Gary,
Indeed they worship a "paper god"!
BTW, a while back there was a thread asking if the early jw religion was influenced or connected to the SDA.
I am sure that anything you can contribute to the subject will be of interest.
Thanks
WT Literature . . . . How important is it?
by garybuss 29 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
garybuss
Little Witch, You wrote:
BTW, a while back there was a thread asking if the early jw religion was influenced or connected to the SDA.
They are not only connected the Witnesses came from the Bible Students who came from the Second Adventist movement. Russell writes all about it in his work. The jell point was the work of William Miller. Ellen G White writes about it in her work.
Here as a nice little abstract that I think is pretty accurate.
***
Through the years, Baptists have had the greatest doctrinal variety of all denominations. Doubtless, this has been occasioned by our distinctive of soul liberty that allows every child of God to stand before the Lord on an equal level as each seeks to know the will of God. With no "priest-craft," each believer is to study to show himself approved of the Lord, and this has resulted in Particular and General Baptists as well as many other variations.
In 1833 William Miller, a member of the Baptist church in Low Hampton, New York, was licensed to preach. He had few educational advantages, but he was a diligent student of the Bible and was intrigued by prophecy. He began to preach distinctive doctrines concerning the second coming of Jesus Christ and the end of the world. Unfortunately, Miller?s zeal was greater than his knowledge of the Bible. With the limited library at his disposal, he concluded that the prophecies of Daniel pointed to A.D. 1843 as the year of the Lord?s return (Miller misapplied a prophecy concerning Antiochus Epiphanes, and unjustifiably considered 2,300 days to mean 2,300 years). Miller preached with fervency. During that period many professions of faith were made, because hearers became convinced through the earnestness of Miller?s preaching, his sincerity, and apparent familiarity with the Scriptures. Throughout the northern tier of states from Maine to Michigan, farmers sold their property, dressed in white, and ascended the highest hills in their areas to await the Lord?s return.
When 1843 passed and the Lord had not returned, Miller assumed that he was in error. Through revised calculations, he projected the second coming to be on October 22, 1844. Many who had accepted the original teaching now believed the new teaching. The movement was sorely disappointed when Christ did not return at Miller's appointed time. However, on the following day, October 23, 1844, Mr. Hiram Edson claimed to have a vision which he stated revealed Christ to have moved into the holy of holies of a heavenly sanctuary to begin a new phase of His ministry. Subsequently, Ellen G. White, a former Methodist turned follower of Miller, claimed to be a prophetess and her teachings were accepted as authoritative. In 1863, Mrs. White was central to the founding the Seventh Day Adventist, being considered their prophetess whose writings and alleged visions were held authoritative - somewhat on par with Scripture. Though she had very little education, she wrote, by hand, over 100,000 pages - many still used today by Seventh Day Adventists.
William Miller, however, was no charlatan. He was a sincere believer and loved the Lord. On November 10, 1844, Miller wrote an associate and "expressed sore disappointment at the failure of his prophecy," but added, "I have fixed my mind on another time, and here I mean to stand, until God gives me more light, and that is to-day, and to-day, and to-day, until He comes." It's important to note that Miller repudiated the cult movement that grew from his mis-interpretation of prophecy. He also disassociated himself from the Second Adventism movement, after realizing he had been in error.
Another person affected by Miller's influence was Charles Taze Russell. Charles, with only seven years of schooling, had been troubled by various church doctrines that his old-fashioned Congregationalist parents believed, such as their teachings on hell, and had become a skeptic by age 17. In 1870, long after Miller left the Second Adventist movement, Russel became a pupil of the Second Adventists . Charles Russell became fascinated with two doctrines: (1) A religious denial of hell, and (2) End of the Age prophecies. Russell later founded his own religious movement.
The preaching of William Miller, a Baptist preacher whose lack of training sent him on tangent, eventually gave rise to the "Second Adventist" movement, "Seventh Day Adventist" church, and yes, Charles Russell's "Jehovah Witnesses".
And now you know the rest of the story.
-
garybuss
Here's another link about the SDA connection . . .
One evening Charles chanced upon a meeting of Second Adventists conducted by Jonas Wendel. Second Adventists were date-setting spin-offs from the Millerite movement which crumbled in disarray when predictions of Jesus' second coming failed in 1844. Wendel believed the world would be burned up in 1873. This rekindled Charles' faith. He reasoned:
"All the creeds of Christendom claim to be founded on the Bible and these are conflicting. Isn't it possible that the Bible has been misrepresented?" (3)
Charles next turned to George Storrs (l796-l879. Storrs, a Millerite from 1842 and leader of the sect "The Life and Advent Union", taught Charles for 3 years, 1869-1872. Storrs had been a major originator of Adventist doctrines. He considered the dead unconscious, identified "Babylon" as Christendom, believed in future universal resurrection, etc. (4) These beliefs passed to Charles, hence to Jehovah's Witnesses:
http://www.watchtowerinformationservice.org/russellprophet.htm
-
xjw_b12
Excellant post Gary.
Clearly, the Watch Tower Publishing Corporation's motivation for the distribution of information printed on paper in the form of literature is financial reward. That's the ONLY reason they would copyright the work and refuse to freely distribute it by Internet download.
But if they charged a fee to download it, they would be back to the old tax trap on profits.
But could they not use a payment plan such as "paypal" ? and ask for "donations". Perhaps they are trying to keep control of whose hands their literature gets into, as some of it can be quite incriminating.
-
garybuss
Xjw, I know there is a fair amount of paranoia in the Watch Tower Corporation. Naaaaa, it's not paranoia, it's astute business management. There is someone out to get them. They are aware of this. They have gone WAY out of their way to make a LOT of enemies. Now not all of the enemies are on the outside either.
I think the current restricted distribution policy serves three purposes, 1.) It makes it harder for the casual critic to have access to publications and probably eliminates criticism of the current literature by the casual critic. 2.) It cut costs of distribution. Postage and truck shipping costs have been slashed. I am aware of group members driving to meet their literature shipment at a prearranged drop point, all by donated time and transportation. 3.) The policy gives perceived value to the product by virtue of the scarcity element created by the restriction placed on open distribution.
These are just my thoughts, I could be way out in left field.
Is there anybody reading this who can add to the volunteer distribution system now in use?
Thanks, GaryB -
kls
Gary, i need to know about this Consolation, tell me all you can.
-
garybuss
Kls, You wrote:
Gary, i need to know about this Consolation, tell me all you can.
Are you referring to the consolation meetings? Or Consolation the publication?
I don't see any evidence the two were related, although I think they are. I wish somebody like Jim Penton or Ron Frye or Ray Franz were here to comment. I may not live long enough to run across the verse relating to the meetings again. I tend not to visit books I have already read in a serious way again.
Who was the SDA that posts here? Maybe he remembers the quote. I will do some surface digging. GaryB
-
kls
Gary , anything and all of it .If the is a problem don't bother it is no big deal .I never heard this before and was rather amazed that after all the research i have done i missed this. Thankyou oh great teacher.
-
Odrade
Very interesting subject matter. I did a little research along these lines, did you know the the LDS (since we often pointed fingers at them as JWs) offer all of their publications online for free in HTML and pdf forms? Right on the lds.org site. No hiding, no charging, no "millions served." Maybe because they don't make any deception about commercial ventures, so they are well-financed without having to trick and lie to their flock.
The SDA on the other hand (JWs closest relatives) have many, many books, dailies, magazines, etc, which I'm having a hard time locating from an official source. Seems they have a similar publishing and distribution method to the WTS. Another interesting tidbit: religioustolerance.org says this about the SDA:
As of mid-2000, the Church has about 11 million baptized members, worldwide, who are "of age" and on the "official" roles. The total number of members and adherents is perhaps double that. They have a growth rate of about 11% per year. "Adventists can now be found in 205 of the 229 countries and areas of the world recognized by the United Nations, with 91.6% of membership living outside of North America."
Maybe the WTS should stop bragging, seems they are not doing quite as well as their older brother adventist...
O
-
garybuss
Thanks Odrade, I did a web search on Ellen G White and Consolation and got a bunch of hits but not the one I was looking for. I noticed too that the SDA literature is on the Web and searchable too. Very nice.
I know some SDA members and I would MUCH rather my sons and relatives were SDA's than Witnesses. My real favorite of all the religions is the Catholic religion because of the Catholic people I know and the way the have treated me and my family. If I had a magic wand my relatives would be Catholic if any religion.