06.20.07 by Chris Stevenson

It stands to reason that some religions have loose ends to tie up or they will eventually become their own apocalypse. Be judgmental all you want to, just bring your own skeletons.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society-as quietly as they could-just paid out their largest suit settlement ever. Of course this is the headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witness faith. The JWs are not accustomed to doing this. Historically they are heaping hot coals on others religions for their wicked ways. Over the past few years a stark revelation has been unfolding about the various elders within some of their congregations and an even more disturbing truth about what they call their Governing Body. Cynthia Williams of Ch-4 News in West Nashville, TN reported that settlements were reached in more than a dozen (16) cases. “Settlements with a gag order attached?” Actually the award is going to 16 victims involving 9 cases, but you get the idea.

Silentlambs, http://www.silentlambs.org/ a support group made up of JW abuse victims and founded by a former prominent elder named Bill Bowen parked themselves in front of a local Nashville Kingdom Hall where the Witnesses are known to worship in order to protest and at the same time let any possible victims know they are there for them. According to Williams the settlement is bittersweet because they still keep the identity of the JW sexual predators secret “while re-victimizing the victim.” They don’t encourage victims to call police, opting to handle these criminal matters internally. It’s not that the Witnesses don’t believe in contacting the police when needed, they are urged to follow the biblical standard of having respect for “higher authorities.” In matters where a member’s home was burglarized it is a foregone conclusion that the police department was called. In matters where a female member or a child is victimized by a non-Witness she is expected to summon law enforcement. It is when one of the congregation’s men (especially one who holds office) is accused of this sexually deviant crime that common sense begins to take a complete vacation. This is where the tables turn on the victims.  (look at some of the cases here)

What I have found over the past few years is, it’s not a case of if the local Elders are unwilling to work it out with the family then you can rely on their headquarters to supercede them. It’s the Watchtower that’s the problem. It has been discovered and exposed by electronic media shows that a database of tens of thousands of cases of child molestation is kept in their New York offices, all unreported to the police. That any man can know that kids in his program are suffering like that and have no interest in solving the problem is a perversion all to itself. I previously named it RSM; religiously sanctioned molestation and yes there outta be a law.

JW Elders and leaders require no training in criminal law or medical practice As it is the 16 victims involved in the 9 cases are estimated to have collectively won over a hundred million dollars (another source has them winning up to perhaps a million dollars each. Jehovah's Witness Elders are not trained or educated in crimefighting; they are in fact among the least educated religious leaders there are. But they chose to excercise total authority on the most serious crime on the planet and insist on complete complicity, Uhh Uhh, Not! What we have here is a strange mix of self-inflicted mis-education and arrogance that could eventually make the Watchtower Society hang themselves if this keeps up, but they seem happy that these cases didn’t make major news.

Though usually condemnatory of outside news and entertainment publications, the Watchtower has been known to play ball with the evil worldly press if they see an advantage in it. At this time the advantage is distraction, damage control, and the use of a BBC journalist to do a feel-good film and USA Today article on them.

This tells me how desperate the JW office is for credibility from the world, and how powerful their connections are with much of the major press to keep their most negative issues out of the forefront. An essay regarding a personal account by a man whose mother took him door-to-door in the Jehovah’s Witness ministry when he was just a child ran in place of the JW California molestation decisions. It was a strategic time to remind readers of their Supreme Court won/loss record (50 of 62 since the 1930s according to the BBC journalist although a former Watchtower researcher has them winning only 47 out of 138 SC cases between 1919-1988) and the role they played in freedom of speech, freedom of worship, the Amendments, the Bill of Rights and according to the man who wrote the piece Joel P. Engardio; the Civil Rights Movement.

Mr Engardio is an interesting find for the Watchtower; he is the writer and narrator of a pro-Witness documentary called "KNOCKING" that aired on PBS. Engardio-whose mom is still an active Witness- seems to have had good access and relations with the Watchtower suits for years, this despite never having been baptized, going to college and becoming gay; all well-known JW no-no’s. Hmmm, somebody isn’t Awake! Since the Watchtower fought for decades to advance free speech, then isn’t silencing the victimized kids and their families an assault on that very freedom?