I think the only familiarity most Americans have with Jehovah's Witnesses - what they've been told when witnesses go door to door, trying to convert people. She now lives in New York.Īmber Scorah, welcome to FRESH AIR. She was shunned, officially considered an apostate, which meant family and friends within the faith were obligated to stop communicating with her. As a result, elders shut her out of the religion. She started challenging the lower position of women in the faith. While in China, she started questioning the dogma she was taught, that she was now trying to teach others. Then she went to China, where the religion is outlawed, and tried to missionize there. In her hometown, Vancouver, Canada, she knocked on doors missionizing, armed with copies of the Witness' publication, "The Watchtower," trying to warn people that Armageddon was imminent, and they would soon die and leave no trace behind unless they converted. The essay was adapted from Scorah's new memoir, "Leaving The Witness," about her life as a third-generation Jehovah's Witness. That essay, by my guest, Amber Scorah, is about the shocking loss of her 4-month-old baby boy and then grieving without the reassurances and answers that her former faith would have provided. It read "Surviving The Death Of My Son After Surviving The Death Of My Faith" (ph). I want to read you the headline of an op-ed in The New York Times that recently caught my attention. This is because the Bible makes it clear that human beings do not have an immortal soul that survives when the body dies.This is FRESH AIR. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that when a person dies, their existence completely stops. Modern Witnesses regard the Cross as a pagan symbol and do not use it, although it was accepted by the movement until 1931.
This belief is based on the Greek words used in the Bible for the cross, which literally translate as 'stake' and 'tree'. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus did not die on a cross but on single stake.
They refer to the 'New Testament' as the Christian Greek Scriptures, and they call the 'Old Testament' the Hebrew Scriptures. The Witnesses have their own translation of the Bible - the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.