About three years ago, and perhaps before Prince converted to being a Jehovah's Witness adherent, there was a rumor swirling that Terrence Howard is a Jehovah's Witness. The fact is, like many African-Americans or multi-racial ethnics within that community, he had exposure to the JW tenets as a young adult. His parents were not JWs. It is possible that his estranged wife is a JW, because she apparently raises the children as such, despite having Jewish ancestry or conversion to Judaism. Here is the actual NPR interview for the "Independent Lens" series that ran on PBS a few years back and included the documentary "Knocking" [circa May 26, 2007]: (Warning: the comments are ad nauseum.)
When I think about who JWs primarily convince to convert to JWs, it is usually individuals who believe they never got an answer to their questions from church authority figures. And, typically, those questions were peeking under the hood of established tenets, or probing at the very fundamentals of religion- the cycle of life, birth, growth, marriage, illness, death.
If we roll into JWs, any JW can form the same questions regardless of knowing "What happens when we die"? There's an answer on both sides of the altar- one says ascendance to Heaven, the other says, an indefinite "slumber". Still, knowing these answers doesn't get to the nitty-gritty of the matter, that it takes a tiny seed of faith to accept either. And, basically, it becomes a matter of who's "story-telling" is more convincing and believable with a minimum of supernatural intervention.
My name is Sharon McDaniel Kennedy. I am (as of 1999) 57 years old. I was raised, for most of my life, as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. My story is about an awakening to truth, and a realization that the things that I held precious for 47 years were not what I thought they were. I will begin at the beginning:
My mother was the youngest of three children, born to a warm loving family, with wonderful nurturing parents. My grandfather was the eldest son of early homesteaders in Washington State, his mother being half-Indian, from Wisconsin. He had been raised as a Quaker, his family’s heritage for 200 years; but in his young manhood, he became interested in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, and turned to Christian Science teachings.
Very recently, in its April 2nd letter to all congregations, the Society announced that it would be revising its approach to the internet - namely by amalgamating its three websites into just one (jw.org), which would be revamped with a focus on presenting JW beliefs in a more appealing light. I have already explained on this website why I think this strategy is both fruitless and counterproductive. By encouraging interested ones (who have no prior indoctrination to ignore "apostate" material) to turn to the internet for their information, they run the huge risk that such ones will roam further than the Society's official pages, and gather information instead from any one of the hundreds of web pages that present JW beliefs and practices in a less than flattering light - including neutral sites such as Wikipedia. It's like sending your kids into a toyshop and telling them not to touch anything - it ain't gonna happen!
Hassan sat down and had a most wonderful conversation with Robert Jay Lifton, M.D. on the occasion the publication of his memoir entitled, Witness to an Extreme Century.
Every year on the second Sunday in May, North America celebrates Mother’s Day; an opportunity to give thanks to our mothers for all they have done for us. I enjoy the holiday like most mothers. I wasn’t a perfect mother and I certainly made a lot of mistakes along the way. But it is nice to know they think of me.
But there are groups of people who are left on the sidelines of the celebration. The shunning policy of Jehovah’s Witnesses has forced many of us to lose out children or our mothers. It is certainly a time I will not call my own mother because she shuns me. I usually have something to say to the group who have lost mothers or children because of this.
Richard E. Kelly’s latest book, The Ghosts from Mama’s Club, has just been released. Copies are available at Amazon.com in popular paperback (208 pages; $16.95) and as a Kindle downloadable e-book ($9.95).
Kelly promised a sequel to his 2008 autobiography, Growing Up in Mama’s Club, a vivid description of his sixteen childhood years as a reluctant Jehovah’s Witness. Ghosts covers forty-eight years of his adult life, starting with his last few weeks in Brooklyn, New York, as a Bethel volunteer.
About three years ago, and perhaps before Prince converted to being a Jehovah's Witness adherent, there was a rumor swirling that Terrence Howard is a Jehovah's Witness. The fact is, like many African-Americans or multi-racial ethnics within that community, he had exposure to the JW tenets as a young adult. His parents were not JWs. It is possible that his estranged wife is a JW, because she apparently raises the children as such, despite having Jewish ancestry or conversion to Judaism. Here is the actual NPR interview for the "Independent Lens" series that ran on PBS a few years back and included the documentary "Knocking" [circa May 26, 2007]: (Warning: the comments are ad nauseum.)
