When my father was diagnosed with cancer and it was clear he would die, I greatly feared having to attend his funeral. I knew what to expect from the discourse and how irritated it would make me. Even more difficult would be the shunning I would receive. I would be going back to the congregation I was raised in, but this time I would be considered “a notorious apostate.” I had read many experiences about the mistreatment of former Witnesses at funerals and how they were shunned or excluded from the proceedings.

I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness by loving parents. My grandmothers, an aunty and uncle, and some cousins were Jehovah’s Witnesses. After I left home, my father spent twenty years as a Circuit Overseer and my sister and her husband spent time in Bethel prior to having children. I grew up in a congregation where many older Witnesses expressed the strictly fundamental viewpoint that Jehovah personally directed the Organization and soon would destroy anyone who was not a Jehovah’s Witness. As promoted in the Watchtower, I thought I was never going to die; I did not even expect to finish school prior to Armageddon. However, Armageddon had not arrived by the time I matriculated – so, unusually for Witnesses in the 1980’s, my parents were open-minded enough to encourage me to obtain a university degree. I felt I could justify obtaining a higher education by studying part-time whilst regular pioneering. … Continue reading →