I lived in the borg for 2 years, and I never recall a direct and specific BAN on that book. I mean, as soon as they said, "No, not that book," there would be a stampede to buy it. What the WT does is ban all "apostate" material, saying that reding such stuff is dangerous for your faith. It then says that all apostate material is full of lies, full of slander, and misdirections. They have never responded directly to the material in CoC, as far as I know. Certianly not in any material available to the general public

What they do is similar to what Stalin did about Trotsky - they just don't talk about it, they keep it from ever coming up, they lump it with all the evil things they can think of, and they don't respond and hope it goes away.

The problem is, it takes more than an icepick to dislodge truth. The book is free of rancor, free of unecessary vitriol, and is amazingly conciliatory. It contains documentation, sometimes exhaustively so. While Franz's style is occasionally hard to follow, with runon sentences and repetitive reasoning, the overall effect is honest and refreshing. For someone who just came out or is still submerged in the WT, it is like a full lungful of air to a drowning man or woman.

The general thrust of the book undermines several key points about the Witness mythis self-image:

 1) the claim to divine inspiration. From the 1914 doctrine with all of its inconsistencies to the thunderous year of 1975, the facts belie the idea that these are God's chosen people.

2) the idea that love is more evident in this organization than any other. The use of Judicial committees to punish their former member show that the GB's aren't concerned about love or what is right.

3) the "faithful and discreet slave" lie. Evidence piles up that these guys aren't faithful, they aren't discreet, and they aren't even trying very hard to be.

Ray also provides some insight into how the Borg is, or was, arranged and structured and what is really important to its leadership.

A good read, even if you decide to stay a witness. Because it lets you know what the truth is about this organization, and what you can really expect from it.

I myself KNOW Ray's accusations are likely and well founded - my experience was similar as the elders in my old cong. were out to get rid of me.

CZAR

Actually, COC is at the Bethel library. RR

I don't remember Franz or his books ever being mentioned by name.  If anything, there may have been an announcement that he was disfellowshipped.

I do remember that after he left, one of the national news magazines (like Time or Newsweek) had a short little article about it. Somebody from our hall photocopied it and showed copies around the hall.  I did not know who he was, but learned that he was a GB member and it intrigued me that somebody so high up would/could leave.  He, of course, hadn't written the book yet.

I can't remember how I knew, but somehow I found out that he had written a book and immediately wanted to get my hands on a copy.  It wasn't until about '91 that I found a way to do that and I ordered it immediately.  I was so anxious to read it as his leaving had been such a mystery to me.  I wanted to know what dirt he uncovered that made him leave.

If you're interested, Franz also published a book called "In Search of Christian Freedom".  I found it long and detailed and hard to get through, but it makes some very good points.  To tell the truth, I only got through the first bit of the book where he is comparing the JWs to the Catholic Church in how they took away a personal relationship with God and inserted themselves as the authority in-between.

Other good books are those of Carl Olof Jonsson. Ray Franz mentions him.  His books are Gentile Times Reconsidered (a more detailed work on the chronology of 1914) and "Sign of the Last Days - When?" (which goes sign by sign and refutes the JW claims Are there more earthquakes, plagues, more famine, etc.?)

In 1986 a general mention was made along with this photo, minus the actual picture of the CofC book.

This is from Randy Watters' Freeminds site.

http://www.freeminds.org/sales/most_burned.htm

This info from the same site might be very useful too:

http://www.freeminds.org/psych/openmind.htm

Thanks very much for your comments on this. I appreciate what everyone has said, and that it may be difficult to convince anyone to read it because of the depth of indoctrination, but still it's worth a shot. The family members I have in mind wouldn't shun me over it, and they may read it if I point out that there is nothing current naming the book specifically to be avoided, and if they think JW's have 'the truth', and the GB is divinely inspired, one would would hope they have some interest in knowing why the guy who wrote the Aid Book (which my dad still sometimes uses!) would jump ship, especially when he was on the divinely inspired GB.

Of course I will have to work on my sales pitch and I will read the book myself first!

Does anyone know of any other society publications written by Ray?

Sassy - that's quite a visual! Wow.

CZAR

Hi dh, according to Ray, he contributed to the Aid Book but was not involved in the writing of any other Watchtower Publications.

: Crisis Of Conscience - What Did The Society Say?

After COC came out and the Time article came out one GB member (I forget who it was) mused that perhaps the GB should have handled things relating to the DFing of Ray Franz "differently."

Farkel

I remember in the early 80's my father told me that Ray Franz was the biggest apostate society ever encountered.  Also that Ray got really jelous that his uncle was president that he tried to take over the society. 

I was young and impressionable and thought that Ray must of been like Satan trying to be like God.

When I finally read his books years and years later, I could not believe how a kind and meek person could have been maligned so horribly.

I owe Ray a debt of gratitude for putting the pieces of the puzzle together for me.  At the present I am rereading "in search of Christian Freedom." 

Wanna

What I found extremely interesting is how the CoC book described GB meetings. I had always been taught, and so thought, that the GB were infused with Holy Spirit, humbly prayerful, and deeply studied the Bible truths that they based their decisions on with one accord. But CoC described it differently. These weren't a bunch of spiritual leaders; but more like the board members of any American corporation.

Instead of carefully considering esoteric passages of scriptures in the original Greek or Hebrew and praying to Jehovah for guidance and wisdom in the matter before making their decisions, they voted to change things by two thirds majority, and hardly considered some life-altering issues before voting on them. Their votes were often political, with many siding with one of the more powerful members to curry favor, rather than voting their Bible-based consciences. Many families were hurt and suffered as a result of these decisions.

Tammy