I am taking English Composition I this semester. It has been good for me, in that it has forced me to do some writing and to become more comfortable with the process. We were assigned a topic a couple weeks ago: "Describe how you and your family defined yourselves, how did you and didn't you fit the mold." I read the assignment and let out a laugh. Boy did I have some material for that essay! I picked and angle and the following is the result. I decided to post it here mainly because I think it explains an aspect of my life that is hard to explain. It wasn't until I started to write it down did I realize how odd and perhaps crazy it would sound to someone on the 'outside'.
One of Jehovah’s Witnesses
Since the time I was very little, I was taught to identify myself as “one of Jehovah’s Witnesses”. I found that I used this reply most often to refuse some sort of invitation or event. For example, a friend would invite me to their birthday party on Saturday and I would say “I can’t, I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”; I used it as the reason I was the only one seated in the library during the Christmas program: “I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I don’t celebrate Christmas.”, or why I could not join the basketball team: “I don’t participate in school sports because “I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”.
This label carried with it a lot of meaning. To the average person it was just an odd religion whose members were often seen in public talking to others about their beliefs and inviting them to take their literature, but within the Jehovah’s Witness community it penetrated every aspect of your life. It defined who your friends were, what kind of clothes you wore, what you could watch on television, and if you celebrated holidays. It was the deciding factor of whether you could attend a high school dance; go to college, and whom you would choose to marry. To me being a Jehovah’s Witness was not religious affiliation but was part of “who” and what I was. I spent my childhood hearing instructions taken from the Bible as to how I should act, what I should like, how I should feel, and why I should feel that way. One of my youngest memories is singing the lyrics of this song at our meetings.
“We’re Jehovah's Witnesses.
We speak out in fearlessness.
Ours is the God of true prophecy;
what he foretells comes to be.
Witnessing exalts God's name,
Lifts there from reproach and shame.
And it warns the wicked,
who God's name defame.
Pardon it holds out to men,
if they turn to God again.
Thus bearing witness brings joy and peace
and hope of life that will not cease.”( Watchtower 1986)
It was a heavy responsibility to be entrusted to exalt God’s name and lift it from shame. My family, in fact my whole social circle, was expected to meet such standards.
As young Jehovah’s Witness your first milestone is to make a comment during the question and answer section of one of the three meeting. Usually it involved an adult whispering the correct answer in the ear of a toddler and the child repeating it. The audience would erupt in applause and the child beamed with pride. During these early years young ones are also delegated to hand unsuspecting “householders” the literature being offered in their door to door ministry.
As a child grows older, more is expected of him. They are encouraged, more often required, to join the Theocratic Ministry School. This program trains its participants to preach to the public about their religious beliefs in a persuasive manner by teaching them the art of public speaking.(Watchtower 2001) An entire book is also provided called Reasoning from the Scriptures (Watch Tower 2009) that embeds canned expressions and teachings that can be repeated to the person at the door. They call it being equipped to preach the ‘Good News’. Boys would read a Bible passage and give application, or would talk five minutes about an approved topic. Girls would play mock scenes with other girls, pretending to teach them about a scriptural point. Girls had to do their teaching in an imaginary setting because, unlike the boys, they were not allowed to teach the spectators directly. The religion teaches that it is inappropriate for a female to teach the audience outright. I have always found this arrangement odd, because when it comes down to the actual teaching of the religion to others, it is mostly accomplished by women.
Once you are going out in the public to talk to people about the religion you are considered an “Un-baptized Publisher” . Hours spent preaching is tracked and then turned it in at the end of the month. This is done in every congregation in the world so that the religious organization can monitor it members. My family took great pride in my progression through the expected steeping stones. At five, I was giving demonstrations at meetings, and presenting literature at the doors of strangers as early as six. I was considered an Un-baptized Publisher by the age of 8. I would use my school vacations to go from door to door for up to 60 hours a month, in my mind, trying to save lives of people from Jehovah’s impending judgment day.
At the age of 13 I wanted to be baptized. It was more than just accepting Jesus and being saved. Baptism as a Jehovah’s Witness involved answering about hundred questions about the beliefs and teachings of the religion. Once the Elders in the congregation felt I had a complete understanding of the beliefs and that I believed them, I was allowed to get baptized at one of the yearly conventions. “Do you understand that your dedication and baptism identify you as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in association with God’s spirit-directed organization?” thousands of people applauded as I shouted “Yes”.
The designation of “Baptized Publisher” was monumental. It meant you were irrevocably a member of the religion. I say irrevocably, not because it was impossible to stop being a Witness, but because once you reach this stage there was no going back. If you ever decided you no longer believed the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and you had been baptized, you would be disowned by your family; shunned by all of your friends and the entire membership of the religion world-wide.
I crossed the baptism threshold at the early age of 16. I was held up as an example during their conventions on how to be a whole-souled Jehovah’s Witness child. I never envisioned a time that I would not trust what I had been taught by my family and the organization about God and what my life plan should be. Just like most of my generation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I did not further my education after High School. College was viewed as seeking self-fulfillment and materialism, instead of pleasing God. The ideal course for a young adult after High School was to find some type of simple work in the service industry. The meager amount of money you earned was to be put toward ‘theocratic pursuits’ which was a full time career as a minister for the church. Full time ministers were called “Regular Pioneers”, and I proudly held the card that recognized me as one when I was 18. As a Regular Pioneer, I spent 1000 hours a year going from house to house, knocking on doors, looking for people to study the Bible with and teach them our religion.
Growing up I never allowed myself to imagine any other future. Questioning your beliefs was not just discouraged but vilified. They had a special word for those who left the religion and spoke badly about it. They were called “Apostates”. Apostates were said to have aligned themselves with Satan the Devil and it was the worst thing you could become (Watchtower 2000). You were viewed as a murder, of not only your own salvation but of others as well. It was better to have died, than to become an Apostate. As a child, I pictured an Apostate as a crazed half human out to destroy everything good and holy. Who would have ever guessed that one day that beast would be my own reflection?
Describing my family and friends as shocked when I proclaimed my doubts about the Jehovah’s Witness organization and its teachings would be a gross understatement. I had been the model Jehovah’s Witness and now their mold was broken. As traumatic as it seemed to them, it was much for so for me. I reached my mid-thirties and suddenly started to allow myself to step out of my upbringing and look at what I was taught with a critical eye. I found myself stunned to find a religion full of reasoning fallacies and fear controlling tactics. My entire identity began to crumble and all that was left was the dreaded identity of an “Apostate”.
There is no good way to stop being a Jehovah’s Witness if you were a baptized member. I knew this because over the years I had seen the social mutilation of people who expressed doubts and wanted to leave. I expected my exit to be no different, and it was just as ugly. My husband and I were “disfellowshipped” from the group because we questioned some of the teachings and were viewed as disrespecting the authority of the group of men who run the religion around the globe. We were barred from entering meetings because they feared we would contaminate others. My parents and brother would no longer speak with me, or even come to my house. I had lost all of my friends, in fact my entire social circle. I was like a fish thrown out of the ocean, flopping on the sand gasping for my life.
There is a saying: “sink or swim”; in my case I had to learn to swim in a society that I had been taught was run by the Devil. I was forced to figure out who I was, and what I was not. I soon realized I was not a fish after all and my survival was not dependant on staying in the ocean. I have spent the last six years since I left discovering my own identity. I had to throw away everything I knew so that I could start over. I left a religion that defined even what movies I should like and suddenly was given freedom to explore myself without rules or definitions and it was overwhelming. It felt like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute. I have a feeling it may take the rest of my life to discover who I am, but I am happy just being LeAnn Hoover. I still have roles that I fill, wife, mother, nurse, friend, but none of those labels impose on my identity, and to me that is true freedom.
References
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York (2009) Sing to Jehovah (pp. 38-39)
Watchtower Bible ant Tract Society of Pennsylvania (2001). Benefit from Theocratic Ministry School Education.
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania (2009). Reasoning from the Scriptures. (pp. 15-24)
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York (2000). Watchtower magazine, May 1, 2000. (pp. 8-12)
