Escape from the Watchtower, part I

This part of the story is for my readers with little prior contact with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  One of the questions I hear most often is “why didn’t you just go to a different church?”  Exiting the Watchtower organization is much more complicated than finding a church you like better.  Before you can understand why I’m calling this article “Escape from the Watchtower” you have to understand what I was escaping from.  

The core doctrine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is “obey the Watchtower.”  This commandment dominates every aspect of Witness life.  Steven Hassan describes high control religions using the “BITE” model.  These groups control Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotion.  The Watchtower Society controls behavior with an extreme form of shunning.  The organization forbids reading outside religious material, restricting the free flow of information.  The clever use of language, and peer pressure manipulate thought and emotion. 

Jehovah’s Witness leaders use Jesus command to “go forth and make disciples” as part of their control methods.  Witnesses learn that if God finds their preaching efforts lacking, He may destroy them with the other wicked at the Battle of Armageddon.  The constant pressure to spend more time preaching, plus the many meeting requirements severely limit the time available for research or thinking about personal beliefs.     

Following baptism in November, 1973 I continued to live in Pullman, although I had graduated from Washington State University with a BA in English.  Unable to find work as a teacher, and wishing to display my zeal, I took a string of low-level labor jobs and threw myself into the life of a Jehovah’s Witness.    

We had five one hour meetings a week, one hour on Tuesday evening of “Bible study” which was really a study of one of the Watchtower’s books.  On Thursday night, we had a school to make us better preachers, and an hour devoted to congregation business and current preaching plans.  Sunday morning meeting consisted of a lecture followed by a question and answer study of an article in the Watchtower magazine.  Additionally, there were two day circuit assemblies twice a year. A circuit typically contained about twenty-five congregations of one to two hundred members each.  In the summer, we traveled to ‘district conventions’ that ran as long as five days with fifty thousand present. 

All Witnesses must spend ten hours a month in public preaching, failure to do so results in counseling from an Elder.  We turned in reports every month documenting the hours engaged in this activity, as well as literature “placed” with those we contacted, and Bible studies conducted.  Working extra hours is a sign of godliness and advances one’s status in the organization.  Then, “pioneers” committed to one hundred hours a month, “auxiliary pioneers” to seventy-five.  In early 1974, I auxiliary pioneered for a couple of months.  

I learned the terminology that, for Witnesses, defines a different reality.  Witnesses have “the Truth,” non-witnesses are “worldly.”  The Witness organization and its qualities were “Theocratic.”  Preaching door-to-door is “field service,” the average witness is a “publisher.”  The loaded language serves to channel thinking in desired directions.  Who wants to leave “the truth” to associate with “worldly” people?  Jehovah imparts wisdom through a “channel of communication,” the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.  “Independent thinking” shows disrespect for this arrangement, placing ourselves ahead of “Jehovah’s Organization.” 

Part of my indoctrination consisted of learning the Bible requirements for “keeping the congregation clean.”  This meant that anyone found an unrepentant sinner by a “judicial committee” of three Elders would be “disfellowshipped.”   The current version of the elder’s manual contains twelve pages of detailed offenses that may require expulsion from the congregation.  These include attempted suicide, various sexual sins, celebrating holidays or birthdays, and disagreeing with the Watchtower.  “Wilful, continued, unnecessary association with disfellowshipped non-relatives” constitutes an offense.  The Watchtower actively discourages contact with disfellowshipped relatives as well.  This enforced shunning prods Witnesses into behaving according to the rules laid down by the Governing Body.

I did not know it at the time, but this is clearly Hassan’s BITE model in action.  Witnesses live in a world that closely resembles George Orwell’s “1984.”  A unique language shapes and controls the individual.  The elders act as thought police, to whom congregation members must report any wrongdoing.  Life as a Witness sounds intolerable to most people.  But the promise of everlasting life appeals to those attracted to the Witness’s message.  The Watchtower presents a beautiful picture of the future as foretold by the Bible.  Those who prove faithful will live in peace and harmony, dead loved ones will awaken in the resurrection.

This message hooks the new convert.  The restrictions, enforcement, and control slip in later, in small doses.  

By the time I started learning this part of the message I had turned off my critical thinking.  I eagerly pursued the routine of study, meetings, and field service for the first year or two. We all expected Armageddon in 1975, we would receive our reward then. In October 1974, I married a young woman I met through the witnesses.  A year later as we expected our first child, and 1975 began to look like a dud, I took a full-time job as an animal technician at WSU.  Slowly over the next few years, I grew more and more dissatisfied with life.  But we had good friends at the Kingdom Hall and making a break with the religion seemed unthinkable.

In 1982, a merger between University facilities threatened my job and I decided to go back to school.  I didn’t know it, but that decision set the stage for my escape.