Sam Human's new book 'Maria's Keepers' tells the story of Maria, a former Jehovah's Witness in South Africa, and reveals gender victimisation, sexual abuse and cover-ups within the church.
Maria managed to escape the church's doctrines and control, but her freedom came at a price - she is shunned by her family, and can never see her mother or sister again.
The Jehovah's Witnesses is a worldwide, Christian-based religious group that professes an unparalleled dedication to Jehovah (God). It claims to be politically neutral, racially and ethnically transcendent, and has a membership of eight million people worldwide.
Yet many former Witnesses claim that it is a fear-based doomsday cult that considers itself above all other belief systems.
Allegations of secular, cultish behaviour, homophobia, money laundering, brainwashing and countless accusations of institutionalised sexual abuse abound.
Entering the church is easy, but leaving it can be a matter of life or death, as Maria and countless others discovered. Read an excerpt below.
***
As Lloyd Evans writes in The Reluctant Apostate: 'I had no idea Witnesses felt love was conditional. Forget the idea of blood being thicker than water. If you dare to disagree about Jehovah, that blood loses its viscosity in a heartbeat. Sons and daughters become dead to the very people who gave them life, and moms and dads are treated as invisible by those whom they cradled in...
