Poztate posted:
It’s been a good while since the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Brooklyn-headquartered Christian Restorationist denomination best known for eschewing holidays, rejecting blood transfusions and prolific doorbell-ringing activities, have unleashed an official Armageddon prediction. For a while there, particularly before the turn of the 20th century, forecasting the Second Coming of Christ was the Watchtower Society’s real bread and butter (the legal and administrative arm of Jehovah’s Witnesses seems more preoccupied with real estate transactions these days). Since its formation in the 1870s by minister and self-proclaimed “God’s mouthpiece” Charles Taze Russell, the Watchtower Society has fingered — and then revised — several specific Second Coming-centric predictions: 1878 (revised to 1881), 1914, 1918 and 1925. The most recent failed prediction came in 1975, a year, yet again, believed to be the beginning of Christ’s millennial reign. Starting in the late '60s and leading up to 1975, the church was mobilized by the “apparent” Armageddon (later cautiously downgraded to a mere “possibility”). Proselytizing activities increased, membership grew and many Witnesses went into full-on end days prep mode by selling property, cashing in insurance policies, etc. When 1975 came and went without incident, church leaders entered a serious period of denial, blame and regret (guess that’s what happens when you prophesize the end of the world and it doesn’t happen), initially claiming that the creation dates of Adam and Eve had been miscalculated resulting in prophetic error. Whoops.
Lest anyone be confused by all of the above, Charles Taze Russell was never a member of the JWs, nor did he ever seek to forbid anyone from celebrating holidays or blood transfusions. A comparatively few (called colportuers) of the Bible Students went door-to-door selling Studies in the Scriptures; there were many thousands (called volunteers) of Bible Students who distributed free literature door-to-door (usually without knocking at the door) or on sidewalks, etc. In that time, however, there did not exist the coercive methods of the JWs, who claim that such work is needed for salvation, being saved from eternal destruction in Armageddon, etc.
Russell was one of the main founders of the original Watch Tower Society; that Society, has he had intended for it to be, however, was virtually destroyed within a few weeks after his death.
The Watch Tower Society (which did not come into existence until 1881) in the days of Russell never made any prediction at all concerning Christ's "Second Coming". Nor did Russell himself ever make any prediction at all concerning Christ's Second Coming. In 1876, about two years after 1874, Russell accepted Barbour's conclusion that Christ had already returned in 1874, and Russell held to that belief until he died in 1916. Russell never said anything about Christ returning in 1878, 1881, 1914, or 1918. Russell rejected the idea that the year 1925 held any significance.
Russell did believe that he and all Christians (irrespective of denominational ties) are mouthpieces of God; he was not claiming any infallibility on his part nor on the part of Christians in general when made such statements. He never claimed to be the sole mouthpiece of God.
"The church" from Russell's standpoint, "is composed of consecrated followers of Christ irrespective of all denominational lines." (What Pastor Russell Wrote For The Overland Monthly, page 187).
http://www.mostholyfaith.com/bible/OverlandMonthly/overland.asp?xRef=OV187
"The Lord in Heaven records as members of His true Church all the saintly-whether Roman Catholics, Anglican Catholics, Greek Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, or Presbyterians, etc.-and none others.... We must see that the Church is a comparatively small company of Jesus' footstep followers, irrespective of sectarian lines."
http://rlctr.blogspot.com/2008/09/xf01-catholic-church.html
