As mentioned, the official stance of the Jehovah’s Witness Governing Body: ‘J-Dubs abhor sexual abuse.’
The first time apostate-Shayne quoted that line I unwittingly snickered; it sounded so smooth, so perfected, so very presentable. Truth is, less official is the J-Dub reality.
The Jehovah’s Witness congregation is conditioned with blind faith, a sense of respect, an unwavering trust in the J-Dub elders; to the extent, for example, that a young daughter is taught to show greater veneration to her Jehovah’s Witness leaders than to her biological parents – than even to her own father.
In terms of hierarchy, amid the J-Dub community, religious standing – godliness – supersedes all other attributes.
When a Jehovah’s Witness man decides he is ready to embark upon the lifelong journey of marriage, while he is free to select a woman from among any of New Zealand’s J-Dub communities, he is encouraged to look at his prospective brides from the perspective – not of beauty or outward physical attractiveness but – of godliness.
Shayne and his former wife were both previously located in the same region; Shayne’s son – the only sibling of his apostate daughter – will likely take his J-Dub bride also from the lower North Island, thus continuing the expansion of their lineage in that area; although, contrary to how it was in Shayne’s day, J-Dub ‘dating’ is now done mainly online, using tools such as Skype, Zoom, or the like.
Other, arguably more conventional forms of social media – Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc – are expressly forbidden amid the J-Dub community; spreading the word of God is always good, just not so much the word of modern reality.
A Jehovah’s Witness woman is encouraged to select (be selected by) a man who, similarly, has maybe not the most attractive façade but, indeed, possesses the most God-fearing soul; an excerpt from a J-Dub newsletter emphasises this, warning: “When choosing a marriage mate … Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers … While worshipping God together is the most important aspect of unity, more is involved.”
‘More is involved’ – from Shayne’s perspective, as a Jehovah’s Witness adherent there was nothing untoward about J-Dub marriage etiquette; it was all he had known, after all and, of course, he willingly followed J-Dub marriage protocol and, as a young Jehovah’s Witness, he married his lovely wife and – “Is she willing to submit to headship, or is she stubborn, perhaps even rebellious?”
Based on a recent prophesy of impending ‘tribulations’ (global upheaval akin to Armageddon), Jehovah’s Witness couples are currently discouraged from bringing children into this ‘world on the brink’; prior to the current bought of end-of-the-world speculation (J-Dubs make a lot of these predictions), of course, inter-community breeding – bring on the next generation of indoctrinated children – was very much encouraged.
“Young people change rapidly as they grow up. Many who marry when very young find that after just a few years their needs and desires, as well as those of their mate, have changed … A man might ask, ‘Does this woman display love and respect for God? Is she capable of caring for a home? What will her family expect of us? Is she wise, industrious, thrifty?’”
As Shayne tells it, J-Dub women – maybe more-so even than worldly women – are adept at portraying a pretence in the hope of appearing attractive to a prospective mate; a woman is conditioned to show greater loyalty to her community’s elders than even to her own husband although, while she might use her husband’s pre-eminent religious status to develop her own sense of righteousness, as a woman, she will never gain significant status among the Jehovah’s witness community.
As a result of generations of separation from the societal evolution of the worldly populous, it could be said that the Jehovah’s Witness community have fallen out of touch with reality; compared to that worldly populous, their rudimentary value system is nothing short of archaic.
The kinds of bigotry one might associate with ‘old-fashioned folk’ is alive and well in the Jehovah’s Witness community – “A woman will submit to a man”, “Homosexuals will not be accepted into our Lord’s heart”, “A good woman will keep her home clean and tidy”; it goes on at jw.org/en/
Oddly, Jehovah’s Witnesses have no problem admitting to their male-dominated – bordering on misogynistic – methods; although as they maintain, J-Dubs ‘abhor sexual abuse’ and indeed, they will vehemently deny the existence of such practise yet, rather unlike the Catholic community which long ago became synonymous with child molestation, well, J-Dubs are clearly better at hiding their iniquities.
In researching this topic, I am entering into a new world; in documenting the salient points, I am finding myself in disbelief that an organisation of this nature can exist among modern people.
This is the J-Dub reality.
Article by Tim Walker
Edited by A Garst