Freedoms EmbraceMarc Latham
This is a true account about a couple who met and fell in love while being members of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society. Jehovah’s Witnesses. Both born into the religion in separate geographical areas. As children they grew up within this secretive and highly controlled environment. From babies they were repetitively taught that they, “were no part of the world”. The world outside of their true religion was evil and controlled by Satan himself and it was imperative to remain vigilant from Satan and his demons as he looks to entice you from the Organisation and into his world that leads to total destruction.
Marc and Cora were both divorced. Marc had left the religion at 15 and joined the forces. Partly to escape his abusive alcoholic Jehovah’s Witness father. Cora remained inside the religion and was eventually married at 20 to a man who’s father was a Presiding Overseer within their congregation. A powerful senior position locally and closely connected to the policing and rigid controls at the behest of the hierarchy in London and the USA Head Quarters.
Cora’s divorce did not meet the religions scriptural requirements, this led the hierarchy to decree that she was no longer free to marry anyone else. To go against this decree and marry again would lead to a world of patriarchal judgments, punishment and eventual shunning from all she knew and loved. The risks were very high when she met Marc who moved into the congregation and was trying to repent and be accepted back within the fold. The very close observations placed on Marc because of his past were very real surrounded in suspicion and mistrust of him. Cora to was under strict control and scrutiny by the elders of her congregation. Marc had a long way to go before being accepted back as a fully fledged Jehovah’s Witness. The story goes onto tell how they eventually take risks to court each other, fall in love, then marry against the will of the whole community and the pain they experienced for three years as a result.
This is a story about Love, fear, control, punishment, endurance and learning to rely on each other. The story covers other characters whose names have all been changed, that tried their very best to cause as much harm as possible to Marc and Cora. They are both eventually disfellowshipped (banished) from the religion. No one is allowed to talk to them again, they are dead in the eyes of all Jehovah’s Witnesses. From this point onwards they are determined to prove Cora was free to marry all along and so they go to every meeting at the Kingdom Hall with their two youngest children for three years while being shunned slandered and hated and without a single word being said to them in the Kingdom Hall (church). The story eventually vindicates their marital position, where more lies are exposed about how the elders held back vital information from the couple. After three long enduring years they are reinstated and everyone loves them again. But for Marc and Cora they are totally burnt with the experience and plan their resignation from the religion for good. Leaving behind family and their childhood indoctrination. After much intensive research of the religion that had controlled their lives for so long they decided to become activists and are known world wide for their work in supporting other JWs who are in trouble with the organisation. The work has led to many true friends being made around the world and in some cases led to suicide prevention.
The couple survived deep emotional trauma by trusting in each other and learning to deal with the attrition of defamation, slander and the threat of financial ruin while also doing research and navigating their way out of the psychological control the cult had put them into from birth.
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