“Crisis of Conscience,” is a biographical
book by Raymond Franz, a former member of the Governing Body of
Jehovah’s Witnesses written in 1983, three years after he was disfellowshipped.
The book is a major study and exposé of the internal workings of the Watchtower
Bible and Track Society during the 1960s and 1970s. The book was updated and
revised four times, with the final revisions made in 2004.
Ray is still
disfellowshipped and the Watchtower is smart to keep its followers from this
man—if they are to remain followers. He is the nephew of the organization’s
late president Fred Franz. Ray spent nine years as a member of its top-secret
Governing Body. The inside information Franz talks about in his book is
sufficient to shake any Jehovah’s Witness’s faith—not in God, but in the
organization claiming to be God’s mouthpiece.
Franz spent 43 years as a Jehovah's
Witness, serving as a full-time preacher in the United States and a missionary
in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. In 1965 he became a member of the
WT’s headquarters staff in Brooklyn, New York
where he was assigned to help research and write the Bible encyclopedia Aid to Bible Understanding and in 1971
appointed as a member of the WT’s Governing Body. He left the Governing Body in
1980 after a high-level inquiry was launched into allegations that several
headquarters staff including Franz were spreading "wrong teachings."
He moved to Alabama where he took up
farm laboring work and was expelled from the religion in November 1981 for
breaching an edict that Witnesses shun individuals who have formally resigned
from the religion (i.e. not shunning the shunned.)
Franz claimed he declined repeated
requests over the next two years for further media interviews about the
workings of the Watch Tower Society, but in 1983 decided to end his silence
after a number of Watchtower articles criticized the motives, character and
conduct of former Witnesses who conscientiously disagreed with the
organization. One article described dissidents as being "like ...
Satan," "independent, faultfinding," "stubborn,"
"reviling," "haughty," "apostate" and
"lawless".
Franz claimed that many Jehovah's
Witnesses who choose to leave because they cannot "honestly agree with all
the organization's teachings or policies" are subsequently
disfellowshipped, or formally expelled, and shunned as "apostates." (Rumors often are circulated that the apostate was expelled for sexual
misconduct.)
He wrote that he hoped his book might prompt Witnesses to consider the
conscientious stand of defectors with a more open mind. He hoped that a
discussion of deliberations and decisions of the Governing Body during his term
would illustrate fundamental problems and serious issues within the
organization: "They demonstrate the extremes to which 'loyalty to an
organization' can lead, how it is that basically kind, well-intentioned persons
can be led to make decisions and take actions that are both unkind and unjust,
even cruel."
JW Leader Albert Schroeder in May 29,
1980 stated, “We serve not only Jehovah God but we are under our 'mother' (the
organization). Our 'mother' has the right to make rules and regulations for
us... This book, entitled Branch
Organization Procedure, contains 28 subjects; and its sub-sections involve
regulations and administration. In it there are 1,177 policies and
regulations...this is an improved, fine-tuned organization, and we are expected
to follow its policies. If there are some who feel that they cannot subject
themselves to the rules and regulations now in operation, such ones ought to be
leaving and not be involved here in the further progressive work.”
Crisis
of Conscience
provided a critical view of Watch Tower Society leadership and its requirements
of members, gave Franz's perspective on failed expectations among the Witness
community that Armageddon would take place in 1975 and his views on fundamental
Witness teachings on the significance of 1914 and continued expectations of
Armageddon.
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