Book Excerpt - Please Read and Coomment

Chapter 2
So, as a married man I have now committed the horrible offense of adultery. My conscience is burning and my brain is aflame with trying to figure out how to avoid being disfellowshipped. The idea of being cut off from all of my friends and family was in my mind, a fate worse than death itself. However, the process that leads one to being disfellowshipped is actually much worse.
Elders in the congregation can come to have knowledge of serious wrongdoing in the congregation two different ways: The wrongdoer confesses or someone with knowledge of the wrongdoing reports it. If the wrongdoer himself reports it then a judicial committee of three elders is assigned to investigate. However, if the wrongdoing is reported by another, then two elders are assigned to investigate. If the two elders are able to substantiate the act of wrongdoing against the person, then a three elder judicial committee is formed.
Once the judicial committee is formed, what follows is more like an inquisition than a judicial proceeding. JW’s will tell you that the purpose of the judicial meeting is to help heal the spiritually sick condition of the person accused of the wrongdoing. But in 99% of the cases, the elders who preside over such cases of wrongdoing are not doctors, psychiatrists or mental health practitioners. The purpose of these judicial meetings with the wrongdoer is to get the person to admit their wrong and then administer counsel by reading a number of scriptures and trying to move the wrongdoer to some expression of remorse, commonly through an outburst of tears.
The very awareness that a judicial committee is being formed invokes fear. The idea of sitting in front of men that are likely NOT your peers and discussing the details of your sexual sin is mind numbing. The process to those who are not elders in the congregation is not transparent. For years there has always been rumored to be an ‘elders manual’ in existence that was used during these procedures to give the elders step by step instructions including a profile of what repentance should look like. The elders are told to use it in accompaniment with the scriptures, but I have seen it used many times in lieu of.
Anyhow the original judicial hearing is always opened with prayer to Jehovah. The idea being that the committee wants to get God’s spirit to be actively involved in the case so that the elders will be spirit directed and the one under inquisition will be compelled to tell the truth with all humility. After the prayer is concluded, you would think that the loving God you have come to respect, love and adore would be the one in charge of the proceedings and that his loving arms of protection would steer the discussion to safeguard your emotions and to protect your rights. However, nothing is further from the truth. The meetings begin more as a legal discovery, the same way you are questioned by a prosecuting attorney for a felony offense for which you might receive the death penalty.
I would rather face judge and jury for a serious crime than face this religious organizations judicial process. Unlike being in a court of law, you get no time to prepare, you get no legal representation, you get no discovery from those seeking to prosecute you, and you don’t get to call witnesses to speak in your favor or to validate your side of the story. You are left with your own thoughts, and your own defense strategy which is generally flawed because of the cloud of fear that hangs over your thinking. The elders come prepared because they have made an investigation partially or completely by interviewing those who have made the allegations against you.
Anyway, after the prayer is concluded and just like an attorney would do in an opening statement, the chairman of the committee begins by announcing the charges against you. In this particular situation, you are more likely guilty until proven innocent which makes the proceedings especially diffisect because you are immediately put on the defensive. Unlike the proceedings in a court of law, unless the accuser is a family member, their identity is protected. You really have no rights, there is no reading of the defendant’s rights before the ‘trial’ begins. Once the charges are announced, there are a series of scriptures that are read help the defendant realize that the point of this tribunal is to find the truth and assess the errant ones state of repentance. Once this procedure is out of the way, the questioning begins.
Most often, they will begin by asking you what happened. I recall this one instance during my committee meeting with the inquisitors where they were
trying to figure out my motives for having sex with this woman with whom I had committed adultery. Before I detail the conversation, let me give you a description of each of my tormentors. The first elder was actually fairly likeable although I am not sure why or how he got to be an elder. I heard that in his early days he was quite the womanizer. He wasn’t a bad looking fellow although he had this insanely thick looking mustache over a fairly thick set of lips. His thin lipped wife was probably scared of that or perhaps it reminded her of something else. Anyway, he reminded me of Billy Dee Williams except that he was two feet too short and a bit on the dumpy side. We’ll call him I Wanna Be Bill Dee or IWBBD for short. The second elder was fairly likeable fellow by many but for me it was for only one reason. He had this daughter that was just gorgeous beyond words. Whenever she was at the Kingdom Hall, the meetings automatically got less boring. In his defense though, he was smart, gave really interesting talks from the platform. I always learned something from him. He was very cerebral but a little awkward in social skills. Very fact oriented. He had this ridiculously thick mustache with no lips. Each time he spoke all you could do was focus on the mustache. Add to this the fact that he had hips. As a matter of fact he bore a striking resemblance to W.C. Fields. Have you ever seen a man with hips? We’ll call him W.C.Hips. The third elder never said much and listening to him was like watching invisible paint dry. His wife was the funny one however. Every time I saw her at the Kingdom Hall her hair looked like a birds nest. He was just a dork, so we will just call him Dork. The conversation went something like this:
W.C. Hips: We are here to discuss the charges against you, that being the act of adultery. Do you disagree with these charges?
Me: No
W.C. Hips: What do you think led to you committing adultery?
Me: I wanted to get me some.
W.C. Hips: Get some what?
Me: Blank stare
W.C. Hips: Were you drinking?
Me: No
W.C. Hips: Were you taking any drugs?
Me: No dude, she was hot, I didn’t need drugs or liquor to make me want some.
IWBBD: So, how did this happen?
Me: What do you mean?
IWBBD: How did you end up in this situation?
Me: What situation?
IWBBD: A situation where your morality was compromised.
Me: Oh, having sex?
IWBBD: Yes
IWBBD: Were you naked?
Me: Why do you ask?
IWBBD: We are getting to your state of mind
Me: Eventually
IWBBD: Who got undressed first?
Me: What difference does that make? (I wanted to say “your wife” but I resisted.)
W.C. Hips: Did you fondle her?
Me: Yes
W.C. Hips: Did she fondle you?
Me: Yes, yes…oh God…YES!
Dork: Said nothing
I don’t know who was getting turned on more by this conversation, me or them. At this point in the interrogation, I decided it was time to leave as I didn’t know if they were going to call my penis as a star witness.
Why did I subject myself to all of this? I was really hoping that they were going to offer me some therapeutic insight into my state of mind, but then they are not
therapists. My expectations of being treated with kindness and respect were quickly shattered when the questioning began.
If you have ever visited a therapist you will recall that their very first step is to set you at ease and to make you feel comfortable. Even the surroundings of their office are designed to set the patient at ease, to make them comfortable so that discussing painful events from their past won’t be so difficult. They will spend a significant amount of time getting to know your family history, your work, your love life, your personal life and future ambitions. This may take several meetings to accomplish. Therapists know how important it is to learn about a person’s history before they are able to gain some measurable insight into the reasons behind their actions. Therapists are well educated students of the mind and study behaviors in the very work that they perform, typically holding Masters Degrees and Ph.D.’s
After leaving the therapist, you probably walked away feeling refreshed and re-built, don’t expect the same from a JW led judicial hearing. The elders are not qualified therapists. The great majority are nothing more than high school graduates and very few have college degrees in any mental health field. Their main credential, they claim comes from the Bible itself. Since JW’s show disdain for most institutes of higher learning, it is highly unlikely that they have the necessary skillset to deal with the complexities of the human mind and the vast variety of human behaviors that exist in their congregations.
As a younger man, I spent some time with a therapist for some issues I was having related to my experiences with my father. On my very first visit, I was duly impressed by the number of degrees and the extent of my therapist’s education. She seemed uniquely qualified to help me with my problems and made no efforts to judge me for my past actions. There was no reason for me to ask about her qualifications, they were evident on the wall before me, and in the way she spoke with me. However, as I sat in the judicial meeting with these three elders, I began to wonder about their qualifications. Beyond their Bible knowledge and their years in the organization, what uniquely qualifies you to deal with the complexities of my mind and accompanying behaviors?