day. My disgust at what I was supposed to believe and teach my children who were very young just escalated. I became depressed and even suicidal.

One day in January 2006 I walked out of our kingdom hall and I knew I was never, ever going to return. It sounds pathetic but it was one of the bravest moments of my life. If I hadn’t taken that action back then, I could very well still have been a part of the organisation today. I had attempted to leave before but couldn’t do it. This was my time now. I believe my action back in January 06 saved, at the very least my sanity, but very possibly my life.

When I put it to my wife, she was naturally upset. Things were hard in our family for many months.

As time passed, I became more and more opossed to the whole thing. I hated the fact that my children were being infected with this dispicable belief system. A set of beliefs which teach young children that their whole world, including non-Jehovah’s Witness relatives, schoolmates etc. is soon going to be destroyed by god because they are evil, wicked people. I was becoming more and more aware that what Jehovah’s Witnesses are prepared to teach children, MY children, is wholly inappropriate.

I reasoned that if this religion could take me, a happy go lucky 17 year old and turn me into a paranoid, depressed, anxious wreck, then what could they do to my children by means of this gradual drip, drip, drip that happens as you soak in their words and phrases? Their sectarian beliefs.

You see, I was lucky to have been raised in a loving, happy family. I grew very much closer to my non-Jehovah’s Witness parents after I left the organisation. I began to understand just what an effect my being a witness had on them. I began to respect my parents as I matured as a person and related to all that they carried out and went through to raise myself and my sister. I was enjoying happy times with them again. Birthdays, new year (which in Scotland is a big thing), mothers/fathers day. My respect for my parents, despite any mistakes they made when raising us, was completely restored. I was having a relationship with them again which had been ‘put on hold’ during my ten years as a Jehovah’s Witness. It was all good.

Except my kids were still being raised as witnesses by my wife whom I love deeply. My daughter (aged 8) who is very, very bright was being drip fed this illness every single week. I could gradually see that it was having an effect on her. Here was me, the father she loves and respects being a part of celebrations that she is being taught are wicked and deserving of death (yes, celebrating my fathers 60th birthday really is viewed as being worthy of death!). I didn’t realise it at the time but my daughters head was a mess. One day, last year, it all came to a head.

What I heard from my daughters lips convinced me that action needed to be taken. She came to be in a state of severe agitation that day. She was delirious. What I saw and heard from her made me cry and weep like a helpless little boy once she had fallen asleep that night. The whole sorry sitiuation is a sad indictment on the Jehovah’s Witness religion.

Read Part 2 of

Also, I would like to add that the Watchtower, Bible & Tract Society has announced that a “Special Talk” will be given throughout each and every Kingdom Hall in the world, come this weekend (17th/18th April 2010).

I too, would also like to make an announcement that a “Special Blog Discourse” will be made available on Sunday, 18th April 2010 at 10am (London Standard Time – GMT).

Please tune in.