That this is so is clearly evident from statement after statement appearing in the Watch Tower magazine in the years following Russell’s death. Giving a totally different picture from the very slanted version modern Watchtower material presents, the March 1, 1923, Watch Tower quotes Russell as saying that some spoke of him as the “faithful and wise servant” and others spoke of the Society as such. The magazine then adds:
Both statements were true; for Brother Russell was in fact the Society in the most absolute sense, in this, that he directed the policy and course of the Society without regard to any other person on earth.
In fact, a biographical issue of the Watch Tower published after his death on October 16, 1916, stated:
Thousands of the readers of Pastor Russell’s writings believe that he filled the office of “that faithful and wise servant,” and that his great work was giving to the household of faith meat in due season. His modesty and humility precluded him from openly claiming this title, but he admitted as much in private conversation.9
Of those classed as “opponents” to his being “that servant” used as God’s “channel,” in the October 1, 1909 Watch Tower referred to, Russell represents them as saying:
Note that those he calls “opponents” then took the same position that the Watch Tower Society today upholds, namely, that “the faithful and wise servant” should be understood to mean “all the members of the church of Christ,” not one man. To view Russell as “that servant” and call all others his “fellow servants” was therefore “meaningless,” since they were all part of “that servant.” They saw a clear danger in looking to any human source as the sole channel through which to receive truth and understanding. In Russell’s eyes, to question in such way the special relationship with the Lord which his holding the position of “that servant” and of being the chosen “channel” implied, was being “antagonistic” and making “bitter and sarcastic” expressions. All of this has a very familiar ring.
Twenty-three years earlier, in 1886, in his book The Divine Plan of the Ages (page 23), Russell had said that the development of a heirarchical organization has its roots in “an undue respect for the teachings of fallible men.”
Now, however, when some were expressing less than total support for his writings as constituting “the one special channel” chosen by the Lord, he endeavored to attribute great, even vital, importance to those writings. He thus represents his “friends” as saying of his publications:
Note that the “friends” are presented as saying that all the Bible study they and their forefathers had engaged in had been completely ineffectual until the Watch Tower publications came along. Evidently God’s holy Spirit was either inactive or simply ineffective in providing them and their forefathers the help they needed. Whatever prayers they had made to God for understanding during those “generations” apparently simply went unanswered, because His time had not yet arrived to produce His “channel.”11 Note as well that after this statement of the crucial role of that Society, Russell presents his “friends” as saying that “to ignore this leading of the Lord and to exclude from their study of the Bible the teacher sent of the Lord would be to dishonor the Lord who sent the same and to reject His helping hand,” all this leading to “gradual loss of light,” loss of holy Spirit and ultimate entry into “outer darkness.” All this from the pen of the man who had earlier said that it was “the undue respect for the teachings of fallible men” that led to a hierarchy and to enslavement.
In the latter part of the article Russell abandons the “friends versus opponents” literary device and expresses himself directly. Commendably, he urges an avoidance of quarreling or name-calling. He urges the importance of “meekness” and “humility.” At the same time, in the article he himself portrays those who believe it unscriptural to view him and his magazine as God’s unique channel as “disloyal ‘fellow servants,’” “crafty,” having a “contentious spirit,” that they seem “inoculated with madness, Satanic hydrophobia.” Any who do not continue in affiliation with his Watch Tower Society are described as ‘sifted-out ones.’ While saying that one should not be unkind to persons who have gone “blind,” he goes on to speak of these dissenters as persons “who in this hour of temptation are being smitten down by the arrows of the adversary because, from the Lord’s standpoint, they are not deemed worthy of the necessary succor.” Clearly, in his mind, to qualify as among those showing ‘meekness, humility and teachableness’ required a humble recognition that Christ had chosen just one special “servant,” “one special channel,” and a meek receptiveness to the writings of that “servant” as unquestionably superior to all other sources of knowledge on God’s Word. In reading the article I could not but wonder at the incredibly warped reasoning that can develop in the human mind no matter how religiously oriented it may be. How can an individual write such extreme praise of himself and his writings, attach such enormous, crucial, vital importance to those writings, argue for his being a special, one-of-a-kind, never-before-seen, never-to-berepeated agent of God and then impute a lack of meekness and humility and teachableness to those who doubt this? I view it as a form of mental illness, an infection from the germs of self-centeredness that breed wherever an atmosphere of personal importance and power develops. None of us have a natural immunity to it. Our protection comes from a clear and constant recognition of the headship reserved solely to Christ, from remembering that, if we have a personal relationship with God, so does every other person who shares a common faith, and from a deep respect for the fact that before God we all stand as equals.
Compare all the foregoing history and expressions with the statements of Ignatius, Cyprian and other leaders of the early centuries in their push for greater adherence and loyalty to the bishop as the God-selected religious teacher, their equation of any lack of submission or receptiveness with a ‘dishonoring of the Lord,’ and their warnings of dire consequences to any who questioned the privileged position that being so chosen by the Lord implied. In the words of Lightfoot, the bishop then became “the indispensable channel of divine grace.” In the case at hand, we have a man presenting himself as the “one special channel” of God for receiving understanding of God’s message and direction. The parallel is evident.
The centuries-old pattern of elevating human importance and, by implication, human authority, was surfacing once again. It soon received fresh and powerful impetus.
The Centralizing Process Intensifies
With Russell’s death in 1916, a period of uncertainty ensued. By then the wholesale collapse of his intricately developed time-prophecies system (which had its starting point in 1874 and its ending date in 1914) threw matters into disarray and produced a fallout of much questioning.12
Russell’s successor, Joseph F. Rutherford, had to deal with this. Any devotion Rutherford felt for the high principles that early issues of the Watch Tower had enunciated was now put to the test.
The book Crisis of Conscience has already documented the means he chose to employ to bring order to the ranks.
* The following information contained from this point to page 523, was published in In Search of Christian Freedom, 2007, pages 255-270 which are referred to in this 2018 edition of Crisis of Conscience, Chapter 5, footnote 13 and Chapter 6, footnote 17.
By saying “As a Christian he could not do that,” the manual simply means that if he does he will be subject to disfellowshipping. This, too, is not hypothetical in the least. In the chapter that follows the extremes to which this policy can be carried are illustrated.
Such policies illustrate clearly that the organization is indeed run “from the top down and not from the bottom up.” What this actually results in is a usurping of the individual’s exercise of personal conscience, accomplished by superimposing on his conscience the rulings legislated by the organizational leadership, rulings made binding and “enforceable” through disfellowshipping decrees.13
The examples given only touch the surface. Since then, many a
dditional rules have been made. There seems to be nothing on which the organization is not willing to legislate. A “Question from Readers” in the June 15, 1982, Watchtower (page 31) even rules on whether a Witness can submit to medical treatment in which (to reduce the risk of stroke by blood clot or for other purposes) a leech is used to draw off blood. The answer, based on a very wandering type of argument, is “No.”14
Unbalanced Thinking
By legalistic thinking, a comparatively innocent minor action can be transformed into a major one of great culpability. In life there is need for balance, since the rightness or wrongness of many things really comes down to a matter of degree. As a simple example, a gentle pat with one’s hand on another’s cheek signifies affection, whereas a strong slap on the cheek tells of anger, even hatred. The action of the hand and fingers is the same in both cases; it is the difference in the degree of force that converts an expression of affection into one of hatred. So, too, in more complex aspects. While the element of degree may not enter notably into such clear-cut offenses as murder (a murderer does not “slightly kill” or “moderately kill” or “strongly kill” someone), or theft, or adultery, it does play a deciding role in a wide variety of life’s affairs. Thus, people commonly work to earn money. This does not, however, justify classing them as “greedy.” But if the degree of concern for money passes a certain point, then greed is evident. Who can specifically identify that “certain point” so as to draw a clear line of demarcation, one that divides precisely between the proper and improper concern for gain? It is only when the evidence clearly points to excess that one can feel justified in assessing another as greedy. This is true in a whole host of matters.
Again, in Bible times the religious leaders failed to exercise such balance, to distinguish between actions of a minor nature and those which might be termed major. Thus, when they saw Jesus’ disciples, on the Sabbath day, picking grains of wheat, rubbing them in their hands to remove the chaff and eating them, they accused them of violating the Sabbath law against work. How could they? Because, in their unbalanced, extremely scrupulous thinking, the men were, in effect, both harvesting and threshing. Indeed, if they had picked large quantities of grain, loading up their cloaks with the wheat, and then rubbed the chaff off, producing piles of such grain, they would have been doing just that. But they were not. And Jesus reproved the religious leaders for ‘condemning the innocent.’ — Matthew 12:1-7.
This same unbalanced thinking seems to be the only explanation for the positions taken by the Watch Tower organization in a number of the policies already described. Perhaps nothing demonstrates this more forcefully than does the issue of alternative service to be performed in place of military service.
Submission to the Superior Authorities
Remind them to be submissive to the government and the authorities, to obey them, and to be ready for any honourable form of work. — Titus 3:1, New English Bible.
In many enlightened countries, the government provides for a nonmilitary form of service to be performed instead of military service and training. They do this specifically to show consideration for the conscientious objections of some citizens to participation in war or military service, a concession that is surely commendable. In Crisis of Conscience this subject was discussed in part.15 As explained there, the organization’s policy was that no Witness can accept an order from a draft board (or any other governmental agency other than a court) to perform alternative service—which generally consisted of hospital work, rendering services to elderly people, work in libraries, in a forest camp, or in some other field that would benefit the community at large.
Since any of these is clearly an “honourable form of work” why was a Witness not to accept it? Because in its being “alternative service” it is a “substitute” for military service, and because such work stands in the place of military service then, by some process of reasoning, to accept an alternative service assignment from a draft board was deemed the equivalent of having accepted military service and therefore one had “compromised,” had “violated his neutrality,” and he had thereby become bloodguilty. If that reasoning seems remarkably convoluted, there is yet more that follows.
At the same time, when the Witness refusing was arrested and brought to trial for his refusal to comply with the draft board’s orders, and is found guilty, if the judge in the trial then sentenced the individual to perform such alternative service he could now obey the court order, do the work assigned, and be free from compromise and bloodguilt. The reasoning behind this? The person, having been convicted, was now a prisoner and hence had not “voluntarily” given up his freedom of action and choice of occupation. In actuality, there was nothing “voluntary” to begin with about the government-assigned service, no more than the payment of money as taxes is “voluntary.” It was an obligatory, compulsory service, and that is why the man refusing was arrested in the first place. And it might also be said that he had really given up his freedom and choice when he submitted to the Watch Tower organization’s deciding for him that obedience to an order from the draft board to perform hospital work or other such service is wrong. In doing that he allowed his conscience to become a prisoner and removed the possibility of making a choice based on personal conscience.
But yet another technicality was introduced. The organization even took the position that if, previous to the actual sentence being passed, the Witness was asked by the judge if his conscience would allow him to accept an assignment from the court to do hospital work or similar service, he could not answer in the affirmative but must say, “that is for the court to decide.” If he answered, “Yes” (which would have been a truthful answer), he was considered to have “compromised,” having made a “deal” with the judge, and thus had broken his integrity. But if he gave the prescribed, approved response already quoted, and then the judge in sentencing him assigned him to do hospital work or similar service, he could comply.16 He was now not guilty of violating the apostolic exhortation to “stop becoming the slaves of men.” (1 Corinthians 7:23) Surely such technicalities are truly casuistic and the application of the term “Pharisaical” does not seem too harsh.17
This is no light matter. During World War II, in the United States alone some 4,300 young Jehovah’s Witnesses went to prison, with sentences ranging as high as 5 years, not simply because of conscientious objection to war, but primarily because, in adhering to the Society’s policy, they refused governmental provisions allowing them to perform other service of a non-military nature provided for conscientious objectors. In England, there were 1,593 convictions, including those of 334 women.18 Though the policy was rescinded in 1996, there still remained hundreds in prisons in various lands, the imprisonment resulting from their obeying the Society’s policy. In 1988, in just the countries of France and Italy there were some 1,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in prison for this reason.19
In Crisis of Conscience, when relating the discussion of this issue by the Governing Body in numerous sessions over a period of years, only brief mention was made of a resulting survey taken among all the Branch Committees operating throughout the world under the direction of the Governing Body. The survey was suggested by Milton Henschel since, as he put it, ‘perhaps it would reveal that only a relatively few countries had alternative service provisions.’ If such were the case, then that would militate against the need for making any policy change. Apparently the fact that men in those “few countries” were in prison and that other hundreds of men would yet go to prison (if the policy continued as it was) would not be of sufficient weight or gravity to make the issue a crucial one.
In the survey the Branch Committees were to be asked whether the Witnesses in their country understood the reasoning behind the policy and its Scripturalness and also what the committee members’ own views were of the existing policy. Since the Governing Body assigned me to carry out the survey correspondence with the 90 or more Branch Committees, I have in my files copies of all their replies. The responses r
eceived were revealing.
Before considering them, I might here quote a portion of a memorandum submitted to the Governing Body by member Lloyd Barry. Warning against any change in the existing policy he wrote:
Those who have studied out the matter on the basis of the Bible and who have been through the experience, have no question about maintaining a stand of “no compromise”—unless someone comes along and tries to plant such a question. A change of viewpoint sponsored by the Governing Body would be very upsetting for these countries and brothers, where they have fought for so long in behalf of their uncompromising stand.
What do the facts show as to the actual thinking of those affected? Does the picture portrayed in the memorandum fit the reality? The information that follows is fairly extensive (though only a fraction of the whole). I believe it merits the space. The reason is that it so graphically demonstrates the power of indoctrination to cause people to sacrifice liberty, years of life and livelihood and family association, in order to obey something that they do not understand or really believe—doing this purely out of a sense of loyalty to an organization. Anything that produces such a blindly submissive state of mind is fraught with potential danger of even greater consequence.
Since disagreement with any position of the organization is generally viewed as indicating a lack of loyalty and even a lack of faith and confidence in God’s direction, it is not at all surprising that the majority of the Committees expressed full support for the organization’s policy. What is surprising is the significant number of Branch Committees that spoke of serious difficulties of Witnesses in their country either as to understanding the policy or seeing any Scriptural basis for it. Not that they were not complying with the policy. Witness men were going to jail rather than act contrary to it. But did they feel as Governing Body member Barry put it that ‘there was no question’ about the policy that led to their being put in prison? Here are direct quotations from the letters sent by some Branch Committees:
Crisis of Conscience Page 45