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Charles Taze Russell, a prolific writer and founder of the Bible Student movement, viewed himself as a "mouthpiece" of God and later as the embodiment of the "faithful and wise servant" of the parable of Matthew 24:45-47. [3] The Watch Tower Society is now the legal and administrative arm of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Charles Taze Russell was born to Scotch-Irish parents, [8] immigrant Joseph Lytle/Lytel / ˈ l ɪ t əl / Russell and Ann Eliza Birney, on February 16, 1852, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Russell was the second of five children, of whom two survived into adulthood. His mother died when he was nine years old. [9]
Charles Taze Russell, the first president of the Watch Tower Society, calculated 1874 as the year of Christ's Second Coming, and taught that Christ was invisibly present and ruling from the heavens since that year.
Russell taught that the fall of the "world empire of false religion" had taken place in 1878 and predicted "Babylon's" complete destruction in 1914. [291] The Society claimed in 1917 that religion's final destruction would take place in 1918, explaining that God would destroy churches "wholesale" and that "Christendom shall go down as a system ...
The eschatology of Jehovah's Witnesses is central to their religious beliefs. They believe that Jesus Christ has been ruling in heaven as king since 1914, a date they believe was prophesied in Scripture, and that after that time a period of cleansing occurred, resulting in God's selection of the Bible Students associated with Charles Taze Russell to be his people in 1919.
The beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses are based on the Bible teachings of Charles Taze Russell—founder of the Bible Student movement—and successive presidents of the Watch Tower Society, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, and Nathan Homer Knorr.
Charles Taze Russell: This Christian minister predicted the return of Jesus to occur in 1874, and after this date reinterpreted the prediction to say that Jesus had indeed returned in invisible form. [90] [91] 1881 Mother Shipton (attrib.)
A dispute developed in 1917 within the leadership of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society following the death of society president Charles Taze Russell and the election of legal counsel Joseph Franklin Rutherford as his successor. An acrimonious battle ensued between Rutherford and four of the society's seven directors, who accused him of ...