Harold Bennett

Harold Bennett was the "head worker" in Eugene when I stopped going to meetings in the mid-80's. Meetings were church, which happened in specified homes and on Sunday at a rented public venue.

"Workers" are the clergy and "meetings" are church sessions. The head worker is the eldest of two co-ministers within the "field" where the overseers have deployed them. Going two-by-two as directed by a verse is what gives the organization the colloquial name "2x2's." Within the church, its name is "the Truth."

Harold always seemed rather effete; perhaps a bit of a snob. He never caused any trouble for me; I just didn't want to go to meeting anymore, and that was our whole relationship.

Anyhow, fast forward to 2021; to the first "Special Meeting" after the pandemic. (Regional workers converge for a day of meetings in a rented auditorium.) There, Harold Bennett told my mom that she should get rid of her TV. When she told me he had said that, I cursed, which I never did in front of Mom. It was infuriating. I don't watch TV, but Mom and I did, and at that time it was an important way for us to spend some time together.

And it felt like a personal dig at me. Harold wanted to hurt me.

I think Mom and Dad had made up their minds years ago to disregard the TV ban. In any case, she and I never talked about it again.

Step ahead a couple of years. In March of 2023, Abbi & Mike Prussack and Kari & Kyle Hanks released a letter by the overseer Doyle Smith to the head workers addressing the matter of Dean Bruer. Bruer was an overseer exposed post-mortem as a sexual abuser of children. The cascading accusations have induced a substantial exodus.

In June, Harold was removed from "the work" due to "grooming behavior" with young men.

He had lost the overseer designation in 2013 for the same reason.