Have you received your slap today?

Jehovah’s Witnesses practice shunning as a way to control membership and ostracize troublemakers or anyone else they wish to eliminate.  Many in the XJW community have claimed that the shunning days of the JWs are numbered and that the damage caused will force them to reform this doctrine.  

What are the damages? Families fractured and not having loving relations, people that self-medicate to cover emotional pain that can result in everything from addictions to suicide.  Then there is loss, the loss of normal affection that most non member families take for granted, loss of self esteem due to be treated like you are a bad person, loss of inheritances due to the religion pressuring the elderly to turn over assets to them, loss of grandparents, fathers, mothers, children and many relatives who cut you off and will no longer recognize your existence.  This translates too many variations that can cripple an individual emotionally and require much therapy to cope with.

How to Jehovah’s Witnesses feel about Disfellowshipping? Many quietly go along for fear of punishment, while others secretly lead a double life and bend the rules to try and have some type of relationship. Sadly the latter is very rare. Many have thought that the harshness would cause a back lash and at some point leadership would back down from strict enforcement.  Yet each year new articles come out to reinforce the policy and threaten members with punishment and judgment from God if they in any way do not disown any family member that should become disfellowshipped.  

This becomes a major issue when dealing with custody cases involving children.   When a parent has an awakening and decides to no longer be an active member it creates an environment where the child is torn between two worlds.  The JW world says the non member is going to be killed by God at any second and is diseased mentally for no longer wishing to be a Jehovah’s Witness.  The child is forced to see only black and white or they will face shunning themselves from member family.  White means obeying the religion and shunning non member parent or black means being disowned by their member family.  When non- member family tries to reason with their kids to help them see they can love both parents, the JW parent deems them to be ‘apostate’ which in their definition is a demon in human form to be avoided at all costs.  

With this type of scenario how can a child ever have normal relations with a non member parent?  The only solution is to award custody to the non-member parent with a court order for the child to be protected from JW indoctrination, this way they can experience normal interactions with both parents without interference and pressure to shun.  With the non member parent in control they can set healthy boundaries that benefit all parties and assist the child to grow in a positive loving environment.  To do this will require a custody battle in court.  JWs employ fourteen lawyers on staff and fight over 1,000 custody battles each year.  They take no prisoners and practice “Theocratic Warfare Doctrine’ which allows them to mislead the courts to hide what true effects their practices will have on the child.  Members will bear false witness under oath to present a picture of normalcy knowing that as soon as they obtain favorable judgments they will ostracize
the non member parent.  They believe it is a matter of life and death to keep the child as a member and have them baptized as quickly as possible thus locking them into shunning non-member parents for life.

We help non-member parents facing these issues at jwdivorce.com by consulting with attorneys and leveling the playing field as to what true JW practices are.  When this is accurately presented in court it becomes clear that a decision in the best interests of the child is to protect them from the practices of Jehovah’s Witnesses.  

What are those specifically? Non-members are described as “poisonous snakes” “demonized”, “mentally diseased”, “agents of Satan”, and in the April 2015 study edition of the Watchtower as needing to be “slapped”.  Yes, while it may be hard to stomach, members are told shunning is metaphorically slapping their non-member family to their senses to save their life.  To an outsider this would sound insane, but to members it is considered to be part of their conditional love given only to those who sell books for the jw.org companies. See the quote below as to how the explain slapping non-members is a good thing:

“Love and firmness are needed to produce the desired result. “Should the righteous one strike me, it would be an act of loyal love,” said the psalmist David, and “should he reprove me, it would be like oil on my head.” (Ps. 141:5) To illustrate: Imagine a hiker who succumbs to exhaustion on a cold winter day. He begins to suffer from hypothermia, and he feels drowsy. If he falls asleep in the snow, he will die. While
waiting for a rescue party, his companion occasionally slaps him in the face to keep him awake. The slap may sting, but it could well save his life. Similarly, David recognized that a righteous person might need to give him painful correction for his own good.”

“In many cases, disfellowshipping provides the discipline the erring one needs. After some ten years, Julian’ s son, mentioned at the outset, cleaned up his life, returned to the congregation, and now serves as an elder. “Being disfellowshipped brought me face-to-face with the consequences of my lifestyle,” he admits. “I needed that sort of discipline.”—Heb. 12:7-11.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe anyone who is not an active member is guilty of sinning against God and will face immediate destruction the moment Armageddon ensues at any second.  So when you reject their practices they are required to “slap” you by shunning as they are told it is a measure of tough love.  This is completely destructive to the normal emotional development of any child.  Even if the non-member parent decided to acquiesce and try to rejoin the group they are then required to attend meetings for one year or more while being shunned at each meeting.  How would you as a child feel to go with your parent to church, be required to sit in the back, and before and after the service no one speak to them.  The embarrassment and shame experienced is not healthy for any child to be a part of.  Note the picture from the April 2015 Watchtower study article in which a young woman highlighted in color is being shunned while other members associate with one another.  If she were a mother how would her children feel seeing this?

Protect your children and fight for their rights to live a normal life without being pressured to shun or be shunned by the destructive practices of this religion.  A slap is an insult and a way to humiliate someone.   Jehovah’s Witnesses have no love in their slaps to disfellowshipped ones. Their goal is to alienate, isolate, and prevent members from using critical thinking skills.

You may review the entire article at this link:
http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/