Charles Taze Russell was nothing if not troubled.  Much of his life was motivated by fear.  It is said that as a young man he would walk the streets of Pittsburgh, writing “There is no hell!” on the sidewalks in chalk.  His fear of hell dominated his thinking and profoundly affected his theology.  He was also troubled by what he could not understand.  What could not be discerned through human reason was unacceptable to him.  For instance, the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity was nonsense to him.  It is no surprise then that when he founded the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in Pittsburgh in 1884 that the denial of hell and the rejection of the Trinity became hallmark doctrines of this organization.  To this day the Jehovah’s Witnesses reject what they cannot understand or accept as rational. Continue reading →