Berean Alterations
to Christadelphian Works
and Misattributions

 

Case #1

In 1892 Frank G. Jannaway, the man who lead the Berean division in 1923, authored an article in The Christadelphian entitled, Ecclesial Fellowship.

Ecclesial Fellowship, by Frank G. Jannaway, The Christadelphian, 1892

The article was republished in The Berean magazine in 1978 by Gilbert Growcott under the new title The Doctrine of Fellowship. Notice that the GVG preface says, "THIS dialog appeared in the Christadelphian of 1892."

As far back as 2003 Jim Phillips has had the GVG edited version on his web site, along with the following attribution: "By Bro. Robert Roberts". Here is a screenshot of the web site from 2003:

You can find an archived version of Jim's page from March 2005 at the Internet Archive. Here's the 2004 version from the Internet Archive.

September 15 2007: The Berean web site has recently changed the attribution back to F. G. Jannaway. Ironically, it was only a few months back that bro. Phillips was berating some non-Berean brethren for publishing material, "all of them with wrong page numbers, obviously copied from the same source, belying their true lack of interest". Which is more egregious, to repeatedly misattribute authorship or to use different page numbers — a fact that might be explained in that different editions of the same book were used?

Case #2

The article referenced above was, as mentioned, published by Gilbert Growcott in The Berean, 1978, p. 345. Brother Growcott claims in his 1978 article that, the article sets forth "the established Christadelphian position on fellowship up to that time" (1892).

Again, please notice that the GVG preface says, "THIS dialog appeared in the Christadelphian of 1892."


The Berean Christadelphian, 1978, p. 345

Amongst other edits, he adds this title to the beginning of the article: "A Defense of the Historic Christadelphian Position". But the article he published is a heavily edited version of the 1892 Frank G. Jannaway article -- nor did the original article make the claims which bro. Growcott made.

Below you will see a screen shot from a textual comparison of the two articles. The screen shot covers edits made in the Berean version for less than 10 questions in a 148 question and answer dialog. The Black text is text which is the same between the 1892 and the 1978 article. Text struck through is material GVG deleted. Blue underlined text is text GVG either added or shifted around from the original.

Those who will defend the publication of this edited version will likely scan the screenshot below to see if any doctrine point of substance was changed. You will see from this fraction of the article how brother Growcott altered the article:

Original: "among the voluminous literature that has sprung into existence dealing with almost every phrase of the truth, the doctrine of fellowship has been given little or no place."
Berean Edition: Text shifted down into the midst of FGJ's original answer.

Original: "But that is no evidence that the subject has not been carefully thought out by the brethren"
Berean Edition: Text struck

Original: "We can truly say that 'fellowship' has been repeatedly and most critically discussed"
Berean Edition: "We can truly say that 'fellowship' has been repeatedly and most thoroughly discussed"

Original: "our understanding of the doctrine of fellowship was radically unsound, and since that time..."
Berean Edition: "our understanding of the doctrine of fellowship is radically unsound."

The Berean edition of this article heavily edits and redacts parts. And this then,was published in the Berean community as, "A Defense of the Historic Christadelphian Position", and "a valuable testimony" to "the established Christadelphian position on fellowship up to that time" [1892]!!:

 

Case #3

Here is the "Introduction to the Berean Restatement" as found on the web site of brother Jim Phillips, a Berean brother. This is a screenshot of the web site from 2004, but the web site remains the same to this date (Sept 15 2007):

 

But if you look at the Introduction to the Restatement as found in Berean magazines, the text is different. Notice that in the version attributed to G. V. Growcott above that there are a number of minor changes: 1) Text has been added to the beginning and ending of the printed version. 2) The version above says "doctrinally unchanged" and the asterick footnote (as seen in the version below) has been removed.The asterick is significant, as a matter of factual accuracy, because a "minor clarification was made in 1917".

 

Case #4

 

Here is case #2. Brother Jim Phillips,a Berean brother, provides a quote, "The Berean Christadelphians, over our history, have been the one Christadelphian fellowship which has steadfastly refused to alter our fellowship position from that established by bre. Thomas and Roberts." He then says, "This statement was made by G. V. Growcott in issuing The Berean Restatement."

 

But then, I did a text search across all Berean publications and all Berean web sites. The only quote I can find that remotely resembles the quote attributed to G. V. Growcott is this one from The Berean Ecclesial News, July 1999:

In the article, it says "these men", not "bre. Thomas and Roberts". Furthermore, the author of the quote is not G. V. Growcott but one brother Jim Phillips. The byline at the end of the article is shown below:

It is rather remarkable that Jim Phillips would author a sentence, and just a few years later attribute his own statement to Gilbert Growcott as the original author.

Update Sept 19 2007: Brother Phillips tells me that the phrase goes back to the 1940's. At this point he is looking for the paperwork to prove the claim.

 

These are "benign" (comparatively speaking) discoveries I've made in preparing for the debate. But one cannot help but wonder why the Berean community has needed the help of redactions, misattributions and other altering of original works if their position on fellowship was indeed the original Christadelphian position on fellowship.

 

 

Last Update: September 21, 2007