Stroup's "The Jehovah's Witnesses."

by em1913 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  em1913

  A book that doesn't get a lot of talk these days is Herbert H. Stroup's 1945 study "The Jehovah's Witnesses." Which is too bad, because in the field of JW studies it pretty much stands on its own as a serious, scholarly look at the Rutherford era of the movement -- one written with no theological or doctrinal axes to grind, but rather with the impartial eye of a professional sociologist.

  Stroup received no cooperation whatever from Brooklyn in writing this book, but he spent a great deal of time among rank-and-file Witnesses of the late 1930s and early 1940s, attending their meetings, joining them in field service, and eating at their homes, and what emerges is a picture of an overwhelmingly working-class movement which overlapped in its hopes and ultimate goals the ambitions of other radical social movements of the 1930s. The Witnesses were not marching in labor parades or participating in sit-down strikes or engaging in other forms of street-level radicalism, but Stroup finds that, in their individual views on the social and economic structures of the time, they were largely in harmony with those who were, even in spite of their religion's supposed disavowal of politics, and he sees them as much as a political movement in that sense as a religious one. There's a reason why reading "Consolation" from the late 1930s often feels like reading a radical political magazine more than any kind of a religious one
  

  This is a perspective few other authors have addressed in their studies of the Witnesses -- especially authors whose purpose in writing is largely polemical rather than sociological. It also helps to put into perspective exactly what happened to the movement during the Knorr era -- it wasn't just a shift in surface style or in teaching methods, it was an overt and very specific political shift, from the radicalism of the Rutherford era to an extremely bourgeois conservatism that went to great lengths to embrace aspects of the socio-politcal system that it claimed to oppose. Reading Stroup's depiction of the pre-1945 movement really draws that fact into sharp focus, and it makes understanding what happened to the Society in later years that much more obvious.

  This is a book well worth reading, and I hope that those who haven't will seek it out. It's a fascinating text.
  
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  vienne

  Stroup, a Presbyterian clergyman, wrote a polemic in the guise of a sociological study. He manufactured quotations and made insupportable claims. Stroup was never reliable. Specific claims he made that are false include, but are not limited to, his assertion that Russell claimed to be the last-days 'time clock' appointed as the revealer of last days truth. That's a misrepresentation of a 1910 Overland Monthly article by Russell. He misidentified M. F. Russell. He claimed things about Russell's followers footnoting it to a booklet by Burridge. A check of the original shows the citation is false. He made claims about Watchtower convention attendants and the infamous New Jersey speech by Rutherford that are demonstrably false. I've just scratched the surface with this.

  Dr. Schulz, the series editor for our books, examines Stroup and some others in his introductory essay to Separate Identity volume 2. [Yet to be published but nearly finished.]
  

  Volume 1 is available from lulu.com and Amazon.com.

  Our history blog is here: https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/
  
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  em1913

  Whatever his shortcomings on fine points of Witness history, I think you'll find that his sociological conclusions are quite sound in the context of 1930s left-wing social movements. They certainly jibe with the old-time Witnesses I knew during my own days in the movement, who were very much a two-fisted blue-collar crowd. I lived in Maine, where memories of the sacking of the Kennebunkport hall were still very vivid during my time in the movement, and the working-class alignment of many of these old-timers survived the Knorr-era attempts at eradicating that consciousness. I also find very little polemicism in Stroup when compared to others who wrote about the Witnesses in that era, especially "journalists" like Stanley HIgh and others who wrote about the movement for the popular magazines of the period. If anything I found Stroup a bit on the sympathetic side compared to the general trend of public thinking at the time.
  

  I've read Separate Identity volume 1, by the way, as well as your blog, and found it quite fascinating. Nice job.
  
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  vienne

  On what basis are you defining the Watchtower movement of the 1930s as 'left wing.' I would have described it as tending to the right. Please elaborate.

  ... And thanks for the kind words about our book and blog.
  
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  em1913

  I get that from a close reading of Rutherford's own pronouncements in his various major speeches of the time, as well as the overall thrust of the content in "Consolation" between 1937 and 1941. The constant attacks on "big business, the clergy, and politics" heard at the time would have been very familiar and would have appealed very much to the same audiences who were reading pamphlets and books by such figures as Earl Browder, John Spivak, and George Seldes, all of whom had strong credentials on the left. Both Spivak and Seldes wrote extensively on the Catholic church's role in right-wing/fascist movements in the US during the middle and late 1930s, and both were quoted with approval in Consolation at various times.
  

  That's not to say that the JWs followed the CPUSA line, or anything that specific -- although you'll find some interesting positive mentions of the Soviet Union showing up in Consolation from time to time, even as the Judge was careful to condemn "Communism and Naziism" in the same breath -- but I think, from my own readings of Communist and Socialist publications of the period that a "Daily Worker" reader could easily have tuned in on the broadcast of, say, "Fascism or Freedom" and would have nodded in agreement at frequent points thru the speech. And although there's a strong thread of isolationist thought in Consolation once the war broke out in Europe, it's important to note that the CP line in 1940-41 also opposed US involvement in the war -- and was thus as much a "leftist" position as "rightist" one.
  

  Now, there were certainly points of convergence between true right-wing movements like that of Father Coughlin (his vision of "Social Justice" was essentially constructed on the Fascist-corporate state model) and some of the things that came out of the Judge's mouth, especially in his condemnations of FDR -- which I think stemmed more from his unsatisfactory dealings with the Roosevelt appointees on the FRC/FCC in 1934-35 than any thing else -- but the substance of Rutherford's message strikes me as rather militantly and explicitly anti-capitalist at its core, and that tracks quite closely with the main thrust of 1930s left-radical thought boiling around the working-class activists of Brooklyn and Detroit. For that matter, the CP itself was strongly anti-FDR up until the emergence of the Popular Front period in 1936.
  

  Incidentally, I had no idea until recently that H. H. Stroup lived until 2011 -- and he lived his last years not far from me. I'd have enjoyed a conversation with him. (And while he was raised a Presbyterian, he became, pastored, and died a Congregationalist, a denomination which we New Englanders sometimes call "dishwater Christians.")
  
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  vienne

  I would have like to have talked to him too.

  Interesting observations. I don't think that Rutherford got his anti-Big Business viewpoint from Socialist writing. He worked for the W. J. Bryan campaign and was connect to that wing of the Democrat party. The Democrat party of that era was not as far left-wing as it is today. And this was the era of strong anti-trust action. An out of control drug industry was regulated. This was Rutherford's background, and I believe it is a large factor in the development of his beliefs.

  In the Russell era some adherents expressed interest in "Christian Socialism" and one adherent ran on various socialist tickets. Some [John Bartlet Adamson for example. He left the fellowship in the 1890s] found Henry George's economic theories somewhat attractive. So there was a center-left tendency among some believers. Russell discouraged this, saying that a believer's focus should be on evangelism and moral adherence.

  Under-explored is Russell's Methodist background. Most don't know that even exists. But many of his social views derive from a conservative Methodist connection, rather than his Calvinist background. Rutherford was a Baptist prior to his association. American Baptists in the post Civil War era tended to be Calvinist in basic doctrine, conservative, farmer-rights oriented, often supporting movements such as the Grange. They saw Big Business [Meat packers, railroads, and wholesalers] as abusing farmers. Remember that America was not industrialized then in any way near to what later years brought about. I think Rutherford's attitudes developed out of this background.

  Also, Rutherford opposed prohibition and the League of Nations. He did so on Biblical grounds, or what he thought were Biblical grounds. But as social attitudes, these were shared by the American right.

  I'd love to read your additional thoughts. This is fun.
  
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  vienne

  Presbyterians and Congregationalists had and still have identical doctrine, differing only in methods of church governance. They had union congregations, where a pastor form either church could officiate. In the little town where I grew up one still existed. I do not know how wide spread the practice is today.
  
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  em1913

  Being a pinko myself, I've got kind of a vested interest in 1930s radical politics, I think there's a lot we can learn from the period that got erased from the received-history of the post-McCarthy era.

  I was raised a Methodist myself, but am a product of the "Social Creed" Methodism that came out of the Progressive Era -- if you go back and look at old editions of the Book of Discipline, you'll see that that the Social Creed a hundred years ago was far more lefty-radical than it is today, with specific clauses endorsing the right of labor to organize, wage-hour laws, the abolition of child labor, and all such as that. Quite a few thirties lefties came out of that era -- Genora Johnson, the "Joan of Arc of Labor," who helped mastermind the Flint sit-down strikes of 1936, was once a Methodist Sunday School teacher. So there was a strong tinge of radicalism in Methodism by the early 20th Century, which was very much at odds with the older, more rural sort of Methodism.

  Rutherford's personal political trajectory fascinates me. He seems pretty obviously a product of late 19th Century populism, which although it had nativist aspects that in today's context would be considered right-wing, the whole Farmer-Labor movement echoed quite solidly down thru Fighting Bob LaFollete in the 1910s to the 1930s in the form of Floyd B. Olson, the Farmers' Holiday Association, and finally the CPUSA-led movement for a new "Farmer Labor Party" in 1936-37. If you approached the typical Witness of that era and handed them some CP pamphlets with the covers torn off, I think that they'd most likely approve of more than they'd disagree with. If anything, Earl Browder -- who was also raised a Midwestern farm boy -- was far more moderate in at least the presentation of his views than the Judge ever was.
  

  As far as Russell is concerned, from my own political perspective I found a lot that was interesting in "The Battle of Armageddon." I read it a long time ago, so I can't quote you specific passages, but I remember being left with an overall impression that he wasn't unsympathetic to the basic concept of socialism.
  
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  vienne

  In his own way Russell was a social- justice warrior. But he approached that from his theology rather than current political thinking. Thanks for the conversation. It's fun to have an exchange with someone who knows their subject. In volume 2 we will have a chapter on Russellites and the era in which they lived based on comments found in Zion's Watch Tower. It's partially written. Researching for it has taken me off into areas normally outside my interest and expertise. I've enjoyed every minute of it.

  You may want to read Raushenbush's Christianity and the Social Crisis [1913] . You can download the entire text from books.google.com
  
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  em1913

  Excellent, I'll be looking forward to that chapter.

  It's interesting to look at the difference in tone between letters featured in the Tower during Russell's time, and the tone of correspondence presented in the Rutherford era. The Bible Students seemed to have a strong element of "nice middle-class people," whereas the tone of the letters under Rutherford takes on a much more pugnacious, working-class quality. Certainly some of this has to do with the elimination of "character development" under Rutherford, but I suspect that Rutherford's ascendency in general pushed out nearly all these "nice middle class people" in favor of the rough-and-ready working-class folk who dominated the movement by the time of Stroup's study.

  There's an excellent picture article in Life magazine around the time of the 1940 Detroit convention where you get a good clear look at the people in the crowd - and many look to be people who very obviously work in tough, blue-collar jobs, and who have the accompanying tough blue-collar attitude. I think that's the kind of people Rutherford wanted in his movement -- he didn't think much of the refined Olin Moyle type, who he dismissed as "sissies." And in the 1930s, most -- not all certainly, but if the 1936 and 1940 elections were any indication, most Americans in that social class -- tended to lean leftward politically.