It seems to me their contemporaries didn't like the Witnesses that much. The society was suspect and despised. Isn't it funny how the years put on a patina of respectability?
1930's book on the Occult has article on Charles Russell
by lovelylil 14 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
-
hillbilly
". Isn't it funny how the years put on a patina of respectability?" only by there own telling.... for most of the world JW's are persona non grata and dont amount to the proverbial hill of beans.
-
juni
jgnat said:
Isn't it funny how the years put on a patina of respectability
I like that statement!
Juni
-
Kaput
As a rule, I am not a big conspiracy mut. However, the whole Russell, Freemason, Knights Templar, Illuminati, Skull and Bones thing facinates me. I dont know if any of it's really true but the links raise some cool possibilties and make for good argument and debate.
Fascinates me, too. I went to a Masonic open house a couple of months ago and asked a 32nd degree Mason if they used the name "Jehovah". He paused then said "no". Interestingly Dr. Albert C. Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences states that "Jehovah is, of all the significant words of Freemasonry, by far the most important." I guess the Mason I spoke with was engaging in some Masonic theocratic warfare strategy.
-
Kaput
But after these preliminaries the proceedings become of an even more exalted nature. All that has gone before has been but preparation for the Great Quest on which we must now set forth. It is the quest of the Soul for realisation of God, and at-one-ment with Him. This is the Mystic Quest of all ages, and, true to the ancient symbolism, it starts from the East, the place of Light, and goes towards the West, the place of darkness and death.
This above excerpt is from the Master Mason's Handbook by J.S.M. Ward.
"The MASTER'S WORD * * * is the reward of study and devotion, and has never been obtained on any other terms. It has never been conferred in the ritualistic degrees of the Lodge, and never will or can be. It is the establishment of understanding in the Soul of man between that higher self in him, and the MORE and Beyond Self from which he draws his life, and from which his intuitions spring. This is the Real Initiation: At-One-Ment."
The above excerpt is from the book Mystic Masonry by J. Buck.
Every pang of repentance and suffering, every effort 18 for reform, every good thought and deed, will help us to understand Jesus' atonement for sin and aid Efficacious
repentanceits efficacy; but if the sinner continues to pray 21 and repent, sin and be sorry, he has little part in the atone- ment,--in the at-one-ment with God,--for he lacks the practical repentance, which reforms the heart and enables 24 man to do the will of wisdom. Those who cannot dem- onstrate, at least in part, the divine Principle of the teach- ings and practice of our Master have no part in God. If 27 living in disobedience to Him, we ought to feel no secur- ity, although God is good. The above excerpt is from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (founder of Christian Science).
Nor can this work of Atonement, so far as mankind is concerned, be accomplished instantaneously and by faith. It may begin in an instant and by faith, and at-one-ment may be reckonedly accomplished between the sinner and the Almighty through faith; but the scope of the At-one-ment which God purposes is grander and higher than this. His arrangement is that those of the human race who desire to return to at-one-ment with him (and his righteous law) shall be reckonedly accepted through their Mediator, but shall not be fully and completely received (by the Father) while they are actually imperfect. Hence, while it is the work of the Mediator (Head and "body") to proclaim to mankind the fact that God has provided a sin-offering, whereby he can be just and yet receive the sinner back into harmony with himself, and that he is now willing to confer the blessing of sonship and its eternal life and freedom from corruption, it is additionally his work to make clear to all mankind that this offer of salvation is a great boon and should be promptly accepted and that its terms are but a reasonable service; and additionally to this, it is the Mediator's work, as the Father's representative, to actually restore --to mentally, morally and physically restitute mankind--so many of them as will receive his ministry and obey him. Thus eventually the Mediator's work will result in an actual at-one-ment between God and those whom the Mediator shall restore to perfection.
The above excerpt is from The At-one-ment Between God and Men, the fifth volume of The Millenial Dawn series by Charles T. Russell.
Popular word, I guess.