In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Charles Taze Russell was a clergyman of the American Christian Restoration movement. The International Bible Students Association, generally recognized as the precursor to the Jehovah’s Witness organization, was founded by him. He founded the movement that is now known as the Bible Student Movement and is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Bible Student Movement was replaced by a plethora of separate Bible student groups after his passing. With his monthly Christian periodical “Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence,” Charles Russell first gained notoriety. A few years later, he and Pittsburgh-based industrialist and philanthropist Mr. William Henry Conley co-founded Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society. Charles Russell was elected president of this society, which was later officially registered as a corporation. Russell preached a large number of sermons while also penning several articles, booklets, tracts, and pamphlets in the late 19th century. He had printed more than 50,000 pages in all. His six-volume “Studies in the Scriptures” Bible study series, which was originally titled “Millennial Dawn,” was also published. This study series has been published in about twenty million copies worldwide.
Early Childhood & Life
Scottish-Irish parents welcomed Charles Taze Russell into the world on February 16, 1852 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the US. He was the second of Joseph Lytel Russell’s and Ann Eliza Birney’s five children. He was only nine years old when his mother passed away.
Initially residing in Philadelphia, his family then relocated to Pittsburgh. They joined the Presbyterian Church there and became its members. When Charles was a young adolescent, his father, who owned and operated a haberdashery shop, made him a partner.
Charles left the Presbyterian Church when he was thirteen and afterward enrolled in the Congregational Church. He was a devoted Christian who frequently scrawled Bible phrases on city streets and fence posts.
He started to have doubts about Christianity in general when he hit his late teens and even did some research on various other religions because he still had many unresolved issues. He went to a sermon by Adventist minister Jonas Wendell in 1870 when he was 18 years old. After hearing the lecture, he felt sure that the Bible was God’s message, despite the fact that he still had plenty of doubts in his mind.
Career of Charles Taze Russell
By the age of twenty, Charles Taze Russell had already resigned from both the Presbyterian and Congregational churches because he was unable to accept the possibility of an actual, eternal hell despite the omnipotence of God’s benevolence.
He formed a group that pursued a rigorous and broad analytical study of the Bible with the help of his father and a few others. The genesis of Christian theory, belief, and tradition was studied.
They came to the conclusion that the Bible did not actually support several of the established religions’ doctrines, including those regarding the trinity, hellfire, and soul immortality. Some of Russell’s own thoughts were centered on the approaching rapture and the second coming of Christ.
Together with Mr. William Henry Conley, Russell established the Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society in 1881. Conley served as president at the time, and Russell served as secretary and treasurer. Russell released his debut book, a 162-page pamphlet titled “Food for Thinking Christians,” in the same year. Russell was elected president once the society was formally founded in 1884, and the name was later changed to the “Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.”
The society had thousands of local members and adherents from Ohio, Virginia, New England, and other states. Russell was repeatedly chosen as the group’s leader by its members and adherents, who addressed him as “Pastor Russell.”
Several newspapers started to publish Russell’s written sermons as the new century got underway. His writings have been featured in numerous newspapers across America since 1903. Around 15 million readers were thought to be readers in the US and Canada at the time.
According to figures from 1909, Russell’s publications had overtaken other privately produced English-language works in popularity and distribution. His rather heretical beliefs drew a lot of criticism from a number of researchers, pastors, priests, and followers who adhered to the more conventional modes of Bible study, despite the fact that he was quite well-liked with huge groups from many backgrounds.
Russell’s six-volume “Millennial Dawn” series, which was later renamed “Studies in the Scriptures,” was published between 1886 and 1904. Russell worked on the creation of the eight-hour religious video “The Photo-Drama of Creation,” which was split into four sections of two hours each, for a roadshow performance that traveled the world. In 1914, it was made available to the public.
Bigger Works of Charles Taze Russell
Charles Taze Russell is best known for writing the “Studies in the Scriptures” line of books, which were created as resources for Bible study. Over 20 million copies of the study guide were printed and dispersed globally throughout his life due to its enormous popularity. Additionally, the work was translated into numerous languages.
Individual Life of Charles Taze Russell
On March 13, 1879, Charles Russell wed Maria Frances Ackley. They parted ways in 1897 and became divorced in 1908.
In the year 1894, Russell was charged with engaging in immoral behavior with Rose Ball, a much younger woman. The sale of a wheat variety known as “Miracle Wheat,” which he offered for $60 a bushel at the time—a astronomical price for wheat—got him into yet another controversy. His usage of Masonic symbolism sparked additional debate.
Russell’s health started to decline in his final years. During his last tour of the country, he developed cystitis. At the age of 64, he passed away on October 31, 1916, close to Pampa, Texas. In Pittsburgh’s Rosemont United Cemetery, he was laid to rest.
Joseph Franklin Rutherford took over as the Watch Tower Society’s president after him. Many of the Bible study groups experienced conflict and division in the years that followed. A schism was unavoidably brought about; those who supported and remained faithful to Rutherford changed their name to “Jehovah’s Witnesses” in 1931, while numerous other groups left the Society to find their own distinct groupings.
Estimated net worth
The estimated net worth of Charles Taze Russell is about $1 million.