The Times of Volume Eight
Volume 8 was published to meet a crisis—the greatest crisis which
the Seventh-day Adventist church has ever faced. The urgency of the
matter is evidenced in that the book came from the press in March,
1904, fifteen months after volume 7 was published. At the time of its
issuance it was not known how the tide would turn. Today we can
look back and see that its steadying instruction was a large factor in
averting threatened disaster
.
While the work of the denomination was reaching out to encom-
pass the world, and while there had been a reorganization of the
General Conference which made a rapid yet sound growth possible,
developments in our old headquarters city of battle Creek, Michigan,
took shape which, if they had been unchecked, would have led to the
destruction of the very foundations of Seventh-day Adventist faith. It
all came about in such a subtle way that its hazards were not detected
at the outset, for error was presenting itself under the garb of “new
light.”
Near the turn of the century, certain of the workers of the denomi-
nation, and especially the leader in the medical missionary interests,
espoused certain teachings concerning the personality of God which
were quite out of harmony with the clear teachings of the word of God
and the positions of the church. Yet these teachings were set forth as
an advancement in the understanding of the message, the general ac-
ceptance of which would, it was claimed, bring a glorious experience
to the people of God and would hasten the finishing of the work
.
These pantheistic views envisioned God not as a great personal
being ruling the universe, but rather as a power, a force, seen and felt
in nature and pervading the very atmosphere. Confusing the power
of God with His personality, they saw God in the sunshine, in the
flower, in the grass, in the tree, and in their fellow human beings.
[6]
These strange but entrancing views were publicly presented at one
General Conference session, they were freely advocated in Battle
Creek College, and were presented again and again in the Battle Creek
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