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Thirty years a Watchtower slave, etc
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May 28, 2024
As a former Jehovah’s Witness, I found the premise of this book to be interesting enough to pick up an original copy on eBay. Though dated, somewhat repetitive, and esoteric, it was an informative and unique window into the early and formative years of the Jehovah’s Witness religion and organization. But, having read it, I do not find that I can recommend this book to the average JW who may be curious about their own religion for a few reasons. (Read Crisis of Conscience instead, I implore you. Skip this one, or save it for last.) But, some context first…
I was born and raised as a JW, and so I can absolutely relate to some of the struggles portrayed here by Schnell who also came into the religion at an early age. The constant inner turmoil as one wrestles with their own conscience and the loyalty they feel to the organization cannot be understated, and in that, I can truly empathize with the author. I too found myself caught in a struggle of push-and-pull for many years before I finally embraced my critical questions and made my own exit from the religion.
However, and this is where I depart from him rather abruptly, Schnell does NOT succeed in convincing me that he had no personal axe to grind with the JW’s. He did not come across as sincere, and portrayed himself as someone who “played the game” of internal politics for many years…but somehow with justification which he refused to extend to anyone else. He’s sincere, but no one else is…they’re all spies and con artists with nefarious intent at all times.
As a result, his apparent insincerity and extreme bitterness calls into question any of the information he shares, which is extremely unfortunate for the reader with basic critical thinking skills. The author has tainted the material with his insufferable arrogance. I can’t bring myself to trust his portrayal of things without taking it with copious amounts of salt, and for me that makes the material almost worthless to read. He appears to be every ounce the sort of bitter apostate that the JW’s like to characterize ex-members as, and to the average JW he would absolutely reinforce that stereotype. He brags about challenging leadership routinely while characterizing himself as a spiritual coward in mock humility. In fact, I would ALMOST characterize his departure as a business dispute between his own paltry book-selling company and the organization. At no real point up until then does Schnell appear to take genuine affront to the organization’s teachings or policies; only in retrospect as he writes this book does he come across as a person with a plagued conscience. It feels like he lost his book-selling business to JW’s, and so he wrote a book about them to make up for it. Then he tries to convince us he did it as a vow to God. Bah. Pukey! I do not like the Jehovah’s Witness organization, but I do not like YOU either, William Schnell.
Now that said, let me give the book it’s due. It is a stunning look into the inner workings of the early Rutherford era, and a wide open window into the very HUMAN workings of a heavily flawed religious organization. In fact, it reveals the JW’s to be more like an early book publishing cartel than an authentic system of religious belief. How one can read a book like this and come away without worrying that they might be in a cult is beyond me, and so in that sense, there is value to be gleaned from the material. But only for the hardened reader.
But even where it excels, the book goes so deep into obscure and esoteric information that incessantly drones on and on, it would likely serve to bore most of your average readers. I personally find the subject deeply interesting, and yet I found myself tempted to put it down and leave it there more than once. It was a close first DNF for me…but I persisted. Not to be understated is that the author himself comes across as an extremely arrogant, self-righteous individual who constantly expresses his merciless scorn and inordinate paranoia over every single facet of the organization across every single page without letup. To him, the organization was Moloch himself…and its publishers, zombies who carry the “mark of the Beast”. Several times, he ascribes the organization as not only intent on becoming the dominant world religion (which is the goal of EVERY religion), but he expresses his belief that they were INDEED CAPABLE of taking over the world by means of constant and subversive tactics. This for what was then not even a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the general population! Never once does he ascribe any facet of the JW organization to a sincere belief or effort on their part, however misguided. Meanwhile, he characterizes himself as sincere but complicit; but only due to spiritual weakness which he blames on the constant spiritual malnutrition he suffered at the hands of his slave masters. He completely characterized every facet of the organization as cold, calculating, and ruthless in retrospect…but never human as he was. Never flawed or with good intentions. His portrayal of the organization is nothing remotely close to the organization I experienced, and I fully acknowledge that this is a cult with harmful policies and practices.
But these people, even the leadership, are victims of their own making. I’d like to think that the majority of them are sincere in their own way, though misguided. Do not mistake my attempt at understanding them as an excuse, because it’s not. I just happen to see them as human…like the rest of us.
In the end, I did appreciate the extra context I gained into the early inner workings of the organization. It reinforced in my already made up mind that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have the truth, never did, and never will. But the author came away as so paranoid, so bitter, so arrogant, and so unlikable that I could not recommend this book to anyone for fear of putting them off of the path to their personal freedom.
What is more…this will be my very last book on the subject, as it has managed to be so off-putting that it has cured me of any interest in learning further about the former religion and organization of my childhood. 2 stars for the historical information. -3 for the author.
I was born and raised as a JW, and so I can absolutely relate to some of the struggles portrayed here by Schnell who also came into the religion at an early age. The constant inner turmoil as one wrestles with their own conscience and the loyalty they feel to the organization cannot be understated, and in that, I can truly empathize with the author. I too found myself caught in a struggle of push-and-pull for many years before I finally embraced my critical questions and made my own exit from the religion.
However, and this is where I depart from him rather abruptly, Schnell does NOT succeed in convincing me that he had no personal axe to grind with the JW’s. He did not come across as sincere, and portrayed himself as someone who “played the game” of internal politics for many years…but somehow with justification which he refused to extend to anyone else. He’s sincere, but no one else is…they’re all spies and con artists with nefarious intent at all times.
As a result, his apparent insincerity and extreme bitterness calls into question any of the information he shares, which is extremely unfortunate for the reader with basic critical thinking skills. The author has tainted the material with his insufferable arrogance. I can’t bring myself to trust his portrayal of things without taking it with copious amounts of salt, and for me that makes the material almost worthless to read. He appears to be every ounce the sort of bitter apostate that the JW’s like to characterize ex-members as, and to the average JW he would absolutely reinforce that stereotype. He brags about challenging leadership routinely while characterizing himself as a spiritual coward in mock humility. In fact, I would ALMOST characterize his departure as a business dispute between his own paltry book-selling company and the organization. At no real point up until then does Schnell appear to take genuine affront to the organization’s teachings or policies; only in retrospect as he writes this book does he come across as a person with a plagued conscience. It feels like he lost his book-selling business to JW’s, and so he wrote a book about them to make up for it. Then he tries to convince us he did it as a vow to God. Bah. Pukey! I do not like the Jehovah’s Witness organization, but I do not like YOU either, William Schnell.
Now that said, let me give the book it’s due. It is a stunning look into the inner workings of the early Rutherford era, and a wide open window into the very HUMAN workings of a heavily flawed religious organization. In fact, it reveals the JW’s to be more like an early book publishing cartel than an authentic system of religious belief. How one can read a book like this and come away without worrying that they might be in a cult is beyond me, and so in that sense, there is value to be gleaned from the material. But only for the hardened reader.
But even where it excels, the book goes so deep into obscure and esoteric information that incessantly drones on and on, it would likely serve to bore most of your average readers. I personally find the subject deeply interesting, and yet I found myself tempted to put it down and leave it there more than once. It was a close first DNF for me…but I persisted. Not to be understated is that the author himself comes across as an extremely arrogant, self-righteous individual who constantly expresses his merciless scorn and inordinate paranoia over every single facet of the organization across every single page without letup. To him, the organization was Moloch himself…and its publishers, zombies who carry the “mark of the Beast”. Several times, he ascribes the organization as not only intent on becoming the dominant world religion (which is the goal of EVERY religion), but he expresses his belief that they were INDEED CAPABLE of taking over the world by means of constant and subversive tactics. This for what was then not even a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the general population! Never once does he ascribe any facet of the JW organization to a sincere belief or effort on their part, however misguided. Meanwhile, he characterizes himself as sincere but complicit; but only due to spiritual weakness which he blames on the constant spiritual malnutrition he suffered at the hands of his slave masters. He completely characterized every facet of the organization as cold, calculating, and ruthless in retrospect…but never human as he was. Never flawed or with good intentions. His portrayal of the organization is nothing remotely close to the organization I experienced, and I fully acknowledge that this is a cult with harmful policies and practices.
But these people, even the leadership, are victims of their own making. I’d like to think that the majority of them are sincere in their own way, though misguided. Do not mistake my attempt at understanding them as an excuse, because it’s not. I just happen to see them as human…like the rest of us.
In the end, I did appreciate the extra context I gained into the early inner workings of the organization. It reinforced in my already made up mind that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have the truth, never did, and never will. But the author came away as so paranoid, so bitter, so arrogant, and so unlikable that I could not recommend this book to anyone for fear of putting them off of the path to their personal freedom.
What is more…this will be my very last book on the subject, as it has managed to be so off-putting that it has cured me of any interest in learning further about the former religion and organization of my childhood. 2 stars for the historical information. -3 for the author.
Displaying 1 of 1 review