Rutherford, Knorr or Franz - Who has the most influence on doctrine & process now?

by konceptual99 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Marvin Shilmer

  Here's a good question: Which of Franz' teachings are still 'doctrine'

  You can lay Watchtower's historical and contemporary blood taboo squarely at the feet of Fred Franz. He birthed it. No one since has had the know-how or courage to completely get rid of it. They've only tinkered with it to make it a little less damning. But we still have literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, who've suffered premature death as a result, and this does not even speak to the question of morbidity.
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  Village Idiot

  Russell was the Karl Marx of the organization. Rutherford was the one who militarized them. Knorr was more of a bureaucrat. Franz was the brains.
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  FayeDunaway

  I think Rutherford still has the strongest influence. Wasn't it he who initiated the huge insecurity in the org, the disfellowshipping practice? Also most of the vitriol seems to have started with him. Russel was just a nut who thought the world was ending. Rutherford had serious sociopathic ISSUES that still resound today.
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  Vidiot

  konceptual99 - "Whose reign, doctrinal changes and processes has the most ongoing legacy now?"

  I'd say it's a toss-up between Rutherford and Franz.

  Rutherford set the Org on its contrarian and authoritarian path, but Franz scripted WT canon which hasn't really been tweaked much.

  Personally, I think Russell, Rutherford, Knorr and Franz would all be gobsmacked (for different reasons) at what the Org has morphed into these days.
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  Doug Mason

  My guess is Rutherford. He utterly changed Russell's ideas in the areas of "doctrine" and "organization". None of the others who followed introduced the massive turnaround that he achieved.
  

  Imagine what it would be like if someone were to take the present "teachings" and "organization" and then return these to those which existed under Russell. That would give an idea of the enormity of what Rutherford did.

  Even today, the WTS worships Rutherford's 1919 experience as being "the moment" when Jesus selected them out of all people on earth. It worships Rutherford's inventions, such as: the name "Jehovah's witnesses", the identification of "the Great Crowd", and the "theocratic" arrangement. Who else has made such sweeping changes? Rutherford dropped Russell's key focus on the Return of the Jews to Palestine. Russell was lauded as the most influential Christian Zionist. It was a key plank in his Divine Plan.
  

  Even the "no-blood" doctrine, although opening up in 1945 under Franz, had its genesis in the quackery that existed in the 1930s under Rutherford's watch.

  That's my opinion. Known to be wrong before,

  Doug
  
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  konceptual99

  Interesting viewpoints. Don't forget Knorr was president from '42 to '77 when much of the doctrine and prohibitions were honed to what it was until recently. Was Franz doing most of the writing during that time - being the puppeteer? It was interesting that the generation change in the 90s happened after Franz's death suggesting that he supported a more short term view of when the end would come.
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  OnTheWayOut

  Rutherford turned Watchtower from a fringe belief to a serious business and used Fred Franz' strange writings, then Knorr fine-tuned the idea of "publishers" and was all about efficiency while he was using Fred Franz' strange writings. Fred Franz is virtually single-handedly responsible for keeping the "generation of 1914" alive for so long and including 1975 and "the 20th-Century." While there's nothing spectacular about Fred's presidency itself, it seems he was rewarded for his long years as the oracle with that title, and others saw the need to make a "Governing Body" and take away the all-encompassing power of the single leader. Also, Fred being there, further reward for his long years got Ray Franz onto the GB.

  Ray is responsible for revealing more things about the GB than anyone else, responsible for more people waking up, and his situation is more of a reason why GB 1.0 turned further toward harshness and shunning.

  Such a combination gets us to today's GB 2.0. So it's gotta be Fred who is most responsible for "process" now. And while his take on doctrines is pretty much dead now, GB 2.0 is having to deal with long-held Freddy writings in morphing WTS into something else. So Fred is still most responsible for doctrine.