Talk:Faithful and discreet slave/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

'Chosen'

The following sentence seems ambiguous as to who 'chooses' the men from the F&DS to make up the GB, and could imply that all of the entire group of F&DS members elects members...

• All decision-making authority is held by the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, which is made up of a few chosen men of the Faithful and Discreet Slave class and is described as its representative and spokesman.[8][9][10]

Recommend clarifying.--Jeffro77 (talk) 11:26, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair point. Franz, in "Christian Freedom", page 123, explains that "Invitations to (Governing Body) membership result from secret sessions of the Body and generally come as a surprise to the invited one ..." New GB members, therefore, are chosen by existing GB members. It probably loses nothing by deleting the word "chosen"; the method of selection is mentioned in the second par of the intro to Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, with a reference to the Franz passage I've just quoted. LTSally (talk) 11:40, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Poor wording

Regarding the statement:

"Within four years, however, his successor J. F. Rutherford, overturned what had by then been a Watch Tower doctrine for more than 40 years and announced that the "servant" was, after all, made up of the entire body of faithful spirit-anointed Christians."

The wording "what had by then been a Watch Tower doctrine for more than 40 years" and "after all" seems to be used to add controversy. This article is about the development of the 'Faithful Slave' doctrine, not Bible Student schisms. Additionally, "within 4 years" counts from 1923 when Rutherford was already president, but the tone suggests it was something Rutherford did within 4 years of gaining control; Rutherford should be mentioned in the correct chronological order (1917), before the reiteration of Russell's view in 1923, rather than ambiguously appearing in 1923 and making a change '4 years later'. The associated comment in the footnote from Franz about 'misrepresenting Russell's view' is also unnecessary - Russell was dead in 1927; it is obvious that Russell's later view was different to his earlier view, and it is also obvious that he didn't change that later view after he'd died. Suggest replacing with:

In 1927, Rutherford reverted to Russell's original viewpoint, announcing that the "servant" was not an individual, but was made up of the entire body of faithful spirit-anointed Christians.

--Jeffro77 (talk) 12:44, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Point taken re the wording. I'll change it. The footnoted observation by Franz is worth keeping. He points out that the language of the Proclaimers book emphasizes Russell's earliest view as if he'd been right all along. "Many who were sifted out clung to the view ..." is quite misleading because it was in fact the official organizational teaching from 1886 to 1927; the reference to Russell "expressing the view in 1881" that the "servant" was the church at large is phrased as if he'd known all along; in fact he had abandoned that teaching within five years and kept the opposing view until the day he died, arguing strenuously against those who disagreed. Many Witnesses would read only the Proclaimers book version of history and a critical view of the presentation of that history on this point is worth including. LTSally (talk) 22:19, 24 May 2009 (UTC)