Who Will Be The Next Member Of The Governing Body To Defect From The Corporation?

by frankiespeakin 31 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Cold Steel

  Also, had not Raymond Franz been forced to resign, he might not have gone anywhere. It's easy to suffer a crisis of conscience when you've been booted out.

  I always wondered what would happen if there was a split. If Franz had denounced the faithful and discreet slave thing immediately and accused the rest of trying to wrest the authority of the "true" slave, he might have been able to seize on a few more unpopular doctrines and create a rift. He might have also made the argument that the GB was the prophecied "man of sin" who was to bring about a mass apostasy. He could have reasoned, too, that the year of apostasy (1980) was the one in which the "generation" in which Armegeddon would happen:

  Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [Armageddon] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

  By trying to expel the anointed class as the faithful and discreet slave, this "man of sin" would be trying to oppose the true order of governance and exalt himself above all that are "called of God" (meaning the true FDS) and seek to take the place of God in the temple [Bethel], essentially "shewing himself that he" (the GB) "is God." If Franz had made that claim, he probably could have torpedoed the Society and eased the bruised feelings of dissatisfaction within the Outfit.
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  latinthunder

  Who Will Be The Next Member Of The Governing Body To Defect From The Corporation?

  Guy Pierce.
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  designs

  I agree with the Noners. These guys have built the country club on the hill and they ain't goin nowhere.
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  Apognophos

  If Franz had denounced the faithful and discreet slave thing immediately and accused the rest of trying to wrest the authority of the "true" slave, he might have been able to seize on a few more unpopular doctrines and create a rift.

  Maybe, but as Rutherford proved, he who owns the printing presses and the name of the Society is going to win out over the ones who don't. The dissenter(s) would need to have some big scandal on their side in order to convince JWs that the Society had gone apostate.
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  Cold Steel

  I don't know. A lot of members seem on the verge of dissatisfaction (to be nice). And this 1914 thing can only go so far before they have to change it.
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  mindnumbed

  They are so insulated from reality ... if they had JW's coming to them with their questions and doubts like members of LDS did to Hans Mattsson, maybe one of them would also come to a crisis of conscience.
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  zound

  I think this is a different time than the Franz era. I very much doubt there will ever be another like him on the GB. And they probably are more cautious after him.

  The interesting thing will be the fresh meat once these GB's start dying off. But out of the current lot? They'll be cracking this whip till the day they die.
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  Cold Steel

  Mindnumbed: ...if they had JW's coming to them with their questions and doubts like members of LDS did to Hans Mattsson, maybe one of them would also come to a crisis of conscience.

  Mattsson's problem was that he (and others) had simply joined the church and failed to do any reading or investigating. Most of the stuff he said he'd never heard of, or seen, had been published by the church in its monthly magazine, not to mention apologetics groups like the Maxwell Institute and FAIRLDS. I was baptized a Mormon is 1971 and by 1972, when I left on my mission, I knew about the vast majority of the things Mattsson said he'd never read about. It would be like becoming a first century Christian, then complaining, "Hey, you guys never told me this guy claimed to come back from the dead!"

  Mattsson and his wife were contacted by LDS historians, who discussed many of the contentious issues that bothered him (and is often horribly mis-represented by anti-Mormon groups). As FAIRLDS reported, "He didn’t know, for instance, that Joseph [Smith] used a seer stone in hat to translate the Book of Mormon or that he engaged in plural marriage. At this point his world came crumbling down." Hugh Nibley had published an article entitled Strange Ships and Shining Stones years earlier and no one can point a gun at you and force you to read these things. And almost everyone knows that the saints practiced plural marriage in the 19th Century.

  In the Society, you can get disfellowshiped for openly questioning, but not in Mormonism. In fact, as one LDS writer noted:

  …doubt is a natural part of our mortal sojourn. It is not sin, nor does it always (or even mostly) stem from sin. Faith is not belief without doubt, but rather faith is obedience to imperfectly-understood-but-true principles in the presence of doubt. In general, I would counsel leaders to not assume that doubt stems from transgression and to not assume that doubt is in some way the “fault” of the individual experiencing it. I think leaders can best serve those going through a crisis of faith by being understanding, sympathetic, and compassionate.

  And most often, that's exactly how it's handled. Only fools would equate doubt with transgression. But it's also not always the church's fault when misunderstandings occur. Back in 1971, we didn't have an Internet, yet I still was able to educate myself on such things. Mattsson certainly had access to the information he sought; he just looked in the wrong places.

  LDS author Michael Nash rightly explained:

  It’s important that we understand that questioning the things we do, believe, or accept is normal and part of the process that leads from youth to maturity, as well as from maturity to wisdom. There would be no growth without questioning. Questions lead to answers, resolutions, solidifying convictions, and even to discarding false assumptions. Many doctrines and teachings were revealed as the result of questions petitioned to God.
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  blondie

  When Ray Franz left the GB (still an active JW), things were different then. He had a friend who was able to give him a place to live and employment to support himself. The disassociated status of his friend was a non issue.. at first, anyway.

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  I do believe that Peter Gregerson had not da'd himself yet when Ray and Cythia moved down to his congregation. So it was perfectly ok for him to help them and for them to accept. Peter Gregerson da'd later.
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  Zoos

  You're right Blondie, I said that wrong.

  Thanks!