July 28 - What Is The Authority Of The General Conference?-5

We will hold to the truth in love, becoming more and more in every way like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. Eph. 4:15, NLT.

Sometimes we learn only after we have been fairly well beat down. Thus it was with General Conference president George I. Butler. With both of the Whites, whom he highly respected, opposing him on the idea of individualistic leadership, he repented of his actions, resigned from the presidency, bought up and burned every obtainable copy of his Leadership booklet(some 960), and at the 1875 General Conference session proposed a resolution rescinding the enorsement of his leadership ideas.

But instead of rushing through an action on such an important topic, the convocation appointed a committee to study the matter. The 1877 session, acting on the committee's report, voted to rescind approval for all portions of Butler's Leadership tract that taught "that the leadership of the body is confined to any one man." The 1877 meeting further voted that "the highest authority under God among Seventh-day Adventists is found in the will of the body of that people, as expressed in teh decisions of the General Conference when acting within us proper jurisdiction, and that such decisions should be submitted to by all without exception, unless they can be shown to conflict with the word of God and the rights of individual conscience."

Thus by 1877 Butler and James White, who alternated in holding the General Conference presidency from 1869 to 1888 (White, 1869-1871, 1874-1880; Butler, 1871-1874, 1880-1888), were in general outward agreement on the authority of the General Conference as a body).

Unfortunately, albeit unavoidably, the General Conference delegation from the local conferences met with each other for only a few weeks each year. That resulted quite naturally in Adventists looking to the president of the General Conference and the members of its small executive committee for leadership. That was especially true when forceful individuals such as Butler and White held the presidency. Both men had a tendency to take too much authority into their own hands and thus leaned more toward Butler's one-person leadership style in practice than in theory.

We find an important lesson here that affects all of us, whether our leadership be in the conference office, the local church, or even the family. No matter what we believe in our heads about leadership, nearly all of us find ourselves tempted to "take over."