Our Roots, Pt. 37

The first major order of business for Daniells (who was still General Conference president) after the 1903 General Conference Session was to find an appropriate new location for the General Conference offices and the Review and Herald Publishing House. The 1903 Session had decided that they ought to move to the Atlantic Coast, but that still left the matter fairly wide open. Some suggested a location near New York City. Ellen White had a general impression that the area around Washington, DC should also be considered. Daniells set off on a trip to survey both areas for possible locations. As his trip progressed the guidance from Ellen White became more definite that the search should concentrate on the Washington, DC area.

Undeveloped property was eventually purchased in Takoma Park, a small town which was half in northern Washington, DC and half in Maryland. Buildings were rented in downtown Washington for use by the General Conference and Review and Herald while permanent facilities were being built on the new land. It was decided that a college and a sanitarium should also be built on the site. In August of 1903 all of the office equipment and personnel for the General Conference and Review and Herald were packed up and shipped by train from Battle Creek to the new temporary facilities in Washington.

At the 1903 Autumn Council Kellogg’s pantheistic philosophies took center stage. This was not what Daniells had intended, but Kellogg had been agitating his views among Church leaders for the last year and it was an issue which could no longer be ignored. It had been an undercurrent at the 1903 Session roughly six months before, and Ellen White had intended several times to speak publicly on the matter and put an end to it, but each time she came close to doing so she was impressed to wait. This time was different.

The Autumn Council was taking place at the rented facilities in Washington. Ellen White stayed at her home in California. When it became apparent that the issue could not wait any longer, Daniells devoted a day to presentations and open debate for and against Kellogg’s views. He closed the day without calling for a vote on the matter. When he got home that night he found two letters waiting for him from Ellen White which directly addressed the issues. These he read to the Council the following morning and they permanently settled the matter in the minds of the Church leaders. The Seventh-day Adventist Church rejected Kellogg’s pantheism.

At first, Kellogg seemed to accept this instruction from the Spirit of Prophesy. It didn’t last. He was soon back to agitating the same views. He also had some loyal supporters, most notably Jones. This minority refused to let the matter drop. What did happen was that Kellogg’s pantheistic theological views and Jones’s organizational views—which we have already seen to be very sympathetic—meshed into one viewpoint. Jones viewed the rejection of Kellogg’s views as a rejection of his own (and to the point that they tended in the same direction this was true). These two men fed off each other, defending and pushing each other to the extreme of their shared viewpoint. In 1904 both Jones and Waggoner moved to Battle Creek to work more closely with Kellogg. Their determination to maintain a position rejected by the leadership of the Church began to form a schism.

During all of this Kellogg had simply chosen to ignore the directive from the 1903 Session that he should arrange for all the assets of the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association to come under the direct control of the denomination. Instead, he was pulling even further away from the Church. By the 1905 General Conference Session it was apparent that the health reform work of the Church essentially had to start over in terms of building up a network of institutions it could control. To this end the 1905 Session created a Health Department for the General Conference. The other organizationally significant action of the 1905 Session was to lengthen the interval between Sessions to four years instead of two. This happened because a substantial amount of the work which had previously been done during Sessions was now being handled by the union conferences, reducing the need for general meetings. This Session also saw Ellen White declare that because he persisted with his incompatible pantheistic views Kellogg was no longer to be considered a leader and teacher within the denomination or invited to participate in its leadership meetings.

Next: Ellen White Speaking Out