Bonham (sp?) Texas and the CCJW

by James2300 6 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  James2300

  Hi all,

  Many of you may know about the famous incident in Bonham (sp.?) Texas in the 1980s. Here's a brief overview for the rest of you: A body of elders turned "apostate" in this town. The society wanted to get rid of them, but the body held title to the Kingdom Hall. A lawsuit emerged as well as some more underhanded tactics by the society. The Society set up surveillance on brothers in that area. A friend of mine who was there at the time told me that the name that the elder body decided to use was the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. Of course, about two years ago the society adopted that name for one of the new corporations--the one under the Service Committee. I'm curious if there is any link. Does anyone have any info that might shed some light on this?

  Thanks,

  James
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  Nathan Natas

  Hi James,

  I'm curious about what the nature of the alledged "apostasy" was. Do you have any information about that?
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  Shutterbug

  James & Nathan,

  Click on "search" then type in Bonham in the approiate box. There are several threads here that should be of some help. Bug
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  Utopian_Raindrops

  This is so odd I came across your thread.

  There is a sister who still speaks with me and she lived in that area at that time.

  She claimed to me that the members of "The Christian Congregation Of Jehovah's Witnesses" had been making it hard on the real JWs.

  She said that they would go door to door and treat the house holders realy rude and that when they'd go on service the house holders would be mad because JWs had just been there.

  I told her that maybe it was because they didn't have the training in the preaching work JWs do.

  Show's ya what I knew!! I guess she didn't seem to know they were Apostate JWs. Hmmmm

  I think I will have another talk with her, but I don't think she knows more then what she told me.

  Now I so want to know all the facts!!!

  I hate that

  Agape,

  Utopian_Raindrops
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  Pork Chop

  The whole Bonham deal was because one man, the PO, wanted to run everything, period. Didn't want any direction from Bethel or anyone else. He had enough drag to get most of the body of elders to go along with him. It was an ego trip, pure and simple, nothing doctrinal about it.
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  seccon1

  I am new to this forum and don't want to rain on your facts but when I was studying 24 years ago we used a yellow book, God's Kingdom of 1000 years and it said that the society owned the name Jehovah's Christian Witness back then. Its been a while and my facts are from memory (and I am getting old) but I think they had clear title to the name.

  Michael
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  AlanF

  I was told at least 10 years ago that there was some sort of doctrinal thing going on. Seems a number of dubs learned about the Society's dishonesty with respect to using the "spirit-channeled" bible translation by Johannes Greber. The Society claimed in print that once they were informed about Greber's "demonic" associations in the 1950s, they quit using his bible translation. However, they actually continued to use it at least 20 years longer. I was told that at least half the local dubs got pissed and seceded from the WTS, which led to the dispute. The man who told me this was a collector of WTS literature and had driven down to Bonham to get hold of the entire stock of WTS literature left over after the congregation was disbanded.

  Pork Chop, your information on this fits reasonably well with the above information. How did you come by it?

  AlanF