The Reluctant Apostate: Leaving Jehovah's Witnesses Comes at a Price

by Lloyd Evans

I would not have been unduly surprised if a lightning bolt had ripped through the sky and zapped me to a crisp after my first few clicks on “apostate” websites. Witnesses are trained to be gripped by horror and loathing at the mere mention of the A-word.

When my inquiries revealed the opposite, I had what most ex-Witnesses will refer to as an “awakening”—something by no means as pleasant or euphoric as it sounds, at least not to begin with. Not only do you get the jarring realization and intense frustration that you have wasted years supporting and promoting a harmful sect—you also have the pressing problem of how to extricate yourself, with as little damage as possible, from an existence defined by unquestioning allegiance to an organization.

Witnesses believe that almost 4,400 years ago the entire earth, including (by implication) the peak of Mount Everest, was once immersed in the waters of Noah’s flood.[3] To them, it is irrelevant that there is a total vacuum of geological and archaeological evidence to sustain this assertion—neither does it unduly disturb them that there are not enough water molecules on the planet to accomplish this feat.

After reading each numbered paragraph, you will be asked a scripted question and your answer must correspond with the sentiments contained in the paragraph you have just read. Try to deviate in any way and you can expect to have the study discontinued before long. Reading your answers verbatim from the paragraph is frowned on, but still considered more desirable than voicing an honest opinion that differs from what has been prescribed for you by the book’s writers.

The experience made me feel even more different than I already was and served to reinforce the persecution complex and siege mentality that is instilled in all Witnesses from childhood. I now had proof that the world was out to get me.

If you think about it, when a Christian dismisses evolution as “unscriptural,” he might actually be inadvertently belittling a divinely-approved process from God’s celestial toolkit.

While it is true that Witnesses do not earn a salary for their evangelical work, it cannot honestly be said that they are under no pressure to engage in it.[21] You see, Witnesses keep a careful count of the exact number of hours they spend on people’s doorsteps—indeed, any time that is spent in preaching. These “field service” hours are almost a form of currency among believers. The more hours a Witness writes down, the more spiritually-oriented he or she must be.

Then I reached page 141, which discussed Daniel 7:25. In this verse, Daniel foresaw a wild beast (or world power) continually harassing the “holy ones” of the “supreme one.” Page 142 declared these holy ones to be, in essence, the forerunners to Jehovah’s Witnesses (or Bible Students) who were active around the time of 1914, which is the year in which Witnesses believe Christ became king in heaven and hurled Satan down to exile on earth. The book went on to claim that the “time, times and half a time” (three and a half years) in which the holy ones were “given into the hand” of the beast referred to an exact period corresponding with World War I, during which the Bible Students preached despite being persecuted by the combined nations of Britain and America (represented by the beast). However, on page 143, the book insisted that this three-and-a-half-year period commenced in December 1914, more than four months after World War I began on July 28, 1914, and two months after Christ supposedly began his Kingdom rule on the 4th or 5th of October the same year.[40] Why the delay? It felt like the writers were trying to make dates in history fit with scripture.[41] It was at this point that something very strange happened. I found myself consciously disagreeing with Watchtower’s explanation of something. This probably sounds like an unremarkable, even healthy thing to you, the reader. But to me, as a Witness raised in the faith who took it all extremely seriously, it felt very w...

Before we left to go to the study that evening, I remarked to Mum how strange it seemed that Daniel 12:12, 13—the very last two verses of the book of Daniel—had apparently found fulfillment in a 1926 Watch Tower article. It seemed inconceivable to me that God would inspire the ancient prophet Daniel to devote the final few words of his book to foretelling in cryptic language how a Watch Tower magazine writer would one day write something in an article that would make a few people happy.

the apocalypse that Witnesses salivate over would wipe out billions of people, including men, women and children. Their crime? Not wanting to be Jehovah’s Witnesses. Were you to take a shovel to the foreseen utopia and start digging around, you would quickly discover that it has been sculpted over a mass grave of unimaginable proportions that would make the Holocaust pale in significance.

In another talk, fellow GB member Gerrit Lösch offered his own thoughts regarding the possible methods by which non-Witnesses will be reduced to smoldering hunks of meat during the day of God’s wrath. Lösch read the rather gruesome portion of Scripture found at Zechariah 14:12, which describes how the flesh of God’s enemies “will rot away while they stand on their feet, their eyes will rot away in their sockets, and their tongues will rot away in their mouths.” Lösch calmly proposed that this prophecy could well find a literal fulfillment during Armageddon. “Jehovah is perhaps gonna use radiation to cause this phenomena that people’s flesh will rot away as they are standing on their feet,” he mused. “It will be a destruction as mankind has never seen before.”[53] So whereas Morris predicts that God will fire up his heavenly grill to dispense with unbelievers, Lösch’s money is on some form of divine microwave being deployed. Different cooking methods, same end product.

Failure to reach more than a quarter of the world’s populace can be overlooked so long as the geographical diversity of the preaching work is sufficiently impressive, encompassing tropical jungles and frigid tundra.)

Only the Catholic Church, with an estimated 12 million Catholics in China alone, can currently beat the Witnesses in terms of the global distribution of a Christian denomination.

TV network Comedy Central, where comedian Jeff Ross gleefully ripped into it on his show The Burn. “I’m assuming most of you don’t understand sign language, but check this out,” said a smirking Ross. “The Jehovah Witnesses put this video out to tell deaf people not to masturbate.” The studio audience chuckled as Ross played the clip. “I don’t know what he’s saying, but I get the jizz of it.” Ross quipped, adding, “Is there any way I can Jehovah’s un-witness that?”

It is also an irony of Watchtower history that a man who was later ousted from his position on the Governing Body over suspicions of apostasy appears to have been so instrumental in ushering such sweeping changes to Witness doctrine on sexual morality—changes that are keenly observed by Witnesses to this day.

On close inspection it became obvious to me that the year 1919, which continues to carry enormous significance among Witnesses, had absolutely no correlation with any time periods mentioned in the Bible. It simply happened to be the year that early president Joseph Rutherford and some of his associates had been released from prison, having spent nine months incarcerated under charge of sedition. (More about this in Chapter Seven.) Because their exploits were deemed of great significance in the history of God’s people, 1919 had been superimposed on Revelation’s prophetic narrative. The three-and-a-half-year period leading up to Rutherford’s sentencing on June 21, 1918, just about stretched backwards into the final days of 1914 (December 21) and was thus identified as the “42 months” of Revelation 11:2, 3.

this is how Witnesses with doubts are encouraged to think. It is called “waiting on Jehovah,” and amounts to little more than consciously burying one’s head in the sand.[76] A 2008 Watchtower explains it this way: With hearts full of gratitude, we stay close to “the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time.” Christ has appointed this slave “over all his belongings.” (Matt. 24:45-47) Therefore, even if we as individuals do not fully understand a certain position taken by the slave class, that is no reason for us to reject it or return to Satan’s world. Instead, loyalty will move us to act humbly and wait on Jehovah to clarify matters.

Someone suggested we travel to visit Miroslav, a rather eccentric Croatian guy about my age who sat behind me in class and acted much older than he was. Miroslav’s English was limited, but this did not stop him from being among the first to offer criticism of other students’ speaking assignments. Despite his idiosyncrasies, he was capable of laughing at himself when teased.

Calvin Rouse, a high-ranking attorney from Watchtower’s legal department in Patterson, New York, represented the organization as defendants in the case.[85] After announcing himself as “general counsel for the National Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses out of Brooklyn, New York,” Rouse explained why Cobb’s demands were without legal merit: Ordinarily I wouldn’t be here, but this is one of our 13,000 congregations in the United States. We are a hierarchical religion structured just like the Catholic Church. And when the order from the Pope comes down in the church defrocking a priest and kicking him out, he no longer has any say in any matter in the local parish priest—in the parish. The same situation as here. In his complaint he brings one claim. He claims that he wants to be reinstated as a director and an officer in the Menlo Park Congregation. This is contrary to our church rules and regulations and bylaws. We brought our organizational bylaws book, our rule book here, and we are prepared to present witnesses that this is a hierarchical organization.

The elder candidate is then discreetly approached and asked a series of questions before his appointment can be announced to the congregation, namely: “Is there anything from your past, even before baptism, or in your personal or family life that disqualifies you or would prevent you from accepting this appointment?” and “Is there any reason why your appointment should not be announced to the congregation?” Finally, only if the person has never served as an elder or ministerial servant before, should the following question be asked: “Have you ever been involved at any time in the past with child sexual molestation?”[87]

As you might expect, the postscript was the part of the letter of most interest to ordinary Witnesses. It detailed the means by which congregations would essentially be stealth-tithed through a new arrangement of regular, monthly donations to Watchtower—ostensibly to help pay for its pressing construction needs.

Moreover, if a Kingdom Hall ever needs to be sold for any reason, you can be sure the proceeds would not find their way back into the pockets of local Witnesses who over many years were persuaded to believe they were responsible for its construction, maintenance and upkeep.

The letter elaborated on the stipulation regarding surplus funds, ordering congregations to keep just $5,000 in their bank accounts, plus enough money to cover three months’ worth of utility, supplies and servicing expenses, and hand over everything else to Watchtower. This demand marked the final death-knell for any notion of congregational autonomy.

There is just one snag to all this: the role of elder leaves little room for individuality. An elder is essentially a line manager; an enforcer of Watchtower policies and rules that may not always make sense, but must be adhered to and defended vigorously and without a moment’s hesitation. If you show any creativity beyond this narrow remit, you can expect your tenure as an elder to be brief and fraught with stress.

As eccentric and naive as their beliefs now appear, it is at least heartening to note the apparent sincerity with which Russell and Barbour embarked on their evangelical escapades. Russell in particular not only sold his business and invested his fortune in pursuit of spreading the message—he also pinned his name and reputation on the outlandish predictions of someone who had previously electrocuted people for a living, despite knowing his new partner’s claims had only a brief window before being proven true or false. Such reckless, self-defeating actions do not speak of a calculated, cynical scam artist—more of a credulous fool who was rather too easily persuaded to open his checkbook.

But Barbour could not dismiss his errors quite so readily. Clearly rattled by his latest failure, he went back to the drawing board and radically revised, not just his date-setting, but his entire approach to Christianity. Among the casualties of his doctrinal purge was “substitution”—the notion that Christ’s death was required as a vicarious atonement for the sin of mankind. Barbour was unequivocal in divorcing himself from this teaching in an article of the August 1878 issue of Herald of the Morning that would be identified today as surprisingly atheist in tone. “The doctrine of substitution,” wrote Barbour, “that is, punishing the innocent in place of the guilty, is unscriptural, and obnoxious to all our ideas of justice, or of right and wrong.”

Among the more eccentric of these was the notion that God had influenced the building of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, and had subtly used the inner dimensions of his “stone witness” to foretell time spans of biblical significance including, as you might guess, the chronology pointing to 1914. But as with so many of his teachings, rather than birthing the theory entirely by himself, Russell turned to his contemporaries for inspiration.

John Taylor holds the distinction of being the first to unleash the boundless eccentricity of pyramidology with his 1859 book The Great Pyramid: Why Was It Built? And Who Built It? Charles Piazzi Smyth followed up in 1864 with his book Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid. Smyth would later contribute further works on the subject after inspecting the pyramid in 1865 and taking precise measurements. Borrowing heavily from the conclusions drawn by both Taylor and Smyth, in 1891 Russell published the third installment in his Studies series: Thy Kingdom Come. The final chapter, titled “The Testimony of God’s Stone Witness and Prophet, the Great Pyramid in Egypt,” began with a letter from Smyth praising Russell’s conclusions. In this chapter, Russell insisted that various scriptures in the Bible pointed to the pyramid’s significance and divine origins.[117] He claimed that the pyramid was built at the direction of the pre-exodus Bible character Melchizedek during a peaceful invasion[118] of Egypt around 2170 B.C.E.[119] Diagrams were produced showing various pyramid chambers and passageways, and Russell declared that the measurements of these (when inches were converted into years) denoted specific periods of time in human history. In summing up, Russell remarked: The ancient structure thus being repeatedly referred to in the Scriptures, we cannot doubt that, if questioned, this ‘Witness’ of the Lord in the land of Egypt will bear such testimony as will honor Jehovah, and fully...

But rather than simply dismissing the Great Pyramid’s divine significance and imploring God’s forgiveness for being so silly, Rutherford went one step further. He claimed the whole thing was a conspiracy of Satan, who had orchestrated the pyramid’s construction as a “subtle scheme” to “draw men away from Jehovah and his service.” Hence, after 47 years, one preposterous idea (that God built the Great Pyramid of Gizeh) was merely supplanted by another (that Satan did). Rutherford’s baffling claim has been given no further corrective treatment in subsequent publications, nor has it ever been retracted.

It should be acknowledged at this juncture that Charles Taze Russell did not personally write each and every magazine article himself. Zion’s Watch Tower had a number of regular contributors. However, Russell was the chief editor and, as such, would have checked each article personally before approving it for print. Even if he had not written a certain article himself, he would have signed off on it before publication in a magazine for which he was legally accountable. Therefore, we may consider any article published under Russell’s editorship as representing his views. We can certainly say that Russell would have scrapped any article without the slightest hesitation if it conflicted with his own opinions.

Maria even later claimed to have coauthored the first four volumes of Studies in the Scriptures—a claim not to be taken lightly since she was, after all, better educated than her husband, having made it through high school and received training as a teacher.

Maria told the court she became suspicious after catching Russell alone with Rose in her bedroom on multiple occasions, and had confronted him on the matter. Her testimony was eventually ruled out, not because of concerns over accuracy or truthfulness (as Russell and his supporters would later imply) but because the events she described did not happen within the timeframe stipulated in Maria’s bill of complaint.

She said one evening when she came home with him, just as she got inside the hall, it was late in the evening, about 11 o’clock, he put his arms around her and kissed her. This was in the vestibule before they entered the hall, and he called her his little wife, but she said “I am not your wife.” and he said “I will call you daughter, and a daughter has nearly all the privileges of a wife.” Q. What other terms were used? A. Then he said, “I am like a jellyfish. I float around here and there. I touch this one and that one, and if she responds I take her to me, and if not, I float on to others;” and she wrote that out so that I could remember it for sure when I would speak to him about it. And he confessed that he said those things.

The vow managed to itself become a subject of considerable controversy. Some Bible Students refused to accede to it, citing earlier writings of Russell that were firmly against the taking of vows. Nobody minded Russell taking a vow if his conscience compelled him to do so, but suggesting that every full or part-time “pilgrim” (traveling representative) and Bible House worker (Bethelite) should take it, and publishing the names of those who did as a further means of coercion, seemed a step too far.[126]

Only after 1900, as 1914 began to loom closer, did Russell’s tone start to sound suitably cautious. “We have never claimed our calculations to be infallibly correct,” he warned in the October 1, 1907, Zion’s Watch Tower. “Our claim has always been that they are based on faith.” By 1912, Russell had conceded that “there surely is room for slight differences of opinion on this subject,” reassuring his followers that nothing was set in stone. “We have merely pointed out what the Scriptures say, giving our views respecting their meaning and asking our readers to judge, each for himself, what they signify.”

When reading the account in full, the toga request seems more to do with practicality, or perhaps diminished lucidity, than any grand symbolic gesture. Russell was apparently in a great deal of pain and wanted to be comfortable. But it is revealing to note the readiness with which his followers ascribed profound spiritual meaning to a repurposed bed sheet—even borrowing prose from Roman poets in their eagerness to put a few final, grand words in the mouth of their deceased hero.

Writers and historians have long agonized over whether the Pastor was good or bad, cynical or deluded. I honestly struggle to look on him favorably, and not just because such a large percentage of the unpleasantness in my life stems from the movement he birthed. Russell allowed himself to be swept along on a tide of late 19th century evangelical hysteria at a time when almost anyone with a bit of money and charisma—and preferably an unconventional take on the Bible—would probably have had little difficulty attracting an audience. Rather than shy away from the power his followers seemed determined to lavish on him, he developed a taste for it.

Throw into the equation the fact that Russell was a habitual megaphone for false predictions, a subscriber to crackpot pyramid theories, a casual racist, and a man who resorted to deception in an attempt to conceal his marital indiscretions, and we are left with an individual who is unrecognizable from the wise, unassuming, grandfatherly figure Watchtower would have us imagine. At best, Russell was a gullible and eccentric entrepreneur with more money than sense who let fame and adulation go to his head. At worst, he was a crank, charlatan and narcissist whose role as founder of a religious movement with pretensions of equality, family values and moral purity is entirely at odds with his writings and conduct. In either case, by forming an organization with such apocalyptic, authoritarian underpinnings, Russell unknowingly created a monster that would go on to wreak havoc in the lives of millions.

The fact that the 2,520 number is a product of pure speculation and supposition can be determined through a simple reading of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel chapter 4. The dream is interpreted as being a premonition: a warning of a period of madness for the king during which his kingship would be preserved. There is no hint of any grander fulfillment in the verse itself. Instead, the writer of Daniel simply declares: “All of this befell King Nebuchadnezzar.” (Daniel 4:28) If Daniel chapter 4 has a more profound meaning beyond what is expressly mentioned by the writer, then the same can be said of countless Bible passages.

a careful reading of Jeremiah 25:11-12 reveals that the 70-year period applied, not to Jerusalem’s desolation, but to the subjugation of Judah and surrounding nations to Babylonian rule. Furthermore, Jeremiah’s 70-year period is said to end not with the rebuilding of Jerusalem, but with the king of Babylon being “called to account”—which would refer to 539 B.C.E., when Babylon was captured by Cyrus the Great.

After joining himself to Watchtower’s cause, Rutherford would rapidly rise through the organization’s ranks to become the Pastor’s successor. He would go on to author 21 books and a multitude of booklets and magazine articles.

Rutherford was born on November 8, 1869, in Versailles, Morgan County, Missouri. His Baptist parents, James Calvin and Lenora Strickland Rutherford, were farmers. When their teenage son showed an interest in pursuing a career in law, they insisted he pay the wages of a farm laborer as his replacement in addition to paying for his studies. Young Rutherford was able to meet their condition by securing a loan and selling encyclopedias from house to house.

On May 5, 1892, aged 22, he passed his bar examinations to practice law in Missouri, working from the offices of a firm named Draffen & Wright as a trial lawyer. Rutherford would also serve four years as public prosecutor for Boonville, Missouri. On occasion he would be called upon to act as a stand-in judge for the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri.[132] Despite these being only fleeting positions of no great significance or prestige, Rutherford would still leverage them to style himself as “Judge Rutherford” upon finally securing the reins of power at Watchtower—but all of that was still to come.

In 1896, he was more interested in campaigning for his hero, William Jennings Bryan, to become America’s next president. (Rutherford would, for the rest of his life, sport Bryan’s turned-up collar style—long after the trend had passed.)

With the Pastor facing mounting legal battles, most notably over his ugly split with Maria, what he needed more than anything was a good lawyer—and Rutherford was happy to oblige, offering his services pro bono. To that end, in 1909 Rutherford joined the New York State Bar and developed a reputation among his fellow brethren as a zealous defender of their beloved Pastor.

By 1919, one seventh of Bible Students had parted ways with Watchtower, and thousands more would follow in the years ahead. It is in large part because of the 1917 leadership crisis that, to this day, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Bible Student movement are two distinct denominations.

For example, consider the following from page 66 of the Proclaimers book concerning a few at headquarters who are said to have “resented” Rutherford: The fact that the work was moving ahead and that he was making every effort to follow the arrangements that had been put in place by Russell did not seem to impress them. As we have already seen, the “arrangements that had been put in place by Russell” involved stewardship of the Watch Tower magazine being shared by the members of an editorial committee, effectively reducing the role of the Society’s president to little more than an administrative figurehead (similar to the role formerly occupied by Conley). But Rutherford’s actions following Russell’s death showed a clear disregard for his much-loved predecessor’s instructions.

Rutherford was elected on January 6, 1917, two months after Russell’s death. Despite not being an officer of the Society, and not even being on Russell’s suggested shortlist for the “committee of five” (his name only featured along with five other potential substitutes on a B-list) he somehow managed to win over key players in the post-Russell interim management—most notably A. H. Macmillan, Russell’s former assistant, and W. E. Van Amburgh, the Society’s secretary-treasurer. Both of these men had considerable voting power for electing the next president, because they each held proxy votes on behalf of other members of the Society who could not attend the election in person, but who trusted their judgment. Hence, having ingratiated himself with these kingmakers, Rutherford had little difficulty securing the presidency. He was also careful to make sure his powers as president were increased by promptly having bylaws enacted that would effectively grant him full executive control of the Society. A brochure titled Light After Darkness, released by the Society directors who later tried to oppose him, described the nature of these bylaws: One of the by-laws, which was suggested at the shareholders’ meeting, reads: “The President of the Society shall always be the Executive Officer and General Manager of the Corporation, having in charge the management of its affairs and work, both in America and in foreign countries.” Another by-law, the one to which the Committee especially ob...

After examining the book, these intelligence officers—most of whom had been lawyers prior to the war—quickly concluded it was seditious material that contravened the Espionage Act of 1917. Of particular concern were pages 247 through 253, which were especially scathing in their condemnation of the “butchery” of war. Ironically, though, a considerable chunk of these pages had not been penned by Clayton Woodworth or George Fisher at all; neither by the Judge, nor the ghost of Charles Taze Russell, nor indeed anyone affiliated with Watchtower. The offending pages mostly comprised the words of a sermon by Reverend John Haynes Holmes of the “Church of the Messiah” in New York City—“an outspoken pacifist and opponent to the war”—whose speech was so scornful of America and its allies that portions of it had already been dropped on British troops on the Western Front as propaganda by the Germans. Hence, a considerable majority of the complaints against The Finished Mystery involved material that the writers had reproduced from what would be considered by Witnesses today as “Babylon the Great”—or a religious source outside Watchtower.

Once Rutherford learned that these pages were key to the government’s pursuit of his organization, he attempted to have them removed in a last ditch attempt to forestall prosecution. Hence, a 1955 Watchtower admits to Bible Students “compromisingly cutting out pages 247-253 of The Finished Mystery, their seventh volume of Studies in the Scriptures, to please would-be censors.”[138] As pressure intensified, Rutherford even began to backtrack on his antiwar stance, as Strauss relates: On May 5, Rutherford visited a Bible Students’ meeting in Washington, D.C. A [sic] MID agent was in attendance, listening for disloyal remarks. Yet, the agent reported Rutherford “paid a glowing tribute to the President.” Rutherford explained that the current war was foretold in the scriptures and that “those who engaged in it were following a Divine command; that those sacrificing their lives in behalf of their country would inherit eternal life as the result.”