Episode 107: “Witness Underground” Filmmakers on the Jehovah’s Witnesses (and other cults, religious & political)

Andrew Kliman and Gabriel Donnelly interview Scott Homan, director of “Witness Underground,” and Chad Rhiger, who is featured in the film. The full-length documentary tells the story of a group of young people in the Jehovah’s Witnesses who came together because of their shared interest in music and who eventually managed to break free from the religion. The co-hosts and guests discuss Scott and Chad’s lives in the Jehovah’s Witnesses and since, the religion’s attitude to truth and factual accuracy, and how it controls members, especially through the cruel practice of shunning. The discussion also takes up cultish practices by other groups, religious and political (QAnon, MAGA, the mainstream “Left”), and how to combat cultism. The segment concludes with discussion of what one person in the film described as the sense of “absolute possibility” he experienced upon leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses. (During the discussion, Andrew refers to a 2019 panel discussion that Rick Wolff, Boots Riley, and he participated in.)

 
Plus current-events segment: SCOCO DQs DJT. Anne Jaclard joins Andrew to talk about the Colorado Supreme Court’s disqualification of Trump from running for president due to his insurrectionist activity, and negative hot takes on the ruling coming from parts of the left (Eric Levitz, Ben Burgis). The non-existence of a Republican Party platform since 2020 is mentioned during the discussion.

 
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