Raymond was a Jehovah’s Witness for years, now he helps their abuse victims

When it turned out he liked men, for Raymond his time with the Jehovah's Witnesses ended. He was very active within the circle for years. Now he helps other former Jehovah's Witnesses, such as victims of abuse, with the Reclaimed Voices foundation. His whole youth was dedicated to the Jehovah's Witnesses. As a toddler in Brunssum Raymond Hintjes went along with his parents as they spread God's word door by door. Not much later he learned to put the Jehovah narrative into words himself. Public speaking has not been a problem since then. As a teacher of religion and philosophy of life at the Blariacum College in Blerick, he still benefits from it.

His personal experience of what religion can do in a person's life has been very useful. Hintjes has gratefully drawn from this in his theology studies. Above all, he can now empathize with people who, just like him, have detached themselves from the closed Jehovah’s Witnesses community. He is co-founder of the Reclaimed Voices foundation, which stands up for the interests of sexually abused children within the community.

The Jehovah's Witnesses [Explanation box]

The Jehovah's Witnesses are an international religious community founded in the United States in 1914. The Netherlands has almost thirty-thirty thousand followers. They believe that mankind lives in the end time, the last phase before God intervenes. All non-Jehovah's Witnesses will then be destroyed. Their only source of authority is the Bible, although they recognize secular authorities and abide by the law. They have their own logic, rules, norms and values.

For example, they do not celebrate church holidays like Christmas and reject blood transfusions.

Evangelizing

He wasn't abused himself. He doesn't think he had a bad childhood either. But evangelizing from house to houseand all the closed and slamming front doors that go with it are not his most pleasant memories. "It's not always fun. When you go from door to door on a weekday morning, you would hope to be treated kindly. Sometimes people react very angry. You're taught to react resentfully. My parents used to make a game of it with me.

They let me ring the bell. And then my dad asked, "What's it gonna be, a ding dong or a ring? And if no one was home, I could put a leaflet in the mailbox. Then I felt that I had done very important work."

With the knowledge of his theology study now he says: "The result of evangelization is not conversion, but that you are confirmed in your own viewpoint, that people are not inclined to follow the will of God. Whoever does not do God's will belongs to the adversary, the devil. And Jehovah's Witnesses are the chosen ones, the only ones that will survive the battle between God and the world."

Passion

Hintjes graduated from the Rombouts College in Brunssum and started studying physics at the university in Aachen. Physics is one of his passions, although the theories of Newton, Darwin and their brothers are at odds with the doctrine of creation as the Jehovah’s Witnesses adhered to it and Hintjes initially defended it himself.

Studying is a questionable activity within the faith community anyway, he says. "Higher education is strongly discouraged because it is seen as a danger. You come into contact with people who think differently, with people who are against the ideas of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Moreover, you may wonder how useful it is to invest time in an education that prepares you for a position in a society that is bankrupt in your eyes".

Sales tricks

At 23, he went to Sweden for two months for a training in effective evangelism, where he learned sales tricks such as turning a rejection into starting a conversation. He slowly climbed up within the community, first servant, then elder. He got the circle Hoensbroek under his care.

At a certain point Hintjes wondered what he was actually doing at the university and broke off his studies. He took a part-time job at the call centre of the Tax Administration in Heerlen and spent the remaining time on the Jehovah's Witnesses, soon about seventy hours a month. Calling at doors, talking to people on the street, evangelizing, leading Bible studies.

All religious zeal served a second, much more important purpose, he learned. "When I look back, I already knew when I was fifteen that I liked men. I have tried for a long time to push it away by deliberately being very active within the Jehovah community. ”

He experienced his coming-out when he shared an apartment with a fellow believer. "He discovered on my computer that I had a taste for men. Het forced me to make a choice: "Either you confess or I'm going to tell myself." As a Jehovah's Witness, if you are aware of a serious sin of a brother or sister, you must urge him or her to come forward or else alert the elders yourself yourself. In the end, I confessed to the elders. That was a very unpleasant time. I felt ratted out, had lost confidence in my roommate. The tasks I had within the community were taken away from me."

Voicemail message

He suddenly had a lot of time left to think and especially to feel. Jehovah's witnesses experience their faith quite rationally and formally, he concluded. Because of the openness about his orientation, there was suddenly room for emotions and Hintjes was touched in who he really was. His faith began to falter. When he was expelled from the community in 2007 because of his relationship with a man, his personal Jehovah's Witnesses house of cards collapsed definitively. "I received a written invitation to a so-called judicial committee. I did not attend because the outcome was already clear. The fact that he had been expelled was announced through a voicemail message: "We hereby let you know that you are no longer known as aJehovah's Witness."

When he was 28 he fell into a personal crisis and social isolation. The latter happens to many ex-members, because they have hardly any contacts outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses community. He got frightened dreams about the end of the world, exactly according to the scenarios outlined by the movement. "I always got killed in such a nightmare. I processed a lot in my sleep. ”

Disorder

The disorder in his life and mind was short-lived because he met his current partner relatively quickly and found a new goal: to study theology. “My real passion is asking life questions and ethical issues. I know that as a child I always asked my parents about ‘the why’. Then theology is the right place for you. ”

Looking back on the first thirty years of his life, he finds that he came out of his Jehovah period without trauma, especially since he never broke up with his parents. "But I know enough people who didn't come out unscathed. They may go to a psychotherapist, but he doesn't understand the internal structure of the Jehovah's Witnesses."

To help fellow sufferers with his experience, he became active on internet forums. Often it was about sexual abuse. This led to the formation of a Facebook group, which was succeeded by Reclaimed Voices. "We don't act out of resentment and deliberately don't criticize the entire Jehovah community, but limit ourselves to sexual abuse." The aim of the foundation is to create a safe climate for children within the faith community.

Responsible

This includes dealing responsibly with cases of sexual abuse. A scientific report commissioned by the Ministry of Justice, to which Reclaimed Voices has made a substantial contribution, has shown that this is often lacking at present.

In January this year, the national administartion of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Netherlands tried a in summary proceedings to prevent the publication of the report, they failed. The court ruled that the social importance of openness about tackling abuse within the circle outweighs the interest of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Victimhood

Based on approximately three hundred personal experiences with sexual abuse, the report reveals an image of a closed movement that in practice mainly tries to protect its own community. Victims therefore receive insufficient recognition and support, which evokes a new sense of victimization.

The report [Explanation box]

After the Catholic Church, Youth Care and the Military, the Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) are the fourth closed circle investigated for sexual abuse. The researchers of Utrecht University conclude that victims do not receive sufficient recognition and support within the community. They advise that victims of Jehovah's Witnesses should be advise more explicitly about reporting abuse externally, elders should be trained and that Jehovah's Witnesses should set up an offcial internal hotline.

The national JW administartion calls the report offensive and discriminatory because it implies that the risk of abuse within the JW is higher than in other religions. The board sees several errors in the report and states that the JW do point to external reporting of sexual abuse.

Reclaimed Voices looks forward to the parliamentary debate on the report that has been postponed because of the corona crisis. However, the foundation doubts whether the Minister can change much about the JW's policy. "They themselves have indicated not to do anything with the recommendations. To what extent can the minister enforce that?"

The report was not intended to identify the extent of the sexual abuse, but how it is dealt with. According to Hintjes, this is the result of the segregated attitude of the Jehovah’s Witnesses toward society and their common ideas. "That women are subject to men, that the entire organization is run by men, and that sex should only be experienced within marriage promotes sexual abuse."

But he thinks the paradise for pedophiles, as the Jehovah movement has been called, is exaggerated. "That suggests there are many pedophiles in the community. There are no indications for that. ” In Limburg, a case of sexual abuse of five young children by a Jehovah's witness has recently come to light. A 66-year-old Heerlenaar is in custody because he is suspected of abusing some children.

According to Hintjes, the mechanisms have worked well here, possibly because the circle has been under the magnifying glass for some time. The Public Prosecution Service states that the case came out because the suspect has started to tell it himself, including to elders. Lawyer Kasper Regter does not call this case a stereotypical Jehovah's abuse case. Furthermore, he does not want to comment on the matter, which is "very sensitive"

Right of non-disclosure (Clergy privilege)

Last week, the Jehovah's Witnesses suffered a new defeat, when the court in Zwolle rejected the right of non-disclosure for elders. The case was prompted by the search of two churches in Dordrecht and Assen and the headquarters in Emmen and the seizure of documents related to sexual abuse within the community. That is a violation of religious freedom and the right of non-disclosure, according to the national administration of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

For the court, the central question was: does a Jehovah's elder act as a spiritual counselor who, like a lawyer, physician, and notary, has a right to refuse to answer questions from the court? No, the court ruled, he is much more of a Church official than a counselor. Within the circle, it is not the spiritual care of a victim that is paramount, but gathering and sharing information with the internal judicial committee.

Raymond Hintjes is happy with that verdict. "A clergyman is indeed entitled to the right to refuse to give evidence, but this is in the interest of an individual request for help and not in the interest of the denomination, as happens with the Jehovah's Witnesses".

According to Hintjes, spiritual counselling involves a pure and ethical consideration of all interests. This requires the necessary education and training, which he believes most elders have not had. "There are elders who are cleaners or window cleaners. Most within the community have at most an education at intermediate level, because higher education is not encouraged. Once every two years you get a weekend training, but that is a transfer of knowledge. When it comes to ethical considerations, they are not trained at all. Can you expect a good ethical consideration from someone who is a window cleaner in daily life? Help consists of discussing a Scripture or an article from the Watchtower. ”

Love-hate relationship

Where does Hintjes stand as a liberated Jehovah's witness himself on the scale of faith? Students at school often ask me questions like this. I always come up with a counter-question: what do you mean by God? For me God can be a metaphor for what is important in life, such as the dignity of man, contributing to a humane society and social justice. Christianity says something about that. But I have a love-hate relationship with religious systems, because they often have an exclusive character and set rules for who does and does not belong. Is it really about that? ? I don't have to wonder if Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross for me. I see him as someone who criticized society in his days for oppressing the less fortunate".