Dave and Heidi's current home where they still enjoy studying their Bibles—and it even has a front porch.
Colleen: Seven years ago we met the Murphys. A mutual acquaintance introduced us one day when the Murphys visited Trinity church, and we invited them home for our Former Adventist Fellowship Sunday lunch. We were not prepared for what we discovered.
Dave and Heidi were former Jehovah's Witnesses. We had never personally known any Jehovah's Witnesses (JW's), but of course we had learned that Witnesses were a cult. In fact, I was taught that although Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and Jehovah's Witnesses had organized during the years just preceding and just following the Millerite movement, only a few years before and after the Seventh-day Adventists organized, the Seventh-day Adventists were the only church with all the truth that emerged from that milieu of spiritual confusion.
Moreover, I understood that Jehovah's Witnesses had some early influence from the Adventists and that they borrowed a couple of key doctrines from us: soul sleep and Michael the Archangel being Jesus. (As it turns out, I had been wrong about the JW-SDA connection. JW founder Charles Taze Russell had connections with the Second Adventists that had been contemporary with both the SDA and the JW movements and shared similar beliefs.) Nevertheless, as an Adventist I learned that JW's were not Christian, while we were the only Christians who had all "the truth".
So, on that memorable Sunday in 2004, Richard and I were deeply surprised when the Murphys began telling their story. Our own journey out of Adventism was still relatively new, but we had already made one big discovery: Christians consider themselves brothers and sisters in Christ no matter what denomination they espouse. As an Adventist I had believed that every denomination was like Adventism, that each one believed they were the "closest to the truth" and felt other Christians ought to join their group if they wanted to be "right". Becoming part of the body of Christ, however, had revealed that the details between denominational understandings were not the issues that united or divided Christians. Rather, knowing Jesus and placing the gospel and God's word at the center of one's life is what united Christ-followers. Now, hearing the Murphys story, we realized that our Adventist experience was far more like their JW experience than it was like the Christianity we were now embracing.
We were startled to learn that as JWs they believed the same things about their organization that we believed about Adventism. They used the same words and had the same values and fears we had as Adventists. Moreover, their experience of leaving the JW's for the sake of Jesus was eerily similar to our experience of leaving Adventism.
This similarity between our stories has been so impacting that we've asked Heidi to share their faith story in this issue. To learn that the organization in which I grew up and which I loved shares so many similar characteristics with the JWs, which I always believed was an anti-Christian cult, has been both sobering and revealing.
The great news, however, is that Heidi and Dave are now truly our brother and sister in Jesus. No matter what our backgrounds, all of us are equal at the foot of the cross. In Jesus we are eternally united, and God is our Father!
Heidi: I was raised a Jehovah's Witness. In fact, I was a fifth generation JW. Everyone in the religion refers to it as "the truth". I never questioned whether it was or not—of course it was. I believed I was privileged to belong to the one and only true religion, restored Christianity, and to have the special knowledge only JWs had. I believed that everyone who was not a JW was part of "Babylon the Great" and that Jehovah God would destroy all of them at Armageddon—which I believed was imminent, "right around the corner". (Over the years the JW leaders had set specific dates when the end of the world would occur, but those dates came and went and were always reinterpreted—but never abandoned.) I believed that if I did everything required of me, I would live forever in paradise on earth.
At age 13 I knew that I wanted to serve God forever, so I was baptized. I took my JW life seriously and lived it out according to the way the Watchtower Society said a "true Christian" should live. I obeyed everything they said and avoided anything they said to avoid—holidays, birthdays, extra-curricular activities, college, and so forth. I did what was expected of me, going door-to-door, attending all the meetings, studying only JW literature, and dressing appropriately. I was a perfect little Witness girl.
Being a JW was everything to me. My entire identity was tied to this religion. My entire family were JWs; all of my friends were JWs. And of course, when I began to date, I only went out with other JWs. Eventually I met and married Dave. He had not been raised a JW, but he had been recruited into the group through a "free home Bible study" (a study of JW literature with Scriptural proof-texts to support their teachings). He had been searching for spiritual meaning in his life and was ripe for the picking. He was baptized as a JW in 1979. We were married in 1985, and we carried on with our lives as model JWs.
Disillusioned
After we married, we moved to Big Bear Lake, California, and began our life together. We attended the local Kingdom Hall, and eventually Dave became a "Ministerial Servant" (a position of honor in the congregation). Over the course of time we began to feel very disillusioned by the judgment, criticism, and general lack of love in the congregation, especially among the leadership. But we hung in there, believing Jehovah God would take care of things—we felt we just needed to have endurance. In 1988, our son Dustin was born, and we were raising him in "the truth" as well.
By the early 90s we were getting very tired of the lack of love in our congregation, so we set out to find it elsewhere in the U.S. Everywhere we looked our friends were having similar experiences—judgment, criticism, and lack of love. So in 1995, we thought we would leave the country and see if we could find that loving brotherhood we were always told we JWs had. We went to Fiji, but while there we found the same stories existed—judgment, criticism, and lack of love. We returned home so disillusioned we decided not to go back to the meetings at the local Kingdom Hall. We were so confused; we decided we just needed time to sort things out. We could not figure out why God's only true people did not have the love that Jesus said was an identifying mark of true Christians (Jo. 13:34-35). The nagging question was, "If they do not have this love, then are they truly his people?" We didn't doubt any of the doctrines of the religion, but we could not make sense out of this dilemma.
By now Dave was so disillusioned he began to doubt God Himself. He said, "If this is God's true religion and people, then I don't want anything to do with God." It was at this point that I told him it wasn't God who had let us down, but man. All of our issues were with people. I suggested we just stop dealing with people and start dealing directly with God—we should start reading the Bible and see what God wanted to say to us.
Now that was a radical concept because JWs do not read the Bible alone and let it speak to them alone. In fact, they are taught never to trust the Bible alone. They are also taught that all other translations of the Bible except their own New World Translation are altered and untrustworthy. Somehow, though, we decided that we needed a fresh outlook, so we decided not to read their translation but instead to read the other eight translations we had in our house.
We began to do just that, alternating translations daily. We also changed our usual approach. Instead of coming to the Bible with all of the answers, we asked God to speak to us and tell us what He wanted to tell us. We thought this method of study would strengthen our faith in the Watchtower Organization and that we would be able to return to the Kingdom Hall meetings stronger and with the endurance we needed to carry on.
Summer of Scripture
We studied this way all summer. When we got to the passage where Jesus tells us to ask for the Holy Spirit and we would receive Him (Lk. 11:13), we decided to take Him at his word. We prayed for God to fill us with the Holy Spirit. From that moment the blinders came off, and the Scriptures with which we had been so familiar took on new meaning. Instead of having our faith in the JW religion strengthened, God was showing us that we were in a false religion. It was shocking and hard to take. But as the Scriptures came alive, it was so exciting. The first thing we realized was that our religion was just like that of the Pharisees which Jesus condemned.
Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth, and that is exactly what happened. The truth of Scripture hit us squarely in the face. We spent the entire summer in 1995 sitting on our front porch glued to the Bible. In a matter of weeks, we knew we were in a false religion.
That revelation was so unexpected—and shocking. Now what would we do? This reality would mean never returning to our religion. All of our friends and family were JWs. How would we tell them what was happening? How could we share all of these truths we were learning with them? How would they react if we told them the truth?
At the same time, we were so excited and happy to have found the real truth—Jesus Christ. I fell in love with Him. Before I had only known about Him, but I did not know Him until now. It was so freeing. It was so thrilling!
But fear set in. What if I was deluding myself? I had always been told that if one left the JW religion, Satan would take over one's mind. I was afraid maybe he had taken over mine. When those paralyzing doubts would come, I would ask myself, "I am praying everyday to God to reveal Himself and to reveal truth to me—how could it be Satan that is answering me?" Jesus said that God would not give us a stone if we asked for bread, and all we had to do was ask for the Holy Spirit and He would give Him. That meant it couldn't be Satan answering my prayers.
Finally free
When we realized we had been in a false religion, Dave wanted to read as much as he could about the JW organization. I was terrified of reading any kind of anti-JW literature, and I was afraid of being led astray by some other group of people. Then I received the book Combating Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan. He described what it was like to be in a mind-control cult, and as I read the list of techniques used to control people's thinking, I realized they were describing my religion. I was confused, however, because the book identified such groups as cults.
I was in a cult? No way! Cults were full of wacky people who dressed funny or lived in communes. My religion was "normal"—or so I thought. But as I read, I realized that I was in a cult, and all cults use the same methodology regardless of their teachings. The doctrines may be different, but the mind-control methods were the same. This realization finally helped to free my mind of the power of these techniques that stopped my thinking processes. I was finally able to read other outside information. I didn't need to be afraid anymore, because I understood what a cult was. I would not fall victim to those techniques again. I was finally free!
I began to read. I read other people's experiences. So many were just like mine, and I broke down and cried. I wasn't alone in the way I had been feeling; there were others just like me. I read books that uncovered what went on inside the Organization, and I felt betrayed by my religion. I had trusted this group of men in New York who told me they were the ones imparting all of God's truths to me, that they were His chosen ones. I believed this teaching, and I believed that they would never do anything detrimental to any of the JW followers. Now I was finding out they had lied to us, and sometimes they knew it.
I couldn't get enough information. I needed to know what went on behind the scenes. I needed to know the truth about my former cultic religion, and I needed to understand other cults as well. Finally free to read, I studied and learned constantly.
Moment of truth
In October of 1996, the JWs found out we had attended another church in town. The elders came to our house and questioned us, asking if we still thought the JWs were the only true religion. It was our moment of truth. We had not been to the Kingdom Hall for over a year, and no one had visited us before that moment to "encourage" us to return. We had been ignored all that time. But here they were—and the axe was about to fall. We knew we had to tell them the truth, and we knew what the consequences would be—totally losing all of our friends and family connections because everyone would now have to shun us completely.
We also knew we had no choice. Jesus said, "If you deny me before men I will deny you before my Father" (Mt. 10:33). Once we knew the truth, we couldn't back away; we had to speak it. We had to stand for Christ and Christ alone, not for any religion. And so we were cut off—we lost all of our previous relationships.
We were on a new spiritual journey. It was exciting, but it was unknown. What would happen next? We did not know what the future would bring, but we knew the One who held the future. Because we trusted God, we were at peace, even though we were sad to lose the ones we loved. After over 35 years of my being a JW, this new life really was like being born again. I was starting my life over—my new life in Christ. Dave had spent 16 years in the cult. Dustin was seven, but now he had his whole life in front of him to live in freedom.
Unity in Jesus
In 2004 we were introduced to Richard and Colleen Tinker. We knew very little about each other's former religions, but when we sat and talked, we found that our stories were almost identical in many ways. Most importantly, we had shared the same experience of having Christ reveal himself to all of us through the Holy Spirit. Jesus had reached into both of our lives and led us to the real truth and through him he led us into a friendship based on Him and all that He is and has done for us. It is a friendship that is above any ordinary one.
We are on the Proclamation! mailing list and really enjoy the personal stories. I am always struck with how much like my own story they are. I am also struck with how angry some people are when they write to the editors and how much like my own former cult members they sound, often using the same language and argumentation mine used. When those of us who find out we have been lied to and led astray find the real truth, we want everyone to know it as well. We do not hate any of the people in our former religions, nor are we angry with them. To the contrary, we know exactly what life is like for them day in and day out. We know first hand what it means to be under that kind of control. We realize that these people are merely victims of a false religious system, and they need our love and prayers. We know the Tinkers, and we know that they love their Adventist family and want them to know the love of Christ as they do—just as we want Jehovah's Witnesses to know Him and experience His life.
It has now been 16 years since the days we sat on the front porch discovering the real truth—Jesus—and it is He alone whom we serve. The years have not been easy, but they have been rewarding. No matter what one loses for the sake of Christ, He is worth the cost. He is faithful; He never withdraws or shuns us.
His promise is sure: "You will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" (Jn. 8: 32). †
Copyright 2011 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Casa Grande, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised December 3, 2011. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2011 / OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER / STORIES OF FAITH
Dave and Heidi Murphy live in Big Bear Lake, California. Their son, Dustin, also lives in the Big Bear area. As a family they were set free from the lie of the Jehovah's Witness religion in 1995 and began their discovery of what life in the "truth"—Jesus Christ—really is. They served as missionaries in the Inland Empire of Southern California for four years with Here's Life Inner City, an outreach ministry to the poor. After spending four years in Colorado, the Murphys moved back to Southern California in 2010 and are loving life in Big Bear—and in Christ.
October November December 2011
VOLUME 12, ISSUE 4
D E P A R T M E N T S
STORIES of Faith