I was reminded not long ago that my decision to get baptized at thirteen was in fact my choice and no one was pressuring me to do it. Supposedly, if it wasn’t for my parents’ intercession, I would have been baptized at ten. I honestly don’t recall the details, though it seems to fit my childhood character. I was a precocious overachiever, always trying to please, and wanting to been seen to be doing the right thing.

The context of this reminder was a rather tense and pressured situation. Into the fifth week of an intense five month, twenty hour a week therapy program, we were to address our family of origin (parents, siblings) on things from our past that had been left unresolved and for which we still carried some resentment or grief. And it was in this forum I let my family know that I would never be returning to God’s ‘one true organization’.

I had been dreading this day since I signed up for the program. Despite the therapists retorts that we were not being forced to do anything we didn’t want to, this meeting felt like anything but a personal choice. Without the pressure of the therapists and the program, I most certainly would not have confronted my family in this way, and maybe not at all. So while I hated this experience, I’m still glad it happened. Here’s why.

It’s been almost two years since that day and with the exception of few short email exchanges, nothing has been spoken about it since. Even so, there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think about it, and how, more and more, it represents a major turning point in my life.

I don’t recall most details of the hour long confrontation, which, considering the stress I felt, isn’t a surprise. But there were a few standout comments said during and in subsequent exchanges. A few jems: ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater’, ‘You know the truth’, ‘Where else is there to go?’, ‘It’s the best way of life’, ‘It has to be in your heart’, ‘This world will chew you up and spit you out’, ‘What are we, just vegetables?’. (And yes, they really said that last one.)

I may unpack some of those later, but for this post I want to talk about this matter of choice. How it was my choice to be baptized a Jehovah’s Witness, and how I was now making a choice to isolate myself from family, friends, indeed my entire hereto social network and life.

Before going further, a brief pitstop. My family are as loving, supportive, and concerned for me than I could wish any family to be. They care deeply and want the best for me. I believe this applies to many of my JW friends. My criticism is not directed to them as individuals. I love, respect, and miss them. My criticism is aimed at the beliefs and teachings which they’re required to hold. But here’s a serious problem. Most JWs do not (perhaps cannot) distinguish their identity from their beliefs. A criticism of belief is a criticism of the individual. Only after breaking free from indoctrination could I personally see this distinction. So while I know comments in this post and on this website may offend or hurt some who are still part of the organization, this is not my intent. This website is about my personal story of faith, doubt, skepticism, and search for truth. It’s not a forum to denigrate believers, to scapegoat others for my personal challenges, or lash out at individuals for my anger. It’s about sharing, healing, and living a meaningful life. But I cannot tell my story without treading these waters. If you’re reading this, and know me personally, please try to keep this in mind.   

The ‘choice’ I made at thirteen, to surrender my life to god and his organization, was no more a personal choice than choosing to breath. And to anyone who objects, who suggests I was responsible for that choice, you are likely a victim of the same indoctrination and coercion as I.

Up to that point in my life, this was my reality:

• God is real, his name is Jehovah, he has strict standards, he is watching you 24/7, and he will punish you, no, kill, if you ever disobey him.
• Satan is real, he is here on earth, he roams about like a lion seeking to destroy, he wants me to suffer, he wants me to die, and if something feels good, it’s because he’s trying to get me to sin and rebel against god.
• I am nothing, I do not deserve life, only god’s magnificent benevolence grants me breath, I am unworthy and will always be so, my desire is sin, my questions are sins, I cannot help but sin, but sin I must not.
• Paradise is real, I might get to live there forever. Death is defeatable if only I subject myself fully to god and his organization. Grief is vanity, those with faith need not grieve. Within my lifetime, Jehovah will manifest his kingdom on earth, abolish death, and reunite me with dead friends and family.
• Armageddon is coming, soon. Anyone who is not a Jehovah’s Witness will be destroyed. It will be a cataclysmic event, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but on a worldwide scale.

Written out in bullet form, it is so clear just how extreme these views are. But I never imagined them to be extreme, let alone, entertain the possibility they were just plain wrong. But why should I? From the age of comprehension, two or three, to surrendering my life, I would have spent no less than five thousand hours being indoctrinated into these beliefs. Juxtaposed to a ‘Sunday School’ pupil, I was a Jedi master. And I only mention ‘formal’ hours. No less than six times a day would I petition god for forgiveness of my errors and to be willing to subject myself to his will.

I’d been innoculated against any counternarritive. Scripture said, ‘the fool has said is his heart, there is no god’. Scripture was the ultimate authority and it could not be questioned. And only Jehovah’s Witnesses knew how to interpret scripture accurately. So what choice was there to make? To not get baptized would be to reject god’s salvation. It would ensure destruction in Armageddon and prevent you from ever entering paradise. Indeed, you would have to be a fool to not accept god’s salvation and be baptized a Jehovah’s Witness.

The implications of being baptized were not lost on me, even at a young age. I was very aware of what happened to any baptized witness who decided to reject god’s rules and purposely sinned against him. You would be disfellowshipped. And in a figurative sense, though it seemed all too literal to me, you were now dead to god. You would also be dead to any friends or family who were still believing witnesses. Nonetheless, I saw this as a loving provision, a protection to the congregation and to me. Plus, following god’s commands were not burdensome, and would ultimately result in the happiest possible life. Certainly I never would have any reason to disagree with god or his organization, they only had my best interests in mind. This was the truth, how could anything be wrong with it.

And it’s in that context I dedicated my life to Jehovah and his organization. I would be forever under the threat that turning away from these beliefs would result in shunning by my entire family, social network, and support structure. I knew this going in, but surely I would never turn away from these beliefs. I wasn’t really that concerned. And again, the choice seemed obvious.

It’s been almost 30 years since taking that fateful step. And I’ve since had the opportunity to look at this far more objectively than was ever possible as a child. In the somewhat ironic pursuit of ‘making the truth my own’, I discovered that the organization had been a little less than candid and truthful on what they were teaching. When trying to resolve questions about evolution, archeology, biblical scholarship, and the history of my own religion, I came face to face with some uncomfortable data. Not only had certain truths been misrepresented, in many cases obvious false hoods were put forward as absolute truth, and these truths could not be questioned. The sources of this information, unlike what I’d been told, had no axe to grind against Jehovah or his organization. It was simple, objective, scholarship. Well documented, well reasoned, and made mountains more sense than the mental gymnastics I was required to exercise if I was to hold to my JW beliefs.

Still I did not let them go easily. For well over 15 years, I struggled to maintain my beliefs. Perhaps there were a few ideas here and there that I could let go of without really turning away from my belief in god and the truth as put forward by the organization. But gradually and somewhat imperceptibly, all those fundamental JW beliefs evaporated. Eventually I had to come to grips that I simply no longer believed any of it. I never felt as though I made a choice to do this. I simply had encountered enough credible information that made sustaining false beliefs impossible.

So to those that say it was my choice to join the organization, and I was now making the choice to leave, you are not honestly considering the context of the journey that has led me here. My choice to leave, was no more a choice than getting baptized. I simply did what anyone would do given the information they’d been presented with as the truth.