Exactly seven days after submitting my appeal letter, Elder French phoned to tell me an appeal committee had been formed, naming the members selected. Three days passed and another phone call came; he was informing me that the appeal committee would meet with me on Sunday. I told him I had written him asking for the specific names of the committee members (he had only given me family names of a couple of them) and said I would be asking for a change in the committee membership. When I inquired why these particular men had been selected, his reply was that Wesley Benner, the Society’s representative, had selected them.
Those he had chosen as appeal committee members were Willie Anderson, Earl Parnell and Rob Dibble. In view of the fact that the principal charge against me was my association with Peter Gregerson I found this selection incredible.
Every one of these men was very unlikely to show objectivity where Peter was concerned.
As I pointed out in a letter to the Gadsden elders (although they themselves already knew it), Willie Anderson had been at the head of a committee that created a considerable stir in Gadsden in its handling of issues involving a large number of young people in the local congregations. Peter Gregerson had appealed to the Brooklyn headquarters to send in a review committee and when this was done the committee headed by Willie Anderson was found to have been excessive in a number of its actions. This had a noticeable effect on the relationship between Elder Anderson and Peter Gregerson thereafter.
Circuit Overseer Benner’s selection of Earl Parnell was even harder to fathom. One of Peter Gregerson’s daughters had been married to a son of Elder Parnell but had recently obtained a divorce from him. The strained relations between the two sets of parents was obvious; Circuit Overseer Benner knew of the divorce action and, one would think, would also have been sensitive enough to have realized how inappropriate it would be to assign Elder Parnell to a case in which Peter Gregerson was a central figure.
Similarly with Rob Dibble. He was Elder Parnell’s son-in-law, his wife being the sister of the Parnell son recently divorced by Peter Gregerson’s daughter.
As I wrote to the Gadsden elders, I found it difficult to think of a committee of three men that would have less to recommend it for an unbiased, objective hearing. (The only way I could see any logic to the selection would be if an adverse decision was somehow being deliberately sought.) In my letter I requested that a totally different appeal committee be selected.21
The same day I wrote these letters (December 20), yet another phone call came from Elder French. The appeal committee wanted to inform me that they would meet on the next day, Monday, and ‘would hold the hearing whether I was present or not.’ I told Elder French I had written requesting a change in the committee and had written to the Brooklyn headquarters as well. I delivered copies of these letters directly to his home the next day, Monday.
Two days later, Wednesday, December 23, the following note came by registered mail:
No one had said anything to me about a proposed meeting on Thursday. But the above note was my official notice of a December 28 meeting, Monday.
During the two days after delivering the letters to Elder French’s home, I learned that he was trying to obtain information to support a new and totally different charge.
Mark Gregerson, another of Peter’s brothers, informed Peter that Theotis French had called long distance to Mark’s home in Florida where he had moved from Alabama. Elder French spoke to Mark’s wife and asked if she could recall ever hearing me make any remarks against the organization. She told him she never had heard me make remarks against anybody, including the organization. Why did he want to know? He replied that he was ‘just seeking information.’ He did not ask to speak with her husband.
This, too, brought memories of the nightmarish situation I had experienced a year and a half before, and of the conduct of the Chairman’s Committee of the Governing Body then.
Approximately seven weeks had passed since I first wrote the Governing Body asking for an expression on the material in the September 15, 1981, Watchtower, telling them why it was of serious importance to me. I had now written them two more times, petitioning them to make some expression. They did not see fit to answer or even to acknowledge any of this correspondence.
Is it unbelievable that the leadership of a worldwide organization with millions of members, one that claims to be the outstanding example of adherence to Christian principles, could conduct itself in such manner? No, not if one is familiar with the attitude prevalent among its leadership. I have personally been witness to similar ignoring of letters when the Governing Body felt it was not to their advantage to provide an answer. They clearly felt so in my case.
From the beginning I had felt no doubt as to the ultimate goal of all that was being done. I was thoroughly sickened by the whole conduct of the affair, what I can only describe as a narrow-minded approach, an obvious determination to find something, no matter how trivial or petty, that could serve as a basis for bringing adverse action against me. So I wrote my last letter, dated December 23, 1981, sending copies to the Governing Body and to the East Gadsden Congregation Body of Elders.
There was little doubt in my mind that those directing the whole affair had begun to feel that the “evidence” used to disfellowship me—one meal with Peter Gregerson—might appear rather weak. Rather than seek to provide the evidence from God’s Word (demonstrating that my act was truly sinful), which I had requested in my appeal letter, they tried to build a stronger “case” by soliciting adverse testimony. I saw no good in further submission to this.
Eight days later, a phone call came from Larry Johnson informing me that they had received my letter and that in view of my withdrawal of my appeal, the disfellowshipping action taken by the first committee was counted as remaining in force.
That the call came on the day it did, seemed rather appropriate. I had been baptized on January 1, 1939, and exactly forty-three years later, on December 31, 1981, I experienced excommunication—the only charge serving as the basis for this being testimony that I had eaten a meal with a disassociated person.
Do I personally believe that this was the true reason for their taking the action they did? No. I believe it was simply a technicality used to achieve an objective. The end justified the means in their minds. That an organization would make use of a technicality of such pettiness, to my mind betrays a remarkably low standard for conduct and a great insecurity.
Based upon my past experience on the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, upon the conduct of its Chairman’s Committee during the spring of 1980, and also upon the material published from that time until the present, my personal belief is that it was considered “advantageous” that I be disfellowshipped so as to eliminate what they considered a “threat.” If so, then this too, I think, reveals a very great sense of insecurity—particularly so for a worldwide organization that claims to be God’s chosen instrument, backed up by the Sovereign power of the universe, the reigning King’s appointee as supervisor of all his earthly interests. This would surely not be the action of an organization fully at ease with its own teachings, calmly confident that what it presents is truth, solidly supported by God’s Word.
Nor is it the action of an organization having genuine confidence in its body of adherents, confidence that the instruction and training given have produced mature Christian men and women who do not need some maternal magisterium to prescribe what they shall read, discuss or think about, but who are instead capable of discerning for themselves between truth and error, through their knowledge of the Word of God.
The action is typical, however, of many religious organizations of the past, all the way back to the first century, organizations that felt a compelling need to eliminate anything that, in their view, threatened to diminish their authority over others.
In his book, A History of Christianity, scholar Paul Johnson writes of methods employed during the dark period of religious intolerance, which produced the Inquisition, and says:
/> Convictions of thought-crimes being difficult to secure, the Inquisition used procedures banned in other courts, and so contravened town charters, written and customary laws, and virtually every aspect of established jurisprudence.22
The methods employed regularly by judicial committees formed of Witness elders would be considered unworthy of the court systems of any enlightened country. The same withholding of critically important information (such as the names of hostile witnesses) also the use of anonymous informers, and similar inquisitorial tactics, described by historian Johnson, have been employed with great frequency by these men in dealing with those not totally in agreement with the “channel,” “the organization.” What was true back then, is true in the vast majority of cases now, as Johnson puts it:
The object, quite simply, was to produce convictions at any cost; only thus, it was thought, could heresy be quenched.23
Again, I do not think the coldness or the hardness, the aloof, superior attitude experienced, is owing to the normal personality of most of the men involved. I believe it owes very definitely to the teaching that allows an organization to make claims of exclusive authority and unapproachable superiority that are both immodest and unfounded. That concept deserves not only to be questioned, it deserves to be exposed for the hurtful, God-dishonoring doctrine that it is. The October 15, 1995 Watchtower article “Watch Out for Self-Righteousness” said:
What is true of an individual is equally true of a collective body. Reading the above, one cannot but think of the apostle’s words to those who viewed themselves as in a superior relation to God:
You are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you, then, that teach others, will you not teach yourself?—Romans 2:17-21, NRSV.
1In 1992 Jon Mitchell authored a booklet, Where is the “Great Crowd” Serving God?, sharing his research and observations from his time in Bethel in 1980. It has been included in this 2018 edition of Crisis of Conscience in its entirety in Appendix C.
2The members at that time were Ted Jaracz (Coordinator), Milton Henschel, Albert Schroeder, William Jackson and Martin Poetzinger.
3Romans 12:2
42 Corinthians 10:5.
5The present copyright owner of Crisis of Conscience, had discussions with both Raymond Franz and Peter Gregerson about Ray’s preference to do yard work at this time. Peter’s original intention was that Ray would have an office job in his business. Nevertheless, Ray strenuously insisted that he do yard work! With great reluctance Peter acquiesced to his request. Ray said that he needed to “sweat” some things out! In the end, Peter observed that the hard labor was therapeutic for Ray as he sought to emotionally process all that had occurred at Brooklyn headquarters.
6The article, in the August 15, 1980, issue of the Watchtower, endeavored to show that the Greek term naos (temple or sanctuary), used in Revelation 7:15 with regard to the “great crowd,” could apply to the temple courtyards. In doing so it said that Jesus chased the moneychangers out of the naos. (See page 15, box at the bottom of the page.) Since the Bible account itself, at John 2:14-16, clearly uses another term (hieron), the claim was obviously false, as one elder expressed it, “either an example of intellectual dishonesty or intellectual ignorance.”
7For full documentation of this matter, see the booklet Where Is the “Great Crowd” Serving God? by Jon Mitchell, which has been placed in Appendix C of this 2018 edition of Crisis of Conscience in it’s entirety.
8His wife’s family also included many witnesses.
9I knew personally that the Governing Body had till then equated disassociation and disfellowshipment only in the case of persons entering politics or the military, not for a simple resignation from the congregation. I had, in fact, been assigned to undertake a revision of the Aid to Answering Branch Office Correspondence manual which spelled out all such policies and I knew that no such extreme position had been reached on disassociation. Persons who resigned were not treated the same as those disfellowshipped, with the sole exception that if they desired to re-enter the congregation they had to submit a request to that effect. After hearing that the Service Department had sent out some letters that, in effect, equated disassociation with disfellowshipment, I talked with a member of the Service Department Committee and pointed out that the matter had never been presented to the Governing Body and that any such action had to be of the Service Department’s own doing (an example of the Department’s occasional unauthorized “policy-making” actions). He acknowledged that nothing on this had come through from the Governing Body.
10Two cases had come before the Body of disfellowshipped persons who wanted to attend meetings but needed assistance. One was a young girl living in a rural area in New England, the other a woman in a drug rehabilitation center in the Midwest. Neither could get to meetings without assistance as to transportation. The Governing Body’s decision was that it would be acceptable to provide transportation in such cases.
11The Watchtower of December 1, 1981, carried an article attempting to justify all the shifting back and forth on various doctrinal points on the Society’s part. It used the analogy of a boat tacking against the wind. The problem is that the shifting of teaching often brings them back virtually to the point where they began.
12This was directed primarily toward those who resigned. While those entering politics or the military were classed as “disassociated,” this was not some voluntary action on their part, not on their request. It was an automatic action taken by the elders in accord with Society policy. So the new position dealt with those voluntarily withdrawing.
13Dan Gregerson acknowledged that he had never made the effort to speak to his brother, Peter, about Peter’s differences of viewpoint, although Dan was fully aware of them.
14Peter at that time had not yet disassociated himself. His disassociation came nearly a year later.
15Proverbs 17:15.
16That membership continued after I left the headquarters. Both in 1980 and 1981 I received the usual “Proxies” for voting at the annual meeting. The first year I mailed the proxy in, but in 1981 I could not find it in myself to do so, particularly in view of the material being published in the society’s magazines.
17For the reader’s information my letter is presented in full in Appendix A.
18Tom Gregerson was at that time the president of Warehouse Groceries.
19See Appendix A for the letter in its entirety.
20See Appendix A.
21See Appendix A.
22Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity (New York: Atheneum, 1979), p. 253.
23Ibid., pp. 253, 254.
13
PERSPECTIVE
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
— 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 New International Version.
THIS, then, is my account and these are the fundamental issues that produced in me a crisis of conscience. The effect they had, my feelings, reactions, conclusions reached, are set forth and the reader can assess them for whatever they are worth. Simply put, my question is: How would your own conscience have been affected?
What with nearly six thousand million people on earth and only God knows how many generations in the past, the life of any one person is but a minute fraction of the whole. We are very tiny drops in a very big stream. Yet Christianity teaches us that, small and inconsequential as we are, we can each contribute good to others that is out of proportion to our own smallness.1 Faith makes that possible, and, as the apostle expresses it, “the love of Christ urges us on.”2
We do not need the bulk of a big organization to back us up, nor its headship, control,
proddings and pressure, to accomplish this. Heart appreciation for God’s undeserved kindness in making life a “free gift,” not dependent on works but on faith, is sufficient, more than enough, to motivate us. If we respect and cherish our Christian freedom, we will respond to no other compulsion. Neither will we submit to any other yoke than the one offered in these words:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.3
I feel certain that when life comes to its close the only thing that will, in retrospect, bring any true sense of satisfaction is the extent to which life was used to contribute to the welfare of others, primarily spiritually, and, secondarily, emotionally, physically and materially.
I cannot believe that “ignorance is bliss,” or that there is any kindness in encouraging people to live in illusions. Sooner or later, illusion must meet up with reality. The longer it takes for this to happen, the more traumatic the transition—brought on by disillusionment—can be. I am only glad it did not take any longer than it did in my own case.
That is why I have written what I have written. I have sincerely sought to be accurate throughout the account. Based on what has happened already and what has been published and circulated through rumors and gossip, I have no doubt but that effort will be made to disparage the significance of the information. Whatever may be said, I can only say that I am willing to stand by what I have presented. If there are errors, I will be grateful to anyone who will point such out to me and I will do whatever I can to make correction.
What does the future hold for the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses and its central Governing Body? Though often asked this, I have no way of knowing. Time alone will tell.
There are some things that I feel a measure of certainty about, but only a few. I do not personally foresee a mass movement out of the organization. The reports worldwide at the start of the new millennium indicate problems, as shown in a previous chapter, yet there is still some measure of growth, even if diminished. The vast majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses are simply unaware of the realities of the authority structure. From lifelong experience among them, in many countries, I know that for a large percentage the organization has a certain “aura,” as though a luminous radiation surrounds it, giving its pronouncements an importance above and beyond that normally accorded the words of imperfect men. Most assume that Governing Body sessions are on an unusually high level, manifesting more than ordinary Scriptural knowledge and spiritual wisdom. As Witnesses, all are, in fact, admonished thus:
Crisis of Conscience Page 39