New material for my introductory essay. Comments please.
I
promised earlier a more detailed commentary on Alan Rogerson’s Millions Now
Living Will Never Die: A Study of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It saw print in 1969
and is another book written by someone with academic credentials. He is still
seen as authoritative enough to quote. Constable, his publisher, described his
book as a “fascinating and unbiased study [that] presents a full account of the
history and beliefs of the movement. He has consulted the original records
dating back to its founding in 1871, and brought to light numerous intriguing
and previously unknown facts.” However,
Rogerson, a former adherent, was anything but unbiased. Much of his material
was derived from secondary sources, often factually incorrect and sometimes
pure fable. If he carefully read the early issues of Zion’s Watch Tower
and the volumes of Studies in the Scriptures his work shows severe
reading comprehension problems, or at least inattention to detail. Anyone even
moderately familiar with the material he was supposed to have consulted would
note this book’s fatal flaws.
Before
we dissect Rogerson’s work in some detail, we should note that there are
insightful, well thought out observations in it. Quoting them and maintaining
one’s intellectual honesty is perilous. A sociologist or historian may find
something in Rogerson that represents their beliefs. Quoting him without a
qualifying warning is the same as an endorsement. And, because the book is
seriously flawed, even dishonest, using any of Rogerson’s claims without first
independently researching the material is poor work. Would you accept that from
a student you’re advising? Why should your readers accept it from you?
Defects
permeate his book, but I will focus only on those touching the Russell era. The
material Rogerson claimed to have consulted was easily available to him; he had
a treasure of early material at his disposal. But we find him relying on
secondary, and often enough on opposition sources. Contemporary opposition
material is a valid resource, but not if contrary evidence is ignored. Rogerson
ignored contrary evidence because it invalidated his anti-Witness stance. His
approach is spotty, and we find him occasionally rebuking anti-cult nonsense. Echoing
his publisher’s claims, Rogerson wrote:
I have consulted all the original records available –
especially the books and Watchtowers printed since 1874 onwards ... and
when possible I have cited and quoted my sources of information. I have tried
to make my viewpoint unbiased as I have no strong personal feelings for or
against the Witness movement. My aim throughout has been to present a complete
account of the Witnesses incorporating all the significant incidents and facts;
where I have discussed certain events or ideas the factual basis for the
discussion is also presented so that readers are free to draw their own
conclusions.
It is
impolite, I suppose, to call Rogerson a liar, but bluntness is sometimes called
for, and this is one of those times. Let’s start with his claim to have read in
their entirety the Watchtower adherent books published from 1874 onward. He
obviously did not. The implication is that he read Object and Manner of Our
Lord’s Return, which was generally supposed to have been printed that year.
It was not impossible to find in 1969. Several researchers including myself
obtained a photocopy from an American university. If he read it, he failed to
note the 1877 printing date. If he read Studies in the Scriptures as he
claimed, then he would have found Russell noting the 1877 printing date. If he
read The Watch Tower as carefully as he suggests, he would have found
that date verified there as well. He didn’t read it. He lied. Never lie to your
readers. Eventually someone will follow your trail, only to find it a false
one. His claim to neutrality is also false. His anti-Witness feelings shine
through. They are as easily detectable as his misrepresentation of his research
skill and thoroughness. More on that shortly.
We
can forgive inexperienced students for accepting Rogerson’s work. He is
supposed to know his subject matter. An experienced historian, unless her
intellect is clouded by prejudice or by a quest for a preferred result, would
look at the unfootnoted assertions found within his book with an adult
skepticism. Accepting something because ‘everyone knows it’s true,’ is a major
logic flaw. A writer with depth of research into Watch Tower history behind her
should be able to recognize typical research flaws. If one has coached students
through thesis and dissertation writing, one knows the shortcuts some students
take. An example in Rogerson’s case is presenting a lengthy quotation from Zion’s
Watch Tower and footnoting it to the original issue. This quotation is
found on page eleven:
Furthermore, not only do we find that people cannot
see the divine plan in studying the Bible by itself, but we see also that if
anyone lays the 'Scripture Studies' aside, even after he has used them, after
he has become familiar with them, after he has read them for ten years – if he
lays them aside and ignores them and goes to the Bible alone, though he has
understood his Bible for ten years, our experience shows that within two years
he goes into darkness. On the other hand, if he had merely read the 'Scripture
Studies' and had not read n page of the Bible as such, he would be in the light
at the end of two years, because he would have the light of the Scriptures.
Rogerson
did not consult the Watch Tower article where one finds the original. He
lifted this entire and without alteration from opposition literature. Judging
by his bibliography he found this in Martin and Kahn’s Jehovah of the Watch
Tower. He leads us through his footnote not to the secondary source from
which he drew this but to a specific page in Zion’s Watch Tower. Even
his footnote is uncharacteristic, citing a specific page when he otherwise
cited a date of publication without noting a page number. Even his footnote is
‘borrowed.’
Ethically,
he should have consulted the original article. Instead, he chose to pretend
that he had. In context, the original says something different. Russell’s full
message was that to have confidence in Studies of the Scriptures on must
test it against scripture:
The six volumes of Scripture Studies are not intended
to supplant the Bible. There are various methods to be pursued in the study of
the Bible and these aids to Bible study are in such form that they, of
themselves, contain the important elements of the Bible as well as the comments
or elucidations of those that our Lord and the Apostles quoted from the Old Testament
... .
Our thought, therefore, is that these Scripture
Studies are a great assistance, a very valuable help, in the understanding of
God’s Word. If these books are to be of any value to us it must be because we
see in them loyalty to the Word of God, and as far as our judgment goes,
see them to be in full harmony with the Word and not antagonistic to it.
Therefore, in reading them the first time, and perhaps the second time, and
before we would accept anything as being our own personal faith and conviction,
we should say, “I will not take it because these studies say so; I wish to see
what the Bible says.” And so we would
... prove every point or disprove it, as the case may be. We would be
satisfied with nothing less than a thorough investigation of the Bible from
this standpoint.
Rogerson
despite his claim to have done so did not read the original article, and if he
did he misrepresented its content. He accused the modern Watchtower Society of
conscious misrepresentation of Russell and his claims using this out of context
quotation to do so.
This
is not the only bit of faked research found in Rogerson’s book. When writing
about the J. J. Ross’ ‘trial,’ Rogerson is fairly accurate, the sole
misrepresentation resting in the claim that Russell was “forced to admit” that
he did not know Greek. Russell never claimed competence in Biblical languages. But
the exchange between Lynch-Staunton, Ross’ attorney, and Russell is largely
accurate. It’s the accompanying footnote that is questionable. There Rogerson
wrote: “In Jehovah’s Witnesses – The New World Society Marley Cole
misinterprets the facts by quoting only part of the court record and manages to
conclude that Russell came well out of the trial.” [p. 195, ft nt 47] This
suggests that Rogerson had seen the transcript. The only original copy is in
the hands of the Watchtower Society, which periodically misfiles it and then
launches a usually frustrated search to recapture it. Rogerson never saw it. He
had no proof, other than wishful thinking, that Cole misrepresented anything.
The intellectual dishonesty behind this footnote is astounding. Any researcher
using Rogerson who had even moderate knowledge of Russell era Watch Tower
history would see this for the fakery it is.
There
are less egregious issues in Rogerson’s work, but they mark him as a very amateurish
scholar, one willing to foist on his readers unverified and un-footnoted claims.
He was heavily dependent on Stroup, borrowing from him without fact checking.
[Fact checking is the life blood of well written history.] He repeated Stroup’s
Time Clock fable, without making a meaningful attempt to trace it to its
original source. We dispensed with that earlier. He repeated the fable that
Russell was drawn into Wendell’s Quincy Hall meeting by hearing hymn singing. Familiarity
with the most basic of Russell material would have told him otherwise. Russell
went in response to a report about the meetings.
In a
footnote [Ch 1; note 3] he wrote: “The title ‘Pastor’ was purely honorary as
far as Russell was concerned, he never graduated from any theological school.”
[Comma fault is his.] This is a commonly made claim, and indeed Russell was not
educated in any theological school. In the United States it was common for
ordination to be by congregation election. Many ‘Pastors’ especially among
Methodists and Baptists were marginally educated, called to preach by licensure
and election rather than by graduation from a religious college, some of which
met no real academic standard. While this was changing, especially among
Methodists, this practice persisted into the 20th Century.
Distinguishing between Russell’s election as pastor by Bible Student
congregations and a country Baptist’s ordination by the same means is stupid.
Rogerson
characterized Russell’s spiritual quest prior to 1876 as a “spiritual hobby.”
He enclosed the phrase in quotation marks, apparently to shift responsibility
for the phrase onto someone else. Who that might have been he does not say. It’s
very much like a dog owner telling an irate home owner, “My dog didn’t do
that.”
There
is no indication that Rogerson knew anything about what Russell and his
associates did, what subjects they studied or how they proceeded. He had no
basis for calling their work a hobby. Yet, and immense amount can be known from
material available to Rogerson, and we considered it at length in volume one. When
you read that chapter, did either the subject matter or depth of research
impress you as being hobby-like?
Rogerson
misrepresents the degree of Russell’s contacts with Adventist, discounting
easily available contrary evidence to do so. There is too much of
misrepresentation, faked scholarship, bad, misleading or no footnoting to
discuss it all, even if we limit it to the Russell era. His book is so badly
flawed as to make it worthless. The exceptions are found in a few paragraphs;
but why would you wish to quote a book so seriously flawed that even new
students moderately aware of basic resources can spot the flaws? Apparently
some find it convenient to do so, even though it makes readers, me for
instance, squint at what ever author’s work I’m perusing and view it with
skepticism.
