It's mine to write - Live with it.

My preface as outline draft.

Preface One – By R. M. de Vienne

            It’s taken longer to write this volume of Separate Identity than we anticipated, but as with the two previous books, few of our expectations have stood up under the light of better research. 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 1882. It is more complex than most writers appreciate, and 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 should be kept secret, we offer our readers a full 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.

Acknowledgements

          Before considering some important issues, we have some housekeeping issues. First, we have many to thank for their assistance:

            [continue]

            We have received a steady stream of queries asking if our work is sponsored by the Watchtower Society. It is not. We have corresponded with them from time to time. Lately they have ignored our letters which are, in my opinion not at all inflammatory. [We are, after all, historians, not polemicists.] I herewith reproduce our last letter to them, dated to the end of July 2018, which has to the date of publication gone unanswered. Judge for yourself. Is this letter hurtful? Accusatory? In any way? I cannot explain why it remains unanswered, except to suggest that the Watchtower wishes to control the narrative and finds a detailed history, no matter how neutral, threatening.

[Insert letter here]

Formatting and Grammar

            We have retained the spelling and grammar of those we quote, and we use quotations freely. Much of the source material upon which we’ve relied is not easily accessible or has been misrepresented by other writers. A quotation from the original helps relieve our readers of the task of finding this material. Of course, a really interested researcher will not rely on our quotations if they can find the original, nor should they. So unless you find a note attached to a quotation, presume that the italics and small capitals are as they are in the originals.

            We should note, too, that though we have quoted an author, we may not and sometimes most definitely do not agree with them. Usually this will be plain from context. Occasionally in a footnote we describe a disagreement. Without exception, polemicists from the past are a disagreeable, dishonest, and vulgar bunch. We’ve still quoted from some, but you now know our opinion in the plainest terms. And our opinion is not based on their opposition to Watch Tower theology, especially as expressed in the Russell era, but on a consistent misrepresentation of Watch Tower adherents, misquotation or out of context quotation of original source material, an unwarranted assumption of saintly character by some who are truly disreputable men.

            With volume one of this work we were able to follow a mostly chronological order. Because this volume considers a very narrow year range – mostly the years from 1879 to 1882 – this is not possible. We present you with a series of essays each of which considers an aspect of Watch Tower history. You will find some repetition of points. We’ve tried to limit this, but that it occurs is unavoidable.

My View

            Bruce’s introduction addressed the difference between Age-to-Come and Adventism and more commonly held millennial view quite nicely. I will add only one point, a quotation from Ernest Sandeen’s The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenairanism, 1800-1930. Dr. Sandeen puts to shame those who confound Adventism with mainstream millennial belief, and he does it quite politely:

[insert quotation]

            If you haven’t read B. W. Schulz’ introductory essay, please do so now. I fully agree with what he has written, and I have some thoughts to add to it. A major, in fact the major, problem with most of what is written about the Russell years is a consistent misunderstanding and misrepresentation of American and British religious history. There are probably many reasons for this, but within my experience the two most noticeable are confirmation bias and dependence on secondary sources. These are interdependent. A certain class or writers supposes that because someone with some sort of college degree wrote it, it must be true. This is evident in the tendency to track Russellism back to Adventism only on the basis of what another wrote. Few ask, “What is the evidence and where does it lead?”

            An example of over dependence on secondary sources is found in William Sims Bainbridge’s The Sociology of Religious Movements.[1] After some pages discussing W. Miller, E. G. White and C. T. Russell, Bainbridge observes: “Russell is quite different from either Miller or White. He was not given to visions, but did have a will to dominate that Miller lacked. In the absence of good biographies or access to original documents such as letters, it is hard to get the measure of the man.”

            This tells us far more about Bainbridge’s research than it does about the state of Russell- related research when he wrote. [1997]. He was dependent on Curry and Rogerson, using them in preference to the available Watchtower Society product, Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom, apparently because they had some sort of academic standing that Watchtower writers lack. But even in 1997 neither of their works stood up under close examination. As for Bainbridge’s assertion that researchers lacked material, many thousands of pages of Russell’s writing were easily available. There is no evidence that he read any of it. The fault is not his alone. It was a common one twenty years ago and remains common today. The two most recent books by known scholars that touch on Russell and the movement he fostered suffer from lack of in-depth research into original sources, confirmation bias, and a misunderstanding of American religious history – and of British religious history. So, while they are fairly solid introductions to Watchtower history and Witness culture, they are fundamentally flawed. There is in these works a reliance on myth and superficial research. I am not the only one to confront this issue when considering Millenarian belief systems. James West Davidson noted it, writing: “Few historians even those whose province is religious history, have read the Revelation of John or the many voluminous commentaries written about it by seventeenth and eighteenth century Englishmen.” Our somewhat wider observation is that those writing on our topic have a superficial understanding of the Millenarian experience out of which Russellism came, or, for that matter, the American religious experience. Those more recent writers from the United Kingdom do not seem to understand British Millenarian belief at all.

            Despite claims that they have done so, they have not read what the principal actors in this drama wrote. They meet names of those about which they know little beyond what an online ‘encyclopedia’ may tell them and write as if they knew these characters intimately. Yet, they have not read what the principals wrote. So we read of Storrs, Wendell, Barbour and others, but find their lives, beliefs and history are misstated, taken out of context, and in some cases we find frank fabrication. Imagination replaces solid research. For a historian or sociologist to do this is to perpetrate a fraud on his readers. That they failed to read what these men wrote is self-evident. And it is without excuse. Zion’s Watch Tower; The Bible Examiner; The World’s Crisis; The Restitution; The Herald of the Morning and their American and British predecessors and contemporaries are not impossible to find. If you write about these men and the others that populate Watch Tower history but fail to read what they said, how are you an honest narrator?

            There is an abundance of material available, and some authors have read parts of it. But characteristically those who write Watchtower history don’t make vital connections. Russellism, the Watch Tower movement in the Russell era is a late 19^th Century expression of a fundamental belief system that has its roots in the apostolic era. More specifically, Russell-era Watch Tower theology is an expression of Millenarian belief systems common in Europe from the 16^th Century forward. Do not misconstrue this for an endorsement of Watch Tower theology as expressed in the Russell era. I am only pointing toward the ‘family’ of belief systems to which we can trace it.

[Introduce new section here]

In this short profile, I will take you no further back than the 16^th Century. I will focus on British and American millenarianism. There were similar systems in most of Europe, but Russell’s acquaintance with them was slight. He came to German millenarianism through Seiss, whose references to it are few and indistinct. There were French, Swiss, Polish, Bohemian and Italian believers, but we think Russell knew next to nothing about them.

            Historians differ

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[1]               Routledge, New York, 1997, page 106. Despite my criticism noted above, this is a book that should be read by anyone researching religious history.