Talk:Joseph Franklin Rutherford

This page is embarrassingly bad..

There are a couple instances of vandalism by both sides here. "Falso prophecies" is a bit much for the anti-crowd. A total lack of focus on commentary about his drinking problem is just as bad from the pro crowd. The misinformation in the talk page is just as bad. There was no San Francisco mansion for the returned saints, it was Beth Serim in San Diego. We're also missing a bunch of personal history. The man was married and had children, his children didn't join the movement (I'm not sure if they are sympathetic of not since histories of the movement are sparse). The article also fails to concentrate on his contributions to the organization of the movement which in many ways became what is commonly recognized as "Jehovah's Witnesses" under his watch. I'm going to try to clean up the obvious vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickjost (talk • contribs) 20:25, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

So a commentary

Early life-> I believe he only served as a substitute judge once. If someone can dig out a citation that would be nice. Again we should mention his married life and children. "Unfulfilled expectations rather than "promised dates" seems to be the prevailing attitude, past and present, and shows humility in correcting "misguided statements"" is POV and reflects the movements not histories view of the man.

Imprisonment -> Contains a reference to the completion of Studies in the Scriptures which should probably be broken out. This new section should contain information on this being one of the points that led to an eventual schism within the movement. It also alludes to the Studies as reason for the imprisonment. This is not the case. They were being held on charges stemming from the belief that they were sympathetic to the Nazis (related to their position on enlistment in armed forces) which is covered in the next few lines. I'm not sure how poor circulation could lead to a lung condition but the reason for his removal is disputed. Some believe he was moved because of developing problems with alcoholism. THIS IS NOT A VALID REASON TO INSERT THE VANDALISM ON "pass the whiskey" CHARGES. Keep it NPOV!

Death -> Citation? That seems odd. The man is wildly respected to this day. It would be bizarre in the extreme to have such a small services. Is this in reference to a graveside service? It seem very POV (that is, it implies that he was abandoned as he died).

Impact -> Saying "six years" really downplays the millions now living sermons. This line was popular well into the 80's. He also is responsible for ably managing the shock from the 1917, 1920, 1925 failures which shows almost wizardly management skills. The quotation used on "advertise the king and his kingdom" imply that the Lord's Prayer uses the word "advertise". It also uses the non-standard "model prayer" which implies that the paragraph was either written by a Witness or lifted from a Witness work. It would be helpful also to point out that both Norr and Franz were hand picked "death-bed" successors.

I am missing my reference works. If someone would pick up and fix this I'd be much obliged. The man is an incredibly interesting and dynamic individual who deserves better than the sloppy polemics from both sides shown here. Nickjost 20:50, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Former sections with one or zero posts, before 2008 July

Each bullet point in this section was formerly a section. The only change was to group them together and use "* " to replace the first "==" which had made each a section. No text was deleted; no signature was deleted. Many of the former sections were either empty or unsigned.--AuthorityTam (talk) 14:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• IMPORTANT NOTICE ==

There's a lot of facts that can be put on this page that Jehovah's Witnesses don't seem to want us or the public (the ones who haven't been poisoned yet) to see. This article is no where near done.

I think it is important to get a group of people to moderate this page. Ideally, the moderation team should contain members of the JW and non-JW communities. My concern, however, is to find JW members reasonable enough to approach the article from all point-of-views.

--Bart weisser 04:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

• Changes made to the Bible ==

Nothing has been mentioned about the parts of the bible that rutherford changed, there are a lot of passages that he claimed were "errors". it also needs to be mentioned that there are a lot of controversies over these changes to the bible.

• there needs to be secession link ==

• Declaration of Facts ==

I understand that Judge Rutherford wrote a sypathetic letter or a declaration of facts to the German Nazis in 1933. Should some mention of this and a link to the declaration itself be included in the article? 10 February 2007

• Missing facts ==

Why hasn't Rutherford's death been mentioned? I can understand the complete embaressment to Jehovah's Witnesses because he died by means of excessive alcohol (which contradicts his "liquor is of satan"), but that doesn't mean it should be missed out, this article is currently biased.

May I also add that his predictions are not mentioned.

• A weak article==

Please, this article is weak.Such as told up, this man was a drunk.He was also linked to freemasonry , a supporter of many quacks such Albert Abrams, an eugenicist, a racist and many other terrible failures.I think that this article didn't showed even 10% of sins of this bad man.About the politic of the watchtower under nazism in Germany, also there's nothing.Until 1940 this man and his watchtower society, were suporters of eugenic sterilization.Also, he told that any follower of watchtower couldn't be vaccinated. Agre22 (talk) 22:20, 8 June 2008 (UTC)agre22

• One source about the link between watchtower and eugenics==

The site http://www.seanet.com/~raines/homicide.html has a short text, about the support given to eugenics, by this protestant leader.The watchtower gave many support to eugenics, racism and racial segregation, during this times.This was the general rule, among all american protestant denominations.Agre22 (talk) 14:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)agre22

Very sanitary article

No mention of his personal demons (such as drinking), relationship with wife, Beth Sarim, 1925, his forceful takeover of the Watchtower? Why is this article bereft of these facts? joshbuddy 07:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

J F Rutherford did not have these personal demons. He was known as a strong and disciplined person. Why would they put of opinions that are not known to anyone out there? You say facts but really they're not.

Why no mention of his directive to build a mansion in the San Fran bay area with society funds for the resurrected (moses aaron ect) that never came true, and when it never came true he moved in himself. That instance is well documented in several places. Justinmcl 199.243.211.114 02:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

"You say facts but really they're not". -this is basically the tactic that jehovah's witnesses use, the art of persuasion by method of confusion, consistent subject change and often the use of the word 'complex' an arbitrary number of times. I don't care what your indoctrinated, brainwashed mind thinks or what your own (yes thats right the NWT is in fact the JW's home brewed bible) bible tells you to do, you cannot change fact. This is Wikipedia, it contains facts.

Wikipedia contains facts? That's a laugh. While some of a subject may be true, you have to understand that when an article is under the editing of anyone who feels they can write something semi-logical, there are bound to be "facts" that are not the truth. You can never fully believe anything from wikipedia or most other sites, that is a fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.189.130.115 (talk) 18:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Simply find a verifiable reference, and include the new encyclopedic point of interest.

--AuthorityTam (talk) 13:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

How can JF Rutherford have been the 2nd pres if Conley was the 1st and then Russell next?

Please explain.

Mandmelon (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

In fact, Russell was the first after the society was fully juridically incorporated. But strictly speaking, you are in some sense right. Summer Song (talk) 09:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The matter has been addressed by referring to Rutherford as the second president of the Watch Tower corporation.

--AuthorityTam (talk) 13:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Rutherford a former atheist?

We need a source for such a claim. Tony Wills, in his A People For His Name, claims Rutherford was born to baptist parents but "had not taken to religion in his youth". He adds (p.131): "Rutherford, although he looked down on the Churches, had never become doubtful of God's existence. The orderliness of the universe and the existence of life proved to him that there was a higher intelligence." Only one of those claims can be correct. What is the source of the claim that he had been an atheist when he bought Russell's books? LTSally (talk) 10:38, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Alert the media: an anti-JW book with demonstrable factual errors (yawn).

Rutherford's atheism has since been cited in the article's body, but here is the reference with quoted text...

"Know Jehovah—The Personal God", The Watchtower, October 1, 1997, page 6, "[Rutherford] became [Watch Tower] president in January 1917. Yet, at one time this young lawyer was an atheist. How did he become such a motivated Christian servant of Jehovah? In July 1913, Rutherford served as chairman of an International Bible Students Association convention held in Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A. A reporter from the local newspaper, The Homestead, interviewed Rutherford, and the account was reprinted in the souvenir report of that convention. Rutherford explained that at the time he planned to marry, his religious views were those of the Baptist denomination, but those of his wife-to-be were Presbyterian. When Rutherford’s pastor said that “she was going to hell fire because she had not been immersed and that he was going straight to heaven because he had been, his logical mind revolted and he became an atheist.” It took Rutherford several years of careful research to rebuild his faith in a personal God."
--AuthorityTam (talk) 15:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

A reasonable and sincere question asked, some snide sarcasm delivered. You really are a joy to work with, Authority Tam. LTSally (talk) 20:53, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Moved from Talk:Joseph Franklin Rutherford/Comments where it would not hazve been seen. Astronaut (talk) 17:19, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

By all means, lets have a discussion. Only I'm not sure I would actually find anyone reasonable to have a discussion with. Perhaps you could prove me wrong since you apparantly know all even though clearly you are not even nearly associated with Jehovah's Witnesses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.5.69.66 (talk) 04:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Alcoholism

I would like to bring to your attention that it is improper for a biographical article to dedicate so much space to a specific negative incident, as it was that of Mr. Moyle. Since the whole article is brief, the Moyle case doesn’t deserve more than two or three lines.

But I would like first to focus on something more specific in the Moyle's section. In the article it is said: “Moyle condemned the alleged alcoholism of Rutherford in the same letter.” Can you please show me where Moyle claims that Rutherford was an alcoholic? --Scientia est opulentia (talk) 14:33, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Fringe theories about Rutherford

For the article Joseph Franklin Rutherford, the self-proclaimed User:Pastorrussell insists upon including this statement:

Despite official denials by the Watchtower Society, some have speculated that Rutherford was buried on a plot of land at Beth Sarim.

Most recently, he/she restored the sentence, commenting "Documented history".diff Huh? What sort of "documentation"? The only "documenting" cited was a blog entry which concludes "Judge Rutherford is said to have been illegally buried on the property, though this has frequently been disproven." Wikipedia's intention is not to immortalize every bit of grounded or groundless outrageousness "speculation" that has ever occurred. Such "documented history" as is repeated in that self-mitigating blog is patently unencyclopedic. --AuthorityTam (talk) 00:19, 4 July 2009 (UTC)