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Some of you know that I took a bad fall. I’m still suffering the effects, sleeping more than usual and not up to working much. So, if you have a blog post you want me to consider, please send it on. Also, you may want to further Jerome’s research. It’s excellent, and adds important detail that doesn’t fit in the Separate Identity narrative.
I would appreciate your comments on this: I have many vintage anti-Watchtower booklets. Among these are many from the 1940s. As is true of most anti-Witness controversialist material they are full of poor reasoning, lies, ad hominem, and stupidity. But they are historical documents, and some add detail to the narrative. I’m considering republishing them in an annotated edition.
I hesitate to do this given their offensive nature. But they ARE part of our history. What do you think?
Now on to other things. A recent email said: “WTS has been trying to remove and cleanse their history, and it's becoming harder to find old documents.” I want to state here that this is total nonsense. One cannot expect them to oppose their own theology. But they do not buy up, erase, or otherwise hide documents. One can find every Watchtower, Awake, Consolation, Golden Age, booklet and book they ever published. Most are online; the rest are available through interlibrary loan or direct request to the institution owning the material.
No ethical academic would call Jehovah’s
Witnesses a cult. Those who fear them, who cannot refute their doctrine except
by repeating that they do not agree use the term to color the Witnesses in
shades of black. That is the same thinking behind the Catholic Inquisition. And
there ARE clergy and anti-cult writers who would gladly burn Witnesses at the
stake if the law did not prevent them.
Assume personal responsibility. The person who wrote the email I’ve mentioned did not like the restrictions Witness theology places on its adherents. You cannot fornicate, steal, use illegal drugs, or misbehave in other ways. Fine. You don’t want to live under those restrictions, just don’t. No-one is forcing you to do that.
3 comments:
I hope you continue recovering, and I appreciate your comments on the absurdity of so many criticisms of Jehovah's Witnesses, both past and present.
The Watchtower of 9/15/1966 pp. 561-570 quotes from and cites a number of anti-Witness writings, many of them written by clergy. I sympathize with your concerns about publishing these controversialist booklets, but part of studying history involves being exposed to sources that are dishonest, offensive, or just wrong. I think it would be valuable as scholarship to have some of these writings in an annotated edition.
A commented anthology resorting to finesse or irony and a certain height of vision, the texts discrediting themselves by their own excesses, rather than abusing sermonizing or indignation (and avoiding the trap of the typology dear to the time when the article very opportunely pointed out by the sagacious Noah appeared — let him be thanked for it) seems to me to be an excellent idea, especially insofar as you already have an abundance of material gathered all along your research, of which this study would be a sub-product, which would be honorably in line with the works of Christian apologists of the first centuries against the venomous and misleading accusations of their opponents. “Courage, we will have them!”
This is an interesting subject, but since you ask I will give you my two pennies worth. My concern involves the matter of focus. I have a wide span of interest and admit to sometimes becoming divided in my attentions as a result. I would therefore truly love to see you first conclude Separate Identity vol III, including the proposed index to vol I, II and III. (Too often I know a point I want is in there somewhere but I can rarely find it!) The take-off and journey of the first two volumes deserves a successful landing before you consider your next departure. May Jehovah bless you meanwhile!
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