9. Chapter 6. Double Standards

Crisis of Conscience (1983)

Not a Watch Tower publication — Raymond Franz

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

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

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

About the Related Works section

Chapter 6. Double Standards

The doctors of the law and the Pharisees sit in the chair of Moses; therefore do what they tell you; pay attention to their words. But do not follow their practice; for they say one thing and do another.

— Matthew 23:2, 3. New English Bible.

MANY worthwhile and helpful discussions can be found in the publications of the Watch Tower Society. Frequently articles supply support for belief in a Creator, encourage wholesome family life, exhort to honesty, stress the importance of humility and other virtues, doing this on the basis of Scripture. Other articles speak out strongly against religious deception and hypocrisy. Consider, for example, the portion of an article published in the Watchtower magazine reproduced on the following page.

The Watch Tower Society has, throughout its entire history, never been guilty of what it describes as “condoning and ‘whitewashing’ the wrongdoing and violation of God’s righteous standards and way” on the part of the various religious organizations and their leaders. The Watch Tower publications have taken the lead in boldly publicizing worldwide any misconduct or evidence of hypocrisy within these organizations. They have pointed out the parallel between the deceptiveness of such religious leaders and the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. They have stated repeatedly their own declared position of strict adherence to righteous standards, moral integrity and upright and honest dealings with all.

It is precisely this that made so disturbing certain information that came to light at the same time the issue of alternative service was being debated within the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The information came from Mexico. As startling as the information itself was, what I found far more disquieting was the stark contrast it revealed between the organizational position adopted toward that country as compared with that adopted in another country—the East African country of Malawi (formerly Nyasaland).

To appreciate this it is important to know certain background. Beginning in 1964, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Malawi began to experience persecution and violence on a scale rarely equaled in modern times. Successive waves of vicious countrywide attacks and brutality by savage mobs swept over them in 1964, 1967, 1972 and again in 1975. In the first attack, 1,081 Malawian families saw their little homes burned or otherwise demolished, 588 fields of crops destroyed. In the 1967 attacks Witnesses reported the rapings of more than one thousand of their women, one mother being sexually violated by six different men, her thirteen-year-old daughter by three men. At least forty of the women were reported to have suffered miscarriages due to this. In each wave of violence, beatings, torture and even murder went virtually unchecked by the authorities and reached such intensity that thousands of families fled their homes and fields to neighboring countries. In 1972 authoritative estimates were that 8,975 fled to Zambia, 11,600 to Mozambique. When violence subsided, in time the families filtered back to their homeland. Then a new wave forced them to flee again. Adding to the tragedy of all this were the reports coming out of the camps of small children dying because of lack of medicine and medical treatment.1

What was the issue around which this recurrent storm of violence revolved? It was the refusal of the Witnesses to purchase a party card of the ruling political party. Malawi was a one-party state, ruled by the Malawi Congress Party through its head, Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda, who was “president for life” of the country. Jehovah’s Witnesses who inquired were informed by the Society’s Branch Office that to buy such a party card would be a violation of their Christian neutrality, a compromise, hence, unfaithfulness to God. The Branch position was upheld by the world headquarters organization and presented in detail in the Watch Tower Society’s publications. The vast majority of Malawian Witnesses held firm to that position even though at enormous cost to themselves.

The brutality that was practiced upon defenseless people in Malawi can never be justified. There is no question in my mind about that. The government and party officials were determined to attain a state of total conformity to their policy that all persons should possess a party card; it was viewed as tangible evidence of loyalty to the governmental structure. The methods used to attain that goal were depraved, criminal.

There is, however, a serious question in my mind about the position taken by the Branch Office and supported by the central headquarters in Brooklyn. There are a number of reasons for such question.

In 1975, I was assigned to write material on the latest campaign of terror being carried on against the Malawian Witnesses. In explaining why Jehovah’s Witnesses viewed the purchase of the party card so seriously, I employed information that had been published earlier, tracing a parallel between their stand and that of Christians in early centuries who refused to put a pinch of incense on an altar as a sacrifice to the “genius” of the Roman emperor.2 At the time of doing so, I felt a sense of uncertainty—was the parallel completely true? There was no question but that the placing of the incense on the altar was viewed as an act of worship. Was purchasing a party card just as clearly an act of worship? I could not really see any strong argument in that direction. Was it, then, a violation of Christian neutrality, a breaking of integrity with God?

I cannot say that my thinking on the matter fully crystallized at that time, nor am I dogmatic on the point today. But the following thoughts came to mind, making me wonder how solid a basis the organization, of whose Governing Body I was now a member, had for taking an intransigent, unbending position of condemnation of such card purchase as an act of unfaithfulness to God:

The issue hinged on the fact that the card was a “political” card representing membership in a “political” party. To many, and particularly to Jehovah’s Witnesses, the word “political” is viewed as describing something inherently bad. Corrupt politicians have, over the centuries, contributed toward the unsavory connotation the term often carries today. The same might be said, however, of such terms as “pious,” which frequently calls up visions of sanctimoniousness and feigned holiness due to the hypocrisy of some religious persons. Yet the term “pious” actually relates to dutiful reverence and earnest devotion to God; that is its basic meaning. Similarly, the word “political” carries this basic definition:

Having a fixed or regular system or administration of government; relating to civil government and its administration; concerned in state affairs or national measures; pertaining to a nation or state, or to nations or states, as distinguished from civil or municipal; treating of politics or government; as, political parties.3

I knew that the word “political” as well as “politics” came from the Greek word polis meaning simply a city (as in the word “metropolis”). In Greek polites meant a “citizen” (the English word “citizen” being drawn from a Latin term likewise meaning “city”), and the adjective politikos (from which our English “political” is derived) meant “of the citizens, of the state.” The English language received these terms through Latin and the Latin term politia means simply “citizenship, government, administration.” Such words as “police,” and “policy” all derive from the same source.

Obviously, all government is political in this fundamental sense of the word. Every government on earth is a political entity; every people organized under a particular form of government form a “polity” (from Greek politeia). To be a citizen of any country is to be a member of such a political state, enjoying the benefits and bearing the responsibilities this membership brings. The extent to which one may submit to the demands of such a political state may vary; but the membership is still a fact.

It is of such political states and their rulers that the apostle Paul writes at Romans chapter thirteen, exhorting Christians to be submissive to these as unto “God’s servant” or “minister.” True, political activity may become corrupt—and there is no question but that the political state of Rome became extremely corrupt—yet that of itself does not make everything political inherently evil. Nor does it make national citizenship—membership in a political state or nation—something inherently bad. Political parties in their competition for power are largely responsible for the added, subordinate (not the basic or fundamental) meaning which the word “politics” may come to have, that of “the plotting or scheming of those seeking personal power, glory, position, or the like.” This is evil, but not because everything related to political activity is evil, for the absence of political activity is, in its secular sense, the absence of government.

Which leads to the second reason for my questioning. I can understand why a person could conscientiously desire to be separate from the political strife and fierce competition that generally characterize party politics. The factors that made me think seriously about the situation in Malawi, however, was that it was and remained until recent times, a one-party state. The Malawi Congress Party was the country’s ruling party with no other parties allowed. It thus became, in a de facto sense, equivalent to the government itself, the “superior authority.” If a person could be a citizen, and hence a member of the national political community, without violating integrity to God, where was the evidence to show that being submissive to the government’s insistence (expressed from the head of state on down) that everyone purchase a card of the ruling party would constitute such a violation of integrity to God? I wondered then, and I still wonder, how major is the difference?

Most of all I have asked myself whether, if found in a similar circumstance in Bible times, Abraham, Daniel, Jesus and his apostles, or early Christians, would have viewed submission to such government demands in the way the organization has presented it? Granted, there was no actual law passed in Malawi requiring the purchase of the card, but would such a technicality have been viewed by Christ Jesus as crucial in the face of the statements made nationwide by the ruling authorities?4 How would Christians of the first century have viewed it in the light of the apostle’s exhortation, “Render to all their dues, to him who calls for the tax, the tax; for him who calls for the tribute, the tribute; to him who calls for fear, such fear; to him who calls for honor, such honor”?5

To submit to such demands, then as now, would certainly be condemned by some as “compromise,” a “caving in” to the demands of the political authorities. But I am sure that in Jesus’ day there were many devout Jews who felt that to accede to the demands of a military officer of the hated Roman Empire that one carry certain baggage for a mile would be just as detestable; many would have suffered punishment and mistreatment rather than submit. Yet Jesus said to submit and to go, not just one mile, but two!6 To many of his listeners this counsel was doubtless repugnant, smacking of craven surrender instead of unbending adherence to a position of no collaboration with alien, Gentile powers.

Of one thing I eventually became certain and that was that I would want to be very confident that the position adopted was solidly founded on God’s Word, and not on mere human reasoning, before I could think of advocating it or promulgating it, particularly in view of the grave consequences it produced. I no longer felt confident that the Scriptures did give such clear and unequivocal support to the policy taken toward the situation in Malawi. I could see how one might feel impelled by conscience to refuse to purchase such a card and, if that were the case, then one should refuse, in harmony with the apostle’s counsel at Romans, chapter fourteen, verses 1 to 3 and verse 23.7 But I could not see the basis for anyone’s imposing his conscience on another in this matter, nor of presenting such position as a rigid standard to be adhered to by others, particularly without greater support from Scripture and fact.

Against such background of circumstances relating to Malawi, consider now the information that came to light during the Governing Body’s discussion of the alternative service issue. Many of the statements made by members arguing this issue reflected the strict, unyielding attitude encouraged on the part of the Malawian Witnesses. Statements such as these were made by those opposing change in the existing alternative service policy:

Even if there is the slightest suggestion of compromise, or a doubt, we should not do it.

There must be no compromise. . . . Again, it needs to be made clear that a stand of neutrality, as “no part of the world,” keeping clear of those arms of the world—religion, politics and the military—supporting them neither directly nor indirectly, is the stand that will be blessed by Jehovah. We want no grey areas, we want to know exactly where we stand as non-compromising Christians.8

. . . doing civilian work in lieu of military duty is . . . a tacit or implied acknowledgement of one’s obligation to Caesar’s war machine. . . . A Christian therefore cannot be required to support the military establishment either directly or indirectly.9

For one of Jehovah’s Witnesses to tell a judge that he is willing to accept work in a hospital or similar work would be making a “deal” with the judge, and he would be breaking his integrity with God.10

To accept the alternative civil service is a form of moral support to the entire arrangement.11

We should have a united stand all over the world. We should be decisive in this matter. . . . If we were to allow the brothers this latitude we would have problems. . . . the brothers need to have their consciences educated.”12

If we yield to Caesar then there is no witness given.13

Those who accept this substitute service are taking the easy way out.14

What I find amazing is that at the same time these strong, unyielding statements were made, those making them were aware of the situation then existing in Mexico. When I supplied each member of the Governing Body with a copy of the survey of Branch Committee reports on alternative service, I included material sent in by the Branch Committee of Mexico. It included this portion dealing with the “Identity Cartilla for Military Service” (“cartilla” means a certificate):

What was the position of Jehovah’s Witnesses as to such “illegal operations” in connection with this law? The Branch Committee’s letter goes on to say:

Put briefly, in Mexico men of draft age were required to undergo a specified period of military training during a period of one year. Upon registration the registrant received a certificate or “cartilla” with places for noting down attendance at weekly military instruction classes. It was illegal and punishable for any official to fill in this attendance record if the registrant had not actually attended. But officials could be bribed to do so and many men in Mexico did this bribing. According to the Branch Office Committee this was also a common practice among Jehovah’s Witnesses in Mexico. Why? Note what the Branch statement goes on to say:

What was the information provided by the Society that the Branch Office in Mexico had been following for years? How was it supplied? How did the information provided compare with the position taken in Malawi and with the strong, unbending statements made by Governing Body members against even “the slightest suggestion of compromise,” against any form of “moral support,” either “directly or indirectly,” of the military establishment?

I made a trip to Mexico within a few days of the November 15, 1978, Governing Body session which had resulted in a stalemate on the alternative service issue. I was assigned to visit the Mexico Branch Office as well as those of several Central American countries. During my meeting with the Mexico Branch Committee they brought up the practice described in their report. They said that the terrible persecution endured by Jehovah’s Witnesses in Malawi due to their refusal to buy a party card had caused many Witnesses in Mexico to feel disturbed in their conscience. They made clear, however, that their counsel to the Mexican Witnesses was fully in accord with the counsel the Branch Office had received from the world headquarters. What was that counsel? It may be difficult for some to believe that the counsel given was actually given, but this is the evidence presented by the Branch Committee. First comes this letter:

What you have just read is a copy of a letter from the Mexico Branch to the president of the Society, the second paragraph of which shows the question the Branch presented for answer on the paying of bribes for a falsified military document. (The copy is of the carbon copy retained by the Branch which, unlike the original, customarily did not bear a signature.)

What reply did their inquiry receive? The Society’s answer came in a two-page letter dated June 2, 1960. The second page dealt with the military issue written about. This is that page as presented to me by the Mexico Branch Committee, containing the Society’s counsel on their questions.

Although the Branch’s letter had been directed to President Knorr, the reply, bearing the stamped corporation signature, was evidently written by Vice-President Fred Franz, who, as stated earlier, was regularly called upon by President Knorr to formulate policy on matters of this type. The language is typically that of the vice president, not that of the president.

The expressions this letter contains are worth noting. It would be worthwhile to take the time to go back and compare them with the earlier listed statements by Governing Body members arguing the alternative service issue, statements made then that neither minced words nor sought nicety of language but which were often blunt, even hard-hitting.

In this Society reply to the Mexico query, the word “bribe” is avoided, replaced by euphemistic reference to “a money transaction,” the “payment of a fee.” Emphasis is placed on the fact that the money went to an individual rather than to the “military establishment,” apparently indicating that this somehow improved the moral character of the “transaction.” The letter speaks of the arrangement being “current down there” and says that as long as inspectors do not inquire about the “veracity of matters” it can be “passed by” for the “accruing advantages.” It ends with mention of maintaining integrity in some possible future “determinative test.”

If this same message were put in the kind of language heard from Governing Body members in the sessions debating alternative service, I believe it would read more like the following:

Paying bribes to corrupt officials is done by Jehovah’s Witnesses in other Latin American countries. If the men of the war machine are willing to be bribed, the risk is theirs. At least you are not paying the bribe to the actual war machine itself—only to a colonel or other officer who pockets the bribe for himself. If brothers’ consciences will let them make a ‘deal’ with some official who is ‘on the take,’ we will not object. Of course, if there is trouble they should not look to us for help. Since everyone down there is doing it and inspectors make no issue about the faked documents, then you at the Branch Office can just look the other way too. If war comes that will be time enough to worry about facing up to the issue of neutrality.

Faithfully yours in the Kingdom ministry,

It is not my intent to be sarcastic and I do not believe what is set out constitutes sarcasm. I believe it to be a fair presentation of the Society’s counsel to the Mexican Branch Office put in down-to-earth language, free from euphemisms—language more like that used in the Governing Body sessions mentioned.

One reason why this information was so personally shocking to me was that, at the very time the letter stating that the Society had “no objection” if Witnesses in Mexico, faced with a call to military training, chose to “extricate themselves by a money payment,” there were scores of young men in the Dominican Republic spending precious years of their life in prison—because they refused the identical kind of training. Some, such as Leon Glass and his brother Enrique, were sentenced two or three times for their refusal, passing as much as a total of nine years of their young manhood in prison. The Society’s president and vice president had travelled to the Dominican Republic during those years and had even been made visits to the prison where many of these men were detained. How the situation of these Dominican prisoners could be known by them and yet such a double standard be applied is incomprehensible to me.

Four years after that counsel was given to Mexico the first eruption of violent attacks against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Malawi took place (1964) and the issue of paying for a party card arose. The position taken by the Malawi Branch Office was that to do so would be a violation of Christian neutrality, a compromise unworthy of a genuine Christian. The world headquarters knew that this was the position taken. The violence subsided after a while and then broke out again in 1967, so fiercely that thousands of Witnesses were driven into flight from their homeland. The reports of horrible atrocities in increasing number came flooding in to the world headquarters.

What effect did it have on the men leading the organization and on their consciences as regards the position taken in Mexico? In Malawi Witnesses were being beaten and tortured, women were being raped, homes and fields were being destroyed, and entire families were fleeing to other countries—determined to hold to the organization’s stand that to pay for a party card would be a morally traitorous act. At the same time, in Mexico, Witness men were bribing military officials to complete a certificate falsely stating that they had fulfilled their military service obligations. And when they went to the Branch Office, the staff there followed the Society’s counsel and said nothing to indicate in any way that this practice was inconsistent with organizational standards or the principles of God’s Word. Knowing this, how were those in the position of highest authority in the organization affected? Consider:

Nine years after the Mexico Branch wrote their first letter they wrote a second letter, dated August 27, 1969, also addressed to President Knorr. This time they emphasized a particular point they felt had been overlooked. Set out are pages three and four of the letter provided me by the Branch Committee. I have underlined the main point the Branch focuses on.

The reply sent, dated September 5, 1969, and shown on the next page, bears the stamp of the New York Corporation but the symbol before the date indicates that it was written by the president through a secretary (“A” being the symbol for the president, and “AG” being the symbol held by one of his secretaries). Keeping in mind that the world headquarters was fully informed of the horrible suffering Jehovah’s Witnesses in Malawi had already undergone in 1964 and in 1967 because they steadfastly refused to pay for the party card being actively promoted by the government of their country, consider the reply of September 5, 1969, sent to the Mexico Branch’s inquiry.

What makes all this so utterly incredible is that the organization’s position on membership in the military has always been identical to its position on membership in a “political” organization. In both cases any Witness who enters such membership is automatically viewed as “disassociated.” Yet the Mexico Branch Committee had made crystal clear that all these Witnesses who had obtained the completed certificate of military service (by means of a bribe) were now placed in the first reserve of the military. The Witnesses in Malawi risked life and limb, homes and lands, to adhere to the stance adopted by the organization for their country. In Mexico there was no such risk involved, yet a policy of the utmost leniency was applied. There, Witness men could be members of the first reserves of the army and yet be Circuit or District Overseers, members of the Bethel family! The report from the Branch Committee in response to the survey makes this clear (as well as showing how common the practice of bribing to get the certificate was among the Witnesses). It goes on to say:

Literally thousands of Witnesses in Mexico knew the truth of the situation as described. All the members of the Mexico Branch Committee knew it. And all those then members of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses knew what the stated position of the world headquarters was on the matter. Yet outside of Mexico very few people had any idea of what was said. Probably no one among the Witnesses in Malawi was aware of this remarkable policy.

I cannot imagine a more obvious double standard. Nor can I conceive of more twisted reasoning than that which allowed for the position taken in Mexico and at the same time argued so strenuously and so dogmatically that to accept alternative service is condemnable because it is “viewed by the government as fulfillment of military service’ is a “tacit or implied acknowledgement of Caesar’s war machine.” The same men who made those statements in Governing Body sessions and insisted that “we want no grey areas” and that “the brothers need to have their consciences educated,” said this knowing that the common practice among Jehovah’s Witnesses in Mexico for over twenty years had been to pay a bribe for a certificate saying they had fulfilled their military service, a practice that the world headquarters had officially stated was ‘up to their conscience.’

Despite this, some members (and, happily, in several of the sessions it was only a minority) strenuously argued for the traditional position—a position that labeled a man as “disassociated” if he answered a judge’s question about working in a hospital by responding simply and truthfully that his conscience would allow this. They favored that traditional policy while knowing that in Mexico men who were elders, Circuit Overseers, District Overseers and Branch Office staff personnel, had bribed officials to get their completed military service certificate stating that they were now in the first reserves of the military, the “war machine.”

One Governing Body member, arguing for the traditional stand, had quoted a member of the Denmark Branch Committee, Richard Abrahamson, as having said regarding alternative service, “I shudder to think of putting these young men on their own choice.” Yet the official counsel sent by the headquarters organization to the Mexico Branch was that young brothers’ paying a bribe for a falsified document placing them in the first reserves was “for them to worry about, if they are worried. It is not for the Society’s office to be worried about.” Later the letter stated that, “There is no reason to decide another man’s conscience.”

Why was not the same position taken toward those in Malawi? I seriously doubt that the majority of Witnesses there would have arrived at the same conclusions as the Branch Office personnel did. It is equally doubtful that there was a single native of Malawi (then Nyasaland) among those Branch representatives, who formulated that policy decision, to be obeyed by the Malawian Witnesses.

Is there no responsibility resting upon those in authority within the organization for what amounts to a grotesque disparity of direction given?

Notably, as regards the failure of the Malawian authorities to uphold the high principles of their Constitution, the Watch Tower Society had stated that the “ultimate responsibility” for the injustice must be placed on President Banda, saying:

The same standard by which the organization judged the actions of the Malawian authorities should certainly apply to the Watch Tower organization also. If the Governing Body, not only knowing what had been said about the Malawian authorities and their responsibility, but also knowing of the organization’s stand taken in Mexico, really believed that the position promulgated among the brotherhood in Malawi was the right one, then they should certainly have felt impelled to reject the position taken in Mexico. To uphold the rigid position taken in Malawi they should have been positively convinced of the rightness of that stand, with no doubts about it as being the only stand for a true Christian to take, one soundly and solidly based on God’s Word. To countenance in any way the position taken in Mexico would be to deny that they held such a conviction.

If on the other hand they believed the position taken in Mexico, allowing men to exercise their personal conscience as to obtaining the military certificate (even by illegal means), was right or at least acceptable, then they certainly should have accorded to the brotherhood in Malawi the same right to exercise their conscience in a matter that involved no bribing, no illegality, no falsification. Any fence-straddling, and ‘turning of a blind eye to the facts,’ ‘condoning by silence’ a double standard, perhaps out of “concern for their security of position,” would mean following the same course they condemned on the part of Malawian officials, from top to bottom.

What was actually said by the Governing Body during the sessions in which the information from Mexico was called to their attention? The policy for Mexico had been developed primarily by only two men, Nathan Knorr and Fred Franz, but now the entire Body knew of it.16 What responsibility did they feel and how did they react to the obvious disparity between this position and that taken in Malawi?

When I brought up the matter, not one word of disapproval or of moral indignation was heard from those who had argued in such forceful, uncompromising terms against alternative service. There was no call for some action to change the existing policy in Mexico for one boldly declaring against even the “suggestion” of compromise. Though the third and fourth waves of violence had hit Malawian Witnesses (in 1972 and 1975), I heard no expression of dismay at the disparity in the standard there and the one applied in Mexico. Most of the members apparently found they could accept the Mexico policy while simultaneously insisting upon a totally different standard for people elsewhere.

Once more, I do not think the matter simply resolves down to personalities, the individual members involved. I have come to the conclusion that this outlook is in reality a typical product of any authority structure that takes a legalistic approach to Christianity, enabling those sharing in the authority structure to see double standards exist without feeling strong qualms of conscience. To their credit, brothers in Mexico were disturbed in their consciences at learning of the intense suffering of Witnesses in Malawi who refused to pay a legal price in a lawful way for a party card of the government running the country; while in Mexico they themselves were illegally obtaining a military certificate through bribes. Those in Brooklyn, at the “top,” in the so-called “ivory tower,” however, seemed strangely detached from such feelings, insensitive to the consequences to people from such double standard. This, too, I believe is an effect of the system, which is one reason why I find such a system so personally repelling.

All Governing Body members were fully aware of the policy in Mexico by the fall of 1978. Almost a year later, in September of 1979, the Governing Body again resumed discussion of the undecided issue of alternative service, this time brought to the fore by a letter from Poland.

Warning that alternative service could be a “trap for indoctrinating the brothers,” Milton Henschel urged extreme caution, speaking in favor of the practice of many Polish Witnesses who were taking the expedient course of going to work in coal mines to avoid induction. Lloyd Barry again urged that we hold to the position that Witnesses “should keep free from the entire military organization.” Ted Jaracz said that “our brothers are going to have problems and they look to Jehovah’s organization for direction,” that there was need to avoid diversity of opinions, that we should not give the brothers the idea that the Governing Body was saying, ‘go ahead and submit’ to alternative service orders. Carey Barber voiced the view that “there is no room here for exercising conscience, it is something where we just have to go right on through” without yielding. Fred Franz said our “conscience has to be Bible trained” and stated again his support for the traditional position against any acceptance of alternative service.

By now, Ewart Chitty was no longer a member of the Body, having submitted his resignation in accord with the Governing Body’s wishes. Grant Suiter was absent from the session, both he and Chitty having voted for a change in policy at the November 15, 1978, meeting. But there were two new members on the Body, Jack Barr (from England) and Martin Poetzinger (from Germany), and they were present at the September 15, 1979, session. When a motion was finally presented, the vote was split right down the middle, eight in favor of changing the policy, eight (including the two new members) against doing so.

In 1980, on February 3, the subject was once more placed on the agenda. By this time more than a year had elapsed since my visit to Mexico and Albert Schroeder had made another annual visit there. The Mexico Branch Committee members again expressed to him their concern about the practice of bribing to obtain falsified documents of military service, and Schroeder related this continuing situation to the Body after his return. Remarks by the various members during the session made it evident that no two-thirds majority would be attained either way on the alternative service issue and there was not even a motion made.

The matter was “shelved.” From the time the letter from Michel Weber, the elder in Belgium, was received in November 1977, until February, 1980, the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses had tried on six separate occasions to resolve the issue without success.17

What, though, of the people affected by the policy that continued in force, those of what the Watchtower had called “the rank and file”? Could they also “shelve” the issue? To the contrary, the inability of the Body to achieve that indispensable two-thirds majority meant that male Jehovah’s Witnesses in any country of the world who acted according to their conscience and accepted alternative service as a proper government requirement, could still do so only at the cost of being viewed as outside the organization, equivalent to expelled persons. It also meant that the Governing Body as a whole was willing for the twenty-year-old policy in effect in Mexico to continue in effect while a totally different policy in Malawi remained unchanged.

TWO SORTS OF WEIGHTS FOR MEASURING

Two sorts of weights are something detestable to Jehovah, and a cheating pair of scales is not good.

— Proverbs 20:23.

It may help to understand the reasoning of some Members if other circumstances then prevailing among Jehovah’s Witnesses in Mexico are reviewed. As a result of the Mexican revolution, and because of the Catholic Church’s long history of holding immense quantities of land and other property in the country, the Mexican Constitution until recently forbid any religious organization the right to own property. Churches and church property were, in effect, held in custody by the government, which allowed the religious organizations to use these. Due to past exploitation by foreign clergy, no foreign missionaries or ministers were allowed to function as such in Mexico. What did this result in for the Witness organization?

The administration of the headquarters organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses many decades ago decided that, because of the existing law, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Mexico would present themselves, not as a religious organization, but as a “cultural” organization. The local corporation there formed, La Torre del Vigia, was so registered with the government of Mexico.18 So, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Mexico for many decades did not speak of having religious meetings or Bible meetings but of having “cultural” meetings. At these meetings they had no prayers or songs, and this was also true of their larger assemblies. When they engaged in door-to-door activity they carried only Watch Tower literature (which they said the Watch Tower Society provided them as an “aid to them in their cultural activity”). They did not carry the Bible while in such activity since that would identify them as engaging in religious activity. A group of Witnesses in a given area was not called a “congregation” but a “company.” They did not speak of having baptisms but did the same thing under the name of performing the “symbol.”

This “double talk” was not done because of living in some totalitarian country that took repressive measures against freedom of worship.19 It was done largely to avoid having to comply with government regulations regarding ownership of property by religious organizations.20 Nor should it be thought that the arrangement was something originating with and decided upon by the Mexican Witnesses themselves; it was an arrangement worked out and put into effect by the international headquarters at Brooklyn.

It is interesting to contrast the deliberate elimination of prayers and songs at Witness meetings in Mexico with the action of the Watch Tower Society in the United States, where they were willing to fight case after case all the way up to the Supreme Court of the country rather than give up certain practices, such as offering literature from door to door without a license and without having to register with the police, the right to use sound cars, distribute literature on street corners, and many other such practices which are covered by Constitutional rights. The organization did not want to relinquish any of these things. It fought to hold on to them, even though these particular practices are certainly not things that were done by early Christians in the first century and hence cannot be counted as among primary Christian practices.

But congregational or group prayer was a primary religious practice in early Christian meetings and has been among servants of God from time immemorial. The Mexican government said nothing against prayer at religious meetings. Jehovah’s Witnesses, however, were instructed to say that their meetings were not religious. Few things could be viewed as more completely related to worship of God, as more purely spiritual, than prayer. When an imperial decree in Persia prohibited prayer to anyone except to the king for a period of thirty days, the prophet Daniel considered the issue so crucial that he risked position, possessions and life itself in violating the decree.21

The headquarters organization, however, considered it expedient to sacrifice congregational prayer among Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout Mexico. With what benefit, what “accruing advantage”? By giving up congregational prayer and song and the use of the Bible in public witnessing activity, the organization could retain ownership of Society property in Mexico and operate free from governmental regulations that other religions complied with. They were willing to say that their organization was not a religious organization, that their meetings were not religious meetings, that their witnessing activity was not religious activity, that baptism was not a religious act—when in every other country of the world Jehovah’s Witnesses were saying just the opposite.

Since they knew of this arrangement, some Governing Body members may have been inclined to accept the paying of bribes for falsified documents as being not far out of line with the overall policy for Jehovah’s Witnesses in that country. This may explain in part how they could at the same time speak so adamantly for “no compromise” in other lands. It seems evident that in the minds of some members it was not a question of a double standard. In their minds there was just the one standard. That standard was: doing whatever the organization decided and approved. The organization made decisions regarding Mexico and the practice of bribing there, leaving it to the individual conscience, and so that was acceptable and a man could pay such bribe for a military certificate and still be used in the most responsible way, with no need for particular concern before God on the part of those directing the work there. The organization decided otherwise regarding alternative service (as it also did regarding the situation in Malawi), and so any man who failed to follow that decision was unworthy of occupying any position at all in the congregation, was in fact a breaker of integrity with God.

I could not understand then how Christians could adopt such a viewpoint and I can not understand it now. For me it made all the bold, almost strident, calls of some for ‘staying clean from the world’ sound hollow, like mere rhetoric, as impressive language that did not fit reality. I could not relate in any way to the reasoning that allowed for such expressions in the face of facts that were well known to all members speaking and hearing those expressions.

I lived in Latin American countries for nearly twenty years and paid no bribes. But I know full well that there are some places, not just in Latin America but in various parts of the earth, where, although the law is on your side and what you seek is perfectly legitimate, it is almost impossible to get certain things done without money being paid to an official who has no right to such. It is not hard to see that a person confronted with this situation may view this as a form of extortion, even as in Bible times tax-collectors and also military men might exact more than was due and thus practice extortion. It does not seem fair to me to judge adversely persons who feel obliged to submit to such extortion. More than that, I am not presuming to judge those in Mexico who, not having the law on their side, acted against the law, who did not simply submit to extortion but instead deliberately solicited the illegal actions of an official through an offer of money to get a falsified, illegal document. This is not what I find so shocking and even frightening about the whole affair.

It is instead the way that religious men in high authority can allow supposed “organizational interests” to be counted as of such enormous importance as compared to the interests of ordinary people, people with children and homes and jobs, individuals many of whom give evidence of being every bit as conscientious in their devotion to God as any man among those men who sit as a court to decide what is and what is not within the realm of conscience for such people.

It is men in authority who accord to themselves the right to be of divided opinion, but who exact uniformity from all others; men who express mistrust of others’ use of Christian freedom of conscience, but who expect such others to put implicit trust in them and their decisions, while they grant to themselves the right to exercise their conscience to condone illegal maneuvering and obvious misrepresentation of fact.

It is men in authority who, because the change of one vote reduces a majority down from 66 2/3 % to 62 1/2 %, are willing to allow this to keep in force a policy that can cause other men to undergo arrest, be separated from family and home for months, even sent to jail for years, when those men do not understand the Scriptural basis for the policy they are asked to follow and, in some cases, believe that the policy is wrong.

It is men in authority who can apply a policy that calls on ordinary people, men, women and children, to face loss of home and lands, endure beatings, torture, rape and death because of refusal to pay a legal fee for the card of the organization that is, to all intents and purposes, the ruling power of their country, while at the same time telling men in another country that it is acceptable for them to bribe military officers for a card that falsely says they fulfilled their military service and are in the first reserves of the army.

All this is what I find shocking. And, however sincere some may be, I still find it frightening.

I could not personally comprehend how grown men could fail to see inconsistency in all of this, could fail to be repelled by it, could not be deeply moved by its effect on people’s lives. In the end it simply convinced me that “organizational loyalty” can lead people to incredible conclusions, allow them to rationalize away the grossest of inequities, relieve them from being particularly affected by any suffering their policies may cause. The desensitizing effect that organizational loyalty can produce is, of course, well documented, having been demonstrated again and again throughout the centuries, both in religious and political history, as in the extreme cases of the Inquisition and during the Nazi regime. But it can still produce a sickening effect when seen at close quarters in an area where one never expected it. To my mind, it illustrates forcefully the reason why God never purposed that men should exercise such excessive authority over fellow humans.

It may be noted that, after nearly a half century of holding the status of a “cultural” organization in Mexico, the Watch Tower organization finally changed to that of a religious organization. The Watchtower magazine of January 1, 1990 (page 7) announced that a “change of the status” of Jehovah’s Witnesses had taken place in 1989. It described the Mexican Witnesses as for the first time being able to use the Bible when going from house to house, and for the first time being able to open meetings with prayer.

The magazine described how “thrilling” this change was to Mexican Witnesses and that it brought “tears of joy” to them. It attributed an immediate jump in “publishers” by over 17,000 to this change.

The article told the reader absolutely nothing as to what the previous status had been, why it prevailed, or how the change in status came about. Anyone reading the article would assume that the change in status, with the benefits described, was something the organization had wanted all along. From reading the article one would assume that it was the government of Mexico or its laws that had till now prevented the Witnesses from praying at meetings or using the Bible in their door-to-door activity. It never told the reader that the reason the Mexican Witnesses were deprived of these things—for at least a half century—was because their own headquarters organization chose to have it so, voluntarily opted in favor of another status. It did not tell the reader that these “thrilling” changes that brought “tears of joy” had been available all along, for many decades, requiring only an organizational decision to abandon its pretense that the Witness organization in Mexico was not a religious organization but a “cultural” one. The only reason the Mexican Witnesses had not engaged in these things before was because the headquarters organization instructed them not to do so, in order to protect the status chosen of a “cultural” organization. These are facts known by those in responsible positions in the Mexican Witness organization. They are not known by the vast majority of Witnesses outside that country and the January 1, 1990, Watchtower let them remain in the dark on the subject. It presented a “sanitized” picture of the occurrence, one that was as misleading as the pre-1989 practice of pretending to be something other than a religious organization while knowing full well that they were.

As more recent articles both in the July 22, 1994 Awake! and in the 1995 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses show, the Watch Tower organization’s willingness to abandon its decades-long pretense was connected with the amendments to the Mexican constitution that have been progressively adopted by the legislative bodies there. The Yearbook (page 212) acknowledges that ownership of property was a factor in the decision to adopt the pretense of being—not a religious organization—but a civil society back in 1943, resulting in replacing the term “congregation” with “company,” calling meeting places “Halls for Cultural Studies,” eliminating audible prayers and “every appearance of a religious service” at meetings there, as well as avoiding “direct use of the Bible” in their door-to-door activity. It states (pages 232, 233) that in the 1980s the organization came under increasing governmental pressure. It acknowledges (page 249) that from December 1988 “one could foresee that there would be a change in policy regarding religion. The conclusion was drawn that it would be advantageous from the standpoint of relations with the government to come out into the open, dropping the pretense of not being a religious organization, and that this was subsequently done in 1989 with Governing Body permission. Under new constitutional amendments, churches were once again allowed to own buildings and property. This was true not only of the Catholic Church but of all denominations.” In view of all this, the evidence is that the opting for a change in status by the Watch Tower organization was made, not primarily because of concern over spiritual issues and principles, but for pragmatic reasons.

The years that have intervened give no evidence of improvement in this area. Recent information has come to light as regards the Watch Tower Society’s affiliation with the United Nations through its Department of Public Information, doing so as a “Non-Governmental Organization [or NGO].” This was done in 1991 and only when it became publicly known and produced adverse reaction did the organization, in October 2001 request that its association be withdrawn. See below:

In a report in the British newspaper The Guardian, Paul Gillies, acting as spokesman for the Watch Tower’s London Branch Office, is quoted as saying: “We do not have hostile attitudes to governing bodies and if we are making representations on issues to the UN we will do so. . . . There are good and bad bodies just as there are good and bad politicians. We believe what the Book of Revelation tells us but we do not actively try to change the political system.”

His reference to the Book of Revelation was evidently due to the fact that Watch Tower publications have, since 1942, identified the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations, with the scarlet-colored wild beast, upon which the harlot Babylon the Great is depicted as riding (See Revelation 16:3-6.) It says of it: “The UN is actually a blasphemous counterfeit of God’s Messianic Kingdom by the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.”22

Thus, the mental outlook that prevailed in the cases cited within this chapter continued. Seen against the background of the organization’s stance regarding Malawi and the issue of alternative service, this association with what the Watch Tower Society deems “a blasphemous counterfeit of God’s Messianic Kingdom” betrays a seriously warped concept of Christian integrity and conscience.

1Details of these attacks and the conditions in the refugee camps are found in the 1965 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses, p. 171; Awake! magazine, February 8, 1968, pp. 16-22; the Watchtower, February 1, 1968, pp. 71-79; Awake!, December 8, 1972, pp. 9-28; December 8, 1975, pp. 3-13.

2This argument was presented in the Awake! magazine of December 8, 1972, p. 20. The article I wrote appeared in the December 8, 1975 issue of the same publication.

3New Webster’s Dictionary, Deluxe Encyclopedic Edition.

4Compare Matthew 17:24-27, where Jesus states that a certain tax did not rightly apply to him, but he nevertheless tells Peter to pay it so as ‘not to offend the authorities.’

5Romans 13:7.

6Matthew 5:41.

7These verses say: “Welcome the man having weaknesses in his faith, but not to make decisions on inward questionings. One man has faith to eat everything, but the man who is weak eats vegetables. Let the one eating not look down on the one not eating, and let the one not eating not judge the one eating, for God has welcomed that one.” “But if he has doubts, he is already condemned if he eats, because he does not eat out of faith. Indeed, everything that is not out of faith is sin.”

8From the memorandum submitted by Governing Body member Lloyd Barry.

9From the memorandum by Governing Body member Karl Klein.

10From statements made by Governing Body member Fred Franz and spelled out in a letter by William Jackson to Paul Trask.

11From the Denmark Branch Committee letter (Richard Abrahamson, Coordinator), quoted in Lloyd Barry’s memorandum.

12From statements made by member Ted Jaracz.

13From statement made by member Carey Barber.

14From statement made by member Fred Franz.

15Awake!, February 8, 1968, pp. 21, 22; compare Matthew 7:1-5.

16By this time (1978) Nathan Knorr had died; however, Fred Franz, now president, was at all the sessions involving the discussion of alternative service.

17For further details on this issue, see the sequel to Crisis of Conscience, titled In Search of Christian Freedom, pages 255 to 270, which has been inserted into Appendix B of this 2018 edition of Crisis of Conscience.

18The registration was dated June 10, 1943, in which the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores) authorizes the registration of La Torre del Vigía as a “Non-Profit Civil Association Founded for Scientific, Educational and Cultural Dissemination” (“Asociación Civil Fundada para Ia Divulgación Científica. Educadora y Cultural No Lucrativa”). This arrangement remained in effect over a period of some 46 years.

19The government of Mexico, in reality, showed considerable leniency toward Jehovah’s witnesses, for it must have been known that their presentation of themselves as a non-religious “cultural” organization was simply a subterfuge.

20In the 1970s, my wife and I attended an international assembly in Mexico City and we were lodged at the Society’s Branch office. President Knorr was also there and during our stay he conducted a group of us on a tour of the various buildings of the Mexican branch. During the tour, he commented directly on the legal status of a “cultural organization” held in Mexico and he specifically mentioned as a primary reason for this unusual status the fact that it allowed the organization to keep control of its properties in that country.

21Daniel 6:1-11.

22See the book Revelation—It’s Grand Climax at Hand, pages 246-248.

Refine Search

Index Downloading...

9. Chapter 6. Double Standards

Also in this issue