Founding of the Watch Tower Movement
Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society was founded in 1881 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by Charles Taze Russell who served as its founder and chief executive officer for over 45 years. Russell was born to parents of Scots-Irish descent and was raised as a Presbyterian, but left the Presbyterian faith to become a Congregationalist at age 13 (Beckford 1975). Russell’s sister described his search for theology as the result of a prophetic dream at the time he withdrew from Presbyterianism that he was called to save mankind from doctrinal error. Russell demonstrated a passion for evangelism from an early age, chalking verses from the Bible on sidewalks and fences to admonish unbelievers. At 16, Russell came to question mainline Christianity as a result of a discussion with a childhood friend on perceived problems and contradictions in Christianity, including difficulties with the Orthodox creeds and traditions not based on Scripture. Russell was unsatisfied...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
References
Beckford J (1975) The trumpet of prophecy: a sociological study of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Wiley, New York, 244 p
Jehovah’s Witnesses – Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom (1993) Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Brooklyn, New York, 750 p
Meares J (2010) The most widely read magazine in the world. New York Review of Magazines. http://archives.jrn.columbia.edu/2010/nyrm.org/2010/05/13/the-most-widely-read-magazine-in-the-world/index.html. Accessed 6 Dec 2017
The Watchtower – No Other Magazine Comes Close. https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/activities/publishing/watchtower-awake-magazine/. Accessed 12 Jan 2018
Yearbooks of Jehovah’s Witnesses (1977–2017). Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Brooklyn, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this entry
Cite this entry
Stewart, D.G. (2018). Jehovah’s Witnesses, History. In: Gooren, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_577-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_577-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-08956-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08956-0
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities