The General Conference of 1888, the “Righteousness by Faith Conference”

A provocative statement appears in the Church Heritage Manual regarding the General Conference of 1888: A full, and well documented study of this meeting has been published under the title “Movement of Destiny.” It was written by Leroy Edwin Froom, and published by “Review” in 1971. Some preceding passages reveal two of the concerns that were addressed by this “milestone” event: During the 1860’s and 1870’s, Adventist evangelists were so busy proving that God’s law had not been abolished at the cross, that they gave little attention to the faith of Jesus, and rather stressed the commandments of God. There were also still some who held Arian views of Christ, and did not believe in the Trinity, or the personality of the Holy Spirit [this issue is still around in the advent universe, but not within the church itself]. The relative importance of “faith” verses “obedience” (or, alternately, “works”) was ostensibly resolved at the 1888 conference. A very important presentation by E.G. Waggoner enjoyed the support of Ellen G. White. A publication based on Waggoner’s message was produced in 1890 titled Christ and His Righteousness. Waggoner managed to multitask in his presentation, as he not only emphasized that our righteousness consists solely of the “righteousness of Christ” (not by works, lest any man boast), but he so magnifies Jesus that he manages to leaves those who presume to consign the Son of God to play “second-fiddle” in the heavenly ensemble (without any valid arguments as to why they are right, and the rest of the world is wrong. Arius, the renegade responsible for the creation of the hard-to-kill heresy that bears his name, merits a mention in Waggoner’s statements. Arius, like Satan, seasoned his “big lie” (a reference to Hitler, as I am confident the reader is aware of) with just enough truth to make it seem plausible, thereby deluding many. He was a selective student of scripture, as are many others.