Rolf Furuli has broken with the GB

by careful 95 Replies latest members private

  • careful
    careful

    One of the major WTS defenders has broken with the Governing Body: Norwegian Rolf Furuli. He's published an E-book entitled My Beloved Religion—and the Governing Body. In it he claims JWs are still the only true religion but that the GB has gone bad. He proposes that the idea of a GB is not scriptural and ought to be disbanded. We all know how the 8 Warwick 'holy ones' will respond to that, and what's in store for Furuli judicially!

    He claims he sent the book to the GB months ago and that since he has not heard back, he's gone public with it.

    Of course, Furuli has been discussed at this forum many times before. To me he seems a bit crazy, defending things like 607, prophetic speculation, Freddy Franz's adoption of some oddball fundamentalists' view of Hebrew verb tenses, and so on. He claims all sorts of expertise in areas he knows little or nothing about. As an example of discussions about him at JWD, here's a particularly good one started by SBF from 5 years ago:

    https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5715695484534784/why-does-watchtower-leadership-slap-own-defenders-face?page=3

    If you want the book, it's 9 Euros/$10 US/8 Pounds Sterling and can be ordered at "awatu-publishers@sf-nett.no" It is password protected not just to DL but even to open up after you've left the book and come back to it.

    It has 6 chapters: The Religion of the Bible, The F&D Slave, The GB, The Extreme View on Higher Education, DFing Based on Human Commandments, and the GB's New View of the Bible. There's a sort of epilogue called My Beloved Religion, an appendix called The Theocratic Organization, and a Bibliography. Total pages is 336, no small book.

    I have only touched bits of it, but Furuli seems to think that the GB have become dictatorial (well, he's got one thing right!), the average JW sheep is abused, and, as usual, Furuli has all the answers to rectify the situation. He's such a humble guy!

  • careful
    careful

    After posting this, I saw the odd way the email address came out. Here it is again written phonetically with spaces between each element, so take the spaces out:

    awatu hyphen publishers AT sf hyphen nett DOT no

  • Phizzy
    Phizzy

    Thanks for Posting ! I was wondering about Furuli a little while ago, but at the time could find nothing new on him, to me he seemed ripe for waking up, apparently not ! at least, not fully.

    As you say he used to pontificate on things that were not his field of expertise, and if memory serves, was quoted on such by the org,who love to be able to quote a Scholar who seems to back them, despite there condemnation of Higher Education for the Sheeples.

    He was royally taken apart on here when he tried to say that Babylonian Tablets supported 607, by AnnOmally and others, at a time when he admitted he could not read such tablets for himself ! He said he was going to learn to read them, I doubt he ever did. How he can support 607 is a mystery, I must conclude he is Mind Controlled still, and intellectually dishonest.

  • Half banana
    Half banana

    I agree with you Phizzy and it can only be a good thing that although he once loved the JW org, he now recognises that the GB are off the rails and has duly informed them of his opinions. Good thinking Bob, the management might have a bone to pick with you!

    At best he makes a lot of noise, a loose cannon in fact! How could Robert Furuli risk his scholarly credibility and claim the 607 date for the fall of Jerusalem when everyone else in the history business knows it was 587/586 BCE?

    The explanation could be that the Oslo academic had blind hope in the Watchtower promises and a belief that the Bible must be right -- the reality is that these two things only leave you confused, as do Furuli's ideas!

  • Anders Andersen
    Anders Andersen

    Huh....while searching for the latest on Rolf I found this:

    and this: https://youtu.be/ALsEguiH9Fg (Ikea propaganda starring Rolf Furuli).

    I found this in a thread discussing My Book of Bible Stories appearing in the 202 IKEA catalog.
    Seems like some overzealous JW works at IKEA catalog department....and Rolf finding new means to be in the spotlight...

  • MeanMrMustard
    MeanMrMustard

    Interesting.

    But I have this sneaking suspicion that if he were invited to be a member of the GB, his views would suddenly change.

  • John Redwood
    John Redwood

    OP, can you post a few pages from the new Furuli book, for commentary purposes?

    You should be able to post a few clips of the cover, publisher page, and a few key comments without violating copyright.

    Based on your comments, the book is only available by emailing the publisher?

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    This is an interesting development! And thanks for reminding me of my thread from 5 years ago. I was a better writer back then. I can pretty much follow and agree with what I wrote.

    https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5715695484534784/why-does-watchtower-leadership-slap-own-defenders-face

    It is difficult to see how Rolf Furili can avoid being DFed in this situation. But who knows? There’s a first for everything. Is there an outside chance of some sort of inner Watchtower dialogue being opened here? Nah, probably not.

    The next question would be what does Rolf Furuli intend to do next, if he is thrown out of the organisation. I don’t know, but somehow I doubt that he has a regional power base in Norway so that a lot of Norwegian JWs would follow him. Over 100 JWs in Alberta are estimated to have followed James Penton out of the Watchtower in 1980. That doesn’t sound like very many, but it’s quite a lot for an organisation as regimented as JWs.

    So if the GB ignore him, and Norwegians don’t follow him, then I don’t see it leading anywhere much. He doesn’t have an Internet following either, as far as I can tell. His books have always been an obscure interest to a small minority of JWs. He may gain a few exJW readers with his new book in the short term, but he’ll certainly lose most of his JW readers.

    It reminds me a bit of a comment James White (or some other Evangelcial) made after Greg Stafford left JWs. He used to debate Greg Stafford on JW doctrines, especially the Trinity, online and in person. After Greg Stafford left JWs he wanted to debate James White again, but James White wasn’t interested. Why would he want to debate Greg Stafford now, he said, that Greg Stafford was no longer a JW and represented no one and nothing except his own particular views on theological topics.

    It’s interesting that Furuli picks up on the financial money grab of the GB in recent years. I think this has shaken a lot of longtime Watchtower loyalists. He also mentions a particular situation in Norway where long term JW workers were sometimes allowed to occupy apartments adjoined to KHs on favourable terms, but that when Wtchtower took ownership of the KHs they evicted these long term servants on short notice. That’s a story it would be interesting to investigate further.

  • careful
    careful

    OK, John Redwood. The cover, some TOC pages, and the first 3 pages of chapter 5. I don't know if i can put them all in one post due to memory issues at this forum, so I will split them up.

    Cover:


  • careful
    careful

    OK, John Redwood. The cover, some TOC pages, and the first 3 pages of chapter 5. I don't know if i can put them all in one post due to memory issues at this forum, so I will split them up.

    Cover:


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