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Rethinking Church Organization-2
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Nov. 23 - Rethinking Church Organization-2

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The head of every man is Christ. 1 Cor. 11:3, RSV.

The post-1888 years would see the development of two main approaches to reorganizing the church. The denomination's leading and most influential theologians during the 1890s--A. T. Jones, E. J. Waggoner, and W. W. Prescott--promoted the first avenue to reform. They conceived a theological ecclesiology that basically held that the church did not need a president since Christ was its head and would direct every born again individual.

As Waggoner put it, "Perfect unity means absolute independence.... This question of organization is a very simple thing. All there is to it is for each individual to give himself over to the Lord, and then the Lord will do with him just as he wants to....'Receive ye the Holy Ghost.' The Holy Ghost is the organizer." "If we get it right," Prescott claimed, "there will be no officials here." "All ye are brethren" is the biblical ideal.

To Prescott, Jones, Waggoner, and their colleagues such a scheme was not anarchy but true biblical organization. They would push their ideas with great vigor at the 1897, 1899, 1901, and 1903 General Conference sessions.

Their greatest success came in 1897. Fueled by an 1896 quotation from Ellen White (taken out of the context of her general statements on the topic) that "it is not wise to choose one man as president of the General Conference" (Lt 24a, 1896), the reform element urged either no president (their preference) or multiple presidents. During 1897 they pushed through a resolution for three General Conference presidents--one each in North America, Europe, and Australia.

In practice, things didn't work out to the desire of the reformers. But their ideas were firm, and they would advocate them strongly in 1901 and 1903.

A. G. Daniells, who would eventually become the denomination's president, quipped that the ideas of Jones and Waggoner on organization would work in heaven but certainly not on earth. And Ellen White must have wondered at the strange twist that the two men had given her original statement.

 

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Help us, Lord, as we think' about the purpose of organization as it relates to the mission of Your church here on earth. 
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