Some Early Watchtower statements on the subject of "organization"
WT. April 1882. "Questions and Answers".
"Question: Please let me know by what name you people call yourselves? What denomination?.
Answer: We are stictly unsectarian.and consequently recognize no sectarian name, believing with Paul, that where one sayeth....I am a Baptist, or I am a Methodist, etc, it is an evidence of CARNALITY, and consequently in opposition to the spirit of Christ......We have no creed or fence to bind us together or to keep others out of our company....We are in fellowship with all Christians in whom we can recognize the spirit of Christ, and especially with those who recognize the Bible as the only standard. We do not require, therefore, that all shall see just as we do in order to be called Christians...."
WT. September 1883. "Christianity versus Churchianity'.
..." Christian worship and church worship are not identical. Vast multitudes cling to some church establishment as a drowning man would cling to a lifeboat. They bow obsequiously to her priestly and official mandates, and imagine that the blind servility which they tender to the church will be accounted acceptable service offered to Christ....Much of the current worship is done by proxy. Lazy religionists surrender their sacred rights to others. They take it for granted that the preacher is on the right track, and readily swallow whatever may be doled out from the pulpit without using their own brains in searching for the hidden treasures of truth. Thus, religious ideas are transmitted from generation to generation , until TRADITION exerts a more powerful influence than the bible in molding the sentiments of men. There comes to be a fashionable faith, as well as a fashionable dress....The verdict of a few leading denominations has thus grown up into a threatening TYRANNY.And the multitudes...bow down in their narrow enslavement and worship the CHURCH"....
WT. September 1888. "Be not entangled again"
..." One of the very deceptive entanglements , which hinders more than all others together, is the prevalent idea that in joining the one church , whose names are written in heaven, we should also join some one of the numerous earthly organizations which each claim to represent that one true church and whose creeds each claim to represent that one faith....The impression is freely given, and is generally recieved, that to fail to become bound to some earthly sect is to fail of membership in the one true church...The innocent soul...is pointed to the doctrines of these sects as taking the place and showing the REAL MEANING of Gods Word.....They suppose that spending time and energy in getting repentant souls, into these sects....this they are deluded into supposing, is working for Jesus"....
WT. December 1888. "The Council at Jerusalem".
"In as much as there was a council at Jerusalem, which council was temporary, for a specific objective...Many Christians now assume Divine warrant for other councils, associations, conferences and assemblies, whose organization shall be self perpetuating, with supervision and control over a number of churches, and whose decisions shall be final.....Let the reader now fix in his memory the fact that the council at Jerusalem was not a body of clergymen, with delegates gathered from different provinces or districts, to decide whether a church should be formed or not...it was simply one local mother church ...answering a pertinent inquiry from a child, another local church.....we shall challenge their assumptions and maintain for ourselves the strict independancy of the local church"...
One has to wonder, in view of Russells vehement loathing of Organization in worship, it is most ironic that the Church he founded is one of the most obsessed with ORGANIZATION on the planet. It speaks of ORGANIZATION endlessly and is most extremely regimented.
Why do you think this occurred ? This Extreme Irony ? Is it a consequence, a reaction of some kind, to Russells loathing of "organization' ?