Ray Franz Was Wrong (page 14)

jay-jay-

Hi GFNB:

You asked:

If the President and Vice President of the WTBTS (before the GB was fully enpowered in Dec. 1975) approached you and asked you to compile what was to become the new Aid To Bible Understanding book, and they further told you to keep this book PURE and not to follow organizational dogma...would you personally write down a bunch of lies on chronology supporting the 1914 teaching, or would you tell the PURE TRUTH as directed, about the matter -- which???

To answer your question specifically, I believe the general consensus here (at JW.Net) is, because we (JWs) all existed in "cognitive dissonance" for so many years prior to the special invite from the President/Vice President of the WTBTS, we should have done exactly as Raymond Franz did, namely thoroughly research the 607 bce chronology date, and then personally make an inward determination that the 607 bce date was complete FALSE information, and then proceed to irrepairably damage or "sear" our christian-conscience (as shown at 1 Timothy 4:2) and proceed to "righteously" write in the new Aid To Bible Understanding publication that the 607 date was actually TRUTH, so that millions upon millions of innocent, UNKNOWING Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide (like ourselves) will continue to be MISLEAD! That's what we were supposed to do, if we were presented with that opportunity, GFNB!

I hope this answers your question, GFNB!!!

Wow...what a startling revelation, from our friends at JW.Net!!!

jj

PSacramento

Ah, that speck of dust in our neighbours eye is always so noticable.

james_woods

I haven't read all seven pages of this thread - but I do have sort of a sense of what was going on through Ray's mind from having been good friends with Ed and Marion Dunlap right through the worst part of it: before they were kicked out of Bethel, before COC.

What may have been overlooked (and this is my opinion entirely, but built on conversations at the time) was that both Ed and Ray were in the beginning sort of Watchtower reformers. It was in this spirit of possible correction that Ed wrote the book on James - a very different sort of publication from traditional WT fare. At the time, there was even hope that the Governing Body could be a good thing - that it might remove some of the totalitarian craziness of Freddy and his nutbar prophecy. There was actual hope of giving up all the chronology and dates at one time.

Of course, it didn't work out (and obviously never could work out) - but I have always believed that Ray at first thought he could make things better and was dissillusioned by the process of trying. He probably left with some supporters still on the governing body who were simply too afraid or too brainwashed to speak out. Remember - these G.B. members were hardly all mental giants - most of them probably never even wrote anything for the publications, as a matter of fact.

That may have had some place in the context of the "victims of victims" remark - which, for the record, I do not think I would have phrased that way either. But you have to remember that neither Ray nor Ed were vengeful people, and really just wanted to tell the story without anger or invective.

brotherdan

I tend to use the "victims of victims" phrase too much, and I agree with Woods. It's not entirely accurate. Ray was a victim in that he could not sway the others to come away from their legalistic views. Those others on the GB as a whole can not be considered victims in that they DID have control on which way the organization was to go.

james_woods

Ray was a victim in that he could not sway the others to come away from their legalistic views. Those others on the GB as a whole can not be considered victims in that they DID have control on which way the organization was to go.

I think he may have had perhaps one third of the GB thinking about the issues, at least. This was, after all, not long after the 1975 embarrassment. It of course got hammered down by Freddy with the support of the most legalistic/talmudic of them - one primary leader of these at the time being Albert Schroeder.

Schroeder actually said that the GB had "not only the Bible, but the great wealth of Watchtower LAW to maintain". A pretty shocking and ridiculous statement for a leader of a supposedly fundamentalist bible sect.

Another aspect that I have always suspected is the possibility that crafty old Freddy welcomed this "apostacy" because it was seen as a way for him to get some power and authority back for himself from the hated committee approach of the Governing Body. Bethel politics were absolutely rife at the time to see who gained GB status or departmental power - to hear the way the insiders told it.

Mad Sweeney

There is absolutely NO WAY a member of GB 2.0 can possibly NOT KNOW that 607, and therefore 1914, and therefore the foundation of their authority IS ALL LIES.

They may justify it and rationalize it the same way everyone justifies and rationalizes their behavior. But that only excuses the behavior to themselves and has no bearing on how everyone else should judge them.

"By their fruits you shall recognize them."

"No good tree produces rotten fruit."

Mad Sweeney

I'll never understand the Ray-hate from ex-JWs.

The guy made some mistakes in his life. BFD. Overall he was a good person who tried to do what's right and most of the time he succeeded.

minimus

James, I respect your insights and agree with your views.

caliber

had spent nearly forty years as a full time representative, serving at every level of the organizational structure. The last fifteen years I had spent at the international headquarters, and the final nine of those as a member of the worldwide Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses. It was those final years that were the crucial period for me. Illusions there met up with reality. I have since come to appreciate the rightness of a quotation I recently read, one made by a statesman, now dead, who said: 'The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth—persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.' I now began to realize how large a measure of what I had based my entire adult life course on was just that, a myth — persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. ” ... Wikipedia Ray Franz quote

Frustrated by what he viewed as the Governing Body's dogmatism and overemphasis on traditional views rather than reliance on the Bible in reaching doctrinal decisions

Some here seem to think that you can throw away your whole belief system at the drop of a hat....
to discard your whole way of thinking as easily as you might throw away old runners !!!

The very title of Ray's book "Crisis of conscience " .. "the struggle between loyalty to god and to one's religion "

It requires compassion and insight beyond the surface conclusions

The Finger

Some here seem to think that you can throw away your whole belief system at the drop of a hat....
to discard your whole way of thinking as easily as you might throw away old runners !!!

Some of us never claimed to be the F&DS.

Ray Franz Was Wrong

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