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    5. Chapter 2. Credentials and Cause

    Crisis of Conscience (1983)

    Crisis of Conscience

    Chapter 2. Credentials and Cause

    I am speaking the truth as a Christian, and my own conscience, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, assures me it is no lie. . . . For I could even pray to be outcast from Christ myself for the sake of my brothers, my natural kinsfolk.

    — Romans 9:1, 3. New English Bible.

    WHAT has thus far been said gives, I believe, good reason for the writing of this book. The question may remain as to why I am the one writing it.

    One reason is my background and the perspective it gives. From babyhood up into my sixtieth year, my life was spent in association with Jehovah’s Witnesses. While others, many others, could say the same, it is unlikely that very many of them had the range of experience that happened to be my lot during those years.

    A reason of greater weight is that circumstances brought to my knowledge information to which the vast majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses have absolutely no access. The circumstances were seldom of my own making. The information was often totally unexpected, even disturbing.

    A final reason, resulting from the previous two, is that of conscience. What do you do when you see mounting evidence that people are being hurt, deeply hurt, with no real justification? What obligation do any of us have—before God and toward fellow humans—when he sees that information is withheld from people to whom it could be of the most serious consequence? These were questions with which I struggled.

    What follows expands on these reasons.

    In many ways I would much prefer passing over the first of these since it necessarily deals with my own “record.” The present situation seems to require its presentation, however, somewhat in the way circumstances obliged the apostle Paul to set out his record of personal experiences for Christians in Corinth and afterward to say to them:

    I am being very foolish, but it was you who drove me to it; my credentials should have come from you. In no respect did I fall short of these superlative apostles, even if I am a nobody [even though I am nothing, New International Version].1

    I make no pretense of being a Paul, but I believe that my reason and motive at least run parallel with his.

    My father and mother (and three of my four grandparents) were Witnesses, my father having been baptized in 1913 when the Witnesses were known simply as Bible Students. I did not become an active Witness until I was sixteen in 1938. Though still in school, I was before long spending from twenty to thirty hours a month in “witnessing” from door to door, standing on street corners with magazines, putting out handbills while wearing placards saying “Religion is a snare, the Bible tells why. Serve God and Christ the King.”

    That year, 1938, I had attended a Witness assembly in Cincinnati (across the Ohio River from our home) and listened to Judge Joseph F. Rutherford, the president of the Watch Tower Society, speak from London, England, by radiotelephone communication. In a major talk entitled “Face the Facts,” Rutherford’s opening words included this:

    That appealed to me as a worthwhile principle to follow in life. I felt receptive to the facts he would present.

    World War II had not yet begun as of that year, but Nazism and Fascism were growing in power and posing an increasing threat to democratic lands. Among major points emphasized in the Watch Tower president’s talk were these:

    God has made it clearly to be seen by those who diligently seek the truth that religion is a form of worship but which denies the power of God and turns men away from God. . . . Religion and Christianity are therefore exactly opposite to each other. . . .3

    According to the prophecy of Jesus, what are the things to be expected when the world comes to an end? The answer is world war, famine, pestilence, distress of nations, and amongst other things mentioned the appearance of a monstrosity on the earth. . . . These are the indisputable physical facts which have come to pass proving that Satan’s world has come to an end, and which facts cannot be ignored. . . .4

    Now Germany is in an alliance with the Papacy, and Great Britain is rapidly moving in that direction. The United States of America, once the bulwark of democracy, is all set to become part of the totalitarian rule. .

    . . Thus the indisputable facts are, that there is now in the earth Satan’s dictatorial monstrosity, which defies and opposes Jehovah’s kingdom. . . . The totalitarian combine is going to get control of England and America. You cannot prevent it. Do not try. Your safety is on the Lord’s side. . . .5

    I have italicized statements that particularly engraved themselves on my mind at that time. They created in me an intensity of feeling, of near agitation that I had not experienced before. Yet none of them today form part of Witness belief.

    Rutherford’s other major talk, “Fill the Earth,” developed the view that as of 1935 God’s message, till then directed to persons who would reign with Christ in heaven, a “little flock,” was now being directed to an earthly class, the “other sheep,” and that after the approaching war of Armageddon these would procreate and fill the earth with a righteous offspring. Of these he said:

    They must find protection in God’s organization, which shows that they must be immersed, baptized or hidden in that organization. The ark, which Noah built at God’s command, pictured God’s organization. . . .6

    Pointing out that Noah’s three sons evidently did not begin to produce offspring until two years after the Flood, the Watch Tower president then made an application to those with earthly hopes in modern times, saying:

    Joseph Rutherford spoke forcefully and with a distinctive cadence of great finality. These were facts, even “indisputable facts,” solid truths on which to build life’s most serious plans. I was deeply impressed with the importance of the organization as essential to salvation, also that the work of witnessing must take precedence over, or at least militate against, such personal interests as marriage and childbearing.8

    In 1939 I was baptized and in June, 1940, on graduating from high school I immediately entered full-time service in witnessing activity. That year was a turbulent one for the world and for Jehovah’s Witnesses. World War II was under way, the work of Jehovah’s Witnesses came under governmental ban in several countries and hundreds of Witnesses were imprisoned; in the United States large numbers of children of Jehovah’s Witnesses were being expelled from school for refusal to salute the flag (viewed as a form of image worship); the Witnesses’ stand of neutrality toward war often inspired violent antagonism on the part of those priding themselves on their loyalty and patriotism; vicious mob attacks were starting to spread.

    That summer of 1940 our family went to Detroit, Michigan, to attend a major Witness convention. A spirit of tense anticipation prevailed, a sense of being under siege. At the close of the assembly Judge Rutherford indicated that ‘this might be the last assembly we would have before the great tribulation struck.’ When the autumn of 1940 came and I put my summer clothes away, I remember thinking that I would likely never take them out again—that either Armageddon would have come or we would by then all be in concentration camps, like many Witnesses in Nazi Germany.

    Mob violence reached a crescendo during the early 1940’s. In Connersville, Indiana, I attended a court trial of two women Witnesses charged with seditious activity (“riotous conspiracy”), simply because they studied Watch Tower publications as part of a home study group. The trial ran five days and on the last day, after night had fallen, the jury brought in its verdict of guilty. On leaving the courthouse, the defense attorney (a Witness named Victor Schmidt) and his wife were violently assaulted by a mob and were forced to walk, in a driving rain, the entire distance to the city limits. On the way the horror of the situation caused Schmidt’s wife suddenly to begin to menstruate.

    I had in my car group a Witness representative (Jack Rainbow) who had earlier been threatened with death by some of these men if he returned to “their city.” On arriving at the city limits and there seeing Schmidt and his wife, followed by a remnant of the mob, I felt obliged to take the risk of picking them up and was able to do so. Another Witness had attempted this but only got a broken car window for his efforts. Schmidt’s wife broke out into hysterical screaming when we got her into the car; her husband’s face was bruised and covered with blood from deep cuts where he had evidently been hit with brass knuckles.9 To experience firsthand such raw and callous intolerance left a vivid impression on my young mind. I felt all the more convinced of the rightness of my course with those who were quite evidently the true servants of God.

    Later, as a tactic recommended by the Watch Tower Society’s legal counsel, Hayden Covington, a large group of seventy-five Witnesses from the Cincinnati, Ohio area, including my parents, my two sisters and myself, traveled to Connersville in a “blitzkrieg” witnessing effort. With one exception, we all, men, women and children, were arrested and wound up in various jails, being locked up for one week until bail could be worked out. Still in my teens, it was my first time at experiencing the feeling that comes with seeing a massive metal door swing shut, hearing the bolt shoved in place and realizing that your freedom of movement is now taken from you.

    Some months later I was in Indianapolis, Indiana, for a superior court hearing involving the Connersville events. My uncle, Fred Franz, a member of the Watch Tower headquarters staff since 1920 and a close associate of Judge Rutherford, was also there from Brooklyn as sort of an expert witness on the Society’s behalf. The local congregation asked him to speak to them one evening. During the course of his talk he began discussing the attitude of so many that the work of witnessing was nearing its end, just about finished. To put it mildly, I was stunned to hear my uncle speak to the contrary, saying that at Brooklyn they were not expecting to close down, that ‘anyone who wanted to send in a subscription for the Watchtower magazine needn’t send it in for just six months—he could send it in for a full year or for two years if he wanted!’

    The thrust of his remarks was so contrary to the comments of the Society’s president at the Detroit assembly that it seemed clear to me that my uncle was speaking on his own, not presenting some duly authorized message from the Society. I actually felt like going to him and urging caution lest his remarks get back to Brooklyn and be viewed as disloyal, as having a dissipating, undermining effect on the sense of extreme urgency that had developed. Although then in his late forties, my uncle was a relatively young man compared to Judge Rutherford and I found myself uncertain as to whether to accept his remarks as proper or discount them as the product of an independent, somewhat brash attitude.

    Leaving home that year to become the partner of a young fellow Witness in the coal mining region of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, I found myself in an area where the threat of violence was faced almost on a daily basis. Some mining camps consisted of long wooden “row houses” strung along the highway. At times, upon reaching the last of such a section of houses, we could look back to the point where we had begun our calls and see men and boys excitedly running about gathering a mob.

    At the “Octavia J” mining camp in Kentucky, our old “Model A” Ford car was surrounded by a group of angry miners and we were told to ‘get out of there and out of the State of Kentucky and not come back if we valued our lives.’ Attempts to reason only provoked greater anger. We did return a couple of months later and before we got out were shot at and pursued, escaping only by a ruse that led us over back roads and across a mountain until we could finally make our way home. More so than patriotic fervor, religious bigotry seemed to have been the force motivating the miners. Our disbelief of the teaching of a literal hell fire torment (causing young boys to yell out “no-hellers” as we drove by) weighed almost as heavily as our stand toward war.

    I found that close-minded bigotry appalling then. I was happy to be part of an organization free from such intolerance.

    The summer of 1941 came and, contrary to my expectation, I found myself attending another assembly, held in St. Louis, Missouri. I still remember seeing crowds gather around as Judge Rutherford was driven up to the assembly site in a large car with Hayden Covington and Vice President Nathan Knorr, both men of large build, standing on the running boards as bodyguards. On the final day of the assembly, Rutherford had all the children from five to eighteen years of age seated before the platform. After his prepared speech, he talked to them extemporaneously.

    A tall man of usually stern appearance and stern tone, Rutherford now spoke with almost fatherly persuasion and recommended to these children that they put marriage out of their minds until the return of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and other faithful men and women of old who would soon be resurrected and would guide them in their selection of mates.

    A free copy of a new book entitled Children was given each child. As a vehicle for developing the material, it presented a fictional young Witness couple, John and Eunice, who were engaged but who had decided to postpone their marriage until the arrival of the New Order so near at hand. In the book, John said to Eunice:

    I was then nineteen, and today in my eighties I can still remember the inner emotional stirrings, a strange mixture of agitation and depression, those expressions generated in me. At my age back then, to be confronted with statements of that kind that, in essence, called upon me to make a decision and set aside interest in marriage for an indefinite time, had an unsettling effect. I could perhaps appreciate better what young men contemplating entering the priesthood of Catholicism experience. Of course, the force of the Watch Tower president’s urgings lay in the shortness of time till Armageddon. As the September 15, 1941, Watchtower magazine in describing the occasion later said:

    Receiving the gift [the book Children], the marching children clasped it to them, not a toy or plaything for idle pleasure, but the Lord’s provided instrument for most effective work in the remaining months before Armageddon.11

    Years later I learned that Judge Rutherford was at that point dying of cancer. He had been separated for many years from his wife, who was also a Witness and who lived as an invalid in California; his one son on reaching adulthood had shown no interest in the religion of his father. My uncle, Fred Franz, said that the Judge’s failing condition, coupled with his strong desire that the “end” come while he was still alive to see it, motivated many such expressions as those made in 1940 and 1941.

    I have thought since that, had the couple in the book been real instead of fictional, their engagement period would have been rather long, in fact, would still be in effect. All the young girls present at that assembly would be well past the childbearing age now, being at least in their late sixties or early seventies. Some of those who were then present as children, however, did loyally follow through on the counsel heard and remained single through what might be called their normal marriageable years on into bachelorhood and spinsterhood.

    In 1942, a “special pioneer” assignment in Wellston, Ohio, brought other experiences.12 Another young Witness and I lived in a small trailer house, a homemade “box on wheels” six feet wide and fourteen feet long (1.8 meters by 4.3 meters). It had no insulation whatsoever in the walls and our small coal stove held a fire for at most a few hours. Many wintry nights saw the water in the pail inside the trailer freeze over and it was not uncommon to awaken and then be unable to get back to sleep because of feet throbbing with pain from the cold. We could afford nothing better since, aside from our share of the contributions people gave for literature, we each received as a monthly allowance from the Society a maximum of fifteen dollars.13 During the better part of a year, our main meal of the day usually consisted of boiled potatoes, oleomargarine and day-old bread (half the cost of fresh bread). My partner had an old car but we rarely had the money to put fuel in it.

    In this town, too, animosity flared. At one time or another young boys broke every window in the trailer. One night I returned home to find it thrown completely over on its side. I again experienced arrest and spent a night in the local jail. The place literally crawled with bed bugs and, unable to bring myself to lie on the jail bunk, I spent the entire night sitting on an empty tin can someone had left in the cell.

    In 1944, an invitation came to attend a missionary school, the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, for a five-months course. Upon graduation and while awaiting a missionary assignment, I spent a year and a half in traveling work, visiting congregations in a “Circuit” that took in the state of Arizona and a large section of California. When visiting congregations in the San Diego, California, area I spent five nights at “Beth Sarim” (meaning “House of Princes”). This was a large home built by the Society and said to be ‘held in trust’ for the faithful men of old, from Abel onward, to be used by them upon their resurrection.14 Judge Rutherford, who had had some lung problems, spent the winters there during his life. I recall that the place gave me somewhat of a sense of unreality. San Diego was a nice city; the home was a fine, upper-class residence. But I could not see why the men I had read about in the Bible would have any interest in being placed there; something did not seem to fit.15

    Assigned first to France as a missionary, I was unable to go due to the refusal of my draft board to grant me permission to leave the country. (Though I had gained exemption from military service as a “minister,” they justified their refusal on the basis of my still being within the age limit covered by the military draft.) Thereafter I was assigned to the island of Puerto Rico (viewed as still within the USA). Before leaving, in 1946, Nathan Knorr, now president of the Society (Rutherford having died in early 1942), talked to a group of us, all young men being sent out to do supervisory work in different countries as “Branch Overseers.” Among other things he strongly stressed that if we wished to remain in our missionary assignments we should avoid anything that might lead to courtship and marriage. The policy was: Loss of singleness means loss of assignment.16

    In Puerto Rico it was not long before our “missionary home” group in San Juan consisted of one married couple, seven young girls in their twenties and me, all living in a two-story, six bedroom house. Though I followed Knorr’s counsel and kept very busy (sometimes conducting more than fifteen home Bible studies a week), the announced policy on marriage and the circumstances in the close quarters of the home created pressure that wore ever more heavily on me. Bouts with dysentery, then a paratyphoid infection with its intense spasms of intestinal pain and passage of stools of blood, and later a case of infectious hepatitis did nothing to help. (I worked in the office right through the cases of dysentery and paratyphoid infection and was off only one week as a result of the hepatitis, though I felt so weak I could hardly climb the stairs to the office.) After eight years the combined strain brought me near to a nervous breakdown.

    Upon writing the president, I was relieved of my Branch responsibilities (I had not requested this) and was given the option of returning to the States to do traveling work there. I asked to be allowed instead to remain in my assignment in Puerto Rico and was transferred to another town. Though the town, Aguadilla, was one for which I felt no attraction, I had requested it since it seemed the need was greater there.

    Within a year or so I was assigned to do traveling work, visiting congregations in the island and in the neighboring Virgin Islands (lying to the east of Puerto Rico).

    An added feature was that periodically the Society asked me to make trips to the Dominican Republic where the work of Jehovah’s Witnesses had been banned by the government of dictator Rafael Trujillo. The purpose was primarily to smuggle in copies of Watch Tower literature.17 I did so a number of times and then, in 1955, was asked to try to deliver a petition personally to the dictator. Knowing that people who incurred his disfavor had a way of simply disappearing, I accepted the assignment with a measure of apprehension.

    Dominican Dictator Rafael Trujillo

    Arriving in Ciudad Trujillo (now Santo Domingo), I sent a telegram to the Generalissimo presenting myself solely as a “North American educator with information of great importance to you and your country.” The interview was granted at the National Palace and I was able to deliver the petition into his hands.18 To my surprise I was not expelled and continued to make my periodic “smuggling” trips without being apprehended.

    Then in 1957 all the American missionaries of the Witnesses were expelled from the Dominican Republic in the wake of a wave of violent persecution, many local Witnesses being brutally beaten and imprisoned. A major issue had been the refusal of male Witnesses to do “marching” as required by military training laws, but there was also considerable religious opposition expressed, priests and others making inflammatory statements in the newspapers.

    The Society asked me to go in and check on the conditions of the native Dominican Witnesses. I had been in just shortly before to deliver instructions to the missionaries and had brought out detailed accounts of the harsh persecution and these were prominently featured in Puerto Rican newspapers. As we learned from a source close to him, this adverse publicity enraged Trujillo.

    Feeling like a marked man, I recall that my first night at a hotel in Ciudad Trujillo I was given a room on the ground floor with French windows right next to the bed. My sense of real danger was strong enough to move me to rig up the appearance of a form on the bed while I slept on the floor behind it. Again, however, I was able to make it in and out without incident and made other trips in the following years.

    Later the Society changed its policy on marriage and, thirteen years after arriving in Puerto Rico and now approaching 37 years of age, I married. Cynthia, my wife, joined me in traveling work. Economic conditions in the islands were poor, considerably beneath today’s level. We lived with the people we served, sharing their little homes, sometimes with running water and electricity, sometimes not; sometimes with a measure of privacy, often with very little. Relatively young, we adjusted, though my wife’s health was due to be seriously affected.

    Only a few months after our marriage, while serving in the small island of Tortola my wife fell ill with a severe case of gastroenteritis, evidently from bad water or tainted food. The home we were staying in belonged to a fine West Indian couple with lovable children. Unfortunately the house they were renting was overrun with roaches, a creature that inspires near panic in my wife. At night we regularly checked our bed for any roaches before letting the mosquito netting down. Suspecting that a large box in a corner containing clothes was the creatures’ headquarters, one day I took some insect spray and went to the box and lifted the top garment. I quickly let it down, for the box was alive with what looked to be hundreds of small roaches and I feared the spray could send them everywhere. For added measure a large rat each night entered the kitchen (next to our room and next to the only bathroom), its size being enough to make the tins of food on the shelves move.

    In these circumstances my wife now began to experience the gastroenteritis, developing extreme diarrhea and regular vomiting. I was able to get her to the island’s one doctor and an injection temporarily stopped the vomiting. Late that night it began again and this, coupled with the constant diarrhea, brought Cynthia to the point of dehydration. I ran about a mile in the dark to rouse the doctor from sleep and we carried her in his jeep to a little clinic. Her veins had nearly collapsed and the nurses tried again and again before they could finally insert a needle to administer saline solution. She was able to leave a few days afterward but her health was never quite the same. A later parasite infection (whipworm) added to the problem.

    We continued in traveling work until 1961 and then were transferred to the neighboring Dominican Republic. The dictator Trujillo had been assassinated shortly before our arrival.

    During our nearly five years there, we saw the fall of four separate governments and in April of 1965 experienced a war that centered around the capital where we were located. Most Americans and other foreign residents fled the country. Our missionary group felt no inclination to abandon the Dominican Jehovah’s Witnesses and our assignment, and so we learned what war-time life is like.

    Army tank across the street from the missionary home.

    Nights were filled with the crack of hundreds of rifles, the rattle of machine guns, the boom of bazookas and other heavier weapons. Lulls came in the fighting during the day and we were able to get outside and carry on some activity, though sometimes almost pinned down by the eruption of gunfire. To this day I have wondered just how close bullets must come for the distinct buzzing sound like that of angry bees to be heard as they fly past your head. One soldier comfortingly told me, “There’s no need to worry about those. You won’t hear the one that hits you.”

    The remaining fifteen years of full-time service were quite different, as they were spent at the international headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. My reason for describing in some detail the earlier years up to 1965 is that their content seems to be more of the fabric (though greatly inferior in quality) of the experiences the apostle focuses on in setting forth the evidence of the genuineness of his service to God and Christ, saying:

    We prove we are servants of God by great fortitude in times of suffering: in times of hardship and distress.

    In the words that follow, he makes no mention of his speeches, gives no figures of great audiences he addressed, cites no examples of organizational feats in building up large numbers of believers.19

    I make no claim that what I went through was any more than what many others have experienced, either as missionaries of Jehovah’s Witnesses or of other religions. The record is simply set out for the reader to decide upon its relative worth, particularly as regards assessing the validity and integrity of the information supplied in the rest of this publication.

    CIRCUMSTANCES AND CONSEQUENCES

    We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.

    — Acts 4:20, Revised Standard Version.

    What I saw, heard and experienced during the next fifteen years had a great impact on me. Whether the reaction of the reader will coincide with mine, I have no way of knowing, but one thing is certain and that is that no one could understand what brought me to a crisis situation without knowing these developments. The proverb is apt: “When anyone is replying to a matter before he hears it, that is foolishness on his part and a humiliation.”20

    The year before the war in the Dominican Republic, and following an attack of dengue fever which left my nerve endings hypersensitive, I had attended a ten-month course at Gilead School.21 At the close, the Society’s president, N. H. Knorr, asked me to leave my missionary service in the Caribbean and come with my wife to the international headquarters (called “Bethel”) in Brooklyn, where I would serve in the Writing Department. Though doubtless this would have been viewed as an honor by others, I frankly had no interest in leaving the place where I was. Speaking to Brother Knorr in his office I explained how much I enjoyed my current assignment, enjoyed the people, enjoyed the work. This apparently was viewed as a lack of appreciation for the opportunity offered; he seemed visibly offended. I then told him I simply had wanted him to know my feelings, my love for missionary activity, and that I would accept the change of assignment.

    A few months after our arrival and after I had done some work in writing, President Knorr showed me into an office containing a table piled high with stacks of typed papers and asked me to undertake the development of a Bible dictionary. The papers were the result of assignments that had been parceled out to 250 men around the world. Those assignments, however, were generally made on the basis of the person’s organizational position (as Branch Office personnel, factory overseers, and so forth). Few of the men had writing experience and fewer still had either the experience, the time or the library facilities for doing research. I believe it can be conservatively said that at least ninety percent of the submitted material was not used.

    I began with “Aaron” and continued with “Aaronites,” “Ab,” “Abaddon,” and so on but the impracticality of one writer undertaking the task soon became obvious. First, a director of the Watch Tower Society, Lyman Swingle, was assigned to aid in the project; shortly thereafter Edward Dunlap, the Registrar of Gilead School was also assigned. Eventually Reinhard Lengtat and John Wischuk, of the Service and Writing Departments respectively, joined the project group. Others shared intermittently for varying periods but the five persons mentioned carried the project through until the 1,696-page reference work, called Aid to Bible Understanding, was completed five years later.22

    Near the start, President Knorr made a statement that proved a key factor in our approach to the project. It was not intended the way we understood it but that undoubtedly was fortuitous. Talking to those of us then assigned, he said, “We just want to present what the Bible says; there is no need to look up everything in the Society’s publications.”

    His intent in saying this, as we realized later, was so that the project could get done quickly and so that it would produce something relatively small, a “handbook” as he later expressed it. By just restating what was in the particular Bible verses relating to a subject, with very little additional clarification, there would be only a minimal amount of time needed for research.

    We misunderstood him to mean that we should strive always to present what the Bible actually said rather than feel obliged to present things the way the Watch Tower publications presented them. A considerably different kind of publication resulted than would otherwise have been the case. The material sent in by the 250 men almost without exception presented information according to the “accepted viewpoint” of the Society’s publications. Our research often revealed differences.

    The Society’s vice president, Fred Franz, was acknowledged as the organization’s principal Bible scholar. On a number of occasions I went to his office to inquire about points. To my surprise he frequently directed me to Bible commentaries, saying, “Why don’t you see what Adam Clarke says, or what Cooke says,” or if the subject primarily related to the Hebrew Scriptures, “what the Soncino commentaries say.”

    Our Bethel library contained shelf after shelf after shelf filled with such commentaries. Since they were the product of scholars of other religions, however, I had not given much importance to them and, along with others in the department, felt some hesitancy, even distrust, as to using them. As Karl Klein, a senior member of the Writing Department, sometimes very bluntly expressed it, using these commentaries was “sucking at the tits of Babylon the Great,” the empire of false religion according to the Society’s interpretation of the great harlot of Revelation.23

    The more I looked up information in these commentaries, however, the more deeply impressed I was by the firm belief in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures the vast majority expressed. I was impressed even more so by the fact that, though some were written as early as the eighteenth century, the information was generally very worthwhile and accurate. I could not help but compare this with our own publications, which often within a few years became “out of date” and ceased to be published. It was not that I felt these commentaries to be without error by any means; but the good certainly seemed to outweigh the occasional points I felt to be mistaken.

    I began to appreciate more than ever before how vitally important context was in discerning the meaning of any part of Scripture, and that realization seemed to be true of others of the group who were working regularly on the Aid project. We also came to realize the need to let the Bible define its own terms rather than simply taking some previously held view or letting an English dictionary definition control. We began to make greater use of the Hebrew and Greek lexicons in the Bethel library, and concordances that were based on the original language words rather than on English translations.

    It was an education and it was also very humbling, for we came to appreciate that our understanding of Scripture was far less than we had thought, that we were not the advanced Bible scholars we thought we were. I personally had been on such a “treadmill” of activity over the previous twenty-five years that, although reading through the Bible several times, I had never been able to do such serious, detailed research into the Scriptures, in fact never felt great need to do so since it was assumed that others were doing it for me. The two courses at Gilead School I had attended were so tightly programmed that they gave little time for meditation, for unhurried investigation and analysis.

    Having now both time and access to the extra Bible helps, the lexicons, commentaries, Hebrew and Greek concordances, and so forth, was an aid. But above all it was seeing the need always to let the context guide, always to let the Scriptures themselves control, that made the major difference. There was no overnight change of viewpoint but rather, over a period of years, a gradual deepening of appreciation of the crucial need to let God’s Word speak for itself to the fullest extent possible. I could see why those one-hundred and two-hundred-year-old commentaries in our Bethel library were comparatively timeless in their value. The very fact of their verse-by-verse approach more or less obliged them to stay within the contextual meaning and thereby considerably restricted them from taking excursions into sectarian views or interpretative flights of fancy.

    Among the subjects assigned to me by Karl Adams, overseer of the Writing Department, were those of “older man [elder]” and “overseer.” All I received were those words; there was no accompanying instruction or recommendation as to the development of the topics. Note, then, how the Watch Tower’s 1993 organizational history book, Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom, on page 233, represents the matter:

    The picture here drawn is remarkably distorted to create a false impression. It speaks of the research that went into Aid to Bible Understanding as “being done under the supervision of the Governing Body,” and conveys the idea of smoothness of direction from a body of men motivated by intense concern to hold to the Scriptures. In reality, the Aid book project was neither initiated by nor supervised by any Governing Body of that time, but by the Watch Tower corporation president, Nathan Knorr. And though he initiated the project, any actual direction by him was a very detached and limited one, since any real direction was done through Karl Adams, the overseer of the Writing Department. Knorr neither developed the list of subjects to be included in the book nor supervised the assigning of them nor their development. All assignments of subjects were originated by and made by Karl Adams.

    Adams was neither a member of the Governing Body nor for that matter of those called the “anointed.” Of those who shared personally and directly in the actual research and writing of articles for the Aid book, Lyman Swingle, from the corporation’s Board of Directors, was the only one who could be considered a “Governing Body member.” And his assignments came from Karl Adams and he worked under Adams’ supervision, turning in whatever he wrote to Karl for editing and approval, as was true of the rest of us working on the project. Nathan Knorr and Fred Franz eventually read some of the finished articles, but Knorr left it up to Karl Adams to select whatever articles Karl felt they ought to read. These were remarkably few.

    Karl Adams

    As stated, when the subjects of “older man [elder]” and “overseer” were assigned to me all I received in the assignment were those titles, nothing more. I was not then a member of the Governing Body and what developed was not the result of guidance by any Governing Body, nor even by Karl Adams. My uncle, Fred Franz, had some input, but only as a result of my personal initiative, and his subsequent actions seemed almost a denial of that input. It was quite evident that the result of my research was something unexpected, even viewed as not particularly desirable, by either Nathan Knorr or Fred Franz.

    That research revealed that the arrangement relating to elders and the congregational direction in Bible times was very different from the position then held by Jehovah’s Witnesses, where a more or less “monarchical” arrangement prevailed. Each congregation was under the supervision of a single individual, a “congregation servant” or “congregation overseer.” The term “overseer” applied only to him and any others were viewed as his assistants. The Scriptural arrangement of bodies of elders had been summarily ended in 1932 by Judge Rutherford due to a lack of cooperation on the part of some elders with the Society’s programs and policies.24 His position as President gave Rutherford the necessary authority to take such a stand and all congregations were invited to vote for the disbanding of bodies of elders and their replacement by a Society-appointed “Service Director.” For the next forty years there were no bodies of elders in the congregations. That is why the New World Translation of the Bible published by the Society in the 1950s regularly used the rendering “older men” rather than “elders,” a then officially discredited term.25

    Somewhat disturbed by what my research revealed, I approached my uncle with the evidence. His response took me by surprise. “Don’t try to understand the Scriptures on the basis of what you see today in the organization,” he said, and added, “Keep the Aid book pure.” I had always looked upon the organization as God’s one channel for dispensing truth and so this counsel sounded unusual to say the least. When I pointed out that the Society’s New World Translation rendering of Acts, chapter fourteen, verse 23, evidently inserted the words “to office” in connection with the appointment of elders and that this somewhat altered the sense, he said, “Why don’t you check it in some other translations that may not be as biased.”26 I walked out of his office wondering if I had actually heard what I had heard. In future days I was to remind him of these statements on more than one occasion during Governing Body sessions.

    Admittedly, that conversation strongly affected my approach to Scripture. I deeply appreciated the integrity toward Scriptural truth his remarks indicated. That made his later reaction to the final results all the more puzzling, disturbing.

    After completing the subjects “Older Man” and “Overseer” I submitted these. Normally, President Nathan Knorr and Vice President Fred Franz would not have read the articles. However, Karl Adams, as head of the Writing Department, told me that upon reading the information he went to Brother Knorr and said, “I think you should read this. It changes a lot of things.”

    Go back, now, to the presentation made in Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom. The second paragraph under the subheading “Gearing Up for Explosive Growth” is essentially a résumé of the content of the articles I submitted, as a comparison with those articles in the Aid book will show. (The only exception would be the emphasis this paragraph places on the concept of an “official status” of elders.) I would obviously not expect the writer or writers of the book to mention who wrote those articles for the Aid book. But from this paragraph and the start of the following one, the reader would understand that the articles led to a willing and almost immediate decision to bring everything into conformity to the Scriptural arrangement pointed to. What actually did happen?

    As Karl Adams related to me, after reading the material, Knorr went into Fred Franz’s office and, with considerable vehemence, said, “What does this mean? Does this mean we have to change everything at this late date?” Fred Franz replied, No, that he did not think that would be necessary—that the existing arrangement could be continued without problem.

    When Karl later passed this information on to me, I found it hard to believe, particularly in view of my uncle’s earlier expressions to me. I felt obliged to go to his room one evening to inquire about it. He confirmed that he felt no need to make adjustments. Knowing that the Aid book was to be released to the brothers in completed form that summer at the District Assemblies, I asked what effect he thought it would have on them to read the evidence that there were bodies of elders in the first-century congregation, that all elders served as overseers, and then to find out that we had no intention of following this Scriptural example?

    He said calmly that he did not think it would cause any problem, that the existing arrangement could be “accommodated” to the information in the Aid book. I expressed deep concern that this setting aside of the Scriptural precedent could be very unsettling to the brothers. Holding to his position, he related how brothers of earlier decades had reasoned that, since Christ had taken Kingdom power in 1914, there could rightly be changes in the way things were administered on earth. He added that he had believed and still believed that Christ Jesus would direct and administer the affairs of his servants earthwide by the use of, or through the office of, just a single individual, and that this would be the case until the New Order came. The tenor of these expressions seemed so different from those he had made on earlier occasions that I found it difficult to reconcile them.

    Sometime later, however, the vice president prepared some convention material that indicated that a change in the congregational direction would take place. When the copy of this material reached Karl Adams he saw the implications and immediately contacted President Knorr, saying to him, “I think you had better talk with Brother Franz again. I believe he has changed his mind.” Brother Knorr did and Brother Franz had. And the forty-year-old arrangement changed as a consequence.

    To present the development of this change as the book Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom does, representing a “Governing Body” as supervising the research and “careful study” of Biblical terms, their sole concern being how to “conform more fully to the pattern” set out in Scripture, “determined to continue to yield to divine direction,” and promptly “to bring the organization into closer conformity” to that pattern, is to present an idealized picture that is simply untrue. It either manifests ignorance on the part of the writer or writers of the material as to how matters actually developed, or else is duplicitous, designed to elevate the role of a group of men in the view of the membership. The reality reveals instead how heavily control was vested in a few individuals, and how one man’s rather idiosyncratic decision (that of Fred Franz) could affect the direction a worldwide organization could take.

    When the subject “Chronology” was assigned to me this similarly led to serious questions.27 A major teaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses is that Bible prophecy had pointed to the year 1914 as the end of the “Gentile Times” of Luke chapter twenty-one, verse 24, and that in that year Christ Jesus actively took up his Kingdom power and began to rule invisibly to human eyes. In Daniel chapter four, references to a period of “seven times” were the foundation for the calculations leading to that date and, by use of other texts, these “seven times” were translated into a period of 2,520 years beginning in 607 B.C.E. and ending in 1914 C.E. The starting date, 607 B.C.E., was held to be the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylonian conqueror Nebuchadnezzar. I knew that the 607 B.C.E. date seemed to be peculiar to our publications but did not really know why.

    Months of research were spent on this one subject of “Chronology” and it resulted in the longest article in the Aid publication.28 Much of the time was spent endeavoring to find some proof, some backing in history, for the 607 B.C.E. date so crucial to our calculations for 1914. Charles Ploeger, a member of the headquarters staff, was at that time serving as a secretary for me and he searched through the libraries of the New York City area for anything that might substantiate that date historically.

    We found absolutely nothing in support of 607 B.C.E. All historians pointed to a date twenty years later. Before preparing the Aid material on “Archaeology” I had not realized that the number of baked-clay cuneiform tablets found in the Mesopotamian area and dating back to the time of ancient Babylon numbered into the tens of thousands. In all of these there was nothing to indicate that the period of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (in which period Nebuchadnezzar’s reign figured) was of the necessary length to fit our 607 B.C.E. date for the destruction of Jerusalem. Everything pointed to a period twenty years shorter than our published chronology claimed.

    Cuneiform tablet

    Though I found this disquieting, I wanted to believe that our chronology was right in spite of all the contrary evidence, that such evidence was somehow in error. Thus, in preparing the material for the Aid book, much of the time and space was spent in trying to weaken the credibility of the archeological and historical evidence that would make erroneous our 607 B.C. E. date and give a different starting point for our calculations and therefore an ending date different from 1914.

    Charles Ploeger and I made a trip to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, to interview Professor Abraham Sachs, a specialist in ancient cuneiform texts, particularly those containing astronomical data. We wanted to see if we could obtain any information that would indicate any flaw or weakness whatsoever in the astronomical data presented in many of the texts, data that indicated our 607 B.C.E. date was incorrect. In the end, it became evident that it would have taken a virtual conspiracy on the part of the ancient scribes—with no conceivable motive for doing so—to misrepresent the facts if, indeed, our figure was to be the right one. Again, like an attorney faced with evidence he cannot overcome, my effort was to discredit or weaken confidence in the witnesses from ancient times who presented such evidence, the evidence of historical texts relating to the Neo-Babylonian Empire.29 In themselves, the arguments I presented were honest ones, but I know that their intent was to uphold a date for which there was no historical support.

    So, despite our heightened appreciation of certain principles, the Aid book nonetheless contained many examples of our efforts to be loyal to the Society’s teachings. In many respects, what we learned through our experience did more for us than it did for the publication. Still, the Aid to Bible Understanding book did serve to quicken interest in the Scriptures among many Witnesses. Perhaps its tone, its approach, the effort put forth by most of the writers to avoid dogmatism, to acknowledge that there might be more than one way of seeing certain matters, not to make more of something than the evidence honestly allowed—these things may have been of principal benefit, though in these too we certainly fell short at times, allowing preconceived ideas to control, failing to hold as firmly as we should have to the Scriptures themselves. I know this was true in my own case in preparing such subjects as the “Appointed Times of the Nations,” “Faithful and Discreet Slave,” and “Great Crowd,” all of which contain arguments designed to uphold current teachings of the Watch Tower publications. Simply because in my mind those teachings were then equivalent to “fact,” I found myself doing what the “Foreword” I later wrote said was not intended. On page 6 under the heading “Its Aim,” the words appear, “Aid to Bible Understanding is not intended to be a doctrinal commentary or an interpretative work.” Also, that whatever application was made of figurative and symbolic expressions, this was not done “arbitrarily or to conform to a creed.” In the main, that was true. But ingrained beliefs sometimes overrode our efforts to hold to that standard.

    The year the completed Aid book was released, I was invited to become a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Body that now directs the activity of Jehovah’s Witnesses in some 230 countries of the world. Up to that point it had been composed of seven members who were identical with the seven members of the Board of Directors of the corporation called the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, a corporation founded originally in Pennsylvania by Charles Taze Russell, the first president. On October 20, 1971, along with three others, I was appointed as a member of the now expanded Governing Body. This circumstance, perhaps more than any other, brought me face to face with some realities that I had never expected to encounter.

    Many of Jehovah’s Witnesses took exception to a statement that appeared in a Time magazine article (February 22, 1982) in which my name figured prominently. The writers of the article referred to the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses as “secretive.” It may seem odd to use a term like that about an organization that encourages vigorously a work of the most public kind—house-to-house activity in cities, towns and countryside around the world. The Time reporters evidently wrote what they did because they found it extremely difficult to obtain any comment from the international headquarters about the situation described in the first chapter of this book.

    But the fact is that even among Jehovah’s Witnesses very few have any clear idea as to how the central part of the organization functions. They do not know how decisions as to doctrinal teachings are reached, how the Governing Body that directs all their activities worldwide conducts its discussions, whether decisions are consistently unanimous or what is done if there is disagreement.

    All this is cloaked in secrecy as the Governing Body meets in closed sessions. I can only recall two or three occasions in the nine years that I was a part of the Body when persons other than appointed members were allowed to be present at a regular session of the Body. And on those occasions their presence was simply to give a report requested by the Governing Body, after which they were dismissed and the Governing Body then carried on its deliberations in private—the importance of their reports did not qualify those persons to share in the discussion. Also, no specific information is ever given to Witnesses as a whole as to the Society’s income, expenditures, assets or investments (although they have received a brief expense report in the annual Yearbook).30

    Thus numerous factors that are relatively common knowledge in many religious organizations are known only vaguely, if at all, by the vast majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yet the decisions made by the small group of men forming that Body can, and often do, affect their lives in a most intimate way and are supposed to be applied globally.

    Which brings me to the final reason for writing, the most important since without it the previous ones are of little consequence.

    OBLIGATION

    Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

    — Matthew 7:12, Revised Standard Version.

    That principle stated by Jesus Christ binds any of us claiming to be Christian, in whatever we do. No honest person can claim to carry out those words perfectly and I make no such claim. But I believe I can say that what is here written owes to a sincere desire to follow that principle.

    The apostle Paul spoke of himself as a “debtor” to persons of all kinds.31 He felt an obligation toward them, and I feel a similar sense of obligation. If someone else had knowledge of facts that could be of value to me in making vital decisions, I would want him to make these available to me—not to make my decision for me, but to supply the information, leaving it to me to weigh its value or significance. If he were a friend, a genuine friend, I believe he would do that.

    The nine years spent on the Governing Body had great impact on me and particularly on my conscience. I found myself facing a major crisis in my life, a crossroads situation I had never expected to encounter. The decision I made was my own and the resulting cost was considerable. But I do not regret it nor do I regret having gained the information that contributed toward it. Others might decide differently; some have. That is their privilege, something between them and God.

    After I resigned as a member of the Governing Body in May 1980, I received numerous calls from newspapers and magazines wanting information about the situation existent within the organization. I consistently directed the inquirers to the headquarters in Brooklyn. The inquirers, in turn, consistently said that they had tried that avenue with no success: “No comment.” My reply was simply that I could not be their source of information. I maintained that position for nearly two years. What happened in those two years, not merely as regards myself but as regards others, caused me to reassess that position.

    During those two years, the motives, character and conduct of persons who conscientiously disagreed with the organization were portrayed in the worst of terms. Their concern to put God’s Word first was represented as the product of ambition, rebellion, pride, as sin against God and Christ. No allowance was made for the possibility that any of them acted out of sincerity, love of truth or integrity to God. No effort to distinguish was made, but all were “lumped” together. Any misconduct or wrong attitude on the part of some who had left the organization was attributed to all who have left. For those who did display a wrong attitude, no effort was made to appreciate the part that frustration, disappointment and hurt may have played in that conduct. An enormous amount of rumor and even gutter-level gossip circulated among Witnesses, internationally. Faithful Christians with high standards of morality were spoken about as being wife swappers, homosexuals, hypocrites, egoists interested in establishing their own personal cult. Older ones were often dismissed as being “mentally disturbed” or “senile.”

    The only ones who could have restrained such talk, simply by pointing out the possibility that such persons could be genuinely sincere, could have true concern for conscience—as well as by reminding the sowers of rumor how repugnant false testimony is to God—these persons in reality contributed to the spread of rumor by what they published.32

    Consider, for example, this material found in the August 15, 1981, Watchtower (pages 28, 29), circulated in the millions of copies in many languages around the earth:

    Thus, in one paragraph, persons are described as like Satan, independent, faultfinding, stubborn, reviling, haughty, apostate and lawless. What had they actually done to earn this array of charges? Among the “wrongs” mentioned is that of disagreeing in some unspecified way with some unspecified part of the organization’s teachings; also, holding that God’s inspired Word alone is sufficient and that large meetings in a building are a nonessential.

    Could these things of themselves place a person in the Satan-like category described? Nothing is said to indicate otherwise and, incredible as it may seem, in the minds of many Witnesses, including elders and traveling representatives, this has been considered enough to so categorize them and to deal with them accordingly.

    Compare this blanket condemnation with articles in the June 22, 2000 issue of Awake! They warn that “generalizations tend to obscure important facts about the real issues in question, and they are frequently used to demean entire groups of people.” A paragraph on page 6 reads:

    Re-read the Watchtower material on the preceding page and compare it with this statement. The thrust of the Awake! article is to defend Jehovah’s Witnesses against labels such as “sect.” Certainly the label of “apostate” is equally or more demeaning. Yet Witnesses are expected to apply it to any member who may disagree with positions taken by the leadership. The practice of “tarring everyone with the same brush” is unfair and therefore unchristian. The reasons why people separate from the Witness organization are many and varied. And the number who do leave on a yearly basis is remarkable.

    Tabulating the world reports for the years 1970 through 1999 one finds that a total of 6,587,215 persons were baptized worldwide. The organization customarily estimates that 1% of those associated die each year. Figuring this out year by year, it would mean an estimated 985,734 members were lost through death. If we reduce the baptismal figure by that amount it leaves 5,601,481 as the increase gained in that 30-year period if all surviving persons remained in the organization.

    What do we find? The year previous to this 30-year period (1969) the report showed a total of 1,256,784 persons actively associated. Adding 5,601,481 to that number gives a total of 6,858,265 that should be associated in 1999. But the report for that year shows only 5,912,492 associated. That means that during the 30-year period some 945,773 persons left the organization or ceased activity. This is equal to 14% of the total number of new members baptized.

    Specific examples from the 1999 world report illustrate graphically the situation currently prevailing in many countries, particularly the industrialized nations.

    For the 12 major western European countries and for the British Isles the report provides the following figures:

    Baptized in 1999:

    21, 376

    Average publishers reporting in 1998:

    933,043

    Average publishers reporting in 1999:

    923,143

    Although 21,376 new persons were baptized, there was a decrease in total publishers of 9,900. That means that over 31,000 persons either left of became “inactive” during that period.

    For 3 major Pacific Rim countries (Japan, Korea and Australia) the following figures result:

    Baptized in 1999:

    12,162

    Average publishers reporting in 1998:

    325,316

    Average publishers reporting in 1999:

    325,972

    Again, 12,162 entered as newly baptized persons, yet the growth was only 656 persons. Hence, 12,162 entered and 11,506 left or became “inactive.”

    For the United States and Canada, similar results are seen:

    Baptized in 1999:

    …

    Also in this issue