Information on how to download the book Apostles of Denial (1970) by Edmond C. Gruss will be given at the end of this post. Before this, however, I’d like to present this introduction:
Apostles of Denial – A Personal Recollection and a Tribute
I first encountered the book Apostles of Denial in a small bookstore called Inspiration House in Santa Ana, California in the year 1970. It was one of the first times I had ever visited a religious bookstore since being baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses the year before.
I was not yet 16. I had not obtained my driver’s license yet and I remember riding my bicycle several miles to check out this store. I rode my bicycle everywhere. For a couple of years I had used it to ride to the Kingdom Hall against my parents’ wishes. They had no interest in Jehovah’s Witnesses and did not want me associating with them. I told my parents I was going to visit friends, but I didn’t tell them that these friends were at the local Kingdom Hall. When I turned 15, my parents had relented and stopped their opposition. I did not intend to read any anti-Witness literature when I visited the bookstore this day. I had already read much of William J. Schnell’s works before I got baptized (my parents had tried to shake my faith with Thirty Years a Watch Tower Slave) and was not overly impressed with his materials. Instead, I was looking for general biblical materials at this store.
However, a red-colored paperback volume on one of the shelves caught my eye. It was Edmond Gruss’ book Apostles of Denial, which had just been published that year. I spent the next half hour leafing through the book. This book was much different than anything I’d ever seen before. It was written with a much calmer voice and had a scholarly tone. The book was troubling for me. To this day, I still remember some points from that first reading nearly 40 years ago, even though I did not walk out of the store with a copy. Apostles of Denial was the first book to contain the letters written by Olin R. Moyle. (It actually has an additional follow up letter to Rutherford written by Moyle after his first infamous letter got him lambasted in the Watchtower magazine.) Something about Moyle’s letter to Rutherford had the ring of truth to it. Glorifying alcohol at Bethel? Verbal abuse of Bethel workers by Rutherford? Unequal treatment at Bethel? I reached a point reading the book that I knew I had to put it back on the shelf and leave the store. I remember thinking at the time what would have happened if I’d first read Gruss’ book before I was baptized instead of Schnell. Would that have made a difference? The further I rode away from the store, the better I felt about my choice to be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Still, I could not put the book out of my mind despite trying to submerge the memories of my brief reading of it.
3 years later I went to Brooklyn and became a member of the Bethel family. While I had many good memories of my stay there, there were events that made me remember my reading of Moyle’s letters in Gruss’ book. Beer and liquor was not in short supply among us Bethelites. I remember the party we had celebrating our class graduation from Bethel Entrant’s School and how liquor flowed freely that night. We weren’t drunk, but I think if anyone from our old congregations had seen us that night they’d have been surprised at us. I also remember one morning when Fred Franz told us of how the Bible Students during Russell’s day had been “tea totalers.” They were so much against alcohol, Franz recalled, that Russell had written it would have been proper for Bible Students to vote to support legislation against liquor. This despite the fact that Russell generally advised against voting. We all kind of chuckled at that as he mentioned that things had changed later amongst the Bible Students after Russell’s death. I wondered at the time if perhaps the pendulum had swung strongly towards glorifying alcohol under Rutherford as Moyle had claimed, after all.
One day I was invited up to my book study conductor’s room up on the 7 th floor of the old 124 building (on the North end towards the Brooklyn Bridge). My book study conductor was rooming with an older Bethelite who had part of Judge Rutherford’s old room. The room had two parts and included a fireplace. Then I was told that this was only part of what had been Rutherford’s rooms and office complex. I remembered Moyle’s charge that Rutherford was receiving special treatment and then I reflected on the fact that N.H. Knorr (the current president of the Watch Tower Society) had the entire 10 th floor of the current 124 building to himself. In fact, one day I was waiting for the elevator on the 10 th floor (after having gone up to the roof to view the Manhattan skyline) and I heard Knorr and his secretary Robert Wallen discussing some issue through an open door. Wallen responded “Yes, sir” to Knorr more than once. “Sir,” I thought? We talked about “Brother” Knorr at the Kingdom Hall. But, Knorr was called “Sir” in his office!
I met several older Bethelites during my time at Bethel. And I started hearing about how much “stricter” things had been years before, especially under Rutherford. One older brother, Don Datisman, told me of how Rutherford heard that one of the “new boys” had disregarded the rule regarding elevator usage. The elevator was only to be used if you were traveling more than 3 stories up or 5 stories down. Otherwise, you were supposed to use the stairs. This new Bethelite was caught using the elevator to go up one floor. Datisman said that Rutherford dismissed the “new boy” on the spot and sent him back home for this infraction of the rule! Datisman and others told me of how Rutherford would “strongly counsel” members of the Bethel family. They didn’t mention Moyle’s name, but what they said confirmed what Moyle had said in his letter.
So, one day I looked up Rutherford’s denunciation of Moyle in the 1939 Watchtower and I later showed it to a few of my friends at Bethel. We were all aghast. Actually, most of my friends were sympathetic to Moyle. I guess we all kind of knew that Moyle had been treated unfairly.
At any rate, I left Bethel in 1976 and went back to congregational life as a JW. A couple of years later I found myself in another religious bookstore and there was that book again by Gruss. I had to find the section about Moyle’s letters again and I knew now that his complaints to Rutherford had been true. Still, I could not buy the book. I didn’t buy one until 3 years later when I was ready to start facing my doubts, though I kept the book hidden in a special place. By the next year, after reading Apostles of Denial and other materials on Jehovah’s Witnesses, I voluntarily disassociated from the Watchtower Organization.
Apostles of Denial had a very special place in my deprogramming from the Witnesses. It was, in its day, the grand-daddy of all anti-JW books. The book originally was a doctoral dissertation that Gruss revised into book form in 1970. It has been out of print for many years and Gruss since has written some other notable works on the Witnesses. Due to its historical importance, I contacted Gruss recently and asked if he’d authorize distribution of Apostles of Denial in PDF format. He readily agreed after suggesting a couple of updates to the book. One update includes a whole chapter from his more recent work detailing the Second Adventist influence to C. T. Russell.
Gruss has graciously permitted distribution of Apostles of Denial provided no changes are made to the text. No commercial usage of the file is permitted. The book can be downloaded in PDF format (about 13.8 MB) from this filesharing site:
http://www.filesend.net/download.php?f=1b3420486eaa1aec3fb409433f851017