Just to clarify who Ray Franz was and what happened to him .. an excerpt from Wiki.
Sounds to me that the leaders (GB) back when Ray reassigned his position as GB member were
apprehensively nervous about what he could tell people particularly those JWS he associated with after leaving.
They wanted him shut up, muzzled and marked as evil within the organization, so the GB heads had him DFed.
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He in turn wrote a couple of very exposing books to reveal just how corrupt the WTS. had become.
No doubt his uncle who was the President of the WTS. Fred Franz at the time, pushed to have him DFed for those
particular reasons for knowing and talking too much.
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Expulsion
In March 1980 Franz and his wife took leave of absence from the world headquarters for health reasons and moved to Alabama, where he took up laboring work on a property owned by a fellow Witness. The following month a committee of the Governing Body raised concerns over the spreading of "wrong teachings" emanating from headquarters staff and began questioning headquarters staff on their beliefs. Staff were also questioned about comments Franz had made that may have contradicted Watch Tower doctrine. [12] [13] The 15 March 1980 issue of The Watchtower issued a statement of regret that its assertions of probability of Armageddon arriving before 1975 had "apparently overshadowed the cautionary ones and contributed to a buildup of expectation already initiated." [14] It told disappointed Jehovah's Witnesses, "including persons having to do with the publication of the information that contributed to the buildup of hopes centred on that date" to "concentrate on adjusting his viewpoint". [15] This statement, which placed blame for the disappointment about 1975 on Raymond Franz and his writing committee, precipitated a purge of that committee and eventual disfellowshipping of its sometime Chairman. [16] On May 8 1980 Franz was told that he had been implicated as an apostate. [17] He was called back to Brooklyn on May 20 for two days of questioning [18] by the Chairman's Committee. Franz claimed the discussion concerned allegations that some Witnesses were meeting privately to discuss various teachings of the Watch Tower Society that may have constituted apostasy.
On 21 May 1980 Franz was called to a Governing Body session, questioned for three hours about his Bible viewpoints and commitment to Watch Tower doctrines [2] [19] and agreed to a request to resign from the Governing Body and headquarters staff. Franz refused the Watch Tower Society's offer of a monthly stipend as a member of the "Infirm Special Pioneers". [20] The Governing Body investigation resulted in the disfellowshipping of several other headquarters staff. [21] [22] [23]
On 1 September 1980 the Governing Body distributed a letter to all Circuit and District overseers stating that apostates need not be promoting doctrines to be disfellowshipped. The letter stated that individuals who persisted in "believing other doctrine despite scriptural reproof" were also apostatizing and therefore warranted "appropriate judicial action". [18] [24]
On 18 March 1981 Franz's employer in Alabama submitted a letter of disassociation from Jehovah's Witnesses. A Watchtower article on 15 September 1981 announced a change of policy on disassociation, directing that those who formally withdrew from the religion were to be treated by Witnesses as a disfellowshipped wrongdoer. [25] Franz, who continued to socialize with his employer, was summoned to a judicial hearing on 25 November and disfellowshiped for disobeying the edict. [2] [26] [27] Determined to set the record straight, not only with respect to his having been disfellowshiped, but with respect to larger doctrinal issues, in 1982 he sent Heather and Gary Botting proofs of his upcoming book Crisis of Conscience so that they could chronicle the more widespread discord within the Watch Tower Society. [28] They wrote regarding Franz's contribution to their expose on the Witnesses that his recommendations "undoubtedly strengthened the veracity of the text; we were impressed by his insistence on both fairness and frankness with respect to representing the view of the Watch Tower Society." [29] Following his disfellowshiping, Franz published two books—Crisis of Conscience (1983) and In Search of Christian Freedom (1991)—presenting detailed accounts of his experiences as a Jehovah's Witness, a Governing Body member, and his experiences throughout various levels of the organization.
