A bit of history ... for you history buffs (page 2)

pistolpete

"Gradually I was led to see that though each of the creeds contained some elements of truth, they were, on the whole, misleading and contradictory of God's Word.

After all these years, it should be obvious to everyone, that it was never really Russell's fault, or for that matter even the Watchtower's fault.

The problem that has led to "a Watchtower Organization" being built, and robbing people of their lives is the continuing Belief that the BIBLE is GOD'S WORD.

This fallacy has continued to mislead, divide, confuse, and enslave people into the idea that GOD is somehow involved in communicating with people by means of a book consisting of weird blood lust accounts, and contradictory STORIES, written by mere men. Why wasn't any woman used to write at least one book? Because it was written by men when humanity was still evolving from a misogynistic, lower class view of women.

The Bible has been used for thousands of years to create all kinds of religions. Some 40,000 sects, groups, and mainstream CHRISTIAN congregations or churches.

Do we really believe that an ALL POWERFUL , WISE and JUST GOD, would tolerate such stupidity if he actually existed and knew this book was the cause of so much division among humanity?

All Russell did was REINTERPRETED, what the Bible meant in HIS IMAGINATION and from there another religious cult out of thousands before it, emerged.

As long as the Bible continues to be looked at as being the "Words" of an ALMIGHTY, ALL POWERFUL, GOD, who has trillions of ways to communicate to his tiny creatures, like through dreams, one on one with everybody, instant voice from the sky, or anything you can think of from an omnipotent Being, you have to mediate and ask the question,

WHY WOULD THIS ALL POWERFUL BEING CHOOSE TO USE A BOOK LIKE THE BIBLE, WHICH HAS BEEN USED AS AN INSTRUMENT TO CONFUSE, TO ENSLAVE, TO MURDER,----INNOCENT PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO KNOW AND LEARN FROM A "SUPPOSED" GOD OF LOVE?

Diogenesister

Wow! I'm guessing the conspiracy theorists will definitely run with the idea that the Watchtower has a long a chain of spirit anointed providing young girls at the proper time

( In bad taste I know😬)

vienne

From Schulz and de Vienne, Separate Identity, vol. one:

When Wendell returned to Pittsburgh in 1872, he was fresh from distressing personal

controversy. An Associated Press dispatch from Erie, Pennsylvania, claimed that Wendell was arrested

in Erie and taken to Edinboro on “a charge of fornication with a girl of 16 named Terry.”99 As printed in

The Utica, New York, Daily Observer, the notice read: “Rev. Jonas Wendell, sixty years of age, has

been arrested and taken to Edinborough (sic), near Erie, Pa., on the charge of improper intimacy with a

girl named Ferry, [sic] aged sixteen years. Wendell secured the girl’s release from the House of Refuge

some time since, and had arranged to run away with her.”100 The Wheeling, West Virginia, Daily

Intelligencer added that their destination was Pittsburgh.101

The report was picked up by several smaller New York State newspapers and by The New York

Daily Tribune. It was the Tribune with its larger circulation that came to Wendell’s notice. On June 2,

1871, he wrote to the Tribune’s editor from Erie, where he still was rather than in jail in Edinboro,

saying: “I have just had my attention called to an article which appeared in The Tribune of May 29,

headed, ‘A Clergyman in Difficulty.’ I pronounce the charge therein made false, and without any

foundation in truth.” An editorial comment on Wendell’s note blamed the Associated Press, which was

prone to manufacturing the news rather than reporting it.102 Wendell’s denial does not say the arrest did

not occur, merely that he was innocent of the charge. Obviously if he has been found culpable, he would

not have been in a position to write to The Tribune.

The report was published by papers as far away as California. The Daily Alta California ran a

report in its May 29, 1871, issue: “Eire, Pa., May 28th - The Rev. Jonas Wendell has been arrested and

brought to Edinboro, in this county, where he resides, on the charge of fornication. He is an Adventist

minister, and about sixty years of age. The alleged partner of his crime is a young girl about sixteen

years of age, named Terrey. [sic] Wendell secured her release from the House of Refuge some time

since. At the time of his arrest he had made arrangements to run away with her to Pittston. The

examination will be held at Edinboro to-morrow evening.”

An Internet-based history site suggests that the girl was taken from the Pittsburgh House of

Refuge. There is no basis for this claim. There were many Houses of Refuge. Most of the residents were

runaways and juvenile offenders. Often enough inmates were orphans who lived on the streets.

The report was false. That's shown by Wendell being elsewhere when this was first published. Also, if anything similar happened, the girl involved was a Terry, a daughter of prominent Second Adventists [Advent Christian or Life and Advent Union] who hosted a large gathering in 1873. Mom's notes suggest that while Terry may have written to Wendell for assistance, it was Terry who picked up his daughter. The rest is fabrication.

Associating a false report about Wendell with Russell's character is false logic.

slimboyfat

I think the more relevant point here is that Russell himself attributed his return to faith to Adventist influence, whereas some would seek to downplay Adventist influence.

joe134cd

Slim- Nearly all the SDA’s I’ve meet, concoct conspiracy theories that CT Russel copied Ellen G White. I hate that.

vienne

Russell wrote in the May 1890 issue of Zion's Watch Tower:

"Though his Scripture exposition was not entirely clear, and though it was very far from what we now rejoice in, it was sufficient, under God, to re-establish my wavering faith in the divine inspiration of the Bible, and to show that the records of the apostles and prophets are indissolubly linked. What I heard sent me to my Bible to study with more zeal and care than ever before, and I shall ever thank the Lord for that leading; for though Adventism helped me to no single truth, it did help me greatly in the unlearning of errors, and thus prepared me for the truth."

My question is: What errors did Adventism help him unlearn. And, if Adventism did not lead him to 'truth' from where did his doctrine come?

JoenB75

It is hardly any news that Russell got his doctrine from a handful of preachers in the Adventists family. View of the soul. Some Adventists were Arian.

vienne

Joen,

Aren't the two doctrines you mention what Russell meant when he wrote "though Adventism helped me to no single truth, it did help me greatly in the unlearning of errors, and thus prepared me for the truth"?

At least Wendell put his mind at rest over hellfire. He may have rejected the trinity via another route; there were non-Trinitarian Congregationalist churches. [Russell wasn't Arian. His approach, especially in regard to Holy Sprit, differed from Arianism.]

But I have some questions about other Russellite doctrines. Russell was accused of Second-Probationism. That's not exactly what he taught, but close enough. Adventists rejected anything resembling Second Probation. So, from where did Russell derive his belief? Not from Adventism in this case.

slimboyfat

Joe, that’s ironic since there’s evidence that Ellen White in fact stole a lot of her material from other people. Her written output was prodigious—amounting to many thousands of pages. I’ve read that even SDA historians have not managed to read it all.

vienne

E. G. White borrowed extensively. One of those she plagiarized was Horace Lorenzo Hastings. "Borrowing" was more common among Adventists of various sorts than among other groups. I do not know why.

One of Russell's first tracts was a rewrite and paraphrase of one by Henry Smith-Warleigh, Anglican rector of Ashchurch, Gloucestershire. Mom and B dissect this in detail in Separate Identity vol 2.

A bit of history ... for you history buffs

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