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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

New Project

I've started a new project while I'm waiting to hear from a literary agent and from a unversity press on the Barbour biography. For now, I'll leave the Barbour material up, though it represents a much older and incomplete version of my research.

My new project traces the history of those associated with Zion's Watch Tower from 1879 to 1887. Almost none of this story has ever been told, at least not in anything like a complete way.

Here is chapter 1 of the new project. Cite this material as: B. W. Schulz: The Development of Ecclesia Among Readers of Zion's Watch Tower: 1878-1887. Retrieved from TruthHistory.Blogspot.com

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your blog. I'm enjoying it a lot.
It seems there's some text truncated about Sunderlin.

B. W. Schulz said...

There is missing text. I don't know why it went astray. It simply tells in what issue of Zion's Watch Tower Sunderlin's first letter/article appears.

Anonymous said...

In March 1876, Paton was in Allegheny to meet Charles Taze Russell, who was newly interested in their message. Russell arranged for him to address the small independent congregation in Allegheny with which he associated and for which he acted as pastor. Russell later would say that he had never been an Adventist; he certainly meant that in a formal sense. He never joined an Adventist body. But he believed Adventist doctrine, and the Allegheny congregation can fairly be described as Second Adventist in outlook though independent from any of the organized Adventist bodies.
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Very good research. I hope that you will at some point explore what connection Russell's congregation had to the Advent Christian Church or Church of God of Allegheny/Pittsburgh whose meeting notices appeared in the World's Crisis and Advent Christian Times. Also the preachers that were listed: Jonas Wendell, George Stetson, J.T. Ongley, G.D. Clowes.
From letters to the Watch Tower, it appears that some, if not many, of the early Watch Tower readers were Adventists, and that churches visited by Russell/Paton were places that had an Adventist church, that papers/magazines referred to were Adventist, that doctrinal controversies with Paton's paper and other Adventist papers continued through the 1880s, suggesting that there was a common readership.

Anonymous said...

Russell likely used the term "Second Adventist" and "Adventist" as a denominational label to refer to the Advent Christian Church, but the word "Adventist" can be used for anything coming out of the Miller Movement. Russell came to age-to-come views as early as 1869, according to the Appendix to the Covenants book. Russell's congregation held to age-to-come views, which was not officially taught by the Advent Christian Church. However, in many places, the Advent Christians and age-to-come Adventists were able to meet together based on other common interests, and tolerated these differences. Russell's congregation might have been the same congregation listed in the World's Crisis, or a subgroup within that church, which split off at some point.
Any believers in Jonas Wendell's 1873 time proofs in the Pittsburgh area, as a result of Wendell's preaching in the area, might have formed part of the nucleus for Russell's later group.

Anonymous said...

I have some material connecting Joseph Lytel Russell (CTR's Father) with the Advent Christian Church, and also George Storrs Life and Advent Union from the mid-1870s. How do I send this to you?