I Was Raised a Jehovah's Witness, 4th Edition

By Joe B. Hewitt

I Was Raised a Jehovah’s Witness is the personal story of Joe B. Hewitt who escaped from the Watchtower Cult at age 15. The first half of the book is a narrative of how the author came to the realization that he had been lied to and had repeated lies to others. He explains the heartbreak of being shunned. After he left the Jehovah’s Witnesses his mother was forced to declare him dead and to shun him.
This biography narrates Hewitt’s journey from spiritual bondage to spiritual limbo to Christian liberty, his call to the ministry, and his 39 years of pastoral ministry. It also has accounts of many Jehovah’s Witnesses Hewitt encountered that later escaped the Watchtower mind control and became joyful Christians. He also presents a point by point refutation of the peculiar doctrines of the Watchtower Society such as: denial of the deity of Jesus Christ; denial of his literal and physical resurrection; and denial of the Christian’s hope of heaven. A brief section, “Rational Proof for the Existence of Hell,” and an explanation of the Trinity will help any Christian’s understanding.
1st Edition of I Was Raised a Jehovah’s Witness, was published in 1979, by Accent Books, Denver, sold 40,000 copies; 2nd Edition 1983, translated into Chinese, China Sunday School Association, Taiwan; 3rd Edition, Kregel Books, Grand Rapids, sales with 1st Edition totaled 45,000 copies.The latest edition, 2013: I Was Raised a Jehovah’s Witness, 4th Edition, Revised and Updated 6X9 Paperback 224 Pages or e-book. ISBN-13:978-1492909156.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe B. Hewitt
• Release date: Oct 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310566165

Joe B. Hewitt

About the AuthorJoe B. Hewitt, BD MAAuthor Joe B. Hewitt started writing as a newspaper reporter for the Lima, Ohio, News. He covered the police beat, courthouse beat, and was an investigative reporter. He went under cover for three months and published an expose of vice and crime. He served as national and international news editor and “slot” man on the city desk.He owned and published the following Texas weekly newspapers, Throckmorton Tribune, and Springtown Review, and was a stockholder, editor and publisher of the Richardson Digest.His newspaper career ended when he was called into the ministry.. He served the Richardson church 13 years.He resigned that pastorate to go into vocational evangelism. However, during those four years he was called by Christian leaders in many communities to lead special election campaigns. Of 13 major campaigns, he won 11. He turned down an offer to manage a US Congressman’s re-election campaign.During those years in the pastorate he wrote a nonfiction book on personal experience that has sold 45,000 copies. He wrote curriculum for Bible study teachers and teachers commentaries for LifeWay, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention as well as the youth devotional guide, and Open Windows the 1.1 million-circulation adult devotional guide. For 10 years wrote columns for the Rockwall Success, and Rowlett Lakeshore Times, local newspapers. His magazine articles were published in Mature Living, The Baptist Standard, and Leadership magazine (published by the Baptist General Convention of Texas), Faith for the Family, Reproduction Methods, and the Christian Crusader. Photographs have been published by Associated Press, United Press International, Popular Mechanics, and several detective magazines (from the days when he was police reporter.).His travel articles and pictures have been published in The Dallas Morning News, and the Houston Chronicle's Sunday Magazine. Guest editorials have been published in The Dallas Morning News and Spirit of 76, publication of Fort Worth, Texas, Mensa.Hewitt served as a temporary missionary in Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Oregon, Idaho, New York, and pastored a church in England for a month in an exchange with the pastor of the English church. He served as volunteer chaplain and coordinator of jail ministries for the Rockwall County Sheriff’s Department for 10 years. I also served two days a month as volunteer chaplain at Lake Pointe Medical Center in Rowlett for 10 years.On one of his three trips to Russia, Hewitt preached in Muravlenko, Siberia, a city of 40,000, built on 600 feet deep permafrost located 1650 miles east-northeast of Moscow. The nearest airport was 100 miles south at Nyabresk where the Aeroflot plane broke down and Hewitt and his wife were stranded two days.In addition to the mission trips, Hewitt visited Cypress, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and many Caribbean islands. Hewitt has traveled extensively throughout all 50 of the United States, Mexico and Canada.After retiring from the Pastorate in 2001, Hewitt began training as a mediator and has served Dallas and area courts as a court-appointed mediator to settle lawsuits.Hewitt received a BD degree from Bible Baptist Seminary, and an MA degree in Biblical Studies from Dallas Baptist University. He is a member of Mensa, the high IQ society.

Book preview

I Was Raised a

Jehovah’s Witness

4th Edition, Revised and Updated

By Joe B. Hewitt

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to my readers, critics and editors, Nancy Riddick, Marona Posey, Jim Hazelip, Doris Green, and Joanna Hewitt.

I Was Raised a Jehovah’s Witness

4th Edition, Revised and Updated

ISBN 978-1492909156

Library of Congress No. 2013920610

Copyright Joe B. Hewitt, 2013

All rights reserved.

JBH Publishing, Box 808, Fate, Texas 75132

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Endorsements

This book is quite different from the curriculum for teachers Joe Hewitt used to write for LifeWay. This first-person account involves confusion and heartbreak he experienced as a Jehovah’s Witness. Here he exposes the errors of the Watchtower doctrine and also gives Biblical truths in language anyone could understand. Hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses left the Watchtower Society and came to know Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior after reading previous editions of this book. I believe more will learn the real truth from this revised and updated 4th Edition.

Dr. Jimmy Draper

President Emeritus

LifeWay Christian Resources

The persistence of heresy should not astound the follower of Christ, for false teaching was already a thriving business even while the church could still turn to living apostles!  But if heresy abounded, sound doctrine did much more abound.  This much has been perennially true, Satan spews his lies but God always has His faithful ministers exposing their fallacy under the light of biblical truth. In this vein Joe Hewitt is tireless in his autobiographical exposition of the errors of the Watchtower Society.  I recommend I Was Raised a Jehovah’s Witness, 4th Edition for the sheer enjoyment of learning of Joe Hewitt’s life and more so for his penetrating insights exposing the errors of The Jehovah’s Witnesses and defending biblical Christianity.

Dr. Rudy Gonzalez, Dean

Southwestern Theological Seminary

Endorsements, continued

Joe Hewitt, a former Jehovah Witness himself, writes not only to expose the theological errors of the Watchtower Society, but to give the reader a window into life as a Jehovah’s Witness.  This lifestyle involved a hectic pace, constant warnings of imminent destruction, and controls over what one can read, hear, and do.  This book is also Joe's testimony of how he found Jesus Christ as he read the Bible in context.  This book has my enthusiastic recommendation.

Bob Dean

Executive Director

Dallas Baptist Association

Author’s note

When writing the first edition of this book I had to re-live the heartache I experienced as a kid growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness. Much of the writing I did in motel rooms while I served as an evangelist. Often, after dredging up painful memories, I couldn’t help weeping. Now as I write this 4th updated and revised edition, some things that happened a lifetime ago still cause a hot ball of emotion to rise in my heart and bring me to tears again. I hope this work helps families rescue their loved ones from this cult and equips some parents to protect their children from being snared by the Watchtower cult.

One of the many jobs I had growing up was for Western Union. Dressed in an olive drab uniform with leather leggings, I rode a bicycle in downtown Wichita, Kansas and delivered telegrams. One afternoon in the Western Union office while talking to the woman dispatcher, she became impatient with something I had said and told me, You never had a childhood.

That made me angry. I was indignant on the outside but full of hurt on the inside because what she said was true. I hope by my writings on Jehovah’s Witnesses to help other children escape the miserable childhood experienced by JW kids.

Jargon

Watchtower jargon words are in italics. For example,

Apostate, a person who once was a Jehovah’s Witness but dropped out or was disfellowshiped.

Bethel, Watchtower Headquarters, formerly in Brooklyn, now in upstate New York.

Bethelite, a worker at the headquarters, ranging from writing, to running presses, to custodial work. They live communally, two or three to a room, eat together in a huge dining hall. Living areas are separated by sexes. Bethelites are not allowed to marry, the main reason some leave. Jehovah’s Witnesses consider it a great honor to be appointed to Bethel. After several years there they often become elders in local Kingdom Halls or are promoted to salaried positions of supervisors called servants, such as zone servant and district servant.

Disfellowship, the same as being excommunicated, cut off from fellowship with Jehovah’s Witnesses, declared dead and shunned.

Organized religion, any religion other than Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Other Sheep or Jonadabs, The majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses not eligible for the 144,000 that hope for eternal life on earth.

Place or Put Out books or literature, another name for selling, when the Watchtower Society claims not to be selling but rather accepting a donation after giving the material.

Talk, a noun used for sermon or speech.

Testimony card, a 3X10 inch yellow card stating that the person named is an ordained minister.

The Elect, 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses who plan to go to heaven. Also called The Little Flock.

The Truth, a Jehovah’s Witness describes himself as being in The Truth. If he leaves the Watchtower is considered out of The Truth.

The World, all people not Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Theocratic ministry a training course all Jehovah’s Witness boys are urged to take in public speaking and debating.

Note: The name of the Watchtower Society is sometimes Watch Tower Society. Originally the magazine was Zion’s Watch Tower. Later it was the Watch Tower magazine. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania was the original corporation. The Society added a new corporation, The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York. Later they added layers of 11 corporations. Generally when the two words, Watch Tower, are used it has to do with the Society’s early days.

The Society has many other corporations in other countries such as the Watchtower Society of Canada. The Canadian government requires a detailed report from non-profit organizations. According to the Watchtower Society of Canada’s report for the year 2000, they had cash on hand of more than $23 million and receivables of more than $24 million. There were about 111,000 JWs in Canada in 1300 congregations. If those figures were consistent annually, it would mean each Canadian JW’s free labor is enriching the Society by $423 a year.

The Witnesses have always made a lot of noise about no paid clergy. The Canadian report showed they had 302 employees paid between $1.00 and $29,999.00. That same year in Canada the Watchtower had 306 employees making between $90,000 and $109,999.

I Was Raised a Jehovah’s Witness

Chapter One

At the age of 10, I stood on street corners selling The Watchtower magazine. Already trained in the Theocratic ministry by the time I was 11, I made my first public talk to an audience of 200. I faithfully went from door-to-door placing the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society’s magazines and books. Like a begging deaf-mute, I handed my testimony card to each person who answered the door. Without my having to say anything, the card proclaimed me to be a minister of the gospel. I carried a windup phonograph that played a recorded message in the tin voice of Judge Joseph Rutherford, president of the Watchtower Society.

My experience as a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses really began two generations earlier when my maternal grandfather, John Wright Gordon, farmed cotton in north Texas and later farmed across the Red River in what was then called Indian Territory. He became interested in the teachings of Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Watchtower Society, who believed that the millennial kingdom of Christ was dawning.

Charles Taze Russell grew up in a Congregational church but at an early age rejected organized religion. At the age of 18, he organized a Bible class in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which six years later in 1876 elected him Pastor. The title stuck and Jehovah’s Witnesses for nearly 100 years continued to refer to him affectionately as Pastor Russell, although they generally reject the title for others, calling their equivalent to a pastor the congregational servant and later the congregational overseer. Modern 21st Century Jehovah’s Witnesses know little about Russell. Since the Watchtower Society’s doctrines have changed so much the Jehovah’s Witnesses are not allowed to read Russell’s old books.

The Watchtower Society was firmly established by the time my mother was born near Henrietta, Texas, in 1899, the youngest of six children. For several years Russell had been predicting that Christ would return in 1914. So my mother’s family counted the years looking forward to his return and the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom, the 1,000-year reign mentioned in the book of Revelation.

During the early years of the Millennial Dawn movement, as it was then known, congregations were called Bible Student Ecclesia, using the Greek word ecclesia, which means assembly or church. Many of the people who affiliated with these congregations believed and trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and considered themselves to be born-again children of God. I believe my grandfather was one of these. Although, like Russell, he was confused about the doctrine of hell, he did believe in the deity of Christ.

Early in its history, the Watchtower Society became known for predicting the Battle of Armageddon and The End. The Battle of Armageddon, spoken of in the Bible book of Revelation, says it will be the last great battle between good and evil on the earth. The Watchtower Society claimed on several occasions to know when Armageddon would arrive and kill off all the worldly people and be the beginning of life eternal on paradise earth for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It brings to mind a cartoon of a bearded old man in long robes carrying a sign that read, The End is Near (Again). They continue with the predictions yet the predictions never came true. An organization that has complete control over the minds of its disciples can make erroneous predictions and cancel them, one after the other. They can clear the errors out of the minds of their followers after each failure like clearing a calculator. And the organization can go right on convincing them again and again that Armageddon is just around the corner. In the January, 1886, Watch Tower, Page 817, Russell said, The outward evidences are that the marshaling of the hosts for the battle of the great day of God Almighty is in progress while the skirmishing is commencing. In 1889, Russell said in The Time Is at Hand, Page 101, The battle of the great day of God Almighty (Rev. 16:14), which will end in A.D. 1914 with the complete overthrow of earth’s present rulership, is already commenced. In 1894 he said, Skirmishing is already beginning…. In 1904 he said the great time of trouble would culminate in October of 1914. Then on May1, 1914, the Watch Tower magazine said, There is absolutely no ground for Bible students to question that the consummation of this Gospel age is now even at the door…

Then as the year of 1914 began to wane, Russell started to soft-pedal and prepare his people for a possible letdown. In the September 1, 1914, issue of the Watch Tower magazine he said, While it is possible that Armageddon may begin next spring, yet it is purely speculation to attempt to say just when. We see, however that there are parallels between the close of the Jewish age and this Gospel age. These parallels seem to point to the year just before us-particularly the early months.

In 1915 he said World War I, then raging, would lead to the Battle of Armageddon, which will be a great contest between right and wrong. . . and will signify the complete and everlasting overthrow of the wrong and the permanent establishment of messiah’s righteous kingdom . . . . (Watch Tower Reprints, VI, April 1, 1915, Page 5659).

A series of court trials showed that Russell owned the Society. His separation from his wife in 1897 and their separation decree in 1903 were widely publicized. A court fight revealed that Russell held 990 of the 1,000 capital shares in the Watch Tower Society (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1 November, 1916).

Other events cast a shadow on Russell’s honesty. The Pastor advertised Miracle Wheat for sale through the Watch Tower magazine at a dollar a pound, claiming it would grow five times as much as any other wheat. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle publicized the wheat offer and poked fun at it in an editorial cartoon. Russell sued for $100,000 damages. The newspaper declared at the beginning of the lawsuit that it would show that Pastor Russell’s religious cult was nothing more than a moneymaking scheme.

In the trial, government agents testified that there was nothing superior, let alone miraculous, about Russell’s expensive wheat and The Eagle won the lawsuit. Witnesses claimed that all the proceeds of the wheat sale went to the Watch Tower Society but Russell owned 99 per cent of the Watch Tower Corporation, so he was making contributions to himself. His organizations steadfastly refused to reveal financial details. That is one policy the Society continues on into 2013. Jehovah’s Witnesses get no financial statement. They don’t know where all the money goes nor do they know the identity of the present day stockholders that have ultimate control of the nearly $1 billion annual income in New York headquarters alone.

Russell died in 1916 without seeing his predictions fulfilled. My mother, a devout Jehovah’s Witness, spoke with awe of Russell’s death. She said he had been aboard a train in Texas when he became aware that he was about to die. In preparation for this death, Russell had himself wrapped in a white sheet. Mama felt that the way he died indicated that Russell had special contact with God.

An attorney and former Missouri part-time judge, Joseph Rutherford, served as the Watch Tower Society’s legal counsel at the time. According to William J. Schnell, author of Thirty Years A Watchtower Slave (Grand Rapids. Baker Book House, 1971) Russell made a will clearly leaving the leadership to others but Rutherford, by deft corporate political maneuvering, garnered proxy votes, got himself elected president and took control.

Rutherford made pronouncements and did things in the name of the Watch Tower Society but he was the president, chief executive officer and ran the Society. He had a small advisory board that occasionally offered advice but Rutherford did as he pleased.

He published a book in 1920 entitled Millions Now Living Shall Never Die, which claimed to contain New Light. Some of this New Light was a prediction of the end. The old order of things, the old world, is passing away. . . . 1925 shall mark the resurrection of the faithful worthies. . . . We are standing at the very portals of that blessed time. (Pages 97 and 105). Rutherford’s brazen false prophecy would be forgotten by conditioned Jehovah’s Witnesses just as they had accepted the explanation of the failed prophecy of Christ’s return in 1914.

Other New Light established the doctrine that only a few could be born again and go to heaven.

The old Russellites had considered themselves eligible for heaven and at Russell’s funeral, Rutherford had said, Our brother sleeps not in death but was instantly changed from the human to the divine nature and is now forever with the Lord.

Rutherford arbitrarily jerked the hope of heaven away from the rank and file Jehovah’s Witnesses. According to the New Light, the average person hadn’t a chance of heaven and can hope only for life eternal on paradise earth. This started a split between the early Russellites or Millennial Dawnists who refused to go along with Rutherford’s New Light. Others accepted Rutherford’s pronouncement like a Catholic might accept a new dogma from the Pope. The split also occurred in my grandfather’s family.

John Gordon’s two oldest sons, my Uncles Jim and Al, went with the new order. The youngest son, Alfred, convinced that the followers of Rutherford denied that Jesus was the Son of God, stayed nominally with the Millennial Dawnists for a time, married a Methodist and gradually drifted away from the Russellites beliefs. His children became Baptists. John Gordon’s three daughters married and went the ways of their husbands.

My father, Joseph Benjamin Hewitt, was the son of a cynic whose father and many ancestors were Methodist preachers. My father’s agnosticism influenced John Gordon’s youngest daughter, my mother, Grace Gordon, away from any religious practice.

Grandfather Gordon continued to be identified with the Russellites but his was a more personal faith, according to family members who saw him die. On his deathbed he cried to Jesus, calling him Lord and Savior. Confident that he would shortly be with the Lord, he said, Lord Jesus, I’m ready to go.

Russell’s faith impressed my mother. Her father’s faith impressed her deeply and she was convinced that her father had found the Way, which had been led by Russell. She had blindly accepted all the Watchtower Society doctrines and ignored the fact of her father’s faith in Jesus Christ who is one with God the Father.

During 21 years of marriage to my father, my mother made few attempts to find spiritual fulfillment. She lost touch with the religion of her father. She didn’t know about the Watch Tower’s 1925 prediction that Old Testament figures would be resurrected, nor did she know of Judge Rutherford’s other enticements to his followers to urgently work because the time of the The End was at hand. In 1929 he said the time of the end was close because the Jews were returning to Palestine (The book, Life, Pages 170, 332). In 1930 he said, The great climax is at hand (The book, Light, II Page 327).

In 1931, the year I was born at Grants, New Mexico, Rutherford said, "His day of vengeance is here and Armageddon is at hand and certain to fall upon Christendom and that within an early date. God’s judgment is upon Christendom and must be shortly executed" (Vindication, I, Page 147).

Rutherford added another corporation and joined Watch and Tower into one word. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, he added to the original Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, the parent corporation. The magazine that had been Zion’s Watch Tower became The Watchtower.

When my parents’ marriage came apart we lived on an 80-acre farm deep in the woods of Boone County, Arkansas, near the tiny town of Bergman. We lived in a four-room rough-lumber house, which daddy had built with his own hands from mostly oak timber cut from the virgin forest.

Situated in a shallow valley surrounded by tree-covered hills, the little town of Bergman was cut in two by a railroad track and parallel to it, a gravel and rock-lined washout spanned by a single, heavy wooden bridge with no side rails. In front of the post office, visitors tied their horses to a wooden hitching rail polished over many years by hundreds of leather reins and calloused hands.

The train, black, hot, belching smoke and spewing white steam, shook the earth and pierced the air, hurting my ears with long blasts of its shrill whistle, provided my most exciting moments. When no passengers were to get on or off, the train maintained its speed and snatched the Bergman mail sack off a pole at the depot.

Bergman was a two-store town. One was built entirely of rounded beige and rust colored native stones. Built with typical western American frame construction, the other store displayed a rectangular façade extending from the top of the wide porch to the peak of its pitched roof. During the depression days of the thirties, I occasionally had a rare treat for a barefoot kid, to go inside and tread the worn, smooth plank floors; to take in the blended aromas of freshly ground coffee, new fabric and a wonderful collection of candy smells and to spend a penny.

Oblivious of religious concern, play filled my world, in the deep washout, climbing stacks of railroad ties near the depot, exploring the woods, wading in the clear water of the many creeks and climbing trees, cliffs and bluffs. I did not concern myself with the intricacies of adult life.

Daddy often stayed gone several days