C.T.
Russell, founder of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society
President 1879-1916
C.T. Russell Photo and Movie Gallery
(NEW 8/25/05)
The world was shifting from a somewhat pastoral state into a world war. Expectation among many Christian sects led to speculation about when Christ would return. Disenchantment with the churches and their teachings (Trinity, hellfire, immortal soul) led Russell to conclude that Christ would return invisibly.
C.T. Russell, founder of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society in 1879, believed that he was chosen by the Lord to be a messenger to the churches (Revelation ch. 1-3). His ideas about an invisible return of Christ and a period of times called the Gentile Times were borrowed from several sources. He believed that the time of the end began in 1799, that the world was in a harvest period from 1874 to 1914 (40 years), and that the kingdoms of the world would end in 1914. He believed he and his followers would be taken to heaven at that time, and even waited on the top of the Watchtower building clothed in a white sheet, but nothing happened. Many changes of chronology accompanied his 37 years of writing and aggressive speaking style. The internal passages of the Great Pyramid of Egypt was often used to calculate dates.
Russell was not the FIRST Watchtower president!
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| Russell in 1879 | Watchtower magazine (click to enlarge) |
Bible Students Monthly (click to enlarge) |
older Russell |
C. T. Russell's scandal in the Brooklyn Daily
Eagle 1911
C.T. Russell's Photodrama Tour
C.T. Russell's View of
Masonry and Symbolism
Was Russell a Freemason? in his own
words NEW
C.T. Russell's Biography and Last Will and Testament
Jehovah's Witnesses: An
Adventist and Russellite Offshoot by Ken Raines
Videotapes of the site of Russell's grave: (MPEG format)
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