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And Who Wants Church Organization?
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May 12 - And Who Wants Church Organization?

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Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. Lev. 25:10.

And who wants church organization?

Certainly not James White and Joseph Bates in the late 1840s. They had both belonged to the Christian Connexion, a religious body in which liberty meant being free from church structures and any form of organization above the local congregation.

One of its leading ministers wrote in the early 1830s that the Connexion had arisen simultaneously in several parts of the United States in the early 1800s "not so much to establish any peculiar and distinctive doctrines, as to asserts, for individuals and churches, more liberty and independence in relation to matters of faith and practice, to shake off the authority o fhuman crrds and the shackles of prescribed modes and forms, to make the Bible their only guide, claiming for every man the right to be his own expositor of it, to judge, for himself, what are its doctrines and requirements, and in practice, to follow more strictly the simplicity of the apstles and primitive Christians."

A historian of the movement in 1873 summarized the fierce independence of the Connexionists in the following manner: "When asked, 'of what sect they were?' the reply was, 'None,' 'What denomination will you join?' 'None,' 'What party name will you take?' 'None,' 'What will you do?' 'We will continue as we have begun-we will be Christians. Christ is our leader, the Bible our only creed, and we will serve God free from the trammels of sectarianism.'"

To put it mildly, the early Christian Connexionists were anti-organizational. They did grant the need for structure at the local level, but they considered "each church" or congregation "an independent body." The glue that held the various strands of Connexionists together was largely their periodicals. It is fitting, therefore, that the movement entitled its first periodical Herald of Gospel Liberty. A second strategy for maintaining a loose unity was periodic meetings of like minded-believers.

It was that type of organization that Bates and White brought to the earliest Sabbatarians-periodicals and the Sabbatarian conferences. They saw no need for any further structures.

Now, freedom, we should point out, is a good thing. But, as we shall se, it is not the total Bible picture on the topic. The early Adventists discovered that God leads in all of our endeavors as needs arise.

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Christ's purpose in parable teaching was in direct line with the purpose of the Sabbath. God gave to men the memorial of His creative power, that they might discern Him in the works of His hand. The Sabbath bids us behold in His created works the glory of the Creator(COL, 25). 
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