Posts by slimboyfat

28

Few JW leader have children

by slimboyfat in

it’s been discussed before that few jw leaders, past and present, have had children.

this is in contrast with other groups, such as the mormons, whose leaders have had a lot of children.

i wonder if this has impacted jw growth.

slimboyfat

A good chance to test ChatGPT !

I asked

Can you give me a list of Jehovah’s Witness leaders, including presidents of the Watch Tower Society, and Governing Body members, and list the number of children each had

And this was the response:

Here is a list of key leaders of Jehovah’s Witnesses, focusing on:

Presidents of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, the main legal entity used by Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Prominent members of the Governing Body, especially those who played notable roles historically or are currently active.
Where known, number of children is listed — but note that many Watch Tower officials, especially since the mid-20th century, have remained unmarried and childless due to their belief that full-time service is a higher calling, particularly given the belief in the imminence of Armageddon.

📘 Watch Tower Society Presidents

Name	Term	Children
Charles Taze Russell	1881–1916	0
Joseph Franklin Rutherford	1917–1942	1 (a son, Malcolm Cammerer, before marriage)
Nathan Homer Knorr	1942–1977	0
Frederick William Franz	1977–1992	0
Milton George Henschel	1992–2000	0
Don Alden Adams	2000–2016	Unknown (likely 0; no record of a spouse or children)
Robert Ciranko	2016–present	Unknown (very little public personal information)

👥 Prominent Governing Body Members

(Only a few have publicly known information regarding children. Most remained unmarried.)

Name	Lifespan (if applicable)	Children
Raymond Franz (left in 1980)	1922–2010	0 (married, no children)
Fred Franz	1893–1992	0
Milton Henschel	1920–2003	0
Albert D. Schroeder	1911–2006	0
George D. Gangas	1896–1994	0
Lyman A. Swingle	1910–2001	0
William Lloyd Barry	1916–1999	0
Samuel F. Herd	1935–	Unknown (was married before full-time service)
Gerrit Lösch	1941–	0 (married, no children)
Stephen Lett	1949–	0 (married, no children)
David Splane	1944–	0 (married, no children)
Anthony Morris III (recently removed)	~1950s–	2 sons
Kenneth Cook	–	Unknown
Mark Sanderson	1965–	0 (never married)
Geoffrey Jackson	1955–	Unknown (believed to be married; children unknown)

⚠️ Notes:

The trend since Knorr has been toward celibacy or childlessness among top leaders, partly due to the increasing emphasis on "not marrying in this system of things" and the nearness of the end.
Early leaders like Rutherford had children before they were involved with the Witness movement (he became active in the 1890s but fathered his son earlier).
Anthony Morris III is one of the few modern Governing Body members known to have children — both sons were reportedly disfellowshipped, which was a topic of public interest.

Would you like this list in a downloadable format (PDF or spreadsheet)?

2/2

28

Few JW leader have children

by slimboyfat in

it’s been discussed before that few jw leaders, past and present, have had children.

this is in contrast with other groups, such as the mormons, whose leaders have had a lot of children.

i wonder if this has impacted jw growth.

slimboyfat

Compare and contrast with Mormon leaders!

(Including children who died in childhood)

Joseph Smith (d. 1944) - 9 with his wife, perhaps dozens with other secret wives

Brigham Young (d. 1877) - 57 with 56 wives

John Taylor (d. 1887) - 34 with 8 wives

Wilford Woodruff (d. 1898) - 34 with 9 wives

Lorenzo Snow (d. 1901) - 42 with 9 wives

Joseph F. Smith (d. 1918) - 48 (43 biological, 5 adopted) with 6 wives

Heber Grant (d. 1945) - 12 with 3 wives

George Albert Smith (d. 1951) - 3 with 1 wife

David O. McKay (d. 1970) - 7 with 1 wife

Joseph Fielding Smith (d. 1972) - 11, had 3 wives (consecutive)

Harold B. Lee (d. 1973) - 2, had 2 wives (consecutive)

Spencer Kimball (d. 1985) - 4 with 1 wife

Ezra Benson Taft (d. 1994) - 6 with 1 wife

Howard Hunter (d. 1995) - 3, had 2 wives (consecutive)

Gordon B. Hinckley (d. 2008) - 5 with 1 wife

Thomas S. Monson (d. 2018) - 3 with 1 wife

Russell M. Nelson (incumbent) - 10, has had 2 wives

Not a single one without children.

28

Few JW leader have children

by slimboyfat in

it’s been discussed before that few jw leaders, past and present, have had children.

this is in contrast with other groups, such as the mormons, whose leaders have had a lot of children.

i wonder if this has impacted jw growth.

slimboyfat

The notice of Guy Pierce’s death in the Watchtower in 2014 said the following:

Guy Pierce was born in Auburn, California, U.S.A., on November 6, 1934, and was baptized in 1955. He married his beloved wife, Penny, in 1977 and raised a family. His experience as a family man contributed to his fatherly manner. By 1982 he and Penny were busy in the pioneer work, and in 1986 he began 11 years of service as a circuit overseer in the United States.

It doesn’t even say how many children he had, or boys or girls. Does anyone know? I guess the fact they weren’t mentioned specifically perhaps means they didn’t get baptised or else left JWs. I vaguely remember that he had a granddaughter who was not a JW who made some online posts and said he as far as she was concerned he was a good grandfather, which caused some discussion. I may be misremembering these details.

28

Few JW leader have children

by slimboyfat in

it’s been discussed before that few jw leaders, past and present, have had children.

this is in contrast with other groups, such as the mormons, whose leaders have had a lot of children.

i wonder if this has impacted jw growth.

slimboyfat

Yes, I agree with all that no-zombie.

Another interesting aspect is that the exceptions in themselves are telling.

Rutherford had a son but became estranged from him to the point that his son wanted nothing to do with JWs and he wouldn’t answer any questions about his father from curious people who tracked him down.

Albert Schroeder had a son but it was an accident that breached the bethel no child policy and he only retained his position in bethel because of his status and connections. (I think he was already Gilead instructor when his wife became pregnant) His son by some accounts had a rather curious upbringing being the only child in bethel. In adulthood the society paid for him to study law, making him exceptional yet again in an organisation that discourages higher education.

Did Lyman Swingle have children? I have a vague recollection that he might have done, and possibly Lloyd Barry. Or I might be confusing this because I also heard that Swingle, Barry and a few others had college education.

I have greater suspicion that Guy Pierce did have a family. I should go and read his life story to find out. The very fact that it’s so vague whether Pierce and a handful of others had children is telling because it does not feature prominently in their public biographies. This is true of life stories in the magazines in general where mention of children definitely comes after outlining their theocratic career, almost as an apologetic addendum.

Tony Morris was one of the few JW leaders ever to have children. He was atypical as a GB member in being a convert who was elevated to the position, and of course also unusual in being unceremoniously removed from the GB.

As for the newer ones, I guess the general assumption is that most are lifelong Bethelites and therefore don’t have children. It doesn’t even seem to arise as a question when people are appointed. People are interested if they are married, how long they’ve been at bethel and so on, but whether they have children seldom comes up because it’s unlikely.

28

Few JW leader have children

by slimboyfat in

it’s been discussed before that few jw leaders, past and present, have had children.

this is in contrast with other groups, such as the mormons, whose leaders have had a lot of children.

i wonder if this has impacted jw growth.

slimboyfat

It’s been discussed before that few JW leaders, past and present, have had children. This is in contrast with other groups, such as the Mormons, whose leaders have had a lot of children. I wonder if this has impacted JW growth. Even though Mormons encourage large families, and their leaders have large families, they still have lower growth than JWs. How much faster would JWs have grown if they had a pro-natal policy like the Mormons?

But first, I was wondering if others have knowledge about exactly which JW leaders, and GB members have had children, and how many. I will fill in what I think I know and ask others to add information or corrections. I thought about including marriage status too but to keep it simpler I’ll just include whether the individual has/d children as far as is publicly known, with question marks for uncertainty.

Charles Taze Russell - none

Joseph Rutherford - 1 son

Nathan Knorr - none

Frederick Franz - none

Thomas Sullivan - not known

John Groh - not known

Grant Suiter - not known

Lyman Swingle - yes? how many?

Milton Henschel - none?

William Jackson - not known

Leo Greenlees - none

George Gangas - not known

Charles Fekel - not known

Ewart Chitty - none

Lloyd Barry - not known

Karl Klein - none?

Albert Schroeder - 1 son

Dan Sydlik - none?

Ted Jaracz - none?

Martin Pötzinger - none?

Carey Barber - none

John Barr - none

Gerrit Lösch - none

Guy Pierce - yes? how many?

David Splane - none?

Stephen Lett - none?

Sam Herd - none?

Tony Morris - 2 sons?

Geoffrey Jackson - none?

Mark Sanderson - none

Ken Cook - none?

Gage Fleegle - none?

Jeffrey Winder - none?

Jody Jedele - none?

Jacob Rumph - none?

Can anyone add details?

So as far as I know, from around 35 leaders, only 3 are known to have children, with two more possible. Two had 1 son, one had 2 sons. Is it significant that none had a daughter, as far as I know (except possibly Swingle or Pierce)?

Contrast this with the Mormons whose early leaders had dozens of children (with various wives, but also multiple children with their first wife) and whose leaders still have large families and encourage their followers to have children.

44

Reddit thread on convention video urging cutting off contact with Faders

by LongHairGal in

jw
friends

i just read this.

don’t know if anybody here has seen the video.. the intended result of this is to obviously scare ‘faders’ out of the shadows.

now, they are being threatened with loss of association with their loved ones and friends.

slimboyfat

No club is unconditional, it’s a matter of degree. I am in some groups where you can be excluded or at least ostracised for opposing trans ideology or opposing abortion. There are other groups that exclude you for taking the opposite view on those issues. Karl Popper argued that complete toleration is self-destructive and that democracies need to be intolerant of ideologies that threaten its survival. There are no absolutes, there is no such thing as unconditional. But I do appreciate that the degree of control, censorship, and surveillance among JWs is greater than many other groups and many find it something along the range of stifling to completely intolerable. If you happen to agree with JW leadership on most things it can be worth biting your tongue over a few things you don’t agree with. If you think God is in control of the organisation overall then it can even be perceived as the loyal and right thing to do. It’s a personal choice.

56

Predictions for the next decade?

by jehovaxx in

as it’s nearly the new year my prediction over the next decade or so will see the sense of urgency dwindle.

then some huge huge changes.

for example by 2034 in a decades time, they will have address the 1914 issue and will come out and say we can’t be dogmatic.

slimboyfat

Different religious groups have different ways of counting membership. JWs have one of the strictest measures of any religious group and the Mormons are at the opposite end of the spectrum claiming many more members than reality. Scholars interested in establishing some sort of fair comparison between groups have used censuses to evaluate membership totals. The result in the table below compares the number of members claimed by the group compared with the academic estimate of “adherence” on the basis of census results.

The figure of 15 million for JWs makes sense because if asked to estimate the number who consider themselves to be JWs then a figure in between publisher number and the Memorial attendance sounds about right because many inactive JWs still consider themselves JWs but not everyone who attends the Memorial. The Mormon figure of 7 million also makes sense because it’s widely known the Mormon church grossly inflates their numbers by counting everybody they’ve ever baptised even though many of them never return to the church after rushed baptisms.

44

Reddit thread on convention video urging cutting off contact with Faders

by LongHairGal in

jw
friends

i just read this.

don’t know if anybody here has seen the video.. the intended result of this is to obviously scare ‘faders’ out of the shadows.

now, they are being threatened with loss of association with their loved ones and friends.

slimboyfat

The Reddit post seems entirely misguided. The person in the video is not a “fader”. The whole point about being a fader was supposed to be that you fade away from the organisation without making a fuss. The person in the video is attempting to get the Witness to read anti-witness material. That’s not fading. The video is emphasising shunning and reporting apostates, it doesn’t relate to faders at all. Am I missing something?
I don’t support shunning “apostates” either, obviously, but we ought to be clear what we are talking about. People reading the thread without watching the video might take it at face value (as I did) that faders are subject to a new shunning initiative. The video doesn’t show that at all. If any quiet faders were panicked by the threads I don’t think you need be.

44

Reddit thread on convention video urging cutting off contact with Faders

by LongHairGal in

jw
friends

i just read this.

don’t know if anybody here has seen the video.. the intended result of this is to obviously scare ‘faders’ out of the shadows.

now, they are being threatened with loss of association with their loved ones and friends.

slimboyfat

I’ve just watched the video now for myself and I don’t think it’s aimed at faders or reinstates shunning in general. It is specifically against people who openly criticise the organisation so I don’t think it’s much of a reversal as that was presumably always the case even under the relaxed shunning rules. Plus it’s only a couple of minutes, unless they play it again and again at the meetings after the convention, many will probably glaze over it.

50

consequences for going against the direction.

by jehovaxx in

there are no serious consequences for doubting the gb.

there are no consequences for going against the direction.

we can now celebrate anything.. what will happen if you take blood, celebrate xmas and birthdays ect?.

slimboyfat

Okay I’ve just watched the video now for myself and I don’t think it’s aimed at faders or reinstates shunning in general. It is specifically against people who openly criticise the organisation so I don’t think it’s much of a reversal as that was presumably always the case even under the relaxed shunning rules. Plus it’s only a couple of minutes, unless they play it again and again at the meetings after the convention, many will probably glaze over it.