Basic HTML Version
Historical Foreword
xix
ciation, the membership should be enlarged to twenty-one. These
proposals were adopted by the conference
.
Subsequent records indicate that steps were taken to consolidate
the church’s worldwide activities, which had been under the manage-
ment of various committees, and place them under the control of the
General Conference Association with its committee of twenty-one
.
The leading officers of the General Conference Committee
were also leading officers of the General Conference Association.
However, with the members of both committees usually scattered
throughout the world, the routine business fell largely into the hands
of a few men in Battle Creek, some of whom were deeply involved
in the business interests of the institutions there
.
Not all that was contemplated in the action calling for consoli-
dation came about, but sufficient did materialize to start a train of
movement toward consolidation and to load the General Conference
Association with the financial obligations of the publishing houses,
tract societies, educational institutions, and sanitariums throughout
the world. With a full meeting of the committee held only rarely,
it was inevitable that routine decisions affecting the interests of the
cause throughout the world were made by a handful of men in Battle
Creek—often no more than four, five, or six men. In her communi-
cations Ellen G. White protested the moves toward consolidation,
and other moves which did not bear God’s endorsement. (See
Life
Sketches, Pages 319-330
, chapter, “Danger in Adopting Worldly
Policy in the Work of God.”)
The situation at Battle Creek, involving both institutions and
the General Conference, seems to be well summed up in the article,
[xxviii]
“Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me,” written in September,
1895, and appearing on pages 359-364. The reader would do well to
peruse this carefully
.
The E. G. White communications to Elder Olsen, president of
the General Conference and of the General Conference Association,
contained many messages of reproof to those who would take upon
themselves the responsibility of making decisions touching so in-
timately the work of the denomination around the world. Much of
this instruction sent to Elder Olsen is to be found in
Testimonies to
ministers
. As noted above, he put the messages into print, that the
instruction and warning might be sent to others
.