Women Equipping Women

(Unfortunately, the links below have been taken down and no longer work. I will try to upload a copy of my PowerPoint presentation that I did.)

Recently, I was honored to be part of an online apologetics conference put on entirely by women! My part in the conference was to talk about Jehovah's Witnesses, or rather, "Refuting Jehovah's Witnesses with Love."

Cynthia Hampton: Refuting JWs with Love

So go ahead and click on the link and listen to my presentation. It will take you to a page where you will see a PowerPoint presentation. There was a little technical difficulty in the beginning, but I just went ahead and spoke and someone else ironed out the wrinkles. Eventually everything was worked out. I think the entire talk was about 50 minutes.

If you are interested in hearing any of the other speakers, the archives are available for purchase for $16 for the entire conference. You will hear great speakers such as Nancy Pearcey from Houston Baptist University, author of Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning. Mary Jo Sharp, founder of Confident Christianity and also from Houston Baptist University spoke on "The Women in Islam."

The link to purchase the entire series for $16 is at:

Online Apologetics Conference 2014

Remembering Tony

This blog is dedicated to my cousin Raymond Anthony "Tony" Burns who passed away on July 11, 2014 at the age of 53.

Being a few years older than Tony, I actually remember when he was born. I remember him being around eight months old and crawling around on the floor. Although his first name was Raymond, no one ever called him that except his mother, who was my Aunt Lucy. It seems that my Aunt Belen who was her older sister decided she wanted to call him Tony. And so the name Tony stuck. My younger sister Jeanette would occasionally hear our Aunt Lucy calling "Raymond" whenever he was in trouble. And Jeanette always wondered, "Who is Raymond and why is she calling him?"

My father used to call Tony "Antoine", by the French version of Anthony.

Christianity Created to “Control” People?

On my Facebook page recently, I had posted a video about the high control practices found in the Watchtower Organization. The video showed how the person trying to do the outreach to Jehovah's Witnesses was totally ignored as though he were not there. The host kept asking various Jehovah's Witnesses if they have "the truth" and they just refused to answer and did not acknowledge his presence. He was "invisible" to all the JWs who were there to attend their convention at the Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Many of us former Jehovah's Witnesses know very well the shunning practices used by the Watchtower to control their people from talking to any of us who have the organization. The video can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eln4CzqcUl4&feature=youtu.be

Although some sects of Christianity can be considered very high control, in my experience all the denominations (six major evangelical denominations) that I have been associated with in the past 32 years do not practice high control procedures.

Watchtower Ladies at my Door

Every now and then Jehovah's Witnesses show up at my door. Sometimes it can be years between their visits and other times only the Spanish speaking ones come to my door asking if anyone in the home speaks Spanish. I usually kid around and tell them I speak "Spanglish," does that count?
Recently I had a day off from work so I didn't get around to taking my shower and getting ready for the day till mid-morning. I was nearly all dressed up when I heard the doorbell. As I was still up in my bedroom finishing dressing, I went to my intercom to find out who it was.
Me: "Who's there?"
Female Voice: "We're Jehovah's Witnesses and we just wanted to talk about the Bible with you."
Me: "Hold on a minute, I'll be right down."
Female Voice: "Ok."
I went downstairs to my living room and opened the front door and said to the two ladies standing there, "Come on in. I don't like to stand here with the door open because I don't want my cats going outside." So they both came in and I invited them to sit down.

Dealing with Shunning

Shunning is a technique that the Watchtower uses not only to control their current members, but their former members as well. The Watchtower uses very effective methods of teaching their followers that former members (also called apostates, especially if the former member has joined a Christian church) are persons to be avoided and feared. When a Jehovah’s Witness is disfellowshipped, disassociated, or just walks away from the organization, he or she will be shunned. Family and friends are not only encouraged to shun the former member, but they are required to take steps to no speak to the former member and not even say hello to the person. The Watchtower teaches their members to practice rudeness to their former members. As someone who has experienced shunning very recently, here are some examples from my own family: While visiting a non-JW cousin in the hospital, the older brother of the non JW took it upon himself to turn his head the other way if I were nearby. If I said, “hello”, he just ignored me as though he did not hear me.

How to Recover from Leaving the Watchtower

There are four main ways that people leave the Watchtower organization. They are the “fade aways”, the “disfellowshipped”, those who leave because they are “burned out”, and those who leave because they have stumbled upon false doctrines that the Watchtower teaches.

The Truth about Birthday Celebrations

A couple weeks ago, an assistant producer from the Nickelodeon kid’s show “NickMom”, contacted me via e-mail. She was working on the premise of covering how different people in differing religious cultures celebrate birthdays. In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are known for not celebrating, she was interested in meeting families who had come out of the Watchtower but now celebrate birthdays. In reflecting on my own experience coming out of the Watchtower and not celebrating, I had begun to think about how I felt not celebrating my birthday and not celebrating my firstborn son’s birthday for the first three years of his life.

A Relationship with God or an Organization?

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that their organization is the only religious organization on earth that teaches “the truth.” They believe they have the “truth and nothing but the truth.” Truth as they see it can only be found in the pages of the Watchtower publications. In their eyes, no other religious organization has truth.

Witnesses at My Door

By Cynthia Hampton

(Originally written January 20, 2007 Christian ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses Yahoo Group)

I had not seen Jehovah's Witnesses in my neighborhood for the longest time.  Usually what I see are the ones from the Spanish speaking Kingdom Halls and they come to my door and just ask if I speak Spanish, which I really can't carry on a very good conversation in.  So they always go away, since their first language is Spanish, and mine is English.  So needless to say, I was quite surprised to get a knock on my door today and find some English speaking JWs!

Coping with False Prophecy

(I wrote this in January 2012 and it was published at ex-jw.com originally.)

For several years I have been honored to coordinate and moderate a Jehovah’s Witness support group based in Los Angeles and San Jose, California. Our group stays in touch by using the Yahoo!Groups email system and through our ExJWsLosAngeles.org website.

I recently received the following question from a non-member of the group submitted on an automated email form located on the Contact Us page of our website:

“How does one cope with the new information that Armageddon will not come in our lifetime using the information from scripture, ‘This generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur…’? My generation? Or [the generation of] those who saw the beginning of signs that Jesus gave us to watch for that will mark the end of this system? My hope is gone from my heart. I miss my God, but I am no longer sure he is there. How does one cope with that? Thanks for reading.”

Whether or not to Celebrate Christmas

One day before the Christmas Day Holiday, I received an email from a former Jehovah's Witness that said:

"I know it is not the day Jesus was born. Fact. I know that it is a pagan holiday. Fact.
This year the Lord showed me Jeremiah 10. He was instructing Israel not to pick up the heathen ways. They were cutting down trees in the forest and decorating them.  This was before Jesus's birth.
God does not change. He is the same yesterday today and forever. Because of this man has changed and said it is ok.  We just will say it is the day that the Savior was born.  In fact we lie when we do this.
In the chapter right before this in Jeremiah He told Zion that they would suffer wormwood.  To close to the tribulation in Revelations for me.
Beside this fact I notice that Mystery Babylon aka "the world was drinking the blood of the Saints and the martyrs of Christ."  I ask myself why I understand the martyrs' blood but why had she killed the born again believers as well. Do we have a valid reason as a born again believer to celebrate Dec 25 as the birth of Christ?"