Bible Conference of 1919

The Bible Conference organized by church leaders in 1919 to discuss eschatological and theological issues was one of the most significant meetings in the history of the denomination. The gathering consisted of two overlapping meetings: the main Bible Conference, held July 1 to 19, with a Bible and History Teachers’ Council that met concurrently and continued until August 9.

Introduction

During the 1910s, conservative Protestant Christians in North America held a series of “prophetic conferences” to respond to the rise of liberal theology.¹ This came out of a rich tradition of prophecy conferences dating back to the 1878 Niagara Conference, as the certainty of prophetic interpretation was part of a counterpoint to Modernists, whose use of critical methodologies was seen as an attack on the reliability of Scripture. The loosely knit conservatives identified several biblical teachings as fundamental tenets of the Christian faith: the (1) infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture; (2) historicity of miracles; (3) virgin birth of Christ; (4) bodily resurrection of Christ; and (5) substitutionary atonement of Christ. Later, Curtis Lee Laws coined the term “Fundamentalist” to describe Christians willing “to do battle royal for the fundamentals.”² Adventists saw themselves, with some reservations, as broadly in alignment with this nascent Fundamentalist movement; certainly, they saw Modernist theology as a threat and sign of the end that called for Adventists to warn people about the impending eschaton. Following the model of these Fundamentalist prophecy conferences, Adventists, too, laid plans for holding such a Bible Conference—plans that were delayed due to World War I. Only after wartime restrictions were lifted did it become feasible to hold such a meeting, which eventually materialized seven and a half months after the end of the war.

Within Adventist historiography, the 1919 Bible Conference is particularly well-known for its far-reaching discussions about the nature and authority of Ellen G. White’s writings. Although not on the original agenda, this would be the first time that church leaders discussed how to properly understand and interpret her writings after her death in 1915. In hindsight, this meeting provides a pivotal window into a liminal space as older leaders, who worked closely with Ellen White, wrestled with a new generation who had little personal experience with the prophetic gift. Church leaders within this transitional time recognized that there were at least two major ways of interpreting her writings, each with significant long-term implications for the church and its future. Such candid conversations became explosive fodder for controversy in the 1970s after the discovery of the long-forgotten transcripts in the newly organized denominational archives and their publication in Spectrum, an independent journal. Adventist thought leaders recognized that a much earlier generation had wrestled with challenges similar to what the church now faced decades later.

Background

As early as 1913 Adventist editor Milton C. Wilcox (1853-1935) called for a Bible conference in a private appeal to church president Arthur G. Daniells (1858-1936). He urged that they hold such a conference to advance “in-depth” Bible study.³ However, nothing tangible resulted until after the General Conference (GC) Executive Committee passed three resolutions on April 15, 1918. First, church leaders voted to hold a “council” in Washington, D.C., for six weeks beginning July 1. Second, they provided that the attendees would be made up of Bible and history teachers from colleges and junior colleges, editors of church papers, and church administrators. And third, it was provided that union and local conferences cover the transportation expenses of delegates.⁴

The 1918 Spring Council of the General Conference established a planning committee of five persons to lay more specific plans.⁵ Due to the exigencies of war, and the concomitant high cost of travel, church leaders decided to postpone the Bible Conference to the summer of 1919.⁶ By May 18 the planning committee consisted of GC President A. G. Daniells, Edwin R. Palmer (1869-1931), Manager of the Review and Herald Publishing Association, GC Associate Secretary John L. Shaw (1870-1952), GC Field Secretary George B. Thompson (1862-1930), and Warren E. Howell (1869-1934), the departmental secretary of the GC Educational Department. Daniells chaired the committee; Howell served as committee secretary.⁷ The planning committee membership would fluctuate with the addition of GC Field Secretary William W. Prescott (1855-1944), Arthur W. Spalding (1877-1953), editor of The Watchman Magazine, Milton E. Kern (1875-1961), departmental secretary of the GC Missionary Volunteer Department, and Rollin D. Quinn (1869-1928), president of the Atlantic Union Conference, and then the subsequent dropping of Shaw and Prescott due to their extensive travel schedules.⁸ As more concrete plans materialized, the committee voted to study the following topics: “The Person of Christ, The Mediatorial Work of Christ, The Nature and Work of the Holy Spirit, The Two Covenants, The Principles of Prophetic Interpretation, The Eastern Question, The Beast Power in Revelation, The 1260 Days, The United States in Prophecy, The Seven Trumpets, [and] Matthew Twenty-four.”⁹ Many of these topics concerned prophetic interpretation, reflecting the larger movement of prophetic conferences and the heightened interest in them during the recent world war.

During early 1919 the planning committee recommended that this Bible Conference be held in Petoskey, Michigan (the site of the 1891 Harbor Springs Convention), with Denver, Colorado, as a back-up location. However, those recommendations were scrapped and on May 23, 1919, the General Conference Executive Committee voted that the conference be held in the Washington, D.C., area, citing such advantages as proximity to research libraries and archival materials and the “inadvisability” of holding such a large meeting in tents, the latter point adding to the appeal of using the facilities offered by Washington Missionary College (WMC).¹⁰ Church leaders also divided up the meetings into two different parts: a Bible Conference and a concurrent Bible and History Teachers’ Institute.¹¹ The Bible Conference ran from July 1 through July 19. The meetings for just the Bible and history teachers extended until August 9. The invitation-only event brought together 65 participants for the main Bible Conference, held in the newly-completed Columbia Hall near the center of the WMC campus. The building was so new that one conferee rejoiced partway through when screens were installed over the windows.¹²

Major Issues

Church leaders hoped that bringing together a group of significant thought leaders would bring about unity and harmony.¹³ The largest portion of the presentations focused on the Bible and hermeneutics in conjunction with how to properly understand Adventist eschatology. The very year 1919 marked 75 years since the Great Disappointment. As a new generation of church leaders came to the helm of leadership, traditional views were being scrutinized, especially as related to prophetic interpretation. World War I (1914-1918) had only finished the year before and eschatological interest was high both in society at large, as well as within the denomination.

At times, seemingly insignificant topics were of vital importance to participants. With regard to the ten kingdoms of Daniel 2, for example, WMC professor Christian M. Sorenson (1875-1965) noted: “Sometimes we may think these things do not matter much, that they are not essential to salvation. But they are vital. The interpretation of prophecy is essential to salvation in these last days. But there is a crusade of opposition against it, and an under-current among Seventh-day Adventists to put it away.”¹⁴ Other leaders called for tolerance about such interpretative details. Adventist editor, Calvin P. Bollman (1853-1943), stated: “And here we might well dismiss the subject of the identity of the ten kingdoms, were it not for the reason that it affords such an excellent opportunity to make a plea for tolerance of opinion on this and other subjects not vital to our Adventist faith.”¹⁵ Discussions through the first week led to voted agreement on a list of 24 principles, but this did not stymie further discussions and controversies.¹⁶

Another intriguing aspect of the Bible Conference was the role of Biblical languages.¹⁷ For the first time in Adventist history, enough participants at a major gathering were sufficiently conversant in Greek and Hebrew to debate in some detail the original biblical texts and their exegesis. This also brought up the issue of Bible translations. H. Camden Lacey (1871-1950) appears to have reflected the view of the majority that no single Bible translation was infallible. Since language is inflected, he argued, this can make it difficult to always capture the original emphasis. Conferees acknowledged that translators often inserted their own meaning into a translation. There appears to have been a consensus that biblical languages are extremely valuable, but neither should they be misused.¹⁸

Another important issue was the eternality of Christ as expressed in the Trinity. W. W. Prescott led out in a series throughout the Bible Conference on the Person of Christ (afterward published as a book¹⁹). Nels John Waldorf (1873-1947), a Bible teacher at South Lancaster Academy, recalled just how much controversy this topic raised. While the eternality of Christ had been controversial in early Adventism, during the 1890s the tide began to turn toward affirming it. A significant turning point, according to participants at the 1919 Bible Conference, was Ellen White’s famous Christological statement from The Desire of Ages (1898) that in Christ was life “original, unborrowed, underived.” Despite this and similarly clear statements by Ellen White, some theologians such as Waldorf found difficulty accepting 1) that Christ existed from all eternity and 2) the personhood of the Holy Spirit. Although they generated some debates at the 1919 Bible Conference, it appears that Daniells and Prescott both believed that these two concepts were becoming more widely accepted.²⁰

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the conference was the interpretation of the “daily” in Daniel 8, 11, and 12. The controversy centered around the Millerite interpretation of the “daily” as Roman paganism, but then the “new” view identified it as Christ’s ministry in heaven. Proponents of the “old” Millerite view relied on tradition and a statement written by Ellen White in 1850 for support. Exponents of the new interpretation argued on the basis of their exegetical study. Though the topic of the “daily” or “continual” sacrifice was not formally addressed, A. G. Daniells, W. W. Prescott, and H. C. Lacey each brought the topic up on a number of occasions. Ellen White’s admonitions after the 1909 General Conference to stop arguing about the “daily” did not, a decade later, appear to have put a damper on the long-standing debate. W. W. Prescott in particular kept bringing it up during his devotional talks. This debate at this time centered on a quotation by Ellen White in Early Writings that stated that the Lord gave the “correct view” about the daily to the early pioneers.²¹ Prescott and Daniells rejected the traditional interpretation, called the “old view,” as advocated by church leaders like George I. Butler (1834-1918) and Stephen N. Haskell (1834-1922), contending that a much better interpretation (“the new view”) focused upon the sacrifice of Christ and efforts in history to subvert its significance.²²

Another major controversy centered upon the identity of the “king of the north” of Daniel 11. Daniells was so concerned about the controversy getting out of hand that, as he had done in other instances, he decreed that no discussion could happen unless he was present in the room, and that there be no transcription of the discussion.²³ William Miller (1782-1849) had taught that Rome was the king of the north. Uriah Smith (1832-1903) had modified this by adding that a “triangular war” would also include France and Turkey. By 1919 there was growing dissatisfaction with Smith’s interpretation, which in fact was discredited when the Ottoman Empire fell during the then-recent world war. It appears that no consensus emerged in 1919, as views on this topic were quite fluid.

Other issues raised at the conference included creation juxtaposed against evolution, the dating of the 1260-day/year prophecy, and the identification of the seven trumpets of Revelation 8-11. With each of these issues there appears to have been a fairly large amount of consensus. Of course, with the limited transcripts, it is not possible to know exhaustively every topic that might have been discussed during these meetings.

Overall, the surviving transcripts indicate significant hermeneutical differences among the participants. Of note were self-described “traditionalists” versus “progressives.” The “traditionalists” tended to resist any changes, even as they embraced the concept of inerrancy that became popular during the late nineteenth century and became a hallmark of the rising Fundamentalist movement. Meanwhile the “progressives” were open to new interpretations, while they tended to embrace a more moderate variety of Fundamentalism. Apparently, it did not take long for discussions to become quite heated. At various points throughout the extant transcripts, A. G. Daniells, as church president, asked the stenographers to stop recording the minutes, or to strike out what they had just recorded.²⁴ As the meeting went on, Daniells asked that controversial topics such as the Eastern Question (the role of Turkey in Daniel 11) not be discussed unless he was physically in the room. It is important to realize that transcripts have been preserved for only a fraction of the conference proceedings.

One participant, Clifton L. Taylor (1882-1963), compared the disputes at the conference to the boxing match on the Fourth of July (only four days into the meeting) in which Jack Dempsey won the world heavyweight championship in just three rounds. With the conference not in session on the holiday, Taylor heard reports of the Dempsey fight on megaphones placed across Washington, D.C. It was nothing, he said, in comparison to the “big guns” that were “firing broadsides” in debating issues at the Bible conference in Takoma Park.²⁵ Ultimately, two different interpretative or hermeneutical schools of thought became evident during the 1919 Bible Conference. Such differences would become even more pronounced about how to properly interpret Ellen G. White’s writings, and their continued authority for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Authority and Interpretation of Ellen G. White’s Writings

The portion of the 1919 Bible Conference that has drawn the greatest interest is the crucial conversations that took place about the authority and interpretation of Ellen G. White’s writings. This was the first major discussion by church leaders on this topic after her death just four years before in 1915. The topic came up at four significant moments—the first two during the main Bible Conference, and the last two during the “round table” discussions held by the smaller group of Bible and history teachers.

The first, on July 10, 1919, dwelt upon the function of Ellen White’s writings in evaluation and revision of Adventist stances on prophetic interpretation. Some of the participants, notably W. W. Prescott and H. C. Lacey, had worked closely with Ellen White when she went about preparing the 1911 edition of her seminal book, The Great Controversy. She requested a number of scholars in the church to help her track down historical quotations from the previous 1888 edition, and when unable to find them, assist in locating new historical references. Conference participants noted several specific examples of how Ellen White incorporated revisions into this book. As Daniells noted:

Sister White never claimed to be an authority on history, and never claimed to be a dogmatic teacher on theology . . . and as I have understood it, where the history that related to the interpretation of prophecy was clear and expressive, she wove it into her writings; but I have always understood that, as far as she was concerned, she was ready to correct in revision such statements as she thought should be corrected.²⁶

Clearly, conferees realized that she was not an infallible source for history and did not consider herself to be a historian. Instead, conferees emphasized that as she discovered new and better sources, she made changes. What was important was the narrative, not every miniscule detail. Ellen White gave her imprimatur to revisions for the 1911 edition, accepting most but not necessarily all suggested modifications, as she explained in a letter to F. M. Wilcox (1865-1951). Wilcox read the letter aloud at the 1919 conference to help inform fellow conferees about this process.²⁷

R. A. Underwood (1850-1932) got to a deeper issue: the authority of Ellen White’s writings in relationship to the authority of the Bible. He added that there were two extremes in the denomination. On the one hand were those who “present the Testimonies just the same as the Bible.”²⁸ A second extreme view described her writings as a “telescope”—an interpretative lens through which to interpret the Bible.²⁹ Such views raised the question of whether Ellen White’s writings were authoritatively equal to, or, in effect, above the Bible. Participants appeared especially concerned about the latter implication. Veteran minister A. O. Tait (1858-1941) contrasted the authority of Ellen White’s writings with that of the Bible. Only the Bible was inerrant, he proposed, thus implying that Ellen White’s writings were not.³⁰ This dichotomy would be explored further in the last two discussions.

This initial discussion appears to have caused A. G. Daniells concern, reflected in a devotional talk he gave for the second discussion, held on July 16, though it was only partially recorded. Daniells apparently began by sharing his personal experiences with James and Ellen White. He had gotten to know Ellen White quite well as a missionary in Australia, and she had served as a mentor for him during the re-organization of the denomination in 1901 and subsequently during the first dozen or so of his years as General Conference president. Whatever the specifics, Daniells surely shared a very personal and heartfelt testimony about his experiences with Ellen White while she was alive.

The last two discussions occurred during two “round table” discussions held by the 28 Bible and history teachers who continued meeting together after the conclusion of the main Bible Conference. These two meetings occurred on July 30 and August 1. W. E. Howell, education secretary for the General Conference, led these meetings and asked Daniells to come back and explore, in more detail, questions these teachers had about the nature and authority of Ellen G. White’s writings. It is these last two discussions that would draw the most attention after the transcripts were made public in 1979. The discussions occurred in a question-and-answer format as teachers probed Daniells for clarification, presumably on what he shared during his devotional talk on July 16.

A first area of concern by participants was the criticisms by people such as Alonzo T. Jones (1850-1923) and Dr. John H. Kellogg (1852-1943) who undermined her writings. Jones had come to question Ellen White’s authority when he realized that her testimonies did not always live up to the untenable view he advocated for them during the 1890s. He believed that the “Testimonies were verbally inspired,” implying that they were inerrant. He would “hang a man on a word” from an Ellen White quote when he could, according to Daniells.³¹ Such a hardline stance was clearly problematic for Daniells, and some of the teachers at the institute urged that the church needed to do more to educate the denomination about the proper nature and understanding of inspiration as related to Ellen White’s writings.³²

Another area of concern was how to present the gift of prophecy to students. Should they emphasize supernatural aspects such as in the famous account of her holding up “a heavy Bible” while in vision? Daniells discouraged relying on such supernatural phenomenon as the basis for belief in her testimonies. After all, he said, “I do not know whether that [holding the Bible] was ever done or not. I am not sure. I did not see it. . . . I do not count that sort of thing as a very great proof.”³³ He believed much stronger proofs were evident in the overall impact of her life and teachings.

It is clear that the thrust of these discussions was to uphold the supreme authority of the Bible, to which Ellen White’s writings pointed. As Daniells put it, “the Book explains itself, and I think we can understand the Book, fundamentally, through the Book, without resorting to the Testimonies to prove up on it.”³⁴ Even when it came to historical questions, Ellen White “never claimed to be an authority on history,” Daniells later added.³⁵

Such a flexible and progressive view of inspiration went against the popular mold of a narrow, rigid view of inerrancy, such as that championed by S. N. Haskell and others. Such concepts, about the Bible, were already popularized among conservative Christians during the late nineteenth century and a hallmark of the rising Fundamentalist movement. Participants at the 1919 Bible Conference realized that this view of inspiration (infallibility) was not a view that Ellen White held about her own writings, and that she furthermore consistently viewed her writings as a lesser light leading back to the primacy of the Bible.³⁶

Participants also noted that a great deal of education was indeed needed within the denomination. Some urged Daniells to have church leaders issue a statement on inspiration, or possibly produce a pamphlet.³⁷ Nothing appears to have directly resulted from these requests although various individual participants did continue to work to educate the church on these topics. However, Daniells, after his removal from the presidency at the 1922 General Conference session, became increasingly insistent about the need to promote a more balanced understanding of Ellen White. These efforts culminated with his book The Abiding Gift of Prophecy (1936). Similarly, Ellen White’s son, W. C. (Willie) White (1854-1937), who missed the 1919 Bible Conference due to the double wedding of his twin sons, worked diligently to better educate the church about how to properly understand his mother’s writings.³⁸ Despite such efforts, the emphasis upon Ellen White’s inerrancy along with, in effect, elevating her authority above the Bible by making her writings its infallible interpreter, proved to be an irresistible temptation for many rank-and-file church members during the 1920s and for decades thereafter.

As the Bible and history teachers wrapped up their meeting, the sense that there were two hermeneutical and interpretative schools of thought became obvious. Some so-called “traditionalists” or “conservatives”—influenced by the rising Fundamentalist teaching of inerrancy—were trying to teach the infallibility of Ellen White’s writings and equated her writings as either equal, or at times, in effect, even above Scripture in terms of authority. Some of the best-known advocates of these positions, Judson S. Washburn (1863-1955) and Claude E. Holmes (1881-1953), were not in attendance at the conference, yet their views were well known and widely disseminated at the time.³⁹ At the same time, many of the educators at the conference recognized that Ellen White was far more nuanced about how inspiration works, and consistently characterized the authority of her writings as subservient to the superior authority of the Bible. Participants on at least five occasions noted how significant the challenge of countering distorted views on this matter was for the denomination and that something must be done. Yet in the end, despite passing resolutions about its importance of the matter, the deliberations and presentations were never made public.

From a pedagogical viewpoint, Howell was pleased with the outcome of the meetings held by Bible and history teachers. Efforts to reform the training of teachers came about as part of an initiative to standardize the Adventist college curriculum at 128 total semester hours. This was an important aspect of the conference and needs more research. Howell furthermore noted that teachers present were able to produce “a distinct syllabus on each subject.” These syllabi would be circulated among educators, and it appears that Howell hoped that through the classroom these educators would be both better prepared and through the process of education inform the church about how to understand the gift of prophecy. For Howell, this meeting was, first and foremost, an attempt to improve the quality of Adventist education.⁴⁰

Discovery of Transcripts and Reception

When Frank D. Yost (1927-2022) was tasked to create the General Conference Archives (1973) he began to sort through the church records, many of which had been stored in the holding areas for decades. Donald E. Mansell (1923-2018), an employee of the Ellen G. White Estate, was at the time working on articles for the first revised edition of the Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia and had noticed a reference in the Review and Herald to a Bible Conference. Mansell asked Yost to keep his eyes out for any transcripts as he sorted through papers. On December 6, 1974, Yost found such a box and shared it with Mansell, who quickly realized the historical significance of its contents.⁴¹ He shared portions of the transcripts with Arthur L. White (1907-1991), then secretary of the White Estate, with the idea of making copies for White Estate Research Centers.

Yet after four years these transcripts had not been distributed. At the time some copies of the pivotal “round table” discussions were given to Roy Branson (1938-2015), editor of Spectrum, an independent journal published by the Association of Adventist Forums. Branson published the excerpted transcripts in the May 1979 issue of the journal. He stated that he was not told that he could not publish them, but neither did he ask for permission. The publication of these transcripts was nothing short of explosive, and many Adventist academics cited them as evidence that the church had covered up candid conversations about the nature and authority of Ellen G. White’s writings from a much earlier generation.

Publication of the scintillating discussions about Ellen White occurred at the very time the denomination was wrestling with the questions about Ellen White’s prophetic ministry entailed in Ronald L. Numbers controversial publication, Prophetess of Health (1976), alleging that Ellen White largely borrowed her writings about health reform from then contemporary health reformers. Also, a series of articles in Spectrum countered the notion of an infallible Ellen White, Desmond Ford (1929-2019) raised new challenges about the sanctuary doctrine and Ellen White’s “pastoral” authority, and Walter Rea (1922-2014) charged that Ellen White’s writings were largely plagiarized. All these developments added to a sense of angst in some parts of the church about how to properly understand and interpret those writings as well as their authority within the denomination.⁴² Adventist evangelist H. M. S. Richards (1894-1985) was one who believed that the church had missed an opportunity in 1919. “They haven’t discovered anything new,” he said about these later challenges about inspiration. “All those charges are old. I heard them all 40 years ago. They were all discussed at the 1919 Bible Conference.”⁴³ Conversely, conservative critics continued allegations that those who promoted the 1919 Bible Conference were merely “new theology liberals” bent on wrecking the denomination.⁴⁴

After the dissemination of the transcripts Adventist historians began to incorporate the 1919 Bible Conference into Adventist historiography. A good example is the denominational textbook on Adventist history, Light Bearers. The first edition was completed before the transcripts from the 1919 conference were made public (though published the same year, 1979), and thus did not reference the conference at all. Floyd Greenleaf’s revision published in 2000 remedied that lack with three pages of coverage.⁴⁵ Reinder Bruinsma discussed the larger rise of Adventism and Fundamentalism as part of the Beach Lectures (2000).⁴⁶ Similarly, Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart discussed this meeting as having special significance in their Seeking a Sanctuary (1989, 2007).⁴⁷ Probably the most influential person to incorporate 1919 into the historiography of Adventism was George R. Knight who discussed the conference as a significant milestone in A Search for Identity (2000).⁴⁸ He described it as marking the beginning of the third major phase in Adventist theological development, in which the denomination sorted out what is “Fundamentalist” in Adventism. Conversely, Adventist critics, Colin Standish (1933-2018) and Russell Standish (1933-2008), opined that the participants of the 1919 Bible Conference engaged in a “decided denigration” of Ellen White’s prophetic gift that was tantamount to a “disgraceful denial of faith.”⁴⁹ In 2008 Michael W. Campbell completed a Ph.D. dissertation going into detail about this historic gathering, with a condensed and popularized summary of his research published as 1919: The Untold Story of Adventism’s Struggle with Fundamentalism.⁵⁰ Also in 2008, Ronald L. Numbers published some of the excerpts as “The Secret 1919 Bible Conferences” in an appendix to the third edition of his book Prophetess of Health (2008).⁵¹ About this time the General Conference Archives also digitized all of the transcripts making them freely available for anyone to study online.

In 2019, for the centennial of the 1919 Bible Conference, the Adventist Society for Religious Studies (ASRS) made the historic conference the major theme for their annual meeting. A variety of Adventist scholars sought to analyze various aspects of these meetings. Knight, in two books, Ellen White’s Afterlife (2019) and Prophets in Conflict (2020) posited that the 1919 Bible Conference was “remarkable for its openness” about Ellen White’s “authority” and the relationship of her writings to the Bible.⁵² Particularly notable was Knight’s publishing the controversial discussions about Ellen White at the end of the former volume.

Conclusion

The 1919 Bible Conference was an important episode in the development of Seventh-day Adventist theology that showcases a liminal transitional space from the earliest generation of Adventist pioneers, especially Ellen G. White, and how the church would interpret her writings after her death. While on the one hand there was a generation who had closely worked with Ellen White and were much more familiar with her writings, at the same time there were others who took a more narrow and rigid approach to these same writings. These groups polarized as they debated a wide variety of topics at the meeting. In doing so, they revealed not only a great deal about the issues that were important to them, but also the complex approaches to hermeneutics that undergirded these debates. Such debates would lay a foundation for later debates about revelation and inspiration, and the authority of Ellen White’s writings, which continued through much of the twentieth century on up to the present.

Sources

Bendroth, Margaret L. Fundamentalism and Gender: 1875 to the Present. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993.

Brasher, Brenda E., ed. Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism. London: Routledge, 2001.

Bruinsma, Reinder. Seventh-day Adventism and Fundamentalism. The Beach Lectures for 2000. Published by the Centre for the Study of Religious and Cultural Diversity, Occasional Papers, no. 4 (2006).

Campbell, Michael W. 1919: The Untold Story of Adventism’s Struggle with Fundamentalism. Boise, ID: Pacific Press, 2019.

Campbell, Michael W. 1922: The Rise of Adventist Fundamentalism. Boise, ID: Pacific Press, 2022.

Campbell, Michael W. “Bibliography of Sources Cited in the 1919 Bible Conference Transcripts.” Unpublished paper, 2008.

Campbell, Michael W. “The Haunting of Adventism: The Ghosts of the 1919 Bible Conference.” Paper presented to the Adventist Society for Religious Studies, San Diego, CA, November 22, 2019.

Campbell, Michael W. “Seventh-day Adventists, Fundamentalism, and the Second Wave of the Ku Klux Klan.” Spectrum 50, no. 1 (Spring 2022): 14-22.

Daniells, Arthur G. The Abiding Gift of Prophecy. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1936.

Fortin, Denis. “’I have Had to Adjust My View of Things’: Lessons from the 1919 Bible Conference.” Spectrum 48, no. 1 (Spring 2020): 16-27.

Greenleaf, Floyd, and Richard W. Schwarz. Light Bearers: A History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2000.

Haloviak, Bert B. “In the Shadow of the ‘Daily’” Background and Aftermath of the 1919 Bible and History Teachers’ Conference.” Unpublished paper, November 14, 1979.

Jackson, Maury D. and Nathan Brown, A House on Fire: How Adventist Faith Responds to Race and Racism (Warburton, Victoria, Australia: Signs Publishing, 2022.

Knight, George R. A Search for Identity: The Development of Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2000.

Knight, George R. Ellen White’s Afterlife: Delightful Fictions, Troubling Facts, and Enlightening Research. Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2019.

Knight, George R. Prophets in Conflict: Issues in Authority. Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2020.

Margolis, Maxine L. Women in Fundamentalism: Modesty, Marriage, and Motherhood. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.

Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture, 3^rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.

Matthews, Mary Beth Swetnam. Doctrine and Race: African American Evangelicals and Fundamentalism Between the Wars. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2018.

McArthur, Benjamin G. A G. Daniells: Shaper of Twentieth-Century Adventism. Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2016.

McGraw, Paul. “Without a Living Prophet,” Ministry, April 2000, 11-15.

Numbers, Ronald L. Prophetess of Health, 3^rd ed. New York: Harper & Row, 2008.

Pöhler, Rolf. Dynamic Truth: A Study of the Problem of Doctrinal Development. Mockern-Friedensau: Institute of Adventist Studies, 2020.

“Report of Bible Conference Held in Takoma Park, D.C., July 1-19, 1919.” General Conference Archives of Seventh-day Adventists Archives, https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Resources/Forms/AllFolders.aspx.

Standish, Russell R. & Colin D. Standish, The Greatest of All the Prophets. Narbethong, Victoria, Australia: Highwood Books, 2004.

Valentine, Gilbert M. W. W. Prescott: Forgotten Giant of Adventism’s Second Generation. Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2005.

Wheeler, Gerald. S. N. Haskell: Adventist Pioneer, Evangelist, Missionary, and Editor. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2017.

Notes

1. Light on Prophecy: A Coordinated, Constructive Teaching Being the Proceedings and Addresses of the Philadelphia Prophetic Conference, May 28-30, 1918 (New York: The Christian Herald Bible House, 1918); Kemper Fullerton, ed. Prophecy and Authority: A Study in the History of the Doctrine and Interpretation of Scripture (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1919).↩

2. Curtis Lee Laws, “Convention Side Lights,” Watchman-Examiner 8 [July 1, 1920], 834; See also: Matt Thompson, “The Origins of ‘Fundamentalism’: The Word Came Into Popular Usage in the 1920s, But Its Used Quite Differently Today,” The Atlantic, June 30, 2015, accessed October 31, 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/06/the-origins-of-fundamentalism/397238/.↩

3. M. C. Wilcox to A. G. Daniells, March 23, 1913, RG 11, Incoming Letters, 1913-W, General Conference Archives.↩

4. General Conference Executive Committee Minutes, April 15, 1918, 10.↩

5. Spring Council, 107^th meeting, General Conference Committee, April 29, 1918, 36.↩

6. General Conference Committee Minutes, May 20, 1918, 36.↩

7. J. L. Shaw to W. E. Howell, May 18, 1919, General Secretariat Files, Collection 21, Box 30, folder “1919—Howell, W. E.,” General Conference Archives. For the men’s positions see the 1919 Yearbook.↩

8. “Report of Bible Conference Held in Takoma Park, D.C., July 1-19, 1919,” May 4, 1919, 283-284, Box 3829. RG 25, General Conference Archives. This entire collection of unpublished manuscripts in the General Conference Archives can be accessed online here. Again, for positions, see the 1919 Yearbook.↩

9. “Report of Bible Conference,” May 5, 1919, 302-303.↩

10. Telegram, F. M. Wilcox to J. L. Shaw, May 16, 1919; J. L. Shaw to W. A. Spicer, May 18, 1919, Secretariat General Files, Coll. #21, Box 36, “1919—Wilcox, F. M.” General Conference Archives.↩

11. General Conference Minutes, May 23, 1919, 325.↩

12. Clifton L. Taylor Diary, July 10, 1919, copy in possession of author.↩

13. This was noted by Daniells during his opening address on July 1, 1919. See “Report of Bible Conference,” July 1, 1919, 9-16.↩

14. “Report of Bible Conference,” July 2, 1919, 101.↩

15. “Report of Bible Conference,” July 2, 1919, 74.↩

16. To read the whole list, see “Report of Bible Conference,” 45-59.↩

17. For a discussion, see Campbell, “The 1919 Bible Conference,” 110-113.↩

18. H. Camden Lacey in “Report of Bible Conference,” July 3, 1919, 160-161, 177; see also Prescott’s comments about the translation of Hebrews 1-2, “Report of Bible Conference,” July 13, 1919, 628-629, 680. Other examples include “Report of Bible Conference,” July 13, 1919,” 666.↩

19. William W. Prescott, The Doctrine of Christ: A Series of Bible Studies Covering the Doctrines of the Scriptures for Use in Colleges and Seminaries, as Outlined and Recommended by the Bible, and History Teachers’ Council, Held in Washington, D.C., from July 20 to August 9, 1919 (Washington, DC: Review and Herald, c. 1920).↩

20. George R. Knight, A Search for Identity: The Development of Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2000), 152-154.↩

21. Ellen G. White, Early Writings of Mrs. White: Experience and Views, and Spiritual Gifts, volume one (Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald, 1882), 75.↩

22. This debated is summarized in Michael W. Campbell, 1919: The Untold Story of Adventism’s Struggle with Fundamentalism (Boise, ID: Pacific Press, 2019), 69-70.↩

23. For an overview of this controversy, see Bert Haloviak, “In the Shadow of the Daily,” 18-26.↩

24. In one instance Daniells asked for 60 pages of transcripts to be removed. See “Report of Bible Conference,” July 16, 1919, 946. On another occasion Daniells asked for part of another speech to not be recorded. See “Report of Bible Conference,” July 6, 1919, 246.↩

25. Clifton L. Taylor Diary, July 4, 1919, copy in possession of the author.↩

26. “Report of Bible Conference,” August 1, 1919, 1257.↩

27. For the original letter, see Ellen G. White to F. M. Wilcox, Letter 56, 1911. This letter is referenced in “Report of Bible Conference,” July 10, 1919, 558.↩

28. “Report of Bible Conference,” July 10, 1919, 566.↩

29. Ibid.↩

30. “Report of Bible Conference,” July 10, 1919, 564.↩

31. “Report of Bible Conference,” July 30, 1919, 1208-09.↩

32. “Report of Bible Conference,” July 30, 1919, 1196-97.↩

33. “Report of Bible Conference,” July 30, 1919, 1210.↩

34. “Report of Bible Conference,” July 30, 1919, 1194-95.↩

35. “Report of the Bible Conference,” August 1, 1919, 1257.↩

36. Paul McGraw, “Without a Living Prophet,” Ministry, April 2000, 11-15.↩

37. Campbell, 1919, 89-90.↩

38. W. C. White to A. G. Daniells, June 6, 1919, White Estate Incoming Correspondence.↩

39. See Matthew J. Lucio, “Washburn, Judson Sylvanus (1863-1955),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, January 29, 2020, accessed February 6, 2023, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=DAD4; Michael W. Campbell, “Holmes, Claude Ernest (1881–1953),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, September 13, 2020, accessed February 6, 2023, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=D9HS.↩

40. See Michael W. Campbell, “Howell, Warren Eugene (1869-1943),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, January 9, 2023, accessed February 6, 2023, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=29IJ.↩

41. Donald E. Mansell, “How the 1919 Bible Conference Transcript Was Found,” unpublished manuscript, July 6, 1975, White Estate Document File 920-b.↩

42. Gilbert M. Valentine, “Glacier View Sanctuary Review Conference (1980),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, January 29, 2020, accessed November 07, 2022, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=79CV.↩

43. Robert E. Edwards, H. M. S. Richards: Near to the Heart of God (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1998), 35-36.↩

44. “Analysis of—The 1919 Bible Conference,” Pilgrim’s Rest, circa 1993, 1, accessed January 23, 2023, http://www.sdadefend.com/MINDEX-B/Bible-Conference.pdf.↩

45. Richard W. Schwarz and Floyd Greenleaf, Light Bearers: A History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2000), 628-631.↩

46. Reinder Bruinsma, Seventh-day Adventism and Fundamentalism. The Beach Lectures for 2000. Published by the Newbold College Centre for the Study of Religious and Cultural Diversity, Occasional Papers, no. 4 (2006).↩

47. Malcom Bull and Keith Lockhart, Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1989), 28; idem., Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream, 2^nd ed (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007), 30-31. While not extensive, the 1989 edition only references two Bible conferences (1919, 1952) briefly in passing whereas the 2007 edition notes this as a significant historical event.↩

48. George R. Knight, A Search for Identity: The Development of Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2000), 133-141, 153-158.↩

49. Russell R. Standish & Colin D. Standish, The Greatest of All the Prophets (Narbethong, Victoria, Australia: Highwood Books, 2004), 4, 162-178.↩

50. Michael W. Campbell, “The 1919 Bible Conference and its Significance for Seventh-day Adventist History and Theology,” Ph.D. diss., Andrews University, 2008; idem., 1919: The Adventist Struggle with Fundamentalism (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2019).↩

51. Ronald L. Numbers, Prophetess of Health, 3^rd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 2008), 344-401.↩

52. George R. Knight, Ellen White’s Afterlife: Delightful Fictions, Troubling Facts, and Enlightening Research. Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2019; idem., Prophets in Conflict: Issues in Authority (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2020), 41, 42.↩