Shalom Mishpachah! As an ex-Jehovah's Witness, I interviewed a gentleman by the name of Fifth. Here is a part of that interview.
What event or events transpired in 2016, that made you question, or have the epiphany, that The Watchtower was not “the truth”?
Fifth: This one is a harder one to answer, because it was more actually a series of events and some things that just happened over a period of time, which I guess to give you some of the highlights. Just some of the changes in doctrine, constant changes in doctrine, made me question how sure the leaders were, as far as what they were teaching us. And whether or not an All Knowing, All Mighty God, would be giving them incorrect information at one point, and then giving us updated information later. That just stopped seeming logical to me. The idea that everybody was going to be destroyed that was not a Jehovah’s Witness, or that turned down the opportunity to become a Jehovah’s Witness. That seemed illogical to me.
I also saw the Australian Royal Commission which was held in 2015, which was the investigation into the institutions response to child sexual abuse. They looked into the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and even had a member from the Governing Body, Geoffrey Jackson, testify on the witness stand. Once I saw that testimony and realized how people are dealt with that have experienced child sexual abuse within the religion, and even those who haven’t experienced that, they decide to leave later, and how they’re shunned with everybody else; through the disfellowshipping or the disassociation procedure. I began to realize how cruel that was. I really started to question whether I wanted to align myself with that type of organization.
