July 29 - What Is The Authority Of The General Conference?-6

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Rev. 2:29, RSV.

Some of us are just plain hard of hearing. General Conference president Butler seemed to have that affliction. Ellen White repeatedly counseled both him and her husband on the dangers of their one-person leadership style.

Her frustration with Butler came to a head about the time of the 1888 General Conference session. Soon after the meetingss she wrote that "Elder Butler. . .has been in office three years too long and now all humility and lowliness of mind have departed from him. He thinks his position gives him such power that his voice is infallible"(Lt 82, 1888).

Looking back after another three years, she stated: "I hope there will never be the slightest encouragement given to our people to put such wonderful confidence in finite, erring man as has been placed in Elder Butler, for ministers are not as God, and too much reliance has been placed upon Elder Butler in the past. . .It is because men have been encouraged to look to one man to think for them, tobe conscience for them, that they are now so inefficient, and unable to stand at their post of duty as faithful sentinels for God"(Lt 14, 1891).

It was easier for Butler to refine his ideas on the "great men" theory of church leadership verbally than to stop actually practicing them. Given human nature, that is a perennial problem that those in leadership positions have continued to struggle with across time.

That unfortunate fact of life also led Ellen White to make some statements regarding the authority of the General Conference in the 1890s. Several times during the decade she raised the issue. In 1891, for example, she wrote that "I was obliged to take the position that there was not the voice of God in the General Conference management and decisions. Methods and plans would be devised that God did not sanction, and yet Elder Olsen [General Conference president from 1888 to 1897] made it appear that the decisions of the General Conference were as the voice of God. Many of tghe postions taken, going forth as the voice of the General Conference, have been the voice of one, two, or three men who were misleading the Conference"(MS 33, 1891).

Ears are hard things to come by if you don't have ones that work. We may tend to be critical of the administrators that Ellen White had to confront, but in the process, let's remember our own lack of ears in so many things that the Spirit is trying to say to us personally.