JW Insider

I don't think you are representative of "those who know and live the story every day." You represent the views of a minority in a country where the most vocal are able to control not only the view the rest of the world gets, but the view of many people inside the country too. Yes, things are bad, for Witnesses, too. But I think you tend to forget or perhaps didn't know why they are bad. Here is another article found in venezualanalysis, whose reporting I have come to respect based on its consistent ability to predict the case that imperialists and oligarchs would make, long before it happened. The U.S. Has Venezuela in Its Crosshairs As US threats increase, Vijay Prashad examines the current context in Venezuela. Last Thursday—on January 10—Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for his second term as president of Venezuela. “I tell the people,” Maduro said, “this presidential sash is yours. The power of this sash is yours. It does not belong to the oligarchy or to imperialism. It belongs to the sovereign people of Venezuela.” These two terms—oligarchy and imperialism—define the problems faced by Maduro’s new government. Oligarchy Despite 20 years of governance by the socialist forces—first led by Hugo Chavez and now by Maduro—the Venezuelan oligarchy remains firmly intact. It dominates large sections of the economy, holds immense amounts of the country’s social wealth and controls the main media outlets. A walk through the Altamira neighborhood in eastern Caracas is sufficient to gauge the resilience of the wealthy, most of whom have homes in Spain and in Florida as well. Pelucones is the name used to define them—bigwigs, a term with aristocratic connotations. They have resisted all attempts by the socialist Bolivarian movement to expand political and economic democracy in the country. This oligarchy, through its media, controls the political and social narrative, defining the nature of Venezuela’s crisis to its advantage. For this small sliver of the population, all of Venezuela’s serious problems are blamed on the Maduro movement. None of the problems are laid on the doorstep of their long domination of Venezuela nor do they cast an eye at the United States, which has tried to suffocate the Bolivarian revolution since 1999. .... read more .... https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14242

Yikes. I think you just helped to make the point. .

Just pointing out the hypocrisy of the statements made, and a pattern that often precedes regime change just before things get much worse for everyone except elites and typically lighter-skinned populations. When the US interfered in Libya, actual slave trading, human trafficking, became a common occurrence. Sometimes even the elites, and those who support the elites for the sake of "stability" with the rest of the world, do not know what is behind the LIMA Group for example. They also don't realize, even while living in a country, that the chaos and violence is stoked through sanctions and support for fascist elements within a country. Just yesterday, a PR head of the a US company known for promoted political divisiveness in the past, posted a video of a huge crowd from 2016 as if it were the current anti-Maduro. When he was caught, he merely erased all the comments and left it up with the same lie. Regime change is a dirty business. There is corruption in government everywhere. But where there is a much higher level of corruption, you will see full support by the US. You will see selective use of statistics. You will see the promotion of ignorance about supported corruption, but hypocritical magnification of corruption on the part of leaders the US cannot control.

Here are some interesting articles. Most of them from venezualanalysis.com US Administrations Have Been Intervening in Venezuela Since at Least the Early 2000s FAIR's Janine Jackson interviews Alexander Main about US-backed regime change efforts in Venezuela and the role of the international media. Janine Jackson: When it comes to Venezuela, elite US media don’t hide their feelings. And their feelings are all the same. Headlines on last year’s reelection of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro differed only in tone, including the disdainful: “As Venezuelans Go Hungry, Their Government Holds a Farcical Election,” from the Economist; the decisive: USA Today‘s “Maduro Is Turning Venezuela Into a Dictatorship,” or Foreign Affairs’ more somber version, “Venezuela’s Suicide; Lessons From a Failed State.” There’s Forbes’ vaguely threatening “Why Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela May Wish He Lost the Presidential Election,” and Foreign Policy’s unashamed “It’s Time for a Coup in Venezuela.” But they’re all pretty much variations on a theme that’s hard to unhear, given that media bang it out so loudly and repeatedly. Here to help us sort fact from froth is Alexander Main. He’s director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He joins us by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome to CounterSpin, Alex Main. read more .... https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14238

This shows the hypocrisy of NPR and the US Government in all their talk about supposed Russian interference in our own US elections. You can't interfere more blatantly than to get behind a coup attempt and declare a person President when he has never been involved in a national election before. Then, a supposedly "Christian" U.S. vice-President named Pence, blatantly lies about the recent re-election of Maduro. Pence claimed that “Nicolas Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power,” saying he “has never won the presidency in a free and fair election.” In fact, according to Venezualanalysis, a left-leaning reporting source: In accordance with Venezuela’s Constitution, Maduro was sworn in January 10 for his second six-year mandate after defeating three other candidates in the presidential elections of May 2018. The elections, which were boycotted by some sectors of the opposition, were declared to be free, fair, and transparent by independent international electoral observers in the country at the time. One of the big problems with elites in Venezuela is their blatant racism. They have been behind several failed attempts to assassinate Maduro. They promote social media memes showing him as a monkey and many other racist comments. And they use hashtags in Spanish that mean "Assassinate Maduro." He is darker skinned than the white Venezuelans, and he is a socialist. Socialists, because they represent workers, instead of the profiteers, are often persecuted by elites in their own country. The US administration, of course, also hates socialism and has always backed character assassination of socialist leaders, sometimes it goes beyond just "character" assassination. The US will no doubt look for any opportunities to raise the rhetoric, hoping for any opportunity to justify a crackdown and violence. In fact, when Maduro expelled the US diplomats for supporting the coup attempt, the US said that the president didn't have the authority to expel diplomats and that the they will stay there. Marco Rubio immediately made the threat that if anything happened to them they could expect the US to come down with full force (violence) upon Maduro. The US has said that Venezuelans should take to the streets and that they would have the full support of the US. Of course, they only mean the support of anti-Maduro crowds in the streets, as their have also been equal numbers of pro-Maduro crowds. The US hates it when they cannot control the leader of a country that is rich in oil. The direct hypocrisy of the US shows up even more clearly when we look at US recent support for Brazil and Colombia.

Well-said. I see your point. It's also true that we only have his side of the story. And I know there was some concern among at least one of his peers to take care of some of the issues he exposed as soon as possible. But these issues he brings up, along with a review of our own organizational history from WT publications, all support the idea that someone in his situation could easily have had a crisis of conscience. I think he should have had one. I thought it should have led to him resigning from the Governing Body before he was asked to resign, rather than just take a leave of absence from the Governing Body during this time of crisis. His crisis seems to be initially about whether he should have continued to work for more scriptural policies from the inside, or whether he should stand up more strongly for his own beliefs, or whether he should acquiesce. For years, apparently, he always acquiesced. Within the Governing Body, he would vote against creating a new rule that married couples could be disfellowshipped for oral sex, for example. But then when overruled by at least two-thirds of the rest of the Governing Body, who got the assignment to write it up? He would be the one asked to write up the Watchtower article to provide the scriptural defense of something he conscientiously believed was not scriptural. Kind of like your point (in TTvTA) about how people are taught to debate by being assigned either side of an argument. Now as a member of the Governing Body, he could remain and fight for what he thought was the scriptural position: that there was no explicit Bible rule stating that married couples must be dragged through a judicial hearing if, for some reason, the couple admitted to a friend, for example, that they had engaged in oral sex of some kind. At the same time, the Watchtower claimed that a man could have homosexual relations with another man or an animal, and it was not "fornication" and thus did not constitute grounds for a scriptural divorce. R.Franz still believed, as did his colleagues, that these forms of sex were wrong, and not to be engaged in, and that the person could be disfellowshipped. But for some reason he did not stand up for his conscience and take a stand against what was clearly an unscriptural case of using the supposed "letter of the law" to kill the "spirit of the law." Of course, he reports that he did fight for the change, from the inside, and sometimes it would take months of collecting letters to the Service Department, and sometimes it would take years. And patience. But in large part, apparently, these areas of conscience were resolved and the rest of the Governing Body finally acquiesced. We have the Watchtower articles that provide evidence to fit his claims. This might sound self-aggrandizing for R.Franz, but it makes perfect sense considering the persons who made up the Governing Body. Working as an artist for most of my 4 years at Bethel, I knew who was writing which articles and books. In fact, the initials of the writer and an additional series of initials of those who had seen and approved the article were always at the top of the first typewritten page. This also helped proofreaders and artists know who their department head might talk to if there was a question. Listening to the Governing Body members rotate through their 15 minute talks every day, sometimes rambling unprepared, and sometimes well organized, it was easy to tell who deferred to whom, and which members were interested in Bible topics and which were interested in organizational rules, and rarely did the twain meet. Between that experience of hearing them speak daily and knowing which Watchtower articles a GB member had written lets me know that everything R.Franz says in the book makes perfect sense with respect to those who spoke up and what they probably would have said during GB meetings. I should also add that I could sometimes hear L.Swingle and F.Rusk (non-GB) speaking to other writers from their offices. (Most GB members never wrote a Watchtower article, and most had almost nothing to do with Writing of any kind.) It also makes sense why, by way of explanation, R.Franz goes into the history of the creation of the Governing Body from the time it began in the early 70's.

You make a good point. I hadn't realized at first that people outside the "club" can't even read the comments. I thought the purpose was just to avoid extraneous comments, but that anyone could still read it. If they thought what they read was important enough, they could just comment on them over here in this "public club." I see you are right. When I log out, I get a "do not have permission" notice. I am happy to put all of my own comments from there out here but I doubt you would think they are worth much.

There was a meeting in Jerusalem once, and the Bible tells us in Acts 15 what the argument was on both sides of the issue. The Bible gives us the reason for the question, what they decided, and even some further commentary on who was involved in Galatians 1 and 2. I think the Bible should be our model, rather than Walmart.

I've been thinking about this claim for a while. I don't consider Carl Olof Jonsson nor Raymond Franz to be apostate. Not apostates from Christianity, nor apostates from Jehovah's Witnesses, nor apostates from the Watch Tower Society. The reason is because they didn't "go out from among us." Both of them acquiesced for several years. Both of them were kicked out -- pushed out, instead of just leaving. They didn't go out on their own. And questioning certain doctrines does not constitute leaving the religion, according to directives given in our publications today. Besides most of the doctrines that were questioned have already now been shown to be incorrect anyway. The 2010 change to the generation doctrine was already an admission that 1914 was no longer tenable as the start of the generation that would see Armageddon within their lifespans. Back in 1980, Brother Schroeder himself had questioned this doctrine when he proposed that the Governing Body change that date for the beginning of the generation from 1914 to 1957. I don't think this makes Brother Schroeder an apostate, nor would it even if he had been disfellowshipped over that proposal. So yes, I think R.Franz should get credit for mentioning Carl Jonsson. They both had studied the same material on chronology, and both of them had decided to go to the experts. But one of them (Jonsson) had decided to carefully question the Society first, and give them several opportunities to respond, and even several years to respond to specific points, before finally going public with the research he collected. So, even after becoming convinced in his own mind, he acquiesced to Witness protocol. Even though he did not originate much of this research, he made it accessible to many more Witnesses. It was very important research in my opinion, especially as it cleared up the problem that the Watch Tower Society was facing at the time. He basically found that the Biblical, scholarly, historical and archaeological evidence perfectly supported the Bible's accounts and resolved the chronology issues that the Watch Tower had been struggling with, changing, stretching, and fretting over for over 100 years. When a Christian Witness has a gift and talent for research, it is a fine thing to share it with others -- to bring one's gift upon the altar -- especially after Carl Jonsson had given the WTS the benefit of the doubt that they would handle things appropriately in time. Almost exactly a year after Jonsson's manuscript got to Bethel, Brother Bert Schroeder traveled to WT Branches in Europe in 1978 with the idea of building a case against Carl Jonsson during a couple of these meetings. I traveled a good portion of this trip to about 10 of our European branches with Brother Schroeder and met up with him at several of the same cities he visited. But, after breaking schedule in Athens, I was not in Wiesbaden, Copenhagen or Oslo on the same days, and I knew almost nothing of any portion of Schroeder's meetings regarding Jonsson. It was a few months later that I was told that Jonsson's document had now been at Bethel for a year already, still spending almost all of that time on a shelf, untouched. This is quite true, but just because the Society made many mistakes about "1914" and the "1914 generation" over the course of many years, it doesn't make them evil. The intention was probably very good on the part of almost all believers in the doctrine, in all its forms at least between 1879 and up until 2010. The idea that the Watchtower could make very specific claims about certain dates might have been based on haughtiness and presumptuousness, but there is no intention to be presumptuous or haughty. So I don't think even a falsehood need be labeled "evil" in any way. Quite true. I'm guessing you are referring to C.Jonsson's book influencing R.Franz. I'm referring to the dozens of disingenuous ways that our chronology doctrine had been supported, although, fortunately, most of these ways of explaining it have now been dropped. No one need follow in R.Franz' footsteps. It's true that many of the points he made will cause confusion to some. But they are already out there, and this is why they need to be explained and discussed honestly. If they are true, we should be prepared for how we deal with such truths. If they aren't true, we need to search out evidence to defend against those points. But, no matter what, they need not result in leaving the Witnesses or getting disfellowshipped. Because what happened to R.Franz has nothing to do with whether the points he makes in his book are accurate and true. His books can and will be misused. Just as encyclopedias, and websites, and Watchtowers are misused. But if he said some things that are true, do they suddenly become untrue just because R.Franz was the one who pointed them out? R.Franz pointed out that the generation doctrine was going to have to change again in the next few years. He turned out to be right. But do you say he was wrong just it because he said it in his book? R.Franz pointed out that it was the Watch Tower Society that put restrictions on our ministry in Mexico and not the Mexican government. It was the Watch Tower Society that later lifted those restrictions on our work when they determined that the circumstances were right. R.Franz pointed out that the situation with imprisonment of brothers in South Korea and other areas was about to change because it had already received enough votes to change. (But then Lloyd Barry reversed his vote, so that nothing changed.) We know that it finally changed more recently, after a long delay. But do you doubt the accuracy of the R.Franz book? If so, on what basis, specifically. Just because it was R.Franz who pointed it out?

Actually, you might have hit on the exact reason that many Witnesses have read it secretly when you said: It's the fact that he purports to tell people what went on in the GB.

I can't really tell what you are trying to say. I imagine that the vast majority of people at Bethel never read any of the books by R.Franz, at least not while at Bethel. But they certainly wanted to talk about it, and to talk about things they had heard from others about the book. Don't know what you mean. Surely you don't think that R.Franz coined that phrase. And surely you don't think that R.Franz claimed to have coined that phrase. I don't really see that J.Butler would be benefited from reading the book. I think he already has his mind completely made up about the usefulness of the Organization long before any talk of this book. But if a person can understand from a book such as this that the leadership of the Organization has a human side, and can figure out why Jehovah could still work with (and bless the efforts of) such humans to accomplish something good, I don't see how the book should necessarily hurt. I have a feeling he would read it just for "ammunition." One benefit I see for true Christians, however, is that it should make us more humble, less presumptuous, and it helps us understand the difficult position of leadership of a the Organization when their is no direct inspiration, no signs, and no miracles. As more members of the Governing Body have explained, they see their role as trying to devote themselves to a study of the scriptures in order to guard the doctrine. They pray over the scriptures, and the best decisions, and best course to take, but there is no "magic wand." It's still a matter of trying to distinguish right from wrong by being spiritually minded persons who know that everything they decide should have a Biblical basis. For the most part, this produces excellent results. But certain traditions and strongly entrenched things will not necessarily be improved if you only see yourselves as "guardians" of existing doctrine. But in spite of this, a lot of good changes have also taken place. I have not seen a year go by, when improvements were not made. (Especially since about 2000 when the role of the GB became more focused on doctrinal matters and less on legal and bureaucratic matters.) And it's also quite possible to be critical of what we should be critical of, to learn from their mistakes. And it's also possible to be critical and come to a better appreciation of Jehovah's ways and his patience. Again, you make no sense. If this is another reference to Carl Olaf Jonsson per the argument that Allen Smith invariably brought up in this context, it is still a false argument. R.Franz discovered the problems with our chronology way back before 1969, while writing the Chronology entry in the Aid Book that came out in 1969. Jonsson had not even started his questioning of the chronology back then, had he? Brothers that I knew in Writing would not touch the Jonsson manuscript precisely because they already questioned the chronology and realized that they might get an assignment to rebut COJ if they took an interest. This is why it sat on a shelf, and was called the "hot potato" for at least a year, and no one dared touch it. Unfortunately, this is very true that much of what goes on in Bethel, especially within the GB, is not made public.

This book became a long, ongoing conversation for a few years among my former roommates at Bethel and another Bethelite who was a groomsman at my wedding, and a friend who had remained in the Writing Department for 30 years after my last Bethel assignment. (In 4 years at Bethel, I had 5 different roommates, and four of them have talked to me about the book.) This doesn't prove anything, but a former roommate (Service/Correspondence), and the brother in Writing, have both confirmed that copies of R.Franz books were kept in the Writing Dept "special" library since the early 1980's. Of course, he had bias. And I'm sure he would only choose or emphasize details that would lead one toward that same bias. We are all taught to do that, because there is nothing wrong with bias if it's a bias toward what's true. And, though I don't have proof yet, I also think he was wrong about a couple of things, too. But I tend to think he was factually accurate because I have found good corroboration for a couple of things I personally questioned. Also because it is much more important for someone in his position to pay more than the usual attention to all details claimed, for the same reasons that an outsider plaintiff must be extra careful in a "David v. Goliath" type of court case. One false claim and you get crushed. If you can recall any of those items you thought "twisted" that could be very important to the current discussion.

Next time I will wait and ask before moving anything. I see some of that here:

That's true. I have no proof that Fred Franz didn't. But if Fred Franz really had challenged the book in any way, that surely would have been huge news. Some Witness somewhere would surely have made a note of it. Interesting, however, that some Witnesses have said that they first heard about certain controversial issues (re: WTS history) in this book by R.Franz, and believed that some of these things could not really be true. But then Frederick Franz gave a talk in 1985, about two years after the book CoC came out, and confirmed many of the same controversial issues out of his own mouth. You can hear it here: https://archive.org/details/DecisionMyLifeStoryByFredFranz It's a 1 hour and 33 minute talk, but you can find about 10 minutes of excerpts from it in shorter versions on YouTube. Obviously, Fred Franz didn't mention the book, but he surely had a chance to challenge something in it, and instead he either purposely or inadvertently expresses agreement with many details that some Witnesses had first seen in R.Franz book, and had found difficult to believe. But the main point, of course, is that your "redirection" above sounds like evidence that you didn't have any specific examples after all. Until you offer any, I'll assume that you found no evidence of inaccurate details in the book. I'm not trying to promote the book. I don't know his motives for writing it. I only know what he claimed, and those claims might be true, and they might be untrue. If his claimed reasons are true, then it is very understandable why he felt it necessary to write the book. If they are false, then we can probably impute all kinds of wrong reasons for him to write such a book. Maybe he was. I don't know of anyone who had evidence that he was being overlooked or if even if he was actually being considered the prime choice after Fred Franz. I was handling assignments for Brother Albert Schroeder at the time Schroeder was involved in a kind of campaign against R.Franz, and I did get a very strong sense that Brother Schroeder did not want to be overlooked for the office of President. So it is possible that R.Franz was like him, too. I only knew R.Franz through reputation and his 15 minute comments when it was his weekly rotation at "morning worship." I can tell you that among many serious Bethelites, including many Bethel Elders in the late 1970's and up until 1980, there was a lot of talk that R.Franz would be the most likely candidate for next president after his uncle died. This was one of the reasons that news of his resignation from the Governing Body, and news of his leaving Bethel shocked so many brothers and sisters. There was even a lot of crying, and a line of people waiting at his door to say good-bye to him and his wife the day they left Bethel. But just because a person has a humble and loving reputation, you still don't know what is going on in their heart.

I moved 5 of your comments to the new thread noted above, and I left a couple of them here. All 5 of the ones I tried to move, seemed to move correctly. I see that The Librarian also moved 1 to the topic below, where I am leaving it alone.

So it appears that you don't have any evidence to give for your claim that the book was "challenged" by Fred Franz or others who knew him. You didn't even say what claims about the organization that you reject. You should at least be able to point to one inaccuracy. Or someone should.

What timing. We overlapped. I had already tried to pull these comments over to a new thread here. If you don't feel like moving all the other comments here, I think it's OK to split this into two topics, or I can move these ones over there, since that would be easier - just two posts.:

@The Librarian, @FelixCA, @JOHN BUTLER, @Witness, @Anna I started a new thread, taking most of these comments over to:

Getting back to the topic. I think R.Franz is a curious case in point. I do blame him for some of the child abuse problems because I think he was the person who would have invoked the two-witness rule into judicial matters that are too difficult to figure out through external knowledge and common sense alone. He seemed to have been the one assigned to most of the congregational judicial issues related to immorality. Didn't mean it was his decision, but he was the one assigned to find scriptural defenses for the way the rest of the GB had voted to handle things. He should have had the wherewithal to either speak up or leave the organization. Yet he stayed, and remained an elder, a JW in good standing, even after he was asked to resign from the Governing Body.

I should mention that these comments I had made were never made to defend R.Franz. In fact, as I recall, these comments were made under a different topic, and someone apparently moved them here because I happened to mention R.Franz in my response. But back to your question that starts out with the words, "So if Raymond was a proven liar." I'm not sure what you are referring to. I've never heard anyone claim that R.Franz was a proven liar. If anyone ever said that, I'd be very interested in what they were referring to. It might be very useful to point to something inaccurate* in his book. I'm sure the average Witness who never knew him could easily get the idea he was "liar," but I have never heard anyone who knew him at Bethel ever say that anything in his book was inaccurate. Quite the opposite in fact. [I found a couple inaccuracies, by the way, such as when in CoC, he mentioned that the Pope and bishops can speak as if they are "infallible" in the minds of Catholics. He should not have said "and bishops" unless he was referring only to previous "bishops of Rome," which are the popes.] And by the way, R.Franz was an apostate. So if there was even one inaccuracy in any of his books, don't you think the Watchtower Society, or someone at least, should have pointed it out? What he exposed caused a lot of controversy. Pointing out even one inaccuracy would have helped quell the controversy and defend the Society. But the problem, as best as I can see it, was not that he said anything untrue, but that his motive was to expose the human side of the organization and its decisions. It was to show how the Governing Body worked together at that time, and examples of how decisions and changes were made. And it showed its very human side, with its faults, mistakes, and interactions of personality. If you worked inside Bethel at that time and worked closely with several of the people he speaks about, you'd already know that his descriptions made perfect sense as they matched everything you could know about these persons. What none of us could know about, however, was what it was like inside any of those meetings of the Governing Body. And it turns out that it, if he is correct in his descriptions, then this is exactly what we would have expected anyway, knowing the personalities of these brothers as we saw and heard them acting and speaking on a daily basis. He speaks very kindly and respectfully of many of them. You can tell they were friends, just as you already knew if you were at Bethel at this time. But it becomes easy to understand how key decisions could be delayed or swayed by more outspoken and stronger personalities on the GB. I don't know what you might mean here. No accounts were ever challenged, as far as I know. At least not by anyone who knew him. Especially not by Fred Franz, who knew him very well. If you have evidence to the contrary you should share it, especially because, as Witnesses, we don't want to be known for making false accusations. Not at all. I just share what I know and what I think. And you can share what you know and what you think. That's how we learn. That's how forums such as this work. I would never want someone to trust my words and my words only.

Sounds like you can only "Do-little" for now, but if you scream to get your doctor double-quick, maybe you'll be off a second later, and get yourself to the Kingdom Hall on time, tomorrow.

I used to think she was singing: "Is that all you blaggards can do?"

(Proverbs 10:19) . . .When words are many, transgression cannot be avoided, But whoever controls his lips acts discreetly. Better? Maybe this is as close as we can get to anything positive about many words, imitating the congregator. (Ecclesiastes 12:9, 10) . . .he pondered and made a thorough search in order to compile many proverbs. 10 The congregator sought to find delightful words and to record accurate words of truth. (Acts 2:40) 40 And with many other words he [Peter] gave a thorough witness . . .

Fair enough. I think it's true that we haven't yet gotten to much that is constructive on this particular topic. But, as there is a time to tear down and a time build up, it probably doesn't make much sense to offer an alternative yet, while so few have tried to explain what's wrong with the current teaching. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, as they say. As far as "liking to talk" goes, guilty. But I would hope it's that way based on the scripture quoted earlier: "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Still, I would hope that some would see all this talk as a labor of love and concern, and even see it for it truly is, in my mind, loyalty to our brotherhood. I could tell that going back to Russell's view on the signs in the sun, moon and stars seemed irrelevant to you. I'm guessing that you are seeing too many things tied together under a single topic and that many of the items you have seen as off-topic have made it difficult to deal with so many items at once. But it's really true that a misunderstanding of 1914, and a misunderstanding of the "sign" is the foundation issue that, when resolved, resolves the whole "overlapping generation" issue with it. The fact is that Russell understood Jesus point about NOT looking for a sign. Russell made it clear that wars, earthquakes, and famines were NO part of a sign. He understood this. And that understanding makes sense in the context of the rest of Matthew 24. You won't need a sign if it's going to come without any further warning, like a thief in the night, at an hour you do not think to be it. But the tendency to want a sign, in spite of Jesus counsel, overtook Russell and the Bible Students and they continued to believe in those heavenly signs, as if they were already progressing. The exact dates were not important, except to show that they fit the idea of "last days" at the time. But the idea that they could find dozens of secular quotes in support of these dates could be another lesson for us. What they missed, however, is that these quotes were not being collected in support of the Bible's warning about looking for a sign. I think we do the same thing today when we collect 1914 quotes. We are trying to overcome the Bible's clear warning not to look for a sign in things like wars, earthquakes, famines, etc. And we end up convincing ourselves.

Not necessarily. Remember that Jesus said the first would be last and the last first. He who would be your "leader" should be your servant. So who's to say that the order is not Jehovah teaching us, and then through some form of discussion and feedback, ALL of us feed the faithful slave, who then, have the "menial" slave-like duty of distributing whatever we have agreed upon. As in the book of Acts, there might be "no little dispute" about some matters. But those matters would really be few and far between. As persons have already pointed out, there would never be a need to make up a decisive explanation that everyone must believe on a specific point of interpretation. Just report on the most likely possibilities, and explain why they are possible or probable. There has never been a reason for the Watchtower to stick its neck out and say that something must mean a certain thing that later had to be changed. All those changes were unnecessarily brought upon ourselves by being presumptuous. Of course, this sounds terrible and awful and unworkable to most of us, but there is a Scriptural idea behind it. In Matthew 24, the faithful slave is not really a "position" at all in the Christian congregation, or the Bible would have mentioned it. It mentions elders and ministerial servants and evangelizers and prophets, etc. This is one reason we know that the illustration is merely an example of how, like house servants, all of us should do what we can for each other in an orderly manner even though the Master is delayed in returning. We need to keep the household running smoothly by continuing in our assignments without distraction, and without anyone deciding that they need to take over and create a special form of leadership. The lesson could very likely be the very opposite of the lesson that the Governing Body is currently taking form the parable. But even so, let's say that it really was a lesson about who is distributing the spiritual food to the household of faith. Fine. Then who is creating and preparing that food to be distributed, while the parousia seems delayed? Who is tentatively taking the place of the "master" of the house in deciding what things should be distributed? I quoted the scripture earlier: (Matthew 13:52) 52 Then he said to them: “That being the case, every public instructor who is taught about the Kingdom of the heavens is like a man, the master of the house, who brings out of his treasure store things both new and old.” So it's everyone who is out there teaching about the Kingdom of God. You and me, and every "publisher," and elder, and ministerial servant, and pioneer. Every sister and brother in the congregation who teaches publicly and from house to house. These are the ones taking the place of the "master of the house" who can instruct the "faithful slave" in what to distribute as spiritual food.