Boston Globe/September 26, 2002
By Bobby Ross Jr.
Tullahoma, Tenn. -- Joe and Barbara Anderson have been abandoned
by their peers. Their son won't talk to them, and won't let them
see their 3-year-old grandson.
For more than 40 years, Joe and Barbara Anderson were faithful
Jehovah's Witnesses, preaching door to door and winning more
than 80 converts to the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
But now the Andersons are outcasts, excommunicated from the
religion they served.
The couple's transgression: Sowing discord in the faith by
alleging that the denomination has protected pedophiles and
concealed hundreds of child molestation cases.
''Our son and daughter-in-law think what we've done is so
horrible,'' Barbara Anderson, 62, said at her sycamore-shaded
rural cottage about 65 miles southeast of Nashville.
Like the Roman Catholic Church, Jehovah's Witnesses are dealing
with their own sex scandal that involves both rank-and-file and
leaders of the faith.
The Jehovah's Witnesses shun the outside world in many respects
and refuse to participate in secular government. Critics fear
that child-sex allegations are generally not reported to police
because of the church's insistence on handling problems
internally.
Four Witnesses, including Barbara Anderson, were excommunicated
after NBC's ''Dateline'' aired their concerns in May. Joe
Anderson, 67, was disfellowshipped, as the church calls it, in
July over a letter to headquarters questioning his wife's
treatment.
Barbara Anderson worked as a researcher at Watchtower
headquarters in the early 1990s and a church official asked her
to look into the handling of sexual abuse cases. She said she
found hundreds of allegations on record, but kept secret, in
church files.
She said church elders used Scripture to argue ''you're not to
make an accusation against an older man unless there are two or
three witnesses,'' she said. ''No molester is going to have any
witnesses, that's for sure.''
Watchtower spokesman J.R. Brown defended Jehovah's Witnesses'
policies.
''Clearly, with us having 95,000 congregations around the world
and three to five to six elders in each, mistakes may have been
made,'' he said. ''But that does not mean that we don't have a
strong and aggressive policy that shows we abhor child
molestation.''
Brown said that anyone found guilty of molestation by a church
judicial committee is removed from all positions of
responsibility and cannot evangelize door-to-door without being
accompanied by a fellow Jehovah's Witness.
Undeterred, Barbara Anderson co-founded Silentlambs, a support
group for church victims. She expects to lead a rally outside
Watchtower headquarters in New York City on Friday. Protesters
plan to carry stuffed lambs to symbolize the children who have
been hurt.
Silentlambs, headed by former Kentucky church elder Bill Bowen,
claims the denomination keeps molestations secret, won't let
victims warn other members about abusers, and shuns those who
speak out.
The church puts its membership at 6 million worldwide, including
1 million U.S. residents. Silentlambs has received calls and e-
mails from 5,000 Witnesses reporting mishandled molestation
cases, Bowen said.
In the closed society, anyone who is a Witness must cut off
contact with disfellowshipped members, even relatives.
''They will not speak to you,'' Joe Anderson said. ''I mean, if
you are lying on the road, they will drive right past you.''
Their son, Lance Anderson, 41, a church elder in Mishawaka,
Ind., said the intention isn't to punish his parents but to lead
them to repentance.
''I have never seen a situation come up in which we have not
handled it legally and biblically the best way possible,'' he
said.
The son said pedophilia is a global problem but that only God
not man or government can stop it.
''I love my parents dearly, but the message they have chosen to
accomplish this is harming good people,'' he said. ''They are
putting themselves, really, in harm's way.''
For the first time, Joe and Barbara Anderson say they're reading
religious books and trying to draw their own conclusions.
''It's not that we don't believe the Bible or don't believe
religion or don't believe God,'' Barbara Anderson said. ''But
we're having fun ... having the freedom to look around and to
think about it.''
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