Charles Taze Russell

This article is about the pastor. For the African-American architect, see Charles Thaddeus Russell.

Charles Taze Russell
Russell in 1911
Born(1852-02-16)February 16, 1852
Allegheny, Pennsylvania, US
DiedOctober 31, 1916(1916-10-31) (aged 64)
Pampa, Texas, US
Occupations
  • Writer
  • pastor
Signature

Charles Taze Russell (February 16, 1852 – October 31, 1916), or Pastor Russell, was an American Adventist minister from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and founder of the Bible Student movement.[1][2] He was an early Christian Zionist.[3]

In July 1879, Russell began publishing a monthly religious magazine, Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. In 1881, he co-founded Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society with William Henry Conley as president. In 1884 the corporation was registered, with Russell as president. Russell wrote many articles, books, tracts, pamphlets and sermons, totaling approximately 50,000 pages. From 1886 to 1904, he published a six-volume Bible study series titled Millennial Dawn, later renamed Studies in the Scriptures, nearly 20 million copies of which were printed and distributed around the world in several languages during his lifetime.[4] (A seventh volume was commissioned by his successor as society president, Joseph Rutherford, and published in 1917.) The Watch Tower Society ceased publication of Russell's writings in 1927,[5] though his books are still published by several independent groups.

After Russell's death, a crisis surrounding Rutherford's leadership of the society culminated in a movement-wide schism. As many as three-quarters of the approximately 50,000[6] Bible Students associated in 1917 had left by 1931. This resulted in the formation of several groups with variations of the name Bible Students. Those who remained associated with the Watch Tower Society adopted the name Jehovah's witnesses in 1931,[7] while those who severed ties with the Society formed their own groups including the Pastoral Bible Institute in 1918, the Laymen's Home Missionary Movement in 1919, and the Dawn Bible Students Association in 1929.

  1. ^ "Russell, Charles Taze". Encyclopædia Britannica. September 22, 2006. Retrieved January 1, 2013.
  2. ^ Parkinson & 1975.
  3. ^ Before Herzl there was Pastor Russell, Haaretz 2018 Aug 22.
  4. ^ Penton, M. James (1997). Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses (2nd ed.). University of Toronto Press. pp. 13–46. ISBN 0-8020-7973-3.
  5. ^ WTB&TS, "God's Kingdom of a Thousand Years Has Approached" (1973) p. 347
  6. ^ The New Schaff–Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Vol. 7. Funk and Wagnalls Co. 1910. p. 374. Retrieved January 1, 2013.
  7. ^ Prior to the April 1, 1976 issue of The Watchtower, "witnesses" was uncapitalized in Watch Tower Society literature when referring to the denomination.