FRAZZLED UBM:
Glad this old thread was resurrected. Don’t know if you still lurk here but your post is excellent.
When I read ‘Crisis of Conscience’, what R. Franz described sounded like a Communist regime to me. Like you, I have no sympathy for the rank & file Witnesses.. I consider them complicit and it is they who carry out ‘shunning’ and other evils.
I am a long time ‘Fader’ who worked full-time years ago who dealt with shunning to a degree and gossiped about by the rank & file JWs.. Now in retirement I feel no pity whatsoever for these smug Witnesses who reached senior years unprepared.. They listened to the religion and made poor choices expecting that Armageddon would save them.
Here we are eleven years after your post was written and things are pretty much the same except the religion has lost many people. In my opinion, when the Boomers are gone that’s it.