Jehovah's Witnesses & GC

Welcome to De-Commissioned, a place for former members of the Great Commission movement (aka GCM, GCC, GCAC, GCI, the Blitz) to discuss problems they've experienced in the association's practices and theology.

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[G_Prince]

So I’ve been reading about Jehovah’s Witness and there seems to be a lot of similarities between them and GCM. Obviously there are some huge doctrinal discrepencies, but being as doctrine is not highly important to either movement, I would say the similiarities outweigh the differences.

Both movements are elder-led and have power confined to elites. Both are extremely evengelical and ethnocentric. Both use fear mongering and other disreputable tactics to keep members and aquire new ones.

Frankly, reading criticism of Jahoveh’s Witnesses felt like I was reviewing the Blitz papers….anyone else have this feeling?

[matt]

I think you missed something in your reading about Jehovah’s Witnesses. What makes you think JW’s are ethnocentric? How is ‘power confined to elites’? Fear mongering? Oh right you were reading stuff that ex members who are disgruntled over being kicked out…. wait a minute I thought they used disreputable tactics to keep people in….so why would they kick people out?



If you really want to know about something, go to the source.

[Adam Hirschhorn]

Funny, when I was getting involved with GC I knew a girl who was in an abusive JW home. They were black. I’ve know other JW’s who were pretty scared about the end of the world. And finally, when my mother was dying, there was a JW who had her attention and kept bringing their tracts by the house. Prince is a JW, and even bolder about his ethnicity than before.



So as much as the other things seem to fit, I don’t think the ethnocentrism applies. Groups who use disreputable tactics to lure and keep members MUST have their share of castaways to maintain information control. That’s why slander is such a big deal. And as for going to the source, no–there are some operations where going to the source gets you the mushroom treatment. See also: post where I told about asking my discipler about the 1991 13-page apology from GC.

[Genevieve]

Matt,
I think what Gene means by ethnocentric is seeing the world as an us vs. them mentality similar to what GC has and also believing that everyone should be living as they do. But perhaps that was a hasty judgment. We’d just met with some very ethnocentric GC’ers so it was on our minds.

But I think GC and JW do have things in common (based on a colleague’s personal experience that he wrote about, another nonfiction book where JW was part of the story, and the answers.com cited below).

JW has an being elder-led structure (those elders being chosen by other elders like GC) and having the “core” people making decisions about what the church does, which is what he means by being led by an elite.

They excommunicate people (called disfellowshipping) like what GC did in the ’70s and ’80s.

JW’s stick together and build their social worlds around each other and the church like GC’ers do, which is one reason disfellowshipping is so traumatic.

They have an emphasis on proseiltyizing like GC.

They have a reputation for strict morality.

And, of course, like you mentioned, it has allegations of cultishness like GC.

Hence, the comparison.

We did read about Raymond Franz, a well-known critic, which is what reminded us of the Blitz papers.

Here are the links:
http://www.answers.com/topic/jehovah-s-witnesses
http://www.answers.com/topic/raymond-franz

No need to be so rude.

[MidnightRider]

Just for the record, JW’s believe that Christ is a created being, not the eternal Son of God. They reject the Trinity in favor of a Unitarian God.

[exshep]

I did know an ex-JW in the Columbus chapter of the now defunct Cult Awareness Network.  The Columbus chapter consisted heavily of evangelicals and members of christian based groups including GC.  I am surprised  I never asked him to draw parallels.  

If I used the more generic criteria of pyschological totalism of Robert Jay Lifton,  I might have  a convincing arguement:

Milieu Control -- The control of information and communication.
Mystical Manipulation -- The manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated.
Demand for Purity -- The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection.
Confession -- Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group.
Sacred Science -- The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute.
Loading the Language -- The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand.
Doctrine over person -- The member's personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.
Dispensing of existence -- The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not.

[steelgirl]

For many yrs JWs were against going to college to further education.  I went to hs with one JW girl who did quite well in school, was in Honors Society.  She did not go and pursue college. 

I understand this was an issue at times in GCM.  I noticed that a lot of children in the predominantly college church of first generation GCM did not have B.A. or were not persuing Bachelors. 

One individual who was older than me, and got involved in the 80s did not care much for school to begin with.  She took a yr or 2 of classes but did not graduate.  She did not understand why I got the liberal arts degree that I aquired before I started getting involved with this church.  She asked me why I got that degree.  At least I have a degree.  People don't get me totally anyway.  Quite a few of my fb friends are from the old church I left over 6 yrs.  On another note I have other fb interests that might get people to gain more insights into what makes me tick.  Including why I could not fit the mold or the expectations of GCM.