Crisis of Conscience Read online

  Not only do the statements by the vice president at the Scotland trial bear on the issue of the existence of a genuine “governing body” at that time, they also show how fictitious the claim is that the “spiritual food” provided proceeds from a “faithful and discreet slave class.” Two, or at best, three men determined what information would appear in the Watchtower magazine and other publications—Nathan Knorr, Fred Franz and Karl Adams, the last of these not of the so-called “anointed class.” As the vice president’s statements clearly show, not even the members of the Board of Directors, all supposedly members of the “faithful and discreet slave class,” were invited to express approval of the “spiritual food” to be presented.

  Thus, even as Russell up until the year 1916 exercised full and unique control over what was published by the Watch Tower Society, and just as Rutherford did so throughout his presidency until 1942, similarly during Knorr’s presidency the exercise of authority as to the preparation and serving up of the “spiritual food” for the Witness community was limited to two or three men, not something carried out by a “class” of persons, supposedly assigned by Christ to be “over all his belongings.”36

  The situation remained the same even after the enlargement of the Governing Body to include more than the seven Directors. In 1975 during one session some material the vice president had prepared for use as a convention talk came up for discussion. It dealt with the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven (found in Matthew chapter 13) and argued in detail that the “kingdom of the heavens” Jesus referred to in these parables was actually a “fake” kingdom, a counterfeit. One member of the Body who had read the material felt unconvinced by the argumentation.

  After discussion, of the fourteen members present only five (including Knorr and Fred Franz) voted in favor of using the material as a convention talk, the other nine did not. So it was not used—as a talk—but the material appeared in a book released at the convention and within a few months also appeared in the Watchtower magazine.37 The fact that nearly two-thirds of the Body members present had expressed at least some lack of confidence in the material did not affect the president’s decision to go ahead with publishing it.

  Not only the contents of the magazines and other literature, but every other feature of the worldwide activity of Jehovah’s Witnesses —the direction of the 90 or more Branch Offices (each Overseer of a Branch being described as the “presiding minister of Christianity for and within the territory to which he has been appointed”), the supervision of all the work of all traveling representatives, the direction of the missionary School of Gilead and the assignment and work of all missionaries, the planning of conventions and convention programs—all this and much more ultimately were the sole prerogative of one person: the president of the corporation. Whatever the Governing Body discussed or did not discuss in any of these areas was strictly as the result of his decision and at his discretion.

  All this was difficult to reconcile with the articles published after the vice president’s “tail wagging the dog talk.” The language there had been so forceful, so conclusive:

  Unfortunately the picture presented simply was not true. The facts do “speak for themselves,” and the facts, already presented from the Watch Tower Society’s own approved publications and from statements of Directors, clearly show there was no governing body in any factual sense in the nineteenth century during Russell’s presidency, none in the twentieth century during Rutherford’s presidency, and there had been none in the sense described in this same Watchtower article during Knorr’s presidency.

  It was an impressive-sounding picture presented but it was illusory, fictional. The fact is that a monarchical arrangement prevailed from the very inception of the organization (the word “monarch” being of Greek origin and meaning “one who governs alone,” also defined in dictionaries as “one holding preeminent position and power”). That the first president was benign, the next stern and autocratic, and the third very businesslike, in no way alters the fact that each of the three presidents exercised monarchical authority.

  The great majority of Witnesses forming what the 1971 Watchtower article had referred to as the “rank and file”—and including most of the “anointed” composing the “faithful and discreet slave class”—were totally unaware of this. Those in positions close enough to the seat of authority knew it to be the case; the closer they were the more they were aware of the facts.

  This was particularly true of the members of the Governing Body and in 1975 the “dog” decided it was time to “wag the tail.” Most of the members felt that it was time that the facts finally started matching the words being spoken and published.

  Interestingly, what was done was essentially the same as what the four Directors in 1917 had proposed, a reorganization, an effort on their part that had consistently been described thereafter in the Watch Tower publications as an ‘ambitious plot’ and ‘a rebellious conspiracy,’ one that, ‘by God’s grace, did not succeed!’ Fifty-five years later basically the same proposition did succeed, but only after months of turmoil for the Governing Body.

  1The term “faithful and discreet slave” is drawn from Jesus’ parable at Matthew 24:45-47, the number 144,000 is taken from Revelation 7:4 and 14:1, 3.

  2See the January 1, 2004 Watchtower, page 21.

  3At that time the eleven members were: Nathan Knorr, Fred Franz, Grant Suiter, Thomas Sullivan, Milton Henschel, Lyman Swingle, John Groh (these seven also being the Directors of the Watch Tower Society), then, William Jackson, Leo Greenlees, George Gangas, Raymond Franz. Of these eleven men, I am the only person surviving at this time in 2008.

  4Some Witnesses doubtless had the idea that appointment of congregational elders is done by the Governing Body itself. Initially, a couple of Governing Body members did sit with a staff member of the Service Department and review and pass on all appointments of elders in the United States. This practice was discontinued after a relatively short time; however, all appointments were thereafter left up to the Service Department staff members. In other countries appointments of elders were from the start handled entirely by the Watch Tower’s branch offices. The only appointments made since by the Governing Body, in the U.S. or elsewhere, were those of traveling representatives and of Branch Committee members. I believe this was in order that these men might present themselves as “representatives of the Governing Body” in a special sense, one that carries greater weight and implies greater authority than that of the local elders.

  5Higher education was, and to some extent still is, generally frowned upon as conducive to loss of faith and as providing an atmosphere likely to contribute to immorality.

  6At that time the ruling was that only if the innocent mate got the divorce was it Scripturally valid.

  7The policy had been that the fine should not be paid, that in these circumstances it would be an admission of guilt and hence a compromise of one’s integrity. This policy has changed.

  8An article in the December 15, 1969, Watchtower (pp. 765, 766) had first focused attention on such sexual relations, discussing them at considerable length, and this doubtless served to sensitize the elders to reports of such conduct, in fact, was likely responsible for this report about people’s private bedroom matters being made in the first place.

  9See the Watchtower, December 1, 1972, pp. 734-736; also November 15, 1974, pp. 703, 704.

  10In a memorandum to the Governing Body, dated August 9, 1976, a headquarters staff member handling correspondence states: “Many, many problems have resulted from the position taken, often where there is an unbelieving [meaning a non-Witness] husband. Wives have refused to allow such husbands to stimulate them in this way or to stimulate the husbands in this way. As a result marriages have broken up.”

  11Many Witnesses refer to the organization as “our mother,” and this is because the Watchtower magazine has used this term in such way, as in the February 1, 1952, issue, p. 80, and the May 1, 1957, issue, pp. 274, 28
4; see also the April 1, 1994 Watchtower, p. 32.

  12This copy is of the carbon copy of the letter and hence bears no stamped Watch Tower signature. The symbol “SCE” identifies the writer of the letter as Merton Campbell of the Brooklyn Service Department.

  13A few years after my resignation from the Governing Body, the organization in effect reinstated basic elements of its earlier policy on “unnatural sex practices.” The March 15, 1983 Watchtower (pages 30, 31), while stating that it was not up to elders to “police” the private marital matters of congregation members, nonetheless ruled that the advocacy or the practice of what was classed as “unnatural sex relations” among married persons not only would disqualify a man for eldership or other Society-appointed position but “could even lead to expulsion from the congregation.” Lloyd Barry had not been present when the 1972 policy had been effectually canceled by a Governing Body decision and upon his return he expressed his disapproval of the cancellation. Since he headed the Writing Department and oversaw the production of Watchtower material, his influence may have contributed toward this shifting back to much of the earlier position. Whatever the case, this 1983 material did not produce the great surge of judicial hearings that accompanied the initial announcement of that policy in 1972, perhaps because that earlier experience had produced sufficient bad fruitage to restrain the zeal for inquiry on the part of elders.

  14See the Watchtower of January 1, 1972, pp. 31, 32.

  15In the original Greek of Matthew 19:9, the word rendered “adultery” is moikheia and, unlike porneia, is not broad but very limited in meaning, being restricted to adultery in the ordinary sense of the word.

  16The New World Translation bears no translator’s name and is presented as the anonymous work of the “New World Translation Committee.” Other members of that committee were Nathan Knorr, Albert Schroeder and George Gangas. Fred Franz, however, was the only one with sufficient knowledge of the Bible languages to attempt translation of this kind. He had studied Greek for two years at the University of Cincinnati but was only self-taught in Hebrew.

  17See the Watchtower of December 15, 1972, pp. 766-768.

  18Mrs. Russell resigned as associate editor of the Watch Tower in October 1886, due to disagreement with her husband and on November 9, 1897, she separated from her husband. She remained a Director of the Society, however, until February 12, 1900. In 1906 she obtained a divorce.

  19The Watch Tower, July 15, 1906, p. 229.

  20Russell did not list Rutherford among these five but placed him in a second group of five who might serve as replacements if occasion required.

  21The book Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose, published in 1959, p. 64, says that by law Russell’s votes died with him.

  22Typical of this course was Rutherford’s decision to publish a book titled The Finished Mystery, presented as the ‘posthumous work of Russell,’ but actually written by Clayton J. Woodworth and George H. Fisher. Rutherford not only had not consulted with the Directors about the writing of the book, they did not even know it was being published until Rutherford released it to the “Bethel Family,” the headquarters staff. Later Watch Tower publications, including the book Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose (pp. 70, 71), give the impression that this was the initiating and primary cause of the objections of the four Directors. This distorts the facts, since Rutherford announced the dismissal of these four men as Directors the same day (July 17, 1917) that he presented the book The Finished Mystery to the headquarters staff. The announcement of the dismissal of the Directors was, in fact, made before the book was presented.

  23A. H. MacMillan, Faith on the March (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1957), p. 80. The Foreword to the book is by N. H. Knorr.

  24See The Finished Mystery, pp. 4, 11; the Watch Tower, March 1, 1922, pp.72, 73; May 1, 1922, p. 131; March 1, 1923, pp. 67, 68.

  25A. H. MacMillan in Faith on the March, p.152, says: “Russell had left it much to the individual as to how we were to fulfill our responsibilities . . . Rutherford wanted to unify the preaching work and, instead of having each individual give his own opinion and tell what he thought was right and do what was in his own mind, gradually Rutherford himself began to be the main spokesman for the organization. That was the way he thought the message could best be given without contradiction.”

  26The point at issue was either the new view that the “higher powers” of Romans 13:1 were not the governmental authorities of earth but were Jehovah God and Jesus Christ, or the decision regarding the elimination of bodies of elders, which of the two I do not now recall.

  27See the “Foreword” to the book Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom. As but one illustration of presenting information already made available by another source, this book, on page 200, presents a picture of the Brooklyn headquarters staff celebrating Christmas in 1926. That photo was published in 1991 in the book In Search of Christian Freedom, page 149, which has been inserted into Appendix B of this 2018 edition of Crisis of Conscience. Two years later the new history book presented it for the first time in a Watch Tower publication. Yet that photo had been in their possession for 67 years.

  28See Chapter 8 of this book, under the section Millions Now Living Will Never Die; also pages 78-84 of In Search of Christian Freedom, which has been inserted into Appendix B of this 2018 edition of Crisis of Conscience.

  29Of the three receiving copies, at the time I was the only one professing to be of the “anointed” class, having made such profession since 1946.

  30Life Everlasting in Freedom of the Sons of God, published in 1966, pp. 29, 30.

  31In the letter I submitted, I pointed out that the argument rested heavily on a portion of Scripture that is difficult to be definite about, and that the reasons given for the change were, at best, tenuous.

  32In the Watchtower of June 1, 1938, p. 168, in an article on “Organization” the expressions “central body” and “central authority” are used but only with reference to the body of apostles and those who were their immediate associates, with no modern application made. The term “governing body” first appears in its current usage in the Watchtower, October 15, 1944, page 315, and November 1, 1944, pages 328-333.

  33Marley Cole, Jehovah’s Witnesses—The New World Society (New York: Vantage Press, 1955). pp. 86-89. Cole wrote the book as if he were a non-Witness writing an objective account. The idea was that by having the book published by an outside publishing firm it might reach persons who normally would not take Society literature. Thus it was a form of public relations tactic.

  34Ibid., p.88.

  35Although the vice president makes reference to an “editorial committee” he later identifies only himself and President Knorr as on that committee from among the Board members. In actuality there was no official “editorial committee” aside from these two. In 1965 Karl Adams was the only other one whose signature was regularly required on material to be published and he was not on the Board of Directors nor does he profess to be of the “anointed” class.

  36Matthew 24:47.

  37See the book Man’s Salvation Out of World Distress At Hand!, published in 1975, pp. 206-215; also the Watchtower, October 1, 1975, pp. 589-608.

  38The Watchtower, December 15, 1971, p. 761.

  4

  INTERNAL UPHEAVAL AND RESTRUCTURE

  So never make mere men a cause for pride. There is nothing to boast about in anything human.

  — 1 Corinthians 3:21. New English Bible and Jerusalem Bible.

  THE information the book Aid to Bible Understanding presented about elders doubtless began the process. Till then congregations had been under the supervision of a single person, the “Congregation Overseer.” His replacement by a body of elders of necessity raised questions about Branch organizations where one man was the “Overseer” for a whole country, much as a bishop or archbishop has under his supervision a large region composed of many congregations. And the central headquarters had its president, to whom I had
personally referred (in addressing a seminar for Branch Overseers in Brooklyn) as “the Presiding Overseer for all congregations earthwide.”1

  Evidently the apparent anomaly, the contrast between the situation in the congregations and that at the international headquarters is what led to the “tail wagging the dog” talk and Watchtower articles, since these endeavored to explain away the difference existing between the situation in the congregations and that at the central headquarters. It is almost certain that at the same time these articles were meant to send out a signal to voting members of the corporation that they should not try to express themselves through vote to effect some change in the headquarters structure or to express themselves as regards the membership of the Governing Body and its administration.

  The year of that talk, 1971, President Knorr decided to allow the Governing Body to review and pass judgment on a book entitled Organization for Kingdom-Preaching and Disciple-Making, a form of church manual setting out organizational structure and policy governing the entire arrangement, from the headquarters through to the branches, districts and circuits, and on to the congregations. The Governing Body was not asked to supply the material for the book. The president had assigned the project of the book’s development to Karl Adams, the overseer of the Writing Department (not a Governing Body member nor one professing to be of the “anointed”). He in turn had assigned Ed Dunlap and myself to collaborate with him in the manual’s development, each of us writing about one-third of the material.2

  The material we developed presented the relationship of the Governing Body and the corporations in harmony with the Watchtower articles stressing that the “dog should wag the tail” and not vice versa. When certain points relating to this came before the Body, they provoked rather heated discussion. President Knorr expressed himself clearly as feeling that there was an effort to “take over” his responsibility and work. He stressed that the Governing Body was to concern itself strictly with the “spiritual matters” and that the corporation would handle the rest. But, as the Body members knew, the “spiritual matters” allotted to them at that stage consisted almost entirely of the near ritual of approving appointments of largely unknown persons to traveling overseer work and the handling of the constant flow of questions about “disfellowshipping matters.”