Focus on Charles Taze Russell

This is in reply to a video that appears on YouTube entitled “Charles Taze Russell founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses was a Mason”.  Our replies on YouTube never seem to appear, so we are responding here.

We have already shown many times that Russell was not the founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses, nor did he ever believe in such an authoritarian organization. Although the video is directed toward “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Russell himself was never a member of that organization, nor were his teachings the same as that organization.

See:
http://tinyurl.com/rl-russellfounder

Is Charles Taze Russell’s tomb a pyramid?

One has responded to our finding that  Russell was not the founder of the JWs, and several assertions have been made that are misleading, to say the least.

The claim is evidently that since Russell was the principal founder of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, and since the JWs are now using that legal entity as their “legal instrument”, that this is supposed to mean that Charles Taze Russell was actually the founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization. Of course, in reality, the legal instrument as Russell envisioned it, was not designed to be the legal instrument of an organization such as the “Jehovah’s Witnesses.” As he designed the Society, it was a legal entity for coordinating communication amongst the Bible Students and as  a service organization.

This is in response to some claims being made at:

http://jwfaq.blogspot.com/2009/03/was-charles-taze-russell-founder-of.html

It is being claimed that Charles Taze Russell was “the founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” under the heading, “Jehovah’s Witnesses: False Religion.” In truth, Charles Taze Russell was not the founder of the religion known as “Jehovah’s Witnesses.” He did not believe in such an organization, nor the teachings of this religion. He was certainly not the founder of that which he did not believe in.

http://rlctr.blogspot.com/2008/03/was-russell-founder-of-jehovahs.html
http://ctr.reslight.net/?p=65

Russell himself never thought of himself as the “founder” of any religion; he claimed Christ as the founder of the religion that he believed in, that is, Biblical Christianity.

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.