Titus what,s your degree?
Threat of 1980 Rebellion/Schism--Real or Perceived?
by neverendingjourney 34 Replies latest jw friends
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villabolo
Got in a little bit late on this thread but I'll throw my two cents in.
Titus: "I think that Ray Franz wrote his books just to earn the money."
Do you realize, Titus, that the author of the book has to give permission to have a free PDF version of his book made available to the public? If Ray only wanted to earn money, and he was entitled to it since at his age he had no means of support for him and his wife, then why did he allow his book to go free online?
As far as the events of 1980/81 I lived through them as a member of the rank and file. I could tell you that by all appearances it was a witchhunt and scapegoat proceedure that was enacted not only at the top of the organization, but all the way to the bottom. I read that the organization admitted to a 2% disfellowhipping rate for that year whereas the normal rate is 1%. This implies a massive purge of apostates. I was df'd for apostacy in 1980 for reasons having nothing to do with the goings on at Bethel.
Those who have seen scapegoating in action or read about it know that it's usually done to detract attention from the actions of the scapegoater. As a poster mentioned, 1975 had just blown up in their faces. That was the reason they wanted to distract attention from the issue as well as purge those who showed the slightest inclination towards independent thinking.
So, in conclusion, I assume that in their minds they were trying to head off massive disaffection before it started.
villabolo
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neverendingjourney
Well, it's been a really long day at work and I'm just getting home. There have been a lot of excellent points raised on this thread, and I'll try to address as many of them as possible.
They really do think God is running the organization. As such, trying to explain things in a rational way is not productive, IMHO.
I think that's true when it comes to doctrinal matters, but they've certainly acted rationally when their self-preservation was at stake such as in the change in their pedophile policy post Catholic Church scandal and their allowance of blood fractions in response to pressure from European govts.
There were groups that were leaving the JW's and organizing. My old congregation of Carnarsie, Brooklyn, had over 60 DF'd for apostasy.
However in my congregation we were experiencing a 'Berean' period around that time. I went from 3 Saturdays a month concentrating on being good organizationally to be concerned about not being followers of men, discerning the context and taking in accurate knowledge so that when the end did come we were not led astray.
There were several others at Bethel questioning things, and many in the congregations. But most of this was due to the failure of 1975. The hard liners of the GB were convinced the sky was falling,
This is kind of what I'm getting at. It seems to me that the threat the GB perceived went far beyond Ray and Ed's penchant for independent thinking. Their actions were those of men who perceived a palpable threat to their authority. CoC doesn't really delve into it, but it seems to me that there was far too much independent thought throughout the organization as far as the Society was concerned, and Ray, Ed, and the rest of the purged Bethelites were simply made examples of in order to put fear into the hearts of those who dared challenge official policy.
Try these links:
Thanks, Randy. I'll read them when I get a chance.
My own personal opinion is that Ray's primary motivation in writing CoC was to tell his side of the story. His reputation was sullied as pernicious rumors about him were allowed to circulate throughout the JW ranks. If his primary interest was pecuniary, he could have very easily made sensational claims that would have gotten the attention of those outside the XJW community, but he didn't. In fact, he mentions in his book that a former high-ranking memeber of the Society had been admonished for homesexual propensities (edward chitty?), but he declines to go into details. His book has all the marks of a honest-hearted attempt to write a memoir of his experiences within the JW religion.
That being said, he, like anyone of us, is incapable of being truly impartial. Regardless of how hard we may try to avoid it, bias seeps into our memories and the way in which we perceive ourselves and the events around us. That's why we cannot have a complete picture of what went on without hearing accounts from some of the others involved. I would love to read Albert Schroeder's memoir or the recollections of Lyman Swingle or Fred Franz, but of course, that was never going to happen. We should be thankful for Ray's memoir, but we shouldn't fall into the trap of viewing it as gospel.
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Lady Lee
why did he allow his book to go free online
He didn't. You have to pay for it. People who are distributing the book for free or are downloading it for free are doing so illegally.
Was there a schizm? Yes there was.
Ray Franz wasn't the only one to comment on it. What he was the only one to do was write about how the GB works.
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JWoods
IIRC, the Dunlaps told me back at the time that there were a few (maybe just a couple or three dozen?) bethelites and area NY JWs who were engaging in independent bible study group(s), but more in the spirit of actually figuring out what had gone wrong post '75 and what the correct answers were.
Once the GB figured this out, these independent studies were harshly forbidden. But, they were nowhere near a large dangerous uprising.
Factually, this was nowhere near a massive schism, nor an attempt to start a splinter religion. Neither Dunlap nor Franz ever did this, irregardless of the many insider JW rumors on the subject. Remember also, most of these original 1980 dissidents (like myself) left well before COC had been published, and if you had not been acquainted with the people involved as I was, you would not have known the inside info back then.
Another possible factor was the investigative article on the JW 1975 prophecy breakdown in (TIME or NEWSWEEK) of that era which pointed out the general dissatisfaction with the R & F over the poor handling of the false prophecy - both before and after the event. There was also a large dropoff in attendance and activity from 1975 to 1978 which may have been attributed to Franz/Dunlap, but was really just disjointed publishers who had a false prophecy rubbed in their noses by such stuff as the WT articles on "tacking into the wind" and telling them it was their own fault they ever believed in a 1975 end date.
The threat was real enough in FACT, but the actual danger to the WTS monolith was just panic perception by the GB of the day.
The truth of the era was that it was a small number of persons who broke away (on the basis of the Franz/Dunlap issues of doctrine) pretty much on their own - and a massive fear and over-reaction by the society powers over it.