A.T. Jones: THE MAN AND THE MESSAGE

Understanding the Post-1903 Tragedy

There is much justification for Knight's severe criticisms of the post-1903 Jones. As the new century dawned, he became harsh and overbearing. He was not only human, he was weak. Like all mortal sinners, the tendencies toward this were in his soul all the time. Even so, the chamber of horrors portrayed in chapter after tedious chapter becomes depressing to read, like conducting an odoriferous post-mortem. Long before one gets to the end of the book he already knows the patient has died.

It is an incorrect methodology to read into Jones's pre-1897 "words and actions" the imputation of indulged arrogance, extremism, or harshness that became uncontrolled only in his later years.

The process of his eventual failure to overcome is said by Ellen White to be directly related to his brethren's rejection of the "most precious message" (Testimonies to Ministers, p. 91) he was commissioned to bear. They wanted to impute failure to him, and their prophecies became self-fulfilling. This makes his case unique:

There is danger that this course of action will produce the very result assumed; and to a great degree the guilt will rest upon those who are watching for evil (General Conference Bulletin, 1893, p. 419).

Will the Lord's messenger bear the pressure brought against him? If so, it is because God bids him stand in His strength, and vindicate the truth that he is sent of God. . . . Sin on the part of the messenger of God would cause Satan to rejoice, and those who have rejected the message and the messenger would triumph; but it would not at all clear the men who are guilty of rejecting the message of God (Letter 19d, 1892 [1023, 1025]).

For some strange reason, it seems that God did not "bid him stand in His strength, and vindicate" his ministry. The Lord permitted the instrument to fail. Obviously, this tragedy is a test to us, a hook on which to hang our present doubts if we want to cherish them. Since the Lord permitted this luxury to be supplied our brethren a century ago, it seems that we are not to be deprived of hooks on which to hang our cherished doubts.

Many today are enmeshed in this "fatal delusion," for they leap to disparage the message because of the failure of the messenger. To be sure, this is normal human reasoning and commonly held prejudice; but it needs to be informed by the enlightenment of the Spirit of Prophecy. Here is how that "fatal delusion" operates:

It is quite possible that Elder Jones or Waggoner may be overthrown by the temptations of the enemy; but if they should be, this would not prove that they had no message from God, or that the work that they had done was all a mistake. But should this happen, how many would take this position, and enter into a fatal delusion because they were not under the control of the Spirit of God (Letter S-24, 1892 [1044, 1045]).

What Knight fails to see is the effect which rejection of the message and messenger had on Jones. It was like what happened to Dr. Kellogg; his brethren's unjust criticism made him "put on the coat of irritation and retaliation" although he was truly "the Lord's physician" (Bulletin, 1903, p. 86). It was never the Lord's will that we lose him. Those who did not exercise the Gift of Prophecy pronounced self-fulfilling prophecy. To regard him as "a designing, dangerous man … may produce a condition of things to drive him to the very things they condemn," said Ellen White (Letter B-20, 1888 [102]). The context of her similar remarks about Jones indicates how the same process worked in his soul.

For example, she specifically lays the greater blame for the Anna Rice fiasco of 1894 on the party of Smith and Butler who treated Jones and Waggoner as persona non grata, even after their confessions. Jones desperately needed wholesome fellowship when he "carried forward the work with faithfulness, … the mouthpiece for God," and "brought the draught from the wells of Bethlehem," yet the opposing brethren gloated over his misstep:

They triumph over those who have made a misstep. … They … grieve and distress one of the Lord's chosen messengers. … Those men of experience … began to question, to find fault and to oppose. … They thought they could discern many flaws in the men whom God was using. The chosen agents of God would have been rejoiced to link up with the men who held aloof from them, questioning, criticizing, and opposing. If union had existed between these brethren … some mistakes and errors which have occurred would have been avoided. … Whom will God hold accountable for these late errors? He will hold the very men accountable who should have been gathering light and united with the faithful watchmen in these days of peril (Letter H-27, 1894 [1240-1255]).

This church possessed in Jones a very unusually gifted person, and according to Ellen White, one specially "delegated" by the Lord to be a herald of the loud cry message. But he was not prepared to cope with the phenomenal rejection of that message within the Seventh-day Adventist Church leadership itself. There may lurk in the shadows some profound providential reason for Jones's failure that we do not yet understand.

Clearly, Jones thought nothing could hinder the success of the loud cry message in the 1890s. There was a touch of Calvinism in his convictions. He could not foresee our century of continuing confrontation which would counteract the supposedly "sovereign" will of the Lord. This is the reason for his driving demands for reformation in his day. He felt a mandate in the years following 1888 which Ellen White repeatedly says was divinely motivated; but he lacked the prophetic gift to see beyond rejection.

During the period of Ellen White's endorsements (1888-1897), he generally relied on the Lord for guidance and demonstrated a significant measure of the Lord's strength-made-perfect-in-weakness. Even as late as 1901 he was trying to overcome. Ellen White wrote him a sharp rebuke:

One of authority said to me, "Say to my servant, Alonzo Jones, that he is to stand as a representative man. … The meekness of Christ must be revealed." You have naturally a dictatorial spirit, and it has increased in your efforts to eradicate the evils which have come in since the Minneapolis meeting. … You have a most powerful truth to present, and it will exert its power if your life testifies to your close relation to Christ (Letter J-64, 1901 [1755]).

Jones responded humbly: "I feel myself so condemned before God that I repented, and in contrition of spirit asked him to forgive me for every word I had spoken which, though truth, it would have been better not to speak" [1756].

Jones's later tragic failures are abhorrent enough to contemplate, as a post-mortem of a once-healthy human is unpleasant. But who is largely to blame for destroying this man? "To a great degree" it was "we" who were responsible for turning a once "splendid man" to such a fate. So concludes Ellen White.