What if you change your mind after your baptism?

In this article: Can someone sincerely get baptized and genuinely come to believe something else years later? Is changing one’s beliefs the same as leaving Jehovah? Is no longer believing the same as doing serious wrong? What is the difference between doubt, conscientious objections, withdrawal, and removal? What happens when family and friends remain inside the organization? How does a lifelong commitment relate to changing beliefs? How did Jesus deal with people who doubted, made mistakes, or strayed? What can the lost son, Thomas, and Peter teach us? Can love remain when faith disappears? And ultimately: who can judge what is truly in someone’s heart? The other two articles were about religious upbringing and free will and minors, unbaptized publishers, and baptism . Now we come to perhaps the most difficult question. Suppose someone is fully convinced at age fourteen, eighteen, or twenty-five. He believes in Jehovah. He believes that Jehovah’s Getuigen are God’s organization. He preaches. He gets baptized. He made that choice himself. His choice may have been completely sincere. But twenty years later, something happens. He reads, investigates, and asks more questions. Perhaps certain Bible beliefs change. Perhaps he struggles with organizational policies. Perhaps he has been through a lot or eventually even loses his faith in God. And one day he has to admit to himself: ‘I no longer believe what I believed when I got baptized.’ Then what? Was his earlier choice not sincere? Not necessarily. Perhaps both moments were sincere. The person who believed then was honest. And the person who no longer believes now can be, too. People change This sounds obvious, but when it comes to religious beliefs, we sometimes forget it. A forty-year-old person is not the same person as the fourteen-year-old child he once was. In twenty or thirty years, someone can marry, have children, lose people, experience illness, read hundreds of books, meet other people, study the Bible, and change his ideas about right and wrong. We accept that in almost every other area. Someone can change political beliefs. Career. Opinions about parenting. Life philosophy. A scientist may revise his earlier conclusion after new evidence emerges. Why should religious belief be the only belief where changing it automatically means the earlier or current person is dishonest? Maybe someone changed not because he started thinking less seriously. Maybe he changed because he started thinking more . But wasn’t baptism a lifelong promise? From a Jehovah's getuigen perspective, this is where a strong counterargument lies. Someone who gets baptized knows he is not entering into a temporary membership. According to the official explanation of Jehovah’s Getuigen, baptism is preceded by a personal commitment to Jehovah. That commitment is viewed as a solemn promise to serve Jehovah forever. From that perspective, it is understandable that a Witness would say: ‘Surely you can’t say twenty years later that you no longer want to keep that promise?’ That argument deserves to be taken seriously. A promise means something precisely because it does not only apply when things are easy. But a difficult question then arises: What happens when someone does not simply no longer feel like keeping his promise, but sincerely no longer believes in the foundations on which he made that promise? Suppose someone no longer believes that Jehovah’s Getuigen are God’s organization. Or eventually no longer believes that Jehovah exists in the way he once believed. Can someone force himself to have a belief? (See cognitive dissonance) You can force behavior. You can say the words. You can go to meetings. But can you be ordered to believe ? Free will before and after baptism That brings us to an interesting question about free will. Jehovah’s Getuigen emphasize that a person must choose for himself whether he wants to serve Jehovah. Baptism is supposed to be voluntary. But what does voluntariness mean when, twenty years later, that person comes to a different conclusion after conscientious study? Does his free will still count then? You could say: ‘Yes, of course. He is free to leave, but choices have consequences.’ That is a reasonable counterargument. After all, freedom never means that every choice comes without consequences. But then we have to look further at which consequences are reasonable. If the consequences mainly concern someone’s religious standing, that is one thing. But when a change of conviction can also have major consequences for the most important human relationships in a person’s life, a much more difficult question arises. How free is a choice of faith when changing that choice may mean that your relationship with loved ones changes dramatically? No longer believing is not the same as doing evil This distinction is essential. A person can stop believing without becoming a bad person. Suppose: A man was a Jehovah’s Getuigen for twenty years. He did not cheat on his wife. He is not a drunkard. He does not mistreat anyone. He does not steal. He takes good care of his children. He helps his neighbors. He tries to live honestly. But he says: ‘After years of research, I no longer believe that Jehovah’s Getuigen are God’s organization.’ What act of wrongdoing has he committed by saying that? That is not the same as the question of whether his new belief is correct according to JW doctrine. An active Witness may be fully convinced that he is making a serious religious mistake. But an incorrect belief and bad behavior are not automatically the same thing. That distinction matters when we speak about ex-JG’s. Is leaving the organization the same as leaving Jehovah? Those two things do not necessarily have to be the same logically either. Some ex-JG’s become atheist, agnostic, Christian. Some go to another church. Some continue to believe in Jehovah but no longer believe that one organization speaks exclusively on his behalf. And some simply no longer know what they believe. That is why you cannot automatically conclude from: ‘This person is no longer a Jehovah’s Getuigen’ that: ‘This person has rejected God.’ It depends on what that person actually believes. And that is where a Biblical principle comes in that I consider very important. Who can see the heart? In 1 Samuel 16:7 , a fundamental distinction is made between how people look and how Jehovah looks. People see what is visible. Jehovah sees the heart. That should make us careful with labels. We can see behavior. We can hear what someone says. But we cannot fully see why someone came to a conclusion, how much pain preceded it, how sincere his search was, or what his relationship with God really is. Romans 14:4 also raises a piercing question: Who are you to judge another person’s servant? And James 4:12 says that there is one Lawgiver and Judge. That does not mean Christian congregations can never have standards. It does mean that there is a limit to what people can claim about another person’s heart . So what is an apostate? Here language becomes important. In a religious context, apostasy can mean that someone deliberately leaves or rejects a faith or teaching he previously professed. In that broad sense, someone who leaves his former faith can be called apostate from that faith. But in everyday language, the word often has a much heavier emotional meaning. People may think of an apostate as someone who is bad, dangerous, deceitful, or hostile. And we need to be careful with that. Someone can reject a teaching without being evil. The word used to describe him by his former fellow believers, apostasy can sound harsh to this person. It feels condescending, like a rotten, worthless apple that is thrown away. It does something to the one who no longer believes in his old faith but believes in a different way. Someone can even be wrong without being a bad person. Changing a belief does not yet tell you what kind of person someone is. What do Jehovah’s Getuigen themselves say about leaving? According to Jehovah’s Getuigen’s official information, someone can withdraw from the congregation by making it clear that he no longer wishes to be known as a Jehovah’s Getuigen, or through actions that, according to the organization, show that he no longer wants to belong to the Christian congregation. In addition, there is removal from the congregation because of serious wrongdoing when someone, according to the elders, shows no repentance. The current official explanation therefore makes a distinction between different situations. We must make that distinction in this article as well. Not everyone who is no longer a JW has the same story. One was removed. Another withdrew. Another simply became inactive. Yet another still believes but no longer dares to go to the congregation. And behind each of those words is a person. What happens to family and friends? This is where the subject can become emotionally heavy. The current official JG explanation says about someone who has been removed from the congregation that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have casual association with him. At the same time, the explanation has become more nuanced in recent years: someone who has been removed can, for example, be invited to a meeting, and someone there can simply greet him according to conscience, except in certain cases. For family members living in the same household, the situation is different from that of family outside the household. But apart from the exact rules, a human question arises. Suppose someone no longer believes after twenty years. His parents, brothers and sisters, and friends are still Jehovah’s Witnesses. Perhaps almost all of the important relationships in his life originated within the congregation. Then not only his theology changes. But also his entire social world. That can be an enormous price to pay for following your own conscience. ‘But he knew what he was choosing, didn’t he?’ That is probably one of the strongest arguments from the other side. ‘Before his baptism, he knew what the rules were.’ With an adult, that can carry quite a lot of weight. But with someone who was baptized as a minor, or a young person who wanted to join because everyone was getting baptized and did not want to be left behind, the question becomes more complicated. What does know mean? A fourteen-year-old may know: ‘Baptism is for life.’ But can he really experience what it means to have a partner, parents, children, and friends within the same religious community thirty years later and then change beliefs? That is exactly why the previous article about minors and baptism is important. Knowing information is not always the same as being able to foresee future consequences. Suppose someone really did live wrongly Let’s make it harder. Suppose someone was removed from the congregation because of sexual immorality or drunkenness. At that time, his behavior was wrong according to the biblical standards of Jehovah’s Witnesses. But then he changes. He stops drinking to excess. He changes his lifestyle. He is sincerely sorry for people he has hurt. He lives quietly and responsibly for years. But he does not return to the organization, because by then he no longer believes that the organization is God’s exclusive channel. What is he ten years later? Still ‘the wrongdoer’? His past behavior is real. But his current behavior is real too. If someone has truly changed, how long may their identity remain defined by the worst chapter of their life? How can you see change without contact? There is another paradox there. Suppose family members shun someone because he was removed as a wrongdoer. But that person changes. How can his family members then see that when they have hardly any association with him anymore? They may mainly know the story of the person he was then . Not necessarily the person he has now become. For the one who has changed, that can be painful. He may think: ‘I am not that person anymore. But to them I will always remain the one who made that mistake back then.’ That can keep shame and frustration alive for years. Jesus associated with people who made mistakes That is exactly why it is interesting not only to look at organizational rules, but also at stories about Jesus. Jesus associated strikingly often with people who had a bad reputation religiously or socially. He ate with tax collectors and sinners. According to Mark 2:15-17 , that drew criticism from scribes and Pharisees. His answer was not that sin was unimportant. His point was that people who needed spiritual help should not be placed beyond his reach. That is an important distinction: disapproving of what someone does is not necessarily the same as avoiding the person. The Samaritan woman In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman. Religiously speaking, there were major differences between Jews and Samaritans. Her personal life was complicated too. Yet Jesus begins a conversation with her. He asks questions. He speaks with her about worship. He treats her as someone with whom a serious spiritual conversation is possible. He does not have to approve of her life choices first in order to talk with her. That is interesting when we think about how to deal with people who think differently religiously. Zacchaeus Zacchaeus was a tax collector. Tax collectors had a bad reputation among many Jews. Yet in Luke 19, Jesus says he wants to be at Zacchaeus’ home. Once again, the pattern is striking: contact comes before change. Jesus does not first wait until Zacchaeus has proved for a long period that he has changed before associating with him. Instead, the contact becomes part of the moment in which change becomes possible. Peter And then Peter. Peter denies Jesus three times. That is no small mistake. He denies knowing Jesus at a moment when Jesus is being arrested. Yet Peter is not forever reduced to: ‘the one who denied Jesus.’ After Jesus’ resurrection, we see restoration. In John 21, Jesus speaks with him. Peter is given responsibility again. His worst moment does not become his permanent identity. Thomas Thomas even doubts the resurrection. He essentially says: I will only believe it when I see proof. Jesus does not respond by telling the other disciples that they must avoid Thomas. He gives Thomas the opportunity to face his doubt. That does not, of course, mean that every modern religious situation is exactly the same. But it does show something: doubt was not automatically treated as moral corruption. And then the prodigal son Perhaps this is the best-known story. In Luke 15, Jesus tells about a son who leaves his father and squanders his possessions. He really does live a wrong life. Eventually he comes back. What does the father do? He does not say: ‘I see you regret it, but for now we cannot have contact. First you have to prove that your repentance is real.’ According to the story, the father sees him from far away. He is filled with compassion. He runs to him. He embraces him. He kisses him. The son begins his confession, but the father immediately starts arranging the restoration. That image is striking. Not because it automatically means every congregation procedure is wrong. But because Jesus is showing something here about repentance, forgiveness, and restoration . ‘Seventy times seven’ When Peter asks how often he should forgive his brother, Jesus answers in Matthew 18 with the well-known image of seventy times seven — depending on the translation rendered as seventy-seven or seventy times seven. Clearly, this is not about keeping track of a literal maximum. It is about an attitude of generous forgiveness. But then a practical question arises: How can you see that someone has changed, hear apologies, experience reconciliation, and let forgiveness grow when there is almost no contact? Sometimes distance can be necessary — for example, when someone is dangerous, violent, or manipulative. Forgiveness does not require anyone to put themselves in danger. But someone who did something wrong twenty years ago and someone who is still harming others today are not necessarily the same situation. An organization needs boundaries Here too, the JG side deserves a serious argument. Every religious community has the right to set boundaries. A church cannot say: ‘Every belief and every behavior does not matter.’ In the end, then the concept of community loses its meaning. Paul speaks clearly in 1 Corinthians 5 about a serious situation within the congregation and uses strong language about removing the wrongdoer. Jehovah’s Getuigen base an important part of their removal policy on such texts. So that was not invented out of thin air. There are Bible texts that support congregational discipline. But that does not end the question of interpretation. Because the same Bible also contains Jesus eating with sinners, Peter being restored, Thomas being given room for doubt, Zacchaeus being visited, and the story of a father running toward his lost son. The question therefore is not: ‘Is exclusion somewhere in the Bible, yes or no?’ That is too simple. The more interesting question is: How should all the texts be applied together? Protection and mercy Perhaps there are two Biblical principles side by side here. A community may protect itself from someone who is actively harming others. And Christians are at the same time called to love, mercy, forgiveness, and restoration. Those principles do not necessarily have to be in conflict. The problem arises when we treat every situation the same. An abuser who refuses to change is not the same as someone who no longer believes in 1914. A drunk who is still terrorizing his family is not the same as someone who had an alcohol problem twenty years ago but has now lived soberly and responsibly for years. Someone who deliberately tries to hurt people is not the same as someone who says: ‘I have done research and my conscience no longer allows me to believe this.’ The word ex-JG does not tell us enough to know what kind of person we are dealing with. Maybe we should see fewer labels and more people ‘Apostate.’ ‘Wrongdoer.’ ‘Disfellowshipped person.’ ‘Inactive one.’ ‘Ex-JG.’ Those are categories. Sometimes categories are organizationally useful. But behind every category is an individual story. Maybe someone who still prays every evening. Maybe someone who can no longer find God. Maybe someone who has made terrible mistakes and has changed deeply. Maybe someone who has never seriously sinned but simply has a different Bible interpretation. Maybe someone who is angry. Maybe someone who is broken. Maybe someone who is happier than ever. We see a fragment. According to 1 Samuel 16:7 , Jehovah sees something we cannot fully see: the heart. That alone might be reason enough to be cautious with final judgments about what someone is before God. A question for active Jehovah’s Witnesses Suppose someone you have known for thirty years says to you: ‘I still love you all. I’m trying to be a good person. But after years of research, I no longer believe that the governing body is being used by Jehovah as I used to believe.’ What do you really know about their heart then? Can you disagree with their conclusion without seeing them as a bad person? Can you believe they are religiously wrong while also recognizing that they may be sincere? And if Jehovah can truly read the heart: how much room can we leave for his judgment? A question for ex-JW’s The other side deserves the same mirror too. The fact that you left does not automatically mean that every active Jehovah’s Witness is brainwashed, stupid, or bad. Maybe your mother truly believes. Maybe your brother is sincerely trying to live according to his conscience. Maybe an elder is convinced that he is obeying Jehovah. You can criticize a system without making every person within that system into an enemy. That is the same freedom you probably long for yourself: judge me as a person, not just as a representative of a group. Maybe this is the question, in the end A person can sincerely believe at fourteen. Doubt at thirty. No longer believe at forty. And at sixty perhaps find something again that he calls God. People change. If free will truly has value, then perhaps the hardest form of it is not the freedom to say yes . Maybe it is the freedom to say, after years of honest thinking: ‘I have come to a different conclusion.’ No one has to agree with that. A religious community may hold on to its own beliefs. Parents may feel grief. Friends may believe that someone is making a serious mistake. But perhaps something can still stand above that: love for the person who has started thinking differently. Because when Jehovah truly sees the heart, people may not need to pretend that they can do that completely too. And perhaps that is why the most important question is not: ‘Is he still one of us?’ but: ‘Who is this person today — and how would I treat him if love mattered more than the label placed on him?’ Join the discussion Have you ever changed religious beliefs? Was your former faith insincere then — or did you genuinely believe it at the time? As an ex-JW, did you start living differently, or did mainly what you believed change? If you were ever removed because of serious wrongdoing: are you still the same person today as you were then? And for active Jehovah’s Witnesses: Can someone, in your view, sincerely come to a different belief without being a bad person? And perhaps the hardest question of all: If only Jehovah can fully see the heart, how much are we then allowed to fill in ourselves about the motives and spiritual condition of someone who no longer believes? See also: Faith upbringing and free will — how free is a child’s choice? See also: Minors and baptism — when are you old enough for a decision meant for life? See also: Bible and interpretation — for articles in which different Bible texts and possible interpretations are examined side by side.