He is a JW. Might be dead now.
I knew his sister. She's dead.
I know 2 of his nephews. Both are local elders. Typical JW elders.
Marley Cole's "Jehovah's Witnesses - The New World Society"
by witnessgirl 32 Replies latest watchtower bible
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witnessgirl
BONEZZ couldn't be more correct. Cole didn't even try to sound like an objective outsider. He speaks of Witnesses and the Org in unbelievably glowing terms, and attacks those the Org dislikes (Roman Catholics particularly) with incredible venom.
I wanted to mention that I've been told that "New World Society" was a fairly common way of referring to Witnesses prior to the 1975 prophetic failure. Interesting that they kept the New World doctrine but dropped the term. An older term for the New System was the New Order, which I'd imagine they quit using because of this book: -
Nathan Natas
Was Marley Cole a JW in 1955?
In 1955 Marley Cole published the book JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES The New World Society. This book has often been presented as an "objective" reportage on the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society.
But is it?
Consider, if you will, what Marley Cole himself has to say in his autobiography THE HARVEST OF OUR LIVES, published in 1996 by Stoops publishing:
Quote:
pages 5-8:...The speaker was Nathan H. Knorr, the new president of the Watch Tower Society. He was delivering his first key address to a convention of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1942.
...was this one more Bible thumper drawing on a prophecy from the mysteries of Revelation? I was attending my first convention of Jehovah's Witnesses to find out.
...I made the dedication of my life to Jehovah at that convention by getting baptized.
...More than a year before, Mom had arranged for some relatives... to carry on a weekly Bible study at our house. "you keep going to these churches to learn about the bible. Pshew!" she said. "None of them knows the Bible but the Russellites.."pages 18, 19:
... I wrote this article for free for my former employer THE NEWS. They ignored it. It was their way of telling me I was a pariah.
...It was entitled, "In Search of the Future". I sent it to CONSOLATION, the Watchtower magazine.
I couldn't believe my eyes when the publication came out with the article featured on the cover. In those days CONSOLATION printed the author's name at the end of the article.
...after that I wrote some more pieces and some were published.
pages 43, 44:
...I had just been transferred from Knoxville jail and [was] "registering" at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. The number they gave me was #63554. This was no suite number. It meant me. I had become a number.
...we were not there protesting as conscientious objectors. We were protesting the refusal of draft boards to grant our classification as ministers of religion.
page 71:
...I served 18 months and got out on "good behavior."
pages 105-112:
The book project was started in 1953. For 2 years I worked on that book under pressures that just about destroyed Fern and me.
Headquarters worked with me, page by page on every chapter throughout the book, furnishing some of the material.
Part of the strain was having to keep mum about the project. We could not let our own congregation know what was going on...
The hardest thing of all on the nerves was the problem of finding a book publisher. Forty-one publishers turned it down.
The Society wanted the book out in time for release during the [1955] conventions... In sheer desperation I contacted a subsidy publisher...
This type of book producer is also called a "vanity" publisher. That implies that a writer who can't even sell his book to a regular publisher will get it published even if he has to pay to have it done. This vanity house wanted $2,400 to produce JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES: THE NEW WORLD SOCIETY. I wasn't selling enough rocks [Cole worked for a quarry] to raise that kind of money. So I had to divulge a confidence by contacting Don Stull the district overseer. He knew a rich brother in Oklahoma who sent a check to Brother Knorr who informed me that now I had divulged a confidential matter to a district overseer and a rich brother in Oklahoma. He add, with a little pique, that the Society could probably rustle that much money, if that was the problem.
The vanity house insisted on their regular contract, not expecting for a moment that an organization was going to overwhelm them with a tidal wave of orders the likes of which no subsidy publisher had received before or since.
What a shocker it was that night at the East Congregation in Knoxville. Congregation servant Cliff Martin took up most of the service meeting with this big packet of material from the Society. First he read this letter about a book that was being published. This book would be distributed through book stores. It was a book the Society liked. Maybe some people whom we could not reach effectively would read this book from an outside source.
By the Witnesses ordering enough books to give it a standing in th market place maybe it would get reviews and help out in a public relations way. I don't recall the exact words.
Then Cliff pulled out this big yellow fold, an actual dust jacket of the book. Imagine every congregation getting one of these to post on the information board. "I won't tell you the name of the author," Cliff said, "but his initials are Marley Cole."
...The so-called [book] publishers were traumatized. Orders by the tens of thousands began to pour in and here they were committed by contract to pay me 40% on all sales over 3,000. ...They were on their knees begging for a new regular royalty contract. I was swapping new ulcers for old worrying that they could not fill the orders. I agreed to the new contract and the subsidy fee was returned.
For 13 weeks JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES appeared on the best Seller starboard of the New York Times. For the year 1955 it ranked #5 among nonfiction titles.
...Forty-one years later a friend called from Arizona. "These friends say you were not a Witness when you wrote that book. I know better, but they won't believe me." I had been baptized 12 years when the book came out. Maybe I was a Witness.
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Nathan Natas
There's a copy of Cole's second pro-JW screed, Theocratic Kingdom, available for download here:
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witnessgirl
There is a photo in the 1958 "Report on the Divine Will International Assembly of Jehovah's Witnesses" (about the Yankee Stadium/Polo Grounds assembly in 1958) that shows Marley Cole explaining to a group of Press Department workers how to handle the media. But I think that the quote from CoC says pretty much everything that needs to be said as regards whether Cole was a Witness and whether the book was a Watchtower production.
EDIT: Vantage Press is a vanity publisher? I'm shocked! Really? I always thought they were a legit mainstream publisher. I've read quite a few of their books. -
Honesty
What a shocker it was that night at the East Congregation in Knoxville.
The East Congregation in Knoxville has produced a number of zealous Kingdom Proclaimers of the Watchtower's version of Christianity:
Cantwell, Jesse: jv 527, 530; yb90 109-11
local laws subject to First Amendment (1940, Cantwellv.Connecticut): g03 1/8 5
Cantwell
v.Connecticut: g63 8/22 14; jp 139, 178-9, 206; w55 425; g48 8/22 5; g48 11/8 6; g43 6/23 19; g41 4/16 23; g40 6/26 3-8 -
cathyk
EDIT: Vantage Press is a vanity publisher? I'm shocked! Really? I always thought they were a legit mainstream publisher. I've read quite a few of their books.
Maybe you're thinking of Vintage Press? I used to get the two mixed up. Yeah, VANTAGE is vanity, VINTAGE is a "real" publishing house.
Cathy
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gpp
Marley Cole is my uncle. He was always a Jay Dub as long as I have known him. Kind of a self absorbed a**hole if you ask me. Even my parents, total long time Jay Dubs always called him very sarcastically "The Author". I am not sure if he is still alive or worm food for "miracle wheat" now. I was always amazed at how many Dubs actually thought his books were actually non-biased writings.
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uninformed
I read the book in the 1960's while I was in prison in Springfield, Missouri due to the Vietnam Draft.
I am stunned now to learn he had been a witness since the early 40's.
I guess I was just not paying enough attention.
"What Kind of Fool Am I"????? (old song, makes me think of myself)
Brant
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witnessgirl
Don't feel too bad; if the only thing that you read is Watchtower literature, you're a lot less likely to notice when something else sounds just like it. I really like your avatar, BTW.
Maybe you're thinking of Vintage Press? I used to get the two mixed up. Yeah, VANTAGE is vanity, VINTAGE is a "real" publishing house.
Ah, okay, makes sense now--thanks! Was really confused for a minute there.
BTW, since Miracle Wheat came up, I noticed that Cole's account made it sound like there was an earlier government test done on it than the one that we normally see quoted. We're used to seeing the quote stating that Miracle Wheat performed slightly below average; I don't have my Walter Martin book handy, but it seems like this test was run in connection with a trial that took place after the Watchtower had started marketing Miracle Wheat. The Cole book definitely seems to be referring to a test that was run before the Org had come into contact with Miracle Wheat, and suggests that the test results were above average (no mention is made of any later tests). If I'm reading between the lines correctly and not just totally confused, it would suggest that much of the anti-Witness literature talking about Miracle Wheat is making an error of omission. If nothing less, the Cole book is the first that I've seen to quote mainstream secular news sources praising Miracle Wheat dating from before the Org began marketing it. I wonder, however, whether the quotes were taken from news items or paid advertisements.