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Raymond Victor Franz (May 8, 1922 – June 2, 2010) was a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses from October 20, 1971, until his removal on May 22, 1980, [1] [2] and served at the organization's world headquarters for fifteen years, from 1965 until 1980.
Franz claimed that many Jehovah's Witnesses who choose to leave because they cannot "honestly agree with all the organization's teachings or policies" are subsequently disfellowshipped, or formally expelled, and shunned as "apostates". He wrote that he hoped his book might prompt Witnesses to consider the conscientious stand of defectors with a ...
According to Raymond Franz, a letter dated September 1, 1980, from the Watch Tower Society to all circuit and district overseers advised that a member who "merely disagrees in thought with any of the Watch Tower Society's teachings is committing apostasy and is liable for disfellowshipping."
[37] [38] [39] Raymond Franz claimed he was forced to resign from the Governing Body, and he was later disfellowshipped from the group. The Watch Tower Society responded to the dissent with a more severe attitude regarding the treatment of expelled Witnesses.
A 1981 letter to overseers—reproduced in a book by former Governing Body member Raymond Franz—directed that a member who "persists in believing other doctrine", even without promoting such beliefs, may be subject to disfellowshipping. [75]
Former Governing Body member Raymond Franz claimed members of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses debated replacing the doctrine with a markedly different interpretation and that in 1980 Albert Schroeder, Karl Klein and Grant Suiter proposed moving the beginning of the "generation" to the year 1957, to coincide with the year Sputnik was ...
Former Governing Body member Raymond Franz and Sociology lecturer Andrew Holden have pointed out that doctrines—including those relating to sexual behaviour in marriage and the "superior authorities" of Romans 13:4—have sometimes been altered, only to revert to those held decades earlier. [288]
People disfellowshipped by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Among the Jehovah's Witnesses, being disfellowshipped is the rough equivalent of excommunication in other Christian churches. For further information, see Jehovah's Witnesses and congregational discipline.