Crisis of Conscience

by Raymond Franz

  In Africa, the next-to-the-last country I visited was Mali. Most of the missionaries there were French nationals. After working my way through a presentation in French of some points I was covering with missionaries in each country, I asked if they had any questions. The second question presented was, “The Watchtower says that Jesus is the mediator only for the anointed, not for the rest of us. Can you clear this up for us? Not even in prayer is he our mediator?”

  If it had been my interest to sow doubts, this would have been an obvious opportunity. Instead I tried to calm them, pointing to the First Letter of John, chapter two, verse 1, which speaks of Jesus as the “Helper” of those for whom he is a “propitiatory sacrifice for sins,” including those of “the whole world.” I said that even if they were not to think of Jesus as their Mediator, they could surely think of him as their Helper. And, that of one thing they could be sure: that his interest in them was as great as his interest in any other persons on earth.

  “Witnessing” in Africa

  I felt that I had managed to keep the matter from becoming a serious issue with them, and I had said nothing that in any way placed in question the Watchtower’s statements.

  However, a few days later, on going to the airport to depart for Senegal, the missionaries came out to see me off. One of the women missionaries approached and asked me, “But not even in prayer is Jesus our mediator?” I could do nothing but repeat and reemphasize basically the same points I had presented earlier in their missionary home meeting.

  Locomotive of derailed train.

  I returned to Brooklyn after about three weeks, the only difficulty encountered in Africa being the derailment of the train on which I was making a twenty-hour, overnight trip from Ouagadougou, Upper Volta, to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast.

  Upon my return, the following morning at the breakfast table a visiting Branch Committee member and his wife were seated next to me. Breakfast had barely begun when the wife wanted to know if she could ask me a question. I replied, “You can ask it. I don’t know if I can answer it.” She said that the previous night they had attended the study of a Watchtower dealing with the mediatorship of Christ, and she then asked virtually the same question that the French missionary in Mali had asked. I gave the same answer.

  That weekend, I went to New Jersey on a speaking assignment and following the talk a woman in the audience came up (an active Witness) and said she had some questions. There were three questions and the second was about Christ’s mediatorship. Once again I gave the same response.

  These incidents are cited because they represent my standard practice when questions arose from such persons, questions involving published teachings of the organization. Any question as to the Scriptural backing for the organization’s teachings that I myself had, I discussed only with personal acquaintances of long association, every one of them (in the case of men) being elders. Up until 1980, aside from my wife I do not believe there were more than four or five persons on earth who knew to any real extent the concerns I had, and none of these knew all the reasons that caused these concerns. It would have taken a book such as this for them to have known that.

  I had not the slightest doubt, however, that many, many others among Jehovah’s Witnesses had a number of the same concerns that I did.17 From my years on the Governing Body I saw no evidence that those concerns would be frankly faced or given the consideration they merited by means of careful, thorough research of the Scriptures, and decided, not on the basis of traditional views long held, but on the basis of the Biblical proof or lack of it.

  The evidence pointed instead to the conclusion that any open discussion of these difficulties was viewed as a great danger to the organization, as disloyal to its interests. Unity (actually uniformity) was apparently counted more important than truth. Questions about organizational teachings could be discussed within the inner circle of the Governing Body but nowhere else. No matter how heated the debate on an issue within that inner circle, the Body must present a face of unanimity toward all those on the outside, even though such “face” actually masked serious disagreement on the point in question.

  I found nothing in the Scriptures to justify this pretense, for those Scriptures commended themselves as truthful by their very frankness, openness and candor in acknowledging the differences existing among early Christians, including apostles and elders. More importantly I found nothing in Scripture to justify the restricting of discussion to such a secretive, closed society of men, whose two-thirds majority decisions must then be accepted by all Christians as “revealed truth.” I did not believe that truth had anything to fear from open discussion, any reason to hide from careful scrutiny. Any teaching that had to be shielded from such investigation did not deserve to be upheld.

  From the time of the writing of the reference work called Aid to Bible Understanding, I had had close association with Edward Dunlap. I first met him in 1964 when attending a ten-month course at Gilead School. He was then the Registrar of the School and one of its four instructors. Our class (the 39th) was composed of about one hundred persons, the majority of them men from Branch Offices. It can be truthfully stated that most of them considered Dunlap’s classes by far the most instructive as regards gaining understanding of the Scriptures.18 Originally from Oklahoma, of somewhat rough-hewn appearance, Ed was of ordinary education but had the ability to take very difficult, complex subjects and put them in understandable language, whether it was the functions of the Mosaic Law or a scientific study of genetics. However, more important to me was his unpretentiousness. Aside from a penchant for loud ties, he was a basically low-key, low-profile person, in appearance, demeanor and speech. No matter what responsibility was assigned him, he stayed the same person.

  One incident that typified for me his personality was a remark he made to me in connection with a semestral exam. We were going through the various letters of Paul in our classes and each week there was an exam on points studied. Among the points there were generally questions about the likely time and place of writing for each letter. Taken one letter at a time this was not difficult to remember. But when time came for exams at the end of the semester, I realized that now we would have ALL the thirteen Pauline letters involved, and how to remember the different suggested times and places of writing posed a fair-sized problem. They followed no chronological order in the Bible canon. I worked for a long time at it and finally came up with a mental system for recalling these.

  The exam came, with a two-hour period for completing it. I finished somewhat early and on leaving the classroom I met Ed coming in. He asked, “How was it?” I replied, “Oh, it wasn’t bad. But I’ll never forgive you.” He asked what I meant. I said, “I worked and worked and worked to develop a system for remembering the times and places of writing of each letter and then you didn’t ask a single question on that.” Taking my remark somewhat more seriously than it was intended, he said, “You know the reason I don’t put questions on that in the semester exams? I can’t keep that stuff in mind myself.” There were four instructors for the school, Ulysses Glass, Bill Wilkinson, Fred Rusk and Ed Dunlap. I think it is fair to say that of the four only Ed would have made the reply he did. It was typical of his unassuming personality.

  Edward Dunlap

  He had always been thoroughly devoted to the organization; his full-time service record equaled mine in length. Another circumstance that tells something about him relates to an illness he developed in the late 1960s. Commonly called tic douloureux (a French term meaning “painful spasm”), the medical name for it is trigeminal neuralgia, the inflammation of a large, three-branched facial nerve that produces one of the most painful ailments known to humans. The stabbing, blinding pain can be provoked by anything, a slight breeze, a touch, anything that excites the nerve, and as the ailment worsens the victim can hardly do such ordinary things as comb his hair, brush his teeth, or eat, without risking an attack. Some so afflicted are driven to suicide.

  Ed suffered with this for seven years,
having some temporary remissions and then worsening. During this time, the president, Nathan Knorr, somehow acquired the opinion (based perhaps on others’ comments) that this was something emotional on Ed’s part, not genuinely of physical origin. One day he talked with Ed, questioning him about his married life and other matters in relation to this ailment. Ed assured him that that had absolutely nothing to do with the problem, that he could be thoroughly enjoying himself on vacation and yet the attacks could strike without warning. The president did not give any weight to Ed’s explanation, however, and informed him that he had decided to send him over to the factory for a while to give him more exercise. He was to work in the bindery department.

  Ed was then in his sixties, for some time had been taking strong medication prescribed by the staff doctor designed to suppress the painful attacks, at times had been bedridden for days or a week with the ailment. But he was now sent to the bindery and was there assigned to feed a machine on the bindery line. He did this for months and quietly endeavored to make the best of this “theocratic” assignment. But as he confided to me, it made him realize for the first time the absolute control the organization exercised over his life. His attempts at explaining were ignored and, contrary to all good sense, he was placed in the least desirable situation for one with that kind of ailment.

  It was some years later, when he was at the point of absolute despair, that he learned of a neurosurgeon in Pittsburgh who believed he had discovered the cause of this age-old ailment and had perfected microsurgery to remedy it. Ed had the operation (involving the removal of a portion of the skull and remedial operation in connection with the main artery to the brain, which artery runs parallel to the inflamed nerve). He was thus finally cured. He expected no apology from the organization for its serious error in judgment in its viewing and handling of his agonizing problem. He received none.

  Since our places of work, both during the Aid project and thereafter, were never more than an office apart, we conversed regularly, sharing with each other any interesting items we came across in research. The Writing Committee of the Governing Body assigned us to work together on a number of projects, such as the Commentary on the Letter of James. In our conversations we did not always agree on all points, but this did not affect our friendship or mutual respect.

  I mention all this because Edward Dunlap was one of the few persons who knew how deep my concerns ran as to what I saw in the organization and particularly within the Governing Body. He shared that concern. Like myself, he did so because he could not harmonize much of what he saw, heard and read with Scripture.

  Though associated with the organization since the early 1930s, during most of that association he did not count himself as among the “anointed.” I was talking to him about this one day in the late 1970s, and he related that when he began associating in the 1930s the Watch Tower then taught that there were two classes who would inherit heavenly life: the “elect” (composed of the 144,000) and the “great company” (or “great crowd” of Revelation chapter seven). The “great company” were said to be Christians of lesser faith than the elect and hence, though likewise destined for heavenly life, the “great company” would not be among those who would reign with Christ as kings and priests. Since, of the two classes, one was clearly superior and the other inferior, Ed typically assumed that he must be of the inferior class, the “great company.”

  Came 1935 and Judge Rutherford, at the Washington D.C., assembly, announced the “revealed truth” that those of the “great company” were Scripturally destined to live, not in heaven, but on earth. As Ed stated, he had always had the hope of heavenly life, felt there could be nothing more wonderful than to serve in the presence of God and in company with his Son. But because of the announced change in organizational viewpoint, he subdued those hopes and accepted what he was told should be his hope as part of the “great company.”

  It was not until 1979 that he clearly arrived at the decision that no human organization could change the invitation found in Scripture, as by setting a date for a change in the hope the Bible presented as open to any person embracing that hope, whether his name was Tom, Dick, Harry, or Ed. So, forty-four years after 1935 he began to partake of the emblems, the bread and the wine, at the Lord’s Evening Meal, something only the “anointed” among Jehovah’s Witnesses do.

  When a Witness or any one else asks, “How does one know whether he or she is of the ‘anointed’ class with heavenly hopes?” the standard response is to refer to Paul’s statement at Romans 8:16-17:

  The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s children. If, then, we are children, we are also heirs, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ, provided we suffer together that we may also be glorified together.

  The official teaching has been, and is, that only those of the 144,000 “anointed” can have such ‘witness of the spirit,’ and that this would tell them that they were of the select group of 144,000 who alone could hope for heavenly life. All others could only be classed as “prospective” children of God and their hopes must be earthly.

  In reading the context, from the very start of the chapter, it was evident to Ed that the apostle Paul was indeed writing about two classes. But not two classes divided by their hope of either heavenly or earthly life in the future.

  The two classes instead clearly were: those guided by God’s spirit, on the one hand, and those ruled by the sinful flesh, on the other.

  The contrast the apostle set forth was not between hope of life in heaven or of life on earth, but between life and death themselves, between friendship with God or enmity with God. As verses at Romans 8:6-9 state:

  For the minding of the flesh means death, but the minding of the spirit means life and peace; because the minding of the flesh means enmity with God, for it is not under subjection to God, nor, in fact can it be. So those who are in harmony with the flesh cannot please God.

  However, you are in harmony, not with the flesh, but with the spirit, if God’s spirit truly dwells in you. But if anyone does not have Christ’s spirit, this one does not belong to him.

  There was no question about heavenly or earthly life in Paul’s discussion but simply whether one was living by God’s spirit or was instead living according to the sinful flesh. Paul made it clear that it was one thing or the other: Either one had God’s spirit and produced its fruitage or he was at enmity with God and did not belong to Christ. Without that spirit there could be no “life and peace,” only death. If the person did have God’s spirit, then he was a son of God, for Paul states (verse 14):

  For all who are led by God’s spirit, these are God’s sons.19

  As Ed noted, Paul says, not some, but “ALL who are led by God’s spirit” are his sons, his children. Those led by that spirit would have the “witness” of the spirit to that effect, including the evidence of its fruitage in their lives, somewhat similar to the way the Bible says that Abel, Enoch, Noah and others had “witness borne to them” that they were pleasing to God.20

  The relevance of these points will become evident as later developments are considered.

  Suffice it to say here, that Ed Dunlap shared with me the same basic concerns and particularly the concern over the dogmatism and authoritarian spirit being manifested. His view, like mine, was that human authority, when pushed beyond its proper limits, inevitably detracts from the role of Christ Jesus as Head of the congregation.

  Not long after my return from Africa, a longtime friend came by our room at the headquarters. His name was René Vázquez and I had known him for about thirty years. I had first met him in Puerto Rico, in the town of Mayagüez where he lived with his father, who had remarried. René was then a high school student in his teens. Both his father and his father’s wife strongly opposed René’s studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their opposition became so intense that one evening, after having studied at the home of some Witness missionaries, René felt he could not endure any more. He spent the night on a park bench
in a public plaza. The following morning he went to the home of an uncle and aunt and asked to be allowed to live with them, to which they agreed. Though not in favor of Jehovah’s Witnesses, they were tolerant people. Upon graduation from high school, René immediately took up full time “pioneer service.”

  Attending an assembly in New York in 1953, he decided to remain in the United States, married, and he and his wife “pioneered” together. They were invited into traveling work among Spanish congregations in the western United States, later attended Gilead School and were sent to Spain. René was soon assigned as District Overseer in that country. The work of Jehovah’s Witnesses was under official ban and he and his wife traveled all over Spain, having to be on constant watch for the police and conscious of the danger of being discovered and arrested or deported. All meetings held were clandestine. After years of such “underground” activity, René’s nerves had worn thin to the point of breaking. By now he and his wife had been in Spain seven years. Due to his health and some needs within his wife’s family, they returned to the United States, paying their own way and arriving with virtually no funds.

  On his return, the only job René could find was in a steel mill, lifting heavy loads. A small person, his frail frame gave way the second day, putting him in the hospital. He later found other work and once they had settled their financial problems, he and his wife were right back into “pioneer” service, then into Circuit and District work and finally were asked to become part of the Brooklyn headquarters staff where René was given supervision of the Service Desk caring for all the Spanish congregations in the United States, composed of about thirty thousand Witnesses. He served there until 1969 when his wife became pregnant, requiring them to give up their “Bethel service.”