Book: General Conference Committee, A Statement Refuting Charges Made by A. T. Jones Against the Spirit of Prophecy and the Plan of Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination (Washington, DC: General Conference Committee, 1906). HTML, Scan.
Contents: Refutes charges made by A. T. Jones after he had united with J. H. Kellogg in undermining the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Chapter 3: Reorganization
More than twenty pages of the leaflet under consideration are devoted to the question of our denominational organization. The main points dealt with are the General Conference Constitution and the doings of the General Conference Committee.
Referring to the 1901 Conference, Elder Jones says that “in that conference the General Conference was started toward the called-for reorganization. All understood that the call was away from a centralized order of things in which ‘one man or two men or three men or four men or a few men’ held the ruling, directing power, to an organization in which, ‘all the people’ as individuals should have a part.”
It is now time for our people to get a clear understanding of just what the called-for reorganization was, and just what response has been made to that call. First of all we wish to state very clearly that the call that came to us at the General Conference of 1901 to [p. 20] re-organize was not a call to dis-organize. Nor was it a call to abandon the original purpose and general plan of organization adopted by the pioneers of this cause. We accept the assurance that has been given us through the spirit of prophecy, that the Lord led and guided the leaders of this cause who were called to form the original plans of organization for this world-wide movement which we are carrying forward.
Instead of being counseled at the 1901 Conference to abandon the primary purpose and essential features of our original plan of organization, we were instructed to adjust and develop the details of this plan in harmony with the growth and development of our cause. This is a most important consideration at this time. It is one that should be very clearly understood by our people.
Another important question is, What response did the General Conference make to the instruction given? Did it carry out the suggestions? and is it still doing so? or has it repudiated the work of reform and reorganization entered upon at that time? This can easily be determined by a careful study of the instruction given by the spirit of prophecy, and the changes made by the General Conference at the time, and by its history since. The information required on these points can be obtained in the issues of the General Conference Bulletin of 1901 and 1903, and the report of the session for 1905.
We here give a brief but complete summary of the counsel given to the General Conference, and the changes made in response thereto. The following are the changes called for:—
1. “What we want now is a reorganization.”
2. “We want to begin at the foundation, and to build upon a different principle.”
3. “This work must be carried on in a very different manner to what it has been in the past years.”
4. “God has not put any kingly power in our ranks to control this or that branch of the work. The work has [p. 21] been greatly retarded by the efforts to control it in every line.”
5. “There are to be more than one or two or three men to consider the whole vast field. The work is great, and there is no one human mind that can plan for the work which needs to be done.”
6. “Greater strength must be brought into the managing force of the Conference.”
7. “Men who are standing at the head of our various institutions, of the educational interests, and of the conferences in different localities and in different States,” are to “stand as representative men, to have a voice in molding and fashioning the plans that shall be carried out.”
8. “When we first met in conference, it was thought that the General Conference should extend over the whole world. But this is not God’s order. Conferences must be organized in different localities, and it will be for the health of the different conferences to have it thus.”
9. “This does not mean that we are to cut ourselves apart from one another, and be as separate atoms. Every conference is to touch every other conference, and be in harmony with every other conference.”
10. “New conferences must be formed. It was in the order of God that the Union Conference was organized in Australasia. The Lord God of Israel will link us all together. The organizing of new conferences is not to separate us; it is to bind us together.”
Any one who will read the addresses given by Sister White as recorded in the General Conference Bulletin of 1901, will see that the quotations given above cover the whole range of suggestions made concerning reorganization. And from a careful study of these quotations any one will readily see what the wrongs were, and the course to be taken to correct them. There were too few men connected with the administrative affairs of the cause. This resulted in centralizing responsibility, [p. 22] control, and management in a narrower circle than was demanded for the rapid, strong, and efficient development of the work throughout the world. And this naturally forced the few in charge of affairs to assume authority which is called kingly. The remedy pointed out was to bring greater strength—more men of experience and talent—into the management of the work. And this was to be done by organizing more conferences, especially Union Conferences, throughout the world, thus distributing the responsibilities centered in a few at headquarters. The placing of responsibilities and interests in local fields upon those located where the work is to be done lessens the tendency for a few to assume undue authority.
This is the reorganization called for at the 1901 Conference. Now we may ask, Did the General Conference reorganize in harmony with these suggestions? And has it adhered to the changes made? The following facts will answer:—
1. Before that Conference closed, the General Conference Committee was increased from thirteen to twenty-five. It has since been increased to thirty-two. The members now represent the field in all parts of the world, as well as all the leading departments of our work. The chairmen of the Sabbath-school, Educational, Medical, Religious Liberty, Publishing, and Foreign Departments are all members of the General Conference Committee.
2. Before the close of that Conference, steps were taken to organize five Union Conferences in the United States, and one in Europe, increasing the number from two to eight. Seven more have since been added, making the present number fifteen. These conferences are located in the United States, Canada, Europe, South Africa, South America, and Australasia. These new conferences have added about one hundred and forty persons to the administrative staff of this cause.
3. Since the Conference of 1901, thirty or more local conferences, and many local mission boards, have been [p. 23] organized in all lands. These have added some three hundred and fifty more persons to our managing force.
4. Besides these regular organizations, there are the department committees in charge of the leading phases of the work. The Sabbath-school has ten members; the Educational twenty-two; the Medical twenty-two; the Publishing twenty-one; the Religious Liberty ten; and the Foreign seven; or a total of ninety-two members.
Thus there have been many new conferences, and departments, and local mission boards organized. In this way the managing force has been strengthened by the addition of over 500 of the most experienced and capable persons that could be selected.
5. In addition to this, five colleges have been added to the twelve then operating; twenty-eight academies and intermediate schools have been started in addition to the four then in operation; and thirty-six sanitariums and treatment-room establishments have been opened and added to the nineteen that previously had been established. These institutions have added many more to the administrative staff of this work.
6. In addition to this work of organizing, the natural work of distribution or decentralization has followed. All the institutions formerly held by the General Conference have been transferred to the Union Conferences in which they are located. And all the details of administration that can be pressed back upon union and local conferences and mission boards, are distributed; so that at the present time the General Conference does not own or manage a single institution in all the world.
It is very doubtful whether any delegate at the 1901 Conference had any true conception, at the time, of the marvelous changes that were to follow the simple steps then taken in harmony with the counsel given. These changes have given new life and strength to our organized work in all lands. We have proved that the distribution of administrative responsibilities, and the transfer of the [p. 24] ownership and management of institutions from the General to union and local conferences, does not mean disorganization. We have proved that all these changes do not “cut ourselves apart from one another,” and make us separate, independent atoms. On the contrary, they unify and bind together. This is the testimony borne by scores of men bearing official responsibilities in all parts of our great field.
According to these facts, all of which can be fully confirmed by official documents, the General Conference has been steadily and resolutely working away from a “centralized order of things” to an administrative policy that is as wide as the world—one that establishes local ownership and control of institutional properties, and full administrative responsibility in all departments of the work.
We wish here to express our appreciation of the counsel given by the spirit of prophecy to reorganize. No mistake was made in that counsel. The great benefits that have come from decentralization, from distributing responsibilities in harmony with the counsel given at the 1901 Conference, have been seen and felt in our cause from the headquarters to the remotest conference and mission station in the great field of our operations. It has been a pleasure to the General Conference Committee and other committees and boards that have taken part in this work, to arrange and adjust the administrative affairs of this cause in harmony with the counsel given. And the transfer of financial responsibilities and many details of the work to others, has brought great relief to the General Conference Committee, and has made it possible to give more attention to general interests.
Now, in the face of all these facts and experiences, Elder Jones claims that the counsel given at the 1901 Conference has not been followed, and that the start made toward the called-for reorganization was long ago abandoned. He declares that since that time “a czardom was enthroned [p. 25] which has gone steadily onward in the same way, and has, with perfect consistency, built up a thoroughly bureaucratic government by which it reaches and meddles with, and manipulates, the affairs of all, not only of union and local conferences, but of local churches, and even of individual persons,” so “that in the whole history of the denomination there has never been such a one-man power, such centralized despotism, so much of papacy as there has been since the Oakland Conference.”
This is certainly a terrible indictment. It should be supported by the clearest proofs. But instead of furnishing the proofs, Elder Jones gives us nothing but his own positive assumptions and rash assertions, and these are not in harmony with the facts recorded in our official documents.
He begins his argument regarding what he styles the reversal of the reform that was started at the 1901 Conference, with this statement:—
“Now after all this, it was not long before this whole spirit and principle of General Conference organization and affairs began to be reversed again. This spirit of reaction became so rife and so rank that some time before the General Conference of 1903 at Oakland, Cal., ‘two men, or three men, or four men, or a few men, I should say,’ being together in Battle Creek or somewhere else, and without any kind of authority, but directly against the plain words of the Constitution, took it absolutely upon themselves to elect you president, and Brother Prescott vice-president, of the General Conference. And than that there never was in this universe a clearer piece of usurpation of position, power, and authority.”
How does Elder Jones know that this was done? What proof does he give that it was done? The only document that contains evidence on this point is the record of the proceedings of the General Conference Committee meetings. This record shows that immediately following the Conference of 1901, the General Conference Committee [p. 26] elected Elder Daniells chairman of the Committee for one year, and that a year later they re-elected him chairman for another year. There is not a single line of evidence in the minutes to show that he was ever elected president of the General Conference until the Oakland Conference, and then he was elected by the Conference itself in session.
This untrue statement is followed by others equally as vital to the case he is endeavoring to establish, but equally as false as to facts. Here are his words:—
“What could be done to preserve the usurpation?—Oh, that was just as easy as the other. A new ‘Constitution’ was framed to fit and to uphold the usurpation. This ‘Constitution’ was carried to the General Conference of 1903 at Oakland, Cal., and in every unconstitutional way was there jammed through. . . . The usurpers of monarchical position and authority came with a ‘Constitution’ that fitted and maintained their usurpation, and succeeded in getting it ‘adopted.’”
Again we ask, Where is the proof? How does he know that the officers of the General Conference or any member of the Committee “framed” a Constitution, and “carried [it] to the General Conference of 1903 at Oakland, Cal.”? We know positively that this was not done by any officer of the Committee, and we are certain that it was not done by any one else. As at former conferences, a Committee on Constitution was appointed by the Conference. This committee proposed certain changes in the existing Constitution, and reported to the Conference.
It is further declared that this Constitution was “jammed through.” The proceedings recorded in the General Conference Bulletin, pages 145-173, do not support this statement. It is very doubtful if any Constitution adopted by the General Conference ever received such a full, free, searching criticism in open Conference as this one. Every step of the procedure, in its preparation, consideration, and adoption was as absolutely fair [p. 27] and constitutional as ever attended any Constitution adopted by this denomination.
Another statement in the argument is this:—
“I say in every unconstitutional way, because in every truly constitutional government the Constitution comes in some way from the people, not from the monarch. Thus the people make and establish a Constitution. The monarch ‘grants’ a Constitution. When the people make a Constitution, the people govern.”
The last sentence in this statement destroys the force of the writer’s entire argument regarding the 1903 Conference. He says: “When the people make a Constitution, the people govern.” Very good. The people made the 1903 Constitution; therefore the people, not the “monarch,” governed. And since the people retain and maintain this Constitution, the people still govern.
It is further argued that “in 1901 the monarchy was swept aside completely, and the Conference itself as such and as a whole made a new Constitution.”
Here it is claimed that the monarchy was set aside completely, and the Conference as such and as a whole made a new Constitution. This, therefore, was the people’s Constitution; for it was made by the people, just as all the former Constitutions were made by the direct action and vote of their representatives, the delegates. Now as that is precisely the way the 1903 Constitution was made, it follows, of course, that in that instance the Conference itself—the people—made a new Constitution. One was as much the people’s as was the other.
Elder Jones asserts that “none of the people had asked for any new Constitution. The General Conference delegation had not asked for it. Not even the Committee on Constitution asked for it.”
-Many of the delegates have testified, and will testify again, that they did demand a new Constitution at the Oakland Conference in 1903. Some of them were so much in earnest about it that they served notice on the chairman [p. 28] of the Committee on Constitution that if the committee did not submit one, a number of the delegates would do so from the floor of the Conference. Furthermore, the majority of the Committee on Constitution called for, framed, and submitted one.
It is further declared that the Constitution “was not, even then, nor was it ever, favored by that committee. It was put through the committee, and reported to the Conference, only by permanently dividing the committee—a minority of the committee opposing it all the time,—and—a thing almost unheard of in Seventh-day Adventist Conference—bringing into the Conference a minority report against it.”
This is another statement at variance with the facts. When it was seen that certain brethren on the committee as well as some who were not on it, did not agree with the majority of the committee on this matter, W. C. White and A. G. Daniells, the latter having been invited to attend the deliberations of the committee, requested the majority not to urge the presentation to the Conference of the Constitution they had framed, for fear that, under the tension then existing, the brethren who were bent on opposing it would take such radical positions that they would greatly injure their influence with the delegates. Notwithstanding this, the majority rendered their report.
Elder Jones closes his argument thus:—
“And when at last it was adopted by the final vote, it, was by the slim majority of just five.”
This statement will no doubt lead many to suppose that only five more votes were cast for the Constitution than against it. But when it is stated that the official records show that eighty-five of the one hundred and eight delegates present voted for it, while only twenty voted against it, it will be seen that an overwhelming majority of the delegates wanted the new Constitution. How can this be called a “slim majority,” or such proceedings “unconstitutional”?
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