Who founded and named the church Jehovah's Witnesses?

1. 76

   AEvansposted 14 years ago

   Who founded and named the church Jehovah's Witnesses?

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2. 0

   Lynn S. Murphyposted 14 years ago

   The credit is given to Charles Taze Russell as founding the basis of this organization, and after his death Joseph Rutherford took over and in 1931 renamed it from the Watch Tower Society to Jehovah's Witness.

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3. 58

   ResLightposted 13 years ago

   Charles Taze Russell did not believe in, and he even preached against, such authoritarianism as is found in the Jehovah's Witnesses organization, Russell certainly never believed in any human central authority that should rule over the congregations.
   
   Furthermore, Russell preached a message that is almost the opposite of the bad tidings of woe that the majority of human race is to be eternally destroyed in the JW version of "Armageddon". Russell certainly never taught such a message.  Indeed, Russell preached against similar messages being preached in his time.
   
   It is, therefore, not accurate to say that Russell was the founding basis of the organization. Rutherford rejected the Watch Tower Society (a legal entity, not a religious organization) as Russell had intended for it to be and restructured it so as to use it as a basis for the creation of new religious organization with himself as its head. Russell never sought to do such a thing. There was a movement associated with Russell's work (Bible Students), but that movement was not an "organization" in the order that, after Russell died, Rutherford created his "Jehovah's organization" dogma. The word "organization" was rarely ever used as related to the work of the Watch Tower Society in the days of Russell, and never in the manner that Rutherford used that word. The "Bible Students", however, as a whole (represented by the majority), was not renamed "Jehovah's Witnesses". The greater majority of the Bible Students movement did not accept Rutherford's new organization, nor his new gospel connected with his organization dogma. The greater majority of the Bible Students retained the name "Bible Students" and thus, as a whole, the Bible Students movement was not renamed "Jehovah's Witnesses". The Bible Students movement continues to exist to this day, still without any "central authority", and they continue to hold to "glad tidings of great joy that will be to all the people," which was the central message that Russell taught and proclaimed.
   
   The true founder and namer of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization was Joseph Rutherford. Russell did not believe in such an organization, nor the message preached by that organization.

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