Who Am I?

By Norman H. Crowhurst

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     Forty odd years ago, what knowledge of the Bible I had was gleaned from a Strict and Particular Baptist Sunday school. The church membership was maybe 100, not more, in a town of about 100,000, in my native England. I was taught that only Strict Baptists would go to heaven at death, because only they had been properly baptized.

     This teaching seemed important to me, so I tried to tell a neighbor boy, of another 'faith', that he would not go to heaven and, next thing I knew, his parents came to see my parents about the fight that had ensued.

     Shortly after that, we moved to London. After attending two denominational churches that my parents found unsatisfactory, an association that was to last many years began. We attended meetings of a group called the International Bible Students Association. They met at the London Tabernacle, a few hundred in a city of millions. I learned some beliefs, derived from the Bible, different from those I was taught in Baptist Sunday school.

     These Bible students specialized in refuting the errors taught by all the denominations of Christendom. We learned the Bible meaning of hell, soul, heaven, as well as what the Bible teaches about Christ. I was much happier, because we believed the Bible and not what someone told us it said, and because the principle 'God is Love' seemed consistent in their belief.

     Much time was spent discussing the significance of Bible texts. Revelation 7:9 evoked more discussion than other texts, the main question concerning the identity of the 'great multitude.'

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     By 1928, I was convinced that the Bible is true, recognized that mankind is born in sin, and that salvation is only available through Jesus Christ. So I was baptized. To me, baptism meant: that I accepted as fact that I was born a sinner and needed redemption; that I accepted this provided redemption; and that I was baptized into the body, or church, of Christ.

     Now, I believed, my ultimate future was heavenly.

     Some years earlier. Judge Rutherford, of the affiliated Watchtower Society, had proclaimed 'Millions Now Living Will Never Die,' which I believed, although I was doubtful about the Biblical 'proof' of the proclamation.

     In 1931, the entire group (English and American) took the name Jehovah's Witnesses, quoting Isaiah 43:10-12 as authority. The fact that we did witness to Jehovah's name and to Jehovah's provision of salvation through His Son, showed that this scripture applied to us, rather than to the Jews to whom it was addressed, who never did witness to God's name.

     About the same time, a new line of doctrine began to be added: concerning Jonadabs, other sheep, or great multitude. Each of these Bible-derived expressions referred to these millions now living who would never die. This understanding solved the recurring question about Rev. 7:9--now we knew who and what the great multitude were--but it created another question for me: was I of the "little flock" who would go to heaven, or was I of the "great multitude" who would live forever on earth?

     Because I felt like the psalmist, that it is a privilege to serve my God anywhere, it did not matter very much: I would be content wherever God saw fit to put me. But at memorial time, which the group celebrates only once a year, corresponding to passover, I was always uncertain: should I or should not partake?

     According to God's channel of present-day truth, the Watchtower magazine, Romans 8: 16 "makes this clear": anyone who is of the little flock has a special feeling about it. While I have often felt, and still feel, the spirit of God upon me, guiding me to give utterance that exalts His word and to aid others to believe in the Bible--to me, this feeling wasn't 'special' I never felt that I belonged to heaven, or wanted to be in heaven. I just wanted to be wherever God wanted me.

     So I did not partake from then on. Now my future was identified as everlasting life on earth. Although I stopped partaking of the memorial emblems, my doubts grew over the years, partly due to the conduct and expressions of those who did partake.

     Manifestly they had the guidance of the Spirit to no greater extent than I did, for they said and did some very unwise things. Moreover, when I asked them how they "knew" they were of the little flock, their only reason was that they had been "in the truth" since such and such year, which, though before 1931, was often later than my own conversion.

     So, if the basis was chronological, I should be "in."

     But I felt, having stopped partaking, that it was safer not to. That way, I could not partake unworthily. I was always present to observe the occasion, and felt it important for me to be there.

     Since then, the Watchtower teaching has changed in more ways than I shall attempt to enumerate. This change has been quite gradual. From time to time there were "flashes of light" from the "Lord in His holy temple." Each change represented a relatively small difference in viewpoint, almost imperceptible.

     The cumulative difference came to be that the manner of God's dealing with-His people is different since the Lord's return in 1914 and coming to His temple in 1918. Throughout the gospel age, God dealt with individuals through the Holy Spirit, as promised by Jesus and initiated at Pentecost. After the apostles fell asleep, the special gifts of the spirit ceased, but the spirit continued to work on men's minds, guiding them in truth.

     Now that is all changed. Assertion of this change hinges on the scriptural words "till He come." The Bible only revealed

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a Christian's course till then. Now He has come. He tells us directly what was not revealed in the Bible. With Christ to tell us directly, the Comforter or Holy Spirit is no longer needed.

     Christ's channel for this direction is the Watchtower. This channel is thus the "faithful and wise servant," spoken of at Matthew 24:45. According to one flash of light, this verse is a prophecy that Christ would have one exclusive servant on earth at this time. This was linked with Isaiah 43:10, where "witnesses" plural, is identified with "servant" singular. And who is anyone to question God's chosen servant?

     The increase in Jehovah's Witnesses is the great ingathering work, promised in scripture to take place at Christ's second presence, or coming.

     Certainly there has been increase. But phenomenal work has been needed to achieve it. Hundreds, even thousands, of "study" hours are spent to gain each convert. With the hundreds of millions of hours spent, the increase, measured yearly, is a matter of five to ten percent at best. The number baptized every year would be at least five times as many. And many more associate and never get baptized.

     This discrepancy is explained by the parable of the sower, and the seed falling on different kinds of ground. Much of it just never matures. Fair explanation. What perturbed me is that those with the best scriptural knowledge are the ones who "fail to mature," by "going out of the truth."

     This situation was explained by saying that they had knowledge, but not understanding. To support this viewpoint, I Cor. 2:9-16 is quoted. One thing still bothered me: the associates who remain loyal manifest not only less knowledge, but also less understanding: they blindly accept what the Watchtower says, unlike the commended Bereans. When asked to prove a point of doctrine, they quote, not scripture, but Watchtower publications--which I never did. Is blind acceptance of an authoritarian magazine indication of understanding, or maturity?

     Deep down, I now realize, I had many reservations, which I did not discuss with anyone. I never accepted the literal use of the number 144,000 in Revelation 7, because the beginning of that book tells us it is a book of signs or symbols. If the assignation of 12,000 to each of 12 tribes is symbolic (as they assert), how can the total of 144,000 be regarded as literal?

     Also I could not accept the definite assertion that God created heaven and earth in six days of 7,000 years each, making creation occupy precisely 42,000 years. I could see nothing in the Bible that authorizes the assignation of any specific time period to the creative days.

     And I never believed that the Spirit is no longer active toward me, because Christ has come. I have experienced the Spirit's power too many times to deny its operation.

     The assertion that Christ is now present I gave lip service to, but less definitely than my fellows. In their teaching, this presence is progressive and, though He is already present, the full sense of presence yet has to be manifested by His "bright shining." I could not feel it so important whether the Greek word 'parousia' be translated presence or coming, since it represents a transitional state--'arrival' might be a good word.

     Lip service I also gave to the "faithful and wise servant" and the channel. But my deeper loyalty was always to God himself, to Christ Jesus as the means of salvation, and to the Bible as the source of Truth. And we condemned catholics for giving the Church (meaning theirs) authority over the Bible. So I could not accept an exclusive servant, authoritarian enough to achieve virtually the same end.

     These things were deep down in my own mind. I just didn't talk about them to anyone.

     In all my thirty odd years of going from house to house, and studying the Bible with people, the Bible was the central book. It took me a long time to realize that herein I differed from "the organization." In name, they did the same. Only in fact were they different.

     My full enlightenment to their deviation from Bible principles came after we

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moved to New York in 1953. There, mainly because I was English, I was not accepted by the Witness organization, just allowed to sit in at meetings. This nationalism was shown, not by novitiates, which would have been understandable, but by "Bethel boys"--workers who came from the Society's head office in Brooklyn.

     This attitude was in sharp contrast with their teaching, that no nation is God's exclusive people, and that no national barriers exist among Jehovah's Witnesses. But a few who, like myself, accepted Bible standards, received me as a brother and a Witness. For these I could be patient, until the narrowmindness passed, which we felt it would.

     For myself I could be patient in such matters, but in my house to house work in New York, I met many people who had associated with the organization and no longer did. Most of them would not talk of it. I'll speak briefly of one instance that eventually told me his story.

     I received a slip with his name and address as an expired Watchtower subscription. I called, as I always did, to try and renew his interest in the Bible. As soon as he saw the slip in my hand, he gave me a dollar and told me to renew it. He wanted to terminate the conversation there.

     Evidently most Witnesses would be so overjoyed at getting the subscription, they'd have accepted the money and left. But I was anxious to renew his interest in the Bible. I knew that a magazine coming into the home was not enough to ensure that. It could lay around unread.

     So I called back and we discussed the Bible. His knowledge was more extensive than I expected. After a few visits I suggested attending meetings, quoting Hebrews 10: 25 and I could tell I touched a raw nerve.

     I had been calling on him a year before I learned the story. He had been associated. They made him a servant-the counterpart of a deacon. He had developed cancer in one eye and his doctor advised the eye's removal, so he went into hospital for surgery. When he came out, he was castigated by the brothers, especially these "Bethel boys," for "wasting the Lord's time." God would give him a new eye in the Kingdom, he was told. He should not have had the diseased eye removed by surgery. The matter became so unpleasant for him that he ceased attending meetings.

     I verified this attitude at the congregation. Those who had taken it still affirmed their view of it to me. He should not have had the operation, they told me. Others said he should not let "little things" like that "offend him." I asked myself if this was showing brotherly love in the scriptural sense. I could not find a way to give myself an affirmative answer.

     This was only one of many instances. The Witnesses take the view that there is only one way to show love: to 'witness' by going from house to house. Do that and you have shown love--nothing else matters.

     This revelation began the parting of the ways. I could not believe, if the Lord really were in His holy temple, he would act, or direct action, such as this. True, imperfect humans can make mistakes, and even the Lord can pardon them, but He would not exonerate them. They would not carry on in this manner with impunity.

     So I began to examine the Bible again more closely, and to resolve the many things I had buried within my mind.

     There is no confirming scripture, I found, to support that specific interpretation of Matthew 24:45. All the false doctrines I have ever encountered are "supported" by one text, questionably interpreted. The law of Moses required two witnesses to affirm the truth of something, which procedure or principle Jesus, on more than one occasion, upheld.

     So I applied this principle as a test to Witness doctrine, as I had to others before. True John 10: 16 and Revelation 7:9 are two scriptures, but are they confirming statements? Do they say the same thing? One refers to other sheep, the other to a great multitude. By what authority may these expressions be identified?

     Only the "faithful and wise servant,"

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for whose existence I have only one "witness" (Matthew 24:45) makes this identification. There is no scriptural authority for making it. There were other witnesses: Mark (13) and Luke (21) both record the statement of Jesus given in Matthew 24; but neither of them mentions the faithful and wise servant. Peculiar, if it was to become a matter of doctrine!

     Long since, I rejected use of words like "trinity" from my arguments. The Watchtower defines trinity as three equal, identical persons, yet only one person, and then denies that the Bible teaches this. Early in my religious career, I encountered a man who believed the Bible as I do. Yet he 'believed' the trinity and I didn't.

     He accused me of not accepting the virgin birth, because I rejected the trinity. I could not see the connection. In fact, as I saw it, the virgin birth was evidence against the trinity teaching: only Jesus, not the Father and the Holy Spirit, was born of the virgin Mary. So it was that I realized the word 'trinity' promotes unnecessary and meaningless argument.

     Now I realized that another word was creating an unnecessary basis for difference: theocracy. This difference was of the Watchtower's invention. The word theocracy is not new. Bible commentators apply it to Israel in Biblical times. But the Watchtower applies it to the Witnesses' organization at this time.

     Derived from 'theos' meaning God, and 'kratos' meaning rule, theocracy means a form of government--that operating within the Society: from the top (God) down, rather than from the bottom up, as in democracy.

     This) according to the Watchtower, is God's Kingdom established. We were told that theos and kratos are both words used in the new testament, so it was natural to conclude that 'kingdom of God' translates the words theos and kratos. But this was an incorrect assumption, as I found when I looked the matter up.

     The word translated kingdom, in 'kingdom of God' and 'kingdom of heaven,' is 'basileia,' not 'kratos.' Kratos is used only a few times in the new testament. It means power, or mighty power, and could not logically be rendered kingdom, or rule, with the sense applied by the Watchtower society. The false implications enabled by their use of this word became obvious.

     So now I sought God's people elsewhere. Most groups I encountered made no profession of accepting the Bible as the guide for their faith. Two did: the Mormons and the Seventh Day Adventists.

     The Mormons, by strange coincidence, base their accepting of the Book of Mormon, with authority equal to the Bible, on the Bible, on the same text the Witnesses use for the partition of the 'flocks': John 10:16. At first I was puzzled how, but found their explanation just as plausible as that of the Witnesses, if quite different. So then I sought the true meaning of John 10:16, which isn't hard to find, when one reads the Acts of the Apostles.

     The Seventh Day Adventists are more insistent that God created heaven and earth in six 24-hour days than Jehovah's Witnesses are that it was six 7,000 year days. This they support by making a distinction between the moral and ceremonial parts of the Mosaic law. This distinction I could not accept, because it separates the part about the daily week with its sabbath from the yearly week with its sabbath, both of which were provided in the same law.

     Even if this distinction, for which I could find no authority in scripture, is true, should it be a condition for fellowship? Paul's admonition in Romans 14:5-12 suggests otherwise. Days apart, or all days alike, they are to be observed to the Lord. Personally, I feel my life belongs to God 7 days a week. I don't feel that I can say, "One day a week I will serve God, and the rest is mine."

     And so I could not associate myself with any group. The admonition of Hebrews 10:25 bothered me a little. We should be assembling with our brothers, somehow, somewhere. Then I realized that every sect is violating this admonition. Although they meet with friends who think the same way, they exclude those who differ. The intent of Hebrews 10:25 is in

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fact very similar to, and harmonious with, that at I Cor. 1:10, rather than these verses saying quite different things. So it is impossible for me to meet with everyone, when they refuse to meet with one another.

     I now felt like Paul describes the prophet Elijah, at Romans 11: 2-5. How could I find, or be united with, today's remnant? No one group has all the Christians. And in no group can we find the whole group indisputably Christian. A person is a Christian, only to the degree that he follows Christ, and none of us does that perfectly. Elijah's 7,000 must be scattered among many, if not all groups. God will bring us all together in His due time and way. I felt happier in this thought, but still missed fellowship.

     Then one day last year, a worker from the Church of Christ called. My wife talked with him, and I came into the middle of the conversation. His rule of faith was the Bible and nothing but the Bible. By now I found it difficult to believe that any group could be so guided, though individuals might be.

     The local minister of the Church of Christ and his wife visited us a few times and we had a rather peculiar Bible study. It was peculiar to me, not because it differed from those conducted by most of Jehovah's Witnesses-this I expected and hoped for: I did not want a text-book Bible study.

     It was peculiar because each of us would ask the other how we viewed certain texts, or what we believed on certain doctrinal points. Neither of us responded with the emphatic answer so commonly received to such questions. Each of us stated repeatedly that we accept what the Bible says and that we would not accept any interpretation with finality that could not be supported entirely by scripture.

     Neither of us was really hedging, although that's how it seemed at first. Both of us were being completely honest in our approach. Soon we recognized this. My wife and I started attending the Church of Christ in our town, and enjoyed the Bible study. We participated in the Lord's supper. It felt good to be sharing the Lord's table and to feel in the body again. We also enjoyed the minister's sermons.

     For the moment there, we almost thought we had found the church of Christ, as described in the new testament, who study with the same zeal the Bereans did.

     But now we found differences in the way the brotherhood accepted us. Many recognized our knowledge of the scriptures and enjoyed the discussions as much as we did. But a few insisted on regarding us as "babes in Christ" and on "explaining" texts to us, as if we must be quite unfamiliar with the Bible.

     When I would ask if we could be certain that such and such a text had an asserted meaning, a very definite "proof" would be laid down. When I would point out that the "proof" made assumptions regarding the meaning of other texts, meanings for which no direct Bible support was forthcoming, some of the responses would question our belief, or our willingness to believe.

     So we referred to I Thessalonians 5:21. Yes, they had proved all things, and we should do so. If they had already proved all things, why continue to study? If there is nothing more to learn, doesn't study become a meaningless form? The previous verse in I Thessalonians says, "Despite not prophesyings," and the one before that, "Quench not the Spirit."

     Now we were to learn that the gifts of the Spirit ceased with the death of the apostles (a fact we already believed). The way we were told this implied that any guidance of our study by the same Spirit is precluded in these days.

     These things did not seem serious and for a little more than three months we could study freely, the difficulties seemed to be passing, and appreciation of one another grew. Then the minister received a very pressing invitation to serve in his native state, where the weather conditions are such that ministers do not stay long and the need was great. He accepted and has now gone.

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     A few, who regard themselves as pillars of the church, must have been secretly unhappy with him. The day he left, one of them told me that I had only joined the church three months before. Previously they had all accepted as valid my baptism of 38 years ago. If I joined any church as recently as three months ago it is a sectarian one.

     Since the minister left they have changed the manner of Bible study, so that no open comment is allowed. Because this bothered my conscience I questioned it. I cannot reject the need for open Bible study and accept the assertive declarations of belief of any sect. The visiting minister, from a congregation about 100 miles away, was primed against me and told me quite curtly that he would not discuss matters relating to my conscience with me. The local brothers had already refused to do so.

     I trust that these people will, in sincerity, go to the Bible themselves, and have a change of heart about "brushing me off" in this fashion. During these months I have tried to show that I accept the Bible and must accept it, as written, without perversion of any kind. I still do not know my place in God's arrangement, but I am still waiting upon Him and trusting His leading. And I will receive anyone who does likewise (Romans 15:5-7).

     Editor's Note. Norman H. Crowhurst is an engineer and consultant in electronics. He is the author of Basic Mathematics (4 volumes), Basic Audio (3 volumes). Elements of Electron Physics, and other books, and is a contributor to Encyclopedia Americana, Grolier Encyclopedia, and various scientific and technical journals. His address is Box 651, Gold Beach, Oregon 97444.