Open Letter to the GB from an Elder
I posted this open letter 76 days ago. Today, I am still an elder, but next week I won’t be anymore. My entire family will be dissociating (I will tell the full story soon).
And yet, my open letter is still remarkably up to date, even after the latest update.
So, here it is:
I know you read this forum. I know you member of GB read what you call apostate material. In fact, I would go even further: usually, only those who have already read it are able to say so confidently that no one else should.
Since you are reading this, let me ask you one sincere question:
Has your conscience truly been trained?
If it has, then you certainly remember Jesus’ words:
“Whoever stumbles one of these little ones who have faith in me, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)
If your conscience has truly been shaped by the teachings you proclaim, how do you live with the weight of the responsibility you carry? You teach that the greater the responsibility, the greater the accountability before God. So how do you bear the possibility that people have lost their faith, their families, their mental health, and, in some cases, even their lives as a result of decisions you have made?
If you truly believe in Jehovah the way you teach others to believe, that possibility should fill you with fear, not reassurance. You should be terrified by the possibility that there is blood on your hands.
There is another question that deeply troubles me.
At what point did you become so certain that you speak for God? At what point did you stop distinguishing between what the Scriptures actually say and what is merely institutional interpretation?
Does God truly require His servants to devote their time, money, resources, and conscience to building and expanding a legal corporation headquartered in the United States? Or have you stretched concepts like faith, loyalty, integrity, and righteousness until they became little more than obedience to the Organization?
There is a difference between representing God and occupying His place. To be honest, I really think both does not apply to you.
Some time ago, I made a simple observation that deeply disturbed me. I began replacing every occurrence of the words “Jehovah” or “God” in your publications with the word “Organization.”
The result was astonishing.
In many cases, not only did the meaning remain exactly the same, it actually made more sense. Phrases such as “please Jehovah,” “be loyal to Jehovah,” “obey Jehovah,” “wait on Jehovah,” and “trust in Jehovah” often described, in practice, submission to the Organization.
That made me wonder: are you aware of this substitution? Or has it become so natural that you no longer even notice it?
If, in practice, it is the Organization that occupies that place, why not be honest?
If a direction comes from the Governing Body, say it comes from the “”Governing”” Body. If an interpretation is institutional, say it is institutional. If a policy is yours, then acknowledge that it is yours.
But do not make God the guarantor of human decisions.
Because if God exists, invoking His name to give absolute authority to your own interpretations may be one of the gravest ways of taking His name in vain.
And so I leave you with one final question.
Do you truly believe in God?
Or have you come to live within a reality so delusional and illusory that you can no longer distinguish God from the Organization? Has your psychological and institutional world become so closed in upon itself that every criticism is automatically dismissed as one more lie from Satan, while every confirmation is taken as proof that God approves of you?
If so, then the Organization has ceased to be an instrument of God and has taken God’s place. It has become nothing more than another golden calf: a work of human hands demanding devotion, obedience, and sacrifice while claiming for itself the authority that belongs to God alone.
And perhaps that is the greatest danger of all.
Because when an institution speaks as God, interprets as God, commands as God, and expects to be obeyed as God, it no longer points people toward God.
It points them toward itself.