by James Jack 59 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Let's imagine that some of those nonJWs are...let's see...bloodless surgeons. Or maybe administrators connected to blood management. How would their membership in the Society benefit them? Would the blood doctrine that the WTS has power over have any effect on their profession? Of course it would.
Well if their were non-JW members voting it would mean the charter has been violated.
This means that all the matters the members voted on may be null and void... even the re-election of the board.
Gayle
Thanks for the clarification.
Saint: According to the 1945 charter amendment the Watchtower is a non-stock corporation with only voting shares.
The voters are selected by the board and have to be dedicated male witnesses.
If they elected non-JW's the Watchtower board would be violating the charter, and for this there can be serious consequences.
That is true - according to the 1945 amendment.
However, if you check the most recent amendment (2003) that we have access to, it states:
"The members' number, the members' qualifications, the manner of electing members, and other matters pertaining to members, shall be as provided in the bylaws."
Do we know what the WTS bylaws state? Have those bylaws ever been made public?
Don't know if this would help, but the "1917 Facts For Shareholders", a PDF document, has the bylaws on page 4 of the document at:
http://watchtowerdocuments.org/documents/1917_Facts_For_Shareholders.pdf
Thank you for that link, Anon.
The problem with that document is that it is no longer valid.
Organizational bylaws are not that difficult to change. Time consuming but not difficult. Over the course of the past almost100 years, there would have been many changes to those bylaws. The only way we can know for certain what the membership requirements are is to have access to the current WTS bylaws.
Hi OrphanCrow,
That is true - according to the 1945 amendment.
However, if you check the most recent amendment (2003) that we have access to...
As far as I can see the 2003 re-statement is for the WTBTS of New York and the 1945 amendment is for the WTBTS of Pennsylvania. These are separate corporations and the Pennsylvania corporation is the primary one which offered shares to the public and which were dissolved into voting shares for the 500 appointed voters.
However I guess it would make sense for them to also have changed the Pennsylvania corporation in the same way (using bylaws for election), but unfortunately that document is not yet publicly available.
The heart of your reasoning comes down to this:
Let's imagine that some of those nonJWs are...let's see...bloodless surgeons....Would it be in the interest of people who work in bloodless medicine to have the WTS drop their blood doctrine? No, it wouldn't. But, keeping that doctrine in place would pay 'dividends' to the bloodless industry and anyone connected to it.
Well the GB control the doctrine and so I read up on what the Watchtower says in this regard. Since 1971 the voting members no longer even re-elect the governing body at all (I did not know that). Since then (1971) the GB elect their own members by themselves:
"In 1971 the same speaker explained that the members of the Watch Tower Society could not vote in the members of the anointed Governing Body. Why? “Because,” he said, “the governing body of the ‘slave’ class is not appointed by any man. It is appointed by . . . Jesus Christ, the Head of the true Christian congregation and the Lord and Master of the ‘faithful and discreet slave’ class.” Clearly, then, the members of the Governing Body cannot be voted into office by the membership of any legal corporation."
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2001051
OrphanCrow's hypothesis makes a lot of sense, and it also provides an explanation as to how businessmen (Witness or otherwise) involved with "bloodless" medical technology might be able to influence the Org's blood-related policies (as opposed to, say, just having the ear of a GB member).
Thank you Orphan Crow. Was afraid of that but thought I'd offer it just in case. Real hard to find any current info. Will keep an eye out though.
Thank you for that link, Anon.
The problem with that document is that it is no longer valid.
Organizational bylaws are not that difficult to change. Time consuming but not difficult. Over the course of the past almost100 years, there would have been many changes to those bylaws. The only way we can know for certain what the membership requirements are is to have access to the current WTS bylaws.
