Leaving the Witness

4.5 stars

On my top 3 memoirs, with Alex and Me, and Walking with Peety, is now Leaving the Witness. What an emotional journey, what a roller-coaster, what a unique and unforgettable book.

Quotes from the book:

For the preacher, uncertainty can not exist. It is the preacher whose job it is to proclaim, to make known a thing that she knows without doubt. The preacher, unlike the teacher, asks no question of herself, as she already has the answers. There is no human so bold as the preacher, or so blind, for they do all the talking, and none of the asking.

I wanted to believe, had always wanted to believe, that the truth was simple. I was starting to understand that truth is ambiguous, and subjective.

I could not live with the idea that there were no answers, that everything was not going to be okay, that someone was not going to kill off the bad ones. I could not tolerate the idea that one day, I would die, like everyone else.

I have been taught by my faith that to stand out from the crowd was to be lacking humility, that display of any kind of intellect was proudful, and to pursue one's interests or talents was wrong, especially as a woman.

We as human seem to work the hardest to avoid our biggest gift: freedom of choice. We want to be told what to think, what to do, how to talk, what to believe, how to believe, how to help, how to write.

Read and reviewed: 2020-01-29

This is an absolutely stellar memoir. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about why I call Jehovah's Witnesses a cult. Essentially, this is is the publicly accessible version of “Crisis of Conscience” by Ray Franz; Franz did a great job but his book is (in my opinion) more oriented to former Witnesses. Scorah does a good job of briefly explaining why Jehovah's Witnesses do or do not do certain things, but “Leaving the Witness” is not heavy on the structural and theological analysis of Jehovah's Witnesses in the same way CoC was.

She's just sharing her experience as a Pioneer in China, and how over the course of a few years and with the help of an internet stranger she was gently nudged into realizing her circumstances. All it took was one “worldly” person with a kind heart to show her that the world was not as bad as it seems. Speaking for myself personally, I know that if I didn't have associations with people outside of my congregation, I would still be there. I'd be a sad, lonely person, forcing myself deeper and deeper into the closet. Spoiler I might have ended up like Dale, the disfellowshipped Gay man in Scorah's congregation who hanged himself. Books like this are highly personal to me, and make me reflect on my own experiences as a former Jehovah's Witness.

I have a friend (or maybe had a friend is a better way of saying it) that I grew up with; our families went on little vacations together nearly every year, we were at their house for dinner almost once a week, they came to our apartment to swim in our pool on hot summer days. In fact, there was a brief period of time where I might have said him and his brother were my only friends. He got married almost two years ago, and my Mom and I weren't invited. My Mom is only inactive and I have never expressed my doubts to friends in the Hall; neither of us are disfellowshipped. A few months after their marriage, my Mom was in town and wanted to surprise them at their house. I managed to pull my friend to the side and finally five years after starting this journey I came out to him. It was like I was 16 again: I lost the words, there was a big lump in my throat, and I feared this vengeful God. My friend looked so sad and so confused when I told him. When we said goodbye, he (surprisingly) gave me a hug, but I think it truly was a goodbye hug. I don't know when or if I'll see this friend again. I hope that one day we can reminisce about the times we pretended to be spaceship captains in his backyard, or that one time we terrified a couple walking their dog down the street by hiding a walkie-talkie in the shrubs, and making it screech when they passed by. But perhaps most of all, I hope that one day we can share with one another how we realized we had to exit this religion and find a new life.