That's a bad word, so I had to censor it. But I thought I'd put down here, for posterity, the "best bits", in my opinion, from the book "In Search of Christian Freedom" by
Raymond Franz, former member of the Governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses. The book has certainly influenced me in that I no longer see being part of an organization (or a particular religion) as being a requirement for "salvation" . Please don't read any further if you feel these quotes will offend you. But if these quotes help you to undergo a "shipwreck in your Faith" in men, and in an organization, then that's a good thing. Your Faith in God can not be damaged by increased knowledge. I've emboldened the paragraphs that REALLY hit home to me, the one's that I knew inside already (as do many I'm sure) but was glad to see somebody else expressing.
P322
“Thus a young man of sixteen may be disfellowshiped for some act of sexual immorality. He may not choose to go through the steps necessary for “reinstatement” and the ending of his disfellowshiped status. However, he may no longer engage in sexual immorality, may later marry, father children, show himself to be a faithful husband, a good father, and an honest, responsible person, seeking to live by Christian principles. Yet, no matter how many years may have passed or what kind of person he shows himself to be, he is to be treated the same as if he were a sexually immoral person, a corrupting influence, a person with whom other Christians, even his close family members, should not associate. Why? Because he has not taken the legal steps ordained by the organisation for having the “disfellowshiped state” lifted and been declared officially fit for association. If the Father in the parable of the prodigal son had lived by such policies, then, upon seeing his wayward son approaching the home, rather than running out and embracing him as he did, he would instead have had to insist that the son first be screened by a committee of three to determine whether the father could properly express such parental interest and affection.
In this way, adult and mature Christians are denied any right to exercise their own intelligence and judgement as to whether a person is a clean living person or not… the religious authority must first rule on this”
P328
“In his words at Matthew 18:15-19, Jesus does not set forth a prescription for organizational excommunication. The wording indicates an offence and a penalty of purely personal nature. Even after referring to the “congregation” (evidently meaning the then operating Jewish congregation), Jesus said “Let him be to you [singular, not “YOU” plural] as a Gentile or tax collector”
P397
Quote from former special pioneer in Brazil “I cannot deny that I have been and am still influenced by the noble principles aimed at outsiders advocated in [the organisations] literature. I relied wholeheartedly on those principles and believed that any matter would be rightly considered by the organisation. It is a painful blow to find out that they are just part of a monologue, like other kinds of propaganda, that seeks no answer at all but only its own echo”
P421
“There is periodic acknowledgement in the publications that the writers are, after all, “imperfect men” and that the organisation has “never claimed to be infallible”…in actual practice it works out quite differently. One finds out that this only applies to the past, not to the present…Jehovah’s Witnesses are called on to take whatever is currently taught as if it were infallible”
P448
Re: a list of 80 scriptural “credentials” supporting and applied to the faithful and discreet slave listed in a Watchtower, with scriptural quotes “This is circular reasoning comparable to a mans saying, “I am the greatest person in all human history and I have the credentials to prove it. Just look at this long list of famous men and women from the past, and then read these writings of mine in which I have applied everything said about them to myself”
P460
“The lack of any formal program and the apparent spontaneity and individual motivation of the first century Christians are what are most remarkable of [the accounts relating to worship and sharing the good news] in the Bible. We find only the barest of suggestions of what their meetings were like and no indication of any methodology or systematization in their proclaiming of the good news.
I recall that during the years I served in circuit and district overseer activity I used to puzzle over this when preparing “service talks” that were a regular feature of the weekly program when visiting congregations. I wanted to prepare talks that were scriptural, but it seemed so difficult to find scriptures that even faintly reflected the kind of organised service urged by the headquarters in its publications. I found it hard to understand how the apostles…could write entire lessons to congregations and never say anything stressing the need for the readers of those letters to get out and go from door to door, nothing about organised witnessing arrangements at scheduled times, about putting in more hours in the field service, all things regularly stressed in the Watchtowers publications…[I now realize this is because] the systematized, highly programmed approach to Christianity that has developed bears greater resemblance to that of a large sales organisation than to the first century Christian congregation and its simple, uncomplicated approach to worship and service to God.”
P462
“
Aside from what David and Solomon wrote, most other scripture was written by men who either were not part of the established official organisational structure or who were at odds with it, viewed by it with disfavour-prophets whom God raised up and who neither got their assignment or instructions from some organisational channel, nor submitted their speeches and writings to that structure for approval. They openly expressed disharmony with the ones heading and guiding the organisational structure, both kings and high priests. Because of this these prophets were often viewed as subversive troublemakers for the congregation of Israel… [These prophets] felt no obligation to “go along” with the organisational structure and its officials in their erroneous course or to accept and support its misrepresentations of God’s word. Their loyalty to Jehovah and his truth superseded loyalty to any earthly system, even one initially established by God, as was the nation of Israel.
Today most of Jehovah’s witnesses take virtual pride in supporting “the organisation” no matter what it does or where it leads or what it teaches. In this they have no support from scripture. In the national congregation of Israel, it was those who submissively followed the organisational officials no matter what, who were the ones led into false worship, and their “loyalty” to that national organisation’s leaders caused them to accuse falsely and persecute men innocent of any wrongdoing. They viewed such conscientious servants of Jehovah as “anti-establishment”. Thus, their loyalty to an organisation actually put them in opposition to God. This stands as a warning to us to this day”
P464
“Read the whole of the scriptures and it is clear that what we are called on to is to put faith in God, faith in his Son, faith in the Word of God as brought to us by those whom he inspired, but nowhere are we told to put faith in men or in an earthly organisation, unquestioningly following its lead.. Such faith is misplaced and leads to grave consequences…far from encouraging such faith in imperfect men the entire Bible record is a continual reminder of the danger inherent in that kind of trust”
P470
Referring to the belief that 144,00 have a heavenly hope only: “If we were to accept a very conservative figure of 10,00 proving faithful to death during the course of the first century, and another 10,00 from 1879 onward, that would leave 124,000 others to be approved during the intervening period…it would mean that during the ensuing 1,779 years before the watchtower organisation comes on the scene, Jesus Christ, who was directing his followers [ all this time as per Matthew 28:20 “And look! I shall be with you ALL THE DAYS until the conclusion of the system of things”], only saw an average of 70 persons a year- in the whole world- become faithful followers of his! Surely it strains belief to think that such paltry results would come from Jesus’ direction of his disciples”
P480
“Many religious works, such as Bible commentaries (the Watch Tower headquarters library contains scores of these works), that were written one or even two centuries ago are still in print and still considered to be of genuine merit. By contrast, there are very few Watch Tower publications that were published during the first 80 years of the organisations 110 year history that are not today considered “out of date””
P503
“An article in the Awake! magazine of May 8, 1985 says that... “It is logical that [God] would oversee a faithful transmittal of his word down to our present day”.
The problem here is that the organisation denies its own position in its claims in this regard [that the divine name must have been removed from the whole of the Christian scriptures] – not to some trivial omission or variation- but with regard to something they view as one of the most important of all the features of the scriptures, the [divine name]…in effect, they are saying that God, who exercised his influence to preserve the Scriptures, at the same time failed to see to it that some form of his name was preserved in even so much as a single one of the approximately 5,000 ancient copies of those ancient Greek scriptures. If the importance the organisation attaches to the [name] is soundly based, how could this possibly be so?”
P514/515
“Contrary to the common practice of Jehovah’s Witnesses when addressing God in prayer Jesus consistently addressed him, never as “Jehovah”, but always as “Father”…when Jesus taught his followers to pray, had he followed the pattern developed among Jehovah’s Witnesses he would have taught them to address their prayer to Jehovah, or to have included that name somewhere in their prayer. Instead he taught them to follow his own example and to pray “Our Father”…In our own family relationships we do not normally refer to or address our Fathers by their names…to do so would give no indication of the relationship we enjoy with our parent. We address him as Father or the more intimate “papa” or “Dad”. Those outside the relationship could not use such a term. They must restrict themselves to the use of a more formal address involving a particular given name”
P527
“Is a religions numerical growth a guide to its being blessed or approved by God? It is never pointed out that other religions, such as the Seventh day Adventists and the Mormons-religions that like the Watchtower society had their birth in the United States in the Nineteenth century- have registered approximately the same rate of growth as that of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
P528
“The combined populations of China, India and Pakistan represent two-fifths of the world’s population- two out of every five persons living on earth. And only a tiny fraction of this enormous population has even the slightest acquaintance with the Watchtower message. It would seem to be sheer egotism for any organisation to believe that a righteous and loving God could base a life-or-death judgement of all humanity on such a terribly misbalanced and fragile basis…Factually, Jehovah’s Witnesses are contacting at best about one half of earths population to any extent worth of mention”
P532
“During my fifty years of active service, I accompanied thousands of fellow witnesses in many countries as they went from door to door. Only rarely did I feel that what they said to people could qualify as anything approaching an effective witness to Christianity…I cannot believe that a just God would ever judge any human’s worthiness for salvation based upon his or her acceptance or non-acceptance of the door-to-door presentations I have heard-or, for that matter, those I myself made in conforming to the organisations “field service” instructions. The overall mental impression left with listeners is unquestionably that of persons interested in selling religious literature or in advocating their particular sectarian beliefs”
P555
Full quote from British MP W.J.Brown, explaining his statement that the “only categorization that really matters is that which divides men as between the servants of the spirit and the prisoners of the organisation”: “Whether the organisation be political, religious or social is immaterial to my present argument. The point is that, the idea having embodied itself into an organisation, the organisation then proceeds gradually to slay the idea which gave it birth…
[If a religious organisation, its] message will crystallize into a creed. Before long, the principal concern of the church will be to sustain itself as an organisation. To this end, any departure from the creed must be controverted and, if necessary, suppressed as heresy. In a few score or few hundred years what was conceived as a vehicle of a new and higher truth has become a prison for the souls of men.
…the idea having given birth to the organisation, the organisation develops a self-interest which has no connection with, and becomes inimical to, the idea with which it began. Now, the thing which permits this process of diversion to take place, so that the organisation comes to stand for the opposite of the idea which originally inspired it, is the tendency of men and women to become Prisoners of the Organisation, instead of being servants of the spirit…the organisation becomes less the vehicle of the idea than a channel through which particular interests are served””
P564
“The more ones faith is centred on a human system, whatever that system may be, the less spiritual that one becomes. There are men who are very “religious” and yet are essentially unspiritual. They are essentially “organisation men”, not men of faith. Their lives may be filled with activity that bring them organizational backing and the power that that backing affords, but if that backing is removed, their apparent strength is removed with it”
P569
Re Rutherford’s claim that the peace following World War 2 would be “very short lived, quickly followed by Armageddon”: “Today, half a century later, we are still living in that period of peace, one that is longer than any previous period of peace between the major powers in history”
P572
Re a comment made by one of the senior bethel members that his “prayers had been answered” when the last of his relatives died, this meaning that they now qualified for a resurrection (and would not be eternally destroyed at Armageddon): “It seems incredible that anyone could believe that the extension or withdrawal of divine mercy, with all the serious consequences implied therefrom, could be governed thus by a timetable-believing that a persons dying one day, or even one hour, before the “great tribulations” beginning would give hope of his being resurrected, but his dying one day or one hour after would not. Surely the individual would be the same person at either time.”
P586
“I believe that any witness who takes time to weigh matters will realize how greatly friendship among witnesses, ultimately and in the final analysis, is predicated on ones being in favour with “the organization” and what he or she has to offer in an organizational context, not on what he or she is as a person or the qualities or values they might hold. The person’s qualities and values have merit only as they conform to and advance the organizations interests. That kind of friendship is very much like the one that stems primarily from one’s holding membership in good standing within a club, lodge, union or similar group.”
P591
Full quote from a former member of the “Worldwide Church of God” taken from a periodical called “Ambassador Review” written in 1974: “Before an individual becomes a member of the Worldwide Church of God, he is encouraged to “prove all things, hold fast that which is true”. The ministry tells him “Don’t believe what we say-check it out”. “If we teach contrary to God’s Word, do not follow us”. Unfortunately the opposite process begins once one is in the Worldwide Church of God. The member is told that “Mr Herbert W. Armstrong is closer to God and has more of his Holy Spirit than anyone else, which is why he is the leader of the Church” or “Since Mr Herbert W. Armstrong is the leader of God’s Church, he must be closer to God and have more of his Holy Spirit than anyone else”
…This type of circular reasoning is taught to the members, and is applied to a lesser degree [to successive layers of officials on down the line]. By the time you get to the lowly laymember, his opinion is worthless, with compared to the hundreds who must be closer to God since they have higher positions, or who have higher positions since they are closer to God…In this way a member is stripped of any confidence in himself or God’s Spirit in him. He places Herbert W. Armstrong and the rest of the ministry in the position of defining what he must believe-in place of Jesus Christ and the Bible. The ministry carefully shows laymembers how to prove the beliefs of the Worldwide Church of God from the Bible. The member thinks his belief is firmly grounded in the Bible, but for him to prove it he must rely heavily on the proof texts and the explanations he has been given. I don’t necessarily mean all these beliefs or explanations are incorrect, but the member is being groomed into a spiritually dependent person, and his primary dependency isn’t on Christ or the Holy Spirit, but on Herbert W. Armstrong and the ministry of the Worldwide Church of God.
…It doesn’t take a spiritually strong person to merely accept exactly what the Church teaches and to obey it strictly. But it does require strength of character and spirit to question, research, prove, and then abide by your convictions, regardless of what the Church or anyone else says””
P598
Re: The “spiritual paradise” “Not that anyone would rightly expect that an organisation should air to the world all the wrong acts of its members…what is wrong is to create an impression of great moral superiority by widely publicising the failings of other beliefs, making it appear that these are common and typical of the membership as a whole, while almost totally suppressing any admission of similar failings on a similar scale within ones own belief system…for example the Watchtower of October , 1983 quotes a journalist who wrote favourably of a convention in Montreal as saying “If they were the only people in the world, we would not at night need to bolt our doors shut and put on the burglar alarm”. He may think so. He does not know that at Brooklyn, where the largest concentration of Witnesses on Earth is to be found, it became necessary decades ago to install locks on all doors to living quarters and I can never recall a period of any length during my fifteen years there when there was not at least one witness thief active within the “Bethel family””
P600
Re: Claims made in The Watchtower praising the superiority of Witnesses as employees “I have personally had business man after business man-among Jehovah’s Witnesses-tell me that often their witness employees gave them considerably more difficulty than those classed as “worldly” employees. Though there was generally scrupulous avoidance of committing major wrongs, petty dishonesty, misuse of time, lack of cooperation, substandard quality of work, and other failures to act in the best interests of the business, were evident to a degree that simply did not accord with the organisational boasts made”
P604
“I personally have no question that if statistics were available they would show that there is no great difference in the percentage of failed marriages, divorce, youthful wrongdoing, or sinful conduct of any kind, between Watchtower organisation membership and that of many other religious affiliations…whatever evidence there is provides no basis for the public declaration of being purer than others (the “I thank you God that I am not as other men are” syndrome of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable)…mere punishment of wrongdoing does not of itself make an organisation “clean” or superior in its cleanness to other organisations. A government might consistently exile all those disagreeing with its decisions and rule. But that would not prove that the country was free of dissidence or discontent-not if the exiling continued to go on, year after year. Nor would the practice of executing all criminals mean that a country was free of crime and superior to other countries in enjoying a crime free environment, particularly not if crimes (and subsequent executions) continued to occur at essentially the same rate as always”
P615
“It is easy to render lip service to the example set by individuals of the past who, often at great cost to themselves, did not allow intimidation to keep them from seeking truth and making it known. Watchtower publications frequently contain articles commending the integrity to truth and conscience that earlier martyrs and reformers displayed…other articles speak approvingly of various break-away, non-conformist, minority groups…all of whom declared themselves as placing loyalty to scriptural truth above loyalty to organisational authority and teaching. In all of this however, one cannot but be impressed by the parallel with those religious authorities in Jesus’ day who, as he said, “built tombs for the prophets and decorated the graves of righteous men of the past” and said “If we had lived in the times of our ancestors we should never have joined in the killing of the prophets”. Despite their professions however, the course of those religious leaders showed that they had the same spirit as their ancestors, who brought about the death of the organisationally rejected prophets. In parallel fashion, while honouring those dissenting individuals and non conformist groups of the past, the Watchtower organisation employs the identical weapons that were used against them-organisational censorship, intimidation, pressure, coercion and excommunication-to silence any attempt today at free, open discussion of the validity of its teachings and exercise of authority. Those it now labels as heretical are to be viewed as dead by all members. It praises the courage that made men and women in the past hold to their convictions yet condemns the same course now as born of a disruptive, prideful spirit, as evidence of rebellion against God, and in so doing uses language strongly reminiscent of the ecclesiastical condemnations of the past.”
P630
“What would a person in, let us say, the third century A.D. do if he felt that matters had reached the point in his area where Christ’s headship had been seriously usurped by men, where the conformity called for could only be gained at the sacrifice of conscience, where he felt that Christian truth and spirit and love were being subtly perverted, so much so that there was a discrediting of Christianity? He might live in one of those places where the apostle Paul had personally laboured, such as Ephesus or Thessalonica. Any expression of contemplated withdrawal could well be met by others with statements like, “How could you possibly withdraw? Don’t you realize that Paul, Christ’s own apostle, personally brought the good news to this area, started the Christian gathering that continues to this day? Surely if anything is amiss, Christ himself will correct it and we must just wait on him until he does so. Where did you learn what you have learned-was it not through and in this gathering? If you withdrew, where would you go? Outside there are only heretics and heathen. Where would you find another gathering the size of this one? You would be in danger in finding yourself all alone or just part of some tiny splinter group”.
What would have been the result had that third century person been overcome by such argumentation, had suppressed his conscientious feelings, closed his eyes to the serious wrongs, and wishfully believed that these would change, despite all contrary evidence? Would a course of passive conformity give any assurance against the possibility of his being found among those to whom Christ would say, as he said to persons in Laodecea, “You are neither cold nor hot…[you are] only lukewarm…[I will] spit you out of my mouth”. The course on which many professed Christian leaders had then embarked DID NOT CHANGE; it continued on until a hierarchical system developed. Had the third century person described taken the course of passive conformity and encouraged his children and grandchildren to do the same, they would all ultimately have become submissive subjects of that hierarchical system. Had we lived then, would we have found that consequence acceptable? Only if our answer is affirmative could we find acceptable and persuasive the argument which encourages passive conformity today”
P637
“When men who profess to be followers of Christ place themselves as governors over others, call upon these to adhere loyally and scrupulously to whatever directives they give, even include the concept of loyalty to an organisation in the questions asked persons at baptism, so that the baptism is done, not only in the “name” or “authority” of God and Christ, but in the name of the organisation they head-when men do this they need to be faced with the question Paul posed (1 Cor 1:12>): Were you crucified for us? Have you paid the price of your own life blood and by it bought us so as to be entitled to such submission? If they cannot answer “yes” to such questions-and they clearly cannot-then we cannot accord them the submission they call for and still remain loyal to the one who did die for us. We cannot be the slave of two masters.”
P638
“If we adopt a self righteous attitude based on performance of specified activities, routinely carried out week by week, or view ourselves as superior to all those outside our particular religious community on the basis of certain things we abstain from, how can we feel we are different from the Pharisee of Jesus’ parable in his self confidence based on his regularity of performing acts set out in the Law? (Luke 18:9-14)…it is when we become free from an environment that induces and fosters such an attitude, free from a system that seeks to regulate and dominate and systematize our activities and service to God, while making us feel that our dutifully submitting to all this makes us something “special”, superior to others not so doing-it is then that we are faced with the true challenge of Christianity. We are now free to let our heart and our personal faith motivate us. How deep does our love go? What does it move us to do? How far does our interest in others extend, our concern to be of benefit, help and service to them? To what extent has the life lived by God’s Son touched our hearts, lifted us up, expanded our outlook, deepened our appreciation, expanded our thinking?”
P640
“Our human tendency is to want to resolve all questions of belief, to free ourselves from any uncertainty. What is “the truth”? Exactly what do we believe? Because we would like to escape from the pain that uncertainty itself carries with it, most of us would be happy if there were someone to tell us this, relieve us from having to wrestle with issues ourselves, lay out a precise path for us. An organisation that claims to have the answers to all questions attracts many. As mature persons we need to realize that no human has all those answers, nor need the lack of them hinder our spiritual growth.”
P656
“If we read the Christian scriptures, we will find that Christianity is not presented as either a system oriented or building oriented way of life and worship; nor is it defined by creeds or law codes. Neither is it centred upon specific activities viewed as specially and distinctly devotional and religious and therefore as having superior merit before God over other activities not so viewed. It is a way of life that embraces all of life and all of life’s activities.”
P673
“..Personal relationship to God and Christ is stated in another way in Jesus’ words recorded in John chapter fifteen. There he represents himself as a vine and his followers are branches joined to that vine. He does not present himself as simply the roots of the vine and say that the congregation is the stem to which his followers must be attached. Neither is the vital connection as attachment to other branches. It is to Christ alone. It is by virtue of their holding firmly to him that they are all drawn into unity.”
P678
Re Heb 10:24,25 “This scripture is used by some as a sort of spiritual “club” to enforce strict attendance at meetings held at specific times, but this calls for reading more into the exhortation than is there. The Greek word in this text rendered “give up”, “neglect” (or similar renderings), infers desertion or abandonment, something far more serious than a mere irregularity or occasional infrequency of attendance. Nor is there anything to show that being in attendance at such meetings was ever presented by Jesus’ apostles as having greater merit as “worship” over other expression of love and faith made in a Christian’s daily life. We do not find this idea expressed in any of the apostolic writings…in considering the evidence of the early Christian community, the remarkable fact is that we find no set pattern laid out for us as regards Christian gathering.”
P680
“The test of true unity is not uniformity of belief on every single point. Paul’s letters almost without exception show that among Christians in the different places to which he wrote some saw certain things differently from others. Christian unity proves itself genuine when differences of viewpoint do exist and yet the persons holding such differing views refuse to allow this to divide them…they are members of a spiritual family sharing a common faith based on clearly stated, foundational teachings…Not uniformity, and certainly not humanly imposed uniformity, but love is the “perfect bond of union.”
P683
“Any religious system that perpetuates the dependence of its members on the services of certain men is working against the goal set forth…all should become “adult” Christians, mature in understanding and in the ability to live a Christian life, to make mature decisions that are their own, not those of someone else.”
P694
“…If we look to the Christian Scriptures to find some kind of spelled out, organisational manual we will look in vain. In view of this, I feel it is presumptuous for any of us, whoever we are, to speak where God has not spoken, to define and order what the head of the household, Christ, has not defined or ordered, and expect others to feel under any obligation as a result of what we have done…authoritarianism and control by rules may bring order, but they also cover over and mask the genuine reality of what people are. Freedom allows their true qualities and attitudes to become manifest…the scriptures foretold the adulteration of purity in the Christian community. They do not however set out a precise formula telling us how to identify some particular affiliation as THE one true religious fellowship with which to align ourselves. To the contrary, Jesus assured us that the separation of the intermixture of genuine and false Christians in the world field of wheat and weeds, and the placing of them into clearly defined categories, is something beyond human ability. I am satisfied that this intermixture prevails in ALL denominations…the separation and clear identification of them will become manifest only at God’s day of judgement.”
P704
Quoting Charles Davis, theologian who left the Catholic Church “”When someone asked me what it felt like to be outside the Roman Catholic Church, I found myself spontaneously answering: it is as if I had rejoined the Human race”. I felt the same on disengaging from the Watchtower organisation. Yet Davis goes on to say, “I would not here be misunderstood. I have known great love and generosity among Catholics…I do not consider myself as cut off from Catholics as Christian people. I am not, then, spurning Catholics as individual persons…I know them as very good people, but as struggling against heavy odds within the confines of their Church.”
P711
“In summary then, even as I am convinced that the one true religion is Christianity itself, not some religious system claiming to represent and exemplify it, I also believe that the truth is found in the Scriptures, not in any particular set of interpretations that men have developed or may yet develop.”
