Bonham, TX?

mizpah

Does anyone have any information on what occurred after the Society dropped its suit in the Bonham Kingdom Hall dispute? The last I heard was the Society built another Kingdom Hall. What ever happened to those in the congregation that sued the Society?

mouthy

Get in touch with Professor Penton...He was there ....I think ros can help you on this one....

Nathan Natas

I've wondered about this too, and I can't recall a post here from anyone who was intimately familiar with the psychodrama as it played out. There have been some brief mentions of what happened, mostly derived from Penton's "Apocalypse Delayed," if I recall correctly.

I think if the story was told in full, with names and events fully described it would make a wonderful book to be added to the apostate canon chronicling the decline and fall of the Tower of Watch.

wednesday

well i live here in dallas county and u would think i would know. But i do remember helping build the new hall, and last i knew the apostates got the old hall. I believe it was sold. I may be wrong , maybe someone, knows. I do know that is why the WTS changed how the title to the hall is drawn up.

sf

Part 18: The Last Stand – My Brother’s Gift
... Then, in the 1980s after the case in Bonham, Texas was lost, it is my ... JW a member
of the congregation, and accountable to the Watchtower organization by ...
www.exjws.net/pioneers/part18.htm - 81k - Cached - Similar pages

metatron

I can't recall all the details - there were rumors about elder's meetings being bugged.

I recall that the legal arguments made by the Society were interesting - establishing elders as "HIERARCHY"

and clergy

metatron

Nathan Natas

So everybody who was involved in this thing is now dead, or has had their tongues cut out, or for some other reason is entirely incapable of communicating. Or maybe there are no competent reporters in that area of the country who actually know how to string questions together to build a story? Or perhaps these so-called "apostates" are all either lepers or absolutely refuse to discuss their traumatic drama with anyone "from the outside."

The story is still very fragmentary and incomplete. I'd like to know the who, what, where, when and how of the entire affair. How did the schism originate? What were the theological issues, if any? How long did this take to go from start to finish? How many people were affected? In what way? What are they doing now?

The way the story is told so far, it's just like if I "told the story" of the bible by saying, "Some gal ate some fruit."

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is absolutely the most deadly-boring tale that could ever possibly be told. Maybe everyone who was involved is lacking the human gene that makes us want to tell our stories.

I'm sure if we just ignore it or forget it long enough, it will fade from memory, just like the WTS leadership wishes it would.

I find this mildly frustrating.

qua

A friend lived in a nearby town. She said the Presiding Overseer mailed hard-hitting letters to right to all members of the congregation and then when they were primed one time he got up on the platform, spoke and led nearly all the members to independence and the beginning of an effort to prove that the local members, not the WTBTS, owned the building.

Eventually the locals won so the WTBTS built a larger very fancy new kingdom hall. As a consequence the WTBTS Governing Body changed the statements of ownership so that they became direct owners of the kingdom hall buildings everywhere.

There was something I don't recall about the WTBTS setting the locals to tangle with each other. A Rahab tactic or something of that order.

I think my friend said the P.O. was married but then he divorced and married another one of the sisters who had also been married.

I haven't seen my friend in a long time and don't have much more that I can add. At the time of telling she was still an active Jehovah's Witness.

She was blaming the P.O. because he had left the Society with a lot of others at Bonham. She painted a picture of a strong-willed man who wanted things his own way and got it.

Something I can add is how it hit the Governing Body since a second friend was serving at Bethel at the time and was told some of the details.

They felt glum and at least some of them cried that a congregation "had left Jehovah" as they put it. It also made them angry.

Why don't you go to a large city library with indices of old newspaper clipping for that time period and approximate location to see if you can get the P.O.'s name and the like.

mizpah

qua:

Thanks for adding some of the details about the reasons the Bonham, Tx defection occurred. We had heard only rumors about it. You seemed to have confirmed what we heard at the time.

Someone mentioned that the old Kingdom Hall was sold and the monies returned to the members. I wonder if this is true? I'm sure that the dissident members were probably disfellowshipped. The Society now makes sure the ownership reverts to it under a similar circumstances.

wednesday

Miz,

when the search part of this section starts working correctly(as it won;'t work for me now) just type in bonham and it should bring up a lot of stuff. It has been discussed before on the board.

Bonham, TX?

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