Messenger of the Lord

Steamy Crisis

The issue came to a steamy head at the 1895 General Conference session. In fact, two so-called religious liberty items were on the agenda: (1) the South Africa land grant and (2) tax exemption on church property. The session voted to refuse tax exemption for American churches and to instruct South African leaders that the church must pay for any land provided. MOL 221.4

Experienced leader Stephen Haskell was in South Africa at the time the General Conference decision arrived. Immediately he sent off letters of protest to the president of the General Conference and to W. C. White, Ellen White’s son. Mrs. White wrote back a fourteen-page letter, sending copies to leading workers in Battle Creek, in which she strongly protested those two General Conference actions. MOL 221.5