IN JUNE 2005, I WROTE A LETTER TO THE GOVERNING BODY OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES. At the time, I viewed myself as an “anointed” Christian and, according to the official teaching of the Watch Tower, I believed I was one of the “faithful and discreet slave”. As such, I felt an obligation to write to the governing body regarding what they referred to as “the first resurrection”—the resurrection of dead anointed Christians, which they claimed began in 1918.
This is the letter I wrote to them:
I received the following reply from the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Writing Department) on July 27, 2005:
In addition to this letter, they also sent me the following photocopies from various Bibles and commentaries:
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Walter Bauer)
The New Jerusalem Bible
Revised Standard Version
New International Version
Despite these attempts to justify their interpretation of Scripture, I never accepted their reply as being true. Ultimately it became the basis of a charge of “apostasy” against me and I was disfellowshipped in February 2006. Even after I was reinstated in 2009, I stuck to my original understanding. I just kept my mouth shut in order not to be disfellowshipped again!
Now that I am disfellowshipped again, I feel I am able to share this information openly without fear of being punished. The Watch Tower Society, the governing body, and the elders now have no authority over me and I reject their interpretation of these scriptures entirely.