Me, You, and Our Savior Jesus Christ

I hooked up with an ex Jehovah’s Witness. And it wasn’t even bad. 

Oh you like broken men too? Within the first thirty minutes of meeting each other, this guy told me he had escaped a cult. So of course before inquiring any further, I invited him back to mine. Once I had secured him on my conveniently cramped couch (oops is my leg pressed against yours?), only then did I cautiously ask him for more. The cult in question was the denomination of Jehovah’s Witnesses. By escaped, he meant expelled. 

Expelled? I asked. Like Jehovah didn’t want you to witness him anymore? 

(I have no idea who Jehovah is). 

With a chuckle, he clarified that he was banished from his community and could not speak to his family or old friends anymore. I chuckled back, because I didn’t register what he was saying. 

Wait what, I said, luckily catching on just after I already embarrassed myself. 

It’s a long story, he told me. 

Don’t worry, I have time, I replied gently, as I calculated exactly how much time he could talk for so we could still have sex before my roommate came back.

Then I batted my eyelashes so he knew I meant business, and he could pour out his heart to me and I would save him. 

“With a chuckle, he clarified that he was banished from his community and could not speak to his family or old friends anymore. I chuckled back, because I didn’t register what he was saying. ”

Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian denomination, famous for not celebrating birthdays, rejecting blood transfusions, and their door to door preaching style. Besides holding many traditional Christian beliefs, they are also convinced that the Armageddon is nigh, and modern society is under Satan’s control. For this reason, they do not participate in secular governments, and tend to remain isolated from any other type of community, even staying separate from other churches. 

He was born into a family of Witnesses, he only went to school with other Witnesses, every person, every relationship he had, only existed under God’s far reaching light. There was nothing outside of it. Until he started to travel. Slowly, carefully, he started to pull away.

Was it out of curiosity for the outside or suspicion of the inside? I asked. 

He said both. Curiosity, fed once, grows exponentially. Suspicion is slower, but ultimately the most dangerous. His religious doubts were answered with accusations of poor faith, he was told he was losing his belief, and had to try harder. His outward skepticism was turned back on him as guilt, and it worked for a while. He thought his confusion meant he was not good enough. 

Also you need to understand, he said. They genuinely think the world is going to end. They just want to save me in the only way they know how. 

He drove around the country with a handful of other skeptical friends. They met new people, they discovered weed and skateboarding and premarital sex, and from there, he said, only half joking, he knew he couldn’t go back to before. Yet his friends weren’t as convinced as he was. When they returned, one of them could not bear the shame of those experimental crimes, and he went to confess to the elders. His friend’s confession did not explicitly incriminate him, but the elders called on him afterwards. He sat in a room as the group of pious, middle aged men questioned his devotion, and he realized he had a choice. The choice was between many things. Habit or novelty? Family or strangers? Security or autonomy? Sin or salvation? But really, he told me, it all boiled down to one, slightly paradoxical, question. 

Do I trust myself enough to choose a life of choice?

The elders asked him if he would smoke marijuana again. He said yes. They asked him if he doubted God’s teachings. He said yes again. They asked him what he believed. He said he did not know yet. 

What do you believe now? 

He smiled, I don’t know yet. 

And that was my cue. I put one hand on his knee and let me tell you, there was plenty he knew already. 

Perhaps you can’t save other people. Perhaps you can take an estranged ex believer turned tattooed skateboarder, and an average twenty two year old girl, and they’ll be wondering the same things, namely: What on earth is going on? And what the fuck do I do now? 

Or maybe the real point of this story is that sometimes, somehow, the right amount of sexual repression might actually work in your favor. 

But hey what do I know, go ask the elders.