Ray franz crisis of conscience update#

So think of Heaven's Gate, the people that wanted to follow a UFO and they committed suicide, the UFO cult, or think of Jonestown, that's the biggest example that we have in our common mind, people following Jim Jones drinking the Kool-Aid, dying. One, a group so wacky that virtually anybody calls it a cult except the people in the group. If we speak of world religions, we'll speak of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., what's the difference between a world religion and a cult? Well, cult is used in general conversation as a word for a group that's, okay, it's used in two ways. So let's just very simply, very quickly establish some basic definitions. So I studied the witnesses mainly because I think God led me in my life to look at other religions and see how they compare to the gospel or contrast to the gospel.Īnd the witnesses are powerful and big, so it's been great to learn about them and help people get out of the group or warn them that's a group they should never join.

Ray franz crisis of conscience update#

So I've always followed the Jehovah's Witnesses, and then this year I decided, hey, I should do a new edition of the book, and I connected in a fuller way with Jim Penton and got an update on his life, although I've stayed in contact with him over the years. So I got to interview him, his family, his friends in Alberta, Canada, and I told a story. I did a book on what led Jim Penton, a history professor at the time, what led him to leave the Jehovah's Witnesses after being in it for generations. A few years later, I was at a conference in Toronto, and I met probably one of the most influential ex-witnesses in the world, a guy named Jim Penton, and that led to the book you've just mentioned to your audience. So that, of course, cut me into studying Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses and groups like Scientology. Now, how did you get interested in studying Jehovah's Witnesses? Well, when I was hired in 1978 at a Christian college in Eastern Canada, I was told to teach a course about cult groups. Hey, Jim, welcome back to the Line of Fire. Again, the title of his book, Crisis of Allegiance, we want to find out who the Jehovah's Witnesses are, some of their history, some of the strange beliefs that they have, where they are today around the world, and what is happening in terms of this crisis of allegiance.

Over the years, over the decades, he's published major works on world religions, but has also looked at the cults. In other words, he digs deep, goes through source after source after source, thousands of sources he'll go through, get evidence, lay things out, and follow the evidence where it leads. James Beverly served as a professor for many decades, but has always been a research scholar. Jim and I have gotten to know each other pretty well in the last year plus, spent a lot of time interacting, talking about lots of issues. He's got a brand new edition of his book, The Crisis of Allegiance, a study of dissent among Jehovah's Witnesses.

I won't be taking calls, and you'll be glad because you're going to want to hear everything that my guest, Dr. We've got a very special broadcast for you. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. It's time for The Line of Fire, with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. There are voices of dissent among the Jehovah's Witnesses.