I don't read the Watchtower anymore. I just don't have the time nor the stomach for it. However, I recently got an email encouraging me to check out an article in the May 2026 issue titled “Respect the Decisions of Others”. As I read it, I felt the old anger welling up in me. It’s not that the article is saying anything wrong. The source of my resentment was the hypocrisy it exposed.
You might recall that Jeffrey Winder in an annual meeting talk not too long ago said that the Governing Body does not feel the need to apologize. Well, this article puts that sentiment on full display.
The article is about avoiding passing judgment on others. It provides 6 scenarios. In paragraph 7, we come across scenario 4.
A brother grew up during a time when most people felt that it was inappropriate for men to grow beards or for women to wear dress slacks to formal events. While the brother is aware of the recent adjustment in our view of this subject, he insistently tells others that Christian men should not wear beards and that Christian women should wear dresses while engaged in theocratic activities.
This makes it sound like the brother’s attitude is due to outdated worldly standards. What nonsense. The injunction against beards on men and dress slacks on women was only lifted three years ago, decades after it has been accepted in the world. I’m 76 years old and all my life, the Organization has told us through its oral law and network of district and circuit overseers that beards were prohibited and that sisters had to wear skirts in the preaching work, even if the temperature outside was forty below.
The brother is making an issue about beards and dress slacks because the Organization trained him to think that way.
Scenario 5 states:
“An elder knew a brother who pursued additional education and later left the truth. Now a young brother in the elder’s congregation has decided to seek additional education. The elder is concerned and tries to convince the young brother and his parents to change their mind.”
The Organization changed its position on higher education very recently. The elder depicted in this scenario was indoctrinated by the Organization to think of higher education as a danger to be avoided.
It takes a special level of hypocrisy to self-righteously counsel people about not judging others when the basis for their judgment has been implanted by the very people who now presume to counsel them. This is psychological projection on a massive scale. This is the same self-righteous hypocrisy that Jesus constantly condemned the Pharisees for practicing. And now here it is again, practiced by the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Oh, but we’re just getting warmed up.
Paragraph 10 contains this little gem of egocentric obtuseness. “We do not have the authority to judge others in personal matters. (Read James 4:12.)”
Seriously! Can they not see the irony? They have been laying down rules for decades to judge others in personal matters. They published these rules in the magazines and their books. Remember that clinking glasses and making a toast was condemned by Watchtower leadership until recently.
I imagine that were Jesus present today, he’d ask of the Governing Body the same thing he asked the Pharisees repeatedly: Have you never read…?
In this case, he would paraphrase the three-part question that Paul put to the Romans:
“Do you, the one teaching someone else, not teach yourself? You, the one preaching, “Do not judge a person for wearing a beard.” Have you judged people for how they dress and groom? You the one saying, “Don’t condemn a man for seeking higher education.” Have you condemned such a man yourself? You, the one saying “Do not judge others in personal matters?” Have you not done just that for the past sixty years?” (Romans 2:21, 22 [paraphrased])”
Is that not exactly what the Governing Body is doing in this article, presuming to counsel others to avoid conduct that they themselves have been practicing for more than half a century?
Their total lack of self-awareness is also evident in paragraph 11: “Jehovah requires unity among his worshippers, not uniformity.”
For my entire life as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the word “unity” was used when what was being called for was not unity, but uniformity. They make it sound like the problem lies with the flock, not the leadership. They want their followers to believe that the Governing Body never demanded uniformity, never prohibited men from having a beard, never required women to wear skirts not slacks, never judged anyone for going to university. No, they are innocent of all this. It’s all on the rank-and-file. It’s the same tactic they continue to use when 1975 comes up.
Oh, but they still leave themselves a control mechanism should it be needed. In paragraph 15, while counseling elders to not go beyond what is written, they state: “And by extension, they do not go beyond the Bible-based counsel that is written in our publications.”
This puts the publications on the same level as the Bible. But the counsel is not Bible-based. If it were, there would be no need to change it. No need for so-called “New Light”.
When they made mistakes in the past and published what they euphemistically called “adjustments”, I understood that they were correcting their failed interpretations. That wasn’t what bothered me. What I found troubling was their unwillingness to accept responsibility for their misdirection. The idea then and now was that they were merely following the leading of the holy spirit and it was not yet God’s time to reveal the full picture to them. Well, it you don’t have the full picture, why pretend that you do? Why blame God for your mistakes? Why make hard and fast rules calling them guidance from the Scriptures, when in fact, you were just making stuff up? What kind of heart in a man motivates him to do that? The spirit of God is the spirit of truth, not the spirit of “this is my best guess, but until further notice you better do what I tell you to do or else.” No, that kind of spirit isn’t from God. I comes from a different source.
The best course of action for us is to follow the inspired command found at Revelation 18:4.
“And I heard another voice out of heaven say: “Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.” (Revelation 18:4)
Those plagues are coming upon false religion and make no mistake, JW.org is part of false religion. Don’t be fooled thinking that you have some special privilege and protection by remaining inside the Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Jews of Jesus day thought that. They alone of all the nations were God’s chosen people. Jehovah God would not destroy them. But Jesus knew better and he wept.
“If you, even you, had discerned on this day the things having to do with peace—but now they have been hidden from your eyes. . .Look! Your house is abandoned to you.” (Luke 19:42; Matthew 23:38)