by WasOnceBlind 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Interesting, in life, most things come full circle. I truly beleive that we are witnessing the end of the witnesses/org. With this information we learn that the org started with this exact financial situation, and now it will END with the exact same financial situation.
It is almost poetic, and ironic at its best.
@ Beth Sarim...
Morris has my high-school-yearbook vote as "most likely to succeed".
A WTS with Lett in the driver's seat would, however, be the most morbidly entertaining thing we've ever seen.
@ Dunedain...
I do find it interesting that, in light of recent developments, a lot more XJWs seem willing to entertain the notion that the Org is running its last laps.
Did C T Russell misrepresent to his adjoining followers how much financial trouble his organization was in ?
It is noted that Russel had placed much of his money and business holdings under the WTS Corporation , somewhat devised to show in court that he was quite poor " personally " as presented in his divorce proceedings.
As 1915 had rolled along he was starting to regress a little that 1914 was the year that god/Jesus would implement Armageddon as it was proclaimed by him through his theological teachings.
He did teach /proclaim that Jesus came to his throne in 1874 not 1914 like the JWS profess today and a lot of active JWS do not even know that.
The only thing that he probably exploited at the time was 1914 was the year that WW1 started, by 1916 he had died and stressed in his Will that no other publications should be produced or written by the WTS organization which he started and had financial support from W Conley who was actually the first President of the WTS..
Conley left Russell in 1882 and his position as the president of the WTS., taking along his financial support as well.
At around 1916 it would appear that the WTS was on a bit of operational decline , perhaps due to the fact that Russell didn't have anything to add to what he already wanted to set about in preaching or printing.
When Rutherford overtook the WTS. the game changed considerably as to how the WTS was to market its publications from then on in.
Some info some might find interesting .....
Charles Taze Russell was not "THE" founder of the Watch Tower Society. Russell was "A" founder. The FIRST PRESIDENT of Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society was actually a prominent Pittsburgh businessman named William Henry Conley. The Watch Tower Society was actually founded by TWO of Pittsburgh's religious families -- the RUSSELLs and the CONLEYs. There were five original "Bible Students". The three "Russells" were Charles Taze Russell, his sister, Margaret, and probably more importantly at the time, his father, Joseph L. Russell. The other two original "Bible Students" were William Henry Conley and his wife Sarah Conley, who at that time (early-mid 1870s) had an infant daughter. Despite everything that has been published over the past century about the Russells being the "money source" behind the founding of the Watch Tower Society, it was actually William Henry Conley who gave the Watch Tower Society its financial push-start. Henry Conley was co-owner of RITER-CONLEY COMPANY, a prosperous Pittsburgh metal fabrication company which gradually grew over the years into a highly respected WORLDWIDE supplier to the drilling, mining, manufacturing, and marine industries. After Henry Conley's death in 1897, the company was incorporated as Riter-Conley Mfg Co Inc, and was eventually absorbed and re-absorbed into Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The Conley and Russell families' theological foundations came from the then "Second Adventist" movement, which consisted of four or five splinter groups that arose out of the failed Millerite Movement of the 1840s. The Conley and Russell families associated with one of those splinters -- the Advent Christian Church -- during the late 1860s and early 1870s, but due to their acceptance of some of the beliefs of some of the other Second Adventist splinters, the Conley and Russell families eventually started their own group, while trying to maintain good relations with other area Second Adventists. Charles Taze Russell was designated their "pastor", and while he is credited with starting the Watch Tower magazine in July 1879, just as Henry Conley was named the Society's first President when it was founded in 1881, Conley no doubt played a significant, though behind-the-scenes, role in the founding of the group's magazine. However, the Conleys and the Russells parted company theologically sometime around 1882, after Charles Taze Russell accepted a doctrinal position which only a few radicals in the Second Adventist Movement had accepted -- the denial of the Trinity Doctrine. Henry and Sarah Conley gradually withdrew both their financial and personal support of Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society, and when the Society was changed from an "association" to a "corporation" in 1884, the Conleys had totally removed themselves from the picture, although the Conleys tried to remain "friends" with the Russells. The Conleys eventually rejoined Pittsburgh's Presbyterian Community, but retained many of the Second Adventists' beliefs such as the imminent Second Advent of Jesus Christ, and the Second Adventists "time" prophecy interpretations. However, the Conleys rejected Charles Taze Russell's attempts to set exact dates for fulfillment of certain prophecies. By the latter 1880s, Henry and Sarah Conley, while remaining Presbyterians, started using their financial means to help Pittsburgh area members of what would eventually become the Christian and Missionary Alliance. By the mid 1890s, Henry Conley was appointed to the National Board of the CMA in New York. The Conleys even funded a CMA mission in Jerusalem, in addition to several here in the United States. After Henry Conley died in 1897, Sarah Conley used the proceeds from his estate to continue to help the Pittsburgh area CMA affiliates and former affiliates (which had splintered over the years), but Sarah Conley donated the bulk of the estate to the former CMA affiliated couple, the Pridegeons, who used the Conley fortune to found and operate the Pittsburgh Bible Society, which continued until the 1970s.
Yikes, Lett and Morris, cringe worthy to think what may be on their minds.
Herd and Loesch, just two guys who will go with the crowd.
So... 1914, 1975, and now...
x
...third time's the charm?
