A 2011 Watchtower Called Apostates 'Mentally Diseased'

On July 15, 2011, the study edition of The Watchtower, the flagship magazine of Jehovah's Witnesses, published an article titled "Will You Heed Jehovah's Clear Warnings?" In paragraph 6, it described apostates — the article's term for former members who oppose the religion — with a phrase that drew press coverage, a police complaint in England, and a tribunal filing in Australia.

The sentence read: "…apostates are 'mentally diseased,' and they seek to infect others with their disloyal teachings."^[1]

What the article said

The passage sits inside an extended analogy. Just as a person avoids physical contact with someone carrying a contagious, deadly illness, the article urged, a Witness should avoid contact with apostates. The "mental disease" characterization is presented as scriptural, cited to 1 Timothy 6:3, 4 — a passage in which the apostle Paul warns against anyone who "does not agree with wholesome teaching" and is "puffed up with pride, understanding nothing."^[1]

The rendering of that verse as describing someone who is "mentally diseased" reflects a translation choice associated with the Witnesses' own Bible and publications, rather than the wording of most standard English Bibles. The article directs Witnesses to shun apostates entirely.

The full study article remains available on the organization's official website, jw.org, and on the Watchtower Online Library.^[2] Some critics have described the language as later "softened" in a simplified-edition rendering and in subsequent mental-health messaging; the standard-edition sentence quoted above remains published online, so this account does not characterize the text as having been retracted.^[2]

UK coverage and a police complaint

In 2011, the British newspaper The Independent covered the article, reporting that The Watchtower had warned followers to stay clear of apostates it condemned as "mentally diseased."^[3]

A group of former Witnesses based in Portsmouth subsequently made an official complaint, and Hampshire police were reported to have examined whether the article breached the United Kingdom's laws on inciting religious hatred.^[3] No charge, prosecution, or adverse finding against the Watch Tower organization is on the public record. What is documented is that a complaint was lodged and an inquiry was reportedly considered — nothing further.

An Australian tribunal filing

In Australia, a former Jehovah's Witness named Steven Unthank brought a complaint over the "apostates are mentally diseased" wording under Victorian religious-vilification law. The matter is recorded as Unthank v Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia [2013] VCAT 1810 before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.^[4]

Unthank is the same former member who, the following year, would be associated with the public surfacing of a confidential 2012 letter to Witness elders on handling child-abuse allegations — a separate matter.

Context

The July 2011 article was not an isolated statement but part of the organization's longstanding teaching on shunning, or "disfellowshipping," which directs members to cut off contact with those who leave the faith and oppose it. Countercult writers and current and former members criticized the "mentally diseased" language when it appeared, and coverage circulated through outlets including Beliefnet in September 2011.^[5]

Jehovah's Witnesses have generally defended the article as a scriptural warning rather than a clinical or medical claim, framing the "disease" language as Paul's own metaphor. Critics characterized it as stigmatizing those who dissent. The phrase itself is a matter of published record: it appeared, in single quotation marks, in a magazine distributed to millions of members and read at congregation study meetings worldwide.