An old post from James-Woods on Freddy's LUST FOR POWER

designs

I think Fred was envious of Herbert Armstrong being the head honcho of the World Wide Church of God.

Finkelstein

Listening to that speech by Franz reminded me of some of the mental midgets who gave talks from time to time,

all full of double emphasizing words to create some sort of staid importance or relevance. In actuality the information

was elementary like when one talks to a group of children.

One thing that I always noticed about stupid JWS is that they had a preponderance of glib arrogance, formulated upon

ignorance and strife with pretentiousness.

Ah, the banality of evil. Fred was a rather lovable eccentric, socially. He had a quirky sense of humor. He also had a remarkable memory and intelligence. I don't think his steamroom meetings with younger brothers was anything homosexual. Really old guys like Papageorge would show up too and I cringe when I think about seeing them naked (yuck)

The weird thing was that whenever the subject of marriage came up, Knorr was profoundly negative and Fred was positive and almost wistful. In context, he once declared to the Bethel family, "Sex is Theocratic". Some guys wanted to make that quote into a T-shirt! He vowed to Jehovah never to marry and stuck with it. He may have found little Asian sisters attractive (Kay Yamasaki, whereever you are...)

There were times in which Knorr seemed to be listening to him speak, apparently unaware of where he was going with something! Think what you may about Fred, at least he wasn't Knorr - perhaps the most negative human being I've ever met.

My opinion of him changed a bit when I heard that he could be very hardline, behind the scenes, as with the "3 Freds" affair (3 former CO's came up with a report on how horrid Bethel was - and Fred considered that rebellion, a la Adonijah, etc)

metatron

binadub

Randy: I always suspected that Freddy's hostility toward his nephew stemmed from Ray's involvement in getting the Governing Body to be a governing body rather than just a mask for legal appearances.
What that accomplished was taking what was essentially sole power away from the one (WT president) and giving the body members equal voting rights (if I understand it). This robbed Freddy of what he wanted most as WT president--sole authority. (Actually he did gain almost the equivalent in influence over the rest of them from what appears.)

Even though Crisis of Conscience does reveal quite a bit of expose' of the older Fred Franz, don't you think there is deafening silence of omission about his involvement in getting Ray disfellowshipped? He cleaverly stayed in the background while the others carried out the logistics of the deed and were obliged to take the credit.

My brother who was an elder and CO, never shunned me nor did his JW family. My parents were never JWs. Brother was one of the first COs to attend a 2-week school at Bethel for COs in the 1980s. He told me that his lunch table was joined one day by Albert Schroeder, and my brother had asked about the Ray Franz disfellowshipping. Schroeder told him that the decision to disfellowship Ray had been made before Ray ever left Bethel. The reason they gave Ray $10,000(or whatever it was) to settle when he left Bethel was on the advice of their attorneys because if he accepted it he could never come back on them or sue for any retirement or compensation for all the years he had served in the upper hierarchy. I told Ray what my brother had told me and he didn't believe it at first, but I think he eventually realized it must be true. (My brother was not aware of my personal friendship with the Franzes, only that I no longer believed the religion.)
My point here is that you KNOW that Fred Franz had to have been very much involved in getting Ray disfellowshipped (for revenge imo), even though Ray's book gives only the proveable facts of the those members visibly involved. Fred Franz was the one behind the whole thing imo.

~Binadub (aka Ros)

ziddina

Freddie is clearly enamored of the concept of being an "evangelizer" of "world-wide fame"...

He's definitely taking delight in pointing out that the various churches of evil "Christendom" had "ruling bodies"...

@ 3:17 "That meant that the various religious establishments of Christendom were in operation. For instance, there was the Anglican Church with its ruling body and the Protestant Episcopal Church with its ruling body... There was the Methodist Church with its conference, there was also the Presbyterian church, to which Russell used to belong, with its synod. There was also the Congregational Church which Russell joined with its central congregation, but by none of these controlling organizations of this dragnet organization was Russell made an evangelizer or a missionary."

Oh, yeah... Again, @ 4:48, ol' Freddy rants against those churches of "Christendom" with their "ruling bodies", who refused to recognize the "authority" that made Russell's evangelizing work "valid"...

steve2

It's kind of sobering to think that, at an earlier time in our lives, we held "brothers" such as Fred Franz in incredibly high regard. I'll admit I found him riveting to listen to, as if he did have special access to some kind of knowledge that could only ever be imparted to us through his writings and public addresses. He was one of the last of the vanguard who oozed hate of "the churches of Christendom".

Yet this unusual and self-occupied man was simply the latest in a successive lineup of grandiose men who believed in their own specialness. It takes a special kind of religious arrogance to believe and set oneself up as conveyer of new light. By contrast, it takes very commonplace gullibility to be in awe of these proud and misguided fools.

An old post from James-Woods on Freddy's LUST FOR POWER - a shocker