PBS FILM COMMENTARY
Jehovah's Witnesses PBS Film KNOCKING Omits the Facts
Added: (Wed Aug 10 2005)
Jehovah's Witnesses are a destructive sect,
because they destroy families and long-standing friendships.
Having been born and raised a Jehovah's Witness, I was interested to learn
recently of your upcoming PBS film KNOCKING. I've long been a fan and supporter
of PBS for its superior and informative programming, and my email to you is in
the spirit of keeping up PBS's high standards.
-- Alan Feurbacher's email to Joel Engardia of Knocking.org:
Hi Joel,
MY BACKGROUND
First a bit of background on me. My family has been involved with the Witnesses
since my paternal grandfather, in 1918, stood overnight on his porch with a
shotgun, protecting a near-dead Bible Student colporteur who had been tarred and
feathered in his small Oklahoma town of Shattuck.
The townsmen were caught up in the fever of WWI and did their patriotic "duty".
Grandpa never became a Bible Student, but grandma did in 1920, and was, using
Jehovah's Witness jargon, "of the anointed".
My dad was born in 1917, and grandma nearly died of the Spanish influenza while
carrying him. He became a member of the Brooklyn Bethel staff in 1938 and stayed
there until he married my mom (born 1927) in 1946.
He quickly rose up the Bethel ladder, and became friends with a number of men
who today are top Watchtower officials. Today the President and Vice President
of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania remember my dad
fondly. He died in 2001.
I was born in 1951, and of course was brought up in the Witness religion. In
1954, Barbara Anderson (who wrote you a few days ago) was a 14-year-old who
appeared at the Kingdom Hall in Hempstead, New York, where my family attended JW
meetings. My dad was the Congregation Servant. My mom befriended Barbara and
they remained close friends until Barbara left the JWs around 1997. Today she's
like my big sister.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Watchtower Society encouraged the JW
community to believe that 1975 would probably bring the long-awaited battle of
Armageddon. I didn't go to college, after graduating high school in 1969,
because I was caught up in the fever of that belief. However, I went to college
in 1978, after the 1975 date proved wrong.
I graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 with a BS in
electrical engineering. I now have an MS in that field, and work for an
international semiconductor company, designing microchips that are used in
everything from cell phones and hard disk drives to Nintendos and Sony Play
Stations.
While at MIT, I took an anthropology course, and had to write a term paper. I
chose to write an essay upholding my belief in the JW view of Noah's Flood,
using the notion taught by the Watchtower that the spread of languages from
Mesopotamia after the Flood proved that it was a real, historical event. I was
happy to have the use of MIT's extensive library facilities.
Unfortunately, when I researched the many references in Watchtower publications
to secular material that supposedly supported its teachings, I found that the
majority were unusable, because they either failed to support the point being
made, or even contradicted the Society's claim.
Eventually I wrote a paper on a different subject, but this experience taught me
that the Watchtower Society is guilty of much scholastic dishonesty. This, along
with my disappointment in the failure of the Society's predictions for 1975, led
to my quitting the Witnesses, for all practical purposes, by about 1980.
In 1975 I married a JW "pioneer sister". We had one daughter, born in 1985. By
1986, after my wife came to realize that I was never again going to be an active
JW, she emotionally gave up on me, figuring that it wasn't worth her investment
to love a man who would soon die at Armageddon.
We divorced in 1994-96.Over the years I did a great deal of research into the
beliefs and history of Jehovah's Witnesses. My research completely confirmed
what I had accidentally learned back in 1980 -- that the JWs as an organization
are intellectually dishonest.
I've been active on the Internet since 1991, learning and writing on JW-related
topics and plenty of other things. Today you can find how much writing I've done
by typing my name in any Net search engine.
In 1997 I married an ex-JW I had met on the Net several years earlier. In that
year also, by an odd series of coincidences, I learned that Barbara Anderson had
left the JWs, and we soon connected. Through her, it was confirmed for me that
many rumors of mishandling child molestation issues by the Society were true.
For example, in 1984, Governing Body member Leo Greenlees was convicted by the
rest of the JW Governing Body of molesting a young boy. Greenlees was forced to
leave Bethel but was never reported to the police, and he was assigned to be a
"Special Pioneer" for the Society until his death a few years later. Since 1997,
I've worked with Barbara and others behind the scenes trying to force the
Watchtower Society into a position where it had to properly deal with this
serious problem.
SHUNNING
As you know, JWs practice shunning. Shunning is done on both formal and informal
levels. The formal level entails both "disfellowshipping" and "disassociation".
In the first case, a person goes through a trial of sorts and is judged
unrepentant of some sin, and then formally expelled from the JW organization.
In the second case, the person is declared to have removed himself from the JW
organization. In practice, the two terms amount to the same thing -- shunning of
the expelled person by all JWs. Informal shunning covers a range of
possibilities, from a JW simply deciding not to associate with someone, to the
Society's writing a letter to a family or congregation suggesting that a person
be informally shunned.
People who join the JWs are not told that they'll be required to completely shun
someone they might love simply because a group of local elders applies the "disfellowshipped"
or "disassociated" label to them. The practice is glossed over in the "Bible
studies" leading up to formal baptism into the JW organization. Nor is a convert
told that one of the baptismal vows is a legally binding one of absolute loyalty
to the JW organization.
Children who are baptized as JWs -- even as young as 7 or 8 years -- are treated
exactly the same as adults in terms of shunning. There are many stories of young
teenagers doing the normal teenage stupid things, and ending up being shunned
for life by their entire families.
I have a good deal of experience with shunning and the wrecked families it can
create. My wife (and her youngest sister) has been informally shunned by her JW
brother and sister since she quit the JWs in 1985 and divorced her abusive
husband.
About 1988, her brother wrote a letter to the Society asking how he should treat
her. They told him not to pursue disfellowshipping, but to informally shun her.
This has caused immense pain all around, especially to their parents, who are
two of the dearest people on the planet.
In 1999, my daughter, at age 14, left her JW mother and came to live with me.
She was never baptized, but is now informally shunned by the young people she
grew up with, and has a strained relationship with her JW mother.
In 2002, as a result of Barbara Anderson's appearance on NBC Dateline, my JW
parents (my mom and stepdad; my mom and dad were divorced in 1969) learned of my
involvement with her and the Silentlambs organization. They immediately
disinherited me and have shunned me ever since.
Beginning about 1997, my parents began shunning Barbara Anderson, after a
friendship of more than 40 years. Her only crime? Ceasing to attend JW meetings.
This practice of shunning obviously creates much unnecessary pain and is
extremely destructive. About 1994, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) produced
a documentary called "Children of Jehovah", which largely consisted of
interviews with young people who quit, or were expelled from the JWs, and whose
parents shunned them. One can hardly keep a dry eye watching this film. All of
this shunning, of course, is done at the direction of Watchtower leaders.
My point: any proper film on Jehovah's Witnesses needs to emphasize that
shunning is an odious practice and is part and parcel of being a JW.
CARTOONISH BELIEFS
I have the impression, Joel, that you were raised a JW, or at least, had a great
deal of exposure to the religion while growing up. Hence your concern about
showing that JWs are really not a cartoonish religion.
While JWs as individuals are certainly not cartoonish (most of my large family
are JWs, so no one has to convince me of this), the Watchtower Society's beliefs
and practices over the years have included many, many cartoonish images. Here is
a small list, off the top of my head:
*A 1961 Watchtower magazine article, "How can girls guard against temptation in
this sex-crazy world?" compared the way young girls and young men interact
sexually to the way cattle do. This demeaning article invokes belly laughs from
non-JWs.
*In the early 1950s, the long-standing teaching that God lives on the star
Alcyone in the Pleiades constellation was formally jettisoned.
*In the early 1950s, the long-standing claim that vaccinations are a work of the
devil was abandoned. This was to facilitate travel by Watchtower officials, who
had to have certificates of vaccination for international travel.
*In 1945, the notion that vaccinations violate "the everlasting covenant between
God and Noah" was applied to blood transfusions, and over the next decade this
was gradually built into a complete ban on transfusions.
*In 1929, the teaching that the Great Pyramid of Gizeh was built at God's
direction and was an important marker in "Bible chronology" was changed to be
that the Great Pyramid was the work of the devil.
*Beginning in the 1920s, in the magazine "The Golden Age", the Society hawked
all sorts of quack medical ideas, claiming that the medical establishment was a
complete fraud.
*In the 1920s, the Society recommended a bizzare, quack machine called "The
Electronic Radio Biola" as a cure for all sorts of chronic diseases.
*In 1876, the founder and first president of the Watchtower Society, Charles
Taze Russell, began claiming that Christ had returned invisibly to the earth in
1874. In 1943, the Society changed this date to 1914. Russell's teaching was
based on the failed prediction of his mentor, an Adventist named Nelson Barbour,
that Christ would return visibly in 1874.
*In 1877, Russell claimed that Armageddon would begin in 1878. When that failed
to happen, he claimed it did, but invisibly.
*In 1877, Russell predicted the complete end of all nations by 1914. This became
a staple of Bible Student teaching. When that failed to occur, Russell's
followers gradually decided that the end had occurred, but invisibly.
*In 1877, Russell predicted that the long-awaited "resurrection of the saints"
would occur in 1878.
*In 1878, when "the saints" failed to appear, Russell predicted that they'd
appear in 1881. When that failed, he claimed that they were indeed resurrected,
but invisibly.
When "the end" failed to appear in 1914 but WWI began, Russell claimed that
Armageddon had begun, and predicted it would end in 1918.
*In 1918, Joseph Rutherford, second president of the Watchtower Society, began
an advertising campaign called "Millions Now Living Will Never Die". He
predicted that Armageddon would occur in 1925.
*Between 1918 and 1925, many Bible Students prepared for "the end" by selling
their property and engaging in preaching for the "Millions" campaign. When 1925
rolled past uneventfully, nearly 3/4 of the Bible Students quit.
*After 1925, Rutherford emphasized that very soon, the "ancient worthies" such
as Abraham, Samuel and David would soon be resurrected and take over the
governing of the earth.
*In 1929, the Society began work on a mansion for Rutherford to live in, in San
Diego. This came to be called Beth Sarim.
*About 1930, Rutherford formally deeded Beth Sarim to "the ancient worthies" and
described how his followers should recognize them.
Beth Sarim was initially described in Watchtower publications as a home for "the
ancient worthies".
Today the Society describes Beth Sarim as a home for Rutherford. According to
some sources, that's probably closer to the truth, because Rutherford, as a
drunk and adulterer, was a thorn in the side of his underlings.
*In the early 1940s, the Society built a bomb shelter for Rutherford on a
property near Beth Sarim and called it Beth Shan. They later claimed that they
never built such a thing.
*In 1967 the Society banned organ transplants, calling the practice cannibalism.
The policy was reversed in 1979.
*In 1971 the Society began teaching that the physical heart is the seat of human
emotion, and carries on "conversations" with the physical brain, which
determines what a person does. This teaching was illustrated at the 1971
district conventions with a giant green brain and a giant red heart on the
speaker's platform, where during the introductory speech, a dialog was played
with the heart and brain "talking" to one another. During the speech, the heart
would light up when it "talked" and the brain would light up when it
"conversed".
*In 1971, the Society began a program of instructing the JW community what to do
and not do sexually, in embarrassing detail. Oral and anal sex were described in
public talks, and condemned. Over the next few years this resulted in the
opposite of what they intended in some cases, and in others to the
disintegration of marriages. After a number of lawsuits by injured non-JW
marriage partners, the Society largely abandoned these teachings in the early
1980s.
*In 1966, the Society began predicting that "big things" would come not later
than 1975. By the next year, this had grown into a nearly definite prediction
that the battle of Armageddon would come by 1975. When that failed to happen,
the rapid growth of the JWs in the years between 1967 and 1975 reversed.
*In 1993 to 1995, upon realizing that its teachings about "the generation of
1914" were about to go down the tubes, the Society drastically revised its
ideas, and made the idea virtually meaningless. Most JWs barely noticed.
*In 2002, about a week before the NBC Dateline program on child molestation
problems in the JWs aired, the Society directed the elders of three
congregations to disfellowship four people who were prominently to appear on the
show: Barbara Anderson, William Bowen, and Carl and Barbara Pandelo. The Society
claimed to the news media that the disfellowshippings had nothing to do with
Dateline.
With respect to the cartoonish nature of the "1914 doctrine" of JWs, Carl Sagan
made an interesting comment:
"Doctrines that make no predictions are less compelling than those which make
correct predictions; they are in turn more successful than doctrines that make
false predictions. "
But not always. One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the
world would end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and -- while the events
of that year were certainly of some importance -- the world does not, at least
so far as I can see, seem to have ended. There are at least three responses that
an organized religion can make in the face of such a failed and fundamental
prophecy. They could have said, "Oh, did we say `1914'? So sorry, we meant
`2014.' A slight error in calculation.
Hope you weren't inconvenienced in any way." But they did not. They could have
said, "Well, the world would have ended, except we prayed very hard and
interceded with God so He spared the Earth." But they did not. Instead, they did
something much more ingenious. They announced that the world had in fact ended
in 1914, and if the rest of us hadn't noticed, that was our lookout.
It is astonishing in the face of such transparent evasions that this religion
has any adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no
contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine
after disproof. The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so
contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not
speak very well for the tough-mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate,
if a demonstration were needed, that near the core of the religious experience
is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry. [Carl Sagan, Broca's
Brain,Ballantine Books, New York, 1982, pp. 332-3]
I've often thought that the leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses are reminiscent of
the lunatic rebel leader in Woody Allen's film "Bananas", where once he got
power, he instituted all sorts of lunatic changes.
I hope that my comments give you some food for thought, and that you'll take
them into account as you finalize KNOCKING. In my opinion, Jehovah's Witnesses
are an extremely destructive sect, because they often destroy families and
long-standing friendships. Their misguided policy on blood transfusions has
killed thousands of innocents. Examined critically, many of their beliefs and
much of their history are cartoonish by anyone's standards.
---------
Alan Feuerbacher