Book: General Conference Committee, A Statement Refuting Charges Made by A. T. Jones Against the Spirit of Prophecy and the Plan of Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination (Washington, DC: General Conference Committee, 1906). HTML, Scan.
Contents: Refutes charges made by A. T. Jones after he had united with J. H. Kellogg in undermining the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Chapter 18: Elder Jones’s “Retirement”
On page 21 Elder Jones refers to the Conference held in Oakland, Cal., in 1903, and the changes made in the Constitution, one of which provided for a president of the General Conference. As a result of this action we are told that a “czardom was enthroned,” a “bureaucratic government” built up, and a “centralized despotism” established, which has ever since been meddling with and manipulating affairs.
On page 37, referring to a further result of this so-called “monarchy,” he says: “I knew then what would be at least some of the results of the action there taken, and spoke of it at the time; and when that action was finally taken by the Conference, I knew that it would stop my preaching under General Conference auspices the truth that I have been preaching all these years.” He claims, therefore, that he has now gone to a place “where, in comparative retirement,” he can “teach and preach” without interfering with the established order of things.
It certainly would be a calamity, if true, for some despotic rule to prevail, which would force able workers into “retirement.”
We would like, however, to inquire what we now have as a result of the organization which was decided upon at the Oakland Conference, that we have not had from [p. 91] the beginning of our denominational organization. It is true, we have a president of the General, Conference now; but, with the exception of two years, we have had one since 1863. And if simply having a president establishes a “despotism,” then we have had a “despotism” from the first. And it was under this so-called papal and despotic rule that Elder Jones was converted, and united with this people. Under it he labored for a score or more of years, becoming one of our prominent speakers and writers. Now, if he could labor under this so-called tyranny, for so many years; attend General Conference, and vote; and accept, without a protest, a position on the highest committee of this “despotism,” how does it happen he now finds it necessary to seek a place of “comparative retirement”?
But further, he says that “three months before the Conference met” in Oakland he had “decided to go to the Sanitarium to teach.” Note this statement. Three months before this so-called “czardom was enthroned,” he had decided to go to his present place of “comparative retirement.” In other words, it was during the time when we had no president, when the plan of organization was in force which was adopted at the 1901 Conference, when Elder Jones claims the “monarchy was swept aside completely,”—it was at this time, when the church had no “visible head,” that he decided to go into a place of “comparative retirement.” How, then, can he charge his “retirement” to the “centralized despotism” which he claims is now dominating affairs, but which was not “enthroned” until the Oakland Conference?
All these strong charges made regarding some despotism being built up, are extravagant and untrue. They are put forth without any proof. We do not claim the organization we have is perfect in all its details; but it is the best the delegates at our General Conference knew how to construct; and those who constructed it are seeking to advance the message, and not to destroy it.
[p. 92]
Those who read his leaflet under review, we think, will have no difficulty in understanding the true cause of Elder Jones’s “comparative retirement.”