Raymond Franz was born in 1920 into a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. His uncle, Fred Franz, a member of the Governing Body in Brooklyn, New York, was regarded as their best Bible student. It was quite normal to refer matters to him as the supreme authority on tricky points of exposition. Ray’s active J.W. life began at 16. In 1940 he became a full-time worker in the cause. Several times he encountered rough treatment from resentful critics of his religion, but he persevered manfully.
Six years later he was given a strenuous missionary assignment in Puerto Rico and other parts of the Caribbean. For a long time he was held back from marriage by a fiat from the J.W. President that, since the invisible ‘Presence’ of Christ was soon to culminate in the overthrow of all human affairs, young J.W.s were to devote themselves to a life of celibate witnessing (this rule was later reversed—just one sample of the many instances of J.W.s having to ditch an official decision). Later Franz (now in his 40s) was promoted to Brooklyn headquarters, where he was assigned to the writing and service committees.
He writes:
“I . . . had been on such a ‘treadmill’ of activity over the previous twenty-five years that, although reading the Bible several times (!!!), I had never been able to do such serious, detailed research into the Scriptures, in fact never felt great need to do so since it was assumed that others were doing it for me” [exclamation marks ours].
To a man of such qualifications was assigned the responsibility of preparing for the press the biggest publishing project J.W.s have ever attempted: the Aid to Bible Understanding, a 1,696-page encyclopaedia. One cannot help but reflect that at any moment in the past fifty years the Christadelphian body could have found a hundred students much better qualified for this task than was Ray Franz! With commendable frankness, Franz admits:
“We (he and his helpers) came to appreciate that our understanding of Scripture was far less than we had thought, that we were not the advanced Bible scholars we thought we were”.
How well that volume supports this conclusion!
In 1971 Franz was appointed to the J.W. Governing Body, the ‘cabinet’ of eleven, which, under the President Nathan Knorr, ruled their now extremely numerous ‘brothers’ with a rigid despotism only to be matched in the Kremlin. Now there was added to Franz’s other duties a vast amount of world-travelling, addressing J.W. conventions in every continent, hardly ever having an audience of less than several thousands. But his writing assignments especially led to a greater degree of Bible study, and this in turn set him putting a question-mark against a.few of the more extreme J.W. attitudes and dogmas.
Most of all, his J.W. orthodoxy received a constant series of rude shocks at the meetings of the Governing Body:
“Over the years I sat through many, many sessions where issues that could seriously affect the lives of people were discussed, yet where the Bible did not come into the hands or even on the lips of practically any of those participating . . . It is no exaggeration to say that the average Member (of this top committee) spent no more time, and sometimes less, in such (Bible) study than many Witnesses among the so-called ‘rank and file”. (And those who have talked much with the J.W.s at their door will know how abysmally ignorant most of them are!)
Yet these ‘cabinet’ members had the authority to hand down to their worldwide brethren decisions of vital importance, not only for their faith but also for their way of life. In this book Franz gives documented examples of hard-and-fast decisions such as will drive the ordinary reader to incredulity. Much of this law-making concerned issues on which it is impossible to find any sort of Biblical lead. For example, assuming for the moment the J.W. dogma that accepting a blood-transfusion is forbidden in Holy Writ (which it certainly is not), what should be the attitude of a good J.W. to having a serum injection?
They even laid down explicit instructions, of a kind that makes one’s blood run cold, about the most intimate aspects of the sex life of married couples. The minutiae of rabbinic legislators at their worst extreme of unrealism appear as decisions of sober good sense and holiness by comparison with the pompous futilities of this ignorant bench of cardinals.
Hardly daring to stir out of the well-etched J.W. groove, Franz occasionally ventured to ask at one of these decision-making meetings:
“When the matter is not clear in Scripture, why should we try to play God? We do so poorly at it. Why not let Him be the judge of these people in such cases?”
Such more balanced views gradually brought him under suspicion, until at last early in 1980 the hard-line majority on this committee decided to go into action. First, in his absence, a handful of those who sympathised with his more liberal views were interviewed, brow-beaten and summarily disfellowshipped. This was a necessary preliminary, so that when Franz’s turn came he would not be able to call on their testimony as to his essential loyalty to the body, for what value is the evidence of one who is now no better than a heathen?
Then the screw tightened. If Franz’s account is to be trusted and it reads like the report of an honest man then the manoeuvring and skulduggery that went on make the most uncharitable situation in Christadelphian history appear like so much fine linen.
At last he was driven to write a disgusted letter of resignation from office. Then the screw tightened yet further. The ‘Congregation’ he was now attached to looked for, and therefore found, what was deemed to be adequate ground for total disfellowship. It was this: that he had actually talked with and even shared a meal with one of the others already ‘disassociated’. That was enough. Forty years of sterling service in the cause and exceptionally high status in the J.W. hierarchy went for nothing. In a matter of weeks he was out in the cold.
The foregoing is a sketchy account of what is set out in Franz’s own account. Much of the detail is very boring. The style of writing is not exactly lively (the J.W.s have not yet produced a single decent writer). But the documentation and narrative have a ring of truth about them. And the book certainly throws a powerful floodlight on J.W. mentality and methods.
Christadelphians are sometimes inclined to assume that J.W.s are not really far from the Truth. The fact is that between us and them there is a great gulf fixed. Christadelphians who read this book will be made thankful that they are not called to live in a J.W. straitjacket. But how we need to be warned against unBiblical rigidity! This reviewer, presented with an opportunity to witness for his Faith, is always glad to emphasise that “this is a Faith without rules and regulations, save those that a man makes for himself with the help of the Bible’s wisdom”.
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)