A secular biography of Russell said he had private tutors beyond 7th Grade. You fail to understand that he was educated under the now defunct "Common School" system which expected work from 7th graders that many of today's Jr. College students could not do. Uncle B wrote (Separate Identity, vol 1, p 29-30):
The YMCA gave him the opportunity to “do some good.” The YMCA was not the social club it is today. It existed to rescue sinners and to promote Christian work. He joined the Association in 1865 or 1866. The Pittsburgh Association was originally founded in 1854 but had become moribund. It was reorganized in 1865 and became a social force in the two cities. The Association offered evening classes in Commercial Law, Public Speaking and Parliamentary Law, Engineering Mathematics, Arithmetic, Working Mathematics, Electricity, Metallurgy, Chemistry, Architectural Drawing, Mechanical Drawing, Freehand Drawing and Designing, French, Spanish, German, Italian, English, and Spelling, Vocal Music, Bookkeeping, Stenography and Penmanship. To us this strongly suggests what Russell meant when he said he was educated by “private tutors.”
Ordination among Baptists and other denominations in the mid 19th Century through the 1930s was by congregation election that differed in no respect and required no more theological training than Russell had. When his opposers put pastor in quotes, it meant no more than that they did not recognize his ordination. But the Methodist ministry would not recognize a Lutheran's ordination either.
Russell debated E. L. Eaton in 1903. In the press he was called Dr. Eaton. In fact, though he was ordained a Methodist clergyman he had never graduated from a seminary, attending one briefly. His so called doctorate was an honorary degree. He had no more training than did Russell. There is way too much fakery and not enough history in this discussion.
A major logic flaw is attacking the man when you cannot attack his teaching. Stop it.
In Separate Identity vol 2, uncle B wrote:
In a footnote [Chapter 1; note 3] he [Rogerson] wrote: “The title ‘Pastor’ was purely honorary as far as Russell was concerned, he never graduated from any theological school.” [Comma fault is his.] This is a commonly made claim, and indeed Russell was not educated in any theological school.
In the United States it was common for ordination to be by congregation election. Many ‘Pastors’ especially among Methodists and Baptists were marginally educated, called to preach by licensure and election rather than by graduation from a religious college, some of which met no real academic standard. While this was changing, especially among Methodists, this practice persisted into the 20th Century. Distinguishing between Russell’s election as pastor by Bible Student congregations and a country Baptist’s ordination by the same means is stupid. Someone suggested to us that ‘ordination’ implied a ceremony, and since he knew of no ceremony in Russell’s case he was not ‘ordained’ in any sense. I suggest that formal election as pastor is a ceremony.
In 1913 a survey of Indiana churches done by the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions found that “thirty seven per cent of the ministers have had no more than a common school [i.e.: a seventh grade] education.”49 Liston Pope’s analysis of clergy education in Gastonia County, North Carolina, illustrates my point:
The policy of the Baptist churches has been even less exacting. The denomination has never erected an educational requirement for its ministers, or maintained an informal standard, or insisted on a course of study. In 1869-70 there were only two college graduates in the Baptist Association which included most of the churches in Gaston County. In 1903 few Baptist preachers in the county had even a high school education and college men were almost unknown. The tendency in more recent years has been to give preference to better-educated men, but only 56 per cent of them at present have college degrees and only 18 per cent have completed a seminary course.
The newer sects in the county are led by ministers almost wholly uneducated. Several of them find it necessary to have some more literate person read the Scriptures in their services. Others did not go beyond the fourth or fifth grade in the public schools; none have college degrees. Most of them are on sabbatical leave from jobs in cotton mills. There are no established educational requirements for preachers in the sects with which they are affiliated, though there are trends in that direction. As compared with Presbyterian and Lutheran standards, Methodist demands have been relatively low. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, did not establish a college degree as a prerequisite to ordination until 1934, and it was possible until 1940 to circumvent this requirement. Less than half of its preachers in Gaston County at present have had seminary training; most of them now have college degrees, but several older men, representative of past standards, have only a high school education or less.
We can add that the Mennonites did not establish a theological seminary until 1912, and with the exception of two men, none of their clergy had graduated from college, and most of them had no more than a “grade school education” which was “about normal.” Criticizing Russell for what was common among several denominations is pure hypocrisy. Bible Students saw Russell as ordained. Prentis Gerdon Gloystein [January 6, 1887 – April 19, 1956], writing to The Twin Falls, Idaho, Times, described Russell as the “duly elected-ordained pastor” of several Bible Student congregations including the largest of these. Gloystein wrote as one “intimately acquainted with Pastor Russell, having lived for a number of years in his home town ... besides being an associate worker with him at his present headquarters in Brooklyn, N. Y.”
This is footnoted to sources in Separate Identity. Read it and learn something. Some months ago a troll who haunts this board questioned Bruce's education. You might note that he is an Fellow of the Royal Historical Society [London] which speaks both to his education and to his standing among other historians.
