When we hear the name, Waggoner, we often think of E.J. Waggoner, who, along with A.T. Jones, brought the Christ our Righteousness message in a clear and concise manner in 1888 in Minneapolis, which proved to be a turning point for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
But what about his father Joseph Harvey Waggoner. Joseph, was an evangelist, editor, and author in the Adventist Church. He was also an eloquent speaker, and a most industrious worker. He wrote with clarity and precision.
Joseph Waggoner was born in 1820 in Pittston, Pennsylvania and lived in Pennsylvania and Illinois in his early years. He attended school for only six months, but spent many hours studying at home in private. Though he lacked in formal education, he mastered Greek and Hebrew and wrote prolifically. He became a giant in his literary accomplishments. As a youth, he also learned the printer’s trade.
On April 30, 1845, at the age of 25, he married Maryetta Hall in Portland, Illinois. She was 21 at the time. Together they had 10 children from the years 1846–1862.
After his marriage, Joseph and family moved to Wisconsin and became joint editor and publisher of a political paper. He was religious and belonged to the Baptist church at that time.
Six years after his marriage, in December of 1851, Waggoner first learned of the Adventist message. At that time he doubted that he could be saved because he had not been in “The 1844 Movement” and experienced the Great Disappointment. Ellen White, though, gave him some words of encouragement and told him that there is hope in God. She encouraged him to give his heart fully to Jesus, which he did shortly afterwards.
Waggoner immediately began sharing his new faith through evangelism and through writing for the church paper. He dedicated himself fulltime to writing and editing the Three Angel’s Messages, and in 1854 he was ordained as a minister.
In 1868 Waggoner was one of the speakers at the first Seventh-day Adventist camp meeting, held at Wright, Michigan. In the same year he published in The Atonement his clear convictions on the doctrine of righteousness by faith. Younger men were influenced by his teaching, including his son, E. J. Waggoner, and A. T. Jones, who then were prominent in preaching on that subject in 1888.
In the years following, Waggoner’s talents as a printer, editor and writer were employed many times in different locations.
Firstly, in 1871 he was appointed head of publishing in Battle Creek. Then in 1875 he moved with the Whites to California and joined James White as editor of The Signs of the Times. In 1881 Waggoner took over from James White as the editor of The Signs of the Times and contributed much to its growth and influence.
Joseph Harvey was a pioneer in the health reform movement and it is said that he threw his last plug of tobacco into the stove the same day he accepted the Sabbath, and he became a strong advocate for temperate living. In 1885, mainly through his own efforts, Waggoner brought out The Pacific Health Journal, of which he was the first editor.
In August of 1887, at a conference in Indiana, he and Ellen White held meetings on temperance. “On Sunday Elder J. H. Waggoner spoke with great freedom in the forenoon to a good congregation, on the subject of the Sabbath. Three excursion trains poured their living freight upon the grounds. The people here were very enthusiastic on the temperance question. At 2:30 P.M. I spoke to about eight thousand people on the subject of temperance viewed from a moral and Christian standpoint. I was blessed with remarkable clearness and liberty, and was heard with “ –Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, p 222
Joseph Waggoner was also the first editor of both The American Sentinel (a Religious Liberty journal). Around that time, people were being arrested for working on Sunday as some states had Sunday laws in USA. This prompted the Adventists to begin the new paper, which focused on Church-state relations. The first issue, prepared in 1885, and most of it was written by Joseph Waggoner.
Waggoner also wrote several doctrinal books: The Law of God: Testimony of Both Testaments (1854), The Nature and Tendency of Modern Spiritualism (1857), and The Kingdom of God: A Refutation of the Age-to-Come (1859), all dealing with prominent problems of the day.
Besides doing the publishing work, after his ordination he traveled extensively throughout the United States.
Waggoner was also very involved in the leadership. He was a member of the conference that was called in 1860, to consider forming a legal church organization. Waggoner had misgivings about whether organization was the will of God, but after much prayer and discussion with the brethren, he was satisfied that there should be some kind of organization. He was one of a committee of three that recommended the name “Seventh-day Adventist” for the church.
Just as some of the great men in the Bible that God used in wonderful ways sometimes had family problems and did not have ideal home lives, Joseph Wagggoner was also not free from family troubles. In the Bible we have examples such as that of Abraham (who took Hagar to wife), and Jacob. Jacob had four women to which he bore children and later his sons deceived him.
Ellen White wrote to Waggoner about his family problems. “Ellen White immediately began to address the ‘home trouble’ of Joseph Waggoner. Such domestic ‘troubles’ mainly had reference to Mary(etta). . . . ‘She is in total darkness without a ray of light’ . . . destroying her husband’s ‘usefulness’. . . . Ellen White was deeply disturbed over the lack of parental discipline for the children, . . . You [Joseph] have tried every means in your power to remove every cause of fretfulness from your wife. You have made every effort to please, but in vain. She is a medium for Satan to work through, to destroy your influence, and the influence of her continual fretfulness and finding fault is ruinous to your children.” –E.J. Waggoner: From the Physician of Good News to the Agent of Division, p. 26
Unfortunately, his wife was not a positive spiritual influence for the family and this apparently impacted how the children were raised. “Ellen White felt so strongly about the matter that she warned (and implicitly advised) Joseph Waggoner that he ‘will be accountable’ for not putting the boy ‘under a guardian where he should have been taught industry and been under strict discipline.’” –Ibid, p. 26
Later, Joseph Waggoner became unbalanced in his dealing with his wife. He went from one extreme to the other. Firstly, he was letting her do as she wished and then went to the other extreme of being too harsh. Ellen White writes to him that he was dealing with her in an unreasonably harsh manner.
Waggoner began to withdraw his affections totally from his wife and put them on another woman. You can read extracts from letters that Ellen White wrote to him about the matter in the book, Testimonies on Sexual Behaviour, Adultery, and Divorce, p. 182–193. Brother Waggoner is Brother H, mentioned in these pages.
Ellen White expressed her concerns with the leaders in the church, and specifically mentions Brother Butler, who was president in the above mentioned pages.
After much prayer and consideration, they agree that the best way to restore him was to send him far away from the situation, so they sent him as a missionary to Switzerland in 1886. He was sent to Europe to aid in the establishing of the new work there. He became editor in chief of the German and French periodical and, contributed regularly to other periodicals. While there he wrote his final book, From Eden to Eden. In 1887 he attended the first Seventh-day Adventist camp meeting in Europe, at Moss, Norway.
Two years after arriving in Europe, Sister White writes to him to say that geography did not solve the problem. Your heart is not repentant because you moved around the world. Ellen White wrote strong appeals to him calling him to repent. In her letters she mentions great men in the Bible who had same problems and appeals to Waggoner to repent, citing their testimonies and experiences. Joseph Waggoner admits that Ellen White is correct in her letters.
Just after he finished writing his final book, Joseph planned to return to the USA, but he died suddenly in 1889 and was buried in Switzerland close to J.N. Andrews.
What were the thoughts of Joseph Waggoner in the days prior to his death? Only God knows. Perhaps, like King Solomon, he acknowledged his sin and repented. And perhaps the Lord took him before he could return to the USA, to keep him back from further temptation. We can only speculate. We do know that he was used mightily by God and I look forward to meeting some of these great spiritual men in heaven one day. God is merciful to the repentant sinner, and may we all repent and be ready to meet Jesus when He comes. No sin is too great for God to forgive if we repent.