There were two particularly memorable events during this time that stand out. The first was the Annual Meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses in early October, where, besides some doctrinal changes with regard to JW interpretations of certain Bible prophecies, it was announced that the world headquarters is launching a web TV station at http://tv.jw.org. Having the opportunity to see and examine Governing Body members in the flesh on a regular basis would have a huge impact on me in the following months.

The next event was a special meeting for JW’s in the United States in early November. It was a live stream from world headquarters broadcasted to all congregations in the United States branch territory. Anthony Morris III, one of the seven members of the Governing Body gave this talk to about 1,000,000 JWs across the USA.

This man, supposedly one of a select few chosen by Jesus Christ, chose on a historic occasion to talk all about the many spiritual dangers of tight pants. To guilt sisters who wear exercise pants — while jogging. To guilt trip brothers who wear close fitting suit pants. To call into question the reasonableness of fancy socks. To denigrate brothers over 23 years of age who are not in an appointed position. To assert that “tight pants” are an elaborate conspiracy by “homosexual fashion designers” because they want to see young JW men in them. It was embarrassing to listen to.

The way the the talk was delivered was embarrassing, too. It sounded as if he wasn’t even prepared. It sounded like he just rolled out of bed, got in front of the camera, and just started spouting off on his pet peeves. I left that meeting feeling very small. The religion I was in was not expansive, not life-affirming. It was small. It was petty. And it was utterly controlling.

That evening, Devon and I went to go see the movie Interstellar. I will never forget walking out of the theater, still in shock at the day’s events contrasted with the expansive themes considered in the movie. On the way to our car, I looked to Devon and said, “And we’re supposed to believe that the Creator of the Universe cares one bit about the type of pants we’re wearing?” I shook my head and drove home.

A Breaking Point

By mid-November I reached a breaking point. I had been researching for months. Not only had I found no satisfying answers to any of my questions, I was discovering the rabbit hole of questionable JW dogma ran deep. Very, very deep.

After realizing the organization is dead wrong about the 607 date, the house of cards started falling. 607 is wrong, so 1914 is wrong. 1914 is wrong, so 1919 is wrong. 1919 is wrong, which means Jesus didn’t appoint the leaders of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society as his “Faithful and Discreet Slave”. This means the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, and its Governing Body have zero spiritual authority. They are just men. Men who are captive to the most dangerous concept of all — that they are chosen by God.

If 1914 is wrong, does that mean we are not living in the Last Days, as Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught to urgently believe? The chronology starting with 607 is the proof JWs rely on most, but they also use the more subjective prophecies from Matthew 24 and the analogous gospel accounts. Do these offer any more compelling proof that the Last Days started in 1914 and that Armageddon is imminent?

I learned that, historically, Christians of various sects have been applying the Last Days prophecies of Jesus continuously since the first century, with particular increase in the Middle Ages, and then again after the Protestant Reformation.

“The World is so evil that it cannot grow any worse. A child 7 years old knows more about wickedness than old people did before. Fidelity and love exist no more. The signs in the Heavens cannot be misunderstood. There is blood, pain, suffering, devils and demons everywhere.” — Bishop Olaus Petri, 1550

Many Christians (including Jehovah’s Witnesses for the first few decades of the movement) similarly believed the Last Days began in 1799, in the tumultuous time immediately following the French Revolution.

How could the same prophecy be applied to so many different time periods? I would need less subjective data to see if the JW claims of worsening conditions since 1914 were accurate.

What I found is that, largely, life has continued to improve throughout human history, particularly during the 20th century. Despite a massive population boom, per capita statistics show striking improvements in global health, safety, literacy, and poverty rates in the 20th century, and on into the 21st.

If you doubt the truthfulness of that statement, tell me honestly what century you’d rather live in? In what other century was life better? I, for one, would’ve been dead long ago in any previous time period. I’m thankful for the progress of medical science such that I can wear what amounts to a robotic pancreas in my pocket, delivering medicine continuously through the day, keeping me alive and healthy. I’m thankful for antibiotics. I’m thankful for vaccines. I’m thankful for increasing life expectancies. I’m thankful for better childbirth survival rates. I’m thankful for progress and modernity.

If You Want to Know What Kind of Organization You’re in, Consider What It Takes to Leave

I made my decision. I knew I had to leave. But how? This is when the full weight and reality of the emotional and psychological prison I was in as a Jehovah’s Witness really hit me.

There was no way for me to just leave without catastrophic consequences. There was the potential that I would lose my wife. I would lose all the friends I’ve ever had in my life. I would lose my entire family. I would probably lose my job. I would lose most of my professional network. I would be starting my life completely over.

This is when it really hit me that the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society is a completely unethical organization. No healthy organization emotionally blackmails their members into staying, instills debilitating phobias of life outside the organization, or promotes complete dependence on it. Because of a “contract” I entered when I was 15 years old, I now had to throw my life away and start over.

For a couple terrifying weeks, I had no idea how to go about what I knew I had to do. Finally, I told my wife how I felt. I was so relieved to find that she largely felt the same way. We took different paths to get to the same place, but we arrived together.

For the next several weeks, we essentially went through the seven stages of grief. There were many days of barely getting out of bed. There was a lot of despondency. There were tears. There was whiskey. We had to process everything that was changing. And we had to consider what were going to do next.

We had no idea if or when we were coming back to the Pacific Northwest. So we found a new home for our cat. Here we are introducing her to her new home. This was one of the harder days.

Eventually, we decided to physically leave. We did not know where we were going, or if we were coming back. We sold all of our belongings. We found a new home for our sweet cat. We moved out of a house that we loved, and away from an Island that was our home. Fortunately, we love to travel, so traveling was a good excuse that would buy us time to figure out our lives. This is exactly what we did.

The price of mental and psychological freedom was only all of our possessions, our pet, thousands of dollars in rent, and potentially every JW family member or friend we’ve ever known.

Why did we feel this was our only good option?

The Barbarism of Disfellowshipping and Shunning

The history of my immediate family is colored throughout its existence by the practice of disfellowshipping, or extreme community shunning, even of one’s own family members. To suddenly have to treat my sister, at seven years of age, as an outcast warped my sense of familial love. I forever felt like an outsider after that, even in my own family. I sensed that I had to keep my thoughts private, that I had to shield who I was. I know my parents loved me, but I felt a keen disconnection from them. I now realize the source of this disconnection had at its source, not to a small degree, the knowledge that their love was necessarily conditional, as dictated by the policy of disfellowshipping.

What is fascinating about the disfellowshipping practice, is that it did not become official policy of Jehovah’s Witnesses until the early 1950's. However, in 1947, just a few short years before the introduction of this barbaric policy, there was an article published in the Awake! magazine that criticized the Catholic Church for their practice of excommunication.

A scan of the January 8, 1947 Awake! magazine, page 27 which exposes the Catholic Church for their excommunication teaching, one that is “altogether foreign to Bible teachings”.

In the early 1980's, in an effort to squash any form of dissent, the policy of extreme shunning of disfellowshipped members of the congregation was extended to include those who have disassociated themselves of their own accord from Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now, they were to be shunned, as well.

Think about that for a minute.

Since at least the early 1980's there exists no elegant way to leave the organization. Don’t agree with a doctrinal change the Governing Body institutes? Better get on board, because if you don’t, you’re kicked out if you’re critical. And when you’re shunned, you will instantly lose all non-trivial communication with every JW you’ve ever known — whether they are your parents, friends, employers, kids, grandkids, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, colleagues. Everyone.