Why I was never baptized

Why I was never baptized...

by Zipper

I was raised a witness. My father is and has been an elder on an off my entire life. My mother is supposedly one of the anointed. I have not been to a meeting in 12 years.

My parents became witnesses in Arizona in 1970. My dad did construction work and my mom stayed at home. My dad was 18 and my mom was 15 when I was born. They became active publishers in AZ and continue to do so today, my mom is a pioneer and my dad is an elder, still. I have 3 brothers and 1 sister. My sister is baptized an so is my oldest brother, but he isn't doing all that good I don't think. I never got baptized, because at an early age, I didn't believe what I was being taught.

Like most witness kids I was taught how to go from door to door and was very good at placing magazines and books. Before I could even read I had the main witnesses scriptures memorized and could defend what I had been taught against most adults.

In book studies and at the watchtower studies, not only did I know the right answer, but I never had to underline it to be able to answer it. I could answer it in my own words based on what I had been taught. The pioneers loved taking me out in service and on book studies with them.

When I started school, I did the right JW thing and didn't participate in the pledge, holidays, or sports. I had a best friend in school who was "worldly" and him and I both got very good grades. This lasted until the 3rd grade when a teacher mentioned that it seemed like we where in competition with each other. Competition is not a good thing according to the society, so I was put into a different school. I continued to make excellent grades and was even invited to attend a summer camp sponsored by IBM, but since my mind was going to be on theocratic things forever (hopefully even going to bethel) I was not allowed to go.

I was a full time publisher when I was 5 or 6 and I joined the ministerial school when I was 8 years old. However, due to the fact that witness kids have no social skills to speak of, the only people in the congregation that I spent time with were older kids in the congregation. A lot of these kids were smoking pot and everyone in the congregation drank a lot, including my parents. The first time I ever got drunk was after a book study. A few family had a get together that evening after the study and they where all drinking. With full permission from my parent and a couple of the other youngster parents, us kids began drinking. Needless to say, we all got very sick. I started hanging out with the older kids in the congregation and pot smoking was very common. Also, there was a lot of sex between the kids in the congregation, among the adults for that matter. People where constantly getting disfellowship, disassociated and reproved for all these things.

At age 12, my dad, for some unknown reason, moved our whole family to another state. Meeting attendance was still good at that time, but they wouldn't let me dad be an elder where we moved too. I still don't know why. We didn't stay there long and returned to where we had come from. My dad was a ministerial servant and was conducting the Tuesday book study. I remember one night on the way to the book study, we had to pull the car over on the side of the road so he could puke. I remember him being drunk, but my mother says he had the flu. Well, we didn't stay put there for long, we moved again. This time meeting attendance was way down, actually, non-existent. I kept corresponding with a girl in the congregation I had grown up in though.

When we finally moved back to our original congregation, the elders where by all the time talking to my dad. The girl and I started to date secretly and had decided to get married. I was already pretty deep into drugs and she was on her way, so we thought the best course of action we could take would be to talk to the elders about what problems we where having and about us wanting to get married. Neither one of us were baptized, thankfully.

I went into my elders meeting fully expecting to get some support and possibly even be told how proud they were of me for coming forward asking for help. I was way wrong. I was asked lots of questions about all the kids in the congregation. I told them everything because I thought it was the right thing to do. Well, there were about 8 more elders meetings with me after that, and one by one, different elders ask to be excused from the proceedings due to the fact that their children were being brought into it. Well, it ended up with just me and 2 elders in the final meeting. One of them got up and waved his fist in my face and called me lots of names. The other one tried to calm him down and at the same time tell me how I was evil. (Later on, the elder who waved his fist in my face ran off with the wife of a man he was studying with, the wife being about 30 years younger than him, and the other elder stepped down due to the fact that his pioneer daughter had been having gang bangs with most of the congregation.)

I was publicly reproved, and that is the last time I went to a meeting. I have been to the kingdom hall three times since then, once for my sisters wedding and twice to the memorial. I ended up marrying the girl, but my drug use and alcoholism ended that violently.

I am on good terms with my parent. I don't have anything for or against the witnesses themselves, but I think the organization is one of the most corrupt I have ever seen. Before I didn't understand why people would leave, but the more I saw, the more I understood. I have a good life today, I don't drink or use drugs. I have a wonderful wife and I couldn't be happier. I am still very confused about God. I prefer the head in the sand approach to it all today.