Bill Bowen's Comments on Ray Franz

by silentlambs 181 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  UnDisfellowshipped

  Princess said:
  

  A bit off the topic Undisfellowshipped but I always wondered why he chose Silentlambs which is so close to "The Silence of the Lamb". Of course I got the Silent lamb connection from the bible but it seemed a poor choice considering the movie title that so closely matches it.

  I think the Movies may have had something to with the "silentlambs" title also.

  kenpodragon said:
  

  Undisfellowshiped

  Wow, talk about coming from out in left field with something off topic.

  I thought I would try to break up all the Ray vs. Bill stuff for a few minutes

  Did you know I am Pagan, Shaman to be exact and do not see the Bible as an authority? (Sorry if that offends Christians) Just something for future reference. I do not even read comments that quote scripture, as I have read the Bible enough to know what it says without reminders. Sorry about that.

  I think I have read before on this Board where you said you were a Pagan. I respect your beliefs and your freedom of religion.

  I was actually posting those Scriptures for the benefit of everyone, to show what the Bible says about abused people and defenseless lambs.

  Read ALL of my comments. They are very thought out and posses "my words" and not the Bibles.

  That's good. I have read several of your Threads and Posts, and I have enjoyed several of them. Also, several of my Posts and Threads contain "my words" and "my thoughts".

  I posted the Scriptures for people who may not have seen them before.

  As a Christian and servant of Christ my Lord, I recognize the Bible as God's Inspired Word which contains the information that leads to Salvation.

  I know people often pull my thoughts first, and I do not know why. Perhaps I just have the ability to piss people off. Who knows.

  You haven't pissed me off.

  Getting late here .... bedtime. (Enjoy the debate ... it is a freedom I cherish!!!!!)

  I agree, I love having the Freedom to Disagree, which was not allowed inside the Watchtower.

  PS : He still choose the title!!!!! Unless we are saying God inspired him to write it. LOL In that case, I really do have a problem.

  I agree, Bill chose the Title "silentlambs". But no Victim is forced into calling themselves that if they don't want to. Look at the "Silent Witnesses" in Australia.

  No, I didn't say that God was "inspiring" Bill Bowen, however, I am very sure that God is helping the silentlambs to expose the Watchtower and help the Children.

  PSS : I did not find your post upsetting. "It's all good!!!!!!!!!!!

  Thank You and Good Night!

  Edited by - UnDisfellowshipped on 28 October 2002 3:0:8
• 

  UnDisfellowshipped

  To Bill Bowen,

  I just want to say, I support Abuse Victims 100%.

  I thank you (and all of the advocates and victims and others) for all of your extremely hard work to try and protect children from being molested, raped, and abused.

  That is what is most important.

  I look forward to your new Forum and Website.

  I do not believe that you have some "Hidden Secret Agenda", nor do I believe that you are trying to be the Leader of your own Cult full of Lackeys and Yes-Men, as some people have suggested.

  I can see now why you made your original statements about Ray Franz.

  I think you explained your position very well.

  I wish all of the Elders would take a stand like you have.
• 

  Derrick

  Bill, you have shown your extraordinary concern for all sides with this thorough explanation. Although you owed an explanation to nobody, your going the extra mile to help clarify any misunderstandings is part of your strong character which I admire.

  Maintain your faith and resolve to do what is right. These good qualities will insulate you from the venom of those armchair critics who are all bark and no bite, all mouth and no action, and choking our bandwidth with their self-righteous drivel. Their fat egos feed on an audience, and starve like a couch potato standing in front of an empty refridgerator if ignored.

  Keep up the fine work.

  Derrick

  Edited by - Derrick on 28 October 2002 3:31:6
• 

  Simon

  Just a thought / possible explanation:

  Didn't silentlambs accuse Ted Jarasc of being a child molester at the recent silentlambs march? If this is true then isn't it feasible that he would try and prevent any policies etc ... that could affect him personally?

  Just a thought (thinking out loud)
• 

  UnDisfellowshipped

  Hi Simon!

  I haven't got to comment on your Posts very much yet.

  First, I want to say Thank You again for this Website which allows the Freedom to Disagree.

  You said:
  

  Didn't silentlambs accuse Ted Jarasc of being a child molester at the recent silentlambs march?

  Yes, one of the silentlambs said Jaracz had molested her years ago.

  If this is true then isn't it feasible that he would try and prevent any policies etc ... that could affect him personally?

  Definitely.

  Perhaps, then, the Watchtower can be Reformed once Jaracz and his Pedophile-Protecting Buddies are forced out of the Watchtower.
• 

  Focus

  I have left my views at:

  * the link found by clicking here

  Those with rosy-tinted Franzian spectacles are advised not to read what I have to say there, unless they wish to be upset.

  More provocation of the sort found contained in this thread will induce me to publish my deconstructions of "Crisis of Conscience" and "In Search of Christian Freedom", which expose Ray's (admittedly mild) apologia for the Watchtower - and his role therein.

  MARK ANTONY:
  Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!
  I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
  The evil that men do lives after them,
  The good is oft interred with their bones;
  So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
  Hath told you Caesar was ambitious;
  If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
  And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
  Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest-
  For Brutus is an honorable man;
  So are they all, all honorable men-
  Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
  He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
  But Brutus says he was ambitious,
  And Brutus is an honorable man.
  He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
  Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
  Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
  When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
  Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
  Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
  And Brutus is an honorable man.
  You all did see that on the Lupercal
  I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
  Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
  Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
  And sure he is an honorable man.
  I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
  But here I am to speak what I do know.
  You all did love him once, not without cause;
  What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
  O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
  And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
  My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
  And I must pause till it come back to me.

  So, who is Caesar in this drama, who is Brutus, and who Antony? Read my views at the link above, and work it out for yourself.

  ALWAYS work it out for yourself.

  --
  Focus
  (Even less mild than Kent Steinhaug Class)

  Edited by - Focus on 28 October 2002 7:5:11
• 

  JEMIMAH

  I have had so many emails over the last week or so from fellow posters wondering why I haven't

  "put the boot into Bill" in revenge for the hurtful things he has said about me.

  One good reason I really admire Bill and his wife for all of the Hard work they have put into a good cause of protecting the silent lambs.

  Yes Bill calls a spade a spade and so on It is this determination that has got this issue so well publicised.

  I do feel that he has made mistakes in some of his posts. Hell who hasn't.

  I wish Bill all the best for the future and hope his site continues to be the success it has become

  Sincere agape to a good man

  Cheers Jem
• 

  IslandWoman

  silentlambs,

  To others on the board what has happened reminds me of emails I get every week from df or inactive/active JWs. They are insulted and angry, they say WT policy is fine and how dare I attack Gods organization. Then the email depreciates into outright threats against me personally or basically wanting to see the look in my eyes when Jehovah strikes me dead at Armageddon. How do I respond? To argue is pointless as they will never see the reality until someday they learn to overcome cult mind control and blind thinking. So I just try to encourage them to educate themselves and perhaps someday they might understand this issue better. I wish them peace. This usually results in a further spray of venom and angry verbiage that I generally ignore. You see there is no logic, reasoning, or evidence that I could present that would in anyway change the viewpoint of a person who does not want to see a different perspective. No matter what proof is given it is always discounted and discredited to defend a mindset that will not change.

  This example is offered as a way to explain what I believe has happened and will continue to happen after this post is read by certain ones. As with JWs certain ones will defend Ray Franz to the last man standing in order to preserve his holiness.

  You have a small opinion of those here who might disagree not with your cause but your tactics. You compare us to those who are angry with you for attacking the JW Organization.

  You have committed a grave mistake! I did support you, what you refuse to accept is that I also disagree with your tactics! This is not acceptable to you. To disagree with you is to be wrong. I went down that little road already with the Watchtower. I no longer support you or you Org. I do however support those outside of your little Org. that are working for change in the Watchtower, change that will eliminate the two witness rule and other problems in the Org.

  Now I understand why AlanF and others bristled at starting an "organized" effort, an xJW org. as it were. You have provided the epitome of why such a thing is ill advised.

  IW
• 

  VeniceIT

  OMG I can't belve everyone here!!! First off SO WHAT IF BILL or ANYONE wants to see WTS Cruble!!! who in their right mind would want it to continue so it can keep hurting, repressing and abusing people? Silentlambs the org., is not about destryong wts but changing the policy. What Bills personal intentions or anyone elses for that matter are simply that personal. I agree Bill should not have used the name Silentlambs to post under to post his own personal comments, but he did and has seen the folley of that and wishes he had not done so. Some are claiming that people are ready to just follow/worship Bill and except anything he says, and they're the exact same people who did just that with Ray and his post. Bill NEVER tried to get Ray to join SL he simply wanted him to NOT put a negative spin on it to the media, which he did when interviewed and the reporters decided not to use his comments due to overwelming evidance otherwise. Ray claims to have had no knowledge of this and I for one can not see how that this is possible. Perhaps he didn't want to know about it and shielded himself from it, but ignorance of a problem is as failable as ignoring it if your in a high postion of authority and are influencing other peoples lives. Ray was on the GB, he was in the service department, he'd served in the circuit and district work. His Uncle was Fred Franz who was the most influently man in the org in his day. Ray was not just a run of the mill man in the org or at Bethel he was in a VERY high postion and it was his responsibilty to know what was going on!!! When we vistited with Ray 2 years ago, we asked him about this problem and he denied it was a problem. We also asked him about the problem or issue of homosexuality at Bethel and he claimed to have no knowledge of that either. WE were shocked and asked about Chitty and Greenleas and said noo he was 'not aware' of there being a problem at all, and he did not want to discuss it further. Prior to that we'd visted with 2 very close friends of Ray's that he'd known since the 70's and is still close to. They each told us detailed stories of some of the problems they'd faced personally or heard about from reliable sources. As a JW I knew there was a prob with that, when a friend of mine went back to Bethel we joked about sending him a 'soap on a rope' so he wouldn't have any problems in the showers. If you disagree this is or ever was a problem at Bethel all you need to do is take one look at the current Bethel Application and you'll change your mind. I was GREATLY disturbed by Ray's attitude to this. His good friend from the writing dept., also told us that the WTS changed whether Sodom and Gommorrah would be resurected depending on the level of homosexual problems they were having at Bethel. The wanted God to be loveing on that point and would say YES they'll be resurected, but when there was a real flare up at Bethel then they'd change that and say NO!!! (btw it was changed 9 times) Bill said several things that he should not have said, due to their inflamitory nature, not because they were lies. I see a lot of truth in what Bill has written here and was distrubed by several of Ray's comments in his post. I was not available to be online when these matters where 'hot' so that is the only reason I did not comment on my concerns. I will be glad to do that and futher defend my postion. I do have one question for you to ask yourselves. IF you were raped by a JW or had a child that was molested by a JW TODAY!!! Say this happend today and you had a choice between calling Ray or Bill, who would you call to help you???? I leave you with that. Ven
• 

  deddaisy

  Bill,

  From the threads regarding this disagreement between yourself and Mr. Franz, one got the impression that because Mr. Franz simply chose not to join you in a media campaign, you retaliated by attacking him on a public forum. From your post, it appears that this initial conversation with Mr. Franz was not even a recent one, and apparently was not even a request to support SilentLambs, but a request to Mr. Franz that he not minimize an issue that, if not in the past, a serious issue that has come forward. Perhaps Mr. Franz did not want to involve his time and effort at this point in his life in researching the data on what you based your beliefs on regarding this issue. That is certainly understandable, but I agree, it would be frustrating to have such a serious issue minimized to a reporter, by a well known individual in the Witness community. (As for the evidence "not being there to support the belief that this problem is any worse in the JW community than in the general public." Well, this is irrelevant in itself, and seems to be nothing more than a red herring, in that the ones who hold this opinion fail to mention that the evidence also does not support that this problem is not greater in the JW community as opposed to the general community. Because, in fact, the evidence they speak of is non-existent.) If what you say is what transpired, it would appear that if your intent was to retaliate, it only makes sense that you would've done so before now.

  I generally read all the pages before posting, but the first couple pages of this thread appear to be the same as many of the other threads, which are growing redundant at this time.

  So many posters were demanding an apology from you to Mr. Franz, which you did here, and some posters are now demanding that you didn't address the correct issues in your apology.

  Other posters are now complaining that you are, somehow, acting inappropriately by giving victims their own forum, when in older threads there were comments from posters complaining that victims of molestation shouldn't be posting on a general topic forum, but needed a more suitable forum, one not for debate, but for connecting with other victims. Some never stop to think that possibly many victims are at a stage in which they are only comfortable posting on a forum with other victims, and if no such forum exists, they have no place to post.

  After posters were complaining that you act as if you are too good to respond and apologize, you respond and apologize, and posters in this thread now respond that they thought this was over, and question you bringing the subject up!

  For days I've been reading here that noone is above reproach and questioning, but it truly appears to me that this depends on whom is doing the reproaching and whom is being questioned.

  That's why I didn't bother reading any further, too much, "let's find something, anything to bitch about."

  Day by day, I learn more to appreciate a saying of my father's, "A jackass is the first to respond to something he knows the least about."

  So Bill, thank you for involving your time and energy to giving both current victims and survivors of molestation a forum of their own, which they truly needed.

  And I caught this being said by some unknown (to me) lady. It reminded of the attitude that you do, and will have to continue, to have if you are to survive:

  "you don't need to be with me, just don't be against me. and if that doesn't work, well just get out my way."

  peace, christina

  Edited by - deddaisy on 28 October 2002 16:16:44