Was Charles Taze Russell afvallig?

Charles Taze Russell wordt als de grondlegger van de Ernstige Bijbelonderzoekers (later: Jehovah's Getuigen) gezien.

Als hij nu zou leven, zou hij dan - gelet op onderstaande uitspraken - van afvalligheid beschuldigd worden?





Zion's Watch Tower, 1895, p. 216:

"Beware of "organization." It is wholly un-necessary. The Bible will be the only rules you need. Do not seek to bind other consciences, and do not permit others to bind yours. Believe and obey so far as you can understand God's word today, and so continue to growing in grace and knowledge day by day."

Zion's Watch Tower, 1894, p. 384:

"In view of these facts and also of the nature of the harvest work, and the addition. In fact that each one so gathered is expected to enter into the harvest work as a reaper, and will do so to the extent of his ability and opportunity, it is plain that the forming of a visible organization of such gathered out ones would be out of harmony with the spirit of the divine plan; and, it done, would seem to indicate on the part of the Church a desire to conform to the now popular idea of organization or confederacy. (See Isa. 8:12.) ... While, therefore, we do not esteem a visible organization of the gathered ones to be a part of the Lord's plan in the harvest work, as though we expected as an organization to abide here for another age, we do esteem it to be his will that those that love the Lord should speak often one to another of their common hopes and joys, or trials and perplexities, communing together concerning the precious things of his Word, and so help one another, and not forget the assembling of themselves together as the manner of some is; and so much the more as they see the day approaching. -- Mal. 3: 16; Heb. 10:25."

Zion's Watch Tower, 1893, page 266:

"There is no organization today clothed with such divine authority to imperiously command mankind. There is no organization doing this today; though we are well aware that many of them in theory claim that they ought to be permitted to do so; and many more would like to do so. This was the fatal mistake into which the Church began to fall in the second century; and the effort to realize this false conception culminated in the boastful, imperious counterfeiting of the coming Kingdom in Papacy, which for centuries sought to dominate the world, by claimed "divine authority". This idea more or less pervaded and poisoned the ideas of all the Protestant "clergy" as well; who copying Papacy's false ideas of the Church, claim also that the Church of Christ is now organized, though they now make less boastful claims to "divine authority" to teach and rule mankind in general, that the Papacy does."

Studies In The Scriptures, Volume 3 - "Thy Kingdom Come" / C186 - The Work Of Harvest: By Charles Taze Russell:

"The feeling of uneasiness and insecurity, if not bound by the chains of some sect, is general. It is begotten of the false idea, first promulgated by Papacy, that membership in an earthly organization is essential, pleasing to the Lord and necessary to everlasting life."

The Watchtower van 1 april 1920, pagina 100, 101:

"We would not refuse to treat one as a brother because he did not believe the Society is the Lord’s channel. If others see it in a different way, that is their privilege. There should be full liberty of conscience."