Put simply, anyone who is not a Witness but who has Witnesses or ex- Witnesses in their lives should watch this movie. You will understand them better for it.
It illustrates simply, without histrionics, the pressures facing a person in a religious group that punishes failure to comply with 'the rules' with expulsion (which can and does even extend to family members refusing to associate with you anymore) and where an individual's freedom of conscience is ignored.
Imagine yourself faced with a choice; do what your religion and family expect, or lose them. And you do not lose just family; Jehovah's Witnesses typically have few if any real friends outside of the religion.
I have been there and done it. It really is like starting over.
To get more complex, some reviewers, especially Jehovah's Witnesses seeking to defend their faith, miss the point or are in error, or both:
One reviewer expects it to show the Biblical justifications Jehovah's Witnesses use for their beliefs. Well, I believe an appropriate channel for that would be a film _they_ make. This film is a girl's story of how the religion she just happened to grow up in meant that by doing what many young people do, she loses her family, and that everyone she grew up with in the religion now thinks she will die. The reasons they might claim for doing and believing what many people would find morally reprehensible are irrelevant, as the same Bible can be interpreted in many different ways by other faiths.
Only very few religions are so sure that their opinion about a Biblical passage is so accurate that anyone who disagrees should be kicked out. And these opinions change; for example, the definition of the word 'generation' (Armageddon was meant to come in the lives of those of the generation of 1914, but as this generation has died out, the definition has shifted so it looks like they were never wrong) and the now rescinded prohibition against organ transplants (it used to be considered cannibalism and that someone receiving a heart transplant would develop personality traits of the donor, but the doctrine changed.... no "sorry if your loved ones refused organ transplants and died, we were wrong" at any point).
Another reviewer quibbles about an Elder having a beard. As has already been pointed out, in some countries this is OK. But before you quibbled, did you ever wonder what the hell does a man's facial hair (supposedly god-given) have to do with his suitability to act as an Elder? Or maybe this is another opinion, set at a time when men with beards were beatniks, hippies etc., and now presented as an unbreakable rule (except in countries where beards have been more traditional, where the rules are different, LOL), even though these opinions of grooming standards are archaic and non-Biblical?
Yet another reviewer tries the 'poison the well strategy' by implying that you cannot listen to ex-believers as they will be bitter. Well, honestly, would you buy a car of someone who told you never to listen to anyone who had owned that car in the past but then got rid of it? Maybe they got rid of the car for a reason to do with the car! Maybe people stop being JWs because of something to do with the religion?
Elders do follow up on people who have left (been there), especially if they are told that this person (who no longer even attends meetings) is breaking the rules.
The Watchtower magazine has vacillated between some support of higher education and warning against it. The '90s and early 00's it was more acceptable. In the '70's and 80's it was anathema.
And yes, some JWs are educated. But see the reaction if you openly tell other JWs you intend to research evolutionary biology thoroughly using textbooks etc., so that you can understand the beliefs that JWs have (no evolution of species, humans have only existed for less than 10,000 years) and be able to defend them better, or that you are going to read 'Crisis of Conscience' by expelled ex-governing body member Ray Franz, or you openly disagree with the meaning of certain scriptures. In most religions this is tolerated. But as shown by the expulsion of the lead character's elder brother, you can be kicked out for reading the wrong books and contradicting the elders!
And most certainly, just as you don't see Legolas running round after a battle in Lord of the Rings, picking up arrows (otherwise, where does he get them all from), you don't see everything that must have shaped her desire to leave. Her brother left for reading the wrong books... maybe ones that show that they JWs have either directly stated or heavily implied certain dates for Armageddon and been (obviously) wrong. Maybe her discussions with her boyfriend's atheistic family? But these are not the point of the film. Or her mother, who 'has doubts' but is forced to maintain a facade or lose her family?
The point of the film is that certain groups of believers have a very tight controlled set of beliefs, which just like any faith (Hebrews 11:1 "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.") is based not on FACT, but opinion. These same believers have to comply with these set of opinions or be expelled, and when a fellow believer is expelled will exercise a choice, based on their OPINION, to maintain or sever ties with them. This opinion is presented as god's opinion, but this is false, even blasphemous if you really believe in god... all it is is just another opinion, but one valued so highly by those holding it that it comes before everything else. There is no real option to agree to disagree and maintain normal ties
It illustrates simply, without histrionics, the pressures facing a person in a religious group that punishes failure to comply with 'the rules' with expulsion (which can and does even extend to family members refusing to associate with you anymore) and where an individual's freedom of conscience is ignored.
Imagine yourself faced with a choice; do what your religion and family expect, or lose them. And you do not lose just family; Jehovah's Witnesses typically have few if any real friends outside of the religion.
I have been there and done it. It really is like starting over.
To get more complex, some reviewers, especially Jehovah's Witnesses seeking to defend their faith, miss the point or are in error, or both:
One reviewer expects it to show the Biblical justifications Jehovah's Witnesses use for their beliefs. Well, I believe an appropriate channel for that would be a film _they_ make. This film is a girl's story of how the religion she just happened to grow up in meant that by doing what many young people do, she loses her family, and that everyone she grew up with in the religion now thinks she will die. The reasons they might claim for doing and believing what many people would find morally reprehensible are irrelevant, as the same Bible can be interpreted in many different ways by other faiths.
Only very few religions are so sure that their opinion about a Biblical passage is so accurate that anyone who disagrees should be kicked out. And these opinions change; for example, the definition of the word 'generation' (Armageddon was meant to come in the lives of those of the generation of 1914, but as this generation has died out, the definition has shifted so it looks like they were never wrong) and the now rescinded prohibition against organ transplants (it used to be considered cannibalism and that someone receiving a heart transplant would develop personality traits of the donor, but the doctrine changed.... no "sorry if your loved ones refused organ transplants and died, we were wrong" at any point).
Another reviewer quibbles about an Elder having a beard. As has already been pointed out, in some countries this is OK. But before you quibbled, did you ever wonder what the hell does a man's facial hair (supposedly god-given) have to do with his suitability to act as an Elder? Or maybe this is another opinion, set at a time when men with beards were beatniks, hippies etc., and now presented as an unbreakable rule (except in countries where beards have been more traditional, where the rules are different, LOL), even though these opinions of grooming standards are archaic and non-Biblical?
Yet another reviewer tries the 'poison the well strategy' by implying that you cannot listen to ex-believers as they will be bitter. Well, honestly, would you buy a car of someone who told you never to listen to anyone who had owned that car in the past but then got rid of it? Maybe they got rid of the car for a reason to do with the car! Maybe people stop being JWs because of something to do with the religion?
Elders do follow up on people who have left (been there), especially if they are told that this person (who no longer even attends meetings) is breaking the rules.
The Watchtower magazine has vacillated between some support of higher education and warning against it. The '90s and early 00's it was more acceptable. In the '70's and 80's it was anathema.
And yes, some JWs are educated. But see the reaction if you openly tell other JWs you intend to research evolutionary biology thoroughly using textbooks etc., so that you can understand the beliefs that JWs have (no evolution of species, humans have only existed for less than 10,000 years) and be able to defend them better, or that you are going to read 'Crisis of Conscience' by expelled ex-governing body member Ray Franz, or you openly disagree with the meaning of certain scriptures. In most religions this is tolerated. But as shown by the expulsion of the lead character's elder brother, you can be kicked out for reading the wrong books and contradicting the elders!
And most certainly, just as you don't see Legolas running round after a battle in Lord of the Rings, picking up arrows (otherwise, where does he get them all from), you don't see everything that must have shaped her desire to leave. Her brother left for reading the wrong books... maybe ones that show that they JWs have either directly stated or heavily implied certain dates for Armageddon and been (obviously) wrong. Maybe her discussions with her boyfriend's atheistic family? But these are not the point of the film. Or her mother, who 'has doubts' but is forced to maintain a facade or lose her family?
The point of the film is that certain groups of believers have a very tight controlled set of beliefs, which just like any faith (Hebrews 11:1 "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.") is based not on FACT, but opinion. These same believers have to comply with these set of opinions or be expelled, and when a fellow believer is expelled will exercise a choice, based on their OPINION, to maintain or sever ties with them. This opinion is presented as god's opinion, but this is false, even blasphemous if you really believe in god... all it is is just another opinion, but one valued so highly by those holding it that it comes before everything else. There is no real option to agree to disagree and maintain normal ties