New Watchtower Shows Their Grip Slipping on Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses are discovering Watchtower's coverups, and they're leaving the religion because of it. The October 2026 Watchtower study edition contains an article that demonstrates Watchtower's panic about this trend, built around an illustration whose lack of sense is as disturbing as it is revealing.

Imagine getting on a bus for a long trip to a beautiful destination. The article says, "But all is not rosy on this bus." It describes how

A loud conversation between two passengers or even the rudeness of the driver might disturb you, but none of that changes the fact that you're on the right bus and you need to stay on it.

Jehovah's Witnesses are the passengers, and the destination is God's new world. But who is the rude driver they're supposed to put up with? Watchtower is claiming that people should tolerate misconduct from the people driving the religion. The illustration also downplays how serious the leadership's actions have actually been, describing a merely rude driver rather than one driving dangerously and throwing passengers around. That would have been closer to the truth, but Watchtower doesn't print things that are negative about itself.

Who Watchtower Is Actually Talking To

This isn't a study article, so it won't be discussed at the meeting — it's something a witness would have to read on their own time. That detail matters, because it narrows the audience. The frenzy witnesses who believe to some extent but not enough to do extra reading aren't going to read it. The PIMOs, physically in and mentally out, still attend to avoid being shunned, but they don't believe, so they're not doing extra reading either, other than maybe hate-reading it. Only the more hardcore witnesses take the time to read the extra articles in a study edition. So when Watchtower wrote this, it was aimed at the true believers still left in the religion, trying to get them to put up with everything they're finding out about the organization. That itself shows Watchtower's panic level.

In Western countries, people are waking up and leaving in record numbers. Watchtower has tried to paper over that by making it much easier to be counted as an active member — now a person just checks a box and claims to have done some preaching that month, with none of the real effort that used to be required. This article was put in the latest study edition because the organization knows it has a serious problem with its remaining core of true believers, and it's trying to handle that problem.

If you asked an elder what the article was for, he'd call it loving counsel on putting up with each other in love, and read without context, that would sound like a fair description. The article isn't wrong that congregations are full of imperfect people — somebody snubs you, somebody gossips, feelings get hurt. Articles about not letting people's failures cause you to turn away from God appear in pretty much every religion's publications, and that's not itself a bad point. But look closer at the specific scenarios the article prepares witnesses for. It asks:

What if a fellow believer gets involved in serious sin, even scandalous conduct?

And it adds:

We might feel offended by a fellow believer or even shocked by the wrongdoing of someone we looked up to.

That's more serious than a rude bus driver. Reading that as someone who's awake and immersed in the court cases and damning information that comes out about Watchtower's mishandling of abuse, "someone we looked up to" reads as a clear hint toward elders: if an elder gets busted for something serious, shake it off and don't let it impact your faith.

The Emotional Bait-and-Switch in the Opening Paragraph

The article's first paragraph is a warm opening that asks the reader to think about what drew them to the religion in the first place:

Were you drawn to Jehovah's people because of the love you observed among them? Did their upright conduct make a favorable impression on you? Many are attracted to the truth because God's organization makes them feel safe and genuinely loved and that is understandable. Love and good conduct are identifying marks of true worship.

Two paragraphs later, the same article says that if a person's faith depends solely on how the actions of others make them feel, it's resting on a shaky foundation. That's a contradiction. A lot of people reading this were born into the religion — they weren't drawn to it from the outside by anything, and without trying other groups, they have no way of testing whether the one they're in is any better than any other. They just have to take Watchtower's word for it. And for those who were drawn in as adults, the article itself said the love and conduct they observed were an identifying mark of true worship when it attracted them. But two paragraphs later, that same observed conduct becomes a shaky foundation not to build on. The evidence that recruited them becomes inadmissible the moment it starts testifying against the organization.

That's not a coherent standard. If someone's reason for joining was good conduct, and they later discover that conduct was a sham — covering up child sex abuse, for instance — then leaving is the appropriate response to that conduct. Reason for joining, good conduct; reason for leaving, bad conduct. Think of it like a marriage: if a spouse turns out to be abusive, reminiscing about how nice they were while dating isn't a reason to stay. They're abusive now, and if they turned out to be violent, they were very likely lying about who they were from the start. Watchtower is using the same kind of emotional appeal an abusive spouse uses to keep someone from leaving.

The article footnotes "love and good conduct are identifying marks of true worship" to John 13:35 and 1 Peter 2. It then imports current conduct as a legitimate evaluation tool and swaps it out for sentiment about how a person felt when they first joined:

If we are convinced of Bible truths and we connect these truths with the channel Jehovah is using, we can avoid being stumbled by the behavior of others.

Notice the move: something legitimate — being convinced of Bible truths — gets its authority borrowed by "the channel Jehovah is using," which in Watchtower theology is the organization itself, and only the organization.

Borrowed Doctrines, Borrowed Authority

The Bible truths Watchtower wants witnesses thinking about are the standard set: God's name is Jehovah, there's no hellfire, the earth will be restored to paradise, God isn't a trinity. The implication is that a witness learned these from Watchtower and therefore owes the organization permanent loyalty. But Watchtower's founders borrowed those beliefs from the Adventist Church and other faith traditions — they didn't originate those doctrines, even if they've tweaked them since. That would be like handing someone a Tylenol and claiming they're in your debt for curing their headache, when you didn't create the pill. Worse, Watchtower took the borrowed medicine and laced it with policies like shunning and covering up child abuse, and now wants gratitude for the whole package.

The article says thinking about those borrowed Bible truths will

help us recognize that we are in the right organization regardless of the actions of a few individuals.

"A few individuals" — but would someone who's been a Jehovah's Witness their whole life really be doubting now if it were only a few individuals? If you walked into a bar and saw one drunk guy acting up, you wouldn't blame the bar's owner for that. But if the staff ignored him while he harassed other customers, that reflects on the staff and the owner. Watchtower's members aren't upset just over the actions of a few people — they're upset because the organization doesn't do anything when those people act up, meaning predators preying on children in the congregation without being turned over to police once they're exposed. The elders' own handbook tells parents they have the right to go to the police, but the elders themselves won't unless mandated by law.

Rewriting Peter's Answer to Jesus

To make its case, the article leans on John chapter 6, where a number of Jesus's disciples abandon him after a hard teaching, and Jesus asks the apostles if they want to leave too. Peter answers, "Lord, whom shall we go away to? You have sayings of everlasting life." Watchtower cites that scripture to tell members not to abandon the organization — even though Peter was talking about Jesus Christ specifically, and there was nowhere else to go but Jesus. Watchtower takes a verse where Peter is talking about the man Christians view as their savior and redirects it to mean the organization is the savior and members have nowhere else to go but it.

This isn't an isolated reading. A June 2026 Watchtower, just months before the one under discussion, says:

as Peter said to Jesus, we too can say to Jehovah, whom shall we go away to?

Peter said it to Jesus; Watchtower has members say it to Jehovah. But in Watchtower theology, staying with Jehovah means staying in the organization — leave the organization, and Jehovah's Witnesses will say you left Jehovah. The organization and Jehovah are treated as inseparable. It's said in print, and it was said in a JW broadcast from July 2026:

Lord, whom shall we go away to? You have sayings of everlasting life? Whom shall we go away to? Peter and the other disciples may not have understood what Jesus was talking about any more than the others did, but they were convinced that there was nowhere else to go. The same is true today. Never forget what you have. Where else will you go for the guidance, spiritual food, and comfort that Jehovah provides through his organization? There is nowhere else to go. There is nowhere else to go.

Why Watchtower Doesn't Want Witnesses Reading the Bible Alone

The article's closing paragraph tells readers to keep a good routine of personal Bible study, which will strengthen their conviction that they've found the truth. The irony is that Watchtower itself has admitted what happens when members study the Bible on their own, outside the lens of Watchtower's publications. An August 15, 1981 Watchtower magazine, describing witnesses who took up reading the Bible by itself, alone or in small groups, said they had

reverted right back to the apostate doctrines

of the churches — some even went back to celebrating Christmas. Watchtower is warning, in its own words, that unsupervised Bible study leads people away from what it teaches, because the doctrines witnesses believe aren't actually found in the Bible alone. An honest version of that final paragraph would have said that a good routine of supervised Bible study strengthens conviction in the doctrines learned from the Watchtower Corporation. What was written instead isn't accurate. What the article asks of Jehovah's Witnesses is that when what they observe starts testifying against what the religion claims, they overrule their own eyes with the organization's doctrine.

"Gifts in Men": How Watchtower Built the Pedestal for Elders

To feel the full force of the article's line about being shocked by "someone we looked up to," it helps to understand what this organization teaches about the men who run it. Watchtower has taught for decades that congregation elders are literally God's gift to members, citing Ephesians 4:8, "He gave gifts and men," as its proof text. Interestingly, almost every other English Bible translation renders that verse as gifts to men, not gifts in men — Watchtower's rendering supports its own power structure. A leaked video from Bethel states it plainly:

How do we view the gifts in men today? How do you view your elders, your overseers, or Jehovah's organization? Are they truly gifts to you? The elders are gifts from God.

Watchtower also frequently quotes Hebrews 13:17:

Be obedient to those taking the lead among you and be submissive... for they are keeping watch over you as those who will render an account.

Watchtower loves the first part of that verse; it's less fond of the caveat, that God will hold the leaders responsible for how they exercise their authority. The literature presents elders as shepherds and gifts given to Jehovah's Witnesses by God himself, and children grow up watching their parents defer to these men on everything from medical decisions to who they associate with. In 2016, a governing body helper made loyalty to the elders a spiritual requirement:

Third, we can be loyal to Jehovah by being loyal to the elders. We've discussed loyalty to Jehovah himself and to the faithful slave. But what about direction we receive from the elders in our congregation. We listen to our elders give talks and comments at the meetings each week. We work with them in the ministry and we associate with them. This regular contact gives us more opportunities to see their imperfections and flaws. We could begin to focus on their weaknesses, weakening our trust in God's arrangement. Why then is it so important to strengthen our loyalty to our hardworking, loving shepherds? Because these gifts in men are an expression of Jehovah's loyal love as they loyally lead, feed, and protect his precious sheep. As the great tribulation nears, our survival will depend on our readiness to respond to their direction as they follow the governing body's direction.

Put those pieces together: teach every family that local elders are God's gifts owed obedience and loyalty; an elder turns out to be a predator; the member's faith cracks because the organization itself taught that this man was God's appointed person; and then an article like this one tells the member to stop the collapsing faith by reminding themselves they're in the right organization regardless of how anyone acts. Watchtower built the pedestal, and when the man standing on it turns out to be a monster, the response isn't to question the pedestal — it's an article teaching members to ignore what they saw and keep going.

A fair pushback here is that every institution with children around has abusers — schools, sports leagues, the Catholic Church, secular charities, the Boy Scouts. Predators go where children are, and one bad apple doesn't make the whole bunch rotten. That's true, and if the story were only that some Jehovah's Witnesses had committed terrible crimes, it would be tragic but not remarkable. "The actions of a few individuals" would be a reasonable description if the organization were working hard to prevent abuse and it still happened despite its best efforts. The question that matters isn't whether it happens — it's going to happen anywhere. The question is what the organization does once it finds out.

What the Australian Royal Commission Found

The Australian Royal Commission documented 1,006 known alleged child predators among Jehovah's Witnesses and 1,800 victims, with not a single one turned over to the authorities. Of the accused, 579 confessed. Among those, 44 were elders, 65 were ministerial servants, 8 were pioneers, and 1 was a circuit overseer — more than 100 of the accused held appointed positions, the exact positions the organization teaches families to trust as gifts from God. After being removed over abuse allegations, six of the elders and two of the ministerial servants were reappointed, and 28 were appointed as ministerial servants or elders after the allegations — placed back into positions that gave them access to victims to begin with.

In April 2017, right as the Royal Commission was concluding its follow-up hearings, Watchtower told Jehovah's Witnesses:

You or someone you know may experience or observe what seems to be an injustice in the congregation. Do not let yourself be stumbled. We modestly acknowledge that we likely do not have all the facts. Rather than taking matters into our own hands, let us be determined to be loyal and wait patiently on Jehovah to correct matters.

Convictions Across American Courtrooms

Moving from Australia to the United States, a review of criminal convictions of Jehovah's Witness abusers — not just allegations, convictions — found cases in 10 different states spanning 1984 to 2024. More than a dozen men were found guilty, and of those twelve, at least eight held appointed positions: elders, a presiding overseer, a ministerial servant. That count only reflects what's documentable from news archives and court records; nobody has compiled a full accounting of the damage.

In the civil case brought by Candace Conti, a California jury found the organization itself had failed to protect her. She was abused starting at age nine; the predator was a ministerial servant, and records showed the elders knew about him before the abuse occurred. Damages were reduced on appeal, but the negligence finding stood.

In Illinois in 2022, prosecutors didn't stop at the abuser — two congregation elders were criminally convicted, not of the abuse itself, but of failing to report it after learning a six-year-old was being assaulted. At trial, it came out that they called the organization's legal department in New York and were told they didn't have to report, so they didn't.

In Pennsylvania, a statewide investigating grand jury began looking into child sex abuse among Jehovah's Witness congregations in October 2022. The attorney general has since filed charges against 17 men; 11 have been convicted, at least 6 are already in state prison, and more cases are working their way through the courts, elders among them. Sentences have ranged from 10 to 20 years, to 12 to 30, to 14 to 34, to 14 to 46, with 11 convictions secured in about two years.

Taken together: in Australia, more than a thousand accused, more than a hundred of them appointed men, zero reported to police, eight put back into their positions afterward. In American courtrooms, convictions across ten states, elders and ministerial servants among them. In Pennsylvania alone, 17 charged, 11 convicted, sentences measured in decades. In the United States, Watchtower has paid out over $100 million in child abuse settlements, and every settlement comes with a gag order preventing the abused person from talking about it. A British watchdog group reported that Jehovah's Witnesses organizations were aware of at least 67 allegations of child abuse between 2009 and 2019.

In the middle of all of that, the October 2026 Watchtower publishes two pages telling members that being shocked by the wrongdoing of someone they looked up to is just a feeling, and

What we know can be more powerful than how we feel.

That's a fair standard to apply — but applied honestly, the facts are 1,006 files in Australia with zero police reports and six reappointed elders, 17 charged in Pennsylvania with 11 convicted including appointed men, and over $100 million in US settlements paid to avoid going to court.

A Pattern That's Escalating Through 2026

This article isn't a one-off. A February 2026 Watchtower, aimed at the newly baptized, taught a new convert not to be stumbled by the faults seen in congregation members — even people who joined only months earlier and have no "remember when you first joined" nostalgia to draw on. A June 2026 study article, "How to Remain Loyal When We Face Tests of Faith," told members:

God's organization might make decisions that we do not fully understand, or we might feel misunderstood or hurt by a brother or a sister.

It prescribes the same formula and closes under a section headed "Never Leave Jehovah," with a closing song about loyally submitting to theocratic order. A September 2026 article, "Trust in Jehovah for Protection," claims Jehovah now provides physical protection to his people as a group even before the great tribulation, though individuals are only guaranteed protection at Armageddon — meaning leaving carries the same ultimate risk. Then the October 2026 article completes the set with the bus, the rude driver, and the misbehaving passengers, delivering the same message: stay despite everything you've seen, because leaving means God kills you at Armageddon for disloyalty.

The "whom shall we go away to" proof text from John 6 tracks the escalation clearly. It appeared in the Watchtower four times in 2026 — January, February, June, and October — plus once more in the July JW broadcast, for five uses so far in a year that isn't over. By comparison, it showed up twice in 2025, once in 2024, once in 2023, twice in 2022, twice in 2021, and once in 2020. The jump to four print uses plus a broadcast use in a single year is a clear escalation, consistent with Watchtower ramping up pressure on members to obey and stay no matter what.

For a long time, Watchtower could tell members that bad news only came from bitter apostates attacking the religion. What it's now trying to get members to overlook isn't coming from apostate websites — it's coming from their own sons and daughters, siblings across the kitchen table telling the still-believing member what the organization has been doing or not doing, and why they're leaving because of it. It's also coming from the scandals surfacing within congregations themselves: child sex abuse, fraud against elderly witnesses, people in positions of leadership going to prison. When witnesses see that firsthand, it shakes their faith in a way apostate content never could.

Where the Bus Illustration Breaks Down

The bus illustration fails in three ways. First, on an actual bus line, if the company knew some of its drivers had assaulted child passengers, kept records of it, told nobody, and did nothing to stop it, the people who got off and ran wouldn't be "stumbled" — they'd be right, and the blame would fall on the company, not the passengers. Second, the illustration never offers a way to know you're on the wrong bus. A rude driver — still the right bus. Horrific scandals — still the right bus. Decisions that make no sense as the driver demands unquestioning obedience — still the right bus. A company where nothing that happens on the bus counts as evidence against it wouldn't last very long in the real world, and the internet has made it impossible for Watchtower to hide from the truth about their bus any longer.

Third, there's the destination. The whole point of enduring a trip like the one Watchtower describes is that it's actually going somewhere, on schedule. But Watchtower has claimed the end was near in 1914, 1925, and 1975, claimed it would come before the generation of 1914 passed away — and they all died — and claimed the preaching work would be concluded by the year 2000. If a bus ride was supposed to take six hours, at what point past that would a reasonable person start asking questions? Maybe an extra half hour, then another thirty minutes if the driver said "we'll be there soon." But after seven hours, then eight, then nine, at some point the honest conclusion is that the driver doesn't know where they're going, and a person is better off getting off, buying a map, and finding their own way.

In forty years of watching for signs of an end that never came, the same divorce rate as other religions appeared, worse than some, including atheists. The same levels of depression, the same drinking problems, the same human wreckage as the world outside the windows. Multiple people known personally took their own lives while still Jehovah's Witnesses, carrying something they felt they couldn't share with anyone. At some point the anger fades, because it just turns back on the person carrying it. Staying on that bus for 40 years, raised in it and indoctrinated in it from birth, is its own explanation — but there were also things that should have been seen, and weren't, until the time came to pull the cord, get off, buy a map, and start finding a way independently. Not stumbled out of the religion — just no longer looking away from what was already visible.

One more thing worth noting: John 13:35, where Jesus says people would recognize his disciples by the love they have among themselves, comes back in the same October 2026 issue. In a separate article on modern-day miracles, Watchtower quotes that verse and offers the love within the organization as proof that it's "the truth." When the observation flatters the organization, it's admissible evidence of divine backing. When the observed conduct indicts the organization, it's a shaky foundation to be overruled by doctrine. Both claims appear in the same magazine.

Watchtower has admitted since the 1980s that reading the Bible alone, without its publications, leads people away from what it teaches. That's the part worth sitting with: the organization has spent decades working to convince the rank and file that they can't understand the Bible without its help — because when people read it for themselves, they stop believing what they were told it says.