Do Jehovah's Witnesses know what happened to them in 1954?

by Terry 60 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  cyberjesus

  Thanks terry.
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  dgp

  Very good information. Thank you, Terry.
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  Terry

  It leads me to ask the question - is much of the lack of enthusiasm present day JWs have for Christ (as in Christianity) due mostly to Freddy Franz thinking?

  That would put Freddy's hands on the controls of not only the blood doctrine, the 1975 fiasco, but also this.

  To follow on - was Freddy also the source of the notion that Jesus was only the mediator for the 144,000 - or did that go further back?

  I think it was in 1942 that Rutherford kicked the bucket and went to heaven to join the gang of kings and priests.

  This left a big HOLE (as in "ass").

  The cat was away and the mouse came out to play: Frederick W. Franz!

  Nathan Knorr was not much of an imaginative writer. He was practically forced to rely entirely on the kookiest of all kooks: FREDDY!

  Fred the Rhodes scholar candidate who never took the entrance test went wild with abandon dreaming up all sorts of weird and antisocial doctrines.

  There was nobody who could challenge him!

  Had there been more than one scholar (I'm even using the word with greatly lowered standards!) on the premises who had half a brain some check and balance would have stopped Freddy cold.

  But, no.......alas!

  Nathan and Fred Frenz were the Dynamic Duo!

  Nobody could edge in between them.

  This is largely why there was a coup staged in 1971/72 removing most of Knorr's power and eroding Freddy's stature as chief prophet.

  At last the other guys had a chance to stop Fred from pulling another embarassing Date Setting Prophecy!
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  james_woods

  At last the other guys had a chance to stop Fred from pulling another embarassing Date Setting Prophecy!

  True - but their successors did practically just as badly with the "overlapping generations"...
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  cog_survivor

  Terry I find this fascinating because WWCOG made a similar shift in its teachings. When Herbert Armstrong started out, Jesus was considered worthy of worship and christians could be born again which resulted in a transformational experience.

  But after his wife died in 1967. He began rapidly demoting Jesus as a figure of worship. He started mocking people who claimed the born again experience and who said Jesus lived in their hearts.

  While I don't know that it was deliberately thought out in advance, but it seems that everything that could be possibly done to separate people with the idea of a personal relationship with Jesus was carried out. From a believer's standpoint it was pretty dastardly. But from an emotional and psychological stance it made another way for people to be separated from what their hearts told them and ensured that HWA was the church's mediator with God.

  This was frequently reinforced by liberal application of the scripture from Jeremiah that stated that the heart was desparately wicked and deceitful above all things.
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  Balaamsass

  Thanks for the research Terry. I always had a bad feeling in my gut because of JWs strong negative reaction to the simple label of "Christian".

  Reading Barbra Andersons expose' of Freddys education on her site, made me sick to my gut a few years ago when I was finding out the truth about the truth. I was brought up being told Freddy was a "Rhoads Scholar"- even heard that at Bethel. Freddy never corrected anyone.

  He never even finished an AA degree!

  For years I have had to mumble the name of where I went to night school..embarrased of my K-Mart education..that I had to sneak in as a JW.. Hell I should have just made up something like Freddy did.
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  tootired2care

  Terry thanks for bringing this back to light... err I mean new light that was old light...LOL. Terry you are owning this forum lately; with these meaty and deep topics you've been posting. Thanks to you my binder of damning evidence has recently experienced exponential growth.
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  blondie

  The WTS has played around over the years with Jesus' status. In the days of Russell and early days of Rutherford, Jesus was seen as an older brother that they looked forward to living with and working with in heaven, all considered sons of God right then. But as the "great crowd" doctrine came in 1935, they could only see him as their Eternal Father and could only hope to be a "son of God" at the end of the 1,000 years and passing the "final test." The WTS has pushed Jesus farther and farther away from the rank and file, "a switchboard operator" as sir82 says, only a tool that God used to bring a ransom.
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  edmond dantes

  Well spotted Terry this worship of Jesus question was one of the reasons I started to doubt the Watchtowers credibility. Back in the sixties we used to have the book Make Sure Of All Things which I usually kept in my bag going from door to door . In that Watchtower publication it said on page 85 that Jesus is to be worshipped as a glorious spirit and we used to tell objectors that it means we give secondary worship but as usual Watchtower double standards came into play here because on page 177 of the same book it condemns secondary worship and page 178 it says that even bowing before men and angels is forbidden.

  The book was eventually revised when it was pointed out that because the Watchtower claimed Jesus was created it made the Witnesses guilty of creature worship . All this is an example of how they tie themselves in doctrinal knots.
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  edmond dantes

  Well spotted Terry this worship of Jesus question was one of the reasons I started to doubt the Watchtowers credibility. Back in the sixties we used to have the book Make Sure Of All Things which I usually kept in my bag going from door to door . In that Watchtower publication it said on page 85 that Jesus is to be worshipped as a glorious spirit and we used to tell objectors that it means we give secondary worship but as usual Watchtower double standards came into play here because on page 177 of the same book it condemns secondary worship and page 178 it says that even bowing before men and angels is forbidden.

  The book was eventually revised when it was pointed out that because the Watchtower claimed Jesus was created it made the Witnesses guilty of creature worship . All this is an example of how they tie themselves in doctrinal knots.