Some,
both inside and outside the Watchtower movement, suggest that Russell’s chronological
system is Adventist. These are the ‘facts’ usually presented, but that’s not
what the record shows. Here is what Russell and his contemporaries tell us:
Russell
was familiar with preaching on prophecies before he met Jonas Wendell, a “Second
Adventist” preacher in 1869. Henry Moore, the pastor of the Plymouth
Congregational Church, the church Russell joined as a lad, was a student of the
prophecies and preached on them. He left behind at least one printed sermon on
the subject. Others within Russell’s early acquaintance in the Calvinist
community also promoted prophetic speculation. Calvinists in Pittsburgh republished
Archibald Mason’s speculations and date setting and remained interested long
after Mason’s predictions failed. Others among non-Adventist millenarians
speculated about the prophetic numbers found in the Bible. American expositors
had done so at least from early in the 18th Century. So Wendell’s
preaching was not totally surprising to him. Wendell’s initial sermons were
summarized in the Pittsburgh newspapers. And on that basis Russell would not be
surprised by their content.
But
what did Russell actually hear from Wendell in 1869? A careful reading of what
Russell wrote on the matter suggests that he was most impressed with Wendell’s
comments on predestination and hell-fire doctrine. Russell does not mention prophetic
content, except in a later reference. But we know what Wendell preached in
1869. Though Wendell started preaching about 1874 early the next year, in 1869
he was pointing to that year as the probable end ‘to all things mundane.’ He
tells us this in a World’s Crisis article. The 1869 speculation derived
from Aaron Kinne, a Congregationalist clergyman who wrote in the 1830s. W. C.
Thruman resurrected it, claiming originality for the ‘research,’ but reading
his Sealed Book Opened, it becomes evident that he borrowed from Kinne. Thurman,
a Brethren clergyman, became the darling of Second Adventists, particularly
Advent Christians, and many of them adopted the 1869 speculation. What Russell
first heard from Wendell was the last gasp of this belief. Then the next year
he heard Wendell’s proofs that 1873 was the end of the age when the world would
be consumed in fire. [I see no need to footnote this. You will find it
explained in detail in the first two books in this series.]
Evidence
suggests Russell’s reaction. By 1871 Russell was reading widely in prophetic
literature. He was introduced to Storrs, Dunn, Smith-Warleigh and a host of other
Age-to-Come non-Adventist writers and to Seiss, a Lutheran, and to Richard
Shimeall, a Presbyterian writer. From them he came to restitution doctrine, the
belief that Christ came to restore paradise to the earth, not burn it up. And
he came to believe in a two-stage, initially invisible parousia. This
meant that speculation about world burning was, in his view, false doctrine. He
writes about regretting the predictions of Wendell and Thurman and others. Who
were the others? He does not say, but someone predicted the end for every year
from 1869 to 2000. Among those who were or became his associates and acquaintances
some pointed to 1874, 1875, 1875, 1877, 1879 and 1881. Some of these
predictions were on questionable basis, even from Russell’s later viewpoints.
Some were based on a faked Mother Shipton prophecy and one on a supposed
measurement from the great pyramid. Though much is made of Russell’s beliefs
regarding the pyramid, he wrote that it was a poor basis for establishing Bible
chronology, that it should only be used to support what can be derived from
scripture. But that’s something said past the period we’re considering and
which we consider later in this volume.
Did
Russell oppose chronological speculation before he met Barbour? It is often
said that he did. What he wrote, however, is that because he believed in an
initially invisible presence, the only way to know when it occurred was through
Bible chronology. In this period his belief was: “It seemed, to say the least,
a reasonable, very reasonable thing, to expect that the Lord would inform his
people on the subject – especially as he had promised that the faithful should
not be left in darkness with the world, and that though the day of the Lord
would come upon all others as a thief in the night (stealthily, unawares), it
should not be so to the watching, earnest saints.”[1]
So it’s
not a reliable chronology he rejected, but Adventist speculation that included
world burning and seemed unreliable. He was looking for a reliable chronological
framework. When he received Barbour’s Herald of the Morning in December
1875 (Not Jan 1876 as usually said) the thought he might have found one. He
also saw that Barbour et. al. had adopted age to come belief, his belief system
and though they might have progressed beyond Adventism into ‘truth’ –
enlightenment. He wrote to Barbour who wrote back that he and Paton had been
Adventists but no longer were – that they had pursued other doctrine. The other
doctrine was age to come, doctrine Russell had learned from Storrs, Stetson and
a variety of others, some of whom he mentions directly and some we can surmise
from available evidence. What made
Barbour’s chronology different was that it was expressed not in Adventist terms
that Russell would reject out of hand but in Age to Come/ Literalist / One
Faith terms that matched Russell’s theology. Russell says this, though most who
have quoted him have missed the import. Describing his introduction to Barbour’s
chronology, he wrote: “It was about January 1876 that my attention was
specially drawn to the subject of prophetic time, as it relates to these doctrines
and hopes.”[2]
The “doctrines
and hopes” to which Russell refers are his Age-to-Come, non-Adventist
expectations of a premillennial advent, initially invisible, and leading to a
restored paradise earth, the blessing of mankind. So Russell accepted a chronology
with which he was familiar having heard it from Wendell. He did not accept it
when expressed in terms of Adventist world-burning theology; he accepted it when
expressed in Age-to-Come terms.[3]
Did
Adventism have an effect on Russell. He says it did, that it helped him to
unlearn certain things we can readily identify as Calvinist predestination and
hell-fire. Did Russell believe he was adopting some form of Adventism by
accepting Barbour’s redefinition of the events of 1873-1874? No. Instead he saw
it as a step forward in his Age-to-Come belief in restored paradise. Should we
see it as an Adventist influence? I think not. Russell did not adopt Adventist
doctrine; the chronology was expressed in Second Adventist terms. The origin of
the 1873-4 date was primarily in Anglican writings. Barbour even acknowledges
this.
[1] C. T. Russell: Harvest Gatherings and Siftings, Zion’s
Watch Tower, May 1890, page 4.
[2] ibid.
[3] As far as I can tell, other than ourselves, no recently
published writers who consider Watchtower history have followed Barbour after
he left Adventism. Barbour left Adventism for Mark Allen’s Church of the
Blessed Hope. Some issues of Allen’s journal, Herald of Truth and
Evangelical Messenger, exist. They are not impossible to find. For the most
recent writers, this facet of Watchtower history does not exist. This is another
example of confirmation bias and lack of curiosity.
