1881

by Old Goat 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Old Goat

  Rachael de Vienne is one of the authors of A Separate Identity, an exhaustive history of the Watch Tower's early years. This is from her personal blog:

  http://wardancingpixie.blogspot.com/

  I continue to probe at the mysteries of belief. At thirty-six I’m no nearer to unraveling them than I was when I was twelve and first puzzling over the questions of why people believe the improbable and why people reject the obvious. I wish I could answer those questions. I can’t.

  I’m researching the widely spread but improbable end of the age beliefs centered on 1881. We will present a wider view of apocalyptic belief than we usually do. It will put the beliefs of the groups we profile in context. Belief in the religio-scientific nature of the Great Pyramid led many to expect great events that year. A faked Mother Shipton prophecy added to the concern, and Haley’s comment led to predictions of doom. The failure of prophetic expectations that year marked the high-water of predictive prophecy. Oh people continue to speculate about the prophetic numbers found in Daniel and Revelation, but those who do so are seen as kooks, and they are in the minority. Before 1881 there were naysayers, but many were inclined to believe

  A lecturer in Omaha suggested Christianity was to blame, saying that it was the sole source of apocalyptic expectation. This is stupid. Many non-Christian cultures have end of the world beliefs. A final judgment of all souls is part of many religions.

  When we approached this chapter, we believed the 1881 expectations centered primarily in the English speaking world. This is wrong. I found a newspaper report to the contrary:

  Great excitement is caused by the number of pamphlets now published prophesying the near approach of the end of the world. In Paris some thousands of brochures are sold every day. The credulity of mankind has ever been agape to swallow the dire foreboding of self-constituted prophets. Seasons like the present make the fortunes of the Zadkeils, and, in a higher sense, play into the hands of well-meaning divines. [A 19 th Century astrologer used the name Zadkeils.]

  Interesting stuff, no? We’ll pursue this some. I’d at least like to see what German speakers were thinking about 1881.

  The three groups (I first typed gropes. I’m such a bad typist! Or maybe I’m thinkin’ ‘bout my pet Scotsman. He returns home this evening.) … The three groups we consider in this chapter approached 1881 in similar ways. Important differences brought differing results. For the Barbourites, it brought final irrelevance. By 1885, except for some minor irritation, they stopped being relevant theologically.

  Differences existed between adherents of the WatchTower movement. A man named A. D. Jones was drifting into Josephitism. He read pamphlets that came from the fringes of the One Faith movement and was persuaded. A major weakness in our research is the apparent loss of all issues of his magazine published in the first three years. We rely on quotations from it made by others. This is not satisfactory.

  Polemicists focus on Russellite (Not meant in the pejorative sense) adaptability. Some of the Bible Student brethren still see 1881 as significant. I don’t. But we don’t argue theology; we just tell the story as it happened. Russell allowed a wider discussion of probable 1881 events than was within the scope of his personal belief. This caused him some trouble. With the passing of 1881, he found himself still seeing the date as biblically significant. So he had to find new explanations for it. He wasn’t alone. A writer in England pursued the same course.

  The problem I find with most comments on Russellite expectations is that they are inaccurate or out of context. Context and detail are everything.

  This chapter will be harder to write than the one we just finished.
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  Pistoff

  I read an excerpt from the book, was not impressed; it seemed long on attitude, short on documentation.
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  John_Mann

  I just love the 19th century.

  Charles SteamPunk Russell! LOL
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  steve2

  Personal blogs are not always helpful ways to comprehend authors' reasoning and lines of argument. Ditto this woman's blog which weaves a long-winded story of sorts out of the flimsiest of information.
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  Pistoff

  Steve2:

  It wasn't the blog I read, it was an excerpt of the book.

  It was very insulting to anyone who disagreed with them, and reached conclusions that were suspect.

  For example, these authors dispute the idea that Russell based his ideas on Adventism, or Millerism, because they could find little about his association with them in documents.

  It seemed to me when I read the excerpt that they ignored the content of his writings as a basis for thinking he was influenced by those 2 movements and focused on documents around his active association with the groups themselves.

  It seemed flimsy and unprofessional.

  Just my opinion.
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  steve2

  Thanks for the clarification Pistoff. I agree with you. Russell's time with the "Second Adventists" is well supported in Russell's own writings - and has never been disputed by Watchtower writers across the decades. I am sure that his "reasoning" around the 1914 doctrine was to some extent based on the Adventist's 1844 doctrine.
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  Old Goat

  I think you're misled by a short excerpt. They document Russell’s Adventist associations in ways that are much clearer than anyone else I’ve seen. The information about Russell and Wendell is detailed, clear and documented. They give the most detailed biographies of Storrs and Stetson I've ever seen. They show both Storrs and Stetson as out of the Advent Movement by the time Russell met them. But they tell you about his other connections from which most of his doctrine is drawn. As a retired history professor, I can tell you this is good work.

  You seem determined to maintain a largely failed assertion about the origins of Russell’s theology. Do you see being an Adventist as some sort of pejorative? Are you so invested in a story that is incomplete and misleading? Do you think that the work of others is beyond criticism? I don't. I read Zydeck's book with great disappointment. He makes things up. There are others out there, new and old that do the same. It's time for solid history. Their books give us that.

  Schulz and de Vienne’s work is detailed and accurate. Those who have read this book (Separate Identity), including myself, have posted stellar reviews here and elsewhere. And unlike you, we actually read the book.

  Dr. de Vienne’s personal blog, from which I pasted this material is not meant to be a history blog. Their history blog is at http://truthhistory.blogspot.com/ .

  As for Russell’s 1914 Doctrine, there is nothing “Adventist” in it. If you had read their first book, Nelson Barbour: The Millennium’s Forgotten Prophet, or merely searched on the internet, you’d have found that it came from an American Congregationalist clergyman and an Anglican, E. B. Elliott.

  Part of the problem here is that many on this and other discussion boards are more comfortable with myth than solid research.
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  Old Goat

  A parting thought: Which of Russell's doctrines were exclusively Adventist? Can you name them?
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  steve2

  Old Goat, I take my hat off to your assessment of Schulz's and de Vienne's work - perhaps your words were directed at Pistoff. If so, I'll gladly let you discuss the points you raised with him. Regarding the influence of Second Adventist beliefs on Russell, the ones that stand out include the Pastorship of the Second Adventist churches (in contrast to the inflated ranks and roles of Christendom's clergy), the identification of the Papacy as the harlot of Revelation, the denial of a literal hellfire, the establishment of a central set of teachings around the Second Coming (hence the name Second Adventists). I stand corrected on the comments I made about 1844 and 1914 - I had assumed they were linked (ouch).
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  Old Goat

  Steve,

  None of those doctrines are unique to Adventism and were borrowed from British Literalist belief. Literalism in America was most often called Age to Come belief. Identification of the Pope as antichrist goes back to the middle ages when even some Catholic clergy said that. You may want to read Froom's Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers. He was an SDA historian, and his view is colored by their theology. However he does reasonably document his work.

  Similarly, denial of a literal hell has an ages long history. The doctrine was resisted by Miller and Hale and other Millerite leaders and came to them primarily from Storrs who adopted Conditional Immortality doctrine while a Methodist. It is not and was not an exclusively Adventist doctrine.

  European Literalists were prophetic students. They believed that the Bible should be taken at face value unless it clearly said a symbol was in play. German, Dutch and English scholars adopted that approach in the early 1600s. Literalism was at odds with Adventism. Adventists eventually expelled anyone who taught Age to Come theology. Age to Come theology was Russell’s base belief.

  Schulz and de Vienne take you back to Storrs' original words to show what he believed, what Adventism was, and how he and others differed from it. Russell believed the Jews would return to favor. That's not adventism, but it is age to come belief. He believed in a sort of second probation. That's not adventism, but it is a belief found among age to come systems. Russell believed the earth would endure and be restored. That's not Adventism. That is One Faith/Literalist. The list could be prolonged.

  Storrs' view of Adventists was this:

  Whatever the “church” or ‘the world’ may understand by Millerism, I understand it to have three peculiarities, and nothing more: viz. “Definite time for the advent,” …. That view I gave up in the winter of ’44 and ’45; and time has since demonstrated that I was right in so doing. The two other peculiarities of Millerism I gave up, one in the month of Feb. ’44, and the other in June ’45. The three may be summed up thus, 1. “Definite time for the advent, not to go beyond ’47.” 2, “No return of the literal posterity of Jacob to the land wherein their fathers have dwelt.” 3, “The earth all to be melted at the time of the advent, and none of its inhabitants left upon it.”

  These three points constitute the whole of what I call Millerism. … The second personal advent of Christ – that advent premillennial – nigh, even at the door – the kingdom of God on earth, or the earth the inheritance of the saints – the earth renewed, Paradise restored, and all those kindred doctrines relating to the kingdom of God, are no part nor parcel of Millerism: They had a distinct existence from his theory, and before his views were published to the world. The fact that some who embraced his theory had no knowledge that these other points had been published, by English Literalists, years before they heard from Mr. Miller, does not make them really any part of his peculiarities: they are not, and never were, any of his peculiar views. … The three points I have named are all that constitutes the peculiarities of Millerism.

  Storrs was correct. Anything beyond these points was borrowed from the theology of mainstream Christianity.