Schnell - 30 Years a Watchtower Slave : the Confessions of a Converted Jehovahs Witness

1956, 1971 by Baker Book House
Copyright renewed by Mrs. William J. Schnell

Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-3164-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Scripture is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

C ONTENTS

F OREWORD

By the Lords grace I am a Christian. I was found by God in my tender youth. Early in life I was inveigled to join the Watchtower Organization, and subsequently became totally enslaved to it. As my spiritual life ebbed, I tried desperately to come free. Each attempt only resulted in deeper slavery. Twice I thought I had come free, only to backslide into its pit. But now, again, I am free.

By the Lords grace I came free when He lifted me up from a night of prayer, and when I became so agitated and alive once again spiritually that I made a vow unto the Lord. That night I came free!

In writing this story of my thirty years of slavery I am fulfilling this vow, which by the Lords grace brought me freedom. It is not a learned treatise you are going to read here. It is simply the heartfelt story of a slavery so deep, that it took me thirty years to get free. In revealing how such slavery is accomplished, I am serving a Christian purpose. If you are already engulfed in this slavery as one of Jehovahs Witnesses, I know these revelations will help you evaluate your situation properly, and instead of groping in the dark, you will grasp at your only way out, which I had to learn after much searching of heart and after many tries and errors. If you are not one of Jehovahs Witnesses, then by reading this story of my slavery for thirty years, you will be forewarned and will be on the lookout. In any case, this book will present to you a great boon. The ink used to print may bring to view the words that make up this story, but its spiritual concept and ideas were written with my life blood and with my feelings of torment and torture experienced in a Hell far more vivid to me than was the Inferno of Dante.

I have no rancor against my former brethrenI have no axe to grindin writing this story. I have only one major task to perform, and that is

I have a vow to fulfill,

which I made to God,

when He set me free,

once again to be a Christian!

W. J. Schnell

I T A PPEARED S O H ARMLESS

Called of the Father

I was called by the Father when I was twelve years old. On a Sunday morning in July 1917, while attending a Sunday school class in the local Lutheran Church I was deeply stirred by a vision of Jesus, our Saviour, as evoked by a description of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Our teachers description of what lay behind Christs telling of the parable raised in my heart a keen desire to learn everything I could about Jesus. I saw that His concept of helpfulness transcended nationality, religion and class. I sensed that His broadmindedness in doing good was in strong contrast to what was going on around me as World War I was dragging into its third year. All this fired my imagination and became a challenge in my mind, to be resolved only by learning everything I could about Jesus and His teachings, as well as about His background.

Upon returning home that Sunday noon I began actually to devour the four Gospels, then the whole New Testament and finally the whole Old Testament. I became deeply involved in what I was reading. In later years I realized what happened here was that the Father had called me, in the manner that Jesus had promised, No one cometh to Me, except the Father call him (John 6:44). For through this avid study of Scripture I came to the realization of my great need for a Saviour, and a deep yearning took hold of my heart and filled my mind. I was enabled to see my situation as a human, brought into this world under the sentence of sin and death, and feelingly and meaningfully I could cry out with the psalmist, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me (Ps. 51:5).

With this growing knowledge of my true condition and a comprehension of Gods provisions for my salvation in Jesus, who is not only the Good Samaritan but also the Good Shepherd, there came into my heart faith to believe in these wonderful provisions of God for me in Jesus Christ. I began to believe in sin and salvation. I learned with joy that for sinners like me Jesus had died on the cross, and that His blood had washed away my sins, and that in His resurrection death has been conquered for me and for all who accept Him in faith.

Raised to Fall

I am of a generation of men who as children lived in Europe during the first World War and who had all stability and peace of mind destroyed for them long before they matured. Many of my contemporaries sank in the abyss of despair; others became atheists; still others became fanatics and militant Revisionists, revolting against the status quo. To have been raised to newness of life at so young an age and under such conditions was a great boon to me. I know now that it sustained me throughout the years which followed. It was given to me by the Father through Christ Jesus, entirely undeserved, wholly of gracesomething I have never forgotten.

In my fourteenth year I was constrained by the spirit to turn myself over to Christ Jesus and through Him to the Father as dead unto my flesh and former life. I had actually become alive in the Spirit and thus came into relationship as son with the Father, into a newness of life. Needless to say, so powerful were the inner wellsprings which were unleashed in my innermost being, that my feet jumped for joy, and my heart sang happily, and I saw everything in a new light. My whole viewpoint toward the world in which I lived was changed, and all desire for its pleasures and wealth faded from my eyes and mind, as I entered into what a certain Christian poet so eloquently calls my Christian Spring.

In those troublous times, many of my generation became pawns used by forces which eventually led them either into Communism, Atheism or Nazism. I eventually fell victim to an even greater ISM and became its loyal slave for about thirty years of my life, namely, THE WATCHTOWER RELIGION. Astutely, as I will show conclusively in my story, the Watchtower Society utilized the unsettled times and conditions of that uneasy period from 1919 to 1938, in order to fashion a New World Society, which they hope will last a thousand years.

Stranded by War

I was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in the year of 1905, and at the age of nine was taken by my parents on a trip to their homeland, Germany. This trip was undertaken in the early spring of 1914, the month of May to be exact, when war seemed very remote. When it finally became clear that war would break out, my parents tried desperately to get passage to the U.S.A., but in vain.

My father, not as yet being a citizen of the U.S.A. but having his first papers, soon was drafted in the armed forces of the Central Powers, having been a reserve officer before emigrating to America. He had to leave my mother, myself and a brother, sister and another sister to be born in September, behind. We acquired four acres of land and a house in the eastern province of Posen in Germany, situated only about sixteen kilometers from the Russian border.