How Human was Charles Taze Russell?

TerryWalstrom

Pastor Russell's life fascinates me. Why?
Because he seems like a person who never had any fun.
Such a serious face without a smile to be found! I'd guess it was the loss of his doting mother when he was so young. I don't have a feeling for his dad's personality at all.

Was he all business? Was he a fun companion? Did he just go along with anything his son wanted to do? It is all fuzzy how a young man ended up convincing his father to sell the business and invest in End of the World speculation!

Here's another puzzle.

Who was C.T. Russell's best friend? I don't know--do you?

Did he and his friend play jokes on each other? Did they ever get drunk?

Was he always a Nerd? How did he manage to talk a beautiful woman such as Maria into a loveless marriage?

Was it really only a business venture with security for her and a platform for her writing? Did they ever cross the line into passion?

I think--I mean, I guess perhaps these two were really uptight and closed off to carnal expressions. Either that or the marriage was a false pretense on the part of Charlie.

Perhaps he will always remain an enigma. Was he someplace on the Autism scale?

There are still people alive today who will defend him to the bitter end and who maintain a website in his honor. There are persons who believe and teach what Russell believed and taught still walking the Earth and that has to mean something. What--I don't know.

Check out this website for more details than you could possibly imagine.
https://pastorrussell.blogspot.com/

Saename

OneEyedJoe

Such a serious face without a smile to be found!

Well to be fair, smiling for photos did not become customary until well beyond CTR's time.

I think he was just a guy that was, to borrow a phrase, a captive of a concept - that Jesus had returned and the end was near. The difference between him and the average nutjob is he had money to build something. And so he did.

Finkelstein

I think Russell was a bit of lime light seeker who sought to put a public spot light on himself by using amateur bible theology such as Christ's return, using his own literature publications.

He had the money to spur on these personal ambitions, money he accumulated toward the Watchtower Publishing house.

It would be a good and probable assumption that if the WTS was in arrears, Rutherford would have never strived so hard to take over the publishing house and the JWS religion would had never been created.

mann377

Often times when you want to understand someone you need to look at the enviorment that they were exposed to when growing up. The one thing that Russell experienced that had to be big was the civil war, since he was born in 1853. He had to be a teenager toward the end of the war and no doubt had read the accounts of the battles and knew many who had lost loved ones, if not hearing first hand accounts. This had a big influence on all as nothing like this had happened before. Couple this with the industrial revolution and you have a perfect storm of sorts that will make people think and try to find answers for where this world is going. This is one of the reasons people joined groups that had an answer (read Masons). Others came up with answers of their own such as Russsell although he plagiarized most of his writting. Also look at the word usage he used to described thoughts and this will also help you to understand the man. Many people were not just stoic but cynical after the war.

The question: Did he laugh or joke? You bet.....all the way to the bank

Did he play jokes on people? Big time......He started a cult and lead them down a rat hole!

Introvert 2

Oh he had fun alright groping that cute young live in helper behind locked doors in her own room !

TerryWalstrom

Rose Ball.

She was a bit older than most people realize. However, Maria felt betrayed by her husband's conduct toward Rose. When the judicial hearing was convened to decide the matter of mental cruelty in the estrangement of the Russell's, Pastor C.T. Russell sent Rose Ball to Australia! Pretty hard to get a process server down under to summon her to testify, eh wot?

Introvert 2

CYA slippery little rat ! ' I'm like a jellyfish that just floats about here and there' is how he responded to his wife's accusations. I've met many a JW that have this dishonest type personality trait. You should see the look of horror on their faces when I call them on their BS and let them know I've ben researching the WT's history hehe ! Incredible that both Russell and Rutherford be the heads of 'God's Channel of Communication' and be such despicable dishonest cheating husbands.

How Human was Charles Taze Russell?

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