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    6. Chapter 3. Governing Body

    Crisis of Conscience (1983)

    Crisis of Conscience

    Chapter 3. Governing Body

    Not that we are the masters over your faith, but we are fellow workers for your joy, for it is by your faith that you are standing.

    — 2 Corinthians 1:24.

    THE above-quoted statement of Paul repeatedly came into my mind during the nine years of my participation in the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I could wish that all Witnesses might have the experience of participation. Perhaps then they could understand what words alone cannot convey.

    To clarify what the Governing Body is:

    Jehovah’s Witnesses understand that Christ Jesus, as Head of the congregation, feeds and governs his congregation by means of a “faithful and discreet slave” class. This class is now said to be composed of a remnant of the 144,000 persons anointed as heirs of Christ’s heavenly kingdom.1 But from among such class there is a small number of men who act as a Governing Body and perform all administrative functions for the global congregation, not only for the present number of about 9,100 “anointed ones” out of whom these men are drawn, but also for the approximately 6.1 million other persons associated who are not considered to be among the heavenly heirs.2

    It seemed an awesome responsibility for me when I became one of eleven members of the worldwide Governing Body in 1971 (the number later grew to as many as eighteen in 1977 and as of the year 2008 now stands at nine).3 The first sessions of the weekly meetings (held every Wednesday) that I attended, however, proved quite different from what I had expected.

    A rotational chairmanship had recently been put into effect and Vice President Fred Franz was that year’s chairman. But the matters to be discussed were determined by the corporation president, Nathan Knorr. Whatever he considered advisable for the Body to discuss he brought to the meeting and generally that was the first time we had any knowledge of the matter under discussion.

    During some weeks the meetings consisted simply of a consideration of lists of recommendations for traveling representatives in different countries—the name, age, date of baptism, whether of the “anointed” or not, the years of full-time service being read out. In the vast majority of cases these were no more than names to us; we seldom knew any of the individuals involved. So after listening to such readings of lists from Suriname or Zambia or Sri Lanka, we would vote on the appointment of these men.4 I recall that Thomas Sullivan (usually called “Bud”) was then in his eighties, nearly blind and in poor health. He repeatedly would give in to sleep during these sessions and it seemed a shame to wake him to vote on things he knew little about. At times the entire meeting lasted but a few minutes; one that I recall lasted only seven minutes (including the opening prayer).

    Then from time to time President Knorr would bring some “problem correspondence” involving questions as to certain conduct by individual Witnesses, and the Body was to decide what policy should be adopted regarding these, whether the particular conduct called for disfellowshipping, some lesser discipline, or no action at all. During that period (and on up until 1975) all decisions were expected to be unanimous. After discussion, a motion would be made, seconded, and then the Chairman called for a show of hands. If a unanimous vote was not obtained, as occasionally different ones would not vote for a motion, generally some compromise solution was developed that could gain unanimity.

    As is but natural in those circumstances, there was a certain sense of pressure to go along with the majority rather than take a lone stance on matters and thus appear as independent or out of harmony. There were votes where I did not raise my hand, but as a rule I conformed. In the few instances where my not having voted resulted in someone’s proposing a compromise motion, even though the compromise motion still did not seem fully right to me I would concede and vote with the majority. It appeared necessary to conform if matters were to be decided and expedited rather than stalemated. However, issues began arising that made this more and more difficult for me.

    As weeks went along discussions were held on such subjects as whether a father qualifies as an elder if he allows a son or daughter to marry when only eighteen years of age; whether one qualifies as an elder if he approves of his son or daughter taking higher education;5 whether one qualifies as an elder if he does shift work and sometimes (while on night shift) misses congregational meetings; whether elders can accept circumstantial evidence of adultery, or the testimony of a wife that her husband confessed adultery to her, and whether this is sufficient to allow for Scriptural divorce and remarriage; whether a divorce is Scripturally acceptable if, even where adultery has been committed, the one obtaining the divorce is the guilty mate rather than the innocent mate;6 what validity a divorce has when obtained on grounds other than adultery if, after the divorce is granted, evidence of pre-divorce adultery comes to light; what the situation is if such a divorce is obtained and there is post-divorce adultery; whether an innocent mate’s having sex relations with an adulterous mate (subsequent to learning of the adultery) cancels out the right to divorce that mate and be free to remarry; whether it is proper for a Witness to pay a fine if that fine is imposed because of an infraction of law resulting from his witnessing activity or because of some stand he had taken in order to adhere to Witness beliefs;7 whether it is proper to send food or other assistance to persons by means of the Red Cross (the main issue here being that the cross is a religious symbol and so the Red Cross organization might be quasi-religious; this discussion was quite lengthy and was carried over to a subsequent meeting); issues about the Society’s then-existing practice of using irregular channels to funnel money into certain countries (Indonesia as one example) in a way that would gain greater value for the American dollars involved, doing this even though the particular country had laws ruling this illegal; also as to getting certain equipment into some countries without having to pay the heavy import tax imposed by law; whether Witnesses belonging to labor unions can accept strike duty assignments or can accept a union order to do cleaning work on the union premises in lieu of accepting such assignments as picketing; whether Witnesses could respond to military conscription simply to do work in cotton fields (this from Bolivia).

    These are only a partial sampling of things discussed during the first two years or so of my being on the Body. The effect of our decisions was considerable in its impact on the lives of others. In matters of divorce, for example, the congregation elders serve as a sort of religious court and if they are not satisfied as to the validity of a divorce action, the individual who goes through with such a divorce and then later remarries becomes subject to disfellowshipping.

    A matter, not among those just mentioned, but which brought considerable discussion involved a Witness couple in California. Someone had seen in their bedroom certain literature and photographs dealing with unusual sex practices. (I do not recall that we learned just how or why the Witness individual reporting this happened to have access to the couple’s bedroom.) Investigation and interrogation by the local elders confirmed that the couple did engage in sexual relations other than simple genital copulation.8 Correspondence from the elders came in to Brooklyn and the Governing Body was called upon to rule as to what action if any should be taken toward the couple.

    Until the correspondence was read to us that morning, none of us aside from the president had had any opportunity to think about the subject. Yet within a couple of hours the decision was reached that the couple was subject to disfellowshipping. This was thereafter set out as a formal published policy, applicable to any persons engaging willfully in similar practices.9

    The published material was understood and applied in such a way that marriage mates generally felt obliged to report to the elders if any such practice existed or developed in their marriage, whether mutually agreed upon or done solely at the initiation of one of the mates. (In the latter case the non-initiating mate was expected to come forward and convey this information to the elders if the initiating mate was unwilling to do so.) To fail to come forward generally is viewed as indicative of an unrepentant attitude and as weighing in favor of disfellowshipping. The belief that disfellowshipping cuts one off from the one organization where salvation can be found, as well as from friends and relatives, exercises heavy pressure on the person to conform, no matter how difficult confession (or reporting) to the elders may be.

    The Governing Body’s decision in 1972 resulted in a sizeable number of “judicial hearings” as elders followed up on reports or confessions of the sexual practices involved. Women experienced painful embarrassment in such hearings as they responded to the elders’ questions about the intimacies of their marital relations. Many marriages where one of the mates was not a Witness underwent a turbulent period, with the non-Witness mate objecting strenuously to what he or she considered an unwarranted invasion of bedroom privacy. Some marriages broke up with resulting divorce.10

    An unprecedented volume of mail came in over a period of five years, most of it questioning the Scriptural basis for the Governing Body members inserting themselves into the private lives of others in such a way, and expressing inability to see the validity of the arguments advanced in print to support the stand taken. (The principal portion of Scripture relied upon was Romans, chapter one, verses 24-27, dealing with homosexuality, and those writing to the Society pointed out that they could not see how it could rightly be applied to heterosexual relations between man and wife.) Other letters, often from wives, simply expressed confusion and anguish over their uncertainty as to the properness of their “sexual foreplay.”

    One woman said she had talked to an elder and he had told her to write to the Governing Body “for a sure answer.” So she wrote, saying that she and her husband loved each other deeply and then she described the “certain type of foreplay” they were accustomed to, stating, “I believe it’s a matter of conscience, but I am writing you to be sure.” Her closing words were:

    I am scared, I am hurt, and I am more worried at this time about [my husband’s] feeling for the truth. . . . I know you will tell me what to do.

    In another typical letter an elder wrote, saying that he had a problem he wanted to get straightened out in his mind and heart and that to do this he felt “it’s best to contact the ‘mother’ for advice.”11 The problem dealt with his marital sex life and he said that he and his wife were confused as to “where to draw the line in the act of foreplay before the actual act of sex.” He assured the Society that he and his wife would “follow any advice you give us to the letter.”

    These letters illustrate the implicit trust these persons had come to place in the Governing Body, the belief that the men forming that Body could tell them where to “draw the line” in even such intimate aspects of their personal lives, and that they should rightly hew to that line “to the letter.”

    Many letters went out from the Society in response. Often they endeavored to provide some limited clarification (saying without exactly saying) as to what sexual foreplay fell within the bounds of condemned actions, other foreplay thereby being exempt.

    A memo from a member of the Society’s Service Department, in June of 1976, discusses a telephone conversation with an Instructor of seminars (held with elders). The memo relates that the Instructor had phoned about an elder attending the seminar who confessed to certain disapproved sexual practices within his marriage. The memo states:

    Brother [here giving the name of the Instructor] closely discussed the matter with him to determine whether it was really oral copulation that was involved. . . . [The Instructor] had told him in view of the circumstances that he ought to go to the other members of the committee and it happened that the other two members of the committee were in the class and so he went and talked with them. Now [the Instructor] was wondering what else should be done. . . . It was suggested to [him] that he write a full report on this to the Society so that in the future when he has any such case come up he will have direction on how to handle the matter and he will not have to call.

    This illustrates the extent to which interrogation went in intimacy and the extent to which the headquarters organization supervised the whole situation.

    Letter after letter revealed that the persons involved felt positively responsible before God to report to the elders any deviance from the norm established by the Governing Body. A man in a Midwestern state who confessed to an infringement of the Governing Body’s decision as regards his marital relations with his wife was told by the elders that they were writing about this to the Society; he also wrote an accompanying letter. Eight weeks passed and finally he wrote again to Brooklyn, saying that “the waiting, anxiety and anticipation is almost more than I can bear.” He said that he had been removed from all congregational assignments, including offering prayer at the meetings, and that “almost weekly I am losing something that I have worked and prayed for for thirty years.” He pleaded for an early answer, saying:

    I do need some mental relief as to how I stand with Jehovah’s organization.

    Some elders endeavored to take a moderate approach to the matter. Doing so, however, could make them liable for reprimand from the headquarters’ offices in Brooklyn. Consider the following letter. It is a photocopy of that sent by the Society’s Service Department to one body of elders (names and specific places have been blocked out).12

    Interestingly, some elders actually felt that the Governing Body’s position was, if anything, somewhat lenient or limited. A letter sent by an elder in the United States says:

    Some of the older brothers felt that the Governing Body could have gone even further in condemning unnatural practices among married couples to include assuming certain positions when performing the sexual act. . . .

    Later this elder expressed his own feelings saying:

    Since Jehovah went into great detail in this chapter [18] of Leviticus as well as other chapters on sexual behavior, why is there no statement made to married couples as to acceptable or unacceptable forms of copulation? Would it not be likely that Jehovah would have done so if he wanted this personal and private area of the marriage union open to the scrutiny or opinions of the “Judges” or “Older men” of Israel so that appropriate action could be taken against offending individuals?

    Some of those affected by the organization’s ruling were persons whose normal sexual functions had been seriously impaired by an operation or by an accident. Some of these expressed dismay at the position in which the Governing Body’s decision placed them.

    One such person who had become impotent in this way, had, during the years that followed, been able to perform a sexual role through one of the means now condemned by the organization. Before the Governing Body’s ruling he said he had been able to stop feeling like half a man, because he could still please his wife. Now, he wrote saying that he could not see the Scriptural proof for the stand taken in the Watchtower magazine but that his wife felt duty bound to obey, and because he loved her he acceded. He said he knew that he was the same as before, yet emotionally he was crumbling since he feared their marriage would be seriously affected. He pleaded to be told if there was not some “loophole” in God’s will that would allow him the satisfaction of pleasing his wife.

    All of these situations put considerable strain on the conscience of elders called upon to deal with those offending against the Governing Body’s decision. At the conclusion of the earlier-mentioned letter from one elder, that elder states:

    I find I can only use what Bible laws and principles I understand with any degree of sincerity and conviction in representing Jehovah and Christ Jesus, and if I have to administer these laws and principles in exercising my responsibility as an elder in the congregation I want to do it not because I have come to take for granted that this is Jehovah’s organization and I’m going to follow it no matter what it says, but do it because I truly believe it to be scripturally proven and correct. I truly want to continue believing as Paul admonished the Thessalonians in the second chapter, verse 13, to accept the word of God, not as of men, but as it truthfully is, as the word of God.

    His position is notable. I frankly doubt that many elders today would feel free to express themselves in this manner, declaring their position in such clear, frank terms.

    Though I find the sexual practices involved to be definitely contrary to my personal standards, I can honestly say that I did not favor the disfellowshipping decision made by the Body. But that is all that I can say. For when the vote came I conformed to the majority decision. I felt dismayed when the Body assigned me to prepare material in support of the decision, yet I accepted the assignment and wrote it as was desired by the Body, in conformity with its decision. Thus I cannot say that I acted according to the same fine outlook expressed by the elder just quoted. My belief in the organization as God’s only agency on earth caused me to do what I did at that time without particularly great qualms of conscience.

    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 Almighty” 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 marked 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:

    It is difficult to explain such fickle, unstable, erratic course. Yet this was supposedly the channel the Lord Jesus Christ had found so worthy of being made his sole means of direction to people on earth.

    In actuality, by 1925 J. F. Rutherford exercised unquestioned direction of the Society and the years that followed only strengthened his control over all organization functions.25

    This included full control of what would be published through the channel of the Watch Tower and other publications used to provide spiritual food for the congregations earthwide. I recall my uncle’s telling me one day in his office of an occasion when Rutherford presented a certain issue, a new viewpoint, to the Bethel Family for discussion.26 My uncle related that in the discussion he expressed himself negatively about the new view being advanced, doing so on the basis of Scripture. Afterward, he said, President Rutherford personally assigned him to prepare material in support of this new view, although he, Fred Franz, had made clear that he did not consider it Scriptural.

    On another occasion he related that the “Judge” (Rutherford) later in his presidency made it a firm policy that the Watch Tower magazine would carry only articles that stressed prophecy or the preaching work. For that reason a period of years passed in which articles on subjects such as love, kindness, mercy, longsuffering and similar qualities simply did not appear in the magazine.

    Thus, during the nearly sixty-year period of the presidencies of Russell and Rutherford, each man acted according to his own prerogative in exercising his presidential authority, with no hint of a governing body.

    In 1993 the organization produced a new history book, titled Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom, replacing a previous work titled Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose. It seems evident that at various points the book seeks to counter the effect of information that has appeared in published form in recent years, including the original 1983 printing of this book, Crisis of Conscience, the 1991 printing of its sequel, In Search of Christian Freedom, and in Carl Olof Jonsson’s book The Gentile Times Reconsidered (which first appeared in 1983.) Certain facts are admitted for the first time in this new history book, perhaps with a view to muting the effect if members were to become aware of them through other sources. At its start the book’s editors assure readers of their endeavor “to be objective and to provide a candid history.”27

    The vast majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses have no access to the records of the past and no personal knowledge of the events relating to the organization’s development. The operations of the central authority structure or of the men forming that inner authority structure are likewise unknown to them. They are thus essentially at the mercy of the editors of this 1993 publication’s supposedly impartial, “candid history.”

    I have seldom read a more “sanitized” less “objective” presentation. Its depiction of organizational history and policy paints a picture that differs measurably from reality. This is the case in its discussion of the presidencies of both Russell and Rutherford.

    With regard to the identification of the “faithful and wise servant” of Matthew 24:45-47, this book finally acknowledges (on pages 142, 143, 626) that, “for a number of years” the Watch Tower magazine did indeed set forth the view that Charles Taze Russell was that chosen “faithful and wise servant,” and that, from 1896 on, Russell himself acknowledged “the apparent reasonableness” of this view. It does not acknowledge the fact that Russell not only viewed as “reasonable” the application to an individual (himself) as the specially chosen “faithful and wise servant” but that (in the very Watch Towers the book lists in its footnote) he actually argued for it as the true Scriptural application, rather than the position he had taken back in 1881. Rather than acknowledge this, the new history book misleadingly continues to place emphasis on Russell’s 1881 statement in which he applied the figure to the entire “body of Christ.”

    The book does not inform its readers that in the October 1, 1909 issue of the Watch Tower Russell described as his “opponents” those who would apply the term “faithful and wise servant” to “all the members of the church of Christ” rather than to an individual. Nor does it tell its readers that the special issue of the Watch Tower of October 16, 1916 stated that, while not openly claiming the title, Russell “admitted as much in private conversation.”

    And while acknowledging finally that for years after his death the Watch Tower magazine itself promoted the view of Russell as “that servant,” the book gives the reader no idea of the insistence with which this was done, as in stating that everyone having a knowledge of God’s divine plan must truthfully admit that “he derived that knowledge from studying the Bible in connection with what Brother Russell wrote; that before such time he did not even know that God had a plan of salvation”; or in describing those questioning any of Russell’s teaching as having “rejected the Lord” because of rejecting his special servant.28

    Likewise it does not explain the paradox created by the Watch Tower’s own teaching: on the one hand, the present-day teaching that in 1919 Christ Jesus definitely selected, approved and identified a “faithful and wise servant class,” and, on the other hand, the fact that in that very same year of 1919 and for years thereafter the very ones supposedly so chosen believed the “faithful and wise servant” was not a class but an individual, Charles Taze Russell, selected many decades before 1914 by a reigning Christ who had become “present” since 1874.

    Effort is made (on pages 220, 221 of the Watch Tower’s new history book) to deny that the second president, Joseph F. Rutherford, sought to gain full and total control of the organization. A quotation from Karl Klein is presented to show him as actually an essentially humble man, ‘childlike in prayer to God.’

    Yet the historical record demonstrates that anyone, including any member of the Board of Directors or of those on the Editorial Committee, who expressed disagreement with Rutherford was quickly eliminated from whatever organizational position that person occupied. One has only to talk with others who were at the headquarters during his presidency to know that the picture of humility conveyed by Karl Klein does not conform to the reality, and that, to all intents and purposes, the “Judge’s” word was law.

    I was actively associated with the organization during the last five years of his presidency and know the clear effect the man had upon me and the viewpoint that others expressed. Most Witnesses today have not had that experience. But God’s Son said that ‘out of the heart the mouth speaks,’ and that ‘by your words you will be justified or judged.’ (Matthew 12:34, 37) I believe that anyone who simply reads the material found in the Watch Tower magazine from the 1920s on through to 1942 can clearly see the spirit, not of humility, but of dogmatism and authoritarianism the articles breathed, articles admittedly written principally by Rutherford. Deprecating, even harsh language is employed against any who dared to question any position; policy or teaching that came forth from the organization of which he was the head.

    On these same pages of the book Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom, effort is made to demonstrate that Rutherford was not looked upon by the membership as “their leader” and his personal denial of such position, made in 1941 just before his death, is quoted as proof. The caption beneath the photo shown on the next page was placed there by the writer or writers of the Watch Tower’s history book. The words are there but the facts are not.

    While admittedly Watch Tower adherents viewed Christ as their invisible leader, the fact is that they did look upon Rutherford as their visible earthly leader, contrary to Christ’s injunction at Matthew 23:10: “Neither be called leaders, for your Leader is one, the Christ.” Rutherford cannot fail to have known that the membership viewed him in that light.

    Consider the following photos and captions from The Messenger, a Watch Tower convention report, of July 25, 1931, describing large conventions held that year in major European cities. The captions shown underneath are the original captions found in The Messenger. Compare them with the caption the writer or writers of the Society’s history book placed beneath that book’s photo of J. F. Rutherford, shown here to the right, claiming that “the Witnesses knew that he was not their leader.”

    J. F. Rutherford in 1941. The Witnesses knew that he was not their leader

    The first photo in The Messenger, of a 1931 convention in Paris, in its caption underneath describes Rutherford explicitly as “Their Visible Leader.”

    Their Visible Leader—About to Give Instructions to the Paris Division of “Une Grande Armee.”

    In the next two, from London and from Magdeburg (Germany), the captions refer to Rutherford as “The Chief.”

    The Bethel Family at London. See ’em Grinning? The Chief Had Just Finished Telling Them Something in the “Colored Language.”

    The Chief Inspects the Cleaning of “Kopf Salat”, Just Gathered from the Garden. It Takes Only Four Bushels for a Meal!

    A fourth designates him “Generalissimo of the convention.”

    This convention report was printed ten years before Rutherford’s 1941 statement quoted in the Watch Tower’s new history book. There is no reason to believe that Rutherford was not aware of the way he was actually viewed by Watch Tower adherents throughout most of his presidency and he clearly did nothing to change that image. The evidence, including the whole history of his administration, makes his disavowal of that image—made when nearing death—seem hollow.

    President of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and Generalissimo of the Convention.

    When Judge Rutherford died on January 8, 1942, Nathan H. Knorr was unanimously elected president by the Board of Directors. The organizational structure continued basically the same, though with some adjustments, as Knorr did field out some responsibility. (Circumstances actually made this a necessity, for the number of Witnesses grew from only 108,000 at the time of Rutherford’s death to more than two million during Knorr’s presidency.)

    Not a writer, nor particularly a student of Scripture, Knorr relied on Fred Franz (the vice president) as more or less the final arbiter on Scriptural matters and the principal writer of the organization. Questions such as those discussed at Governing Body sessions (related earlier in this chapter) were, for decades, submitted to Fred Franz for decision. If President Knorr felt that the decision might have some critical effect on the Society’s operation in certain countries of the world, he would usually discuss it personally with Fred Franz and would not hesitate to make known what he felt the circumstances made advisable in a pragmatic way, overruling the vice president if necessary. As has been noted earlier, this basic relationship continued up into the 1970s as illustrated in the decision to return to having bodies of elders in the congregations. That particular decision hinged largely upon the view and opinion of one person, the vice president, and when he changed his mind and favored the return to bodies of elders, the president acceded.

    The same was basically the case with all published material. The president selected the main articles for the Watchtower from material submitted by various writers and he then passed these on to the Writing Department for proofreading and any necessary editing or polishing. Then these were finally read by the vice president and the president and, if approved, were published. Karl Adams, who was in charge of the Writing Department when I entered it in 1965, explained to me that the president by then had given the department considerable latitude as to the reworking of such material. He pointed out the one exception, namely, any material written by the vice president, stating that “what comes from Brother Franz is viewed as ‘ready for publication,’ with no adjustments to be made.”

    Here again, nonetheless, the president himself could overrule. As an example, in 1967, President Knorr sent to Karl Adams, Ed Dunlap and myself, copies of a “Questions from Readers” that Fred Franz had prepared and turned in for publication.29 Just the year before, a book had been published, authored by Fred Franz, in which it was pointed out that the year 1975 would mark the end of 6,000 years of human history. Likening those 6,000 years to six days of a thousand years each, he had written:

    Not for many decades had there been such a sense of excitement among Jehovah’s Witnesses as these statements generated. A tremendous surge of expectation developed, far surpassing the feeling of the end’s nearness that I and others had experienced in the early 1940s.

    That is why we were amazed to see that the “Question from Readers” Fred Franz had worked up now argued that the end of 6,000 years would actually come one year earlier than had just been published in the new book, namely that it would come in 1974 instead of 1975. As Knorr told Karl Adams, when he received this material he went to Fred Franz and asked why the sudden change. Franz replied with definiteness, “This is the way it is. It’s 1974.”

    Knorr did not feel at ease with the change and that is why he sent the three of us copies with his request that we submit our individual observations. The vice president’s argumentation was built almost entirely upon the use of a cardinal and an ordinal number in the account of the Flood at Genesis, chapter seven, verses 6 and 11 (“six hundred years” and the “six hundredth year”). The argument endeavored to show that the count of time set out in the new book was off one year as to the time of the Flood and that one more year needed to be added, with the result that the end of 6,000 years would come up one year earlier, in 1974 instead of 1975.

    Each of the three of us respectfully wrote that we did not think the material should be published, that it would have an extremely unsettling effect on the brothers.31 The president evidently agreed, since the material prepared by the vice president was never published and this was quite a rare occurrence.

    It was during Knorr’s presidency that the term “governing body” first began to be used with a measure of frequency.32 The literature now began to tie such a body in with the Board of Directors of the Watch Tower Society. In the Society’s book, Qualified to Be Ministers, published in 1955, page 381, the statement appears:

    During the years since the Lord came to his temple the visible governing body has been closely identified with the board of directors of this corporation.

    Thus the seven members of the Board of Directors were considered to be the seven members of the “governing body.” The fact is, however, that their situation was much as had been the case with the Directors in Russell’s and Rutherford’s day.

    Marley Cole, a Witness who wrote a book (with the full cooperation of the Society) entitled Jehovah’s Witnesses—The New World Society, points this out.33 In a section headed “Internal Rebellion,” he first describes the controversy in 1917 between Rutherford and the Board, saying:

    Four directors wanted a reorganization. . . . As things stood the president was the administration. He was not consulting them. He was letting them know what he was doing only after it was done. He was putting them in the position of advisers on legal corporate matters.

    Rutherford made no bones about ‘going ahead.’ The Pastor before him had worked that way. The Pastor made decisions. The Pastor issued administrative orders without the Board’s prior sanction.

    Then, in a footnote, Cole states:

    That the president of the Society thereafter continued to exercise such unrestricted freedom may be seen by the following account of N. H. Knorr’s actions in relation to bringing forth a new Bible translation.34

    The Watchtower of September 15, 1950, pages 315 and 316, is then quoted. It reveals that the Directors of the Board were first informed by the president of the existence of the New World Translation (probably one of the biggest projects ever engaged in by the organization) only after the translation of the Greek Scripture portion had already been completed and was ready for printing.

    Right up until 1971 when the “tail wagging the dog talk” was given, the Board of Directors did not meet on any regular schedule but only as the president decided to convene them. Sometimes months went by without any meetings, the most frequent agenda evidently being such corporate matters as the purchase of property or of new equipment. As a rule, they had nothing to say about what Scriptural material would be published, nor was their approval sought.

    Vice President Franz made this clear when testifying before a court in Scotland in 1954 in a case known as the Walsh Case. Questioned as to what was done if some major change in doctrine was made and whether such had to be first approved by the Board of Directors, the vice president replied (the material here being reprinted from the official court transcript with “Q” representing the question of the counselor and “A” the response given by Fred Franz):

    Q. In matters spiritual has each member of the Board of Directors an equally valid voice? A. The president is the mouthpiece. He pronounces the speeches that show advancement of the understanding of the Scriptures. Then he may appoint other members of the headquarters temporarily to give other speeches that set forth any part of the Bible upon which further light has been thrown. Q. Tell me; are these advances, as you put it, voted upon by the Directors? A. No. Q. How do they become pronouncements? A. They go through the editorial committee, and I give my O.K. after Scriptural examination. Then I pass them on to President Knorr, and President Knorr has the final O.K. Q. Does it not go before the Board of Directors at all? A. No.35

    I personally knew that presentation of matters to be true as regards the Board of Directors. Before 1971, I was in a meeting with several Writing Staff members called by Karl Adams, and the question arose as to how to get the president’s approval of certain proposed improvements in the Watchtower magazine. Someone suggested that Lyman Swingle, who was present as one of the writers, broach the matter to Knorr. Swingle’s reply was brief but spoke volumes as to the reality of the situation. He said: “Why me? What can I do? I’m only a Director.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    …

    Also in this issue