Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Today I'm gonna talk with an incredible man of God, Dr. Carey. He had a conversion experience from Jehovah's Witness to Catholic, and he's gonna say some things that blow your mind about what Jehovah's Witnesses actually believe, what it's like to be one, what it's like to leave the Jehovah's Witness church.
And if you know someone who's falling into that or to anything that looks like a cult, it's gonna give you great insights on how to respond and frankly, what to say when a Jehovah's Witness comes knocking on your door. Today on the Chris Stefanick Show.
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[00:01:33] Speaker B: dude.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Thanks for doing this.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Thanks, brother. Thanks for having me, man.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm honored to have you. And so excited.
Like, I, you know, I just couldn't believe it, hearing your story initially at Walsh University, where I got my honorary doctorate.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: That's right. That's right.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: I've been performing appendectomies ever since then.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: I don't think there's that type of doctor.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Dr. Chris, is there a doctor on the plane? Yeah, I got you. It's an honorary doctorate in theology.
You're covered.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Exactly. Got you.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: But no, I was just blown away. Convert from Jehovah's Witness.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: Theology professor at Wallace University and Xavier University.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Don't want to leave that out.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: And I just, I'm excited to Dive in. Because I'm so ignorant about Jehovah's Witnesses, about all the believe, I have some general impressions that this is a cult.
I have no idea how to respond if one of them comes to my door.
I do know the interior journey of. I've briefly encountered some people who converted and come out that. It's incredibly painful.
But, yeah, let's dig in. Let's expose this whole thing from the inside. From a guy who's been there.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: I don't even know where to begin with this one. Man. Well, I mean, you were raised Jehovah's Witness.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: I was raised one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Both my parents on both sides, my mother and father, their entire families were Jehovah's Witnesses. Oldest of. There were five of us in the house. I was the oldest of five boys.
My stepfather was an elder of Jehovah's Witnesses.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: So you're really in.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. I was really in.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: How many generations, man?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, at least my grandparents.
I don't think my great grandparents were, but my grandparents were. So I would be third generation. I was third generation, which is typically the case in Jehovah's Witnesses.
Most of their numbers come from successive generations.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: So they're not successfully converting people by knocking on the door.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Not like they would make it seem.
There was a time in the late 70s, early 80s where they were converting at very large numbers. So I don't want to say that their evangelization efforts did not go without fruit because it did for a long period of time.
But as of right now, generally speaking, those who become Jehovah's Witnesses, it's within the families.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: What changed, you know?
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Well, first of all, I think the first admin that changed was the Internet. So. Because what happens is you start having families that for the longest period of time, when you're in an institution like that, that essentially is a cult, and they encourage you to separate yourself from anything outside of that organization. So they would literally say, when I was growing up, they would say that anything outside of the organization is all Satan's world, Satan's system.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: So if you can imagine, you're the only association you have are other Jehovah's Witnesses.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: That's it.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: And in addition to that, my understanding has changed somewhat. But when I was growing up, there was no encouragement for higher education, because if you do any higher education, you're gonna be sitting in classrooms with those who are not Jehovah's Witnesses and getting instruction for those who are not Jehovah's. Witnesses and you would see what's happening outside of the world. So that's the way they protected it. Well, when you got the Internet, now all of a sudden I don't need to be sitting in the classroom. I can go to my home computer and google about the history of the organization itself, which is full of instances of which, for example, they've prophesied that certain things were gonna take place and it didn't take place. They don't talk about those things.
Right. So when you start getting access to that, then all of a sudden you start realizing this isn't what you're painting it to be, number one. Number two, when you start studying the doctrine of the church of their organization, they wouldn't call it church of their organization.
You start recognizing that it's not very Christian.
They identify themselves as Christian, but none of the basic tenets of faith in Christianity do they support.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: For example, they don't believe the Trinity.
So they don't believe in the Trinity. They do not.
They would be a modern day Arianism. So they believe that Jesus was the first created by God.
So all things were created through Jesus because Jesus was the first creature, but he still was created by God. So God of the name that they use, Jehovah, they say that's God, but Jesus is a creature and the Holy Spirit is not even a person.
The Holy Spirit is just a force, like a force that God uses.
I hate to do tongue in cheek, but you think of Star wars with the Jedi like that's what God uses the force or uses the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is not a person in itself. So it does not have anything about the Trinity within its teachings.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: How old is Jehovah's Witness Church organization? When did it start?
[00:06:54] Speaker B: It started in the 1900s by a gentleman named Charles Taz Russell, who himself was an offshoot of Seventh Day Adventists.
So if you know anything about Seventh Day Adventist, you have this idea very what's called Millennialist, which means they're always looking for exactly what is going to lead us to the end times. Right.
The whole tribulation question about is it pre tribulation, post tribulation, when are these things going to take place? And then Jehovah's Witnesses are just an offshoot of that.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Wow.
So I've heard before. I don't know if this is just a rumor that they think that Jesus is. There's some relation of Jesus, St. Michael and the Spirit brother of Lucifer or something. Spell that out for me. It's One of the wilder things that I've heard that they believe.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: So they believe that St. Michael and Jesus are ultimately the same being.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: St. Michael and Jesus are the same being.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: So remember how I said that Jesus was created by God?
So they believe that Jesus was created by God.
They believe in his ministry.
They would say he didn't die on a cross, but they believe in his being impaled and that when he.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: He was impaled.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Well, I shouldn't say impaled. He was hung on a stake. But it was an upright stake. It wasn't. Wasn't a cross.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: That's a strange twist, right?
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Especially when it's. Clearly the cross was used as a means of execution.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Like, why change that Anyway, so.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: But they do believe, you know, that he died and was resurrected. There is some.
They don't believe his physical body was rescued. They believe it was a spiritual body that was resurrected. And when he finished his earthly ministry, he just went back to being an angel, who they say was St. Michael.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: I just like. Who sits down one day. You know what I mean? Like, there weren't people around this guy believing this stuff. Like, it just says, I don't know, going to start a church. Is it. Because that's a great business.
Who just comes up with stuff and just says, let's do this.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Well, I will say this. It's not as if Russell came up with all of this at one time. Just like any other theology, it developed over time.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: So I can't tell you exactly where in their history that they come up with the understanding that Jesus and St. Michael were the same person. I don't know where they happened along the timeline, but I do know that that's their current understanding. So when revelation speaks about St. Michael having his battle with Satan and hurling Satan to the earth, they're saying, that's Jesus.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: So to them, St. Michael.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: But this is what happens when you don't have an authoritative church, like an authoritative teacher or voice, Things can go off the rail that far.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Not only that, but I think it also is when you divorce tradition from Scripture.
Because when you're trying to fit everything solely by Scripture and you don't have any tradition guiding it, which includes, obviously the leadership of the church, you can come up with these ideologies that fall so far off the rail from traditional Christianity.
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Okay, back to our video.
So what was it like on the inside as a kid growing up? Like, what was your relationship with God like?
How did you feel about him? Or how did you think he felt about you?
What was the community like?
Was there a sense of love and belonging? Or was it more fear where you're gathered together not just because you're a unified body, but because the rest of the world is Satan? I mean, that's a, that's, that's a pretty dark way to see everything.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: So I'll say in two things. First, I will give credit if you want to say the silver lining in being in such an insular organization is I did have a close relationship with my family.
It's just that what I thought was love was not love.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: How. How's that? That's a heavy statement.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Because to them, love has conditions.
So in other words, you're loved as long as you follow these stipulations.
Because it goes to the question you're asking about God. Because the God that they envision is a God who also loves. If you follow his. Thou shalt do this, thou shalt not do that. So you have these lists of rules. So God is always seen as a very judgmental God. In other words, he's always looking for where you don't fall in line.
And you are, you know, you're disciplined for that.
So imagine reading the accounts of the Old Testament. Again, I'll give them credit. I did know my Bible from them. I do know the stories of the Old Testament.
But the lens through which you're seeing it, imagine you're seeing it, not God as a loving God who is seeking to move his plan along, to eventually lead us to that which would be Christ.
But you have a God who is judging the people, always looking to see whether or not they're fulfilling the law.
But the love isn't emphasized.
In addition to that, remember I Said they're a millennialist organization. So they're always looking for Christ's return. You know, when we talk about, in the Catholic faith, Christianity, usually in general, when we talk about Christ's return, it's something that you look forward to because his return, it symbolizes God's. The approaching of God's kingdom and the earth being full of charity and love.
Well, as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, you're looking for God's kingdom to come, but you're expected when he gets there, he's going to smote everybody who's not one of Jehovah's Witnesses. They won't say it to you that way, but that's clearly how it is once you're inside. So when you're outside, they won't say it that way as they're trying to evangelize to you. But once you get in, it's clear that if you're not one of those Witnesses, you're going to die when God returns. So if you can imagine growing up where God is seen as someone literally sitting on a judgment seat, and every day you're like, okay, I'm approaching closer and closer to him coming. And if I don't do what the organization says, I could die.
So that's a completely different relationship with God than a God who wants to be in communion with you and has given you various means of revelation to pull you towards him as opposed to sitting back waiting for him to come
[00:14:41] Speaker A: to judge by I could die. What did that mean? Would they go to hell or just go into non existence?
What happens to the rest of humanity?
[00:14:49] Speaker B: So Jehovah's Witnesses, they don't believe in an afterlife.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: So they don't believe in an afterlife.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: You heard me.
They don't believe in an afterlife, except for.
So this is where it gets to the point where I talk about tradition when you're looking at scripture, so in the Book of Revelation, how it talks about the 144,000, where it talks about those who are sealed from the tribe of Israel, who will be royal priests and share when Christ returns, they take that number as literally. So there's 144,000 who will go to heaven.
Everyone else, if you survive Armageddon, you will remain right here on earth and reconstruct the earth to be as it was in Eden, Right? The God's new kingdom here on earth. But if you die, you just, you don't exist.
There's no existence. There's no hell.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: So for 144,000 people, there's an afterlife in heaven.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: In heaven for everybody else.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: And who would those people be?
[00:15:58] Speaker B: It just so happens that it's the leaders
[00:16:04] Speaker A: or the highest donors. Right?
[00:16:06] Speaker B: Well, I don't know about that, but.
Because they don't really keep track of donations like that. Yeah, but it just so happens that what they call their governing body, they are part of the 144,000.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: So, like your grandpa who died a faithful Jehovah's Witness. They believe that's it. He's gone.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: Well, when Jesus returns, he could be resurrected.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: Okay, okay.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: But it's not afterlife. He's resurrected to this life, to this life.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: Just to never die.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Just to never die and reconstruct the earth.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: But then the rest, there's not a hell, they just pass into nothingness.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: They're just nothingness. It's non existence.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Man, my head's spinning right now. I don't even know what this is. Wild stuff. I mean, there's like no other Christian tradition that sees the eschaton in that way.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: They're unique in that way. Now, they do have, let's say if someone never had an opportunity to hear the message from Jehovah's Witnesses and they died.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: They are resurrected. This is where we read where it says there are those who are resurrected in life and those who are resurrected in judgment, they take that to mean that those who died not as faithful witnesses, but they were never witness to, they resurrect to judgment. Meaning they get an opportunity to hear for, you know, hear about it and do they accept it or not? Which is kind of just me thinking pragmatically, if I was dead and I'm back alive and someone's teaching me, I'm gonna believe it. Yeah. You know what I mean?
I mean, that's just me being pragmatic.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: But look, if you knock on my door and I had been dead, I will suddenly answer and prepare some coffee.
You got my attention.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Yes.
Oh, man.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: So, but you know, for me, the convergent move for me wasn't any of that.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Well, hold on. Before that. Okay, why is this a cult? Like you clearly said right away. I mean, having been in it, seen it from the inside, this is a cult.
Now I can look at the wild belief system and think, well, that sounds cultish to me on a gut level. Right. But some people could look at Catholicism and say Eucharist, like, that's wild. You know, that sounds outlandish.
Now, I could tell you why that's radically different. And you can see the connection between the words of Jesus and the 2000 year history of the church. And like Chris, like from left field, you know, and yet, like, what makes one wild belief system a cult versus a cultist or a valid religion? What sets these apart?
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Well, the main thing is that they fulfill any of any cultish behavior. First of all, they separate you from anyone that is not associated with that.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: So that's a sure sign of a cult.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: That's not a call. It's isolation when they isolate you. So even let's suppose they come to the door, you're showing interest, and you begin to study with them. At some point they're going to start to encourage you to leave behind those who you're associated with who are not part of that cult or part of that organization, including family.
So that's the first piece. Second piece is if you're inside, which is what happened to me, if you're inside of the organization and you decide of your own free will and reason that you know what, I no longer want to participate in the organization, you are what's called shunned or disfellowshipped. I think the new. Because I got in little trouble overseas in Norway with the language of saying shunning and disfellowshipping.
Now they say, we will just remove you from the community.
The point is, I can speak personally. I told you I was the oldest of five boys.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: I have not spoken to my biological siblings since leaving. Since leaving your parents since leaving.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: I'm so sorry. That's incredibly.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: It was painful initially, but as we all say, God provides. Because I'm gonna be honest with you though, it was painful to lose my siblings and my parents.
I gained a tradition that I can go anywhere in the world. And as long as there's a parish, I have a community.
You know what I mean?
Yes, that was painful. But I gained so much.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: So much more.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: You know, my wife, now I have my own children, you know, so, I mean, it's. It's been.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: But that shunning is serious. That's not like, oh, it's not like we're disagreeing about things or mom's giving you a hard time. You know, I want parents to hear this. Like when you feel like a kid might say, mom's not accepting me for as I am. No, no, relax. Your mom's disagreeing with you and that's actually okay.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: Yeah, no, this is.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: But a shunning is like, this is boom. Absolutely, you're out of my life. I'm never talking to you again.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: They will not speak with you if you see someone. So I have. Not recently, but years ago, I would run across my siblings in public. They would literally go the other way.
There's not any hello. There's no, you know, wow. So I mean, it. Is that. That's that serious? Yeah.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: And nothing on the inside of them is saying, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. Maybe it is. I don't know.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: I don't think so. But the reason why, again, and this is where I always still pray and I have mercy, is that that's how convinced again, that's another sign of the cult though, right? Is it? It actually causes you to go against what your natural inclination is.
I sincerely believe that my siblings and my parents desire to be in communication with me. It's just that the indoctrination of the cult is so strong that they will not.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Are they online? Will they ever know that you interviewed about this and talked about them?
[00:22:27] Speaker B: Probably not.
Only because remember the cult, you're not supposed to be looking. I mean, they would never look at anything that Chris Stefanick put out because you way too Catholic for them. Right. I mean, so they would never look at it now, could they?
Again, as we get more and more with the online digital world that we live in, there clearly are Jehovah's Witnesses who are peeking behind the curtain that they weren't doing before. Because there's other influencers that are ex Jehovah's Witnesses who do phenomenal work.
And you can tell by the comments that's on their posts, that's what Jehovah's Witness is looking at it.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: And making comments. So it is.
More and more Witnesses, I think, are starting to look, which is the reason why I don't think the numbers are growing as much as it was.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Let's talk about the leadership structure. Should I be making sure no one's poisoned my coffee after this interview?
[00:23:23] Speaker B: No, they don't have that kind of power.
I mean, ultimately, the way the leadership structure is, there's a governing body.
I don't know what the number is now.
Traditionally, I think it was like nine. It might be up to 12. I don't know what the number is, but there's the governing body and everything really is.
So all the material, all the publications that come out, they come out of what's called the governing body.
And any literature, anything you listen to with Jehovah's Witnesses, you'll hear them say before they say God, before they say Jesus, they'll say, this is what the
[00:23:58] Speaker A: governing Body told us so that's another element of cult.
Right.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: So there's human leadership. Yeah, there's human leadership as opposed to
[00:24:07] Speaker A: a
[00:24:09] Speaker B: safeguarding of the faith.
It's what the human leaders say.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: That's a fine line.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: Because we believe in a Pope and Magisterium, but they're answerable to absolutely the faith.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: They can't just.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Because even the Holy Father has to be sensitive to the faith of the people.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: And there are some bishops conferences, not in the US but in other countries that rhyme with Shermany.
You know what I mean? Like, God bless these guys.
They get together like, yeah, we're gonna just go ahead and cross that part out and do this. I just heard that there was a BDSM booth at some German National Catholic Conference.
Are you kidding me, dude?
But they feel like they're just listening to the people and being humble. No, you're actually making yourself God when you feel like I can disregard the red hat and the outfit I'm wearing, just do my own thing.
So they don't. The Jehovah's Witness leadership doesn't have to be beholden to some higher truth. They are it.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: It's the case of God, which again,
[00:25:17] Speaker B: if you do any research on Jehovah's Witnesses, you'll see that they have. We're not talking about light changes, the doctrine. We're talking major shifts to their doctrine, not practices.
Major shifts in doctrine that have changed. Which again, when you don't have a tradition that you're pulling from, where you have to make sure that we're saying the same message that the apostles are saying when it's these men who are saying, it flip flops all over the
[00:25:54] Speaker A: place and can contradict itself.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Absolutely. And it has. And it has.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: What's the Watchtower Society? Is that the guys or what's the magazine? There's like.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: I mean, it's called the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. It's what the name of the organization has been.
So people call it the Watchtower because the Watchtower is like their flagship magazine. So that's what everybody knows is the Watchtower because that's just their magazine.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Where do they make their money and how big is it? I mean, it's funny, not many people say they know a Jehovah's Witness, but now I know why. Because if they think you're of the devil, they're not going to talk to you.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: And yet they're kind of everywhere. You don't have to go.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: They are globally, most of their money.
Now. Now, historically, they were a publishing company. I mean, they published a lot of material.
And just like anything else you would publish, if you published it, you paid for the material. Right. And of course, you have. Just like any other faith organization, your members contribute. They give donations to support the local. They call them kingdom halls.
The local kingdom halls.
But now the majority of their money, to my understanding, they have a phenomenal real estate portfolio.
I mean, phenomenal real estate portfolio. Because you got to understand all these kingdom halls, they've had all these, what they call, assembly sites that they've had.
Well, I mean, real estate, as we know, does nothing but gain more and more equity, right? So a lot of kingdom halls, they've sold because the numbers are down. But that translates to money that they get that money and then they reinvest. I mean, I'm giving them credit for it. They reinvest it into larger land holdings that they have. So they're much more of a real estate company than anything else. I guess they're getting into the media as well. Their own media.
Huh.
So when I was growing up, they never would have had something like what they have jw.org now. They never would have had that because you're encouraging people to go to the Internet. Well, world has caught up with them. So now if you go to any kingdom hall, the first thing you're going to see on the outside of the door is jw.org It's a big blue sign that's on the outside. So that's what they really push. They want you to go there for the information.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: And they're not coming to your door very frequently anymore. I'm always seeing them at the airport.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Okay, so that's changed. So that's changed too. Again, I haven't been active one of Jehovah's Witnesses for a couple decades, But I do follow the influencers because I always like to know what's going on, and a lot of that has changed. First of all, they took a very big hit with COVID because obviously with COVID you couldn't go out and evangelize. Well, once you sit at home for two years, I kind of like sitting at home.
I kind of like going out. So the numbers went down because people was like, they just weren't going out like they were before, and they recently changed it. So when I was growing up, you had to be what's considered an active publisher. In other words, to be in good standing, you had to do at least a minimum of 10 hours of knocking door to door a month. That was minimal.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Active publisher is a strange name for an evangelist. I don't get active publisher.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Not when you're. Remember they were in publications the first time. That was their main, that was their main work.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Way to tip their hand by saying this is a publication.
Call them something else. I don't know.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Active publisher. And then you were a pioneer if you did so many hours. But now they don't have to track their hours, they just have to like check a box saying, I was active in the ministry. So they're kind of doing some smoke and mirrors because they don't want it to seem as if the numbers are dropping, but the numbers are dropping and the activity is dropping.
So now that's where you see the carts. You see with the carts, they're just kind of standing there. You'll see them at airports, you'll see them at bus stations, you'll see them in the street. They're just kind of standing next to a cart. That never used to happen when I was one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but now that's them doing the work. They don't knock on doors as much.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Okay, before I get to your. What converted you? Okay, last question about Jehovah's Witnesses in general.
How do I interact with them if they come to my door or if I see them at the airport? Is there like when someone's in a mindset where they're in a cult, is there any breaking through?
[00:30:30] Speaker B: There's no home run hit, but you can plant a seed.
You know the passage that I think we read it today in the mass about, you know, I planted Apollo's water, but God made it grow. So sometimes you can ask very questions that make them think you may. You're not going to get them to walk away right then and there. But you can plant a seed that makes them go back and ask a question.
Right?
And sometimes it can be.
Now I would never be antagonistic because they're trained to have the back and forth conversation.
But an example would be now they don't. I think they have my number, my house number written down. They will not come to my house.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: They won't.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: They won't be in my house. But if they did, they might actually be shocked if you invited them in, they'll be like, oh wait a minute, somebody invited me in. They might get excited. But then if you ask them, because
[00:31:38] Speaker A: 99% of the time they're turned away.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: Oh yeah, absolutely. Most of the time they are. But if you sit down with them and be mindful that their Bible is not the same as even our Protestant brothers and sister's Bible. Their Bible is specifically written to support their doctrine.
So they've taken certain elements of the Bible and made slight adjustments to support their doctrine. But there are certain passages.
For example, John 1:1.
Their Bible doesn't say what any other Bible says.
Instead of saying, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, the Word was God.
There says, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.
Because they got to differentiate God.
We would say God the Father from God the Son. So they say, well, Jesus was a God, but he wasn't God.
But one way you can kind of make them think is say, okay, you said that Jehovah is the only God. And they were 10 toes down, say, absolutely. You can say, well, in your own Bible, it says that the Word was a God, though.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Which one is it? Yeah, it's that type of stuff that they'll be like, you know what?
Let me do some research and I'm gonna come back.
They're not coming back further than coming back, but that could leave a seed to make them dig more, if that makes sense.
That's what you can speak to them about. And just like anything else, I respond when they don't know who I am, I respond with love.
Let them see what genuine Christianity is.
[00:33:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: I mean, that's how we convert anybody initially. Right. Let them see what the love of Christ really is and paint a picture for them about God's true nature.
Because they have not been introduced to that.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: They haven't heard the gospel.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: They have not.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: There's a lot of Christians who haven't. Honestly, a lot of Catholics who have it.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: I mean, frankly, most of my ministry is just preaching the core message of the gospel and having it hit people in a totally new way who have thought about Catholicism. The way you describe Jehovah's Witness.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: That if I check boxes, God will love me. That's right.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: You can't check enough boxes to earn anybody's love, let alone God's.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: I mean, we check the boxes because he loved us.
Well, that's the whole thing is Pelagianism versus Christianity. This is not splitting hairs.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Well, that's the whole thing with, again, the perception of what God is. With one Jehovah's Witnesses versus genuine Christianity.
You don't have to earn God's love.
He loves us. We don't have to earn his love. Like this, that's. To me, that doesn't make any.
That is an empty exercise. You don't have to earn his love because he does love you.
You're safe. That's there.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: You got to stay in the love.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: You got to stay in the love yourself. But he loves you. That's not.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: Yeah, he's my father.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: And not a father who's going to reject.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: He's not judging you.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Shun me.
Because it's amazing how that concept of God translates to their experience.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: Like, I love my son, but if he does this, he's not my son.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: It's because of their perception of who God is.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: I don't want to say to them that they came to my door like, look, I just want you to know I won't get in a debate with you, but if you find yourself shunned, come hang out.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Come here. Absolutely.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: That's got to be one of the most terrifying things that shuts their brain off to even exploring everything. I know.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: I will say that I know that there's a larger number of Jehovah's Witnesses who are called pimos.
Physically in, mentally out.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Really?
[00:35:41] Speaker B: Meaning? Because their whole family are Jehovah's Witnesses, they don't really believe, but they don't have anywhere else to go because if they leave, they're leaving behind everything that they know.
All of their family, you know. So do the Jehovah's Witnesses call them
[00:36:00] Speaker A: pemos or is it an outside term?
[00:36:01] Speaker B: No, that's outside. Well, there are Jones Witnesses who are in the inside, who call themselves peabos, in other words. But they're kind of keeping it on the down low because they don't want to get exposed. That they're peebles? Yeah, because if they get exposed, then they'll be.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Do you think that some of the leadership in the know is more nefarious? I mean, obviously anybody who's genuine and of faith, there's goodness of will there. Right. And I, I can trust the Lord for their salvation as, you know, through Jesus.
Like, but, you know, like, but they're, they're good dudes. Trying.
But then I hear, like, at the top levels, they have to know they're not receiving. I've heard too, that they think Jesus is invisibly present in the watcht. Something like that. Like, they have to know that some of these things that they're saying are lies once they get there. And it's like, well, I'm not scribing for Jesus. Right? I mean, spell that out for me.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: I do believe that may be the case. But by time you get to that level, you've given your entire life to this. Again, you're talking about taking.
To walk away from that would be a traumatic experience.
Because you want to talk about shunning if you are. Now, there have been governing body members who have left the organization in the past.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: Saintly. It's beautiful.
[00:37:26] Speaker B: I mean, they've exposed Josephine. There's one book I can't think of his name now, his name was Raymond. Raymond.
Raymond was his last name. But he was a member of the governing body who walked away back in the 80s and exposed a lot of things. But it has been those. But for the most part, I mean, if you've been in the organization that long, I don't think they're nefarious in the sense of. I think they generally believe, but I think they. Again, they start excusing why they don't see what they thought they would see in those roles. The nefarious part is there have been some scandals that they are well aware of that they have in the world. So that part is troubling.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: Like sexual scandal, financial scandal, all the above.
That kind of COVID up is everywhere.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Absolutely. That's why I don't want to be pointing one figure that way. And there's three of them pointing back. Right. So we all have to deal with that in every large organization, unfortunately.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: So tell me about your journey out of Jehovah's Witness. What gave you the courage to realize I'm going to be shunned, but I have to go anyway?
[00:38:39] Speaker B: Well, so for me, I kind of call it my Cornelius moment. So I raised one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: Pretend I've never read the Bible. Cornelius moment. What is that?
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Well, Cornelius was the first Gentile converted.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: According to scripture, he was praying.
We know if he went, if he hadn't converted, he had no idea who he was praying to. But he was giving a prayer for truth, prayer for grace. He didn't know.
There's no way he knew how to pray because he didn't know who he was praying to. But Jesus sent Peter. Right?
And so for me, at a very young age, there's one incident that sparked it and that was there was a young man I went to school with and he was what I call a Hallmark kid.
Meaning like the Hallmark movies. Everybody is friendly, everybody gets along. That's how he was. He was loved by everyone.
Everyone in school.
I don't care what clique you were part of. He could go from clique to clique to clique to clique. Everyone loved him. He was a great, great student. He was a great athlete, just an all around great guy.
And unfortunately, we're 12 years old.
Unfortunately, he got brain cancer.
And when he passed away, I remember I couldn't go to the.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: What was his name again?
[00:40:03] Speaker B: His name was John.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: John.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: And I remember he was Catholic. I couldn't go to his funeral Mass because Joe's Witnesses are not ever going to step foot into a Catholic church. If you're going to do anything, don't step foot into the Catholic Church. But I went to his wake.
And when I went to his wake, I remember my stepfather, who was an elder of Jehovah's Witnesses, says to me, it's a shame that his life just ends completely non existent because he wasn't one of Jehovah's Witnesses. And I remember looking at him thinking, this kid who was loving, charitable, intelligent, had all this, all these gifts, he has no chance of redemption at all simply because he's not affiliated with Jehovah's Witnesses.
And even at that young age, I said, I don't know who God is yet, but if that's who God is, I don't want nothing to do with him. Like, that's.
That is. That is a horrible God. Why would I ever want to have a relationship with somebody like that? Right.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: So at that very young age, I made the determination, this is not. This can't be true faith. But I'm 12, so I basically, this is where I say I went to my Cornelius moment, in that I was always praying, I was always searching for truth, but I'm at home, you know, so stayed at home until I was 18.
Remember, I knew what would happen if I left. Being one of Jehovah's Witnesses, you gotta get shunned.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: Everybody in my family.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: How do they do that? Legally?
[00:41:45] Speaker A: When you're 14 and getting shunned, what happens?
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Well, in that case, you're still in
[00:41:49] Speaker A: the house, they just ignore you in the house?
[00:41:51] Speaker B: No, they treat you as in all aspects other than things to do with the faith. They still. You're 14 year olds and they still got to take care of you and everything, but there clearly is a pressure for you to get right. Right. But I wasn't gonna do that. I'm 12 years old. I just played the game. I just, again, when I was physically in, mentally out. Right.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:42:17] Speaker B: So I'm just playing the game, always knowing at 18, I'm gonna leave. But I knew what was gonna happen. When I turned 18. That's heavy.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: That's gonna affect how you're feeling about your siblings and your parents as you.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Knowing it's all over when.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: I mean, it's gonna happen.
So 18 years old, I graduated high school, joined the Marine Corps.
Just to get out the house. Just to get out the house. Right. So I get out the house, I do my time.
And I'm not going to say that I immediately became, you know, a full of the Holy Spirit Fire Catholic. Oh, no. Eventually, I met my wife.
My wife, who was a cradle Catholic. But at the time, my wife wasn't practicing.
In fact, I'm probably one of the only few people who they first date. The first thing I asked her was, what religion are you? Because, I mean, I still literally had that kind of remnants in my head. And she told me she was raised Catholic, but she wasn't really practicing. I said, okay, no, we can wait.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: Did you formally break from your parents? Did you call them up from the rings and be like, hey, I'm not a Jehovah's Witness anymore. You can go ahead and show me now?
[00:43:26] Speaker B: No, what happened is I filled out a letter. So I wrote a letter.
It was called a letter of disassociation.
So I sent a letter of disassociation to the Watchtower Bible on Tract Society and gave my parents a copy.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: And that was it.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: And that was it.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: You just never heard from him again?
[00:43:42] Speaker B: I'm not gonna say I've heard. Cause I've had grandkids, so they've reached out, but they don't talk to me. They generally talk to my wife because they won't talk to me because I was one of those Witnesses and my wife wasn't.
[00:43:53] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: Even though she's a faithful Catholic, I am. So that makes no sense to me. But they have.
It's been years, but early on, when I first started having my kids, they wanted to see their grandkids.
What ended up that stopped because they started talking negatively about the Catholic faith.
And my kids were like, you're not doing that. You're not doing. My kids stood up for the faith.
They stood up because they were saying things that wasn't true about the faith.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: And so that strained that relationship, and my kids stopped associated with them.
[00:44:30] Speaker A: So you met your wife?
[00:44:31] Speaker B: So I met my wife. And so she was not a devout Catholic at the time. We were just doing family life.
[00:44:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: As the years go by, this is the reason why I say to friends of mine who are priests, never take for granted Whenever you're saying a homily, I don't care if it's at a wedding, I don't care if it's at a funeral. Never get super retained. Yeah. Because she went to her brother's funeral mass who passed away and she came out fire lit, like, I'm going back to my faith. And what's funny is when she said it, I was like, uh, hold on. That wasn't part of the. That wasn't part of the program, that wasn't part of the plan. But she, her, my children all became really enmeshed in the faith.
I was a holdout because.
[00:45:21] Speaker A: So you're a holdout, but you're not.
You weren't completely allergic to religion even after growing up.
[00:45:26] Speaker B: No, not at all. Not at all. Because I.
[00:45:28] Speaker A: Which is amazing.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: You're right. Because normally Jehovah's Witnesses, if they do
[00:45:32] Speaker A: leave, they're just done.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: They're done with faith. Because the organization, that organization did such a job that they just. They give up on faith.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: It shows you the worst of what religion can be and sometimes is for Catholics or Protestants, the ones when you get the wrong dude who just becomes a spiritually abusive and controlling. Right.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: But that's also the reason why I always thank God for his grace. Because I grew up in the same household as my brothers grew up in. I grew up in the same household as any other Jehovah's Witness who left.
There was something that was still pulling me that never severed my recognition of
[00:46:12] Speaker A: the reality of God.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: Of the reality of God.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: So it was always there. In fact, when I was going to school, when I started going to school after the military, so much so that I majored in religious studies and philosophy, minored in Greek for the sole purpose of. I wanted to. I had the desire to genuinely learn. Now it was. Learned anything but Catholicism, though, because I still had that remnants from being one of Jehovah's Witnesses that if you go do anything, don't be Catholic.
So when my wife started practicing, I said, you know what you do?
[00:46:46] Speaker A: You.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: I'm not doing it.
[00:46:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:49] Speaker B: But then as my studies went on, one particular course is where this happened.
And that is I was taking a course at Youngstown State University. I was taking a course in medieval philosophy.
And at Youngstown State University, they always taught us, which is a good. This is actually a really good thing. And that is as an academic, you never proof text. You look at the whole corpus of the text. Right. So that's what they taught us.
Well, you can't study medieval philosophy.
I don't care what way you're studying, whether you're studying from a philosophical point of view or theological point of view. There's one person, if you're in the medieval time, you're going to be talking about, and that's St. Thomas Aquatics. There's no way to get around it, right? So in this particular class, the instructor who was a philosopher was not a believer at best, he was agnostic. And that depend on the day, you know, so he was proof texting the Summa. So he only wanted to talk about the second part of the second part, about, you know, Aquinas treatise on law,
[00:47:56] Speaker A: just taking a little part out, a
[00:47:58] Speaker B: little part out, and all of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute, what
[00:48:00] Speaker A: about the other part?
[00:48:00] Speaker B: Right. Why are we not talking about the first part where he talks about God and his relationship with the human person and theological anthropology, which is why you
[00:48:07] Speaker A: care about the law, right?
[00:48:08] Speaker B: Why are we not talking about where this all leads to, which is the third part, which is the Passion and the sacraments. Why are we leaving that out?
And so after I got shooed away, I started studying myself. And that's where I said to myself, look, if I'm going to be serious about this Christianity thing, whatever that is, any Christian tradition, even the Christian tradition, who wants to be as anti Catholic as they want to be, they still identify where they broke off from the Catholic tradition, right? So I'm sitting there saying, well, then I'm going to the root.
I'm not going to all these different branches. I want to go to the root of it. So that is where I intellectually made a conversion and submitted myself to the Catholic faith.
And it was at that moment, because
[00:49:02] Speaker A: I didn't mention it, did you know that was Catholic? Did you know that going to the root meant Catholic?
[00:49:06] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: So you knew, like, I'm going down this road.
[00:49:10] Speaker B: This is where I'm going. That's why I say, before admitting it
[00:49:12] Speaker A: to anybody else or intellectually, it was to myself, wow.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: Because the entire time. So as the years go by and my wife is practicing and I'm not, she, no pun intended, she religiously, every Sunday would ask me when she was going to Mass, she would invite me to go to Mass and I would always say, no, I'm not going, wow. Well, after I made that intellectual conversion, I submitted saying, if this is what you're going to do, this is what
[00:49:38] Speaker A: you're going to do. Every week she'd ask me to come to Mass.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: No.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: But never stopped. The patient invitation consistent. Not a fight. Just come with me.
[00:49:46] Speaker B: Yep. And I would say no, and she'd be like, okay. Right.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: And so God bless her, man.
[00:49:51] Speaker B: And so this particular Sunday, I'll never forget.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: Wait, how long did that go on for that weekly invitation?
[00:49:56] Speaker B: Probably eight. It had to be eight years because.
[00:49:58] Speaker A: Eight years.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Because we had our.
When I. This is what I'm getting to. When I finally came into the faith.
Because if you've been paying attention, if she was Catholic and we got married, that means it wasn't a valid marriage. Right. So on our 13th anniversary is where we had. It was right after I came into the faith that following Saturday, we had an actual wedding in the church.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: I got chills, right? Yeah.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: It was nice. Anyway, so my sons got to walk down with me. My son was my best man. It was nice.
It was nice. But that particular Sunday, she asked me if I wanted to go, and I finally said yes.
And I'll never forget, she stopped and turned around and just started just bawling.
And at first I was like, wait.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: Oh, man, that's beautiful.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: You do want me to go, right? Because you're crying. Wait a minute. This isn't what. But it's because that's something that she wanted for so long.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: What's her name?
[00:50:52] Speaker B: April.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: Shout out, April.
God bless you.
What a witness that is.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: Absolutely. And honestly, from that day. And that's where I'll say that first Mass I went to is where I had my first. I just want to say, emotional spiritual conversion.
[00:51:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:11] Speaker B: Because I finally submitted.
And when I walked into the church and went to Mass, I'll never forget Father Chris Cicero out of Youngstown. He held up the body and blood and said, behold the Lamb of God. And I just started uncontrollable sobbing. And I'm a big dude, you know, I don't cry. You know? And I mean, I just. I could not stop crying. I'm crying. You just knew my wife crying.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: What made you cry was just. Did you just know that as Jesus?
[00:51:43] Speaker B: Yes. But it wasn't an intellectual knowing. It was almost like, case in point. This is the reason why I wear a Augustine medal. Medal. It's the reason why Augustine is my confirmation saint.
My heart was restless until I found rest in things. So I think I became emotionally. Because you're talking about an entire life of searching for God, and he's finally there.
That is what I think. It just was overcome with emotion.
And if I'm overcoming emotion, who never cries?
[00:52:17] Speaker A: You rested.
[00:52:17] Speaker B: Oh, I was at rest.
Except now I tell people I was at rest, but now I have restlessness. But the restlessness isn't looking for God. The restlessness is taking the gospel out to the world.
That's where the restlessness is. You know, I'm getting good thinking about it. I'll never rest until, as Bishop Barron likes to say, we've christified the world and prepared the world enough that now you can come home, now Jesus can come back. And so that's where the restlessness is now. But it's not. And I hope that I do that through my work at the university, working at the parish. I've always tried, even though I'm a college professor again. Bishop Murray, may he rest in peace, he said to me one time, never become so heavenly minded. You're no earthly good, that you're no earthly good whatsoever. Right. So I've always made sure that even my work in academia, it finds its feet in reality. Because this is a faith that we're practicing. This isn't something we're talking about in abstract.
What if? No, what are we doing? Right. And so, I mean, that's my.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: So back to this mass. You're crying.
[00:53:34] Speaker B: So I'm crying. I'm babawling. And so then after that, I just went and found.
[00:53:38] Speaker A: What was your family doing? As you're sitting there sobbing at this
[00:53:40] Speaker B: point, everybody's crying because dad don't ever cry. So you're looking at me cry.
So once the kids look over and they see dad crying, mom crying, they're like, oh, they start crying, too.
It was a joyous time.
The kids didn't understand what was joyous about it, but it was a joyous moment. Me and my wife went back together to find the parish deacon. And, you know, that's where I started RCIA at the time. And, you know, a year later, and it's been. I've been blessed ever since. I've been blessed ever since.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: Man.
Where do you go from there?
[00:54:18] Speaker B: Out to the world. Out to the world. Out to the world. Yes.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:21] Speaker B: That's where you go today with the gospel.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: Praise God.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: That's what I've tried to do, you
[00:54:27] Speaker A: know, I'm sure there's going to be Jehovah's Witness who is illegally watching this right now.
[00:54:31] Speaker B: I hope so.
[00:54:32] Speaker A: Can we land with you? Just looking at that camera and talking to that guy and giving him a taste.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: It's time to come home.
Real love from God in Christ.
[00:54:43] Speaker A: Amen. And frankly, that applies to everybody who's getting the whole religion thing. Wrong.
[00:54:48] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. Obviously. Yes.
[00:54:49] Speaker A: Let's hear the gospel.
[00:54:51] Speaker B: Yes. Yes.
[00:54:51] Speaker A: The Father loves you. He wants you to do all this because you're wrapped up in that love.
[00:54:55] Speaker B: I will say to anyone who's out there, there is a.
There's a peace.
Yes, we still have trials and obstacles that we have to overcome in the world, but there's a peace. When you know the victory is still like, I don't care what I'm going through right now.
I already know the victory is already won.
I'm just participating. I want to do my part in spreading the gospel.
[00:55:30] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: That's all.
That's what I'm able to do.
[00:55:33] Speaker A: Lead us in prayer.
[00:55:35] Speaker B: Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for this opportunity to be here with my friend Chris and all those who are watching.
Ask, Heavenly Father, that your grace continue to be with us, inspire us, and may your spirit saturate us in our works so that we can continue to bring the gospel of your son, Christ Jesus, to the world.
We ask these things in the name of your son, Christ Jesus, who lives and reigns with you, God, forever and ever.
[00:56:07] Speaker A: Amen. Thank you, Lord.
Bro, thank you so much, man. Thanks for, like. Thanks for making this happen so fast. It's like, just weeks ago where I got that honorary doctorate. I'm like, you gotta be on my show. He's like, let's book it.
All right, absolutely. Go to United and book it immediately, man. Thank you so much, bro. Love you, man. Love to your family and love you guys who are watching.
God bless you. Thanks for letting us inspire you. We'll see you next time.
