Crisis of Conscience Read online

  I feel an obligation toward such persons. In virtually every instance, a small group of three to five men (a “judicial committee”) met with them in secret meetings, where those who came as witnesses could only give their testimony but not stay to witness the discussion. Later a brief disfellowshipping announcement was read to the congregation that presented none of the testimony and none of the evidence in support of the disfellowshipping action. After the reading of that announcement no Witness was supposed to talk with the persons disfellowshipped, thereby shutting down any possibility of their expressing themselves by way of an explanation to friends and associates. For them to have done so before the disfellowshipping would have been counted as ‘proselytizing,’ ‘undermining the unity of the congregation,’ ‘sowing dissension,’ ‘forming a sect.’ For anyone to talk to them afterward would jeopardize that person’s own standing, make him liable for similar disfellowshipment.

  An effective “quarantining” is thus accomplished; a “lid” is placed on any discussion of the matter. The record of the disfellowshipping hearing and any claimed evidence now resides in one of the many voluminous files at the Brooklyn Service Department (or the files of a Branch Office), stamped “Do Not Destroy.” This file containing the charges made against them, like their hearing, is also secret, not subject to review.

  The Scriptures tell us that, “A true companion is loving all the time, and is a brother that is born for when there is distress.”33 I once thought I had many, many such genuine friends. But when the crisis reached a decisive point I found I had only a few. Still, I count those few precious, whether they said little or much on my behalf. Because of past prominence, people inquire about me. However, almost no one ever inquires about the others who lack such prominence, although they have suffered through the same experience with essentially the same costs and agonies.

  What must it mean to a mother, who has seen a baby daughter come forth from her own body, has nursed that baby, cared for it through illness, has trained the young girl through the formative years of life, living her problems with her, feeling her disappointments and sadnesses as if they were her own, shedding tears along with her tears—what must it mean to that mother to have her daughter, now an adult, suddenly reject her, and do so simply because her mother sought to be true to her conscience and to God?

  What must it do to a father or mother to see a son or daughter marry and be told, for the same reason, that ‘it would be best if they did not appear at the wedding,’ or know that a daughter has given birth to a child and be told that they should not come to see their grandchild?

  This is not imagination. Exactly those things are happening to many parents who have been associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  Consider here just one example, from a mother in Pennsylvania who writes:

  I have children in the organization, married, who at the time of my disassociation even offered for me to come to their home, for a rest, and their opinion of me as a person was not altered. When the information came through later [in the September 15, 1981, Watchtower which set forth detailed instructions as to association with any who thus disassociated themselves] I’ve been shunned by them ever since and they will not talk to me on the phone or have contact with me. I’ve got to do something about it but I don’t know what. I make no move lest it be a wrong move and alienate them further. I don’t phone them for fear they’ll get an unlisted number, and I don’t write, as I said, for fear of saying anything they might construe as offensive. I’ve been hospitalized during this time for emotional exhaustion and I suffered an additional crisis all within a short time of each event which proved, unfortunately, overwhelming.

  Perhaps you share this experience. I do not know how I am going to handle the loss of my children (and future grandchildren). The loss is monumental.

  If my past prominence could now contribute in some way to the conscientious stand of such persons being considered with a more open mind and could aid others to revise their attitude toward persons of this kind, I feel that such prominence would thereby have served perhaps the only useful purpose it ever had.

  I think here of Paul’s words when he says:

  What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain in your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.

  Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have exploited no one. I do not say this to condemn you; I have said before that you have such a place in our hearts that we would live or die with you.34

  If the information presented in this book could help toward one such mother being viewed by her children, not with shame, but with pride for staying by her conscience, all the effort involved would be worth it.

  That is basically why this book will present things that I saw, heard and experienced during my nine years on the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is evidently necessary in order to get at the root of what is a heartbreaking problem for many, on both sides of the issue.

  What is presented is not intended as some kind of “exposé.” While it is true that some things were shocking to me, they are not presented for their shock value. Their presentation is because they illustrate and exemplify very fundamental problems, very serious issues. They demonstrate the extremes to which “loyalty to an organization” can lead, how it is that basically kind, well-intentioned, persons can be led to make decisions and take actions that are both unkind and unjust, even cruel. Names along with times and places will generally be cited because that seems necessary for a credible, factual presentation. I am quite sure that without these many would doubt or deny the factualness of what is said. Where these features seem unnecessary and where they could, by their use, cause needless difficulty for individuals involved, names or other identifying factors will not be stated.

  I have sought to be fair in whatever quotations are made, not taking them out of context, not seeking to give them a meaning that is not there. I believe the quotations made are typical of the persons quoted, not something out of character with their usual outlook, approach and personality. Nonetheless, I have kept a few quotations anonymous, because of wishing to avoid unnecessary difficulty for the individual or those closely related to that person. It is, obviously, impossible to do this in all cases or the account would become meaningless. I believe, too, that none of us can expect to receive total exemption from the responsibility indicated by Jesus’ statement: “I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”35 We may seek, and gain, forgiveness for wrong or hurtful things said. But we are still responsible for them.

  Some will likely condemn certain information as an ‘airing of our dirty linen before the public.’ Strangely, these same ones generally do not object to the airing of the ‘dirty linen’ of other religions and may, in fact, take great interest in it, even publicize it widely. But they feel that what happens within their own religious organization should not be discussed outside its confines.

  The hard fact is, however, that within the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses today there is simply no possibility for such discussion to take place. Anyone’s attempting to do so would be viewed as showing a rebellious spirit and would only result in further disfellowshipping. Since the information cannot be discussed within, and if it is not to be discussed outside the structure, that means that it must be left un-discussed, ignored. Some, of course, would like it to remain that way, but is it right that it should?

  It is true that the Christian rightly relies on God to see all things and to be the true and final Judge of all matters. Undeniably, He alone can fully and finally right all wrongs committed. There is never any justification for angry retaliation, spiteful recrimination. There is no room for ‘smear tactics.�
� The Scriptures leave no doubt in that regard.36 Does this, however, call for maintaining total silence about injustice? Does it require keeping silent when error is propagated in the name of God? Is, perhaps, the discussion thereof evidence of ‘disrespect for divinely constituted authority’?37

  The position of the organization is that no injustice exists. That what has been, and is being, done is in full harmony with the Scriptures, in fact that the Scriptures require such action to be taken. If that is so, then there should be no objection to a frank discussion of things. Such discussion should actually result in the rightness of the organization’s position becoming more evident, should vindicate it of any charge of injustice. Only persons truly responsible for injustice prefer silence and seek to impose it, as has long been the case with dictatorial governments and authoritarian religions in past as well as recent times.

  Do Scriptural examples themselves urge against disclosure of wrongs where these involve those in high places of authority? It does not seem so, since the work of the Hebrew prophets frequently focused on such ones, those prophets making known the ways in which Israel’s leaders and men in authority, even high priests, had strayed from God’s standards with resulting problems. Jehovah’s Witnesses have often pointed to such candor and openness as one of the evidences that the Bible is truthful, genuinely God’s Book.38

  What, too, of Jesus’ apostles and disciples? It was the very authority structure of God’s covenant people—its Sanhedrin, its elders, and the divinely constituted priestly authority—that objected strenuously to the publicizing done by the apostles of the unjust handling of Jesus’ case.39 In both cases, that of the Hebrew prophets and that of the Christian disciples, those publicizing the wrongs did so out of respect for, and in obedience to, a higher authority, and in the interests of the people who needed to know.

  Obviously, no one today has a divine commission as a prophet or an apostle. But one does not have to be a prophet to take a course that follows the example of God’s prophets. Otherwise Jesus’ words would lose their meaning when, speaking to those who were reproached and about whom every sort of wicked thing was being said, he encouraged them to rejoice, saying, “for in that way they persecuted the prophets before you.”40 It was because they were following a parallel course that those Christians were receiving parallel treatment. One does not have to be an apostle to follow the example of the apostles, nor does he have to be, or pretend to be, a Messiah in order to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.41

  There is, of course, an enormous difference between the treatment accorded God’s Son—as to importance, significance and consequence—and that accorded to the persons involved in this modern-day situation. But it would seem that the principle of open disclosure that God approved in the above examples has force in this present-day situation, gives some indication at least that He is by no means averse to having injustice and misrepresentation uncovered, provided that the motivation is that of helping, of alerting people to realities that can aid them in arriving at right conclusions. The saying that “evil prevails when good men remain silent” seems to have some validity here.

  Regardless of the seriousness of the matters here made known, they alone did not lead me to a decision. But they did cause me to ponder more seriously than ever before the meaning of major portions and teachings of the Bible—why the apostle Paul could stress salvation by faith, “not owing to works, in order that no man should have grounds for boasting,” what the real difference is between the righteousness produced by law keeping and the righteousness resulting from God’s grace or undeserved kindness, the importance of the role of God’s Son as Head of the Christian congregation, what the true purpose of the congregation is, the reason for God’s granting authority therein and how that authority can be misused. The things that I saw, heard and experienced as a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, part of the inner executive circle, brought home to me more than ever before the crucial importance of those teachings.

  Many others of Jehovah’s Witnesses, not having the information I here supply, arrived at the same crossroads and made their own decision, doing so simply on the basis of what they had read in the Scriptures. Others, however, face a serious crisis of conscience and do so with uncertainty, with a sense of confused anguish, even of guilt. My hope is that what is presented in this book may be of help and I feel it is owed to them. It is offered to be applied in whatever way their conscience may lead, as they submit to the guidance of God’s spirit and word.

  12 Corinthians 12:11, NEB; compare 3:1, 2; 5:12, 13; 6:4-10; 11:21-29.

  2Face the Facts, p. 3.

  3Ibid., pp. 7, 8. (Jehovah’s Witnesses now view “religion” as an acceptable term for true worship.)

  4Ibid., p. 9. (The teaching then was that, since Satan’s lease of power ended in 1914, the “world ended” in that sense. The Society’s publications no longer teach this.)

  5Ibid., pp. 16, 17, 27. (As is well known, the Second World War ended in the defeat of the Nazi-Fascist “dictatorial monstrosity,” the exact opposite of what is here predicted.)

  6Ibid., pp. 40, 41. (This view of the ark’s symbolic significance has changed, though the role of the organization as essential to salvation as presented is basically the same.)

  7Photocopies from Face the Facts, pp. 46, 47.

  8It was not until 1959, when I was 36 that I finally married; my wife and I are childless, having been vigilant in birth control for most of our marriage.

  9See the 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses, pp. 186-188. The photo above, from my personal files, shows the way Victor Schmidt looked after we brought him to his home and helped him from his bloodstained clothes.

  10Photocopy from the book Children, published in 1941, p. 366.

  11See the Watchtower of September 15, 1941, p. 288 [underlining mine].

  12“Special pioneers” are full-time representatives (“pioneers”) given special assignments by the Society, with a higher quota of hours and a monthly allowance to aid in expenses.

  13The request form for this allowance had spaces to indicate what had been received from contributions for literature, what had been spent, and the difference. Since at times the difference did not come quite to fifteen dollars, I felt the right thing to do was to ask for less. But this resulted in my consistently winding up short of funds and then requesting smaller and smaller amounts. As I realized later, most “special pioneers” just asked for the straight fifteen dollars.

  14See the book Salvation, published in 1939, pp. 311, 312.

  15Not many years later Beth Sarim was sold. The belief in the return of the “faithful men of old” before Armageddon was also set aside.

  16Basically the same rule applied at the international headquarters and all Branch Offices; in the mid-1950s this rule was changed; Knorr himself married.

  17Though of medium height, my average weight while in the Caribbean was only 117 pounds (53 kilos). I could place several magazines around my body beneath a double set of undershirts and also slip an opened, 384-page book inside my shorts and still look normal. The only problem was that while seated on the plane the corners of the opened book cut into my thighs causing some discomfort.

  18The Generalissimo received me in full uniform with all his medals on (many, if not most, of these being self-bestowed). When he found out what my mission actually was, the interview ended fairly soon. It apparently created a favorable impression; nonetheless, since some time later the ban was lifted for a period of about a year and then was reimposed.

  192 Corinthians 6:4-10, JB.

  20Proverbs 18:13.

  21Dengue fever is like malaria in being transmitted by mosquitoes but is self-limiting. Its permanent effect on me may have been due to an earlier, childhood case of scarlet fever.

  22Subjects were assigned to us by Karl Adams, the writing department overseer. Insight on the Scriptures a two-volume set with very minor revisions, replaced Aid to Bible Understanding in 1988.

  23I find i
t hard to believe he meant this as seriously as it sounded, since he made use of the commentaries himself and knew that Fred Franz used them quite frequently.

  24Generally, in justifying this action, focus is placed on the lack of cooperation by some elders in sharing in the door-to-door witnessing which was now being strongly promoted. They are represented as men who were only interested in conducting meetings and giving talks. It is never mentioned that the Watch Tower president, Judge Rutherford, followed exactly that same course. The explanation given was that his responsibilities did not allow for him to share in the door-to-door activity.

  25Later editions of the New World Translation use “elder” but only in Revelation in texts referring to the 24 elders by God’s throne.

  26Later editions of the New World Translation also dropped this added phrase. The first editions had read: “Moreover, they appointed older men to office for them in the congregation and, offering prayer with fastings, they committed them to Jehovah.”

  27I was also assigned most of the historical subjects, dealing with the rulers and history of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon (rulers only), Medo Persia and others.

  28It covered 27 pages (322-348). In its most extensive change, the 1988 revised edition reduced this to about 20 pages, eliminating any acknowledgment of problems regarding 607 B.C.E.

  29See Aid to Bible Understanding, pp. 326-328, 330, 331.