THE TWO MAJOR BOOKS OF RAYMOND FRANZ, FORMER MEMBER OF THE GOVERNING BODY OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES In the Community of Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses and Friends, the books Crisis Of Conscience and In Search Of Christian Freedom are considered classes.  The following is an appreciate critique summary of both.  Readers may wish to mail copies to Jehovah's Witness and others.  They may want to get their own copies of the full book from www.commentarypress.com or via www.amazon.com.

CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE By Raymond Franz -- Just A Few Of The Things You Can Learn By Buying A Copy Raymond Victor Franz (May 8, 1922–June 2, 2010)  became a baptized Jehovah's Witness in 1939.  He preached despite mob violence, was a missionary in Puerto Rico, suffered from dysentery and hepatitis, and risked his life by secretly smuggling Watchtower Society literature into the Dominican Republic.  He eventually married his wife Cynthia, and Watchtower President Nathan Knorr invited him to Watchtower's world headquarters where he headed a group writing the encyclopedic Aid To Bible Understanding.  In doing this Ray Franz researched for example how the early Christian congregation was structured and if the Watchtower Society was correct in saying that Nebuchadnezzar had taken Jerusalem in 607 BC.  He and another man consulted with  archaeologists who said and showed plenty of evidence that 607 BC was a wrong date, and Franz said that he found that absolutely no ancient writings showed that the date correct.  However, he was not allowed to point out the fact because Watchtower’s claim that in Christ had returned invisibly in 1914 depended upon it. He notes how disturbing it was when the January 1, 1972 Watchtower (p. 32) came out saying (and thus making as a law for Jehovah's Witnesses) that when a man has non-vaginal sex with another man or an animal, his wife can not scripturally divorce him because there is no possibility of conception.  He called this a mistake which was fortunately eventually reversed, however, only after no telling how many married Jehovah's Witness sisters were seriously harmed by it.   He also wrote that Jehovah's Witness elders in a California congregation reported a married couple had literature and photos for non-vaginal sex, and the Governing Body ruled that the couple must be disfellowshipped.  These were followed by Watchtower articles against married couples having anything other than face-to-face missionary style sex appeared in Watchtower magazines of December 1, 1972 and November 15, 1974.  Married Jehovah's Witnesses were told to report their own marriage mates to elders if their spouses expressed interest in or had them do anything other than the sex permitted by Watchtower.  Franz wrote that this destroyed many, many Jehovah's Witness families, but he also noted that even at that some of the oldest local elders felt the Governing Body's rules about marital sex had not gone far enough!  The Governing Body reversed its decision in the Watchtower magazine of February 15, 1978, but the March 15, 1983 issue denounced “unnatural sex,” saying it keeps men from becoming elders and can lead to expulsion.  He writes at length with details showing that during the times of Presidents C.T. Russell and Joseph Rutherford, the Watchtower Society was under their absolute rule and governance.  While Raymond Franz was on the Governing Body, a group not originally making decisions, a tense power struggle began.  Then Watchtower President Nathan Knorr (1905-1977) had had absolute power, but the Governing Body shifted his power to the Governing Body despite his opposition.  Raymond Franz has provided all the details in his book, including why Knorr was angry at Franz himself over the shift in power. Franz has revealed that the secretive Governing Body has meetings that are kept absolutely private or secret.  Also its members make their decisions largely by consulting and using prior written policies instead of the Bible.  Two-thirds of the Governing Body members must vote in favor of any suggested change.  He has noted that for example often a majority wanted to remove something from being a disfellowshipping offence or make some other change but could not because of lacking one or more votes. (As of 2011 still in effect) Raymond Franz noted being sad that the good of the organization was (and is) put over what is good for individuals so that rules to continue endangering members lives over which blood fractions can be accepted, also causes divorce, marital unhappiness, loss of jobs.  He decries the view that Watchtower's organizational image must stay first upon a pedestal, was held as all important.  He notes that for decades alternative service in place of the military was not allowed.  It once came within a single vote of being passed, and some sixteen years later, after he himself was no longer in the organization, did pass then was published in the Watchtower magazine of May 1, 1996.  The Governing Body gave absolutely no apology to the many men who had had to serve time in prisons around the globe, nor sent any letters of apology to their wives and children who also suffered as a result.  His book details that Jehovah's Witnesses in Malawi were attacked, raped, had homes and crops burnt in 1964, 1967, 1972, 1975, because the Governing Body had ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses in Malawi could not buy a cheap card stating they supported Malawi’s sole political party, the nation's only government, even though Paul at Romans 13:7 and Christ at Matthew 5:41 say render what is due to government.  Although the Governing Body would not let Jehovah's Witnesses in Malawi use the card, they did let Jehovah's Witnesses in Mexico pay a bribe to military officers to obtain a card falsely saying they had served in the military.  In a letter, Watchtower called the bribes “money transactions.”  He also notes that although telling Jehovah's Witnesses that God opposes the United Nations, from 1991 to 2001 the Watchtower Society was secretly a Non-Governmental Organization affiliated with the United Nations.   The book reveals many other things about the Governing Body men and the inner workings of the Watchtower Society organization.  Everyone should buy a copy.  Much has been left out here and you will need the book for countless fine details.  It is sold at commentarypress.com available in many languages.  Sales can also help benefit his wife, now widow, Cynthia Franz.  Feel free to mail a copy of this to others, especially active Jehovah's Witnesses as they thus also better get their own copies and share this too.

IN SEARCH OF CHRISTIAN FREEDOM By Raymond V. Franz Raymond Franz, who died in early 2010, was a former Governing Body member of the Watchtower Society over Jehovah's Witnesses whom Watchtower disfellowshipped in the wake of discovering his sentiments for the Bible and Christ.  He has written two great books about the Watchtower Society's elite top board group of men called the Governing Body.  The first was Crisis Of Conscience which gave a lot of insider information or history, but his other book In Search Of Christian Freedom is also highly informative.  To give just one example why, it exposed Watchtower's spying or stalking on pages 380-383 of the second edition dated 2007.   Franz has written that in 1986 Watchtower's branch office in Athens, Greece, disfellowshipped over one hundred former Jehovah's Witnesses who gave any signs of disagreeing with Watchtower teachings and policies.  Although out of the Watchtower, some of the former Jehovah's Witnesses decided to meet and continue reading and discussing the Bible in private homes.  As later proved by convictions in court, Greece's Watchtower branch office decided to stalk the former Jehovah's Witnesses.  On April 6, 1987, about 50 people who were mostly former Jehovah's Witnesses Christians came together at the home of Nick and Eftihia Bozartzis.  From a balcony Nick spotted two men watching the house so he went down to speak with them, one of whom he knew to be a Jehovah's Witness.  They ran off.  Shortly three of the 50 were disfellowshipped. On April  9 the former Jehovah's Witness fellowship or house-church was going to meet at the home of Voula Kalokerinou but the meeting had been canceled as the former Jehovah's Witnesses planned instead to meet to celebrate the Memorial or Last Supper on April 11.  Voula spotted five people in a car stationed across from her house that evening and the next. On April 11, the fellowship gathered to commemorate the Lord's last meal or supper at Voula's house.  She saw an unknown car on one corner and a van on the other corner.  The back window of the van was covered with paper except for a round circle in the center.  The men in the car got out and went over to talk to the men in the van several times. Voula asked a person meeting in her home to go see what was going on.   When he came toward the car, it sped away.  He went around the back of the van and peered through the uncovered circular area inside of which were video camera equipment used by Watchtower-appointed Elder Nikolas Antoniou and Watchtower branch staff elder Dimetre Zerdes. Other people from Voula's house gathered.  A policeman from the nearby Italian Embassy came.  The Jehovah's Witness elders drove off to a park, started unloading their video equipment but were arrested by police for invasion of privacy.  The elders lied before a district attorney that they were only there to film a relative of Dimetre Zerdes.  In reality his cousin Eftihia Bozartzis had disassociated herself from Jehovah's Witnesses two years before which, due to Watchtower's shunning policy, meant he was to have nothing to do with her. The District Attorney named Kontaxis said at the trial that Watchtower believes it is "God's channel, creates tremendous dependency on its members, thus (they) are directed to do everything to threaten and trample all that we call human rights."  The confiscated film showed zoom shots of people entering the house and being on the balcony, Eftihia Bozartzis not even in the film. The next year, Watchtower's magazine called Awake! blasted Greece's Orthodox Church for getting a stadium in Greece to cancel an assembly for JWs there.  This may have been to make word of what Watchtower representatives' criminal conduct in Greece seem less believable to JWs when they finally might hear of it. Franz notes "To this day, in all countries, any persons among Jehovah's Witnesses who find they cannot conscientiously support fully the organization's teachings or practices live in a climate of fear, feeling they must constantly be on guard as to what they say, what they do, what they read, with whom they associate, from whom they receive letters, not feeling any sense of freedom even when among personal friends or close relatives if these are also Witnesses." Franz also noted that to keep Watchtowerites from discovering them and destroying their ties to Jehovah's Witness family and friends, some Jehovah's Witnesses who have contacted him have felt it necessary to use a different name, use a special post office box etc.   Watchtower says that disagreeing Jehovah's Witnesses are "free" to leave, denies it spies on or verbally harasses, while also hiding that fact that after people have exited Watchtowerites, sometimes including staff as seen in this incidident too, have destroyed dissenters' normal ties to family and friends, acted to destroy their business ties and jobs.  The book also details Franz' views about Christianity.   The gist of it is that in the years after leaving Watchtower he continued as a Christian unaffiliated with any particular organization but reading and discussing the Bible with small groups in homes where he and his wife had moved to live in Georgia.    Raymond Franz was a proponent of in-the-home fellowshipping, believed that Christianity is the one faith although it has good, average and bad branches.  In Search Of Christian Freedom gives details showing that Watchtower is at best an extremely paranoid, selfish organization, one of the bad branches.  Buying a copy of this book is highly recommended.  Also much has been left out here and you will need the book for it countless fine details.  It is sold at commentarypress.com, amazon.com etc; is available in many languages.  Sales can also help benefit Raymond Franz' wife Cynthia, who with his passing is now a widow.  Feel free to mail a copy of this to others, especially active Jehovah's Witnesses, as they thus also better get their own copies besides also share what you are reading here so quickly and conveniently about it.

LINKS TO A FEW OF THE TRIBUTES BY PEOPLE REMEMBERING HIS LIFE  Slideshow by Rosalind Hughes http://www.xjw.com/RememberingRayFranz.html Video 21crosscheck23 narrated by various ExJWs who knew him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0axx-av7ZRc By www.freeminds.org with posting of JWD Forum