Dr. de Vienne tells me there are some problems with ebook formatting and it will be released later. Until they review the advanced copy, it is only available on lulu.com. Buy from lulu anyway. Their royalties are higher if purchased from lulu. She tells me there is a dramatic drop in revenue if purchased from B and N or Amazon.
Finally
by Old Goat 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Antioch
That is just an incredibly specific topic. Why such a tight focus?
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Old Goat
The title is misleading you. The book is an incredibly detailed history of Russell’s early years and his antecedents. Chapter one tells things about Russell’s early years never published elsewhere. I found them revealing. The details present a picture of Russell different from that I had formed. The last section of that chapter gives details about Russell’s businesses that I did not know. I don’t think very many know them either. Music publishing? A furniture store? Stock market investments? Who knew?
The next two chapters define Russell’s relationship to Adventists and Age-to-Come believers. You may think you know what this is all about, but let me tell you, you don’t. There are persons in this story long ignored by those who write about Russell. I’m impressed by the detail and the depth of research. Wendell, who most writers present simply as an Adventist preacher, is given a biography. His sermons in Allegheny and elsewhere are examined. (There is, surprisingly, a record of that.) Stetson’s last years and his non-Adventist beliefs are explored. There’s a real story in that. Again, it is different from what is usually said. Storrs turns into a different person than I expected. Others you may not have heard of are introduced. John T. Ongley, a One Faith evangelist, George Darby Clowes, an ex-Methodist preacher and others are profiled and their place in Watch Tower History restored.
If the Watchtower had ever published something like this, I wouldn’t see them as the dishonest, manipulative, controlling organization it seems to be. The Proclaimers book has what? Two sentences about Stetson? Schulz and de Vienne devote half a chapter to him, his writing and his beliefs. They take readers to private letters, obscure articles, and use them to build a well-researched, connected story. They hide nothing.
I found chapter four especially interesting. Chapter four discusses the bible study group founded by Russell and his associates. To get to his point, the authors have trashed the work of a number of authors. Some of that is funny. They call Zydeck’s book “fantasy fiction” and tell you exactly what’s wrong with his claims. (Contrived, fabricated) Others get the same treatment. I’ve been pursuing Watchtower history since the 1950s. My reaction to this was “about bloody time.”
Chapter four is the title chapter. It traces topic by topic the development of Russell’s theology. They tell you from whom and from where Russell got his belief system. You think his theology was Adventist? Think again. They cite the books, articles and letters of those with whom Russell associated. Most interesting here is a section on pyramid belief: They trace the origins of Pyramidology of course. They correct the claims of a few well-know anti-cult writers. They tell you who believed the theory. That was new to me. I did not know that Clarence Larkin, the Baptist expositor, and T. de Witt Talmage, the then famous preacher both believed similarly.
The remaining chapters consider Russell’s association with Barbour. Biographies are restored. Benjamin Wallace Keith’s biography is fascinating. J. C. Sunderlin was an opium addict, made such by pain killers he was prescribed for Civil War wounds. L. A. Allen, one of the first WT contributors agonized over what appears to have been sexual conduct at an early age. You meet people who thought they heard Jesus’ voice. You find names you’ve probably never heard and their biographies. This is not the candy-coated history the Watchtower Society writes.
They present the group as essentially disunited, the only unity being belief in the near return of Christ for judgment and to raise the saints. They take you to statements by the principals to show this. And this takes us to their premise, which put simply is that continuing fragmentation led (rather perversely) to a doctrinal unity and a distinct identity.
Volume one, the book just released, ends with the split between Barbour and Russell. Barbour embezzles money, seeing it as his right as God’s last days voice. Russell is seen as intellectually struggling.
You should read this book. You will be amazed. So, don’t let the title throw you off. You need to know what this book says. Their discussion of Storrs is especially important. Storrs would be disfellowshiped for his view of congregational authority.
I’ve waited all my life for a book like this. Buy it. Read it.
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cofty
Marking. Thanks for the review, it sounds excellent.
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Pistoff
It's not the only problem; these 2 authors have posted here or have been quoted here, and the tone of the work seems too concerned with insulting those who come to different conclusions than they do.
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Old Goat
Pissed,
I've quoted them here. they don't post here. You're drawing a false conlusion based on something that made me laugh. Their book is good solid history. Why form an opinion based on something that I noted? They do note false statements, sometimes tongue in cheek, but while that may make me chuckle, it's a very small part of the story here.
I don't see the few occasions where they note the errors of others as detracting. Don't you want to know when something is wrong? I do. And they document their claims. I can think of several books that sail under the quise of an academic work that do not do that.
You've made a claim about the book without having read it. If I've given a false impression of the book, I'm sorry. It is well worth a read.
Perhaps I should give a couple examples of what they do when they meet 'error' in the work of others:
From page 208:
The claim made by James Pellechia, a Watchtower Society writer, that Russell founded the congregation at Elyria and a group in Cleveland is incorrect. The Elyria group was originally an independent Age-to-Come body turned into a Barbourite congregation and is mentioned as such in the June 15, 1878, issue of Herald of the Morning. Creta Walker tells us that the congregation was founded by her uncle Thomas Sherwood and that it originally met in a red brick school house a few miles from the Sherwood residence. The congregation styled itself The Church of Christ, a name commonly used by Age-to-Come churches:
From page 287, the first two paragraphs of the chapter:
As with much else in this era of WatchTower history, we find significant, purposefully created nonsense and bad research. For example, Graig Burns asserts that “the Bible Students had split off from a group of Second Adventists under N. H. Barbour, which later became the 7th-Day Adventist Church.” We’re fairly certain Seventh-day Adventists would be surprised to know this. We certainly were.
They were small in number. Firm figures elude us, but we can make an educated guess. They drew from Second Adventists, primarily Advent Christians and Life and Advent Union adherents. Though Second Adventists claimed a combined membership of thirty-thousand worldwide, this was a huge exaggeration and has no basis in fact. Few Adventists found the Barbourite message attractive. Adventists turned to 1877 and then 1879 as probable dates for Christ’s return. Age-to-Come/One Faith adherents numbered less than four thousand. Many Barbourites came from this group, attracted to Barbourite theology by its Age-to-Come belief. In 1885 Barbour reported that the average monthly circulation of The Herald of the Morning was one thousand copies, including missionary and give-away issues. It was probably somewhat less, and we are probably being generous if we say that in 1877 they had something less than two thousand adherents. The regularly-published money-received column suggests far fewer committed believers. This was a very small movement.
Now while you may find the claim that seventh-day adventists were connected to Barbour strange, it's made repeatedly in 'the literature.' Do you want things like that to go unchallenged? They challenge false CLAIMS. False conclusions fall when false claims do. Are you so invested in a pet theory that you don't want it challenged? If so, you will find their book disturbing. If you want good, solid historical research into sources you've never seen, this is the book for you.
Writers commongly say things about Storrs that aren't so. Storrs magazine is not hard to find. I own all of them except the irregular first issues and the first few months of it when he restarted it. Shouldn't a writer read the source material before making claims about it? Schulz and de Vienne did, taking you to the exact issue and pages in their footnotes. Name another writer on this topic that researched Russell's connections to The Restitution, the principal One Faith journal. Restituion circulated his Object and Manner. J. L. Russell wrote to its editor up to his death. Didn't know that, did you? Restitution's readers called him 'brother.' All of this is new.
If you let attachment to a theory you got from others keep you from reading this book, you will continue to parrot it while others move "into the light of truth" historically speaking.
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Old Goat
I should add that sections of the book (in rough draft) are on their blog. Read them for yourself:
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suavojr
marking
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being without name
From what you've quoted, the tone of the book appears to be somewhat elitist.
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Old Goat
elitist? I don't think you know what that means. It's academic. It's not popular fiction. It's not the usual sensationalist crap about Russell either. It's history. Well written history. Eye opening history.