Our Roots, Pt. 23

As the 1890s progressed the auxiliary organizations came into conflict with each other. There were many ways in which their designated specialties overlapped and there was no final authority to which all of these independent entities answered that could step in to settle issues. The overall growth of the Church meant a growth in the size and complexity of these conflicts as well.

So the situation may be fully appreciated we will enlarge on a few of these overlapping jurisdictions. The Foreign Mission Board was tasked with matters pertaining to church workers in unorganized areas, but the Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association also sent workers into unorganized areas and didn’t feel a need to consult with the Foreign Mission Board about it. The General Conference executive committee and International Religious Liberty Association also figured they had the prerogative to send workers wherever they pleased. The Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association insisted on full control of distribution of health-related books and other materials, which put it at odds with the Tract Society and the Publishing Association. The Publishing Association didn’t care for the influence the General Conference wanted to exert regarding the materials they produced. The purpose of the General Conference Association was to deal with all legal matters such as holding property and making contracts, which put them in the middle of everyone else’s business. The list could go on, but the point is made.

This confusion was compounded by a lack of clarity about the roles of the conference-level chapters of each auxiliary. Not only did they have the same jurisdictional issues amongst themselves as the central organizations did, there was also confusion about what, if any, actions they could take without the explicit approval of the central organizations. This generally translated into the conference-level chapters being merely the puppets of the central organizations.

The bureaucratic situation got so bad that the ongoing Church growth during this period was in spite of, rather than because of, the administrative system. It became generally recognized that there was a problem, but there was no agreement on what to do about it. There were some who didn’t want to deal with it at all because they reasoned that issues of organization would be a “distraction” from mission-related issues. Others resisted because the only solution they could think of would be a consolidation along the South African Conference model and they were convinced that that was the very centralization that Ellen White was still speaking strongly against. The General Conference executive committee would have been the logical body to take control of the situation (and the auxiliaries), but the presidents of the auxiliaries were generally members of the executive committee and each strongly defended the autonomy of their own organization.

Next: Paltry Progress