'Lamp' book by Ray Franz???

AgentSmith

My father, (still an elder) has suprised me last week with a simple text message. "We (my mother & father) will be in your city this weekend, please come and have supper with us"

I was delaying my reply, thinking of what to say, when he phoned. At first we did the Hello's with awkward gaps in conversation.

I then asked.."At this meal, what are we going to speak about? Seriously, you and my B-I-L just about frog marched us off your property, nothing has changed since then.'

He then went into the rehearsed speech about they want to check if we reconsidered not being JW's, we should wait on Jehovah, he will clean the organization. And if there is a problem with the Governing Body, it will be sorted out, just like Ray Franz was kicked out. And here is the kicker, That in 1974, Ray Franz was in charge of the writing committee and he produced a book called 'The Lamp" that claimed that 1975 was an important year and that Armegeddon will be starting! And lots of JW's fell for it and 'fell away!"

At this point my chin hit the floor...WTF??? Have any of you heard of this????

I tried to get a word in, but it was like trying to stop a storming Rhino. How do you converse with someone this unreasonable?? I started to end the conversation, explaining that we are out. We have no desire to go back. At which he said that they (mom &dad) still loves us and the children. That its is because of that love we are being ostracized. Really? "The most un Christian thing I have ever heard of' And those were my last words to him...

Over the weekend it bugged me about this 'Lamp" book. The closest I found was the 'Your Word is a Lamp to my foot' printed 1967. ( link is www.strictlygenteel.co.uk/lamp)

Yesterday, i decided to phone him back. I started with "You could have been in serious trouble if a local JW saw us having a meal together. And I appreciate that you would risk it." And being a little calmer this time, I managed to defend my position, quoting the July 2009 Awake, and the Awake in 1968 /Oct 8, the Masthead on the awakes from 1982 to 95. Rather suprised that I got a coherent argument in. My father then replied he does not remember it like that, I must send him the publications and their dates.

Which I am about to do. However, I still wonder where he got this Ray Franz/Lamp book/1975 thing from.... Any ideas?

Agent Smith

TheOldHippie

Franz was in the research team for "Aid", maybe some of the points in the "Lamp" were taken from "Aid" just as points in "Reasoning" are taken from "Insight". But that was just a line based on - nothing, so I might as well not have written it.............

AgentSmith

@ TOH...

steve2

Agent Smith you surprise me: When have the Witnesses ever based their criticism of Ray Franz on accurate information or verifiable quotes? Ever?? The litany of half-truths, innuendo and rumor-mongering about Ray Franz is the shameful hallmark of the organization's approach to undermining his expose. Your dear father's invitation sounds like a hiding to nowhere. You need to decide if you are okay about being the main course.

Listener

This silent lambs link refers to the lamp book - Qualified to be ministers. In part it states

"So according to Mr. Franz it is “superficial” to say that a policy caused an abused child to not be dealt with properly. Since he authored policy, it appears he is thus excusing his actions in writing a directive that has potentially harmed thousands of children. As a person who served as an overseer in the Service Department as part of the Service Committee, he certainly should have a basic comprehension level of how polices make certain things happen. So while the ‘two eye witnesses’ ruling was used and mentioned in previous books (Lamp Book, Qualified to Be Ministers)) and magazines, yet before Franz wrote about it in the OR book, it was never defined as clearly in a judicial settings pertaining to children than what was written in this chapter. On page 175 of the OR book a segment was entitled "Dealing with Minor Children and Married Couples." The first paragraph included this statement: "

Here is the link

http://www.silentlambs.org/personal_experiences/rayfranz2.cfm

This book appears to be an old version of the shepperding book which is only seen by elders.

What better way to put blame on someone than with a book that is a secret.

Just as an aside (and I don't know the full story) it appears that SilentLambs had hoped that Ray Franz would assist them in regards to exposing child abuse within the organization and Ray was not prepared to do this. So if you go to the link you will see reported another side to Ray from their perspective.

Pistoff

"That in 1974, Ray Franz was in charge of the writing committee and he produced a book called 'The Lamp" that claimed that 1975 was an important year and that Armegeddon will be starting! And lots of JW's fell for it and 'fell away!"

This is the second time I have heard this 'new light'; a good friend of mine, still a gung ho witness, said last January that Ray Franz was the one responsible for 1975!

Which is complete news (and bollocks), Fred Franz was always the one regarded as the oracle.

Funny now that Ray is dead, this rumor starts, now that he can't defend himself.

2+2=5

When I first spoke to elders about my doubts (mistake) with 607/1914, I had a friend who knew the elders were concerned about me, ask me if everything was ok.

I didn't get into details about my doubts but just told this friend that there is some things we are taught from the GB that I find hard to understand. My friend ended up telling me about a conversation that he had recently had with an old anointed brother in our Cong.

Anyway, he starts going on about how there was this GB member Ray Franz who was very proud and pig headed and had all these ideas that he wanted to promote. One of his ideas was 1975. Because Ray was so proud, he left the GB when they rejected his ideas. 1975 came and went, and Ray looked like a proud fool because he left the organization over his own silly ideas that turned out to be false. This is what my friend was told by the old anointed elder in my congregation...... There was a bit more to it, and it was all the typical "he was a evil apostate" mud slinging, but this pretty much sums it up.

I couldn't believe it. This was complete crap. I just sat there listening and pretended that it was all news to me, but I knew that this was all false and really just slandering Ray Franz. I wondered how many JWs here this and beleive it. This elder would have spread this lie to hundreds of JWs no doubt.

So it is not the first time I have heard this.

dropoffyourkeylee

The Lamp book that I remember from the 60's was a yellow book, thin but a little taller than most of their books. It was the book with the 80 questions you went through before baptism. It was basically an early version of the 'organization' book. I am pretty sure it did not address any dates as described in the original post.

Jim_TX

...what dropoffyourkeylee said.

I had to study that book prior to baptism. It had like... 80 or 90 questions in it that one had to be able to answer prior to baptism.

The funny part about it was that the CO at the time evidently didn't believe that I had done it well enough the first time with the group of three or so that went through the questions for several meetings, and so he had me go over to his house and do it again. Of course, he didn't like my mom or our family, and so had it in for us.

The last time I saw that book, it was packed in a box, and I had put it in the attic in my previous home where it was sitting in extreme heat in the hot Texas summers. As far as I know it's still there, unless the ex found it and tossed it. Or the new owners of the home. Geee... I hope they don't have any poltergeists or other oddly happenings because of all of that JW litter-a-ture.

As for the original post - tell the fella that he has his Franz's mixed up - and leave it at that. Let him do the research.

Regards,

Jim TX

AnnOMaly

I've also heard it said by JWs that Ray Franz was responsible for promoting the 1975 hooplah. It's an old, old rumor. Total baloney, of course. Smith (the father) has it all muddled.

Ray F. was invited to Bethel c.1965, was one of the ones assigned to write the Aid book which was first released in 1969 (you can imagine what a humongous job that was!). He became a Governing Body member in October 1971. As already mentioned, the Lamp book came out in 1967. Even if he had had a hand in the Lamp book, it would have to have been approved and 'signed off' on by the head honchos, including Knorr and uncle Freddie!

The book that started off the 1975 hype was Life Everlasting—In Freedom of the Sons of God, released at the 1966 conventions.

'Lamp' book by Ray Franz???

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