The Governing Body Politic

Dr. Firpo Carr was baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses (JhW) on September 17, 1966, 12 years to the day after he was born. His mother was pregnant with him when she was baptized on January 16, 1954. For reasons that have yet to be explained, he was disfellowshipped in 2008. Still, his growing academic interest in JhW persisted. 

Shortly thereafter, he attended seminary and earned a Master of Arts in Urban Ministry (plus Master of Arts in Management) and has taught comparative religion for nearly 30 years. He has completed grant-funded research titled “Determining the Effect of Educational Intervention on Surgeons’ Mental Anxiety When Faced With Emergency Non-Blood Treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses.” The instrument he devised for this study is “Mental Anxiety Surgeons’ Test (MAST)®.”

While visiting Brooklyn Bethel in 1980 (during his IBM training as a Customer Engineer in Chicago), Carr was recruited to meet with representatives of the computer department to help settle the issue of investing in technology. He explained that they’d have no choice. The Governing Body needed to embrace the coming technological revolution. The seed was planted for JW.org. Relatedly, Carr was a field writer for the Writing Committee of the Governing Body, having written the articles “Artificial Intelligence: Is It Intelligent” (Awake! July 8, 1988) and “A Library that Fits on Your Desk” (Awake! July 8, 1989).

The Governing Body (and the Vatican) studies his writings. Carolyn R. Wah is Associate General Counsel for the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. She is part of the Legal Department at the World Headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Warwick, New York. In the peer-reviewed journal, Review of Religious Research (2001, Volume 43:2) she wrote the article, “An Introduction of Research and Analysis of Jehovah’s Witnesses: A View from the Watchtower.” In it she referenced “A History of Jehovah’s Witnesses from a Black American Perspective as well as Search for the Sacred Name, written by Firpo W. Carr, Ph.D.” (p. 173). (Available on Amazon.com)