He played a primary role in the organization and doctrinal development of Jehovah's Witnesses,[1][2][3] which emerged from the Bible Student movement established by Charles Taze Russell.

[4][5] He developed an interest in the doctrines of Watch Tower Society president Charles Taze Russell, which led to his joining the Bible Student movement, and he was baptized in 1906.

[6][7][8] Rutherford and seven other Watch Tower executives were imprisoned in 1918 after charges were laid over the publication of The Finished Mystery, a book deemed seditious for its opposition to World War I.

[34] Rutherford wrote a pamphlet, A Great Battle in the Ecclesiastical Heavens, in defense of Russell[35] and served as chairman of the Bible Students' Los Angeles convention in September 1916.

By 1916, Rutherford had become one of the seven directors of the Watch Tower Society; when Russell died on October 31, 1916, he joined vice-President Alfred I. Ritchie and Secretary-Treasurer William E. Van Amburgh on a three-man executive committee that ran the Pennsylvania corporation until a new president was elected at the annual general meeting the following January.

Russell's will, drawn up in 1907, had named the five people he wished to run the magazine after his death;[37] Rutherford appeared only on a second list of five alternative members to fill any vacancies that arose.

"[39] Macmillan, who claimed he had declined an offer from an ailing Russell months earlier to accept the position of president after his death,[40] agreed with Van Amburgh that Rutherford was the best candidate.

By-laws passed by both the Pittsburgh convention and the board of directors stated that the president would be the executive officer and general manager of the Society, giving him full charge of its affairs worldwide.

The book, which was misleadingly labeled as the posthumous seventh volume of Russell's Studies in the Scriptures,[58][59] was denounced by Rutherford's opponents, but became a best-seller and was translated into six languages and serialized in The Watch Tower.

"[61] He embarked on a vast advertising campaign to expose the "unrighteousness" of religions and their alliances with "beastly" governments, expanding on claims in The Finished Mystery that patriotism was a delusion and murder.

In early May 1918, US Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory condemned The Finished Mystery as "one of the most dangerous examples of ... propaganda ... a work written in extremely religious language and distributed in enormous numbers".

[67] Warrants were issued for the arrest of Rutherford and seven other Watch Tower directors, who were charged under the 1917 Espionage Act with attempting to cause insubordination, disloyalty, refusal of duty in the armed forces and obstructing the recruitment and enlistment service of the U.S. while it was at war.

Rutherford feared his opponents would gain control of the Society in his absence, but on January 2, 1919, he learned he had been re-elected president at the Pittsburgh convention the day before, convincing him that God wanted him in the position.

[85] Rutherford later claimed Satan had "tried to prevent the publication of that article ... but failed in that effort";[86] In 1927 the Watch Tower Society ceased printing of Russell's Studies in the Scriptures.

[96] At a 1931 Bible Student assembly in Columbus, Ohio, Rutherford proposed a new name for the organization, Jehovah's witnesses, to differentiate them from the proliferation of other groups that followed Russell's teachings.

[99] In 1937, the door-to-door preaching program was extended to formally include "back calls" on interested people and Witnesses were urged to start one-hour Bible studies in the homes of householders.

The volume, though written by Fisher and Woodworth, was advertised as Russell's "posthumous work" and "last legacy"[111][112] but contained several interpretations and viewpoints not espoused by Russell,[113][114] including an urging of all Bible Students to cast judgment upon Christendom and its clergy, the adoption of new dates for the fulfillment of particular prophecies, a claim that salvation is tied to membership within the Watch Tower Society, as well as shunning and censuring any who reject the interpretations given in the volume or related articles in Zion's Watch Tower magazine.

It included an appendix introducing many alterations or reinterpretations of Russell's original views on the death of Jesus and the role of Christ's followers in heaven as typified in the ceremonies of the Jewish tabernacle.

[120] Rutherford expanded on this view in the March 1, 1925, issue of The Watch Tower in the article "Birth of The Nation", which he later acknowledged "caused a real stir or shake-up within the ranks.

[123][124] From 1925 he developed the view of the battle of Armageddon as a universal war waged by God rather than Russell's belief that it was the decline of human society into social, political and religious anarchy.

[169] Other authors also address Rutherford's abrasiveness: James Penton describes him as blunt and moody with an explosive temper,[170] with "a streak of self-righteousness which caused him to regard anyone who opposed him as of the Devil",[171] while Alan Rogerson notes that he was a "dogmatic and insensitive person, obsessed with his own self-importance.

"[174] Penton similarly describes Rutherford's actions in his first year of presidency—including his appointment of new directors, refusal to allow the Society's accounts to be examined, and his unilateral decision to publish The Finished Mystery—as high-handed and secretive.

"[176] Macmillan, who supported Rutherford throughout the crisis, claimed the president was extremely patient and "did everything that he could to help his opposers see their mistake, holding a number of meetings with them, trying to reason with them and show them how contrary their course was to the Society's charter".

[180] He urged readers to view with contempt anyone who had "openly rebelled against God's order or commandments"[181] and also described elective elders of the 1930s who refused to submit to Watch Tower Society administrative changes as "despicable".

[183] According to Penton, Rutherford's austerity—evidenced by his distaste for Christmas, birthday parties and other popular customs[184] that were described as of pagan origin or that encouraged idolatry and were not to be observed[185]—led in turn to austerity becoming a part of Witness life.

Penton contends that both Russell and Smith were capable religious leaders but naive visionaries, while Rutherford and Young were "hard-bitten pragmatists who gave a degree of permanency to the movements they dominated".

"[219] Rutherford's burial was delayed for five months[201] due to legal proceedings arising from his desire to be buried at Beth Sarim, which he had previously expressed to three close advisers from Brooklyn headquarters.

[221][222] According to Consolation, "Judge Rutherford looked for the early triumph of 'the King of the East', Christ Jesus, now leading the host of heaven, and he desired to be buried at dawn facing the rising sun, in an isolated part of the ground which would be administered by the princes, who should return from their graves.

[223] Witnesses collected more than 14,000 signatures for two petitions—one supporting his burial at Beth Sarim, another for a second preferred site on a nearby Watch Tower Society property named Beth-Shan—that Rutherford's dying wish might be granted.

[18] Consolation condemned San Diego County officials for their refusal to grant a permit for Rutherford's burial at either property, stating "It was not the fate of the bones which they decided, but their own destiny.