HOW TO AWAKEN AND EXTRACT YOUR FAMILY
From the Clutches of the Watchtower Cult

IF you are a male in a Jehovah’s Witness household, rest assured, you have incredible power. For one thing, if you are smart and motivated, you can use the “Family Worship” program to get your wife and children on board an ‘underground railway’ to freedom. If you are a female and your children are of a certain age, your authority as a parent mandates the natural stewardship in cultivating their proper development spiritually. The remaining question, then, is: How do you do it?

Start at the beginning, by visualizing the outcome you most desire: awakening your family to the truth about “the Truth” is your goal; equipping each family member to handle the delicate transition away from absolute thinking into personal skeptical inquiry is the strategy; planning an incremental escape while avoiding confrontation and detection is your tactical route.

HOW TO BEGIN

You start by orienting where you are emotionally, intellectually, and loyally. You achieve this through a process I’ll call “map reading.” Determine exactly where each of your family members stands in regard to belief, conviction, and rational thinking. You’ve seen those maps in the mall that say: “YOU ARE HERE.” Well, same principle.

What do you do next?

Well, you find where you want to go. Next? You take the first step, then the next step, and so-on-and-so-forth. Easy peasy…

So, what is the most natural way to determine where your family members are in your journey? Well, what better and safer context is there for asking questions than during your “Family Worship” program? As the head of the family, or the presiding parent, it is your duty to determine the status of each member’s “spiritual health,” right? Yes! Now, carefully craft non-threatening easy questions as to where they (think) they stand in regard to “the truth.” Like what?

Here are some examples of probing questions:

  • Raise the question of self-awareness. Are they selfless to their own detriment? Fearful?
  • Why is it important to give thoughtful responses to questions rather than automatic ones?
  • Formulate questions about “why” rather than “what.” The idea is to create a path away from “herd-mentality” (“groupthink”).
  • Give practical examples of other religious groups’ brain-washed thinking (this should be easy for them to see), and then ask why such thinking is dangerous and self-destructive.
  • Explain the difference between making claims and testing claims. Define the process of active mental participation rather than passive acceptance.
  • First inquire about what makes something “true.” Then, determine what changes, flip-flops, and backtracks signal about the veracity of said truth. In other words, why would something that is “true” later contradict itself?
  • Discuss the difference between scientific methods and divine revelation. Science tests its hypotheses by trying to falsify outcomes (testing whether it is so). Divine revelation of “truth,” on the other hand, would be perfect from the start, not needing adjustment, change or enhancement.
  • How could we detect whether any statement is opinion rather than divine? Would not the fact that it is self-contradictory be a clue?

EXAMPLE QUESTIONS FOR THINKING WITNESSES

Ask your family member what a mediator is and who the mediator between us and Jehovah is? Does a mediator need a mediator? Your family member will not immediately appreciate how the Governing Body has wedged itself between the worshiper and Jesus, that is, by removing Jesus’ importance and substituting their own.

Proceed to 1 Timothy 2:5, 6:

“For there is […] one mediator between God and men, a man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a corresponding ransom for all.” [Italics mine]

Now, read what the organization says concerning the Jesus’ mediatorship:

“So in this strict Biblical sense Jesus is the ‘mediator’ only for anointed Christians.”[1] [Italics mine]

Ask them to tell you the difference between the Bible‘s version and the organization’s version. Having already discussed how other religions trick their members into believing false teachings, that is, by getting them to trust men and show loyalty to leaders who are men, you have laid a “contrast-and-compare” template before them to invoke.

Equally important, do not tell them what to think. Instead, activate the necessity for evidence and logic in reaching each step of their conclusions. (This is a Detective’s role in solving a crime. A crime of blasphemy has been committed by the WatchTower organization and you must demonstrate how the crime was committed before placing the guilty party before a judge and jury).

Ask your family member what the word ‘worship‘ means? (A human’s natural, spontaneous reaction to an encounter with the living God). Discuss “spontaneous admiration” and “awe” for their natural emotional components. Ask why seeing and meeting somebody incredibly talented makes them admirable automatically. Ask them what meeting Jesus face-to-face would feel like. In so doing, you are detecting the capacity to answer emotionally, enthusiastically, spontaneously rather than a dull intellectual response.

Proceed reading the following excerpt from The Watchtower:

“Jehovah God commands all to worship Christ Jesus because Christ Jesus is the express image of his Father, Jehovah, and because he is the Executive Officer of Jehovah always carrying out Jehovah’s purpose (Heb.:3-6).”[2] [Bold mine]

Point out the fact that WatchTower’s second president, J.F. Rutherford, was the “Executive Officer” of the organization (1916-1942) when this statement was published.

Now, time-travel to the period and administration of WatchTower’s third president, Nathan Knorr (1942-1977), and quote the following Watchtower:

“Now, at Christ’s coming to reign as king in Jehovah’s capital organization Zion, to bring in a righteous new world, Jehovah makes him infinitely higher than the godly angels or messengers and accordingly commands them to worship him. Since Jehovah God now reigns as King by means of his capital organization Zion, then whosoever would worship Him must also worship and bow down to Jehovah’s Chief One in that capital organization, namely, Christ Jesus, his Co-regent on the throne of The Theocracy.”[3] [Bold mine]

Discuss what a corporation’s mission statement, or charter, means by way of highlighting the purpose of its existence. Then, have your family member read Watchtower’s original charter, out loud.[4]

Yearbook (1945) page 32

The original charter of the organization outlining its purpose, which includes the worship of Jesus. – Yearbook (1945) page 32.

Emphasize the meaning of this charter in regard to Jesus Christ. Then, ask why this should ever need to be changed if it is a “true” statement of their intentions.

Next, discuss this thought-provoking quote by the organization’s founder, Charles Taze Russell:

Beware of ‘organization.’ It is wholly unnecessary. The Bible rules will be the only rules you will need. Do not seek to bind others’ consciences, and do  not permit others to bind yours. Believe and obey so far as you can understand God’s word today, and so continue growing in grace and knowledge and love day by day.”[5] [Italics mine]

Zion's Watch Tower - September 15, 1895 p.1866.

Zion’s Watch Tower – September 15, 1895 p.1866.

What is the warning contained in this cautionary statement? Why would the person who founded the WatchTower organization feel the need to say this?

Next, consider 1 Corinthians 3:21:

“Hence let no one be boasting in men; for all things belong to YOU, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things now here or things to come, all things belong to YOU; in turn YOU belong to Christ; Christ, in turn, belongs to God.” [Italics mine]

What is meant by “boasting in men”? Why, what does an “organization” consist of but men? Moreover, who really is the organization? When Witnesses say (as they often do): “The organization says…” whom, in fact, are they referring to (as having “said” those things)? Is it not, in fact, a group of men, namely, the Governing Body?

Have your family member read the following excerpt from The Watchtower:

“Ask yourself now, Did Christ Jesus, who set our example and told us to follow his example to gain life, join any church organization in his day? No, God does not require us to do that, but he requires us to worship him… We have the Bible to show us the right way. Certainly it is not necessary for a person to become a member of a church to gain everlasting life.” [6] [Italics mine]

Point out how a huge change took place in the WatchTower organization between 1953 and 1954. Suddenly Jesus was removed from “Jehovah’s organization,” and to worship him was forbidden. In fact, the Society called it “idolatry.” Now, idolatry, as we know, is the worship of a ‘false god.’ Yet, in John 1:1, the New World Translation reads: “…and the Word [Jesus] was a god.”

Now, ask if Jesus is a “true” god or not. If Jesus isn’t the “only true god” would that mean he is a false god?

Proceed to reading John 17:3:

“This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”[7] [Italics mine]

At this point, you need to ask your family member what Christianity precisely is without worship of Christ. This moment in your study is the crucial dividing-line between thinking, feeling, and blind obedience. Can they see the difference, and, more importantly, does it make a difference?

The objective here is to use the headship authority in mandated “Family Worship” to jar family awareness that the organization did something Antichrist in 1954 and has never recovered from that “hijacking.”

Again, what is Christianity without worship of Christ? Why call it Christianity? Wouldn’t Jehovah’s Witnesses be more accurate in calling their religion “Jehovah-anity?” And, then, why did the “organization” (the “Governing Body”) insert itself  between the only mediator, Jesus Christ, and members of the Witness community?

This, here, is an intellectual “detonation” of self-awareness vs. automatic organizational loyalty.

Finally, then, confront your family member by asking a direct question: “Whom are you really giving loyalty to?”

INVITE THEM TO DO SINCERE RESEARCH

This is where the rubber meets the road. Give them research to do on their own; the idea is to get them to apply their minds to the facts. Consider the issue of baptism by quoting The Watchtower:

“A Christian, therefore, cannot be baptized in the name of the one actually doing the immersing or in the name of any man, nor in the name of any organization, but in the name of the Father, the Son and the holy spirit.”[8] [Italics mine]

Then, “contrast-and-compare” the following change that was made to the above policy, regarding baptism:

The first question is:
On the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, have you repented of your sins and dedicated yourself to Jehovah to do his will?

The second is:
Do you understand that your dedication and baptism identify you as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in association with God’s spirit-directed organization?

Having answered yes to these questions, candidates are in a right heart condition to undergo Christian baptism.”[9] [Italics mine]

The Watchtower June 1, 1985 p.30.
The Watchtower June 1, 1985 p.30.

Remind your family how “noble-minded” the Bereans were in examining the scriptures to “see if these things were so.” (Act 17:10, 11) Invite them to espouse to that level of “nobility.”

CONCLUSION

The timing of these questions and the emotional tone have to be discretionary choices. Your family will be automatically “threatened” by interior fear through the conditioning they’ve been subjected to, to put loyalty (to “God“) before authentic feelings.

PRAY WITH THEM before the study, during the study and after the study, so they can see that you are not jumping ship as a “renegade” Witness. Be keenly aware that this attempt to awaken your family from the hypnotic spell of WatchTower loyalty can only work if it is a break for freedom to be a real person – a thinking, feeling individual – rather than a robotic servo-mechanism plugged into Watchtower’s control mainframe.

Remember, you are the engineer on this “underground railroad.” Now is the best time to get your family aboard, on the tracks to freedom.

#ThinkingWitnesses


[1] The Watchtower April 1, 1979 p.31.

[2] The Watchtower November 15, 1939 p.339. [PDF]

[3] The Watchtower October 15, 1945 p.313.

[4] Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses (1945) p. 32.

[5] Zion’s Watch Tower, September 13, 1895 p. 1866.

[6] The Watchtower March 1, 1953 p.143.

[7] New World Translation (2013).

[8] The Watchtower July 1, 1955 p.411; read more at: http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/baptism.php.

[9] The Watchtower June 1, 1985 p.30.