Gordon Ritchie, 39 Gun Wharf, 130 Wapping High Street, London E1. 9NH
Tel: 0144 171 265 1096

May 20th 1996

Dear Sir,

I write to you further to my letter of 12th January 1996. I write to tell you what has happened, because it is a fairly safe bet that you have been kept in the dark. But first may I please quote three verses of 1John:

The children of God and the children of the Devil are evident by this fact: Everyone who does not carry on righteousness does not originate with God, neither does he who does not love his brother (1 John 3:10).

But whoever has this world's means for supporting life and beholds his brother having need and yet shuts the door of his tender compassions upon him, in what way does the love of God remain in him? (1 John 3:17).

If anyone makes the statement: "I love God," and yet is hating his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot be loving God, whom he has not seen (1 John 4:20).

You know these well, probably better than I do. I wrote to you in January as your brother. In fact I wrote to 100 congregations in New York when I was still in the Leyton congregation of Jehovah's witnesses. In my letter I was basically filing a formal accusation against individual members of the governing body and against the FDS, which I accuse of now being the Evil slave of Mathew24 and the wicked slave of Matthew25.

Not one of you responded to me. Not one of you showed me even any respect let alone any love. If you truly believed that I was a seriously lost sheep you should have done something to help me, you did nothing. If you believed that perhaps I was correct, then you should have contacted me, you did nothing. If you did not know or care what to believe you should have at the very least acknowledged my letter. You could not even rise to that. Is there not even one of you who is telling the truth when he says: I love God?? Is there not one of you who loves me???

You cannot be loving a brother with whom you do not communicate, do you not know this? The FDS, even if they are still the FDS, do not have the power to overrule the second commandment. If they say to you: Do not contact him, they speak in opposition to John who speaks in union with the spirit of God. This is not a trivial matter. Everything that you do is crashing symbols in the absence of love for your brother.

Perhaps one of you will have a love that conforms to the standard set by John:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love throws fear outside, because fear exercises a restraint. Indeed, he that is under fear has not been made perfect in love (1 John 4:18).

Why therefore did you fear the FDS more than you love God. You know his commandments. I challenge you, any one of you, show me some love why don't you? Have I not made an absolute fool of myself and risked my spiritual life for you, now that I am disfellowshipped? Not that I have made a fool of myself before God, for I knew that I would be thrown out, and I knew when I would be thrown out, on 1996Adar11, 1260 days after my first letter reached the Society of 1992Elul11, this being the second fulfilment of Revelation 11 in the Lord's day. Please find my enclosed letter to Dan Sydlik for a fuller account of this if you are interested.

Here is the second commandment, enlarged by my Lord:

YOU heard that it was said, 'You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' However, I say to YOU: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those persecuting you (Matthew 5:43,44).

Even if I am now your enemy, which is denied, you are commanded by this chap to love me. How much value do you put on this commandment?? Can it be overridden by the governing body, in the case of disfellowshipped brother?? I am disfellowshipped from your congregation, but this does not exclude me from your love in accordance with Jesus' words here. And you cannot love a man whom you shun, it is a fact. And the interpretation of John's letter to mean that we should shun disfellowshipped brothers is from Satan. Jesus says in Matthew 18 that we should treat them like tax collectors or men of the nations. These men were not shunned by the first century Jews, despised and looked down on yes, shunned no. Shunning tax inspectors is likely to be a very costly manoeuvre. If a tax inspector writes to you, do you respond to his letters? Yet you did not return mine when I wrote as a brother? And now that you should treat me as a tax collector, will you, for your part respond?

I do say this for my benefit because I would like to hear from you. But if just one of you will show me some love, there will be more of God's servants rejoicing than just me alone. I wrote a letter like this to the whole governing body a couple of years ago, and one of them responded with love. One out of 10, God's farming percentage. How many of you shepherds have his love??

Yours faithfully

Gordon Ritchie