Ray has really performed a great public service with his books. It takes time for society to make changes in itself, but it does happen, and perhaps the end really is near for the Evil Empire. Its true, too, that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. When enough people make enough noise, the WTBTS will slouch into its own self-imposed end.
And something else. I met Ray when he moved to Winston, GA and was in the end stages of completing his home there. Worked with he and a few friends putting together some meetings of ex-JWs and other interested parties. The first meeting was held over in Alabama. Anyway, I had a chance to deal with Ray on a close personal basis for a few years back in the late eighties, and the point I want to make is that he is such a mild-mannered, gentle, honest, spiritually oriented and motivated guy, its hard to believe that the Borg did not listen to him when they had the chance.
It's obvious that Ray doesn't have a selfish bone in his body. And it would be hard to believe that he would ever be motivated to seek personal promotion or "glory" for himself or for his ideas. And yet the bozos at Borg headquarters allowed their own selfishness, their own ambition, their own hard-heartedness to allow this gem of a guy, endowed with no small intellect, to escape them. When they lost the services of Ray Franz, they lost the last, best, hope of turning around and sinning no more.
Think about it. Where would the JWs be today if they had sincerely adopted Ray's interpretations into the body of their beliefs; if they had ceased defending the indefensible, if they - in short - had gotten real and acknowledged the validity of the concerns of its members? It's strange to think about it in these terms, but the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses could have evolved into quite an attractive bunch. But they didn't, of course. It's hard to get people who think they speak for God to acknowledge the validity someone else's viewpoint. And its gonna cost 'em. Big.
Just musing.
Francois