tornapart - He was clearly a FreeMason, he said so in his own words
Do you have a reference for that?
Do the R&F really know where the WT came from?
by tornapart 30 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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cantleave
This thread by Barbara Anderson seems to disagree.....
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tornapart
Cantleave.. if you look at 4:22 on the video, it was at a Convention in 1913, in a discourse called 'The Temple of God'.
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tornapart
Yes, I did read that. But all the evidence seems to point to the opposite. Even if is true that he wasn't actually one himself, he did have Freemason friends and would have been heavily influenced by them wouldn't he?
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cantleave
Sorry to be pedantic, but if I have millionaire friends, it doesn't make me a millionaire.
Even if Russell was influenced by masons it didn't make him one. The importance of this is that if you you are going spout an unsubstantiated claim, it undermines your message!
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St George of England
There is no evidence that Russell was a Freemason, but even if he was, SO WHAT?
Freemasons were accepted into the WTS and congregations until the early 1950's.
Many congregations hired Masonic Lodges for use as KH's and also for circuit assemblies.
George
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tornapart
So why was he in to pyramidology then and believing God was enthroned in the plaiedes? Just a coincidence?
Anyway, the video was showing some of his writings in his books and I find them disturbing. That's just my own personal feelings. I don't expect everyone else to feel the same way, some couldn't care less one way or the other. It helps to know the history behind it all though.
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InterestedOne
tornapart - There is a book called The Watchtower and the Masons that you can find if you do a torrent search. Although it doesn't prove anything, I still found it interesting because of the way it lays out some of the bits of history and concepts found in the Watchtower and Masonry.
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tornapart
Thanks IO :)
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ziddina
Like the influence of the Second-Day Adventists on the International Bible Students' theology, some of the Masonic concepts were incorporated into the Watchtower's symbology, in the early days of the sect/cult.
What is more interesting to me, is Russell's total acceptance of "pagan" holidays now condemned by the Watchtower Corporation - like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and a few other holidays celebrated by "Christendom"... Interestingly, their antipathy towards education, especially higher educaton, started with Russell...
When Rutherford came along, his misanthropic attitudes took the Watchtower Corporation off in a totally different direction.
I am constantly amazed by the utter hypocrisy displayed by Rutherford - a lawyer who took on the designation of "Judge", even though his only experience as a "judge" was apparently a week-long substitution for a REAL judge; his many mistresses while condemning marriage - and women - within the talks and literature of the Watchtower Corporation; his headship of an organization that was supposedly "Christian", obtained by a cutthroat takeover using intimidation; his alcoholism and illegal importing of hooch - booze - during Prohibition; his use of Watchtower funds to build a fancy mansion in Southern California - and a second house that hid a bomb shelter, located across the street from the mansion - yeah, that's trusting in "jehovah" to keep his butt safe during a bomb attack, all right...
Crap, I could go on and on and on about that freakish monster - he certainly wasn't a real human being... And DEFINITELY not a "Christian" or a "Bible Scholar" in ANY sense of the terms...
And yet his actions shaped the Watchtower cult and still affects it, down to this day...