James Taylor, Jr. (Exclusive Brethren)

James Taylor Jr. ( born April 15, 1899 in New York; † October 14, 1970 ) was an American businessman and from 1960 until his death, head of the Raven brothers.

Life

James Taylor jun. was the fifth child and the youngest son of immigrants from Ireland businessman James Taylor sen., who rose to become the leading personality of the Raven brothers later.

At the age of 19 years founded James Taylor jun. own company (Taylor Linen Company), in 1919, his father and other family members entered. Around 1922 he married Consuelo Johnson from Council Bluffs (Iowa), with whom he had five children. Consuelo Taylor died in 1950; a year later joined Taylor with Irene Stevens of Plainfield a second marriage, from which emerged another daughter.

Taylor's father had been considered since the late 1930s under the Raven brothers as "the man of God" and as the voice of the Holy Spirit. When he died in 1953, the question of succession presented. After several years of obscurity, Taylor could jun. 1960 to enforce against its main competitors Gerald Robert Cowell. Taylor threw Cowell the right not to accept the order of the separation from the "world" seriously enough ( Cowell held membership in professional organizations in certain cases for excusable ), whereupon Cowell's home church in Hornchurch ( UK) parted from him. Approximately 8,000 people showed solidarity with Cowell, the vast majority, however, Taylor realized (called " Big Jim " ) as the new leader on.

Taylor saw his task especially in the regulation of daily life of Raven - brothers: While his predecessor Darby, Raven and Taylor sen. which would have re-discovered or revealed, " teaching", was his own service " practical " nature. Already in 1960 he demanded that Raven brothers were not allowed to eat with " outsiders ", even if it was family members; in many cases, it came then to spatial separations up to divorces, what also reported in the press and was discussed in the British Parliament. Other prohibitions related to, inter alia, the keeping of pets, the ownership of holiday homes and caravans, visiting universities or use of a common input with "infidels" in tenements. 1970 Taylor demanded that the women had to wear her (long ) hair down.

An uproar there was in July 1970 when Taylor - apparently under the influence of alcohol ( he looked at the alcohol as a " creature of God " ) - during a conference in Aberdeen confused, partly obscene and insulting statements made ​​and was surprised in bed after the conference with a married woman. Approximately 20-30% of the Raven brothers (especially in Scotland) then fell away from him. Taylor himself described the incidents (which were in turn disseminated by the press) in retrospect to be an ambush, with whom he had wanted to test who was devoted to him as the "pure man of God " faithful and who is not.

Almost three months later, Taylor died in New York of a heart attack. His successor as head of the Raven Brothers was the American farmer James Harvey Symington.

The transcripts of Taylor's lectures and conferences were like those of his predecessor, Raven and Taylor sen. published in book form (Ministry by J. Taylor, Jr., 138 volumes).