JW Insider

I don't follow the "Org," I appreciate the organization for how it has been instrumental in currently helping millions of people build their faith on a solid foundation: faith in Jehovah, Christ Jesus, and the words and teachings of the Bible. I appreciate that it very efficiently and effectively has been instrumental in teaching tens of millions more, and getting the word out to hundreds of millions. (I.e., setting an example for preaching and teaching "good news" about a time under the Kingdom when there will be no more war, no more divisive politics, no more racism, and a time when Jehovah's provisions will make all things new, returning heaven and earth to His original purpose.)
I don't believe we need worry too much about the history of an organization, as if that is what Jesus meant by building on a solid foundation. What the organization was back between, say, 1884 and 1935, or even between 1935 and 2021 is also not of such great concern to me. I'm interested in the history mostly to the extent that I want to make sure that what we currently teach about that history is accurate and not distorted.
I have other interests in history, more generally, because I find it fascinating. Not just religious history, but all kinds of history. I always learn about various mundane themes (sociology, class, leadership, politics, psychology) that seem relevant as historical situations tend to be repeated.
Also, my great-grandfather was a "Pilgrim" in the Chicago Bible Students who traveled with Russell to speak at conventions, and he continued on under Rutherford. He said that most of the Chicago Bible Students were "Russellites," as he himself had been, and most of them left under Rutherford. Some of his "brethren" had left even earlier. Some had left in 1909 over doctrinal issues (New Covenant, "The Vow") some in 1914 and 1915 over failed predictions and expectations. So I admit that some family stories and "artifacts" of the Bible Student era hold my interest for more mundane reasons, too.
Even if the original organization had been no more than another faction of Catholicism or Protestantism that didn't believe in Trinity, Hellfire or War, that would be more than enough of a good start. My only expectation, historically, is that it would continue to progress, to put off more and more false teachings. Then we should find some evidence of Jehovah's blessing as it should attract more people who are looking for a kind of Christianity with a reasonable core of Biblical values and therefore find a brotherhood that encourages and promotes Christian conduct and activities. But the foundation is Christ, not the Organization. 

I definitely can agree there's a lot of that going on. There are apostates who think that they can go back and find past mistakes and predictions and former beliefs, and they think we should all just conclude that we must have no reason to go on because of some issues in the past. But progress means there will always be some of this. The persons who should be more embarrassed are those churches whose own scholars have seen doctrinal problems for hundreds of years, but they are so stuck in tradition, that they will hardly change a thing. And then the things that they will gladly change are simply compromises with the world to make it easier to keep their following. 
As you say, it must be a sad life for people like this. When I look at the number of years some people have put into their own pet projects, it often seems like such a sad waste. Even those persons in Christendom of the last century who spent years doing the tedious work of making a Bible concordance, or working out the grammar of an ancient language, or even those who spend a lifetime cataloguing all the insects of a tropical jungle. Even though it's sad for them, we can still sometimes find some benefit in the works of others in gathering and presenting information, no matter what their personal beliefs are. 

I couldn't care less about his perception of Rutherford's time, just the specific (verifiable) details reported. It's the documentation that is substantiated. It's the fact that someone else went to the trouble of culling through hundreds of pages of this documentation and made lists of all the major resources used, and gives us the page numbers in those resources that we can find and look up ourselves. This is something you rarely get from simple biased presentations of any kind of history. These include the resources that are pro-Rutherford and resources that were anti-Rutherford.
Persson's perception of it all might be wrong. But we can make up our own minds because many of his resources are re-printed in full in the books appendixes. Some of these are valuable Watchtower resources were never re-printed in any Watchtower versions of our history. So most of us have never seen some of our own resources.
Exactly!
You gave the impression earlier that because some apostate books are inaccurate that all of them are. If there were 100 apostate books in the world, and half of them were terrible, it doesn't necessarily mean that the other half are just as terrible. It's not possible to generalize this way about "all those apostate books."
Besides, you are quoting above from "apostate" resources, too. Rutherford referred to several of the breakaway groups as "the evil slave." But it didn't mean that ALL of what they said and did was wrong. For example the Standfasters were also considered "the evil slave." Yet they broke away because the Watchtower Society was compromising on political issues, war, war bonds, etc. Yet, the Standfasters, began taking a stand against "flag salute" years before Rutherford began defending this same stance. The Standfasters also came up with an earthly class of non-anointed Christians many years before Rutherford began teaching the existence of such a class. So it's not like everything that apostates said and did must always be rejected. Rutherford himself was able to correctly apostasize from Russellite teachings, so that he had abandoned almost all of Russell's unique teachings before 1930.
(1 Corinthians 11:19) For there will certainly also be sects among you, so that those of you who are approved may also become evident.

I definitely can agree there's a lot of that going on. There are apostates who think that they can go back and find past mistakes and predictions and former beliefs, and they think we should all just conclude that we must have no reason to go on because of some issues in the past. But progress means there will always be some of this. The persons who should be more embarrassed are those churches whose own scholars have seen doctrinal problems for hundreds of years, but they are so stuck in tradition, that they will hardly change a thing. And then the things that they will gladly change are simply compromises with the world to make it easier to keep their following. 
As you say, it must be a sad life for people like this. When I look at the number of years some people have put into their own pet projects, it often seems like such a sad waste. Even those persons in Christendom of the last century who spent years doing the tedious work of making a Bible concordance, or working out the grammar of an ancient language, or even those who spend a lifetime cataloguing all the insects of a tropical jungle. Even though it's sad for them, we can still sometimes find some benefit in the works of others in gathering and presenting information, no matter what their personal beliefs are. 

I could ask you the same, as you appear to have a much stronger interest in all this old past history than I ever will. My interest is not related to tracing the many break-off groups, or worry about what they taught or didn't teach. Or what embarrassing mistakes were made. My interest is to look at whether information we currently teach about our history might have been distorted. I don't want to learn only biased, one-sided information if there is a lot of evidence to consider that I hadn't considered before. I like to learn about all the evidence before I judge something as right, wrong or somewhere in between.
I don't blame anyone, however, for jumping to the conclusion that all books by former Witnesses are going to be worthless. Plenty of them are. And plenty of them appear to discuss material that I have absolutely no interest in. I'm not interested in anecdotes that highlight embarrassments and mistakes of the past. As I said above, my interest is in what we are teaching currently about this time period.
I learned a lot from the book. Not directly from Persson, but from the sources, resources, material and evidence that he presents.

I couldn't care less about his perception of Rutherford's time, just the specific (verifiable) details reported. It's the documentation that is substantiated. It's the fact that someone else went to the trouble of culling through hundreds of pages of this documentation and made lists of all the major resources used, and gives us the page numbers in those resources that we can find and look up ourselves. This is something you rarely get from simple biased presentations of any kind of history. These include the resources that are pro-Rutherford and resources that were anti-Rutherford.
Persson's perception of it all might be wrong. But we can make up our own minds because many of his resources are re-printed in full in the books appendixes. Some of these are valuable Watchtower resources were never re-printed in any Watchtower versions of our history. So most of us have never seen some of our own resources.
Exactly!
You gave the impression earlier that because some apostate books are inaccurate that all of them are. If there were 100 apostate books in the world, and half of them were terrible, it doesn't necessarily mean that the other half are just as terrible. It's not possible to generalize this way about "all those apostate books."
Besides, you are quoting above from "apostate" resources, too. Rutherford referred to several of the breakaway groups as "the evil slave." But it didn't mean that ALL of what they said and did was wrong. For example the Standfasters were also considered "the evil slave." Yet they broke away because the Watchtower Society was compromising on political issues, war, war bonds, etc. Yet, the Standfasters, began taking a stand against "flag salute" years before Rutherford began defending this same stance. The Standfasters also came up with an earthly class of non-anointed Christians many years before Rutherford began teaching the existence of such a class. So it's not like everything that apostates said and did must always be rejected. Rutherford himself was able to correctly apostasize from Russellite teachings, so that he had abandoned almost all of Russell's unique teachings before 1930.
(1 Corinthians 11:19) For there will certainly also be sects among you, so that those of you who are approved may also become evident.

I have just moved about 130 more posts from here to the other topic linked here:
https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/89872-posts-moved-from-a-recent-topic-about-a-jfrutherford-book
Hope this doesn't cause any confusion.

I have just moved about 100 more posts to here from that other topic about Rutherford. Hope this doesn't cause any confusion.

No comfort for the parents. I do see the victim mentality and entitlement mentality promoted more and more since the 1970's as creating a climate where unworthy people feel put-upon and entitled and give vent in violent ways.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/self-esteem-creates-criminals-who-can-t-add/339495/
https://homepages.se.edu/cvonbergen/files/2013/01/Dark-Side-of-Self-esteem.pdf

All schools in the United States are “no gun zones“, and that’s why responsible people are not allowed to defend themselves when some crazy comes to school and starts shooting the place up.
 
I would comfort the parents by saying it Is not God that is responsible for the evil in the world, but locally it’s the insane legislature that has no concept of reality, and the insane Shooters.

Our congregation has hybrid meetings — both in person and zoom, plus we have KHCONF where you can listen audibly.  We elderly ones are not “forced” to attend in person but can take our pick on how to participate.  Presently 1/3 are attending in person and about 2/3 are on zoom and I might say are quite proficient in muting, unmuting, raising and lowering our hand for commenting. 

Okay, so now we have Pudgy integrated into the closed forum and hopefully it will stick. Now let’s extend that invitation to @WalterPrescott, which is trickier. It’s trickier because he is so combative, to the point where I and others have wondered if he can possibly be a brother. But I’ve now come around to thinking he is, even if a contankerous one, so he should not be abandoned to where the spiritual rebels are. He should ‘come home.’
Of course, there must be some caveats. Some have noted that in private he is gracious, not argumentative as he is in public. He would have to be equally civil were he to join the closed club. He would have to ‘let Anna be Anna, Arauana be Arauana, JWI be JWI, xero be xero, thinking be thinking, and MOST of all, TTH be TTH. The latter does not have to be kissed up to, though that is of course preferred. 
So Walter has this gig going that no one can quite figure out. He may prefer to stay here combatting the riffraff. Or he may figure that the ‘loyal’ Witnesses are also riffraff and wish to rebuke them for any wordage that does not appear word-for-word in Watchtower publications. If so, please do not accept the closed forum’s invitation. But you are our brother and so it is appropriate to make it, so as not to abandon you to where the miscreants hang out, unless you wish to remain there or somehow perceive it as your calling to fight with them.

Well, I've pretty much completed the book. I still have a few more references to find for myself, and look up. So that might take a while.
I have decided that there really isn't enough interest in the actual topic itself. Most of the interest is just a lot of trying to hold onto previously held opinions, or to prove others wrong, with or without evidence.. And unless someone asks me to, I won't even restart the topic in the Closed Club, where it was suggested it belonged in the first place. There are always plenty of good subjects to discuss and a lot of them are much more important anyway.
I will say that the book was excellent. One can read the whole thing and realize that you are not necessarily being influenced by the opinions of Rud Persson. To a much better degree than expected, you are really just reading evidence, and you are allowed to reach your own conclusions about the preponderance of the evidence. That's the way a book of historical research should be written. Not one that tries to draw conclusions for you.
Since I'm ready to draw a conclusion from the book I will say one "last thing." I have realized that, all in all, even though I thought I had been giving the benefit of the doubt to both sides evenly, I haven't. I knew there would be biases and prejudices both for and against the usual conclusions that we have drawn. But I didn't realize that we can be much more sure about which biases to agree with and which were to be rejected. The overall evidence makes it all too obvious. But I won't elaborate further here. People can get hold of the book for themselves if they wish. But even without the book, all one has to do is get hold of the sources, many of which are freely available on line, but with a lot of searching.
I also went back and corrected a couple of misconceptions I had at first. One was too minor to repeat: I had confused Ohio with Maryland as the place where Rutherford had some business and where he had just met PSLJ. The other is also about PSLJ, but is a more significant error on my part. So I will repeat here the correction I made on a previous page:
[Edited to add: I was wrong on this point about Rutherford not dealing with PSLJ as if he had serious mental problems. Rutherford was actually quick to deal with PSLJ as insane and mentally unbalanced, but Rutherford was inconsistent, and seemed to soften his position toward him. This hadn't made sense to me originally, and I was partly influenced here by the comments of a brother I spoke to at length about this very recently after reading this portion of the book. But Persson's book provides a detail that I take as an obvious clue as to the reason for Rutherford's inconsistency. Persson doesn't appear to draw any conclusion from that detail, but it makes me think that it was not just an absent-minded inconsistency on Rutherford's part. It served a purpose.]

Hmm. Well, we DO have to work on that. On the other hand, police are known to develop a sort of “gallows humor” due to what they have experienced. Maybe it’s something like that with you too.
You didn’t have to say this. No one here would ever have known. The fact that you did say it nonetheless indicates several things: 1) respect for the arrangement of the congregation of God, 2) a personal sense of honor, 3) proof that you do what you do out of fear of God and not humans, and 4) a desire not to ensnare others, even unknowingly, into violating congregation discipline not to engage with disfellowshipped ones. My respect for you has steadily heightened, and with this it goes through the roof. 
At the same time, I still see no reason you should not join the closed club, nor for @Annato reject your request when you make it. Disfellowshipped ones can attend meetings, in fact they are encouraged to do so when repentant. I’ve no doubt that the ‘honor system’ would compel you to behave there as though sitting in the Kingdom Hall. There’s no reason to cut yourself off from proper association, particularly as there are those there who are just the ticket for you to be readjusted. Find things worthwhile and you could even repackage them for the crowd here. I mean, the malcontents here repackage and run again the same pablum ad infinitum. No reason you can’t repackage stuff as well.
Well, yeah. I see where you’re coming from. But there’s no need to add to it unnecessarily. You should come, as the eagle does, to the carcass that is JWI—and all the others, too. 
I’m not sure what to make of this. Yes, you don’t want the Truth to be spoken of abusively. But with the elders apparently willing to keep you on board under some lesser form of discipline—well, I’m not sure one has to be less forgiving than God. Lots of sins are exposed these day. Adding them up, Jehovah’s people still have less than the population in general, because of the godly principles they diligently seek to apply. Even without holy spirit, it rubs off through sheer repetition.
We all fall short many times, James says. The truth of the matter might be as when Bud was replacing my car brakes and he couldn’t figure out how to reinstall the anti-rattle clip. “What’s one more rattle on a Ford?” he said at last as he threw it away.
Maybe I can serve as a character witness for you someday. I’d like that.
”Dear, TTH. Please don’t offer to serve as a character witness for Pudgy. We’re well away that he’s a character.”—the brothers.

.ok

Yes, I have watched this take place as well.To survive mentally I find you need a very “thick skin”, and the ability to think of heavy wounds and massive scars as only new learning experiences.
This is called the “One To A Box Principle”.
With VERY few exceptions all humans live alone, and are buried …. One to a box.

This is not a slight to you but I use it to raise a new thought:
Has anyone noticed how the media disparages anyone who does good research and brings the truth to others?  Wikipedia just writes the most liable things about people wherein the celebrity himself has no right to change anything..... even personal histories are changed.  Far lefties are suddenly called far-righters or conspiracy theorists.  The HIT-media is part of the world-wide retaliation-machine which has been put in place by the powers that rule the media at present; and any professor which displays  a little common sense, is a statistical guru, or prized virologist/geneticist, is no longer worthy of being an academic. Their stellar careers get marked by very nasty black spots - especially if they lost their tenure at a university due to gender politics or by speaking out.  Their successful career is maligned and the worth of the Nobel prizes etc. suddenly cancelled.
Although this so-called truth-faction, coming from a wide political spectrum, are not all religious -  they do try to dismantle the deceit and gaslighting going on throughout the world.  Some of them are older (they do not have families in the home and can speak out), and know that they may be targeted and have also accepted this inevitability..... due to the totalitarian way of thinking which is tightening its stranglehold on the world.
The orchestration of the false prophet and the wild beast seems to be world-wide and very efficient.   Revelation 16:  And I saw three unclean inspired expressions* that looked like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the wild beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14  They are, in fact, expressions inspired by demons and they perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the entire inhabited earth, to gather them together to the war of the great day of God the Almighty."
This propaganda was prophesied. Propaganda definition: propaganda is the dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion. I may add that people may soon end up hurting themselves or even their loved ones when they are zealously following instructions via the propaganda.  (Germany's government propaganda during ww2 is a good example of creating good zealots).
While the reliable signs given by Jehovah are now going into fulfillment in the world (such as pestilences, untimely deaths, hunger soon to appear in great scope, King of the North, and the UN trying to get world-controlling documents drawn up and ratified); these signs are giving us an indication where we are in the stream of time (if we watch for them).
The false prophet is also busy with his signs. The false prophet is leading us all mesmerized along with their lab-manufactured problems, massive fear-inducing propaganda, together with an unending list of solutions which have already been deliberated on by those who will soon become the 10 new kings together with the UN; constantly creating new diversions so that the populous cannot get time to think straight; and the atheist prophets of scientism can get their transhuman agenda into play.
What I find fascinating, is the propaganda...... they are managing it extremely well through the appointed  counter media or managed opposition - (algorithms watching every new trend or truth being discovered) - and writing new hit-news  pieces with half-truths which debunk the lies with more half-lies. They use written and visual aids to great effect.  Soon they will be able to cancel-kill all dissenting voices by cancelling all documents which expose the truth. The world will truly be in darkness then- Satan's darkness where no light of any truth will shine through. 
The implication of this is that people could be rounded up for prison or any other nefarious reason and media will be managed by the "state". No news of this will leak out or will be downplayed as "conspiracy"-theory.
What the above definition does not say is that governments usually do the propaganda.  In USA an amendment was passed in 2012 which allows propaganda by the federal government..... and since the end of last year, the government and the UN has appointed various media organizations to remove anything they deem mis-information.  At present they are managing it, but here is the scary part: citizens which go against the LGBTQ agenda now taught in schools to very young children, their names are put on a 'terrorist' list.   
In fact, Governments have done propaganda just about forever because they have had the money and the cooperating educated class to do it. Jesus's death was instigated by a small group of ruling class people (Sanhedrin) who managed, by collusion or conspiracy, to arrest Jesus and sway public opinion ... they could even have planted a few agitators in the crowd as modern propagandists do. 
The "dragon's" propaganda has been excellent in its dividing of humans.  The BLM movement, post-modern philosophy and the rewriting of history has filled many unsuspecting people with hate for others with a different color or worldview;  the publicity about the fakeness of the bible and its historicity is everywhere; the book of Enoch and the anunnaki now has a large following which is basically a form of demon worship.  The belief in aliens is skyrocketing .....due to the belief that the anunnaki were aliens;  as is, the new religion of scientism and the idea that one can live forever in a computer algorithm. 

I think we tend to misinterpret Acts 20:20, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't preach from house to house. I'm only saying that this isn't what that specific verse is about. We tend to impose a meaning on it that isn't there because of our favored method of preaching. But that doesn't mean that the term "house to house" is a terrible translation, only that we don't think enough about what it must have meant in that particular context.
There are good reasons today to use the house-to-house preaching methods, because there is no central gathering place where people get news and share ideas. In some cities there is something akin to that in certain parks. Union Square Park and Washington Square Park in NYC come to mind as places where people, often from NYU, meet to hold up signs and megaphones to promote an ideology. In fact, I have had success talking to individuals in these parks. But most people are not there to get talked to.
We are "encouraged" to report, it isn't "demanded."

I used to know a JW who saw bad motives in everything others did. She was hyper-critical.  It messed up her life.

@Patiently waiting for Truth 
We have already discussed on here quite a number of times that not everyone will get the chance to react favorably to the preaching work. This is talking about those who know what they should be doing and don't do it. 
There is nothing wrong or sinister about supporting "Christ's brothers". Supporting one another is a good thing in the Christian congregation, wouldn't you agree? 

Even more encouragement!!

I did start moving it there, and as I read some of the posts, I realized that most of the posts couldn't be moved there and it would seem to some like we were just talking about people behind their back, as it were. Another choice was to lock this thread and allow no more discussion on it over here. Then a new one could be opened up in the Closed Club. At this point it just didn't seem right.

I agree, but that's not what I was talking about.
To me it looks more like they are trying to make us think that they will deliver some kind of "piece de resistance" which will save our lives at Armageddon and if we don't listen to instructions now, we may not listen to that special piece of instruction later on and as a consequence we will die. That is rubbish*. Again, I am not saying instructions are bad. It is the way this is being done. Using this type of reasoning as a coercive tool to obey instructions today. That's what I don't like. Not the listening to instructions.  The thing is, like this they have every Witness second guessing themselves with how far they should take today's instructions seriously, (vaccination being an example) and sitting on the edge of their seat in anticipation of some future imagined instruction, instead of focusing on what really matters. Too much focus on last minute "life saving" instructions coming from imperfect men. As I explained in my original post, the mark on our forehead is what qualifies each individual for survival. The way we live our life now. The mark for survival is not given at obedience to some instructions delivered at, or just before, Armageddon. Pure worship book: "Before the destruction comes, individuals need to be “sighing and groaning”—deeply grieved  at heart—over the wickedness of this world. And rather than hide their feelings, they must demonstrate by words and actions their devotion to pure worship. How can they do so? They need to react favorably to the preaching work that is being done today, to continue putting on a Christlike personality, to get baptized in symbol of their dedication to Jehovah, and to support Christ’s brothers loyally."  It doesn't say "And you must listen to instructions to go and hide in an attic/basement/forest and get vaccinated" Or whatever the case may be....
*It’s as stupid as saying you all must get vaccinated in order to get saved at Armageddon. 

I think we tend to misinterpret Acts 20:20, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't preach from house to house. I'm only saying that this isn't what that specific verse is about. We tend to impose a meaning on it that isn't there because of our favored method of preaching. But that doesn't mean that the term "house to house" is a terrible translation, only that we don't think enough about what it must have meant in that particular context.
There are good reasons today to use the house-to-house preaching methods, because there is no central gathering place where people get news and share ideas. In some cities there is something akin to that in certain parks. Union Square Park and Washington Square Park in NYC come to mind as places where people, often from NYU, meet to hold up signs and megaphones to promote an ideology. In fact, I have had success talking to individuals in these parks. But most people are not there to get talked to.
We are "encouraged" to report, it isn't "demanded."

I just paid over $39 for a book. And even though it's well over 600 pages, I don't know what the author was thinking. It's $55 in softcover and $65 in hardback. It's the kind of price you'd pay for a book of academic research.
Anyway I'd have to say that, after about 60 pages that I read this morning, it is clearly the most comprehensive, thorough, well-referenced, and seemingly accurate account I have ever read. It is very balanced, so far, and doesn't try to create negative "drama" out of guesswork. I've seen other authors, even Witnesses, do this sometimes.
Even recently, I've tried to get hold of many of the resources he uses and was unable for many of them. I do have a few pages of resources, that Persson doesn't seem to know about (or doesn't use), but they would only confirm his own research, as far as I can tell. He mentions getting some research from collectors of Bible Student history, and a person named Mike Castro in Rhode Island. I don't know if anyone knows whether Mike Castro is a Witness, but someone pointed him out to me when I was looking for a rare document (special Wt supplement not in the bound volumes because it only went to some subscribers), and he sent it to me in PDF format immediately, no questions asked. I'm afraid to find out that he might be an apostate, so I didn't ask 😮.
Anyway, the whole book title is: Rutherford's Coup: The Watchtower Succession Crisis of 1917 and Its Aftermath
https://www.amazon.com/Rutherfords-Coup-Watchtower-Succession-Aftermath/dp/1778143016/ref=sr_1_1?crid=10XAMD6TVT7N3&keywords=rud+persson&qid=1652964472&sprefix=%2Caps%2C53&sr=8-1
So far, I'm impressed. But one should be warned that the author, Rud Persson (pronounced Rude Person 😁) is a former Witness. Don't know whether he was DF'd, but he does say that he worked with Carl Olof Jonsson on research in the past.