Crisis of Conscience

by Raymond Franz

  The issue was not whether God had guided (or would guide) those forming this Governing Body, but to what extent, under what conditions? I did not doubt or question that God would give his guidance to these men if that was sincerely sought (I felt that some of the decisions made, particularly in earlier years, had been good decisions, compassionate decisions), but I certainly did not think this was automatic; it was always conditional, contingent on certain factors. So my response included the statement that I believed such guidance always was governed by the extent to which God’s Word was adhered to; that to that extent God grants his guidance or withdraws it. (I think that that is true for any individual or any collective group of people, whoever they are.)

  My responses to all the questions were made in this manner. If any of those accused had spoken about these matters in the dogmatic, absolutist way that the Chairman’s Committee presented them, then I felt a desire to do whatever I could to restore a measure of reasonableness and moderation, to conciliate rather than exacerbate, and I bent as far as I could bend.

  Other questions asked me were relatively few. Lyman Swingle asked about my view of Bible commentaries, from which I gathered that this had been a subject of discussion in the Body. I replied that I had begun to use them more extensively as a result of my uncle’s encouragement (during the Aid project) and that if the view was that they should not be used then there were entire sections of the Bethel library that would need to be emptied, since there were dozens, scores of sets of commentaries there.

  Martin Poetzinger, who had spent several years in concentration camps during the Nazi regime, expressed dissatisfaction with my responses to the set of eight doctrinal points. How could it be, he asked, that I felt as expressed if these other people were making such strong statements? (As was true of the others, he had never talked personally to any of them.)34 I answered that I could not be responsible for the way others might express things, and I directed his attention to Romans, chapter three, verse 8 and Second Peter, chapter three, verses 15 and 16, as examples of how even the apostle Paul’s expressions were wrongly expressed or understood by some. Though I did not say so, I frankly felt my circumstance was like that described at Luke, chapter eleven, verse 53, as among men who were trying to ‘draw me out on a great many subjects, waiting to pounce on some incriminating remark.’35 The conduct of the Body during the preceding weeks gave basis for no other feeling.

  Poetzinger went on to make known his view of the disfellowshipped “apostates,” saying, with strong feeling, that they had shown their real attitude by “throwing their Watch Tower literature into the garbage before leaving!” (This was one of the rumors that circulated most widely in the Bethel family; in fact, it was reported to the entire Bethel family by a Governing Body member one morning.) I told Martin Poetzinger that I would never want to arrive at a conclusion when I had not talked with those involved to learn the facts. I said that in the fifteen years I had been at the headquarters it was a rare thing to go into one of the closets containing “dirt hoppers” without seeing quantities of Society literature—older magazines and books—discarded by members of the family; that, from what I knew, some of the disfellowshipped ones of the Bethel staff were departing by plane for Puerto Rico and that the heaviest items, and the most easily replaceable, would be such books. I repeated that I did not think it right to make a judgment on the basis of hearsay and that I thought it was especially unfitting for one sitting as a judge to do so. He stared at me but said nothing further.

  Another question was asked with regard to the Memorial service (the Lord’s Evening Meal) I had conducted the month before (April) at Homestead, Florida.36 Was it true that I had not discussed the “other sheep” (those with earthly hopes) in my talk there? I said that was true, and related to them my experience the first year I had come to Brooklyn from the Dominican Republic. My wife and I had attended a Memorial service at a congregation that held this meeting quite early in the evening. Thus we returned to the Bethel headquarters in time to hear my uncle, then the vice president, give his entire talk. After the talk we were invited, along with my uncle, to the room of staff member Malcolm Allen. My wife immediately said to my uncle, “I noticed that you didn’t mention the ‘other sheep’ anywhere in your talk. Why was that?” He replied that he considered the evening one that was special for the “anointed” and said, “So, I just concentrate on them.” I informed the Body that I still had my notes from that talk by the vice president and had used them many times in conducting Memorial services. They were welcome to look at them if they wished. (Fred Franz was, of course, present if they cared to question him about his talk.) The subject was dropped.37

  My regret at what had happened, based on the premise that some persons had apparently been extreme in their statements, was sincere. I told the Body that if I had been informed I would have done all in my power to bring such to a halt. I did not deny that injudiciousness had been shown, nor did I exclude myself in saying this, but I stated that I felt it was wrong to equate what is injudicious with what is malicious. I expressed my respect for and my confidence in the Christian qualities of those I personally knew who had been so viewed and treated. I told them of what I knew of the thirty years of service of René Vázquez, his sincere devotion, his unblemished record in Puerto Rico, Spain and the United States. I also expressed dismay that, after having lived and worked with them as fellow Body members for so many years, not one of them had seen fit to communicate with me and convey the honest facts as to what was taking place.

  Chairman Schroeder was the only one to respond. He quickly said, “But Ray, you didn’t level completely with us either. You didn’t say [in the phone conversation] how you knew about the investigation of the Writing Department.” I replied, “Did you ask me?” “No,” was his answer. I said, “If you had I would have told you without hesitation. Ed Dunlap phoned me and mentioned it.” Shortly afterward, Karl Klein, another member of the Chairman’s Committee, smilingly acknowledged that “We didn’t level fully with Ray,” and added that “if René Vázquez had responded to the questions the way Ray did he would not have been disfellowshipped.” Since neither Karl nor any other member of the entire Governing Body had made any effort to talk with René, to attend the first “investigative” interview held with him, or the first judicial hearing with him, or the appeal hearing with him, they could only judge his responses by the reports passed on to them by those who had carried out such activity for them. How they felt they could judge or compare on such second-hand basis I did not know. The Chairman’s Committee, which included Karl Klein, had been willing to take the time to meet with accusers, to hear accusations brought, including the adverse testimony given by the Godínez couple and Bonelli, but they had not found the time to talk to a single one of those accused. I hardly find this an exemplary expression of brotherly love, of fellow feeling or compassion.

  The majority of those on the Body simply sat and listened, asking no questions, making no comments. After two or three hours (I was too affected emotionally to be aware of the time) I was informed that I could leave the conference room and that they would get in touch with me. I went to my office and waited. Noontime came and looking from the window I saw Governing Body members walking through the garden en route to the dining rooms. I had no appetite for food and remained waiting. By the time three o’clock came I felt too drained to remain there and went to my room. The preceding weeks, the phone conversation with the Chairman and the shock that came on finding out how misleading it had been, the distress expressed in a flow of phone calls from those who were being subjected to intense interrogation and pressure, the rapidity and relentlessness of the disfellowshippings that followed, and, most of all, the continued silence on the part of the Governing Body as to informing me of a single one of the developments in all this, had now been culminated by my experience that morning, the coldness of the attitude shown, and the hours of waiting that followed. By evening I had become physically ill.

  That same
evening a phone call came to our room from Chairman Schroeder asking me to meet with the Body for an evening session of further questioning. My wife had answered the phone for me and I told her to inform him that I was simply too sick to go and that I had said what I had to say. They could make their decision on what they had heard.

  Later that evening, Lyman Swingle, who lived in rooms two floors above ours, came by to see how I was feeling. I appreciated this and told him what a strain the period of many weeks had been. I stated to him that what concerned me most deeply was not what action the Body might decide to take toward me, but that beautiful truths of God’s Word had been made to appear ugly. I meant that then and still feel that the most serious aspect of all that took place was the way an array of organizational teachings were used as a standard against which to evaluate plain statements in the Bible, and that those plain statements (because they did not conform to the organizational “pattern” of interpretation) were depicted as distorted teachings giving evidence of “apostasy.”

  I had in mind such plain yet beautiful statements of God’s Word as:

  One is your teacher, whereas all you are brothers.

  You are not under law but under undeserved kindness.

  All who are led by God’s spirit, these are God’s sons.

  One body there is, and one spirit, even as you were called in the one hope to which you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all persons, who is over all and through all and in all.

  For as often as you eat this loaf and drink this cup, you keep proclaiming the death of the Lord, until he arrives.

  For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, a man, Christ Jesus.

  It does not belong to you to get knowledge of the times and seasons which the Father has placed in his own jurisdiction.38

  By contrast, the eight points used by the Chairman’s Committee as a sort of “Confession of Faith” by which to judge people had not one single point where the Society teaching involved could be supported by simple, clear-cut statements in Scripture. What plain statement in Scripture could anyone, Governing Body member or anyone else, point to and say, “Here, the Bible clearly says”:

  1.That God has an “organization” on earth—one of the kind here at issue—and uses a Governing Body to direct it? Where does the Bible make such statements?

  2.That the heavenly hope is not open to anyone and everyone who will embrace it, that it has been replaced by an earthly hope (since 1935) and that Christ’s words in connection with the emblematic bread and wine, “Do this in remembrance of me,” do not apply to all persons putting faith in his ransom sacrifice? What scriptures make such statements?

  3.That the “faithful and discreet slave” is a “class” composed of only certain Christians, that it cannot apply to individuals, and that it operates through a Governing Body? Again, where does the Bible make such statements?

  4.That Christians are separated into two classes, with a different relationship to God and Christ, on the basis of an earthly or a heavenly destiny? Where is this said?

  5.That the 144,000 in Revelation must be taken as a literal number and that the “great crowd” does not and cannot refer to persons serving in God’s heavenly courts? Where do we find those statements in the Bible?

  6.That the “last days” began in 1914, and that when the apostle Peter (at Acts 2:17) spoke of the last days as applying from Pentecost on, he did not mean the same “last days” that Paul did (at 2 Timothy 3:1)? Where?

  7.That the calendar year of 1914 was the time when Christ was first officially enthroned as King toward all the earth and that that calendar date marks the start of his parousia? Where?

  8.That when the Bible at Hebrews 11:16 says that men such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were “reaching out for a better place, that is, one belonging to heaven,” this could not possibly mean that they would have heavenly life? Where?

  Not a single Society teaching there dealt with could be supported by any plain direct statement of Scripture. Every single one would require intricate explanations, complex combinations of texts and, in some cases, what amounts to mental gymnastics, in an attempt to support them. Yet these were used to judge people’s Christianity, set forth as the basis for deciding whether persons who had poured out their lives in service to God were apostates!

  The morning after my hearing before the Governing Body, Chairman Schroeder came to my room with a tape recorder to tape my response to some additional testimony from a staff member, Fabio Silva, who recounted things said to him by René Vázquez when René was providing him transportation from the airport one day. I said I had nothing to comment with regard to such hearsay evidence.

  The morning hours passed. I felt a need to get out from the place and the oppressive atmosphere it contained. When I knew the lunch period was ended, I left my room and walked upstairs and was able to speak to Lyman Swingle as he was walking from the elevator to his rooms. I asked how much longer I had to wait. He told me a decision had been reached and that I would be notified that afternoon. His remarks gave me reason to believe that some members had pushed strongly for disfellowshipping and, while speaking with me, his face suddenly became very drawn and he said, “I can’t understand how some men think. I fought, oh how I fought—” and then his lips compressed, his shoulders began to heave, and he began to sob openly. I suddenly found myself trying to comfort him, assuring him that it really did not matter that much to me what their decision was, that I simply wanted the matter to come to an end. Since his tears kept coming, I walked away so that he could go on to his rooms.

  Lyman Swingle

  I know that there was no person on the Governing Body more devoted to the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses than Lyman Swingle. I had felt admiration and affection for him because of his honesty and courage. I have no idea what his attitude toward me would be in the years that followed. It might have been totally opposite. I only know that, if for no other reason, I will always love the man for the sincere feeling he expressed that day in the hallway. In his sadness I found strength.39

  That afternoon Chairman Schroeder brought the Governing Body’s decision to me. Evidently those seeking disfellowshipping had not attained a two-thirds majority, for he simply informed me that I was being asked to resign from the Body and also as a member of the headquarters staff. The Body offered to place me (and my wife) on what is known as the “Infirm Special Pioneer list” (an arrangement often offered to Circuit and District Overseers who have to leave traveling work due to old age or poor health). Those on this list report each month to the Society and receive monthly financial help, but are not required to reach any particular “quota” of hours in preaching work.40 I informed him that neither of us felt we wanted to be under any arrangement that carried any obligation, even an implied one. He then made a few remarks about “what a marvelous piece of work” the Aid to Bible Understanding book had been. Then he left.

  I wrote out my resignation, set out on the following page. I have not failed to do what I there said up to the present time.

  My wife and I went away for a couple of days to get our emotions under control and then returned to move out what belongings we would take with us. I left the bulk of my files behind, bringing primarily the files on matters in which I had been most personally involved. I felt a need to be able to document my position on such issues should that position be misrepresented in the future, as in several cases it was.

  On our return, I saw Ed Dunlap standing outside one of the headquarters buildings. He was to meet that day with a judicial committee.

  Ed was now sixty-nine years old. The year before, in 1979, he had talked seriously about leaving the headquarters. He knew he had been the object of personal attack both within the Governing Body and outside thereof. At one point he had asked the Writing Committee to give him relief from harassment. The Writing Committee assigned three of its members, Lyman Swingle, Lloyd Barry and Ewart Chitty, to speak to Governing Body member Karl
Klein (not then a member of the Writing Committee, though he became such after Chitty’s resignation). They urged him to refrain from going into Ed’s office and speaking critically to him as well as to refrain from talking to others about Ed in such manner. This seemed to have effect for a time as to expressions outside the Body, though not within the Body and its sessions.

  When, in late 1979, I informed Ed of our thoughts about leaving, he said that he had weighed the idea but had come to the conclusion that it was not feasible for him. At his advanced age and in his economic situation he did not see how he could reasonably hope to support himself and his wife. By remaining, at least they would have a place to live, food, and medical care when needed. So, he said, he had decided to stay and added, “If they give me too much hassle in the Writing Department I’ll just ask for a transfer to the carpenter shop or some other kind of work.”

  Less than a year later he found himself cited for a judicial committee hearing. The day I saw him he said, “I’m going to be very frank with them. It’s against my nature to hedge.” He said he had little doubt as to what the committee would do.

  It was now near the end of May. About six weeks had elapsed since the Chairman’s Committee had played the Godínez tape to the Governing Body in which Ed’s name was used several times. Nearly that length of time had passed since Barry and Barr had interviewed him, assuring him that they were ‘just seeking information.’ During all those weeks—although Ed Dunlap was right in their midst, even up to the very last working on a Governing Body assignment to prepare a book on the life of Jesus Christ—not a single one of the Chairman’s Committee approached him to discuss these matters with him, to inform him of the grave charges being made. These men were exercising full direction of the whole affair, they all knew Ed intimately, yet to the end they said not one word to him on the subject.41