I have come to belive that Rutherfrd wanted to make the religion his own.
Pastor Russel in his will said no more doctrines, no more literature, just print mine. He left the name of several people to take over the empire and then...died.
Russell was not one of the main people to take over the religion according to the will, It ended in a huge fight, the people wanting to remain loyal to Russell and then Rutherford, a legal eagle with a huge ego.
He literally threw the people out on the street, the police were called, there are news articles about the physicsl fight that took place. Those men went on to form a religion loyal to Russell, they have a website etc explaining their dilemma, Russell had taught it was wrong to take fellow christians to court, and so Rutherford simply TOOK the reigns by force.
http://www.pastor-russell.com/legacy/intro.html
Rutherford now was the head of a movement with huge ties to Russell. Many followers left. He began a campaign of change. He changed doctrines significantly before he died, heaven and earth were now seperate hopes, no blood, no christmas, no smoking, the cross became a stake with no evidence other than the word meant cross and stake and even though we know the Romans used crosses Rutherford wanted to stand out. He changed rules about vaccinations and medical treatment, he mocked science and evolution, he mocked the American government and wrote inflammatory remarks about the war, america and serving as a soldier. He was imprisoned and turned himself into a martyr. He decided the long understood ....mistake.... of using the word jehovah as gods name, was in fact worthy of consideration once more and so began another new teaching for him... he even named the movement based on it.
Quite embarassing, 700 years after Jesus, a monk added the hebrew sentence YHWH to the word for LORD adonai, by just using the vowels,
YaHoWaH or in latin JaHoHaH. This was because old copyists did not like writing YHWH due to superstition so would write adonai beneath it, so when reading the bible aloud, people said LORD not god's name. The copyist 700 years after Jesus wrongly assumed it was some kind of code, so mashed the two together.
Anyway, Rutherford, despite knowing this added Jehovah back into the religious language, his big moment in time, and to put a line underneath it he named the movement after it. To this day Watchtower have to tap dance around this desicion. every scholar knows the rendering of that name is nonsense.
When looking at Rutherford's history, the ego on him is palpable. Everything he did was about change, putting his stamp on things. He made some huge boo boos though. He was known as a drukard and a man that cursed all the time. People resigned over it and so began the early disfellowship doctrines. He would have alcohol illegally brought down from Canada, he wrote thatthe prohibition was Satan's work. But this is not the worst of it "The decleration of facts" is a letter to Hitler from Rutherford, in it he is openly antisemetic and announced on god's behalf that the german country had god's approval. All of this was printed in the german yearbook of the time. Many JW's were slaughtered in jehovahs (ironic) name and Watchtower white washed the issue until 1996 when they did a tiny apology in an article, to paraphrase they said "We were not referring to all Jews" etc etc. The Society, on a side note, went on, the next year, to claim compesation on behalf of its dead followers from the Swedish Holocaust Compensation fund. To think, that they had actually sent letters of support!
So yes, forgive my waffle, but if you go and research Rutherford, you will detect Rutherfords keen interest in putting his own stamp on things. Most of his doctrines survive and exist today even if slightly varied. He has affected millions of people, not for good in my opinion. But I am sure he would smile at the idea anyway.
I guess the gall of building a Mansion in LA whist driving two cadillacs during the great depression says much. The mansion built for 'the returning prophets' says much of him and the movement.
