The Great Apostasy
"Today is dawning, a new today! A new sun and a new blue sky
Bluer than all the days I've seen. Yes, this one is the most vivid ever
My vision is crisp and my joints are open. I can hear the wind whistle through the rolling landscapes
My hair is thick and my skin is smooth. My hips are taught and my back is sturdy. My God has delivered the world to me. I am the meek, I have inherited the earth."
These are the words I once heard spoken in a dream for someone else. I think they were all I could remember from a prayer given by a District Overseer on the closing day of a convention. It's rare to remember a prayer; most of them were boring and pretentious. This one was different. It waxed Poetic. I remember hearing noses sniffle as he relayed this tale of a woman waking up to her first day of life in the "New System."
The last day of a convention was always a melancholy affair. During the intermission on the final day of the convention, it was common to hear whispers of "well, now we have to go back into the wicked world" or "This is what paradise will be like!" Contrary to their claims of having the truth and unity, many witnesses struggle to conceptualize their beliefs. If you were to ask five current witnesses to walk you through the details of the onset of their "Great Tribulation," you might get a different answer from each one.
Details are dangerous when your dreaming. The more you focus, the more you realize you're asleep and dreaming.
The Watchtower seems to understand this. When they discuss the salvation process in their publications, they often use off-beat verbiage. In some cases completely out of date phrases like "wicked".
There are other words such as, "demonized" and "truth," that have been completely redefined and repurposed. Additionally, the terms "Spirit" or "Spirituality'' are manically interchanged and can represent anything from benevolent sentient beings, or energy to malevolent demons. They can also represent an entire way of living or they can represent a delving into another dimension that makes a person susceptible to demonic possession and influence.
It should be noted, they often use words that feel appropriately descriptive; yet are only masking more macabre sentiments. This allows the listener to suspend his conscience while absorbing the hate speech.
If you've ever confronted a Jehovah's witness about the coming mass murder their god is soon to administer, you'll learn quickly that they do not like hearing the term genocide as a descriptor. This is due to a specific type of conditioning wherein they only accept their information related to their beliefs as they were originally fed to them by the Watchtower.
To be clear, they understand that it is, in fact, genocide and their prophecies call for their god to slaughter most people on earth, however, they are only comfortable using the Watchtower's language to describe it. Sayings such as "The second death" or "Everlasting cutting off" are frequent defaults. The usefulness of this alt-speak is not so much that the words are less accurate, in so much as they can build on a pre-approved narrative. The help a witness stick to the script so to speak. They are proprietary cult colloquialisms. The need for special language is not unique to the Watchtower. It is, in fact, a hallmark of cults, however, the Watchtower's lexicon seems to have a much more synthetic genesis. They need to control the ownership of language and definitions in order to control how information is absorbed by their members.
The words they choose to redefine are no accident.
The term "apostate" is probably the most loaded of them all. The average Jehovah's witness has no idea that this is a word used outside of their organization to describe various religious dissenters.
Sadly, it is not clear whether they are able to understand the idea of dissent as it applies to their lives or the organization they have aligned themselves with. The Watchtower has made sure that this word is only used as a slur and this single word carries several weighted definitions:
Apostate/Apostasy:
Speaking against The Watchtower
Speaking against Jehovah
Betraying your family
Blaspheming the Holy Spirit
Betraying what you know is true
Anti-Watchtower organization or movement
The unforgivable sin
This is a short list, there are many other things that other people might add to define what apostasy meant to them. Most secular dictionaries define it simply as "renouncing ones religious or political beliefs."
In my life as a Jehovah's witness. I was taught that Apostates weren't allowed back. That they had committed the unforgivable sin. The idea that I may not be able to pray for forgiveness was a terrifying thought. It meant that no matter what my intentions were going forward, I was doomed to death. With that thought in mind, I made sure I never even entertained anything that might lead me down a path to apostasy. Further, I viewed apostates as someone trying to trick me into this life-threatening situation.
"Apostates want to you to follow them"
"Have you been talking to apostates?"
"Have you been reading apostate literature?"
"That's an apostate website"
"Why would I respond to an apostate?"
These are common sentences you may have heard used by a Jehovah's Witness in relation to the word apostate.
To explore this further, I'd like to offer a story. Disclaimer: I'm not sure this actually happened.
I have a foggy memory of a situation where so-called apostates were picketing a convention and there was a sticker or a drawing of Mario from Super Mario brothers on one of the picket signs. The idea being that this would get young people to pay attention to the sign which read, "1914, a hoax?".
How dare those evil apostates use underhanded means to capture the minds of Christian youths, I thought. You might wonder why I don't have a crisp recollection of this event that separates fact from fiction. It's because these things are starting to run together on me. The further back I go, the more trouble I have remembering whether or not something actually happened or was taught to me as a truth of which I ingested as a real event.
Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe this is the residual effect of the dilution and misuse of words and events. Maybe I've been gaslit to the nth degree and I'm questioning my reality, even as I write this entry. How does one center themselves when faced with such questions? For me, I remind myself of how I now view that story of the picket sign. Whether it's a real story or some urban legend that was circulated to demonize apostasy, I now view it as one of the most touching notions in my woke life.
The idea that some exjws cared enough about the future of us spiritually abused children to add an icon of our generation to their sign, was simply love. It was a hand reaching out to us. I have nothing but gratitude for that person who may or may not have existed. The level of selflessness it took for them to make their way out of this terrible institution, use their weekend to coordinate a message, craft signs and try to save our lives is what this is all about.
It is our focal point.
Many of us though free, continue to be saddled with the zombied phonics of our former oppressors. To our dismay, we find ourselves fluent in a dead language. This too is an opportunity for mental calibration. Each crooked aperture we discover is evidence that something impossibly heavy was once attached to us. The understanding that we were made to misunderstand understandable things is a perfect circle in this mangled menagerie.
The act of apostasy is in and of itself the reclaiming of a word.
There will be days when we nothing seems to jog our thoughts from a seemingly endless stasis. Days, when it'll feel like all we're doing, is for nothing and that we are nothing. Sit with that. Use it. Remember the power in outliving your death date. Remember the words that were once used to usurp you, are now the empirical pillars of your tomorrow. Remember that you are now a member of one of the most important rebukes in modern history. We have reclaimed and in some cases redefined the idea of apostasy. We have moved to from renouncing to denouncing. We have gone beyond any of the cautionary warnings that our former friends and relatives once used to malign us and in the process, we've become something much scarier than anything they could ever imagine.
It's clear we have something they fear more than misinformation and trickery. We have the facts and facts are the end of the Watchtower. This is why they've told active member's that we are "Mentally diseased." A play on the idea that somehow we've lost our minds. They must denigrate us intellectually so that their member's show us no deference. This is why they've played these word games for so long. They've anticipated the day that their members might actually encounter someone who knows the truth.
They wanted them to be too afraid to inquire and to reject without even hearing.
They have demonized us in a most disingenuous manner. They made us into the destroyers of hopes.
"Why are you trying to destroy my faith?"
"They're only imperfect men"
"Who else has the truth?"
"You may be my son, but you can't give me life"
These are the exclamations of flagging Jehovah's witnesses in the midst of a debate about the validity of their worldview and teachings. The last quote was from my mother.
To most Jehovah's Witnesses, we are the arsonists who will set fire to their paradise. The Watchtower wants them to believe that we are telling them they will never see their loved ones again and that there is no new world coming. We aren't. All we're doing is holding up a mirror. A mirror that they haven't wanted to see. A mirror that we didn't want to see. A mirror that made us feel ugly.
No one wants someone else to tell them who they are; so we hold up a mirror that lets them see for themselves. This mirror we're holding is large and the reflections are crisp and detailed. It shows more than the self. It also shows the company you've kept and the road behind you. This mirror is not magic. This mirror is not telling you how to live or how to think. For so many of us who have lost so much, looking into this mirror and accepting what we saw was the first step in our great apostasy.
Bluer than all the days I've seen. Yes, this one is the most vivid ever
My vision is crisp and my joints are open. I can hear the wind whistle through the rolling landscapes
My hair is thick and my skin is smooth. My hips are taught and my back is sturdy. My God has delivered the world to me. I am the meek, I have inherited the earth."
These are the words I once heard spoken in a dream for someone else. I think they were all I could remember from a prayer given by a District Overseer on the closing day of a convention. It's rare to remember a prayer; most of them were boring and pretentious. This one was different. It waxed Poetic. I remember hearing noses sniffle as he relayed this tale of a woman waking up to her first day of life in the "New System."
The last day of a convention was always a melancholy affair. During the intermission on the final day of the convention, it was common to hear whispers of "well, now we have to go back into the wicked world" or "This is what paradise will be like!" Contrary to their claims of having the truth and unity, many witnesses struggle to conceptualize their beliefs. If you were to ask five current witnesses to walk you through the details of the onset of their "Great Tribulation," you might get a different answer from each one.
Details are dangerous when your dreaming. The more you focus, the more you realize you're asleep and dreaming.
The Watchtower seems to understand this. When they discuss the salvation process in their publications, they often use off-beat verbiage. In some cases completely out of date phrases like "wicked".
There are other words such as, "demonized" and "truth," that have been completely redefined and repurposed. Additionally, the terms "Spirit" or "Spirituality'' are manically interchanged and can represent anything from benevolent sentient beings, or energy to malevolent demons. They can also represent an entire way of living or they can represent a delving into another dimension that makes a person susceptible to demonic possession and influence.
It should be noted, they often use words that feel appropriately descriptive; yet are only masking more macabre sentiments. This allows the listener to suspend his conscience while absorbing the hate speech.
If you've ever confronted a Jehovah's witness about the coming mass murder their god is soon to administer, you'll learn quickly that they do not like hearing the term genocide as a descriptor. This is due to a specific type of conditioning wherein they only accept their information related to their beliefs as they were originally fed to them by the Watchtower.
To be clear, they understand that it is, in fact, genocide and their prophecies call for their god to slaughter most people on earth, however, they are only comfortable using the Watchtower's language to describe it. Sayings such as "The second death" or "Everlasting cutting off" are frequent defaults. The usefulness of this alt-speak is not so much that the words are less accurate, in so much as they can build on a pre-approved narrative. The help a witness stick to the script so to speak. They are proprietary cult colloquialisms. The need for special language is not unique to the Watchtower. It is, in fact, a hallmark of cults, however, the Watchtower's lexicon seems to have a much more synthetic genesis. They need to control the ownership of language and definitions in order to control how information is absorbed by their members.
The words they choose to redefine are no accident.
The term "apostate" is probably the most loaded of them all. The average Jehovah's witness has no idea that this is a word used outside of their organization to describe various religious dissenters.
Sadly, it is not clear whether they are able to understand the idea of dissent as it applies to their lives or the organization they have aligned themselves with. The Watchtower has made sure that this word is only used as a slur and this single word carries several weighted definitions:
Apostate/Apostasy:
Speaking against The Watchtower
Speaking against Jehovah
Betraying your family
Blaspheming the Holy Spirit
Betraying what you know is true
Anti-Watchtower organization or movement
The unforgivable sin
This is a short list, there are many other things that other people might add to define what apostasy meant to them. Most secular dictionaries define it simply as "renouncing ones religious or political beliefs."
In my life as a Jehovah's witness. I was taught that Apostates weren't allowed back. That they had committed the unforgivable sin. The idea that I may not be able to pray for forgiveness was a terrifying thought. It meant that no matter what my intentions were going forward, I was doomed to death. With that thought in mind, I made sure I never even entertained anything that might lead me down a path to apostasy. Further, I viewed apostates as someone trying to trick me into this life-threatening situation.
"Apostates want to you to follow them"
"Have you been talking to apostates?"
"Have you been reading apostate literature?"
"That's an apostate website"
"Why would I respond to an apostate?"
These are common sentences you may have heard used by a Jehovah's Witness in relation to the word apostate.
To explore this further, I'd like to offer a story. Disclaimer: I'm not sure this actually happened.
I have a foggy memory of a situation where so-called apostates were picketing a convention and there was a sticker or a drawing of Mario from Super Mario brothers on one of the picket signs. The idea being that this would get young people to pay attention to the sign which read, "1914, a hoax?".
How dare those evil apostates use underhanded means to capture the minds of Christian youths, I thought. You might wonder why I don't have a crisp recollection of this event that separates fact from fiction. It's because these things are starting to run together on me. The further back I go, the more trouble I have remembering whether or not something actually happened or was taught to me as a truth of which I ingested as a real event.
Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe this is the residual effect of the dilution and misuse of words and events. Maybe I've been gaslit to the nth degree and I'm questioning my reality, even as I write this entry. How does one center themselves when faced with such questions? For me, I remind myself of how I now view that story of the picket sign. Whether it's a real story or some urban legend that was circulated to demonize apostasy, I now view it as one of the most touching notions in my woke life.
The idea that some exjws cared enough about the future of us spiritually abused children to add an icon of our generation to their sign, was simply love. It was a hand reaching out to us. I have nothing but gratitude for that person who may or may not have existed. The level of selflessness it took for them to make their way out of this terrible institution, use their weekend to coordinate a message, craft signs and try to save our lives is what this is all about.
It is our focal point.
Many of us though free, continue to be saddled with the zombied phonics of our former oppressors. To our dismay, we find ourselves fluent in a dead language. This too is an opportunity for mental calibration. Each crooked aperture we discover is evidence that something impossibly heavy was once attached to us. The understanding that we were made to misunderstand understandable things is a perfect circle in this mangled menagerie.
The act of apostasy is in and of itself the reclaiming of a word.
There will be days when we nothing seems to jog our thoughts from a seemingly endless stasis. Days, when it'll feel like all we're doing, is for nothing and that we are nothing. Sit with that. Use it. Remember the power in outliving your death date. Remember the words that were once used to usurp you, are now the empirical pillars of your tomorrow. Remember that you are now a member of one of the most important rebukes in modern history. We have reclaimed and in some cases redefined the idea of apostasy. We have moved to from renouncing to denouncing. We have gone beyond any of the cautionary warnings that our former friends and relatives once used to malign us and in the process, we've become something much scarier than anything they could ever imagine.
It's clear we have something they fear more than misinformation and trickery. We have the facts and facts are the end of the Watchtower. This is why they've told active member's that we are "Mentally diseased." A play on the idea that somehow we've lost our minds. They must denigrate us intellectually so that their member's show us no deference. This is why they've played these word games for so long. They've anticipated the day that their members might actually encounter someone who knows the truth.
They wanted them to be too afraid to inquire and to reject without even hearing.
They have demonized us in a most disingenuous manner. They made us into the destroyers of hopes.
"Why are you trying to destroy my faith?"
"They're only imperfect men"
"Who else has the truth?"
"You may be my son, but you can't give me life"
These are the exclamations of flagging Jehovah's witnesses in the midst of a debate about the validity of their worldview and teachings. The last quote was from my mother.
To most Jehovah's Witnesses, we are the arsonists who will set fire to their paradise. The Watchtower wants them to believe that we are telling them they will never see their loved ones again and that there is no new world coming. We aren't. All we're doing is holding up a mirror. A mirror that they haven't wanted to see. A mirror that we didn't want to see. A mirror that made us feel ugly.
No one wants someone else to tell them who they are; so we hold up a mirror that lets them see for themselves. This mirror we're holding is large and the reflections are crisp and detailed. It shows more than the self. It also shows the company you've kept and the road behind you. This mirror is not magic. This mirror is not telling you how to live or how to think. For so many of us who have lost so much, looking into this mirror and accepting what we saw was the first step in our great apostasy.
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