Where to Begin

Knocking at the door

“Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

Matthew 7:7, 8

A word first to my relatives and friends. Much of this site examines the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses — pages that may hold little interest if you have never been one. If you are simply curious about ‘Uncle Rick’ and how I came to be where I am, the About Me pages tell that story in some depth. If you want to see photos of Aunt Suzanne, you can visit her website at suzannewhiting.com.

If you are one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, this site was built with you in mind — and I know something about what it may cost you to open it. You have been taught that a site like this is “apostate,” that reading it is disloyalty to Jehovah and His Organization, and that nothing in it could be worth the risk. I was taught the same, and I taught it to others. For thirty-five years I was a Witness: an elder for more than thirty of them, a pioneer, and for seven years a member of the headquarters staff at Brooklyn Bethel.

I make you two promises.

  1. Every Watchtower quotation on this site can be checked against the Society’s own publications — and I ask you to check them.
  2. Nothing here mocks you or the people you love. The argument is always with organizational claims, never with the character of adherents, who are in the main devout, moral, and well-motivated.

Below is a suggested path through this site: where to start, what order to read in, and where to go depending on where you find yourself. If you would rather first know who is making this case, my story is told in the About Me pages.

If you are a Christian of another tradition, the Protestant vs Catholic Church pages will explain why I am Catholic — and why, with respect, I do not share much of the Protestant and so-called ‘non-denominational’ theology.

And if you left the Witnesses and the Christian faith altogether, the Atheism vs Christianity pages will explain why I did not lose my Christian faith and why I believe you should not either.

I invite your engagement with me at every step. You may leave comments at the bottom of any page — anonymously, if that is safer for you — but please read our policy on commenting first. It explains, among other things, how to comment without using your name. And if you would rather not write in public at all, you can reach me privately at — nobody sees that mail but me.

Questions Worth Asking

If You Are One of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Have Questions

Click A Path for Jehovah’s Witnesses and read it in order. Everything below is the map; that page is the itinerary.

These are the ten stops on the path for Witnesses, in the order that seems to me most useful; the same list, with a line on why each stop comes where it does, is at A Path for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Every page states the Watchtower’s teaching first — fairly, from its own publications, with references you can check — before the Catholic response is given. As long as I am alive, I will maintain this site. (Okay, that’s not much of a guarantee at my age, but you get the idea.)

  1. If the Church Christ founded was corrupted and lost, when did that happen — and who noticed it at the time? Examined at Was There a Great Apostasy?, against the record of the first three centuries.
  2. Where does the right to teach in God’s name come from, and how would anyone check a claim to have it? Examined at By What Authority?
  3. Did Jerusalem fall in 607 BCE, the date 1914 depends on, or in 587? Examined at When Did Jerusalem Fall?, against evidence outside everyone’s control.
  4. What did Jesus mean by “this generation,” and how many times has the Society changed its answer? Examined at Who Is “This Generation”?
  5. Did Christ return invisibly in 1914, and what did the word parousia mean to the people Paul wrote it to? Examined at What Is the Parousia?
  6. Can the Bible in your hands be trusted at the verses that decide these questions? Examined at The New World Translation, verse by verse, against the Greek.
  7. When a Christian sins, what does the New Testament prescribe? Examined at How Should Sin Be Handled?
  8. Is Jesus the archangel Michael? Examined at Is Jesus Michael the Archangel?, from all five Michael texts and the chapter written to answer the question, Hebrews 1.
  9. What did Christians believe about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit before the Council of Nicaea? Examined at Is God a Triune Being?
  10. If I keep pulling this thread, what will it cost me? Faced at Counting the Cost — privately, and when the questions above have begun to matter.
If You Have Already Left and Wonder Whether God Went Too

Many who leave the organization conclude that the whole thing was false — God included. I understand the feeling, but that conclusion deserves better evidence than a bad experience with one organization. Losing the Watchtower does not mean losing Christ; it may be your first real chance to know Him. The Atheism vs Christianity section takes the hardest skeptical questions seriously — suffering, miracles, science, whether Jesus rose at all — and argues them fairly. If you read only two pages there, read Could God Permit Evil? and Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?

If You Believe, but Rome Seems a Bridge Too Far

You were taught that the Catholic Church is the archetype of false religion — Babylon the Great, pagan to the bone. I believed that too. I only ask that you test the claim the way you ought to test the Watchtower’s: against the evidence. Start with Was There a Great Apostasy? and Pagan Origins?, then work through the Protestant vs Catholic Church section, where the Protestant objections get the same fair hearing the Watchtower’s do.

Four Guided Paths

If you would rather be handed an itinerary than a map, four pages do exactly that — each a short reading order through this site, with a line on why each stop comes where it does: a path for Jehovah’s Witnesses, a path for Protestants, a path for the Orthodox, and a path for skeptics.

One Final Reminder Before You Go

The About pages tell you who I am: what I did for the organization for thirty-five years, why my wife and I walked away in 2000, and how the road out led somewhere neither of us would have expected.

Summary

This site makes one case, in three parts, and you can enter it wherever you stand. If you are a Witness with questions, the reading path above starts at the hinge — the Great Apostasy claim — and works outward, one checkable claim at a time. If you have left and wonder whether God was part of the wreckage, the Atheism vs Christianity section argues that losing the Watchtower does not mean losing Christ. And if you believe but were taught to fear Rome, the Protestant vs Catholic Church section asks simply that the Catholic claims be tested against evidence, the same standard applied everywhere else here.

Two promises hold on every page: the Watchtower is quoted accurately from its own publications, and no one is mocked. Check everything. “Test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21) is not apostate advice. It is Scripture’s.