http://www.watchtower21.org/2011/02/danger-of-naive-and-credulous-research.html It's been my experience so far, that anything a person wants to find out about Jehovah’s Witnesses, they can find out from Jehovah’s Witnesses. Any and all information ever published by Jehovah Witnesses is accessible to all. The quality of their personalities can be assessed in person at any Kingdom Hall and not just taken at face value unlike the numerous cyberghosts that run amok on the internet. Good educators present all sides of an issue and encourage discussion, but there are real problems with some former members:
- They sift the facts, exploiting the useful ones and concealing the others
- They also distort and twist facts, specializing in lies and half-truths
- They take sides with others that have deviated from the organization often slandering men who are no longer around to defend themselves
But shun empty speeches that violate what is holy; for they will advance to more and more ungodliness, and their word will spread like gangrene. Hy·me·nae′us and Phi·le′tus are of that number. These very [men] have deviated from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already occurred; and they are subverting the faith of some. 2 Timothy 2:16-18
A good example of this are statements about Joseph Franklin Rutherford (8 November 1869 – 8 January 1942), the second president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. In the early development of the organization there were those who allowed pride to undermine their faith including Alexandre Freytag, the manager of the Society’s office in Geneva, Switzerland. He liked to attract attention to himself, would add his own ideas when translating the Society’s publications into French, and even used the Society’s facilities to publish his own material. In Canada, there was W. F. Salter, a branch manager of the Society who began to disagree with the Society’s publications, let it be known that he expected to be the next president of the Watch Tower Society, and, after he was dismissed, dishonestly used the Society’s letterhead to instruct congregations in Canada and abroad to study material that he personally had written. In Nigeria, there was, among others, G. M. Ukoli, who at first showed zeal for the truth but then began to see it as a means of material gain and personal prominence. Afterward, when thwarted in his aims, he turned to roasting faithful brothers in the public press. And there were others.
Olin R. Moyle and Walter F. Salter were two men that accused Rutherford of "unkind treatment of the staff, outbursts of anger, discrimination and vulgar language, heavy drinking and the "glorification of alcohol" at Bethel. There are two sides to every story and while these men are deceased, some former members of Jehovah's Organization will omit what was stated by Rutherford's contemporaries that spoke in his defense: Watchtower October 15, 1939 “At a joint meeting of the boards of directors of the Pennsylvania corporation and the New York corporation of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society held at the office of the Society at Brooklyn, N.Y., this 8th day of August, 1939, at which other members of the family were present, there was read to said boards and in the presence of O.R. Moyle, a letter dated July 21, 1939, written by said Moyle and addressed to the president of the Society.
For four years past the writer of that letter has been entrusted with the confidential matters of the Society. It now appears that the writer of that letter, without excuse, libels the family of God at Bethel, and identifies himself as one who speaks evil against the Lord’s organization, and who is a murmurer and complainer, even as the Scriptures have foretold. (Jude 4-16; 1 Cor. 4:3; Rom. 14:4)
The members of the board of directors hereby resent the unjust criticism appearing in that letter, disapprove of the writer and his actions, and recommend that the president of the Society immediately terminate the relationship of Olin R. Moyle to the Society as legal counsel and as a member of the Bethel family.”
There's no way to know for sure if J.F. Rutherford ever abused alcohol but this is one item of interest that opposers capitalize on and they do not present both sides of the story. A noteworthy fact is that Rutherford lived to the age of 73 in good health. The abuse of alcohol is condemned in Jehovah's Organization and this fact can be ascertained by getting to know them as individuals. The personality qualities of an organization has been and is always magnified in its leadership.
Do you not know that a little leaven ferments the whole lump? Clear away the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, according as you are free from ferment. For, indeed, Christ our passover has been sacrificed. Consequently let us keep the festival, not with old leaven, neither with leaven of badness and wickedness, but with unfermented cakes of sincerity and truth. 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
