Charles Taze Russell, The Jehovah's Witnesses, One World Government & The Last Days

There was a video on YouTube entitled "Charles Taze Russell, The Jehovah's Witnesses, One World Government & The Last Days". Since we first wrote this review, the video has evidently been removed. Since most of the claims made in the video are still being made by others, we decided to keep this review active.

The video presented a lot of imaginative assumptions, and took some statements of Brother Russell out of context, and claimed that Russell was a member of the Freemasons, but it never presented any actual proof that Russell was a member of the Freemasons organization. Actually, those familiar with Brother Russell's works know that he was not in support of the Freemasons, and most definitely was NOT a member of that organization.

The pyramid monument in the Rosemont cemetery was shown in the video, evidently with the desire to leave the impression that it was a Masonic monument, and in some vague manner would prove that Brother Russell was a member of the Freemasons. Of course, in reality, the pyramid monument that used to be in the Rosemont Cemetery has nothing at all to do with the Freemasons.

The video focused on the Masonic Center that is across the street from the Rosemont Cemetery, again, evidently with the thought of leaving the viewer with the impression that there is some connection between the pyramid monument and Russell with that Masonic Center. Actually, the fact that the Freemasons built a Masonic Center across the street from the Rosemont Cemetery in the 1990s (several decades after Russell died) has nothing at all to with Charles Taze Russell. There was no Masonic Center at that location when Russell was buried in the Rosemont Cemetery.

The video spoke of the pyramid monument as though it was Russell's "tomb". Actually, the pyramid monument that Rutherford authorized to be built in the Rosemont Cemetery is not a "tomb". No one is buried in or under that pyramid monument.

See my research:
Is Russell Buried in or Under a Pyramid?

The cross and crown symbol that was on the pyramid monument that Rutherford authorized to built is, of itself, NOT a Knights Templar symbol. That is simply someone's assumptive assertion, which is repeated over and over as though fact.
See my research:
Russell's Cross and Crown Symbolism - Masonic? Rosicrucian?

Russell was not buried in two different places, as implied in the video. The picture of Russell's grave is where he was buried in 1916, and it still where is buried to this day. It is not "an older tomb" of Charles Taze Russell. It is the only place where he was ever buried.
See our related research:
Russell's grave

In the sermon "The Temple of God" from which a section is highlighted in the video, what Russell said is taken out of context with the evident desire to promote the deception in making it appear that Russell was saying that he was a member of the Freemasons organization. No, by his statement, Brother Russell was NOT admitting that he was a member of the Freemasons' organization, but as the context shows, he was speaking of being a mason -- a builder -- for Christ. Brother Russell later made it plain that he had never been a member of the Freemasons' organization when he stated, "I have never been a Mason." The sermon, "The Temple of God", was given in Masonic hall, but it was not given to the Freemasons, but rather to Bible Students who had rented a meeting room from the Masons.
See Russell's sermon:
The Temple of God

A point related to Brother Russell's reference to "Masonic brethren". By noting what he wrote concerning the Freemasons and the Knights Templar, he evidently assumed that all Freemasons are Knights Templar, which is not true. One has to profess belief in Christianity to be a Knights Templar; one has to only claim to believe in a Supreme Being to belong to the Freemasons. Thus, one can be a Freemason without claiming to be Christian. Indeed, to be a member of the Knights Templar, one has to accept man's trinitarian creeds. Russell, however, rejected the idea of adding the trinity doctrine to the Bible. 
See my resource page regarding:
Russell and the Freemasons

At any rate, Brother Russell (unlike the JWs) did not claim that the Bible Students are the "the only true church" or "religion". Russell believed that the true church is "composed of consecrated followers of Christ, irrespective of all denominational lines — those who, turning from sin, accept Jesus as their Redeemer, through whom they have forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to the Father–those who have become disciples of Christ, taking up their cross to follow him, and who have received the begetting of the holy Spirit." (1910 International Bible Students Convention Report, page 79) Thus, he could refer to Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, etc., as well as Freemasons who profess to be Christian as "brethren". At other times, he also spoke of himself as being a Baptist, a Methodist, as Catholic, without meaning that he was a member of those denominations. Similarly, he spoke of himself as being a Mason, not meaning that he was a member of the Freemasons' organization, but as being a mason for Christ.

See links to our research related to:
Russell's View of the True Church

Charles Taze Russell was never a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses; he was a non-sectarian who did not believe in the authoritarianism that the JW leadershp claims. Russell did not believe that he, or anyone else, could scripturally claim authority over the church. He preached against the kind of organization that Rutherford later created.

See our research related to:
Russell on Authority and Organization

The JWs teach a message that is almost the very opposite of the good news of great joy that will be for all the people that Russell spent most of his life proclaiming. The Bible Students today still proclaim this good news of great joy that will be for all the people, while the JWs have rejected that message and replaced it with a message that basically states, "Join our organization or else you and your children may be eternally destroyed" in their conception of Armageddon.
See my resource page regarding:
Russell Versus the Jehovah's Witnesses