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Monday, April 30, 2018

This will ... of course ... change

but in the meantime it's here for comments:



Preface One – By R. M. de Vienne

            It’s taken longer to write this volume of Separate Identity than we anticipated, but little of our expectations have held up as we’ve written this and the two previous books. We believed that a second volume would complete our research. It has not done so. There will be, assuming we live long enough to complete it, a third and final volume.
            This volume differs in format from its predecessor. The first volume follows a loose chronological order. Because of its narrow focus primarily on the years 1879 to 1882, this volume is a series of essays each focusing on an aspect of Watch Tower transition into a separate, identifiable belief system. There is a looser chronological order here; and the chapters occasionally overlap each other in subject matter. As before we elected to present this history in as much detail as we can, hoping thereby to take our readers into the spirit of the times. Omission seems to us to be misdirection.
            Volume 3 will focus on the fragmentation that followed 1881. It is partially written, but much hard research remains. And as always, we’re hampered by lack of resources. We have few issues of key magazines. We do not have anything like a complete run of A. P. Adams’ Spirit of the Word. We miss key years of J. H. Paton’s The World’s Hope. A paper published in California exists as a few clippings pasted into a scrapbook. A booklet written by Barbour seems to have been lost. We do not have any of the first issues of Jones’ Day Star. We appreciate help locating things like these.
           Now, let me tell you about volume two. This volume examines the continuing controversy between Russell and Barbour. One writer suggested that it was short lived. It lasted until Barbour’s death in 1905. We tell you the story up to the mid 1880s. It is more complex than most writers appreciate, and in its complexity explains the development of key Watch Tower doctrines, at least one of which persists until today.
            We tell you about the Watch Tower’s principals struggle to preserve the body of believers, to transition Barbourite believers into Watch Tower adherents. We tell you about their earliest missionary journeys, drawing much of this from sources not referenced by anyone else. We introduce you to people mentioned only once or twice in Zion’s Watch Tower but who played an important role in its earliest years. We tell you about the nature of the earliest congregations and fellowships and how they were formed. Again, we draw on first hand experiences not found  in any history of the movement. We tell you about the reaffirmation of old doctrines and the discussions behind that.
            The movement attracted clergy to its ranks. We discuss this in some detail, naming names, telling the story as we could uncover it of several clergy turned Watch Tower believers. In 1881 Russell and a few others organized and provided initial financing for the work. We provide details not found elsewhere, and we correct a widely-spread error. We tell you about the start of the publishing ministry and the development of the Priesthood of All Believers doctrine among Watch Tower adherents. A key event was the printing and circulation of Food for Thinking Christians. Though the Watchtower Society declined to share a key document, offering no explanation as to why a document from 1881-1882 might need to be held in secret, we offer our readers the most complete discussion of this small book's circulation and its effects on readership. With the circulation of Food new workers entered the field. The Watchtower society has ignored these, especially John B. Adamson, in its histories. We do not know why, but we think the reasons multifarious. Adamson and some others among the earliest missionaries left the Watch Tower movement. Watchtower writers tend to ignore the contributions of those who deflected from the movement. It is probably safe to say that much of this history is unknown to Watchtower researchers. It’s not their focus, and they’ve left it unexplored.
            An important part of this era’s story is the spread of Watch Tower doctrine to various ethnic groups within the United States and to other lands. So we tell you about work among foreign language groups in the United States. The Zechs and a Norwegian sea captain are part of this story. We tell you about the early work in Canada, the United Kingdom, China, and other lands. We discuss at length the history of a man mentioned with favor in Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom. His story is far different from what the author of that book presumed. We tell you about the early work in Liberia. [This history appeared first as B. W. Schulz: “Watch Tower Faith in Liberia: A Conflict of Faith and Authority,” Nssuka Journal of History, University of Nigeria, Volume 4, 2017, page 31ff.] Other lands come into this picture. Almost none of this has been published anywhere except in the original documents.
          Eighteen eighty-one was a key year in Watch Tower history. Most of those who mention that year’s events misstate them. We do our best to correct the misdirection and misstatement common among recent writers. We think we provide a more complete picture of the Watch Tower’s earliest years, a more balanced picture than found elsewhere.
          Read Mr. Schulz’ Introductory Essay. It clarifies issues that confuse some writers. It puts Russell and the Watch Tower movement in a historical perspective often misstated or ignored by recent writers. A later chapter takes up attempts by historians and sociologists to place the Watch Tower movement within one of the current theoretical frameworks. We suggest that they ignore key elements of the Watch Tower belief system so that their theories are questionable.
          We have many to thank for their assistance:

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Again ...

It is displeasing to me that I must re-post this. DO NOT LINK TO THIS BLOG THROUGH FACEBOOK. EVER. In the last few days we've had seventeen links through facebook. We're glad you like our blog, or find it interesting enough to link to it, but facebook links are harmful to our other blog visitors, compromising their privacy. AND I SIMPLY DO NOT LIKE THEM. Have enough respect to the blog owners who provide you with this resource to disable the links and refrain from linking through facebook.

Out of Babylon - Temp Post

Personally, I think this merits more than two comments.

Some of this has been posted here before. This is an  updated version with, we think, important additions. This is the working version of a chapter for volume 2 of Separate Identity.

Usual rules apply. You may copy for your personal use but do not share it off the blog. If you do you compromise our copyright and interfere with volume 2. Any observations are welcome, including proof reading comments. If you're serious about proofing this send me an email and I'll send the word version.



3 Out of Babylon

Sociologists especially, but historians too, struggle to place the Watch Tower movement in an easily identifiable niche. The results are usually unsatisfactory. Watch Tower adherents were religious pilgrims, often unsatisfied by their original churches. They were religious seekers, some of whom moved from one small group to another.
The nature of Russell-era congregations is misstated by Biblically illiterate historians and sociologists. Some present adherents as isolated, disenfranchised and alienated from society. John Wigley, considering a cognate group, thought that early 19th Century British Sabbatarians came from among those who felt economically and politically threatened. He saw them as religiously “introverted.”[1] If there is such a thing as religious introversion, it characterizes those who seek New Testament separation from the world; those who would be ‘in the world but separate from it.’ This is a New Testament view of the world, and those who held it – including Watch Tower adherents – sought to maintain Bible standards. It is a mistake to find the roots of belief in a pessimistic world view. Simplistic, economic, or social explanations for belief systems are suspect as are “chiliasm of despair” explanations.
Edward Abrahams asserted that, “Russell used the words ‘alienated,’ ‘isolated,’ and ‘troubled’ to describe his congregations.”[2] Abrahams meant that Watch Tower adherents were disenfranchised and alienated from an evolving social structure. We ask, “Where?” Where did Russell use these terms in this way? Between 1879 and the end of 1916, the word alienated appears in fifty-nine issues of the Watch Tower. Watch Tower writers used it as commentary on Colossians 1:21-23: “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven.” This is not a statement of social alienation, but of the need for reconciliation with God through Jesus.
            The word appears in quotations from other sources, usually as commentary on the alienation of the young from contemporary churches and the Bible. This is not a reference to Watch Tower congregations. Russell never uses the word alienated in the sense meant by Abrahams. Russell said the Church has no part in the world’s social upheavals and essential sinfulness. But the Church has an obligation to uplift, to declare salvation, and to rebuke wrongdoing. Christians are not to approve of the world’s ways. This is not the social alienation that led to the Haymarket affair or the Railroad Insurrection. This is a push for holiness and engagement. 

The remainder of this post has been deleted. I post portions of our work for comment. We seldom get any. I continue to see this blog as largely a waste of time. The lack of comments reinforces this belief.

ZWT and the YMCA



Zion’s Watch Tower soon found a readership outside the obvious Age to Come and Adventist connections. In 1881 it found a regular home in a YMCA library. The cutting below (from the Buffalo Morning Express of April 9, 1881) listed what readers would find in their free reading room. It was an eclectic mix. Any library that included the British satirical publication Punch (or the London Charivari) – one of the few joys I remember from dry history lessons at school – had to accommodate wide tastes of the day. One such taste was Zion’s Watch Tower. Look down the graphic and see it listed in the Monthlies available to all, not just YMCA members.


The dalliance with Zion’s Watch Tower was probably short lived.  Later that year concerns were expressed about the paper, although the reasons given were interesting. It wasn’t doctrine or the herald of Christ’s presence that concerned the YMCA, but rather the paper’s (quote) “opposition to church organization.” From the Buffalo Evening News for October 11, 1882.




Monday, April 16, 2018

Help wanted


To help finish the current project, we need media, especially religious press, mentions of ZWT before 1887. If you have a press database please check because different sites cover different papers. Send either to Rachael or to me. It is far better that something is sent in multiple times than something gets missed because everyone assumes it is already on file. Thanks.

Sunday, April 1, 2018