Jehovah's Witnesses tell children they can associate with their non-Witness parents until they are adults, said Campbell. But once they become adults, they must choose between continuing that association or remaining part of the church. Jehovah's Witnesses, also known by their corporate moniker, the Watchtower Society, are a Christian sect that preaches the end of the world is near. The church has prepared for Armageddon on four different dates this century, but each time the believers have been disappointed. The church teaches that governments and other worldly organizations are agents of the devil.
Members consider holidays or birthday celebrations forms of idolatry.
Catholics and Protestants generally regard Jehovah's Witnesses as heretics, because of their unorthodox beliefs, including the teaching that Jesus was a mere human being and not divine. Witnesses in turn believe the rest of Christianity has lost its true meaning and followers are being misled by Satan. At the conference, which continues today and Sunday at Cavanaugh's Fourth Avenue hotel, attendees stood up one by one to share their moment of epiphany when they decided to break with the church. Rueben Mercado of Spokane said that going to the funeral of a mother of five who bled to death during childbirth because she refused a blood transfusion raised questions in his mind. His wife, Marlene, a third-generation Witness, said she watched her youngest son become socially isolated because the church teaches that children should not be involved in any extracurricular activities.