God's Republic - The Seventh Day Adventist Church

One day at noon I was writing of the work that might have been done at the last General Conference if the men in positions of trust had followed the will and way of God. - Ellen White, Testimonies vol. 8, pg 104

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These were the opening lines by Mrs. White in that most famous of her sermons "What might have been". We will come back to it. What took place in 1903 however, what White describes was the culmination of strenuous struggle with a church leadership that was in rebellion against God's command since 1888. But, I hear you ask, what happened in 1888?

1888 - A most precious message

The Lord in his great mercy sent a most precious message to his people through Elders Waggoner and Jones. This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God. - [Ellen White, PH154, pg 35. (Also quoted in Testimonies to Ministers pg 91)]

In 1888 the message of Justification by Faith (colloquially and I think erroneously called Righteousness by faith) was presented by Elders Alonzo T Jones and Ellet J Waggoner. Jones was formerly a soldier during the civil war who discovered the present truth of the three angels messages when his regiment was assigned guard duty to a Seventh Day Adventist camp meeting. A complete lover of history, he had on his person a number of history books at all times which he carried with him on his military assignments. While other soldiers spent their time playing cards or napping, he would be spotted reading history. One afternoon, as James White spoke of the four kingdoms in Daniel 7 and the little horn, his ears picked it up. That very day he joined the movement. Ellet Waggoner was a second generation SDA. His father John was among the "fifty people" who went through the Great disappointment of 1844 and became a founding pioneer of the Seventh Day Adventist movement. By much prayer and study, they built the Church doctrinally to the point where they could say "with great unanimity" that "we profess a faith that admits no compromise".

This is the history of the two men through who God choose to bring "a most precious message" at the 1888 General Conference in Minneapolis. But like the good report of Joshua and Caleb, it was rejected by the leadership and by the people. Just like Israel at the door of Canaan, the Seventh Day Adventist people refused to enter the promised land because of unbelief.

The Lord designed that the messages of warning and instruction given through the Spirit to His people should go everywhere. But the influence that grew out of the resistance of light and truth at Minneapolis tended to make of no effect the light God had given to His people through the Testimonies. . . If every soldier of Christ had done his duty, if every watchman on the walls of Zion had given the trumpet a certain sound, the world might ere this have heard the message of warning.  But the work is years behind (Ellen White, 1888 Materials, pages 1129 - 1130, Ellen White, 1893 General Conference Daily Bulletin, page 419).

That influence against these two men soon curdled into influence against the testimonies - writings and visions of Ellen White. All this because Mrs. White had declared support for the message these two men bore. Many in the leadership had set themselves firmly against this message to the point of viciously attacking the characters of Jones, Waggoner and Mrs. White. Jones was banned from peaching at Battle Creek SDA Church, the denomination's flagship worship center. He only got admittance once when it was rumored that Mrs. White was travelling to attend the service. Even yet, the elders insisted on cross-examining his sermon notes, a move that greatly infuriated Mrs. White upon her hearing it. She expressed it as a gross violation of his liberty of conscience.

Since the leadership had rejected the message, Mrs. White, Jones and Waggoner teamed up to take it to the people. They visited camp meeting after camp meeting with this good report. Yet after they would leave, certain of the General Conference leadership would show up where they had just been to try and counteract what they had just taught. The opposition to Jones and Waggoner was indeed Satanic. Salacious rumors were passed around starting with Church leaders that Mrs. White had been "taken in" by these two young men. Her husband had died a few years earlier and it was suggested that she was conducting an affair with Jones and Waggoner as a means of coping with the loss. This one especially broke her heart, but not her resolve. It seemed as if Satan was absolutely determined to injure the standing of those who preached this message or derail them in some way.

We may not list every effort made to stifle the light of 1888, but finally in 1891, the Conference leaders decided to give Jones, Waggoner and Mrs. White varied assignments in order to separate them and diminish their influence. Waggoner was sent to work in London while Mrs. White was sent to Australia from where she wrote the book Desire of Ages

I have not, I think, revealed the entire workings that led me here to Australia. Perhaps you may never fully understand the matter. The Lord was not in our leaving America. He did not reveal that it was his will that I should leave Battle Creek. The Lord did not plan this, but he let you all move after your own imaginings. The Lord would have had W. C. White, his mother, and her workers remain in America. We were needed at the heart of the work...There was so great a willingness to have us leave, that the Lord permitted this thing to take place...Our separation from Battle Creek was to let men have their own will and way, which they thought superior to the way of the Lord. [Ellen White, Letter to O. A. Olsen, 1896]

The General Conference No longer the voice of God

The spirited rejection of the message of justification by faith brought by Waggoner and Jones and the resulting fallout was only a symptom of a multifaceted problem. Again, it is the leaders who had acted in that manner. The people had been left somewhat in a confused state. A large section of the problem that many miss is that the leadership's reaction was in fact a manifestation of a systemic problem.

Beginning with 1889 certain measures were strongly promoted to consolidate and centralize various features of the denominational work. - [Arthur White, Ellen White biography Vol. 5, pg 72]

Not only was the condition of the hearts of those in positions of trust against God, but we notice that as the organization rejected the most precious message that could have finalized the work & ended this world's history of sin and misery, they, the leadership/organization, begun a work of re-organization...one which involved consolidating and centralizing "power". This is totally contrary to the Republican ideal which in very fact comes from the mind of God. The point being that if the principles that make up that Republican ideal are violated, only tyranny and evil can result. And as we saw with the leadership's treatment of Jones and Waggoner, not only violating their liberty of conscience but also working with Satanic zeal to undo their influence as a means of injuring their divinely appointed message.

So which principle of the Republican ideal was being violated starting from 1889? The principle called Localism. In order for a Republic to work, power must be distributed according to this principle. Localism states that when it comes to governance, much power should reside at the lower local levels while the highest level of government should wield the least amount of power. Localism is the basic principle behind devolution or federalism. The systematic dismantling of the original God-directed structure of the organization was made to coincide with the rejection of the 1888 message. This corrupting state continued in all the long years when the Church organization fought against Mrs. White, Jones and Waggoner reaching a point where sinful practices had infiltrated the Church. For example, male nurses were allowed to deliver babies at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. The publishing house begun printing wicked secular books in order to make money...both of which (the sanitarium and publishing house) were burnt to the ground by an angel of the Lord.

There is another class of literature, more defiling than the leprosy, more deadly than the plagues of Egypt, against which our publishing houses need unceasingly to guard. In accepting commercial work, let them beware lest matters presenting the very science of Satan be admitted into our institutions. Let not works setting forth the soul-destroying theories of hypnotism, spiritualism, Romanism, or other mysteries of iniquity find a place in our publishing houses. [Ellen White, Testimonies vol. 7, pg 166]

All this leavening of the work reached a crescendo in the 1901 General Conference with Ellen White, Jones, Waggoner and others calling for a re-organization and reform.

O, my very soul is drawn out in these things! Men who have not learned to submit themselves to the control and discipline of God, are not competent to train the youth, to deal with human minds. It is just as much an impossibility for them to do this work as it would be for them to make a world. That these men should stand in a sacred place, to be as the voice of God to the people, as we once believed the General Conference to be,--that is past. What we want now is a reorganization. We want to begin at the foundation, and to build upon a different principle. [Ellen White, General Conference Bulletin, April 3, 1901]

And can you believe it? After years of stubborn prevarication, the leadership did the right thing in 1901. They voted on re-organization back to God's principles and ideal.

I was never more astonished in my life than at the turn things have taken at this meeting. This is not our work. God has brought it about...Press together, press together. Let us be united in Christ. God is dishonored by disunion. [Ellen White, General Conference Bulletin, April 25, 1901]

The much needed reforms were passed. The GC president for example was to serve only a one year term. This is itself another Republican principle, one which the Romans discovered a long time ago. I have previously written concerning this issue of term limits. The problem with leadership staying in position for too long is a gradual corruption of the work. Those who stay in positions of authority for a long time have a tendency of eventually lording it over the sheep. Christ had said, "...Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;" (Matthew 20:25-26).

Reforms rejected again!

But these reforms could only survive for one year. The rebellious spirit of 1888 came back with a vengeance. In 1903 a Genera; Conference was held that rolled back every reform made in 1901. That is when Ellen White had a vision of what might have been where God revealed to her what a wonderful work might have been accomplished if only the leadership had followed in the divine plan. How much greater our hospitals and sanitariums would dot the world, how the message would have been proclaimed with power.

Then I aroused from my unconsciousness, and for a while could not think where I was. My pen was still in my hand. The words were spoken to me: "This might have been. All this the Lord was waiting to do for His people. All heaven was waiting to be gracious." I thought of where we might have been had thorough work been done at the last General Conference, and agony of disappointment came over me as I realized that what I had witnessed was not a reality. [Ellen White, Testimonies vol. 8 pg 105]

What is heartbreaking is that because of this final insolence by Church leadership and the repeated attacks on their character by leaders, Jones and Waggoner became disoriented from the Church and eventually lost their faith in the very message they had come to accept and proclaim. The devil had worked their minds with discouragement until they left the fold and fell into various errors. Something to think about.

[This manuscript still WIP]