A Statement of Facts Concerning Our Present Situation—No. 8
By Arthur G. Daniells
In the last article of this series some of the counsel concerning organization which was given to the General Conference of 1901 was quoted, and mention was made of the fact that steps were taken to carry out this instruction. As a result certain changes were made, the most important of which were these:— 1. The organization of union conferences and union mission boards in all parts of the world where either the membership or the staff of workers make it advisable. 2. The transfer of the ownership and management of all institutions and enterprises of the cause to the organizations with which they are by location directly connected. 3. Making all the leading lines, such as the Sabbath-school, educational, medical missionary, religious liberty, and publishing work, departments of the General Conference, and placing the chairmen of these departments on the General Conference Committee. 4. Enlarging and strengthening all conference committees and mission boards by placing on them men especially qualified to represent the evangelical, educational, medical missionary, and publishing interests of the cause. 5. Placing the responsibility of attending to the details of the work in all7parts of the world, upon those who are located where the work is to be done. 6. Arranging an organic connection or union of all the parts of our organization and field by placing on the union conference committees the presidents of local conferences who are elected by the local churches; and further by placing on the General Conference Committee the presidents of union conferences, the superintendents of union mission fields, and the chairmen of all department committees. Thus every church, every department of work, and every institution in the denomination is represented in local and union conferences, and in the General Conference as well. These changes have brought into existence thirteen new union conferences, three union mission organizations, thirty new local conferences, and a number of local mission boards. They have also brought into the management of the affairs of the cause a large number of persons representing the whole field and the whole work. The members of the General Conference Committee have been increased from thirteen to thirty-two. At least four hundred persons have been added to union and local conferences and mission boards. The General Conference does not now own nor manage a single institution except its offices at headquarters. Having turned over to union and local conferences and mission boards the details of the work, the officers of the General Conference are free to devote themselves to the general interests of the cause throughout the world, and especially to establish and develop new missionary stations in foreign lands. Thus we are working away from a centralizing policy toward an administration that is as wide as the world, and that establishes local, responsible government wherever it can be done. As previously admitted, it was right that the General Conference should have been reproved and set right before all the people. But it was to have been expected that the other organizations to which the instruction applied should have accepted and followed it. And this was looked for by the one through whom the reproof was given. It was here that the Medical Missionary Association made a fatal mistake. While the General Conference delegates were doing everything they knew how to destroy their centralizing policy, the members of the Medical Missionary Association, under the suggestions of its leaders, were doing all they could to establish and strengthen their plans of centralization. This is plain from the records of their meetings published in the General Conference Bulletin of 1901. After the president of the association had plainly declared that it was the plan of the association to tie with “two knots” all medical institutions and associations to the “central body,” so that it would be “impossible for these institutions to exist without this body, and to maintain their corporate life without this corporation,” he asked the members to “vote adopting this mode of procedure, and recommending that it shall be continued, and that all the sanitariums organized and incorporated shall be incorporated on a similar plan, so that they shall be tied to this [central] body.” And it was unanimously voted “that it is the sense of this body that this plan be adopted universally.” The president thanked the members of the association for this vote, saying, “It will back up the Medical Missionary Board, and make it feel a little stronger in carrying out the principle.” And yet this principle had been utterly condemned by the spirit of prophecy in the early part of the conference, and the conference itself was doing all in its power to get rid of the principle. The two bodies in the same conference were working in opposite directions. They have certainly had very opposite experiences. The General Conference has steadily grown in the favor and confidence of our people, and never faced a brighter outlook than it does to-day. The Medical Missionary Association has ceased to exist. This whole experience teaches an important lesson. The time has surely come for the finishing of the work, and the Lord has been dealing with his people in reference to this great fact. He has been reorganizing the forces to prepare for the final conflict, and any part of the former organization which neglected to follow warning and counsel was necessarily set aside, as the word has gone forth that there shall be no more delay. Therefore even in the difficulties and perplexities which have brought us to our present situation, we may find encouragement. It is time that the mystery of God should be finished.