he mention of significant places in Adventist history likely leads you to think of such well-known locations as Battle Creek, Michigan; Washington, New Hampshire; or Loma Linda, California. I suspect that few conjure images of Bowling Green, Florida. But this little spot has a fascinating place in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
George Butler at the 1888 General Conference
George I. Butler was one of Adventism’s most influential leaders. During his lifetime he served the church in a variety of administrative positions, including president of several conferences, head of two publishing associations, and president of the General Conference on two separate occasions. But for all the positive leadership he provided over the course of his career, those familiar with our denomination’s history likely associate George Butler with one polarizing experience: the 1888 General Conference session. At this session, during his last term as General Conference president, Butler joined with General Conference secretary and Review and Herald editor Uriah Smith to oppose the influence of the two young coeditors of the Signs of the Times, A. T. Jones and ?E. J. Waggoner.
In the mid-1880s Jones declared that the Adventist understanding of the 10 horns of the fourth beast of Daniel 7 was flawed, explaining that the traditionally held list of tribes to which the 10 horns pointed should be changed to include the Alemanni instead of the Huns. As Adventism’s preeminent scholar of prophetic interpretation, Smith was particularly irritated by this revision and sought to have Jones disciplined for his publication of such an aberrant view. Butler took an equally strong objection to Waggoner’s teaching that the law in Galatians was the moral law and not merely the ceremonial law, which was yet another deviation from traditional Adventist understanding. Butler and Smith apparently felt threatened by the teachings of Jones and Waggoner and united in their displeasure of these two “fledglings.”1
After the 1886 General Conference session and 1888 ministerial institute failed to resolve the tension between the two factions, many delegates expected an open confrontation at the 1888 General Conference session. Interestingly, no transcripts of this historic session were recorded. From all indications, however, Waggoner, in his several discourses on the law in Galatians, presented the righteousness of Christ in a most powerful and stirring manner. Yet, because of determined resistance to Jones and Waggoner in anticipation of some kind of theological trap, most attendees hardened their hearts and missed the blessing of what Ellen White called a “most precious message”2 about the “matchless charms of Christ.”3 Years later, Jones recalled how those present “robbed themselves of what their own hearts told them was the truth.”4
Ellen White, the most notable and vocal defender of Jones and Waggoner, was particularly disturbed by the “Pharisaical spirit”5 of the opposition they faced from the leading men of the church. Writing in an 1888 correspondence, she addressed the presidency of Butler specifically and confessed her belief that he “has been in office three years too long and now all humility and lowliness of mind have departed from him. He thinks his position gives him such power that his voice is infallible.”6
Retirement in FloridaButler was not reelected to office at the 1888 session, and retired to central Florida. Shortly thereafter, his wife, Lentha, suffered a debilitating stroke, and, as a result, one of Adventism’s most prominent leaders spent the next 12 years quietly caring for his ailing wife on a farm outside the tiny town of Bowling Green, Florida. As he cared for Lentha until her death in 1901, he came to recognize and regret his defects of character and eventually confessed his role in one of the most trying times in the church’s history. He manifested such a change of character that nearly 15 years after her aforementioned correspondence, Ellen White wrote: “Elder Butler is strong in physical and spiritual health. The Lord has proved and tested and tried him, as He did Job, and as He did Moses. I see in Elder Butler one who has humbled his soul before God. . . . He has been learning his lesson at the feet of Jesus. After caring so long for his suffering, afflicted wife, he has come forth from the furnace fire refined and purified. I respect and love my brother as one of God’s servants.”7
More Service
After Butler’s time of trial the Lord saw fit to once again place him in church administration. Thus it was that George Butler, former General Conference president of 1888 notoriety, was elected the second president of the recently organized Florida Conference in 1901. Following his election as conference president, Butler was called to be president of the Southern Union Conference and later served as president of the newly formed Southern Publishing Association until he once again retired to his rural Florida home in 1908.
Today, George and Lentha Butler are buried beside each other in a peaceful cemetery in the tiny town of Bowling Green, sleeping in Jesus until the Lord calls them home on the great resurrection morning. What a blessing to know that the Lord never gives up on those who are willing to learn lessons “at the feet of Jesus”!
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1The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Ellen G. White Estate, 1987), p. 186.
2Ibid., p. 1336.
3In a sermon delivered in Rome, New York, in 1889, Ellen White explained, “I have had the question asked, What do you think of this light that these men are presenting? Why, I have been presenting it to you for the last 45 years—the matchless charms of Christ. This is what I have been trying to present before your minds. When Brother Waggoner brought out these ideas in Minneapolis, it was the first clear teaching on this subject from any human lips I had heard, excepting the conversations between myself and my husband” (1888 Materials, pp. 348, 349).
4A. T. Jones to “Brother” Holmes, May 12, 1921 (copy), E. G. White Estate, Document File 53.
5White, 1888 Materials, p. 432.
6Ibid., p. 183.
7Ellen G. White, The Retirement Years (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1990), p. 117.
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Kameron DeVasher is an associate pastor of the Avon Park Seventh-day Adventist Church. He and his wife, Emilie, enjoy traveling, camping, and reading. This article was published April 8, 2010.
