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<This document is in progress...This draft last modified 18 September 2000>
If your friend or a family member is studying the Bible with the Witnesses
What do you do?
Learning that a family member has become involved in this cult can be a frightening experience. No doubt you want to get them out of it as quickly as possible.
It is usually a good idea to try and find out why your friend or family member has joined the Watch Tower Society. Seldom will a witness admit its because they were depressed at the time, or had just gone through a personal crisis of some sort. Yet time and again this is the case. From there you will be able to see exactly what the society really offered them.
One of the most common reasons for joining the society is that there is an abundant supply of sympathetic ears for new members with a sad story to tell. Jehovah’s Witnesses love to hear stories about how bad life "in the world" is – as this reinforces their belief that the world really should be destroyed by God, and life "in the truth" is the best way of life.
Much attention and support will be focussed on new members- at least until they are baptised.
The society offers a very simplistic view of the world – it’s almost childlike in this – unable to discern any "shades of gray". The only "good" people are those inside the organisation, everyone and everything else is "bad". The society could never bring itself to praise someone or some organization that is not part of their organization, irrespective of its worth.
A classic Watch Tower tack is to go into some detail pointing out just how big the "problems" in the world are. Then stating simplistically that this is too big for mere humans to deal with, and so human efforts to alleviate or fix them are futile; a waste of time and resources. God's kingdom will fix all of these problems (by destroying everyone and everything not under the control of the Watch Tower society) and restore the earth to a paradise, where humans (actually, JWs) will have endless life without sickness or pain.
While this view is certainly strange, when followed the world becomes a much simpler place to be in. Everything is either good or bad. Either you should do that or you should not. For people confused and hurt after a personal crisis, this simplistic view of life can be a wonderful tonic. No need to sort through complex issues, no need to try to discern "the big picture" – Gods Kingdom is the ultimate answer to any question or problem.
With this in mind, you can see that a witness will need something or someone to fill this void when they leave. They will want a listening ear and someone to lean on while they get used to making decisions and developing their critical thinking abilities again. This person must be prepared to give them plenty of their time and help them see that complex problems can be broken down into managable chunks that can be resolved. Are you able to fill this void, or do you have someone ready to do so?
Challenging their beliefs
Direct Bible based challenges to their beliefs usually fail. Witnesses are trained to acknowledge when they do not know the answer to a question – then to offer to look up that question and come back with the answer. Most witnesses will have faced questions they could not answer in their house to house work.
However, Witnesses think they are unique and it sometimes comes as a shock to them that some of their beliefs are shared with groups they would consider cults. The tricky part is that a witness will not read material or listen to a direct discussion of these similarities if they see that it is for the purpose of critizing the society.
Some sites, report on the successes of "exit counsellors" in setting up a meeting with an ex member of another cult (not an ex witness) so that it appears to the witness to be a random or accidental contact. This is no different to witnesses being misleading as to the purpose of their visit on your doorstep. They are not their to "discuss good government" or any of the other suggested "Topics for conversation" in their "Reasoning" Book. These sites often point out that meetings with ex-witnesses are a bad idea, unless your friend or family member is already on their way out of the organisation, as active witnesses would regard it as a crime against God to speak to the ex witness. The meeting should be about the ex members experience in the cult and why they left - not drawing direct comparisons with life as a JW - let your friend or family member draw the comparisons for themselves.
If you happen to know of someone who has come out of another cult, that could help you in this, then it is worth trying, but it is only a first step. For me, it was reading about the incident at Waco Texas. Because this was information in a neutral form - that is, not directly critizing the society, I felt OK about reading it. You could try something similar - read a book on life in one of these cults by an ex member for example, and leave it somewhere where your witness friend or family member will find it. Again, it might be best to let them find it, and bring it up, rather than trying to encourage them to read it - witnesses are more than a little paranoid about peoples motives.
Individuals are "programmed" to view the society as a source of reliable information. This happens over some time, it is not immediate. So if your friend or family member has not been studying or reading magazines for long, your first approach could be to discredit the society as a reliable source of information.
This is easier than it sounds as there are many ex-JW sites on the web that point out just how rediculous some of the material published by the society has been. The society changes its mind frequently, sometimes they vacillate back and forth between two contradicting views. It is important to provide the references from the WatchTower, so that your family member or friend can look them up – as the society always insists they do.
Sometimes this is not enough though. The society explains away these changes with their "new light" doctrine which witnesses, particularly more experienced ones, are quick to use in the society’s defense.
For those who have been in the organization some years, a certain amount of de-programming may be required.
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<what are the basic steps to deprogramming...>
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