Please tell me the reasons why EJ Waggner, AT Jones and Prescott left the SDA church?
I know their message of 1888 regarding Righteousness By Faith is correct, but I do not know why they left the church later on. I have been asked by fellow church members and I do not want to give an incorrect statement as to why they left. Thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
___________
Dear Sister ___________,
Thank you for contacting the Ellen G. White Estate. I have never heard anyone claim that W. W. Prescott left the Adventist church. The article about him in the SDA Encyclopedia (part of the SDA Bible Commentary series) offers no hint of this. He lived to be about 89 years of age (1944) and retired only in 1937, as field secretary of the General Conference. If he left the church, I haven't seen any evidence of it yet.
A. T. Jones, however, did leave the church. The SDA Encyclopedia says that a disagreement over certain administrative policies led him to resign from the General Conference Committee in 1899, though he resumed membership in 1901. He served as president of the California Conference from 1901-1903 and then joined Dr. Kellogg's staff in Battle Creek. Kellogg was already actively seeking to separate the sanitarium from denominational control. Jones briefly joined the General Conference in religious liberty work, but soon returned to Kellogg and Battle Creek, where he "became sympathetic with the doctor in his warfare against the General Conference; this resulted in separation from denominational employment and, finally, in loos of church membership" (SDA Encyclopedia). In 1909 the church made a strenuous effort to bring him back, but it was not successful.
E. J. Waggoner drank deeply of the pantheistic ideas of which Kellogg was the best-known champion, which may have resulted in some doctinal estrangement when the church turned away from these things in the early 1900s. While serving in England, Waggoner became too attentive to a woman who was not his wife. His wife divorced him, and he married the other woman. This led to his being dropped from denominational employ. The SDA Encyclopedia mentions this but says nothing about his separating from the church. However, Arthur L. White says that the divorce and remarriage resulted in his loss of employment and of church membership (Appendix B, "Whatever Happened to Jones and Waggoner?" in "Thirteen Crisis Years," by A. V. Olson [originally published under the title "Through Crisis to Victory"]). So with the difference between what these two accounts say, there may be some question about the matter of membership. I do not have a definitive answer for you on that.
I hope this is helpful. Thank you for writing, and God bless!
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William Fagal, Director
Ellen G. White Estate Branch Office
Andrews University
Berrien Springs, MI 49104-1400 USA
Phone: 616 471-3209
FAX: 616 471-2646
Website: www.WhiteEstate.org or www.egwestate.andrews.edu
E-mail: egw@aubranch.egwestate.andrews.edu
