JW Insider

I just found this, and I feel like I'm losing a friend. A friend I never met, that is, and a friend with whom I probably disagree with on more subjects than I can remember right now  Forums aren't the same as "real-life" congregations, and friends on forums aren't the same as friends in "real life" either. Still, it's a bit like when one of your favorite elders steps down or moves away.
There is something liberating about being free to speak about whatever we find interesting. The freedom of speech that you, JTR, have enjoyed here was a true achievement. I'm sure it turned away a lot of friends here (I know the feeling) but it also made some points that will forever be remembered for good.
Thanks for what you've done. I hope I'm still here when and if you decide to find your way back for some additional rounds. I doubt you've run out of ammunition.
 

Γιαννης Διαμαντιδης,
I believe that Ann O'maly has stated the truth about the U.N. involvement about as well as anyone can. I know the brother who got the Society involved with the UN DPI/NGO, and have spoken to him several times since I left Bethel in the 1980's. I know that the paperwork was approved by others including a member of the GB (mentioned by Ann).
It was definitely a mistake. And it has definitely stumbled people. I'm not here to defend it, and I'm not here as one of those Witnesses who will claim that Jehovah has allowed certain mistakes just to filter out those who are disloyal, or those who are looking for an excuse to leave the Organization. People still say this about some of the mistakes of the past, and will likely say such things about mistakes made in the future.
I just searched through the jw-archive site, because I know that we have discussed this before, and I didn't want to just keep re-writing things "from scratch" over and over again -- which is something I have a tendency to always do. In fact, this is the very first time I will be quoting myself from a previous post: I'm no expert on this, and perhaps I don't have all the facts either, but the information is from people I trust.
 
A portion of the discussion from https://disqus.com/home/discussion/jwarchive/jw_archiveorg_by_the_jw_comic_strip_52/#comment-2009424381
(I made the UN joke because the timing was close to "Sternstorm." The WTS applied for the NGO status through their DPI (Dept of Public Info.) in 1991 and received it in 1992. I believe we requested disassociation in 2001, just after an investigative journalist exposed the NGO/DPI connection.)
If you are asking about the UN, then unfortunately, the answer is Yes. The Watchtower joined the UN as an NGO. I know the brother who spearheaded the effort, still in Writing (last I spoke to him), and also knew others who approved it at the time (now deceased). They meant no harm, but it proved to be an embarrassment. They didn't really need the NGO status, for the original purpose -- access to informational materials, but the status seems to have given them quicker information about conferences and events that could have even helped the Watchtower Society learn more about the behind-the-scenes political circumstances of our brothers in various countries. The most embarrassing part, of course, was getting "disfellowshipped" by the UN. (That really happened, but it happened just after the WTS requested it.) Also, for a while, the Watchtower Society was supposed to write one informational article per year that informed our audience of some of the work the UN was doing. (That's one of the ways the DPI works.) So while the Watchtower magazine bashed them negatively, a small piece here and there in the Awake! magazine was doing articles on UNICEF etc that were between neutral and positive.
...
I should also say that I don't think this started out as anything very big. But those who got involved should have realized that almost everything goes public and becomes searchable. For a while you could even search the U.N.'s site and see which Awake! articles had been submitted for NGO/DPI compliance.
My motto: If you think you'll have trouble defending it, just don't! (Don't start something you might have to defend later.)
But I have to say that even in 1976, I was doing some follow-up research on Mr. Banda, the president of Malawi who had allowed widespread persecution of the Witnesses for several years just prior. And it turns out that he made some anti-JW statements that blamed the Witnesses for their own troubles -- saying that the problem was not just the 25 cent political party card. I only found this info in some heavy encyclopedic U.N. publications that no one in Writing had seen or heard of -- although these publications were at a large university library. It's quite possible that, 15 years later, a couple brothers were convinced that this type of information, although available without the NGO/DPI connection, would become more accessible. (I don't know if that would really be true.) Or, even more likely, that if we could gain a respectable status with THEIR researchers, we could merely request things to be xeroxed and mailed to the WTS, rather than traveling over to DPI repositories, and hardly knowing where to start.
 
----- and in another place on jw-archive, it came up again ------
 
There is additional evidence or information that I'm sure you can find from others, but what I write below is based mostly on what I know personally and have seen with my own eyes. It is mixed with a few things I have learned from other trusted and current Witnesses.
A very interesting man in Bethel's Writing Department is best known for some of his non-outline talks that he has given in hundreds of congregations. You can find many of his recorded talks on the Internet. He is a good speaker with a "dramatic" personality. I know the man well, and still count him as a friend although we rarely speak. I have seen him outside Bethel, in NY, NJ, even PA, oddly enough, buying books for his own library and for the Bethel libraries. (I have been a book collector for 30 years, and still take on research work for authors, so we have often frequented the same places.)
From the time I first knew him, 1976, this brother was in the Service Department and finally moved to the Writing Department. He was quickly given a lot of autonomy under the supervision of Lloyd Barry because he did more research and book purchasing than pure Writing compared with most others in Writing.
The brother I am speaking about was very highly embarrassed over the fact that it was mostly his own idea that got this thing started. I have not talked about it with him. He began using the UN library regularly in 1990, then weekly in 1991, and initially signed up with the UN's "Department of Public Information" (DPI) in 1991 (and officially accepted 1992) for easier access to library materials, but in the process of accessing those materials he learned a lot about different types of access to conferences and areas of interest that aligned with the Society's interests outside of just the library resources. (It was thought that association might have made it easier to publicize JW human rights violations, learn more about what other religions were doing when they had similar issues with religious persecution in many countries. It made it easier to get information about international religious taxation issues, and Holocaust publicity, etc.)
Brother Barry agreed with him that these other areas of access were also valuable, and they continued the association as an "NGO" (non-governmental organization). The names of both of these brothers, including the GB member, and another direct report to a GB member from the Service Dept are still on some forms at the UN.
They also had to agree to produce articles that helped to promote the work of United Nations' initiatives. The first one was the September 8, 1991 Awake! One initiative that the WTS could most easily agree with was UNICEF. The December 8, 2000 Awake! for example prints out the entire UN Declaration of the Rights of a Child in a single issue that mentions UNICEF 10 times (in a positive context). I'll quote it below.
But first notice by using the 2014 Watchtower Library CD for example that in the 10 years that the WTS was associated with the UN it mentioned UNICEF about 75 times (from 1991-2001). After a leak by the Guardian, the WTS was disassociated from the UN in 2001 when it was exposed to the UN that the Watchtower was simultaneously speaking out AGAINST the UN at the same time the Awake! was speaking positively about it.
(UNICEF has been mentioned just 11 times in the much longer time period since 2001, and always just to quote negative statistics.)
I have seen a list that included articles that were presented to the UN/DPI as proof that the WTS was keeping it's agreement by publishing at least one positive article per year. I don't have a copy of it, and don't know if anyone else does. I forget whether it included the issue below from 2000. I wish I had kept a copy. As I recall, it had references to about 10 different issues of the Awake! over a period of several years.
*** g00 12/8 p. 5 An Ongoing Search for Solutions ***
The UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child:
● The right to a name and nationality.
● The right to affection, love, and understanding and to material security.
● The right to adequate nutrition, housing, and medical services.
● The right to special care if disabled, be it physically, mentally, or socially.
● The right to be among the first to receive protection and relief in all circumstances.
● The right to be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty, and exploitation.
● The right to full opportunity for play and recreation and equal opportunity to free and compulsory education, to enable the child to develop his individual abilities and to become a useful member of society.
● The right to develop his full potential in conditions of freedom and dignity.
● The right to be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace, and universal brotherhood.
● The right to enjoy these rights regardless of race, color, sex, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, and property, birth, or other status.
 
 
--------------
Back to your current post. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think we need to cover up anything. A mistake was made, and we ultimately resolved it. I don't see what it proves to keep bringing it up. It does not show that we supported the U.N.  It shows that we found areas of agreement. We used the relationship to our advantage and the "cost" to us was the need to write about ways in which another organization was also trying to resolve world problems. For all we know, we would have been writing about such things anyway. Personally, I think we ended up looking more reasonable by discussing what the world was trying to do, and how it was at times making progress. Even their limited progress still highlighted the need for a more comprehensive solution.
So it's not like any JWs really needed to take their focus off the Scriptural reasoning for resolving the world's problems. Perhaps it made us more sympathetic and knowledgeable about the viewpoint of others. In the more distant past, we often did nothing but show derision for such efforts. Surely we are better off now for such research. I don't see this whole thing as a one-sided proof of hypocrisy with no up-side. I believe the posts also show that (through the mistake) we discovered avenues and venues for involvement in human rights awareness that we were not aware of previously.
 

Γιαννης Διαμαντιδης,
I believe that Ann O'maly has stated the truth about the U.N. involvement about as well as anyone can. I know the brother who got the Society involved with the UN DPI/NGO, and have spoken to him several times since I left Bethel in the 1980's. I know that the paperwork was approved by others including a member of the GB (mentioned by Ann).
It was definitely a mistake. And it has definitely stumbled people. I'm not here to defend it, and I'm not here as one of those Witnesses who will claim that Jehovah has allowed certain mistakes just to filter out those who are disloyal, or those who are looking for an excuse to leave the Organization. People still say this about some of the mistakes of the past, and will likely say such things about mistakes made in the future.
I just searched through the jw-archive site, because I know that we have discussed this before, and I didn't want to just keep re-writing things "from scratch" over and over again -- which is something I have a tendency to always do. In fact, this is the very first time I will be quoting myself from a previous post: I'm no expert on this, and perhaps I don't have all the facts either, but the information is from people I trust.
 
A portion of the discussion from https://disqus.com/home/discussion/jwarchive/jw_archiveorg_by_the_jw_comic_strip_52/#comment-2009424381
(I made the UN joke because the timing was close to "Sternstorm." The WTS applied for the NGO status through their DPI (Dept of Public Info.) in 1991 and received it in 1992. I believe we requested disassociation in 2001, just after an investigative journalist exposed the NGO/DPI connection.)
If you are asking about the UN, then unfortunately, the answer is Yes. The Watchtower joined the UN as an NGO. I know the brother who spearheaded the effort, still in Writing (last I spoke to him), and also knew others who approved it at the time (now deceased). They meant no harm, but it proved to be an embarrassment. They didn't really need the NGO status, for the original purpose -- access to informational materials, but the status seems to have given them quicker information about conferences and events that could have even helped the Watchtower Society learn more about the behind-the-scenes political circumstances of our brothers in various countries. The most embarrassing part, of course, was getting "disfellowshipped" by the UN. (That really happened, but it happened just after the WTS requested it.) Also, for a while, the Watchtower Society was supposed to write one informational article per year that informed our audience of some of the work the UN was doing. (That's one of the ways the DPI works.) So while the Watchtower magazine bashed them negatively, a small piece here and there in the Awake! magazine was doing articles on UNICEF etc that were between neutral and positive.
...
I should also say that I don't think this started out as anything very big. But those who got involved should have realized that almost everything goes public and becomes searchable. For a while you could even search the U.N.'s site and see which Awake! articles had been submitted for NGO/DPI compliance.
My motto: If you think you'll have trouble defending it, just don't! (Don't start something you might have to defend later.)
But I have to say that even in 1976, I was doing some follow-up research on Mr. Banda, the president of Malawi who had allowed widespread persecution of the Witnesses for several years just prior. And it turns out that he made some anti-JW statements that blamed the Witnesses for their own troubles -- saying that the problem was not just the 25 cent political party card. I only found this info in some heavy encyclopedic U.N. publications that no one in Writing had seen or heard of -- although these publications were at a large university library. It's quite possible that, 15 years later, a couple brothers were convinced that this type of information, although available without the NGO/DPI connection, would become more accessible. (I don't know if that would really be true.) Or, even more likely, that if we could gain a respectable status with THEIR researchers, we could merely request things to be xeroxed and mailed to the WTS, rather than traveling over to DPI repositories, and hardly knowing where to start.
 
----- and in another place on jw-archive, it came up again ------
 
There is additional evidence or information that I'm sure you can find from others, but what I write below is based mostly on what I know personally and have seen with my own eyes. It is mixed with a few things I have learned from other trusted and current Witnesses.
A very interesting man in Bethel's Writing Department is best known for some of his non-outline talks that he has given in hundreds of congregations. You can find many of his recorded talks on the Internet. He is a good speaker with a "dramatic" personality. I know the man well, and still count him as a friend although we rarely speak. I have seen him outside Bethel, in NY, NJ, even PA, oddly enough, buying books for his own library and for the Bethel libraries. (I have been a book collector for 30 years, and still take on research work for authors, so we have often frequented the same places.)
From the time I first knew him, 1976, this brother was in the Service Department and finally moved to the Writing Department. He was quickly given a lot of autonomy under the supervision of Lloyd Barry because he did more research and book purchasing than pure Writing compared with most others in Writing.
The brother I am speaking about was very highly embarrassed over the fact that it was mostly his own idea that got this thing started. I have not talked about it with him. He began using the UN library regularly in 1990, then weekly in 1991, and initially signed up with the UN's "Department of Public Information" (DPI) in 1991 (and officially accepted 1992) for easier access to library materials, but in the process of accessing those materials he learned a lot about different types of access to conferences and areas of interest that aligned with the Society's interests outside of just the library resources. (It was thought that association might have made it easier to publicize JW human rights violations, learn more about what other religions were doing when they had similar issues with religious persecution in many countries. It made it easier to get information about international religious taxation issues, and Holocaust publicity, etc.)
Brother Barry agreed with him that these other areas of access were also valuable, and they continued the association as an "NGO" (non-governmental organization). The names of both of these brothers, including the GB member, and another direct report to a GB member from the Service Dept are still on some forms at the UN.
They also had to agree to produce articles that helped to promote the work of United Nations' initiatives. The first one was the September 8, 1991 Awake! One initiative that the WTS could most easily agree with was UNICEF. The December 8, 2000 Awake! for example prints out the entire UN Declaration of the Rights of a Child in a single issue that mentions UNICEF 10 times (in a positive context). I'll quote it below.
But first notice by using the 2014 Watchtower Library CD for example that in the 10 years that the WTS was associated with the UN it mentioned UNICEF about 75 times (from 1991-2001). After a leak by the Guardian, the WTS was disassociated from the UN in 2001 when it was exposed to the UN that the Watchtower was simultaneously speaking out AGAINST the UN at the same time the Awake! was speaking positively about it.
(UNICEF has been mentioned just 11 times in the much longer time period since 2001, and always just to quote negative statistics.)
I have seen a list that included articles that were presented to the UN/DPI as proof that the WTS was keeping it's agreement by publishing at least one positive article per year. I don't have a copy of it, and don't know if anyone else does. I forget whether it included the issue below from 2000. I wish I had kept a copy. As I recall, it had references to about 10 different issues of the Awake! over a period of several years.
*** g00 12/8 p. 5 An Ongoing Search for Solutions ***
The UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child:
● The right to a name and nationality.
● The right to affection, love, and understanding and to material security.
● The right to adequate nutrition, housing, and medical services.
● The right to special care if disabled, be it physically, mentally, or socially.
● The right to be among the first to receive protection and relief in all circumstances.
● The right to be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty, and exploitation.
● The right to full opportunity for play and recreation and equal opportunity to free and compulsory education, to enable the child to develop his individual abilities and to become a useful member of society.
● The right to develop his full potential in conditions of freedom and dignity.
● The right to be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace, and universal brotherhood.
● The right to enjoy these rights regardless of race, color, sex, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, and property, birth, or other status.
 
 
--------------
Back to your current post. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think we need to cover up anything. A mistake was made, and we ultimately resolved it. I don't see what it proves to keep bringing it up. It does not show that we supported the U.N.  It shows that we found areas of agreement. We used the relationship to our advantage and the "cost" to us was the need to write about ways in which another organization was also trying to resolve world problems. For all we know, we would have been writing about such things anyway. Personally, I think we ended up looking more reasonable by discussing what the world was trying to do, and how it was at times making progress. Even their limited progress still highlighted the need for a more comprehensive solution.
So it's not like any JWs really needed to take their focus off the Scriptural reasoning for resolving the world's problems. Perhaps it made us more sympathetic and knowledgeable about the viewpoint of others. In the more distant past, we often did nothing but show derision for such efforts. Surely we are better off now for such research. I don't see this whole thing as a one-sided proof of hypocrisy with no up-side. I believe the posts also show that (through the mistake) we discovered avenues and venues for involvement in human rights awareness that we were not aware of previously.
 

Γιαννης Διαμαντιδης,
I believe that Ann O'maly has stated the truth about the U.N. involvement about as well as anyone can. I know the brother who got the Society involved with the UN DPI/NGO, and have spoken to him several times since I left Bethel in the 1980's. I know that the paperwork was approved by others including a member of the GB (mentioned by Ann).
It was definitely a mistake. And it has definitely stumbled people. I'm not here to defend it, and I'm not here as one of those Witnesses who will claim that Jehovah has allowed certain mistakes just to filter out those who are disloyal, or those who are looking for an excuse to leave the Organization. People still say this about some of the mistakes of the past, and will likely say such things about mistakes made in the future.
I just searched through the jw-archive site, because I know that we have discussed this before, and I didn't want to just keep re-writing things "from scratch" over and over again -- which is something I have a tendency to always do. In fact, this is the very first time I will be quoting myself from a previous post: I'm no expert on this, and perhaps I don't have all the facts either, but the information is from people I trust.
 
A portion of the discussion from https://disqus.com/home/discussion/jwarchive/jw_archiveorg_by_the_jw_comic_strip_52/#comment-2009424381
(I made the UN joke because the timing was close to "Sternstorm." The WTS applied for the NGO status through their DPI (Dept of Public Info.) in 1991 and received it in 1992. I believe we requested disassociation in 2001, just after an investigative journalist exposed the NGO/DPI connection.)
If you are asking about the UN, then unfortunately, the answer is Yes. The Watchtower joined the UN as an NGO. I know the brother who spearheaded the effort, still in Writing (last I spoke to him), and also knew others who approved it at the time (now deceased). They meant no harm, but it proved to be an embarrassment. They didn't really need the NGO status, for the original purpose -- access to informational materials, but the status seems to have given them quicker information about conferences and events that could have even helped the Watchtower Society learn more about the behind-the-scenes political circumstances of our brothers in various countries. The most embarrassing part, of course, was getting "disfellowshipped" by the UN. (That really happened, but it happened just after the WTS requested it.) Also, for a while, the Watchtower Society was supposed to write one informational article per year that informed our audience of some of the work the UN was doing. (That's one of the ways the DPI works.) So while the Watchtower magazine bashed them negatively, a small piece here and there in the Awake! magazine was doing articles on UNICEF etc that were between neutral and positive.
...
I should also say that I don't think this started out as anything very big. But those who got involved should have realized that almost everything goes public and becomes searchable. For a while you could even search the U.N.'s site and see which Awake! articles had been submitted for NGO/DPI compliance.
My motto: If you think you'll have trouble defending it, just don't! (Don't start something you might have to defend later.)
But I have to say that even in 1976, I was doing some follow-up research on Mr. Banda, the president of Malawi who had allowed widespread persecution of the Witnesses for several years just prior. And it turns out that he made some anti-JW statements that blamed the Witnesses for their own troubles -- saying that the problem was not just the 25 cent political party card. I only found this info in some heavy encyclopedic U.N. publications that no one in Writing had seen or heard of -- although these publications were at a large university library. It's quite possible that, 15 years later, a couple brothers were convinced that this type of information, although available without the NGO/DPI connection, would become more accessible. (I don't know if that would really be true.) Or, even more likely, that if we could gain a respectable status with THEIR researchers, we could merely request things to be xeroxed and mailed to the WTS, rather than traveling over to DPI repositories, and hardly knowing where to start.
 
----- and in another place on jw-archive, it came up again ------
 
There is additional evidence or information that I'm sure you can find from others, but what I write below is based mostly on what I know personally and have seen with my own eyes. It is mixed with a few things I have learned from other trusted and current Witnesses.
A very interesting man in Bethel's Writing Department is best known for some of his non-outline talks that he has given in hundreds of congregations. You can find many of his recorded talks on the Internet. He is a good speaker with a "dramatic" personality. I know the man well, and still count him as a friend although we rarely speak. I have seen him outside Bethel, in NY, NJ, even PA, oddly enough, buying books for his own library and for the Bethel libraries. (I have been a book collector for 30 years, and still take on research work for authors, so we have often frequented the same places.)
From the time I first knew him, 1976, this brother was in the Service Department and finally moved to the Writing Department. He was quickly given a lot of autonomy under the supervision of Lloyd Barry because he did more research and book purchasing than pure Writing compared with most others in Writing.
The brother I am speaking about was very highly embarrassed over the fact that it was mostly his own idea that got this thing started. I have not talked about it with him. He began using the UN library regularly in 1990, then weekly in 1991, and initially signed up with the UN's "Department of Public Information" (DPI) in 1991 (and officially accepted 1992) for easier access to library materials, but in the process of accessing those materials he learned a lot about different types of access to conferences and areas of interest that aligned with the Society's interests outside of just the library resources. (It was thought that association might have made it easier to publicize JW human rights violations, learn more about what other religions were doing when they had similar issues with religious persecution in many countries. It made it easier to get information about international religious taxation issues, and Holocaust publicity, etc.)
Brother Barry agreed with him that these other areas of access were also valuable, and they continued the association as an "NGO" (non-governmental organization). The names of both of these brothers, including the GB member, and another direct report to a GB member from the Service Dept are still on some forms at the UN.
They also had to agree to produce articles that helped to promote the work of United Nations' initiatives. The first one was the September 8, 1991 Awake! One initiative that the WTS could most easily agree with was UNICEF. The December 8, 2000 Awake! for example prints out the entire UN Declaration of the Rights of a Child in a single issue that mentions UNICEF 10 times (in a positive context). I'll quote it below.
But first notice by using the 2014 Watchtower Library CD for example that in the 10 years that the WTS was associated with the UN it mentioned UNICEF about 75 times (from 1991-2001). After a leak by the Guardian, the WTS was disassociated from the UN in 2001 when it was exposed to the UN that the Watchtower was simultaneously speaking out AGAINST the UN at the same time the Awake! was speaking positively about it.
(UNICEF has been mentioned just 11 times in the much longer time period since 2001, and always just to quote negative statistics.)
I have seen a list that included articles that were presented to the UN/DPI as proof that the WTS was keeping it's agreement by publishing at least one positive article per year. I don't have a copy of it, and don't know if anyone else does. I forget whether it included the issue below from 2000. I wish I had kept a copy. As I recall, it had references to about 10 different issues of the Awake! over a period of several years.
*** g00 12/8 p. 5 An Ongoing Search for Solutions ***
The UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child:
● The right to a name and nationality.
● The right to affection, love, and understanding and to material security.
● The right to adequate nutrition, housing, and medical services.
● The right to special care if disabled, be it physically, mentally, or socially.
● The right to be among the first to receive protection and relief in all circumstances.
● The right to be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty, and exploitation.
● The right to full opportunity for play and recreation and equal opportunity to free and compulsory education, to enable the child to develop his individual abilities and to become a useful member of society.
● The right to develop his full potential in conditions of freedom and dignity.
● The right to be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace, and universal brotherhood.
● The right to enjoy these rights regardless of race, color, sex, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, and property, birth, or other status.
 
 
--------------
Back to your current post. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think we need to cover up anything. A mistake was made, and we ultimately resolved it. I don't see what it proves to keep bringing it up. It does not show that we supported the U.N.  It shows that we found areas of agreement. We used the relationship to our advantage and the "cost" to us was the need to write about ways in which another organization was also trying to resolve world problems. For all we know, we would have been writing about such things anyway. Personally, I think we ended up looking more reasonable by discussing what the world was trying to do, and how it was at times making progress. Even their limited progress still highlighted the need for a more comprehensive solution.
So it's not like any JWs really needed to take their focus off the Scriptural reasoning for resolving the world's problems. Perhaps it made us more sympathetic and knowledgeable about the viewpoint of others. In the more distant past, we often did nothing but show derision for such efforts. Surely we are better off now for such research. I don't see this whole thing as a one-sided proof of hypocrisy with no up-side. I believe the posts also show that (through the mistake) we discovered avenues and venues for involvement in human rights awareness that we were not aware of previously.
 

Γιαννης Διαμαντιδης,
I believe that Ann O'maly has stated the truth about the U.N. involvement about as well as anyone can. I know the brother who got the Society involved with the UN DPI/NGO, and have spoken to him several times since I left Bethel in the 1980's. I know that the paperwork was approved by others including a member of the GB (mentioned by Ann).
It was definitely a mistake. And it has definitely stumbled people. I'm not here to defend it, and I'm not here as one of those Witnesses who will claim that Jehovah has allowed certain mistakes just to filter out those who are disloyal, or those who are looking for an excuse to leave the Organization. People still say this about some of the mistakes of the past, and will likely say such things about mistakes made in the future.
I just searched through the jw-archive site, because I know that we have discussed this before, and I didn't want to just keep re-writing things "from scratch" over and over again -- which is something I have a tendency to always do. In fact, this is the very first time I will be quoting myself from a previous post: I'm no expert on this, and perhaps I don't have all the facts either, but the information is from people I trust.
 
A portion of the discussion from https://disqus.com/home/discussion/jwarchive/jw_archiveorg_by_the_jw_comic_strip_52/#comment-2009424381
(I made the UN joke because the timing was close to "Sternstorm." The WTS applied for the NGO status through their DPI (Dept of Public Info.) in 1991 and received it in 1992. I believe we requested disassociation in 2001, just after an investigative journalist exposed the NGO/DPI connection.)
If you are asking about the UN, then unfortunately, the answer is Yes. The Watchtower joined the UN as an NGO. I know the brother who spearheaded the effort, still in Writing (last I spoke to him), and also knew others who approved it at the time (now deceased). They meant no harm, but it proved to be an embarrassment. They didn't really need the NGO status, for the original purpose -- access to informational materials, but the status seems to have given them quicker information about conferences and events that could have even helped the Watchtower Society learn more about the behind-the-scenes political circumstances of our brothers in various countries. The most embarrassing part, of course, was getting "disfellowshipped" by the UN. (That really happened, but it happened just after the WTS requested it.) Also, for a while, the Watchtower Society was supposed to write one informational article per year that informed our audience of some of the work the UN was doing. (That's one of the ways the DPI works.) So while the Watchtower magazine bashed them negatively, a small piece here and there in the Awake! magazine was doing articles on UNICEF etc that were between neutral and positive.
...
I should also say that I don't think this started out as anything very big. But those who got involved should have realized that almost everything goes public and becomes searchable. For a while you could even search the U.N.'s site and see which Awake! articles had been submitted for NGO/DPI compliance.
My motto: If you think you'll have trouble defending it, just don't! (Don't start something you might have to defend later.)
But I have to say that even in 1976, I was doing some follow-up research on Mr. Banda, the president of Malawi who had allowed widespread persecution of the Witnesses for several years just prior. And it turns out that he made some anti-JW statements that blamed the Witnesses for their own troubles -- saying that the problem was not just the 25 cent political party card. I only found this info in some heavy encyclopedic U.N. publications that no one in Writing had seen or heard of -- although these publications were at a large university library. It's quite possible that, 15 years later, a couple brothers were convinced that this type of information, although available without the NGO/DPI connection, would become more accessible. (I don't know if that would really be true.) Or, even more likely, that if we could gain a respectable status with THEIR researchers, we could merely request things to be xeroxed and mailed to the WTS, rather than traveling over to DPI repositories, and hardly knowing where to start.
 
----- and in another place on jw-archive, it came up again ------
 
There is additional evidence or information that I'm sure you can find from others, but what I write below is based mostly on what I know personally and have seen with my own eyes. It is mixed with a few things I have learned from other trusted and current Witnesses.
A very interesting man in Bethel's Writing Department is best known for some of his non-outline talks that he has given in hundreds of congregations. You can find many of his recorded talks on the Internet. He is a good speaker with a "dramatic" personality. I know the man well, and still count him as a friend although we rarely speak. I have seen him outside Bethel, in NY, NJ, even PA, oddly enough, buying books for his own library and for the Bethel libraries. (I have been a book collector for 30 years, and still take on research work for authors, so we have often frequented the same places.)
From the time I first knew him, 1976, this brother was in the Service Department and finally moved to the Writing Department. He was quickly given a lot of autonomy under the supervision of Lloyd Barry because he did more research and book purchasing than pure Writing compared with most others in Writing.
The brother I am speaking about was very highly embarrassed over the fact that it was mostly his own idea that got this thing started. I have not talked about it with him. He began using the UN library regularly in 1990, then weekly in 1991, and initially signed up with the UN's "Department of Public Information" (DPI) in 1991 (and officially accepted 1992) for easier access to library materials, but in the process of accessing those materials he learned a lot about different types of access to conferences and areas of interest that aligned with the Society's interests outside of just the library resources. (It was thought that association might have made it easier to publicize JW human rights violations, learn more about what other religions were doing when they had similar issues with religious persecution in many countries. It made it easier to get information about international religious taxation issues, and Holocaust publicity, etc.)
Brother Barry agreed with him that these other areas of access were also valuable, and they continued the association as an "NGO" (non-governmental organization). The names of both of these brothers, including the GB member, and another direct report to a GB member from the Service Dept are still on some forms at the UN.
They also had to agree to produce articles that helped to promote the work of United Nations' initiatives. The first one was the September 8, 1991 Awake! One initiative that the WTS could most easily agree with was UNICEF. The December 8, 2000 Awake! for example prints out the entire UN Declaration of the Rights of a Child in a single issue that mentions UNICEF 10 times (in a positive context). I'll quote it below.
But first notice by using the 2014 Watchtower Library CD for example that in the 10 years that the WTS was associated with the UN it mentioned UNICEF about 75 times (from 1991-2001). After a leak by the Guardian, the WTS was disassociated from the UN in 2001 when it was exposed to the UN that the Watchtower was simultaneously speaking out AGAINST the UN at the same time the Awake! was speaking positively about it.
(UNICEF has been mentioned just 11 times in the much longer time period since 2001, and always just to quote negative statistics.)
I have seen a list that included articles that were presented to the UN/DPI as proof that the WTS was keeping it's agreement by publishing at least one positive article per year. I don't have a copy of it, and don't know if anyone else does. I forget whether it included the issue below from 2000. I wish I had kept a copy. As I recall, it had references to about 10 different issues of the Awake! over a period of several years.
*** g00 12/8 p. 5 An Ongoing Search for Solutions ***
The UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child:
● The right to a name and nationality.
● The right to affection, love, and understanding and to material security.
● The right to adequate nutrition, housing, and medical services.
● The right to special care if disabled, be it physically, mentally, or socially.
● The right to be among the first to receive protection and relief in all circumstances.
● The right to be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty, and exploitation.
● The right to full opportunity for play and recreation and equal opportunity to free and compulsory education, to enable the child to develop his individual abilities and to become a useful member of society.
● The right to develop his full potential in conditions of freedom and dignity.
● The right to be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace, and universal brotherhood.
● The right to enjoy these rights regardless of race, color, sex, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, and property, birth, or other status.
 
 
--------------
Back to your current post. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think we need to cover up anything. A mistake was made, and we ultimately resolved it. I don't see what it proves to keep bringing it up. It does not show that we supported the U.N.  It shows that we found areas of agreement. We used the relationship to our advantage and the "cost" to us was the need to write about ways in which another organization was also trying to resolve world problems. For all we know, we would have been writing about such things anyway. Personally, I think we ended up looking more reasonable by discussing what the world was trying to do, and how it was at times making progress. Even their limited progress still highlighted the need for a more comprehensive solution.
So it's not like any JWs really needed to take their focus off the Scriptural reasoning for resolving the world's problems. Perhaps it made us more sympathetic and knowledgeable about the viewpoint of others. In the more distant past, we often did nothing but show derision for such efforts. Surely we are better off now for such research. I don't see this whole thing as a one-sided proof of hypocrisy with no up-side. I believe the posts also show that (through the mistake) we discovered avenues and venues for involvement in human rights awareness that we were not aware of previously.
 

Γιαννης Διαμαντιδης,
I believe that Ann O'maly has stated the truth about the U.N. involvement about as well as anyone can. I know the brother who got the Society involved with the UN DPI/NGO, and have spoken to him several times since I left Bethel in the 1980's. I know that the paperwork was approved by others including a member of the GB (mentioned by Ann).
It was definitely a mistake. And it has definitely stumbled people. I'm not here to defend it, and I'm not here as one of those Witnesses who will claim that Jehovah has allowed certain mistakes just to filter out those who are disloyal, or those who are looking for an excuse to leave the Organization. People still say this about some of the mistakes of the past, and will likely say such things about mistakes made in the future.
I just searched through the jw-archive site, because I know that we have discussed this before, and I didn't want to just keep re-writing things "from scratch" over and over again -- which is something I have a tendency to always do. In fact, this is the very first time I will be quoting myself from a previous post: I'm no expert on this, and perhaps I don't have all the facts either, but the information is from people I trust.
 
A portion of the discussion from https://disqus.com/home/discussion/jwarchive/jw_archiveorg_by_the_jw_comic_strip_52/#comment-2009424381
(I made the UN joke because the timing was close to "Sternstorm." The WTS applied for the NGO status through their DPI (Dept of Public Info.) in 1991 and received it in 1992. I believe we requested disassociation in 2001, just after an investigative journalist exposed the NGO/DPI connection.)
If you are asking about the UN, then unfortunately, the answer is Yes. The Watchtower joined the UN as an NGO. I know the brother who spearheaded the effort, still in Writing (last I spoke to him), and also knew others who approved it at the time (now deceased). They meant no harm, but it proved to be an embarrassment. They didn't really need the NGO status, for the original purpose -- access to informational materials, but the status seems to have given them quicker information about conferences and events that could have even helped the Watchtower Society learn more about the behind-the-scenes political circumstances of our brothers in various countries. The most embarrassing part, of course, was getting "disfellowshipped" by the UN. (That really happened, but it happened just after the WTS requested it.) Also, for a while, the Watchtower Society was supposed to write one informational article per year that informed our audience of some of the work the UN was doing. (That's one of the ways the DPI works.) So while the Watchtower magazine bashed them negatively, a small piece here and there in the Awake! magazine was doing articles on UNICEF etc that were between neutral and positive.
...
I should also say that I don't think this started out as anything very big. But those who got involved should have realized that almost everything goes public and becomes searchable. For a while you could even search the U.N.'s site and see which Awake! articles had been submitted for NGO/DPI compliance.
My motto: If you think you'll have trouble defending it, just don't! (Don't start something you might have to defend later.)
But I have to say that even in 1976, I was doing some follow-up research on Mr. Banda, the president of Malawi who had allowed widespread persecution of the Witnesses for several years just prior. And it turns out that he made some anti-JW statements that blamed the Witnesses for their own troubles -- saying that the problem was not just the 25 cent political party card. I only found this info in some heavy encyclopedic U.N. publications that no one in Writing had seen or heard of -- although these publications were at a large university library. It's quite possible that, 15 years later, a couple brothers were convinced that this type of information, although available without the NGO/DPI connection, would become more accessible. (I don't know if that would really be true.) Or, even more likely, that if we could gain a respectable status with THEIR researchers, we could merely request things to be xeroxed and mailed to the WTS, rather than traveling over to DPI repositories, and hardly knowing where to start.
 
----- and in another place on jw-archive, it came up again ------
 
There is additional evidence or information that I'm sure you can find from others, but what I write below is based mostly on what I know personally and have seen with my own eyes. It is mixed with a few things I have learned from other trusted and current Witnesses.
A very interesting man in Bethel's Writing Department is best known for some of his non-outline talks that he has given in hundreds of congregations. You can find many of his recorded talks on the Internet. He is a good speaker with a "dramatic" personality. I know the man well, and still count him as a friend although we rarely speak. I have seen him outside Bethel, in NY, NJ, even PA, oddly enough, buying books for his own library and for the Bethel libraries. (I have been a book collector for 30 years, and still take on research work for authors, so we have often frequented the same places.)
From the time I first knew him, 1976, this brother was in the Service Department and finally moved to the Writing Department. He was quickly given a lot of autonomy under the supervision of Lloyd Barry because he did more research and book purchasing than pure Writing compared with most others in Writing.
The brother I am speaking about was very highly embarrassed over the fact that it was mostly his own idea that got this thing started. I have not talked about it with him. He began using the UN library regularly in 1990, then weekly in 1991, and initially signed up with the UN's "Department of Public Information" (DPI) in 1991 (and officially accepted 1992) for easier access to library materials, but in the process of accessing those materials he learned a lot about different types of access to conferences and areas of interest that aligned with the Society's interests outside of just the library resources. (It was thought that association might have made it easier to publicize JW human rights violations, learn more about what other religions were doing when they had similar issues with religious persecution in many countries. It made it easier to get information about international religious taxation issues, and Holocaust publicity, etc.)
Brother Barry agreed with him that these other areas of access were also valuable, and they continued the association as an "NGO" (non-governmental organization). The names of both of these brothers, including the GB member, and another direct report to a GB member from the Service Dept are still on some forms at the UN.
They also had to agree to produce articles that helped to promote the work of United Nations' initiatives. The first one was the September 8, 1991 Awake! One initiative that the WTS could most easily agree with was UNICEF. The December 8, 2000 Awake! for example prints out the entire UN Declaration of the Rights of a Child in a single issue that mentions UNICEF 10 times (in a positive context). I'll quote it below.
But first notice by using the 2014 Watchtower Library CD for example that in the 10 years that the WTS was associated with the UN it mentioned UNICEF about 75 times (from 1991-2001). After a leak by the Guardian, the WTS was disassociated from the UN in 2001 when it was exposed to the UN that the Watchtower was simultaneously speaking out AGAINST the UN at the same time the Awake! was speaking positively about it.
(UNICEF has been mentioned just 11 times in the much longer time period since 2001, and always just to quote negative statistics.)
I have seen a list that included articles that were presented to the UN/DPI as proof that the WTS was keeping it's agreement by publishing at least one positive article per year. I don't have a copy of it, and don't know if anyone else does. I forget whether it included the issue below from 2000. I wish I had kept a copy. As I recall, it had references to about 10 different issues of the Awake! over a period of several years.
*** g00 12/8 p. 5 An Ongoing Search for Solutions ***
The UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child:
● The right to a name and nationality.
● The right to affection, love, and understanding and to material security.
● The right to adequate nutrition, housing, and medical services.
● The right to special care if disabled, be it physically, mentally, or socially.
● The right to be among the first to receive protection and relief in all circumstances.
● The right to be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty, and exploitation.
● The right to full opportunity for play and recreation and equal opportunity to free and compulsory education, to enable the child to develop his individual abilities and to become a useful member of society.
● The right to develop his full potential in conditions of freedom and dignity.
● The right to be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace, and universal brotherhood.
● The right to enjoy these rights regardless of race, color, sex, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, and property, birth, or other status.
 
 
--------------
Back to your current post. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think we need to cover up anything. A mistake was made, and we ultimately resolved it. I don't see what it proves to keep bringing it up. It does not show that we supported the U.N.  It shows that we found areas of agreement. We used the relationship to our advantage and the "cost" to us was the need to write about ways in which another organization was also trying to resolve world problems. For all we know, we would have been writing about such things anyway. Personally, I think we ended up looking more reasonable by discussing what the world was trying to do, and how it was at times making progress. Even their limited progress still highlighted the need for a more comprehensive solution.
So it's not like any JWs really needed to take their focus off the Scriptural reasoning for resolving the world's problems. Perhaps it made us more sympathetic and knowledgeable about the viewpoint of others. In the more distant past, we often did nothing but show derision for such efforts. Surely we are better off now for such research. I don't see this whole thing as a one-sided proof of hypocrisy with no up-side. I believe the posts also show that (through the mistake) we discovered avenues and venues for involvement in human rights awareness that we were not aware of previously.
 

Γιαννης Διαμαντιδης,
I believe that Ann O'maly has stated the truth about the U.N. involvement about as well as anyone can. I know the brother who got the Society involved with the UN DPI/NGO, and have spoken to him several times since I left Bethel in the 1980's. I know that the paperwork was approved by others including a member of the GB (mentioned by Ann).
It was definitely a mistake. And it has definitely stumbled people. I'm not here to defend it, and I'm not here as one of those Witnesses who will claim that Jehovah has allowed certain mistakes just to filter out those who are disloyal, or those who are looking for an excuse to leave the Organization. People still say this about some of the mistakes of the past, and will likely say such things about mistakes made in the future.
I just searched through the jw-archive site, because I know that we have discussed this before, and I didn't want to just keep re-writing things "from scratch" over and over again -- which is something I have a tendency to always do. In fact, this is the very first time I will be quoting myself from a previous post: I'm no expert on this, and perhaps I don't have all the facts either, but the information is from people I trust.
 
A portion of the discussion from https://disqus.com/home/discussion/jwarchive/jw_archiveorg_by_the_jw_comic_strip_52/#comment-2009424381
(I made the UN joke because the timing was close to "Sternstorm." The WTS applied for the NGO status through their DPI (Dept of Public Info.) in 1991 and received it in 1992. I believe we requested disassociation in 2001, just after an investigative journalist exposed the NGO/DPI connection.)
If you are asking about the UN, then unfortunately, the answer is Yes. The Watchtower joined the UN as an NGO. I know the brother who spearheaded the effort, still in Writing (last I spoke to him), and also knew others who approved it at the time (now deceased). They meant no harm, but it proved to be an embarrassment. They didn't really need the NGO status, for the original purpose -- access to informational materials, but the status seems to have given them quicker information about conferences and events that could have even helped the Watchtower Society learn more about the behind-the-scenes political circumstances of our brothers in various countries. The most embarrassing part, of course, was getting "disfellowshipped" by the UN. (That really happened, but it happened just after the WTS requested it.) Also, for a while, the Watchtower Society was supposed to write one informational article per year that informed our audience of some of the work the UN was doing. (That's one of the ways the DPI works.) So while the Watchtower magazine bashed them negatively, a small piece here and there in the Awake! magazine was doing articles on UNICEF etc that were between neutral and positive.
...
I should also say that I don't think this started out as anything very big. But those who got involved should have realized that almost everything goes public and becomes searchable. For a while you could even search the U.N.'s site and see which Awake! articles had been submitted for NGO/DPI compliance.
My motto: If you think you'll have trouble defending it, just don't! (Don't start something you might have to defend later.)
But I have to say that even in 1976, I was doing some follow-up research on Mr. Banda, the president of Malawi who had allowed widespread persecution of the Witnesses for several years just prior. And it turns out that he made some anti-JW statements that blamed the Witnesses for their own troubles -- saying that the problem was not just the 25 cent political party card. I only found this info in some heavy encyclopedic U.N. publications that no one in Writing had seen or heard of -- although these publications were at a large university library. It's quite possible that, 15 years later, a couple brothers were convinced that this type of information, although available without the NGO/DPI connection, would become more accessible. (I don't know if that would really be true.) Or, even more likely, that if we could gain a respectable status with THEIR researchers, we could merely request things to be xeroxed and mailed to the WTS, rather than traveling over to DPI repositories, and hardly knowing where to start.
 
----- and in another place on jw-archive, it came up again ------
 
There is additional evidence or information that I'm sure you can find from others, but what I write below is based mostly on what I know personally and have seen with my own eyes. It is mixed with a few things I have learned from other trusted and current Witnesses.
A very interesting man in Bethel's Writing Department is best known for some of his non-outline talks that he has given in hundreds of congregations. You can find many of his recorded talks on the Internet. He is a good speaker with a "dramatic" personality. I know the man well, and still count him as a friend although we rarely speak. I have seen him outside Bethel, in NY, NJ, even PA, oddly enough, buying books for his own library and for the Bethel libraries. (I have been a book collector for 30 years, and still take on research work for authors, so we have often frequented the same places.)
From the time I first knew him, 1976, this brother was in the Service Department and finally moved to the Writing Department. He was quickly given a lot of autonomy under the supervision of Lloyd Barry because he did more research and book purchasing than pure Writing compared with most others in Writing.
The brother I am speaking about was very highly embarrassed over the fact that it was mostly his own idea that got this thing started. I have not talked about it with him. He began using the UN library regularly in 1990, then weekly in 1991, and initially signed up with the UN's "Department of Public Information" (DPI) in 1991 (and officially accepted 1992) for easier access to library materials, but in the process of accessing those materials he learned a lot about different types of access to conferences and areas of interest that aligned with the Society's interests outside of just the library resources. (It was thought that association might have made it easier to publicize JW human rights violations, learn more about what other religions were doing when they had similar issues with religious persecution in many countries. It made it easier to get information about international religious taxation issues, and Holocaust publicity, etc.)
Brother Barry agreed with him that these other areas of access were also valuable, and they continued the association as an "NGO" (non-governmental organization). The names of both of these brothers, including the GB member, and another direct report to a GB member from the Service Dept are still on some forms at the UN.
They also had to agree to produce articles that helped to promote the work of United Nations' initiatives. The first one was the September 8, 1991 Awake! One initiative that the WTS could most easily agree with was UNICEF. The December 8, 2000 Awake! for example prints out the entire UN Declaration of the Rights of a Child in a single issue that mentions UNICEF 10 times (in a positive context). I'll quote it below.
But first notice by using the 2014 Watchtower Library CD for example that in the 10 years that the WTS was associated with the UN it mentioned UNICEF about 75 times (from 1991-2001). After a leak by the Guardian, the WTS was disassociated from the UN in 2001 when it was exposed to the UN that the Watchtower was simultaneously speaking out AGAINST the UN at the same time the Awake! was speaking positively about it.
(UNICEF has been mentioned just 11 times in the much longer time period since 2001, and always just to quote negative statistics.)
I have seen a list that included articles that were presented to the UN/DPI as proof that the WTS was keeping it's agreement by publishing at least one positive article per year. I don't have a copy of it, and don't know if anyone else does. I forget whether it included the issue below from 2000. I wish I had kept a copy. As I recall, it had references to about 10 different issues of the Awake! over a period of several years.
*** g00 12/8 p. 5 An Ongoing Search for Solutions ***
The UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child:
● The right to a name and nationality.
● The right to affection, love, and understanding and to material security.
● The right to adequate nutrition, housing, and medical services.
● The right to special care if disabled, be it physically, mentally, or socially.
● The right to be among the first to receive protection and relief in all circumstances.
● The right to be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty, and exploitation.
● The right to full opportunity for play and recreation and equal opportunity to free and compulsory education, to enable the child to develop his individual abilities and to become a useful member of society.
● The right to develop his full potential in conditions of freedom and dignity.
● The right to be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace, and universal brotherhood.
● The right to enjoy these rights regardless of race, color, sex, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, and property, birth, or other status.
 
 
--------------
Back to your current post. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think we need to cover up anything. A mistake was made, and we ultimately resolved it. I don't see what it proves to keep bringing it up. It does not show that we supported the U.N.  It shows that we found areas of agreement. We used the relationship to our advantage and the "cost" to us was the need to write about ways in which another organization was also trying to resolve world problems. For all we know, we would have been writing about such things anyway. Personally, I think we ended up looking more reasonable by discussing what the world was trying to do, and how it was at times making progress. Even their limited progress still highlighted the need for a more comprehensive solution.
So it's not like any JWs really needed to take their focus off the Scriptural reasoning for resolving the world's problems. Perhaps it made us more sympathetic and knowledgeable about the viewpoint of others. In the more distant past, we often did nothing but show derision for such efforts. Surely we are better off now for such research. I don't see this whole thing as a one-sided proof of hypocrisy with no up-side. I believe the posts also show that (through the mistake) we discovered avenues and venues for involvement in human rights awareness that we were not aware of previously.
 

(Giannis, Robert King is disfellowshipped so it's unlikely that loyal JWs will read anything he says.)
I remember the controversy when it broke and researched the matter for myself at the time.
The issue wasn't so much that Watchtower became a NGO, but that it also became associated with the UN's Department of Public Information which required assenting to the UN Charter (read it to see what that involved) and promoting the UN's work, aims and values. Every year, as the rules stood, the Organization had to provide evidence to the DPI that it was doing that in order to continue association. This is why the articles in the Awakes during the 1990s softened their anti-UN stance and put the UN's accomplishments in a more positive light.
It's easy to minimize the Watchtower's involvement as the actions of one Bethelite, but he and the other named representative were high-up Bethelites. At least one GB member was aware because he was also listed as one of the representatives on the accreditation forms (W. [Lloyd] Barry). Not only that but, 
"Each article in both The Watchtower and Awake! and every page, including the artwork, is scrutinized by selected members of the Governing Body before it is printed." - w87 3/1 p. 15 par. 18.
So any 'spiritual food' that promoted the UN's work (in contrast to the usual contempt about it) was checked and signed off by members of the GB. It would be those kinds of articles that were provided to the DPI so the Org. could continue its association.
Given that the UN has long been viewed as the 'disgusting thing' of Daniel and the 'scarlet wild beast' of Revelation, it's understandable why many would be stumbled by the Org's actions.

When this came up elsewhere on jw-archive someone quoted the Watchtower article on Valentine's Day. I won't do that here, but I'm sure you know the information. Valentine's Day is still tied, in name at least, to a "saint." That ties it a little too close for comfort to a religious celebration, no matter how non-religious it is. Anyway, that wasn't even your question, since it was about birthdays. And there is nothing "religious" about birthdays.
I have an old talk outline where celebrating a child's birthday was tied to "creature worship" by giving too much undue attention to the child who had not really accomplished anything more than surviving for another year. Of course, the primary reason we give is that the Bible only mentions two birthday celebrations and they were both by wicked pagans who also happened to suborn a murder on their birthday.
At the meeting last night, it occurred to me that we are often asked to make assumptions and treat them as "gospel." One of these assumptions ties directly to our main public reason for avoiding birthdays. I'll just give a few examples so you can understand what I was thinking.
1. They played the introduction to Esther video that makes very bold and direct statements and gives dates with a high degree of authority in the voice. Nowhere do we ever admit that these dates are assumed dates, and that we often use dates that we KNOW are 10 to 20 years off the dates that ALL the evidence points to, just because we need to make those dates fit another preconceived assumption.
2. The Imitate book (ia) says that "Ahasuerus is widely thought to have been Xerxes I" and later it says that Xerxes I (per Herodotus) did the following: "when a wealthy man begged that his son be excused from joining the army, Xerxes had the son cut in half, his body displayed as a warning."  Yet, per the CLAM workbook (Christian Life and Ministry) it says "Once, he ordered a man to be cut in half and displayed as a warning." There is barely even a hint that this is from a source OUTSIDE the Bible. Yet, of course, the comment at the meeting turned this into a FACT, not about Xerxes I, but about Ahasuerus.
3. The meeting also made a special point to say that Esther was modest because she didn't ask for extra jewelry. (2006 Watchtower) Really? Does the Bible even mention as a FACT that extra jewelry was an option? Could she have asked for LESS jewelry, or only six months of those spa treatments she was given instead of the full year? Again, the speaker turned this assumption about jewelry into a FACT.
4. The other assumption was not at first turned into a fact by the speaker, but by an answer given in audience, and the speaker then agreed 100% and made a point to say how thankful we should be for KNOWING these things. (That Mordechai refused to bow to Haman for historical reasons, but forgetting that the CLAM workbook said "Why MIGHT Mordechai have refused...?")
These were still good points to think about, and there are good reasons to discuss what MIGHT have been going through the minds of these Bible characters. My only point is that we have trouble seeing what MIGHT be true when it goes against a view we hold, but we turn the "MIGHT" into "FACT" when it supports a view. Even a point or two in the book study on Elijah went in this direction, but the main point is about the banquets of Ahasuerus:
At the first banquet, there was drunkenness apparently, and this may have been the reason Vashti was summoned, perhaps even summoned immodestly by the king. Yet at the second banquet, ("THE BANQUET OF ESTHER") the king did this:
(Esther 2:18) . . .And the king held a great banquet for all his princes and his servants, the banquet of Esther. He then proclaimed an amnesty for the provinces, and he kept giving gifts according to the means of the king.
What occurred to me is why we never look at the differences between those two banquets and make an assumption from this about celebrations. Here we have a celebration by a pagan that did NOT end up in a murder, but in just the opposite. So we MIGHT decide that there is a lesson here about parties and celebrations. Bad things happen when there is drunkenness and abuse of power at birthdays (or licentious dancing, too, in the case of Herod). Yet, we also have a lesson about GOOD that can come of birthdays when modesty and proper influences abound. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

When this came up elsewhere on jw-archive someone quoted the Watchtower article on Valentine's Day. I won't do that here, but I'm sure you know the information. Valentine's Day is still tied, in name at least, to a "saint." That ties it a little too close for comfort to a religious celebration, no matter how non-religious it is. Anyway, that wasn't even your question, since it was about birthdays. And there is nothing "religious" about birthdays.
I have an old talk outline where celebrating a child's birthday was tied to "creature worship" by giving too much undue attention to the child who had not really accomplished anything more than surviving for another year. Of course, the primary reason we give is that the Bible only mentions two birthday celebrations and they were both by wicked pagans who also happened to suborn a murder on their birthday.
At the meeting last night, it occurred to me that we are often asked to make assumptions and treat them as "gospel." One of these assumptions ties directly to our main public reason for avoiding birthdays. I'll just give a few examples so you can understand what I was thinking.
1. They played the introduction to Esther video that makes very bold and direct statements and gives dates with a high degree of authority in the voice. Nowhere do we ever admit that these dates are assumed dates, and that we often use dates that we KNOW are 10 to 20 years off the dates that ALL the evidence points to, just because we need to make those dates fit another preconceived assumption.
2. The Imitate book (ia) says that "Ahasuerus is widely thought to have been Xerxes I" and later it says that Xerxes I (per Herodotus) did the following: "when a wealthy man begged that his son be excused from joining the army, Xerxes had the son cut in half, his body displayed as a warning."  Yet, per the CLAM workbook (Christian Life and Ministry) it says "Once, he ordered a man to be cut in half and displayed as a warning." There is barely even a hint that this is from a source OUTSIDE the Bible. Yet, of course, the comment at the meeting turned this into a FACT, not about Xerxes I, but about Ahasuerus.
3. The meeting also made a special point to say that Esther was modest because she didn't ask for extra jewelry. (2006 Watchtower) Really? Does the Bible even mention as a FACT that extra jewelry was an option? Could she have asked for LESS jewelry, or only six months of those spa treatments she was given instead of the full year? Again, the speaker turned this assumption about jewelry into a FACT.
4. The other assumption was not at first turned into a fact by the speaker, but by an answer given in audience, and the speaker then agreed 100% and made a point to say how thankful we should be for KNOWING these things. (That Mordechai refused to bow to Haman for historical reasons, but forgetting that the CLAM workbook said "Why MIGHT Mordechai have refused...?")
These were still good points to think about, and there are good reasons to discuss what MIGHT have been going through the minds of these Bible characters. My only point is that we have trouble seeing what MIGHT be true when it goes against a view we hold, but we turn the "MIGHT" into "FACT" when it supports a view. Even a point or two in the book study on Elijah went in this direction, but the main point is about the banquets of Ahasuerus:
At the first banquet, there was drunkenness apparently, and this may have been the reason Vashti was summoned, perhaps even summoned immodestly by the king. Yet at the second banquet, ("THE BANQUET OF ESTHER") the king did this:
(Esther 2:18) . . .And the king held a great banquet for all his princes and his servants, the banquet of Esther. He then proclaimed an amnesty for the provinces, and he kept giving gifts according to the means of the king.
What occurred to me is why we never look at the differences between those two banquets and make an assumption from this about celebrations. Here we have a celebration by a pagan that did NOT end up in a murder, but in just the opposite. So we MIGHT decide that there is a lesson here about parties and celebrations. Bad things happen when there is drunkenness and abuse of power at birthdays (or licentious dancing, too, in the case of Herod). Yet, we also have a lesson about GOOD that can come of birthdays when modesty and proper influences abound. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This was a demonstration of how to use the phonographs. It was at the Columbus, Ohio convention in 1937. That's Grant Suiter in the center, who was the Secretary Treasurer. He was a member of the Governing Body, probably started at Bethel around 1928. Brother Suiter joined the administrative offices in Brooklyn in 1928, became a director in 1938 (the year after this picture) and became Secretary-Treasurer of the Watch Tower Society (PA & NY) in 1947.

Thanks, Anke. My first post over here. I like the idea of being able to highlight and use formatting. I didn't quite get it right, but I'll get better, I hope.

I just found this, and I feel like I'm losing a friend. A friend I never met, that is, and a friend with whom I probably disagree with on more subjects than I can remember right now  Forums aren't the same as "real-life" congregations, and friends on forums aren't the same as friends in "real life" either. Still, it's a bit like when one of your favorite elders steps down or moves away.
There is something liberating about being free to speak about whatever we find interesting. The freedom of speech that you, JTR, have enjoyed here was a true achievement. I'm sure it turned away a lot of friends here (I know the feeling) but it also made some points that will forever be remembered for good.
Thanks for what you've done. I hope I'm still here when and if you decide to find your way back for some additional rounds. I doubt you've run out of ammunition.
 

I just found this, and I feel like I'm losing a friend. A friend I never met, that is, and a friend with whom I probably disagree with on more subjects than I can remember right now  Forums aren't the same as "real-life" congregations, and friends on forums aren't the same as friends in "real life" either. Still, it's a bit like when one of your favorite elders steps down or moves away.
There is something liberating about being free to speak about whatever we find interesting. The freedom of speech that you, JTR, have enjoyed here was a true achievement. I'm sure it turned away a lot of friends here (I know the feeling) but it also made some points that will forever be remembered for good.
Thanks for what you've done. I hope I'm still here when and if you decide to find your way back for some additional rounds. I doubt you've run out of ammunition.
 

I just found this, and I feel like I'm losing a friend. A friend I never met, that is, and a friend with whom I probably disagree with on more subjects than I can remember right now  Forums aren't the same as "real-life" congregations, and friends on forums aren't the same as friends in "real life" either. Still, it's a bit like when one of your favorite elders steps down or moves away.
There is something liberating about being free to speak about whatever we find interesting. The freedom of speech that you, JTR, have enjoyed here was a true achievement. I'm sure it turned away a lot of friends here (I know the feeling) but it also made some points that will forever be remembered for good.
Thanks for what you've done. I hope I'm still here when and if you decide to find your way back for some additional rounds. I doubt you've run out of ammunition.
 

I just found this, and I feel like I'm losing a friend. A friend I never met, that is, and a friend with whom I probably disagree with on more subjects than I can remember right now  Forums aren't the same as "real-life" congregations, and friends on forums aren't the same as friends in "real life" either. Still, it's a bit like when one of your favorite elders steps down or moves away.
There is something liberating about being free to speak about whatever we find interesting. The freedom of speech that you, JTR, have enjoyed here was a true achievement. I'm sure it turned away a lot of friends here (I know the feeling) but it also made some points that will forever be remembered for good.
Thanks for what you've done. I hope I'm still here when and if you decide to find your way back for some additional rounds. I doubt you've run out of ammunition.
 

I just found this, and I feel like I'm losing a friend. A friend I never met, that is, and a friend with whom I probably disagree with on more subjects than I can remember right now  Forums aren't the same as "real-life" congregations, and friends on forums aren't the same as friends in "real life" either. Still, it's a bit like when one of your favorite elders steps down or moves away.
There is something liberating about being free to speak about whatever we find interesting. The freedom of speech that you, JTR, have enjoyed here was a true achievement. I'm sure it turned away a lot of friends here (I know the feeling) but it also made some points that will forever be remembered for good.
Thanks for what you've done. I hope I'm still here when and if you decide to find your way back for some additional rounds. I doubt you've run out of ammunition.
 

Thanks, Anke. My first post over here. I like the idea of being able to highlight and use formatting. I didn't quite get it right, but I'll get better, I hope.

This was a demonstration of how to use the phonographs. It was at the Columbus, Ohio convention in 1937. That's Grant Suiter in the center, who was the Secretary Treasurer. He was a member of the Governing Body, probably started at Bethel around 1928. Brother Suiter joined the administrative offices in Brooklyn in 1928, became a director in 1938 (the year after this picture) and became Secretary-Treasurer of the Watch Tower Society (PA & NY) in 1947.

The easiest solution is that Nehemiah was counting the Jewish way - Tishri to Tishri (Babylonians and Persians counted kings' reigns from Nisan to Nisan). So the Nisan in Neh. 2:1 didn't ring in a new regnal year (21st year) by Nehemiah's reckoning, but stayed within the Tishri-Tishri 20th year. This is the conclusion of some respected Bible scholars and chronologists, e.g. Edwin R. Thiele.
"Historical evidence points to 475 B.C.E. as the year of Artaxerxes’ ascension to the throne." [w06  2/1 p.8]
That's incorrect. Historical evidence points overwhelmingly to 465 BCE as Artaxerxes I's accession year. But that's a whole other discussion in itself.