JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
AND PHYSICAL
DISABILITY
(Investigator 113, 2007
March)
If people with
physical
disabilities can
preach and make converts how much more zealous the able-bodied should
be!
That's the
implied message
in biographies
of physically handicapped converts in Jehovah's Witness (JW) magazines.
The physically
disabled
may be restricted
in mobility, social life and opportunities. Joining a sect may improve
the situation. The sect, for example, may help them get to meetings,
extend
their social life and assist with shopping and house duties.
When a
physically
handicapped JW
discovers
his religion has deceived him – that it's not the true religion
"agreeing
in all details with the Bible" but has flip-flopped in hundreds of
doctrines
and made numerous false predictions and then lied about them – what
does
he do?
Like other JWs
he's
tempted to ignore the
problem because if he criticises he'll be treated like other
"apostates"
– excommunicated, ostracised and any assistance stopped.
The physically
handicapped
will find it
harder
than healthy individuals to "pick up the pieces" and live a satisfying
life.
For a disabled
JW to force
the issue
knowing
the negative consequences therefore requires courage.
JOSE
MARTIN
PEREZ – 1988
The story of JW
convert
José
Martín
Pérez appeared in Awake! 1988, November 8.
Titled "Pride
Was My Worst
Handicap" the
story started:
I was born
with a severe
physical
impediment
that
prevents me
from
walking, standing up, or
even using my hands… I still remember the jealousy and frustration I
felt
as a child when I watched other children running and jumping. Sometimes
I visited a nearby church to beg God's help…
I was born in
Granada, a
beautiful city
in
southern Spain… As a young child, having a disability motivated me to
develop
other skills, and by the time I was seven, I was more advanced
scholastically
than others of my age…
On one occasion
the local
newspaper
published
an article about me, together with photographs showing me writing with
my foot. This publicity resulted in my receiving numerous awards and
trips,
plus the admiration of others. All of this served to foster in me a
vain
and conceited spirit.
Pérez
described his
isolation, study
by correspondence, winning a scholarship, typewriting using a pen in
his
mouth, and becoming "morose because of loneliness and a feeling of
helplessness."
He prayed to God
to
demonstrate concern.
In 1973 JWs showed up and taught him from their book The
Truth That
Leads to Eternal Life.
After six months
a
travelling JW minister
asked about Pérez's progress. Perez replied, "I'm doing great.
I've
already memorized 500 Bible texts." The minister deflated this "pride"
by quoting, "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." (1 Corinthians
8:1)
In June 1975
Pérez
got baptized.
His
Awake! article continued:
I still had
not
conquered my pride… I
soon
accumulated a vast store of Scriptural knowledge, which I was eager to
demonstrate. Witnesses in the congregation…started to come to me with
their
Bible questions…this too caused my vanity to be flattered.
Pérez
described the "real
happiness"
of preaching, converting ten people, and becoming an elder:
"Getting to know the Creator has helped me to be realistic and face up
to my impediments, including my pride... I have learned to seek
Jehovah's glory, not my own."
PRIDE
"Pride" is often
mentioned
in JW
publications
and Pérez's emphasis on it is nothing unusual.
Accusing people
of pride
helps the JW
leadership
control them by making them feel inadequate. This heightens their need
for approval and makes them more likely to conform. A JW who questions
the authority of the leaders or studies excessively will likely be told
he's "giving in to pride" and trying to impress others. He'll be
reminded,
"Knowledge puffs up but love builds up."
JOSE
MARTIN
PEREZ – 2001
By 2001
José
Martín
Pérez
had left JWs.
On the Internet he summed up his JW life as: "22 years
serving
a human project, believing that it was Divine"
He says of his Awake!
magazine
article:
It's obvious
the main
reason for which
it appeared there was my physical state... Nevertheless, regrettably
the
society…and many religious and political groups…use…the disabled to
sell
their products, to promulgate their ideas…and to motivate a certain
action;
in sum, to say: "This person is not worth anything, but he does more
things
than you, why don't you imitate him?"
Pérez says
his story
"backfired" and
was used to "rebuke" him when he left JWs:
"Behind are being left 22 years of service, sacrifices, of economic
contributions, etc. which according to them, they don't have any value
in God's sight, and they have only been good go confirm my pride..."
He continues:
…a religious
organization, assuming the
role of God in this XX century, has taken captive my thoughts, my
beliefs,
and my individuality…
I ended up
believing that
the
organization
of the Jehovah's Witnesses, was the channel God was using to
communicate
his will to men…and that it was necessary to be…supporting such an
organization
in order to receive his favor.
He continues
further:
I didn't
realize that
these "children",
as soon as they accepted the "maternity" protection of the group they
began
to lose their individuality and to assume a collective and impersonal
one,
that at times would be powerful and intolerant against all those that
didn't
stay within the mother cover…
It has been very
costly to
reach these
conclusions,
because my physical and mental dependence on the organization of the
Jehovah's
Witnesses has always been very strong. They were the first ones that
were
interested in me, not only so that I could study the Bible, but by
picking
me up at my house and taking me to the meetings, conventions, etc. In
addition,
I was invited to social meetings, dinners, trips, etc. where they took
care and assisted me.
After eight years
as an elder
Pérez
resigned
from that position in 1995. But he and his wife continued attending
meetings
and going preaching – these activities being "the thermometers used by
the congregation to discern who is considered spiritual and who's not."
His doubts began
over
questions of
"progressive
truth":
Jehovah's
Witnesses
could assure with
dogmatism
that their biblical and doctrinal conclusions were "the truth", (and in
fact, all their members had to accept such conclusions, in order not
to be disfellowshiped), and some months later, they modify these
doctrine…saying
that this also "was the truth"... This can be made over again on the
same
matter three or four times, going 'back and forward' and always their
last
interpretation is at all times the final truth.
Pérez gives
as an
example the
doctrine
of "the sheep and the goats".
JWs believe that
Christ
returned in 1914.
Until 1995 they believed that Jesus was judging and sorting people into
"sheep" and "goats" by their response to the JW preaching.
Says
Pérez:
If someone had
dared to
question that
interpretation,
he would have been unforgivably disfellowshiped. If anyone would dare
to
question anything regarding their current concepts, he will also be
disfellowshiped.
The Watchtower
(May
15, 1986) claimed
the doctrine was first "properly understood" in 1923:
"Thus, in 1923 Jesus' great prophecy about the sheep and the goats was properly
understood, and it was discerned that the whole world was under
judgment". (p. 14)
The sheep/goat
separation,
however, could
not
have been "properly understood" in 1923 because in 1935 JWs began to
teach
that there were two groups of sheep and it was time to convert the
second
group. The first group called "remnant" and "chosen ones" were
converted
until 1935, the second group called "the great multitude" were
converted
from 1935 onwards:
Such a
gathering in of
those doers of
good
to the "chosen ones" began in the spring of 1935. What gave tremendous
impetus to the ingathering was the speech given on Friday, May 31,
1935,
at the widely advertised convention of Jehovah's Witnesses held in
Washington,
D.C. On that day the president of the Watch Tower Society spoke on the
theme "The Great Multitude" and discussed the prophecy of Revelation
7:9-14,
Authorized Version. He identified the "great multitude" as being the
same
as the "sheep" in Jesus' parable at Matthew 25:31-46. (The Watchtower
1980
September 1, p. 21)
The sheep-and-goats
doctrine
supposedly came
from "Jehovah" and the "holy spirit" as a "flash of light":
Jehovah, by
means of
holy spirit,
favored
these early Bible Students with flashes of light... bright light shone
on the parable of the sheep and the goats. It was seen that this
prophecy
was to be fulfilled in the present Lord's day, not in the future during
the Millennium as previously thought. (The Watchtower 1995 May 15, pp
17-18)
It was for 60 years
a
central,
often-repeated,
doctrine. (Investigator 47) Then in 1995 (The Watchtower, October
15)
this
"properly understood", "bright light" from "Jehovah" and the "holy
spirit"
was changed. The sheep and goats were not separated since 1935 after
all
but will be separated in the future "during the Millennium".
Another change
that
influenced
Pérez
was the prophecy that the generation that witnessed 1914 would live to
survive Armageddon.
That doctrine
too was
changed in 1995:
I wondered:
What
guarantees I had at
that
moment, that the new explanation was better than the previous one? What
guarantees, that this new explanation that we all had to accept without
complaint as "the truth", tomorrow wasn't denied or modified or even
rejected
as false?
Pérez and
his wife
then obtained Crisis
of Conscience written by Raymond Franz, a former member of the JW
governing
body:
It was as if a
the veil
that blinded
us,
had fallen suddenly before our eyes (2 Co. 4:4)… There was no question
about it. The deceit and manipulation…by the Watch Tower Society were
evident.
I didn't judge any of the brothers because we all were victims…
Pérez wrote
a letter
of
disassociation
wherein he mentioned the false predictions for 1975 by quoting the Life
Everlasting book:
"How
appropriate it
would be for
Jehovah
God to make of this coming seventh period of a thousand years a sabbath
period of rest and release, a great Jubilee sabbath for the proclaiming
of liberty throughout the earth to all its inhabitants! This would be
most
timely for mankind." (1966 pp 29, 30)
JWs retaliated by
boycotting
Pérez's
Consultant-advice business:
"The fact that I was married and with two small children or my physical
state didn't matter to them."
To a JW painter who
came to
withdraw his
documents
Pérez said:
"Can you
imagine if all
your clients,
when
you became a
Jehovah
Witness did to
you what you are
doing right now…? Or if your clients asked you for your religion before
hiring you, and when realizing that you were a Witness didn't want
anything
to do with you?"
Pérez
continues:
…new circles
of
friendship began to
arise,
especially people that previously have belonged to the Witnesses… And
since
they live at different geographical locations in Spain, now we travel
more
often…
He says of JWs:
…the courage
and the
sacrifice of many
of them have been in vain…and all suffering they have gone through, was
unnecessary. I regret collaborating with a group like this…a teaching
based
on the tradition and caprice.
Pérez
concludes:
I support all
those
people that in
freedom,
opt to adore God without losing their individuality, their autonomy…
I don't consider
myself
better than
anyone.
In fact, I have gotten off the pedestal where the Witnesses had put me…
God does respond
to those
who cry out to
him for help, but that answer doesn't necessarily have to come because
a gentleman calls at your door…
(BS)
More
true biographies of JWs on
this website:
http://ed5015.tripod.com/
Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses at:
http://ed5015.tripod.com/jwdictionary/