Tell them: I am not obligated to meet with you. I did nothing to warrent your counsel. If I need your counsel I will ask for it. You've already decided to believe my mother. This looks like a witch hunt. So, no, I won't meet with you.
Old Goat
JoinedPosts by Old Goat
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46
I am sooo screwed
by Yondaime inso last night i was talking to my sister about how i admired president obama's speech to the u.n that happened earlier that day.. i then compared the extremism of isis to how much of a fanatic my jw bil is.. at the end of the statement , my mom walked in to the kitchen.
she was standing in the living room and she heard everything i said.. she called the elders that night to tell them what i said so they can counsel me.. i'm going to meet with them after the meeting on sunday!.
what do i do?!!!!!.
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Old Books
by Jeannette ini have about 30 old books that i have collected over the years and i don't know what to do with them.
i wouldn't mind getting a little money for them, after all, i did contribute and spend tons of money in car gas.
i have: you may survive armageddon into god's new world; what has religion done for mankind?
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Old Goat
There's a regular market for old Watchtower publications on ebay, but usually for those much older than what you have.
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Brave Ex Elder sues over defamation over fraud claims.
by Slidin Fast inthis looks interesting, this guy is bringing the right to family life into his case.
many have thought of doing this.
maybe a good test case.. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/jehovahs-witness-sues-for-150000-after-church-snubbed-him-over-fraud-claims-9750062.html.
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Old Goat
I hope that both the local elder and the UK branch have to pay ... and more than he's asking.
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The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs
by Maat13 inaccording to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.
as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.
ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.
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Old Goat
Invisible parousia doctrine did not derive from the Advent Christian Church. It came from 17th and 18th century Millennarians. Most adventists rejected the doctrine.
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The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs
by Maat13 inaccording to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.
as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.
ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.
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Old Goat
Setting dates is not unique to Millerism. If you read (and you should) Froom's massive history of millennialist thought, Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, you will find that the practice has an ages long history. Age to Come Believers (Literalists) were as prone to do that as Millerites, and in fact did it before Miller. One example is Aaron Kine, a Congregationalist clergyman, who focused on a date in the 1830s. Another is the German Lutheran expositor Bengel who predicted Christ's return for 1836. Both preceded Miller and did not hold Adventist doctrines. Speculation about dates appears in almost every era.
Millerite evangelists read Literalist works. Any transfer of thought was from Literalists to Adventists, not in the other direction. Millerite Adventists tried to suck Literalists into Adventism.
Joshua V. Himes recalled the attempt in terms that show the exchange as less than pleasant:
The Millennarians [sic] holding these views and looking for the speedy coming of Christ have become very numerous in England, Ireland, and Scotland. Indeed some of the brightest lights of those countries are of that school. In 1840 an attempt was made to open an interchange between the Literalists of England and the Adventists in the United States. But it was soon discovered that they had as little fellowship for our Anti-Judaizing notions as we had for their Judaism, and the interchange was broken off.
Himes defined the difference between Literalist and Adventist belief this way:
The distinction between Adventists and Millennarians, is, – The Millennarians believe in the pre-millennial advent of Christ, and his personal reign for a thousand years before the consummation or end of the present world, and creation of the new heavens and earth, and the descent of the New Jerusalem. While the Adventists believe the end of the world or age, the destruction of the wicked, the dissolution of the earth, the renovation of nature, the descent of New Jerusalem, will be beginning of the thousand years. The Millennarians believe in the return of the Jews, as such, either before, at, or after the advent of Christ, to Palestine, to possess that land a thousand years, while the Adventists believe that all the return of the Jews to that country, will be the return of all the pious Jews who have ever lived, to the inheritance of the new earth, in their resurrection state. When Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with all their natural seed who have been of the faith of Abraham, together with all pious Gentiles, will stand up together, to enjoy an eternal inheritance, instead of possessing Canaan for a thousand years.
The Millennarians believe a part of the heathen world will be left on the earth, to multiply and increase, during the one thousand years, and to be converted and governed by the glorified saints during that period; while the Adventist believe that when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, then he shall be seated on the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from the other, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. He shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left. That one part will go away into everlasting (eternal) punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. They cannot see any probation for any nation, either Jew or Gentile, after the Son of Man comes in his glory, and takes out his own saints from among all nations. They also believe “God will render indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.”
The Millennarians believe that the saints must have mortal men in a state of probation, for a thousand years, as their subject, in order for them to reign as kings; for, say they, how can they reign without subjects? To which the Adventists reply, If it is necessary for them to have such subjects for a thousand years to reign, by the same rule they must have them eternally; for “they shall reign forever and ever.” – Rev. xxii:5.
As you should see, Millennairians (Another term for Literalists) held views Russell shared. Russell did not hold Adventist views. This is from Schulz:
Russell did not read anything Miller wrote. “We have been unable to secure Mr. Miller's writings to compare his Interpretations,” Russell wrote. “We have merely learned the dates at which he applied the prophetic numbers.”[1]He accepted no doctrine unique to Millerism. “We are not endorsing the teachings of Brother Miller,” he wrote. Russell saw Millerism as the starting point of an intense scriptural examination, but the doctrines he pointed to as the favorable result were not at all those of Miller.[2]
Russell made this his connection to Millerism clear in The Time is at Hand. He saw Millerism as a preliminary separating work, part of the fulfillment of the parable of the Foolish and Wise Virgins which he saw as prophetic rather than merely illustrative. Despite any “prophetic” role Millerism may have held Russell rejected the theology:
While, as the reader will have observed, we disagree with Mr. Miller's interpretations and deductions, on almost every point, – viewing the object, as well as the manner and the time, of our Lord's coming, in a very different light, – yet we recognize that movement as being in God's order, and as doing a very important work in the separating, purifying, refining, and thus making ready, of a waiting people prepared for the Lord. And not only did it do a purifying and testing work in its own day, but, by casting reproach upon the study of prophecy and upon the doctrine of the Lord's second advent, it has ever since served to test and prove the consecrated, regardless of any association with Mr. Miller's views and expectations. The very mention of the subject of prophecy, the Lord's coming and the MillennialKingdom, now excites the contempt of the worldly-wise, especially in the nominal church. This was undoubtedly of the Lord's providence, and for a purpose very similar to the sending of the infant Jesus for a time to Nazareth, “that he might be called a Nazarene,” though really born in the honorable city of Bethlehem.
[1] C. T. Russell: Thy Kingdom Come, 1898 edition, page 87.
[2] C. T. Russell: Making Ready for the Reign of Righteousness, The Watch Tower¸ November 1, 1914, page 325.
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38
The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs
by Maat13 inaccording to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.
as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.
ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.
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Old Goat
Barbour read Even-Tide. I don't believe Russell did. He came to Barbourite chronology second hand. We know Barbour read it because of an off-handed comment by Isaac Wellcome. There is no proof - not a paraphrase, a borrowed thought or any other indication - that Russell knew anything about John Aquila Brown.
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Was Charles Russell delusional or just a con artist?
by keyser soze ini've seen him referred to as both on this forum.. did he sincerely believe that he was an inspired prophet whose end-time predictions and biblical interpretations came from god?
or was he just a shrewd businessman who saw a market of disillusioned christians who believed that armageddon was imminent that he could exploit?.
i personally lean toward the latter.. .
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Old Goat
I've read everything Russell wrote. I've read every book (pro and con) about him that I could find. My take is that he believed what he taught. Was he a fruitcake? Yes. Was he extraordinarily so? Not really. If you read the history of other late 19th Century religions you find similar nuttiness. The standard interpretation of the "faithful and wise servant" doctrine in Christendom was that it referred to the special divine choosing of clergymen. This is as much nonsense as Russell's doctrine.
A conversation with Dr. de Vienne (one of the authors of Separate Identity) was eye-opening. She suggested to me that though his doctrine derived from Literalist, age to come belief, his approach mirrored that of Christian Mystics who were willing to see a personal divine choosing for themselves or their leaders. This seems reasonable. It's also insane and unscriptural. (Consider that my comment on the new faithful slave doctrine too.)
He was a true believer willing to be misled by Confirmation Bias.
I recommend reading: Clarke Garrett's Respectable Folly: Millenarians and the French Revolution in France and England. Good background in that book. It was published by Johns Hopkins U. Press. Interlibrary loan should locate it for you.
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38
The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs
by Maat13 inaccording to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.
as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.
ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.
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38
The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs
by Maat13 inaccording to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.
as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.
ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.
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Old Goat
Maat,
Literalist interpretation developed in Europe and the UK in the 17th Century. (There are earlier examples, but that's when it became a well established theology.) It devleoped first in the Netherlands and Germany. British writers adopted it, and it was the principal theological viewpoint from roughly 1600 through the 1870s in the US and England.
In very simplified form, they were millennialists. They looked for Christ's near return. Unlike Millerites, they believed the Bible should be taken literially unless it clearly indicated something was symbolic. So they believed in the restoration of the Jews to divine favor. Some adopted second-probation. Adventists (Millerites) rejected the idea that many would be given "a second chance" to hear the truth and be saved. Those Literalists who adopted second probation said many had never had a chance to hear God's word, and they were in fact not advocating a second chance, but a fair chance at salvation for all.
In America Literalist belief was the standard approach to prophecy. Russell was exposed to it by the two ministers of the Congregational Church he attended. One of them wrote on prophetic themes. Russell never adopted the Adventists' spiritualizing approach, but remained a literalist. It is from that source that most of his doctrines come.
In Schulz' Separate Identity one finds a detailed analysis of Russell's doctrines. Almost none of them are distinctively Adventist. Most were rejected by Adventists, but not by Literialists. In the US most literalists were called "age to come" believers and some (those with whom Russell most clearly identified) called themsleves The One Faith. These centered on the paper The Restitution.
Schulz and Froom (Prophetic Faith of our Fathers) have good discussions of the difference between Adventists and Millinarian One Faith belief.
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38
The Books That Redefined C.T. Russell's Beliefs
by Maat13 inaccording to wt history, as a youth/young man, ct russell was unsatisfied with a number of explanations he was taught about the bible.
as a result he went on a quest to 'study' the bible himself.
ultimately this led to an organization that now requires its members to read bible aids to help them understand the bible.
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Old Goat
Bad typo. That should be 87.
Believe mine is the only one worth considering? No. Believe yours is at all correct. No.
Would I admit reading Miller. Yes. I would. Russell's statement rings true because he could not clearly define what Miller taught.
You've transfered your own behavior type to Russell. You wouldn't admit to it. I suggest that Russell would have. He often told his readers where he found his ideas. He names Thurman, Seiss, Hastings, and many others. He disagreed with many of these, but he tells us he read their work. Thurman was no less a fruitcake than Miller. If he would admit to reading Thurman's Sealed Book Opened, then he would admit to reading Miller if he had. Miller was irrelevant to his theology.