Focus on Charles Taze Russell

One has posted in another forum that if it had not been for Charles Taze Russell, then there would never have been any “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. From this, the thought is that Russell is therefore responsible for the creation of the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” organization. It is further claimed that both the teachings of Rutherford and Russell are both flawed, and that we should not follow men.

Rutherford, in fact, rejected the core teachings of Russell, and replaced them with his own teachings. Rutherford, not Russell, was the one who set up an authoritative organization. Rutherford realized that the core teaching of the “ransom for all” would not be an effective doctrine to sustain an organization such as he envisioned, and thus he dropped that teaching to make it a ransom for some, but not all; indeed, Rutherford almost fully reversed the “ransom for all”, since he was consigning nearly everyone who disagreed with him to the “second death”, something that Russell never did.

The fact that Russell and his associates started the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society does not mean that Russell was responsible for what happened afterwards, anymore than Jesus, in instituting his church can be held responsible for others who came after to him who sought to lord it over the church, and sought to kill others who disagreed with them.

We agree that all the teachings of men are flawed in some way. Russell never claim, and even denied, that his works were infallible. That should not deter us from seeking to come as close to the truth as possible. We, too, follow only Jesus Christ, while at the same time we do recognize that Jesus has used many men to produce written works that are invaluable as an aid to understanding the scriptures.

Likewise, we should follow Russell only in that he has shown us things in the scriptures concerning the ransom for all (and other things) that we would probably never realized was there. Thus we follow him, only in that he leads us to Christ and God.

We do not believe that a “truth” Bible Student should exalt the writings of Russell, or any other man, over the scriptures. Once one exalts the works of Russell or any other man above the Bible, to that extent he fails in being fully a true Bible Student.

Here is a poem that Russell published in the Watch Tower:
http://ctr.reslight.net/?p=66

For more information on Charles Taze Russell, see:

http://ctr.reslight.net/