Our Roots, Pt. 46

The next General Conference Session, which should have taken place in 1917, was delayed by the difficulties posed by World War I until 1918. In the five years between 1913 and 1918 the Asiatic Division Mission had been reorganized into the Asiatic Division Conference and the South American Division Conference had been formed. These were officially accepted into the General Conference as the 1918 Session began, but they didn’t last long.

Due largely to the power the North American Division Conference had wielded in the previous five years, the General Conference had decided that Division Conferences as independent legal entities were too big and too strong for the good of the worldwide church. The Europeans, who had started the whole idea of Division Conferences, had been prevented by the hostilities of World War I from fully realizing a functional Division Conference. The Asiatic and South American Division Conferences seem to have been unremarkable one way or another. But after forming the North American Division Conference the General Conference found itself separated from the bulk of its fundraising and human resources. (At that time North America still contained the vast majority of the denomination’s population.) These resources were now controlled by the Division, which had a strong, independent leadership. This left the General Conference feeling that it had to answer to the North American Division, rather than the other way around. It also raised concerns that such a powerful sub-unit could entirely break away from the denomination, fracturing worldwide identity, unity, and mission.

To rectify this power issue all of the Division Conferences were discontinued at the 1918 General Conference Session. In place of these independent legal entities, new legal sub-units of the General Conference were created to oversee the various sections of the world field. The Divisions became “the General Conference in” a certain area. This was different from what had been before because under the previous system the division conferences had answered to, and had their officers chosen by, their own territorial constituency. Under the new system the divisions answered to the General Conference and had their officers chosen for them (with input from representatives of the territory) by the worldwide constituency during General Conference Sessions.

But even this constriction of power didn’t satisfy the General Conference where the North American Division was concerned. The General Conference wanted unimpeded control of the resources in North America. So while the North American Division would continue to exist in name it would have no separate identity from the General Conference for the next 60 years or so. A vice president of the General Conference was assigned to administer the business of the North American Division and all departmental business pertaining to North America was handled directly by the departments of the General Conference. It was not until the 1980s that the North American Division was allowed to gradually separate itself from the General Conference in terms of personnel and budget so as to attain the same level of independent function granted to the other divisions.

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