by John Aquila 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I only heard a little about him from active JW. He was cast as an evil apostate and was told to avoid his book. I woke up in my early teens, actually on the day I was baptized. I'm thankful I only wasted my childhood in the cult. Well not really wasted as it wasn't a totally bad experience. My parents weren't uber JWs.
I learned about Ray Franz many years after I left and found his book to be more of an assurance I made the right decision. It confirmed what I deduced about the organization.
I was recommended COC on this site just a couple of months ago. It did a great deal to unravel my faith in the GB, it's clear from the book that they weren't making decisions based on Holy Spirit and were dangerously intrusive into people's lives. I also had no idea about the Malawi/Mexico hypocrisy which was horrifying.
i wish someone new would do the same as Ray, to have an up to date perspective, a higher up in bethel or GB, especially would love to know more about the financial aspects.
I guess Ray or no Ray, the evidence that the WT is a scam is just to crystal clear for those that have a strong sense of justice and compassion. His books seem to just confirm what you already knew.
It was the respectful tone on which Ray Franz wrote about the Watchtower Society and his former GB colleagues in "Crisis of Conscience" that lend credibility to his message and kept me calm while I was reading all that damning information. When I read the first page it felt like I was walking barefoot on a path of broken glass. I felt so scared. Every minute I felt I was on the brink of mentally shutting down and never look at it again, but that quiet, respectful tone had the ring of truth about it. I remember sitting in my car, reading it on my iPad and finally saying to myself : "No, God and the Holy Spirit can't be behind this organization. This is just like any other human business venture. It's all the work of men. Bastards! You're nothing but lying bastards!"
When you realize that, then the chains fall and you are fee to investigate further, because that's the moment when you feel that whatever they say or write has NO AUTHORITY over you, because it's not endorsed or directed by GOD. (This, in a time where I still believed in the Christian God). Then you are free to go on and investigate freely what you want to know.
In retrospect, I think "Crisis Of Conscience" had the tremendous power to, through a simple autobiography, break the thickest mental bond that the WTS keeps a Witness captive with - that they represent God and thus to disobey them is to disobey Jehovah God and Christ and you are therefore jeopardizing your prospects of an eternal life. I owe Ray Franz a great deal - even if I didn't bother to read his second book, "In Search of Christian Freedom", because by then it was too late for me to even believe in Christianity, in whatever flavor.
Eden
I had already met with the elders and discussed my views, stopped field service and meeting attendance before i read Ray Franz books.
I enjoyed In Search Of Christian Freedom the most.
EdenOne
What you have said about the "calm approach" of Ray Franz is important. Had I read the book and found a frenzy of statements and overt anger, I would have been suspicious at the time. I was so afraid the whole time I was reading his book. Afraid of being caught out, paranoid of it somehow showing on my face.........all that cultish feeling that sweeps through a person when they feel they are going against the ultimate authority on god.
I had loaned it from my local library and recall feeling scared that the librarian was a JW and I would be found. So stretched were my nerves at the time. As I read his quiet refutations of doctrine and man made rules, I began to calm down and re read passages that I had read while I was panicking ( it's hard to take it in when you are in a state of fear) I found his concise accounts, substantiated with documents and such, were a proof that I truly needed at the time.
Yes, I do agree with you, it was a well thought out biography, expose, and generally well put explanation of how things were and are.
John Aquilla.
It certainly sound like it doesn't it? And yet I know of equally bad congregations according to some who have moved away for personal reasons. I think that it was just me "seeing" things for what they were. People who were in the Inner sanctum of the congregations would have not seen things with clarity, for they were busy being assholes to other people. That line of reasoning alone, could be a great cause for stumbling, to anyone with a critical mind and a beating heart.
I was lucky in a way, for I had not accepted baptism as yet and was treated with a degree of suspicion after the initial love bombing. You see, I just did not conform in so many little ways.
