Jehovah’s Witnesses have a practice called “disfellowshipping” that at one point long ago even Watchtower estimated at costing them 70,000 members per year. Tens of thousands of people are cast out of their group and shunned to an extreme degree. They tell their members that the practice is one of love. Is that true? They also have a narrative about shunning that they tell the general public through the FAQ section of their official website. Are those answers true?
A letter was leaked on Twitter from a JW circuit overseer. Per direction from the organization he was looking for positive stories of shunning inside the organization. In particular they wanted to hear from those that openly express their confidence that the disfellowshipping arrangement is loving, and that they had personally benefited from this discipline. Preferably, the experiences should illustrate the points in the second, third, and fourth paragraphs in the article Do Jehovah’s Witnesses Shun Those Who Used To Belong To Their Religion (from their official website). That’s exactly what they asked for word for word in their letter. That’s exactly what we’re going to look at.
So follow along as we examine their words. As we do you’ll hear from real life stories of people that volunteered to call in and leave voicemails in response to questions asked regarding the claims made by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Watchtower. Those familiar with the cult know that they refer to their doctrine as “The Truth”. Let’s see how honest they really are in the narrative that they sell the general public.
I want to thank Andy, Chris, Stephanie, M.K., Patrick, Mario, Lydia, Lisa, “J”, Vicki, and Rebecca for lending their voice and personal experiences to this project voluntarily.
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I have been listening to many ExJW stories both in podcast forma and on youtube and I believe this was about the best I have listened to. I am not sure why, but I believe the format of having numerous people contribute their story as you did magnified the impact.
I am not a ExJW (I am an ex Christian) but I have listened to hundreds of hours of stories and interviews on your podcast and others, mainly because I just finished a year long “bible study” with a young JW couple.
Keep it up – this was wonderfully sad.
Thanks Bob! I appreciate the kind words, and I always enjoy knowing that others that were never even JWs listen to the podcast. I’m sure you have your own story of sorts now after spending a year in “Bible study” with some JWs.
I hope to do more episodes like this. I am working on one now though I’m not getting much participation so I may have to go at that subject solo, but I’m trying to get participation in some of these in a similar way as I have some other topical episodes in line.
Take care and thanks for reaching out!
Mike