2. Statement by the Author

Crisis of Conscience (1983)

Not a Watch Tower publication — Raymond Franz

Franz's account of nine years on the Governing Body (1971–1980): how its decisions were made, the debates over 1975 and the "generation" of 1914, disfellowshipping policy, and why he left. This is the text of the fourth edition (2008 printing) as reissued by NuLife Press in 2018, with its appendices; the publisher's foreword and epilogue and the page-number indexes of that edition are not included. The Watchtower and other Society publications have described former members who publish such criticism as apostates.

Raymond Franz (1922–2010) served at the Society's world headquarters and was a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses from 1971 to 1980; he was a nephew of the Society's later president Frederick W. Franz. He left the headquarters in 1980 and was disfellowshipped in 1981. His Crisis of Conscience (1983) describes how the Governing Body worked and why he came to disagree with it; the Society considers him an apostate.

Critical Works: Writings that criticised C. T. Russell, his successors or the Society, by contemporaries, rival Bible Student groups and former members. They are included because they are part of the historical record, and the Society answered many of them in its own publications, which are in this archive.

About the Related Works section

Statement by the Author

Life is uncertain and when a man dies what he knows dies along with him— unless he passes it on while still in life.

What this book contains is written out of a sense of obligation to people whom I sincerely love. In all good conscience I can say that its aim is to help and not to hurt. If some of what is presented is painful to read, it was also painful to write. It is hoped that the reader will recognize that the search for truth need never be destructive of faith, that every effort to know and uphold truth will, instead, strengthen the basis for true faith. What those reading this information will do with it is, of course, their own decision. At least it will have been said, and a moral responsibility will have been met.

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2. Statement by the Author

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