Our Roots, Pt. 39

On March 4, 1906 Jones brought his attacks against the organizational structure, church leadership, and the Spirit of Prophesy out into the open. He did this in the form of a pamphlet published under the title, “Some History, Some Experience, and Some Facts.” This pamphlet was a reproduction of a talk he had given in the Battle Creek Tabernacle. In this talk he read and commented on two documents. The first was a statement he had prepared and read to three members of the General Conference executive committee (including Daniells) who had recently been in Battle Creek. The second was a letter he had written to Daniells.

The substance of the first document was an accusation that the church leadership was stirring up trouble among the Battle Creek Sanitarium’s workers and students. This “trouble” pertained to instruction given by Ellen White that Adventists ought to leave Battle Creek (or not go there to study in the first place). The following excerpt describes the sort of misbehavior supposedly incited:

“They insist that they ‘must go,’ and send in their resignation to take effect a month or six weeks, or two months or more afterward: or to take effect when their contract expires anyhow. We accept their resignation, to take effect earlier, or possibly immediately. Then they insist that if they go earlier, they must be paid full wages clear up to the expiration of the time of their contract, or they ask to say ‘two weeks’ more; and when we consent to their plea, then they spend their time just as far as they can, and make opportunity day and night, to create dissatisfaction in others of the family, and even in the patients; to attend secret meetings off the premises, or to hold secret meetings on the premises; to show disrespect to their teachers, to those in responsibility, and in fact to everybody who does not fall in with their own spirit; to despise the Bible, prayer, and meetings, whether for religious service, or for the benefit and improvement of the Sanitarium and its work; to be careless, if not reckless, of the property of the Sanitarium; to betray confidence; in short, to do any unchristian thing, and no Christian thing if they can help it. And when at last their own set time expires, or because of their perverse course we are compelled to discharge them, then they claim and report that they are turned out because they believe the Testimonies, and still hang around the place, watching for chances to poison the minds of others, and to make great representations of how ‘the Testimonies tell everybody to get out of Battle Creek.’”

The second document (the letter to Daniells) contained accusations that the changes made to the governance structure at the 1903 Session made it a “czardom” and a “bureaucracy,” among other things. It also claimed that these changes had been pushed through against the will of the majority of the delegates. The letter also accused the church leadership of a personal campaign to discredit and otherwise ruin Kellogg, and went on to try to discredit the Spirit of Prophesy by citing what Jones claimed were inconsistencies and other difficulties with various “testimonies” sent out by Ellen White.

After this pamphlet came out several church leaders spent a week at Ellen White’s home in California going through it and searching out documentation from her writings to refute the various accusations. After this consultation Ellen White wrote a letter of correction directly to Jones. This particular manuscript doesn’t seem to have ever been released to the public by the White Estate, but another letter written a few months later to a couple whose sympathy Kellogg had tried to gain makes clear her attitude toward what was going on:

“I feel intensely sorrowful when I see some of our brethren in Battle Creek taking a course that is leading them away from the truth: for I have had a presentation of the first apostasy in the heavenly courts. The warnings of the Holy Spirit have been disregarded, and there has been persistent work of deception. A. T. Jones has permitted himself to be used as the voice of Dr. J. H. Kellogg. …

“Dr. Kellogg places himself before the world in the position of one who is greatly abused. He writes many letters, as he has to you, making such a representation as would call forth sympathy. But he is still at work with all subtlety. I have felt compelled to warn our people: for they do not understand his cunning. …

“If Dr. Kellogg can destroy the faith of any of our people in the testimonies, he will do it. He sometimes takes the nurses and others, sometimes alone in the night season, and talks with them for hours framing a tissue of falsehood, to make them believe himself a much abused man. Some of these poor souls have heard the truth, and they wish to get out of Battle Creek. They realize that their safety consists in leaving the place where they are so deceived. The doctor will take advantage in every way to make an impression upon human minds in destroying all confidence in the testimonies. If we are not constantly on guard, he will destroy by his sophistries, if possible, the very elect. And those associates who have upheld him will have to answer before God for their individual course of action” (Letter to Dr. and Mrs. Kress, written July 27, 1906).

After completing their research the church leaders made a public response to the Jones pamphlet by publishing one of their own on March 23, 1906 entitled “A Statement Refuting Charges Made by A. T. Jones Against the Spirit of Prophesy and the Plan of Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination.” This “Statement” detailed the facts and circumstances surrounding each of the situations about which Jones had made accusations.

Regarding the accusation of secret meetings, it was explained that while Daniells and some other leaders had been in Battle Creek on other business testimonies from Ellen White had arrived with instructions that they should be publicly read to the Adventists at Battle Creek. After these readings had been completed a number of people came forward and asked to meet with these church leaders personally to get answers to the questions swirling around in Battle Creek which cast doubt on the authority of Ellen White’s work. The church leaders agreed to meet with these individuals at times and places convenient to them and with whomever else they cared to invite. The result was a series of small, informal, and private (though hardly secret) meetings which countered the influence Kellogg and Jones had been exerting. It is hardly surprising, then, that they would try to disparage these meetings and make it appear that something improper had occurred.

As to the more general charges of destruction of property and consistently unchristian behavior, it was pointed out that no evidence had been produced of any specific instances of this sort of conduct. The “Statement” itself responds to this charge most succinctly, “The real seat of the difficulty lies in the fact that, when the Testimonies were read, some believed them, and they simply exercised their religious liberty, not only to believe them themselves, but to endeavor to restore in their fellow-laborers the confidence of which they had been robbed by the subtle, covert teaching to which they had listened.

“On several occasions we understand, they manifested their disapprobation regarding such teaching as was calculated to destroy their confidence, not only in the spirit of prophesy, but in the message itself. It is possible that some may not have shown their disapproval of the efforts made to disparage the message, and the organized work of God in the earth, in the wisest way. But they had the right to disbelieve what was said, and to protest against it in a proper way. This they did in some instances; but this exercise of religious liberty seems to have been misunderstood. Their courage to remonstrate against error, and exercise religious liberty, is what is here called a spirit of ‘boycott,’ ‘disrespect,” a ‘dishonest course,’ and an ‘unchristian thing.’ No stronger evidence is needed of the complete departure of the Sanitarium management from some of the fundamental principles of this message, than the fact that the simple reading of Testimonies from the Spirit of God in the Tabernacle, and the effort to lead persons back into a belief of them, should call forth such grave charges as are here made.” (p.9)

The Statement also went into considerable detail in explaining the changes in the organizational structure and the reasons behind them. As we’ve already covered that territory in this series of posts we won’t get into the details again, but the introduction to this portion of the Statement describes the situation with such clarity that it is worth including here, “Now is the time for our people to get a clear understanding of just what the called-for reorganization was, and just what response was made to that call. First of all we wish to state very clearly that the call that came to us at the General Conference of 1901 to re-organize was not a call to disorganize. Nor was it a call to abandon the original purpose and general plan of organization adopted by the pioneers of this cause. We accept the assurance that has been given us through the spirit of prophesy, that the Lord led and guided the leaders of this cause who were called to form the original plans of organization for this world-wide movement which we are carrying forward” (p.19).

After discussing the organizational structure, the Statement moved on to the charge that a personal attack was being made on Kellogg, “That the denomination has been passing through a sad and most trying experience during the past four years, we freely admit. But the controversy has been one concerning vital and fundamental principles,--a controversy between truth and error. The fundamental principles of our message have been assailed. Besides this, a policy of administration has been contending for the mastery which is destructive of all organization, and if allowed to secure the supremacy, would bring anarchy and ruin. It is against these things, and these only, that we have been contending. And against these evil things we expect to contend to the end. Men are involved in the contention only as they are the champions of opposing principles. If the men who are now leaders in the strife which is in our midst should step aside, and others take their places, and the apostasy and wicked spirit of domination should continue to assert themselves, the warfare would still continue. Once more let us say, that it is against wrong principles, and not men, that we are contending” (p.36).

The rebuttal then moved on to the supposed inconsistencies in the testimonies from Ellen White. After disproving one specific accusation by quoting the entire testimony in question and thereby showing that it simply did not say what Jones claimed it said, the Statement made this observation, “The glaring discrepancies which appear in this instance between what the Testimonies really say and what Elder Jones says they say, are to be seen in all his arguments that follow. He tells us that he has changed his belief respecting the Testimonies; that he can not believe them now as he once did, and cites as a reason certain Testimonies which he claims contain contradictions. But, when these very Testimonies themselves are produced in which the alleged contradictions occur, no such contradictions appear. We invite particular attention to this fact as we examine each of the charges which he prefers against the testimonies. One of two things is certainly true; either Elder Jones has quoted from memory, or he has knowingly perverted the plain statements of the Testimonies. He can impale himself on either horn of this dilemma he chooses” (p.60). The same exercise was undergone with each successive accusation against the testimonies. In each case the actual text of the testimony in question completely disproved the accusation.

One final thought from the Statement will suffice to summarize the whole, “The cry of apostasy has ever been, ‘Ye have killed the people of the Lord.’ It claims the right to carry on its destructive work without opposition. With it, opposition is persecution.

“But the church of God has been set for the defense of the truth, and it can not sit idly by while men wreck the hopes and sincere, confiding hearts for time and for eternity. Elder Jones may boast, if he wishes, that he will ‘never take any part’ in this campaign against error; and so far as we know he has not. Instead, however, he has, to all appearances, allied himself with this apostasy, has become a part of it, and now stands forth as its most prominent champion. Of this, the leaflet under review is indisputable evidence.” (p.38)

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