Focus on Charles Taze Russell

Often many make the claim that Russell was the founder of the JWs, and confuse the JWs organization stance as the only true church with Russell. Russell did not believe an earthly “Jehovah’s organization,” as Rutherford and the JWs speak of. In truth Charles Taze Russell was not the founder of the JWs, nor did he believe in such an authoritative organization as the JWs. Russell believed that one can be saved by grace by faith in the blood of Jesus, regardless of denominational affiliation. Russell stated: “the Lord in Heaven records as members of His true Church all the saintly — whether Roman Catholics, Anglican Catholics, Greek Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc. — and none others…. Do we not see that a part of our mistake was in calling the outward organization the Church of Christ, instead of remembering that the Lord alone writes the names of the Church, that He alone reads the hearts, that He alone is the Judge, and that He alone has the right to blot out the names of those who become reprobates? … We must see that the Church is a comparatively small company of saintly footstep followers of Jesus, irrespective of sectarian lines.” And Russell stated: “all who are worshiping any church organization should be warned. See thou do it not.’ These are thy fellow servants. ‘Worship God.’ `Rev. 22:9`.” He further stated: “so far as the true Church is concerned, the only authority in it is the Lord, the Head of the Church, and his Word, and the words of those whom he specially chose to be his mouth-pieces, the apostles.” And, “we believe that in every nation and denomination there are some true saints of God, members therefore of the true Church of God.”

The Internet is filled with misinformation, misquotes, quotes out of context, false accusations, insinuations, and outright falsehoods about Charles Taze Russell. One website that quotes various religious leaders under the heading: ALL OR NOTHING STATEMENTS (from those that have “the truth”). Some other sites have the same material: [1][2][3][4][5] It becomes clear from many of the quotes given that by saying “all or nothing” the editor of the page means that the one being quoted is supposedly claiming that he or she is to be considered the only channel being used by God to communicate with men. Russell never made such a claim.

Someone has just posted a page on a website directed toward “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” but which in reality is mostly concerning Charles Taze Russell. First, let us say that we have studied the works of Charles Russell very extensively for over forty years. (We are not with the JWs; we consider ourselves as associated with the Bible Students).

We have to state first that most of what is presented by the writer is from somebody’s imaginative mind.

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?

As a corroboration of the Bible, Charles Taze Russell made a few references to the Great Pyramid of Egypt. It was his belief that Yahweh (Jehovah) had this pyramid built, and that the passages therein correspond to various features of the divine plan as revealed in the Bible. Many have sought to misrepresent his use of the pyramid in this manner, and thus, we address some of the misconceptions being spread about this matter.

We will make some quotes from various sites on the web concerning Russell and the Great Pyramid, and show how these sites are misrepresenting Russell.

The statement has appeared in several forums that Charles Taze Russell claimed direct revelation from God. (I suspect that this statement might be found also on several sites, but so far I haven’t found a site that directly states that Russell made this claim, but some sites put Russell in the category of others who claimed to be prophets and receiving direct revelation from God.) However, did Russell ever make such a claim? Did Russell claim to be a prophet?