Jehovahs Witnesses Handbook of Personal Evangelism by Dr. A. Ray Stanford Chapter 15 - Jehovahs Witnesses HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (As a soulwinner, you should be familiar with the history of the various religions and cults even though you would seldom use this information during your presentation of the gospel itself.) CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL, born February 16, 1852, was the founder of the Jehovahs Witnesses although the group was not called by that name during his lifetime. As a young teenager, Russell belonged to the Congregational Church. He believed in and had a great fear of hell, but when he was only seventeen, a skeptic persuaded him that hell was not real. From then on, Russell fought the doctrine with all his might. He conducted a Bible class at the age of eighteen, and when he was twenty, was made pastor of the group. This was the beginning of the cult. Russell set the date for the Lords return as 1874, and he published his first piece of literature that year, entitled The Object and Manner of the Lords Return. Russell had some trouble in court . . . He was sued for divorce in 1903 . . . His sale of miracle wheat which was supposed to be specially blessed was exposed in court . . . He committed perjury on the witness stand when a pastor, J. J. Ross, and he were in court over a pamphlet Ross wrote exposing Russell. Russell died of cystitis in 1916. JUDGE RUTHERFORD -Joseph Franklin Rutherford, born in 1869, was a lawyer member of the cult and defended Russell in his many legal suits. In January, 1917, he was chosen to succeed Russell. During the twenty years he controlled the cult, he wrote approximately 100 books and pamphlets, which were translated into nearly 80 languages with a total distribution of over three hundred million copies. Rutherford let Russells books go out of print, so that today some members of the Jehovahs Witnesses do not even know of Russell and the facts regarding him. After being called Russellism, Millennial Dawnism, and International Bible Students, the cult took on its permanent name in 1931, Jehovahs Witnesses. Rutherford claimed divine sanction of the name from Isaiah 43:10..........to be continued
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 10:59:00 +0000
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