History behind the Church Manual

A major decision point was reached in 1883, when the General Conference appointed an ad hoc committe to study the concept of developing a Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual. As recorded in the Review and Herald, here is what they concluded:

It is the unanimous opinion of the committee appointed to consider the matter of a Church Manual, that it would not be advisable to have a Church Manual. We consider it unnecessary because we already have surmounted the greatest difficulties connected with church organization without one; and perfect harmony exists among us on this subject. It would seem to many like a step towards the formation of a creed or a discipline, other than the Bible, something we have always been opposed to as a denomination. If we had one, we fear many, especially these commencing to preach, would study it to obtain guidance in religious matters, rather than to seek it in the Bible, and from the leading of the Spirit of God., which would tend to their hindrance in genuine religious experience and in knowledge of the mind of the Spirit. It was in taking similar steps that other bodies of Christians first began to lose their simplicity and became formal and spiritually lifeless. Why should we imitate them? The committee feels, in short, that our tendency should be in the direction of the policy and close conformity of the Bible, rather than to elaborate defining every point in the church management and church ordinances. --Review and Herald, November 20, 1883.

Taking up the report of the ad hoc committee, the General Conference voted unanimously to accept the recommendation, and the following week, Elder George Butler, then president of the General Conference, also added persuasive reasons why we should not have a church manual

When brethren who have favored a manual have even contended that such a work was not to be anything like a creed or discipline, or to have any authority to settle disputed points, but was only to be considered as a book containing hints for the help of those of little experience, yet it must be evident that such a work, issued under the auspices of the General Conference, would at once carry with it much weight of authority, and would be consulted by most of our young ministers. It would gradually shape and mould the entire body; and those who did not follow it would be considered out of harmony with established principles of church order. And really, is this not the object of a manual? What would be the use of one if not to accomplish such a result? But would this result, on a whole be a benefit? Would our ministers be broader, more original, more self-reliant men? Would they be better depended on in great emergencies? Would their spiritual experience likely be deeper and their judgment more reliable? We think the tendency all the other way. . . . We have preserved simplicity, and have prospered in so doing. It is best to let well enough alone. For these and other reasons, the church manual was rejected. It is probable that it will never be brought forward again. --Review and Herald, November 27, 1883.

Unfortunately, this prediction was not prophetic, for 49 years later, in 1932, the first Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual was produced. It was as if we wanted to be like the other churches around us, though it meant following the pathway they had already proved would fail.

The above was excerpted from Organizational Structure and Apostasy, by Colin and Russell Standish, pages 82-83.