Crisis of Conscience Page 8
The bulk of the correspondence on this subject never reached the Governing Body, being handled by the staff members assigned to “correspondence desks” or by the members of the Service Department. I am sure, however, that the various Governing Body members must have been made aware, likely through personal contacts and conversations, that many felt they had improperly invaded people’s private lives.
When finally, after some five years, the matter came up again on the agenda, the disfellowshipping policy was reversed and the Governing Body in effect now withdrew itself from that intimate area of others’ lives. Again the Body assigned me to prepare material for publication, this time advising of the change. I found it personally satisfying to be able to acknowledge, even though rather obliquely, that the organization had been in error.
The February 15, 1978, Watchtower, pages 30 and 32, carried the material and included the following points:
Actually, I felt that way about a whole host of matters that came before us, that there was really no basis in Scripture for taking dogmatic stands on the vast majority of things we were ruling on. I expressed that view here and it was accepted by the Body on this point. I expressed that same view again and again in the future but it was rarely accepted.
Looking over the letters at hand, some of which have been presented, whatever satisfaction it brought to write that corrective material seems rather hollow. For I know that no matter what was said, it could never in any way compensate for or repair all the damage in embarrassment, mental confusion, emotional distress, guilt pangs, and broken marriages that resulted from the earlier decision—a decision made in a few hours by men almost all of whom were approaching the matter ‘cold,’ with no previous knowledge, thought, meditation, specific prayer on the matter or searching of Scriptures, but whose decision was nonetheless put in force globally for five years and affected many people for a lifetime. None of it needed ever to have occurred.13
Another issue that arose, somewhat linked to the above, involved a Witness in South America whose husband had confessed to having had sexual relations with another woman. The problem was that he said that the relations were of the kind involved in the issue earlier described, in this particular case anal and not genital copulation.
The decision of the Governing Body was that this did not qualify as adultery; that adultery required strictly genital copulation ‘capable of producing children.’ Therefore the man had not become “one flesh” with the other woman and hence the decision was that the wife had no grounds for Scriptural divorce and future remarriage.
The existing rule of voting required unanimity of decision and I conformed. I felt genuinely disturbed, however, at thinking about this woman and her being told that she could not Scripturally choose to become free from a man guilty of such an act. The decision also meant that a husband who engaged in homosexual acts with other men or who even had relations with a beast was not subject to “Scriptural divorce,” since a man could not, with any procreative possibilities, become “one flesh” with another man or with an animal. A Watchtower magazine earlier that year had, in fact, specifically ruled this way.14
The emotional upset I felt moved me to make a study of the original language terms (in Greek) used in Matthew, chapter nineteen, verse 9. The Society’s New World Translation there presents Jesus as saying:
I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.
Two different words are used, “fornication” and “adultery,” yet the Watchtower publications for many decades had taken the position that they both referred essentially to the same thing, that the “fornication” meant a man’s having adulterous relations with a woman other than his wife (or a wife’s having such relations with a man not her husband). Why then, I asked myself, did Matthew, in recording Jesus’ statement, use two different words (porneia and moikheia) if the same thing, adultery, was actually meant in both cases?
Searching through the many translations, Bible dictionaries, commentaries and lexicons in the Bethel library, the reason became obvious. Practically every book I opened showed that the Greek term porneia (rendered as “fornication” in the New World Translation) was a very broad term and applied to ALL types of sexual immorality and for this reason many Bible translations simply render it as “immorality,” “sexual immorality,” “unchastity,” “unfaithfulness.”15 Lexicons clearly showed that the term was also applied to homosexual relations. The conclusive point to me, however, was realizing that in the Bible itself porneia is used at Jude, verse 7, to denote the notorious homosexual conduct of people in Sodom and Gomorrah.
I prepared fourteen pages of material containing the results of the research and made copies for each member of the Body. But I felt very uncertain as to how this would be received and so I went to Fred Franz’s office and explained what I had done, expressing my doubt that the material would be favorably accepted. He said, “I don’t believe there will be any difficulty.” Though very brief, the words were spoken with a tone of confidence. When I inquired if he would like to see what had been found, he declined and again said he thought there would be “no problem.”
My impression was that he was already aware of some of the points my research had revealed, though for how long I had no way of knowing. Since he had been the principal translator of the Society’s New World Translation I felt he must surely have at least been apprised of the true sense of the word porneia (“fornication”).16
When the matter came up in the Governing Body session, the material I submitted was accepted, Fred Franz having expressed his support, and I was assigned to prepare articles for publication in the Watchtower presenting the changed stand this would bring about.17
I still remember, some time after the articles appeared, a letter that came in from a Witness who some years before had discovered her husband having sexual relations with an animal. As she said, “I couldn’t live with a man like that,” and she divorced him. Later she remarried. The congregation then disfellowshipped her for so doing as she was not “Scripturally free.” After the Watchtower articles appeared, she now wrote and asked that, in view of the changed position, something be done to clear her name of the reproach she had suffered as a result of the disfellowshipping action. I could only write her that the articles published were themselves a vindication of her course.
Though again it had been satisfying to prepare the material acknowledging the organization’s erroneous view and rectifying it, the sobering thought remained that this could never undo whatever harm the previous position had caused over decades of time and—only God knows—to how many people.
The Governing Body at that time was, in reality, both a judicial court and also—because its decisions and definitions had force of law for all Jehovah’s Witnesses—a legislative body. It was a “Governing Body” in the sense that the Sanhedrin of Bible times might be called such, its functions being similar. Just as all major questions involving Jehovah’s name people of that period were brought to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem for settlement, so with the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn.
But it was not an administrative body in any sense of the word. The administrative authority and responsibility rested exclusively with the corporation president, Nathan H. Knorr. I had not expected this because the same year of my appointment Vice President Franz had given a speech, later carried in the December 15, 1971, Watchtower, in which he described the role of the Governing Body, contrasting this with that of the corporation, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. The Vice President’s language was unusually bold and frank, as he stated again and again that the corporation was simply an “agency,” a “temporary instrument” used by the Governing Body (pages 754, 760):
29This worldwide evangelizing organization is not tailored according to any present-day legal corporation that may be required under the laws of man-made political governments that now face destruction in the “war of the great day of God the Almight
y” at Har-Magedon. (Rev. 16:14-16) No legal corporation of earth shapes the evangelizing organization or governs it. Rather, it governs such corporations as mere temporary instruments useful in the work of the great Theocrat. Hence it is patterned according to His design for it. It is a theocratic organization, ruled from the divine Top down, and not from the rank and file up. The dedicated, baptized members of it are under Theocracy! Earthly legal corporations will cease when the man-made governments that chartered them perish shortly.
So the Society’s voting members see that this governing body could most directly use that “administrative agency” as an instrument in behalf of the work of the “faithful and discreet slave” class by having members of the governing body on the Board of Directors of the Society. They recognize that the Society is not the administrative body, but is merely an agency for administering matters.
Hence the Society’s voting members do not desire that there be any basis for conflict and division. They do not want to cause anything like a situation where the “administrative agency” controls and directs the user of that agency, which user is the governing body as representing the “faithful and discreet slave” class. No more so than to have the tail wag a dog instead of the dog’s wagging its tail. A legal religious instrument according to Caesar’s law should not attempt to direct and control its creator; rather, the creator of the legal religious instrument should control and direct it.
Because of the simile used, the talk was spoken of by some as the “tail wagging the dog talk.” Unquestionably it contained powerful expressions. The problem was that they presented a picture that was completely contrary to fact.
The Governing Body did not control the corporation, not at the time that the aforementioned talk was given by the vice president, nor at the time the material was published, nor for some four years thereafter.
The picture presented eventually did come to be true, but only as the result of a very drastic adjustment, one unpleasantly fraught with heated emotions and considerable division. Strange as it may seem to most Jehovah’s Witnesses today, the kind of Governing Body described in that talk had never existed in the whole history of the organization. It took over ninety years for it to come into being and its present existence dates only from January 1, 1976, or about one-fifth of the organization’s history. I will explain why I make such a statement and why it is factual.
THREE MONARCHS
You know that in the world, rulers lord it over their subjects, and their great men make them feel the weight of authority; but it shall not be so with you.
— Matthew 20:25, 26, New English Bible.
The history of Jehovah’s Witnesses becomes one of record particularly with the publication of the first issue of the Watch Tower magazine on July 1, 1879. The corporation called the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was formed in 1881 and incorporated in 1884. It is certainly true that back there the corporation did not ‘shape, govern, control or direct’ (to use the words of the vice president) the governing body of those associated with the Watch Tower. It did not, and in fact could not do so, for the simple reason that no “governing body” existed.
Charles Taze Russell personally started the Watch Tower as his own magazine and was its sole editor; during his lifetime all those associated with the Watch Tower Society accepted him as their one and only Pastor. It is true, of course, that the Society, once formed, had a Board of Directors (Russell’s wife, Maria, originally being one of these). But that Board was not viewed as a governing body nor did it serve as such. Yet the Watchtower of December 15, 1971, pages 760 and 761, had made this statement:
Charles Taze Russell
It is difficult for me to understand how Fred Franz could write this as being “according to the facts available” inasmuch as he became affiliated with the Watch Tower organization during Russell’s life and knew personally what the reality then was. What do the “facts available” actually show?
Concerning the Board of Directors, Russell himself states in a special edition of Zion’s Watch Tower dated April 25, 1894, page 59:
That Russell clearly did not view the Directors (or any others) as a governing body along with himself is obvious from the course he consistently followed. The Watch Tower of March 1, 1923, page 68, says:
The article then goes on to say:
In answer to a question from some Watch Tower readers, C. T. Russell wrote in 1906:
Believing himself to be “God’s mouthpiece” and His agent for revelation of truth, it is understandable why he would see no need for a governing body. The year after this statement, Russell prepared a “Last Will and Testament” which was published in the December 1, 1916 Watch Tower magazine following his death in that year. Since nothing illustrates more clearly the total control Charles Russell exercised over the Watch Tower magazine, the full text of his Will is presented in Appendix A. We may here note what is said in the second paragraph of this published Will:
Although he donated the Watch Tower magazine to the corporation (at its incorporation in 1884), he clearly considered it his magazine; to be published according to his will even after his death. He directed that, upon his death, an Editorial Committee of five men, personally selected and named by him, should have entire editorial charge of the Watch Tower magazine.20 He also willed all his corporation voting shares to five women named by him as Trustees, and provided that if any member of the Editorial Committee should be impeached, these women would serve along with the other corporation trustees (evidently the Directors) and the remaining Editorial Committee members in acting as a Board of Judgment to decide the case of the Editorial Committee member accused.21
Since one person cannot form a collective body, the facts show that during C. T. Russell’s lifetime, that is up until 1916, there was not even a semblance of a governing body. That continued to be the case during the presidency of his successor, Joseph F. Rutherford. One might assume that the members of the Editorial Committee, along with the Board of Directors, would compose such a governing body. But the facts show that that assumption would be wrong.
At the annual corporation meeting in January 1917, Rutherford was elected to replace Russell as president of the Watch Tower corporation. Early in his presidency, four of the seven Directors (a majority) took issue with what they viewed as arbitrary action on the part of the president. He was not recognizing the Board of Directors and working with it as a body but was acting unilaterally, taking actions and informing them later of what he had decided to do. They did not feel that this was at all in harmony with what Pastor Russell, the “faithful and wise servant,” had outlined as the course to follow. Their expressing objection led to their swift elimination.22
Joseph F. Rutherford.
Rutherford found that, though they were personal appointees of C. T. Russell as Directors for life, the directorship of these four had never been confirmed at an annual corporation meeting. According to A. H. MacMillan, then a prominent member of the headquarters staff, Rutherford conferred with an outside lawyer who agreed that this allowed for dismissing the men—on a legal basis, that is.23
Rutherford thus had an option. He could acknowledge the objections of the majority of the Board and seek to make amends. (If he had viewed these men as the majority of a “Governing Body” of the kind described in the 1971 Watchtower he would have been morally bound to do so.) Or, he could avail himself of the legal point mentioned and use his presidential authority to dismiss the Directors who disagreed with him.
He chose the latter course, appointing Directors of his own choice to replace them.
What of the Editorial Committee? The Watchtower of June 15, 1938, page 185, shows that in 1925 the majority of this Committee “strenuously opposed” the publication of an article titled “The Birth of The Nation” (meaning “the kingdom had begun to function” in 1914). The Watchtower states the result to those who disagreed with the president:
. . . but, by the Lord’s grace, it [the article] was published, and that really m
arked the beginning of the end of the editorial committee, indicating that the Lord himself is running his organization.
The Editorial Committee was now eliminated. Rutherford had effectively excised any opposition to his full control of the organization.
An interesting feature about all this is that during this entire time, not only The Finished Mystery book (a major bone of contention in 1917), but also the Watch Tower magazine had been forcefully teaching that Pastor Russell was indeed the “faithful and wise servant” foretold in Scripture, whom the Master would make “ruler over his household.”24 The way in which this teaching was used to insist upon everyone’s full conformity is well illustrated in these statements from the Watch Tower of May 1, 1922, page 132:
Again, in the March 1, 1923, Watch Tower, pages 68 and 71, in an article titled “Loyalty the Test,” conformity to Russell’s teachings and methods was equated with conformity to the Lord’s will:
The issue was quite clear. Either one could loyally line up with and conform to the teachings and way of this ‘ruler over the Master’s household’ (Russell) or he could become guilty of repudiation of Christ Jesus, hence, an apostate. Rarely has appeal to human authority been more strongly stated.
That is what makes it so notable that, within a few years of Russell’s death, and during the very time these claims about him were made, the provisions he made in life and his personal selections of men for the office of supervision were set aside by the new president. Russell’s expressions contained in his “Will” were discounted as having no legal force and, evidently, no moral force either. The Watchtower of December 15, 1931, page 376, says of it:
Just eight years before, the Watch Tower, the “Lord’s channel,” had insisted that Russell “did the Lord’s work according to the Lord’s way” and therefore “any other way of doing it is contrary to the Lord’s way.” Now, eight years later, any who objected to Rutherford’s setting aside of the directions given by the one the Watch Tower had so adamantly argued was the “faithful and wise servant” were portrayed as motivated by ill will and malice, as workers of iniquity: