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Sounds Of Battle In 1886
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August 19 - Sounds of Battle In 1886

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A sound of battle is in the land. Jer. 50:22, NKJV.

Butler was out to settle the struggles over the law in Galatians and the 10 horns of Daniel 7 by the end of 1886. First, he wrote a series of letters to get Ellen White on his side. Second, he prepared a "brief comment" on Galatians that in fact was an 85-page book entitled The Law in the Book of Galatians that took aim at Waggoner's position.

Third, he sought to use the 1886 General Conference session to put Jones and Waggoner and their "false teachings" in their proper place and thus get the denomination back on track. The General Conference president provided every attendee with a copy of his Law in the Book of Galatians. More important, he organized a theological committee to settle the debated issues once and for all.

But Butler's hope for a creedal statement that would establish the truth on the controverted points for all time met with frustration. The nine-member commitee split five to four. "We had an argument of several horns, " Butler reported, "but neither side was convinced." The next question, he noted, "was whether we should take this into the conference and have a big public fight over it." Being an astutue politician, he realized that such a move would only cause more trouble.

Both Butler and Ellen White would look back on the 1886 General Conference session as that "terrible conference." White he noted that the meeting was on e of the saddest he had ever attended, she pointed out that "Jesus was grieved and bruised in the person of his saints." She especially felt disturbed about the "harshness," "disrespect, and want of sympathetic love in brother toward brother"(Lt 21, 1888; MS 21, 1888). The dynamics of the Minneapolis meetings were already in place.

The most serious casualty of the 1886 meetings was D. M. Canright, a firm supporter of Butler's position on the law. Apparently he saw that Adventism's traditional position had problems. He had recognized that Butler and his friends were "exalting the law above Christ." But instead of adopting Waggoner's view of the Ten Commandments as leading individuals to Christ, Canright dropped both Adventism and the law and would become the denomination's most aggressive antagonist.

There is no more important topic than uplifting Jesus.

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Guide us, Lord, as we meditate through Adventist history on the place of Christ in our life.
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