CJ's Story

 This is the story of a very courageous woman named Cynthia J. Maurer. I met "C.J." as the result of Lee Elder of AJWRB referring her to me as she needed friends and support. She had been suffering with ovarian cancer and had just disassociated herself from the Watchtower Organization during 2001. C.J. became a born again Christian and had accepted Jesus Christ as her true Savior.

I first contacted C.J. around January, 2002 and began to correspond with her by emails. Her first email to me had the subject header, "From another Cynthia". I bonded with her right away, as my name is also Cynthia, but C.J. always went by her nickname of "C.J." and preferred to be called by her nickname.

CJ was a JW for more than 25 years and faithful in every way. She was always a "sister in good standing". Her first husband committed suicide in the 1970’s after being disfellowshipped for smoking. Originally from Indiana, she had been living in Tucson, Arizona the same town where I grew up. She had two young children left at home, a son, Derrick, 13 years old and a granddaughter, Jamie who was 10. She also had two daughters in their 20’s, Rebekah and Lily.

Jesus Christ, Who is He?

reprinted from the book, Refuting Jehovah's Witnesses 

By Randall Watters

Biblical Overview

SON OF GOD
Jesus was often called "the Son of God," and made allusions to this title himself on occasion. The apostle Paul speaks of him as the Son of God who emptied himself of His glory and took upon Himself a human body along with its limitations in order to accomplish the salvation of man. Philippians 2:68 tells us about this surpassing and unfathomable love:
Although He existed in the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Bible scholars tell us that this expression "Son of God" conveys Christ's inherent Deity, especially in view of the Pharisees' reaction to it (John 10:31-36; 19:7). However, did the apostles recognize him as "God in the flesh" (as modern scholars refer to him)?

Sin and Salvation, Law and Freedom

by Randall Watters

(Note: This article originally appeared in a book called Refuting Jehovah's Witnesses. The book was published in 1985.

Biblical Overview

The word sin comes from the Greek hamartia, which means "to miss the mark," just as an archer would shoot an arrow that could never quite make it to the target. Likewise, the target that we are supposed to be reaching is moral perfection and close communion with God. To sin is to fall short of this target. Fornication, sensuality, idolatry, strife, drunkenness, etc. are some of the sins that we can become victims of, according to Galatians 5:19-21. The apostle Paul says that practicing such things will keep us out of the kingdom of God. But exactly why are these actions called sins?
For one thing, they are harmful to the welfare and spirituality of others. Even more importantly, they alienate us from God, and cause us to fall short of moral perfection. Could we say that jealousy and anger are "lesser" sins than lust? Both involve sins against another person, and could have an equally devastating effect. Both alienate us from God. Both are sins. Both carry the same penalty of death (Romans 6:23).

My Experience on the Leah Remini "Aftermath" Special on Jehovah's Witnesses

I was very happy about being asked to be on Leah Remini’s “Aftermath” special on Jehovah’s Witnesses. For months, I had heard that Leah Remini was going to do a special on the JWs, but I didn't know any details. Last year I had been on the  Dr. Phil Show, but when it came time for me to finally speak, it was maybe all of 15 to 30 seconds.

I had no idea when Leah Remini was going to do this show. Then I got a call from someone else who had been asked to be on the show but she declined (she was getting married that weekend) and she asked if I was interested. So I said "yes" and we were off to the races. I was interviewed by a couple of their producers and they decided I was a good fit for the program. They wanted the "women's issues" perspective on the program.

Reconnecting after 36 years

In this month of May 2018, it has been exactly 36 years since I decided to visit a church after leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The more I think about it, the more I know that God had me go to the right church at the right time.

In my testimony, I always mention a lady named Mary K who had left the Jehovah’s Witnesses herself whom God truly used to open my eyes to the false teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I already knew, I did not like their doctrines, their views on women, or their views on marriage resulting in spousal abuse.

I have given my testimony many times and always mention how I met Mary at church, recognized her as an Ex JW and was so happy to meet her. She took me under her wing and showed me exactly what was wrong with the Watchtower. I think what nailed it for me was when she produced the April 1, 1979 Watchtower from the “Questions from Readers” where a person wrote in and asked if Jesus was the mediator for all Christians or not. The answer given by the Watchtower was a firm “no” because, as they explained, Jesus was only mediator for the “anointed” Jehovah’s Witnesses, or those who claimed to be part of the 144,000 “heavenly class.”

When Spousal Abuse Happens in the Church

If you have read my testimony, you already know that one reason I left the Jehovah’s Witnesses (AKA “The Watchtower”) was because they turned a blind eye to the fact that my former husband was physically abusing me. I was told that I needed to be “in subjection” to my husband and to stop nagging him so much. I was the victim of his violence, but the elders were blaming me for not being a good and submissive wife. There was a point in our marriage when he left me for a time, but I was told that I had to wait for him to come back and I was not allowed to initiate divorce. It didn’t matter to them how much he was physically violent against me. I lived in fear of him, constantly. When I would hear him come home after work, I would cringe because I knew what that mean most of the time. There was a lot of yelling and screaming at me. Terrible accusations and craziness mentally brought me down. If I said something he didn’t like, he would just slap me across the face. I felt so stuck and a prisoner of this horrible mistake of a marriage I had.

Well that was long ago now, but even though it has been 42 years since I was finally able to escape from him, the scars of what he did remain. I feel like I need to be an advocate and a voice for other women who suffer at the hands of abusive men. I also speak out against ANYONE who ever advises a woman stay with an abusive husband.

No Longer a Spirit of Fear

On Friday, our family said goodbye to my nearly 95 year old (non-JW) Aunt Josie. She would have been 95 today. She was a sweet woman, but she didn’t want to have anything to do with studying with JWs and least of all, becoming a JW. Yet she remained loving and cordial to family members who joined the JWs and still loved them no matter what. She was a godmother to one of my cousins who became JW as a teen and she still treated my cousin as her goddaughter and was always very loving and kind to her. So at the funeral on Friday, there were four (4) JWs who came to her funeral. That one cousin who had been the goddaughter was there with her husband, and another one of my cousins who brought his adult son.

Coming Out of the Watchtower: Why Is It So Difficult?

Reprint from Jul/Aug 1991 Bethel Ministries Newsletter (used with permission)

By Randall Watters

"Why can't you just walk away from that religion and never go back? They don't have any hold on you!"

Have you ever said that to a person struggling with leaving a cult or manipulative church? If so, you were no doubt unawares of the degree of emotional and psychological control that cults have over their members. Why is it so hard for them to leave, even when they know that something is seriously wrong with the religion? And, once they leave, why is it so hard to be "normal" and go to church like anyone else?

Finding Jesus: Leaving the Watchtower and other False Practices Behind

Before my family joined the Watchtower Organization in around 1971-1972, my family was Roman Catholic. But we were not really good practicing Catholics. My family, especially my father’s side of the family was heavily involved in astrology beliefs and the occult. My father and my grandfather seemed to love the false prophecies of Edgar Cayce. We had books on meditation and visualization in our house. I read all these books. I used to go over to my aunt and uncle’s house and my cousin taught me how to use a Ouija board when I was 9 years old. I got my own spirit board and used a pendulum to talk to spirits. I got books on witchcraft and learned how to read Tarot cards. I was heavily into these practices by the time my mother began to study with Jehovah’s Witnesses.

When I had heard about the apocalyptic teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watchtower, I thought much of it sounded very much like what I had learned from Edgar Cayce’s writings. So prophecy was what interested me because it sounded so much like what I had already believed. There was only one problem: I really enjoyed my belief in astrology and occultic practices. The Watchtower does not allow their members to practice such things as they rightfully say that these things are of satanic origin. I never gave up my desire to read my horoscope and my desire to practice visualization even though I was joining the Watchtower organization who forbids such practices.

How My Father Rejected Jehovah’s Witnesses and Found Jesus Christ

This blog is dedicated to my father, Eugene Velasco who would have been 84 on September 25, 2016.

In 1972, after several years of studying Watchtower materials, my mother was baptized into the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, calling herself one of “Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Mom thought she found “the truth” and was very excited about joining. She had left the Roman Catholic Church, deciding that they were “pagan” because they taught the Trinity. Every church who taught the doctrine of the Trinity was pagan according to the Watchtower. In order to be truly serving God you had to give up all that was considered “pagan”, including celebrating anyone’s birthday.
My father did not embrace the Watchtower teachings when my mother joined the Watchtower. He continued to love her in spite of my mother’s “new love” in her life. Many times when one spouse joins the Watchtower, it feels like the spouse is having an affair with someone else. My mother was just “in love” with this new religion and it just consumed her life. My father however, fell into alcohol addiction, drowning his sorrows that way. Sometimes it seemed like such a vicious cycle. The more my mother dedicated herself to the Watchtower organization, the more unhappy my father was and the more he drank alcohol.

Everything I Know about Football and Cookies, I Learned from my Brother

Every time I watch NFL football on TV, I think about my younger brother. It was my brother who got me started watching football games with him and he was the one who taught me all about the various teams. He had an electric football game that he had received for a gift as a birthday or Christmas gift before our family joined the Watchtower. He used to quiz me and had me learn the names of each team and what city they were affiliated with. He also trained me what the various referee signs meant during the game. By the time I got to high school and played in the band at our high school football games, I knew all about the game. I was very proud to be one of the only girls who actually KNEW what was going on during the game. No one had to really explain much to me because my little brother had taught me so well. He was also (and I believe still is) a San Francisco 49ers fan; I remember very clearly a poster of quarterback John Brodie in his room.

Another thing my brother did for me was to get me started making chocolate chip cookies. Our mother was a fabulous baker. She could bake breads, cinnamon rolls, cakes, and pies. She was great at all of that, except cookies. My mother could never master cookies. Her cookies came out like rocks. I don't know why they did, perhaps she overbaked them or over mixed the dough. 

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!