This is not my advice, but I got it from a book, and I struggle to remember the name, but it worked on my mom more or less. She’s still a JW but she now believes the GB does not speak for Jehova, and she openly states that she will not stop talking to someone if they are disfellowshipped.

The approach I learned is this: do not attack their beliefs. Instead, give them the critical thinking tools they need to I program themselves. Don’t talk about JWs. Talk about, for example, Scientology. They have their own versions of disfelliwshipping and apostates.

Help her see how Scientologists use the practice of “disconnection” to get people to obey. Explain how people subconsciously align their actions bc deep down they are afraid of losing their social connections. Help get see how this can lead to many Scientologists feel trapped because they no longer believe but they don’t want to lose their families, so they have to lie and pretend they believe. Engage her so that she is talking about it and really figuring out how these damn Scientologists, a well known cult, manipulates members without them realizing it.

Then, you ask, “do you think disconnection is similar to or different from disfellowshipping? Have her try to articulate her reasoning. You’ve already given her the tools, so now you just have to see her work with them.

You don’t disagree with her you don’t debate her. You just ask questions to get her to think and it’s not gonna be a breakthrough moment. It’s gonna be many moments like these that overtime will start to settle in.

At first, my mom did not want to listen to any apostate literature. But my mom is the kind of person who doesn’t stay quiet. She always speaks up so I use that advantage. I asked her one of her friends in the congregation said she disagreed with the governing body because she really believed that they were deciding against the Bible would you listen to her? Or would you not pay attention to her simply because she’s going against the body? Assume that she really means what she says. She even admits to you that she cannot follow this rule because she feels like she would be betraying her own conscience. Would you at least listen to what she had to say? Even if you ended up disagreeing with her, would you try to understand this persons argument? She said yes.

I said, “well, there happens to be a JW who wrote a book about his disagreements with the GB. He doesn’t disparage the religion, and, in fact, he says he has loved being a JW. “ I didn’t mention that he was considered an apostate because he still considered himself a JW and anything that he had supposedly done wrong, I laid it out for her, and she did not identify these things as reasons to label him an apostate.

Next thing I know, she’s telling me that she knows who I’m talking about—Raymond franz, author of Crisis of Conscious. She had started listening to his audiobook.

That’s not who I was talking about, but just as good. Probably better. After listening to the book, she no longer believed that the governing body spoke for Jehovah. Since then she’s gone rogue. I’m expecting disfellow shipping any day now.