Hi Alan,
You wrote:
It was Rutherford who began the series of lies that result in today's distorted history of the time as told by the Watchtower Society.
I should have known that the WT put a post-1914 spin on things. I am surprised to learn of Russell's gloomy picture of things leading up to 1914.
Karen Armstrong's book, The Battle For God comments on premillenialism on pages 137, 138. Russell's beliefs were not unique. Many American Protestants were espousing premillenialism and supposing that the time had come for the ultimate battle between God and Satan. Here is the quote:
"The secular genre of the "future war" which so entranced the people of Europe, did not attract the more religious Americans. Instead, some developed a more consuming interest than ever before in eschatology, dreaming of a Final War between God and Satan, which would bring this evil society to a richly deserved end. The new apocalyptic vision that took root in America during the late nineteenth century is called premillenialism, because it envisaged Christ returning to earth before he established his thousand-year reign. (The older and more optimistic postmillenialism of the Enlightenment, which was still cultivated by liberal Protestants, imagiined human beings inaugurating God's Kingdom by their own efforts: Christ would only return to the earth after the millenium was established.) The new premillenialism was preached in America by the Englishman John Nelson Darby (1800-82), who found few followers in Britain but toured the Unites States to great acclaim six times between 1859 and 1877. His vision could see nothing good in the modern world, which was hurtling to destruction. Instead of becoming more virtuous, as the Enlightenment thinkers had hoped, humanity was becoming so depraved that God would soon be forced to intervene to smash their society, inflicting untold misery on the human race. But out of the fiery ordeal, the faithful Christians would emerge triumphant and enjoy Christ's final victory and glorious Kingdom."
When one finds out this information it removes the mystical aura that seems to surround the WT because their beliefs are by no means unique and by no means original. If the WT under the leadership of Russell, Rutherford, Knorr, etc,. possessed knowledge that no one else had one might make the claim that they were being directed by God. However, the true history concerning premillenialism and the spreading of such doctrine, is not something that the WT Society originated. At the very least, you could claim that the Wt Society were copycats. That would hardly qualify them to being God's chief and sole spokesmen.
By the way, does anyone know if Russell was familiar with Darby's message? Was he influenced at all by that or was it just the prevailing Protestant belief in premillenialism that Russell embraced?
Mr. Shakita
