14. Counterfeit truths < authentic questions

The organisation asks for unquestioning obedience.

The governing body claims not to be inspired or infallible, they have said this in print, and it is a matter of public record. They acknowledge that they can and do make mistakes.

And yet.

The entire structure depends on members treating their pronouncements as though they come directly from God. Question a specific teaching? That is a lack of faith. Disagree with the governing body’s interpretation of a scripture? That is apostasy. Point out a contradiction between what they said last year and what they are saying now? That is being an agent of Satan.

Let’s sit with that contradiction for a moment.

They say: we are not inspired, we are not infallible, we make mistakes. And also: if you question us, you will be disciplined, shunned, and treated as though you are spiritually dead. Both cannot be true simultaneously. If they are fallible, questioning them is not disloyalty, it is basic critical thinking. If questioning them is forbidden, they are functionally claiming infallibility regardless of what they say in print.

You noticed this. Maybe not in these exact terms, but you noticed the cracks. Everyone who leaves noticed something.

“Doctrine changed so fast I couldn’t keep up.”

For some people, it was “new light,” a doctrine that was presented as eternal truth being quietly replaced with a different doctrine, also presented as eternal truth, with the expectation that you would update your convictions as easily as changing clothes. No acknowledgment. No apology. No recognition that people had made life decisions (maybe fatal decisions) because of the previous teaching.

For others, it was watching the system harm someone. A child abuse case mishandled, an elder acting with cruelty in a judicial committee without accountability, family ripped apart over a policy that changed two years later. Seeing the gap between what was preached and what was practised (that was the first big thing for me personally.)

For others still, it was internal. Maybe therapy session that opened a door, a friendship with someone outside the organisation who treated them with more genuine kindness than the congregation ever had. A book. A conversation.

Funny story: I was catching up with an exJW friend recently and he shared how it was reading 1984 by George Orwell that made him start noticing the authoritarian structure in the organisation, which was a real wake up call for him.

Now, I’m quite similar to this friend, same level of intelligence, similar interests (birds of a feather and all that). But I read 1984 voraciously as a teenager with ZERO recognition of the patterns, and I kept on believing it for another ten years afterwards.

What makes each person wake up is unique to them.

The contradictions were always there, but what changed was your capacity to see them. And once the dam broke, it was very hard to rebuild the wall. Accumulated observations that had been suppressed for years came flooding through. One crack became many, and the structure that had felt immovable revealed itself as flimsy and fragile.

The faculty that the organisation worked hardest to suppress, your ability to notice when something does not add up, is the faculty that saved you. It was working the whole time, even when you were trained to distrust it, and it kept working until it reached a critical mass that allowed you to break free.

That faculty and the evidence of it working for your benefit - even despite your conscious resistance to it at the time - is something that should inspire a lot of self-respect and confidence.

Just my two cents…