The Author                                                                                            

Fredrick Zydek taught theology at the College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Nebraska, for many years.  He is the author of dozens of religious articles and nine volumes of poety, the most recent of which--T'Kopachuck: The Buckley Poems--is also available through Amazon.  His work has appeared in America, Catholic Digest, Conscience, The Presbyterian Record, Christianity Today, U.S. Catholic Sojourners, and many others.  Retired, he still lives in Omaha where he continues to write full time.

The impetus for the biography had its beginnings in the late 1960s when one of Zydek’s aunts became a Jehovah’s Witness. As he himself tells the story in the Preface:

"My aunt gave me books to read on the subject.  I didn't find any of them to be especially convincing arguments, but I did discover Charles Taze Russell along the way.  I knew a great deal about the founders of other indigenous American church groups but nothing about Russell.  What people believe has always been of interest to me.  The origins and originators of those beliefs have always been of equal interest.  I saw no reason why Russell and his writings should be less compelling.

"Information and hard facts concerning Russell were not easy to come by.  Some of the churches and study groups that had grown out of his writings had produced syrupy-sweet accounts of his life but nothing that could give one any insights into the humanity of the man himself.

"Russell became an enigma to me. If the data was going to prove to be hard to find, I determined I would dig for it anyway. My search for information continued for nearly thirty years. I kept notes. One day it dawned on me that I should write his biography. And who better? I'm neither a follower of Russell's teachings nor Fundamentalist holding a ridged view of the Christian narrative. I am a student of religion in general with a special interest in the American interpretations of the Christian story. I consider myself to be culturally Christian and spiritually open to endless possibilities.  I have no axe to grind, no dogmatic or doctrinal preferences to peddle and nothing to prove except, perhaps, that Charles Taze Russell is worth knowing about. He is an apt example of what can happen with ideas in a nation that encourages freedom of thought, freedom of the press and the freedom to believe in what one chooses. All find residence in the thinking and actions of this one remarkable man.

"His is a very human story, one that allows us to watch an important figure on the American scene move through and affect history."