Living in the country away from large centers of population is generally recognized as being advantageous for promoting physical, mental, and spiritual health and development. Because of this advantage, Seventh-day Adventists have endeavored, whenever possible, to establish their institutions outside metropolitan areas and have encouraged church members with families to find homes in the country. The advantages of country living, together with the disadvantages of city living, are stressed repeatedly in the writings of Ellen White. The following quotation is typical of her views: “The world over, cities are becoming hotbeds of vice. On every hand are the sights and sounds of evil. Everywhere are enticements to sensuality and dissipation. The tide of corruption and crime is continually swelling. Every day brings the record of violence—robberies, murders, suicides, and crimes unnameable. . . .
“It was not God’s purpose that people should be crowded into cities, huddled together in terraces and tenements. In the beginning He placed our first parents amidst the beautiful sights and sounds He desires us to rejoice in today. The more nearly we come into harmony with God’s original plan, the more favorable will be our position to secure health of body, and mind, and soul” ( MH 363–365).
As early as 1890 SDA leaders were pointing out the advantages of country living. In an article entitled “Rural Versus City Life,” appearing in the Jan. 7 and 14, 1890, issues of the Review and Herald (67:9, 10, 26, 27), G. I. Butler, former president of the General Conference, pointed out the advantages of living close to nature and urged SDA s to live in the country. A few years later W. W. Prescott, an SDA educator and administrator, in an article in the Review and Herald (82:3, 4, Mar. 16, 1905) entitled “Country and City,” warned SDA s to resist the trend of moving to the metropolitan areas and pointed out that because of the “corrupting influences of the cities” “we are removing our institutions from the cities to the country.”
Between the two world wars the idea of rural living was not particularly stressed, but during, and especially after, World War II a movement was set afoot to encourage SDA s to leave the cities and find country homes. In 1942 F. M. Wilcox, longtime editor of the Review and Herald , wrote an editorial titled “Leaving the Cities” in the Aug. 27 issue (119:2, 11), in which he urged SDA s to “leave the large cities and find homes in the country” but cautioned against rash, haphazard moves, particularly on the part of those who had no knowledge of farming.
It appears that after the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed the General Conference began to give serious consideration to setting up an organization for promoting rural living for SDA s. In December 1945 E. A. Sutherland, president of the Rural Education Association of Madison, Tennessee, was invited to become the secretary of a commission to be set up under the name of North American Commission for Self-Supporting Missionary Work, of which L. K. Dickson, president of the North American Division, was to be chairman. The commission was to begin functioning July 1, 1946. Among other objectives, this commission was to “stand as a body of counselors to such individuals” as would “decide to locate their families in more rural communities and enter into some form of self-supporting missionary endeavor” ( General Conference Minutes , vol. 16, book 8, pp. 2214, 2215, Dec. 10, 1945; ibid. , pp. 2327, 2328, Mar. 14, 1946).
Probably early in 1946 a Committee on Country Living was set up as indicated in section 4 of the General Conference action for Mar. 14, 1946. In August of the same year, the General Conference recommended the merger of the North American Commission for Self-Supporting Missionary Work and the Committee on Country Living that had previously been set up to promote rural living. The new organization was named the Seventh-day Adventist Commission on Rural Living and had Sutherland as secretary and C. B. Haynes as assistant secretary. Among other objectives, this commission was to “encourage our church members in cities to study the instruction . . . [from Ellen G. White] about country living and to develop plans whereby they can fulfill this instruction; to provide counsel and information to those who are considering moving to the country; to hold regional institutes for self-supporting missionary workers and individuals interested in country living” ( ibid. , vol. 17, book 1, p. 140, Aug. 22, 1946).
In harmony with this section, the booklets Country Living (1946) and From City to Country Living (1950) were recommended to SDA s for reading. Between 1947 and 1950 a number of articles written by such Seventh-day Adventist leaders as V. G. Anderson, M. L. Rice, C. B. Haynes, A. W. Spalding, and E. A. Sutherland encouraged SDA s to move out of the cities into the country. In 1949 conferences and institutes on rural living were held in Takoma Park, Maryland; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle and Spokane, Washington. The theme of these meetings was: How can SDA s “who live in rural districts help those in the cities to establish their homes in the country”?
It appears that as people became accustomed to the dangers of the atomic age, and difficulties were experienced by those who moved to the country, a reaction set in. At a meeting at Grand Ledge, Michigan, Sept. 3–5, 1951, the entire structure of the self-supporting work and rural living program was brought under careful scrutiny. Among other things, it was decided at this meeting that the Association of Seventh-day Adventist Self-Supporting Institutions “foster the work hitherto carried on by the General Conference Commission of Self-Supporting Missionary Enterprises,” which included the rural living objectives.
Although from this time on the spirit of country living began to wane, the General Conference sought to bolster the program by appropriate committee action and by calling for promotion of the plan on the union and local conference levels. The first agricultural and rural living workshop was held at Emmanuel Missionary College, Berrien Springs, Michigan, Dec. 29–31, 1954. Expert counsel regarding small farming and allied industries was offered, and other workshops were to have been held in strategic places throughout North America in close proximity to metropolitan areas. However, the general response to the program was negative.
In 1957 an unpublished survey of the North American Division regarding the status of rural living revealed a definite lack of interest in the field, with certain exceptions. As a result, in rewriting the constitution and bylaws of the Association of Self-Supporting Institutions, mention of rural living was omitted. Since this time all inquiries regarding rural living have been referred to local and union conferences.
Seventh-day Adventists believe that at a time yet future, when Sunday laws become oppressive and boycotts of dissenters will forbid anyone to “buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast” ( Rev. 13:17 ), leaving the large metropolitan areas will become imperative for those who wish to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. In this connection Ellen White says: “It is no time now for God’s people to be fixing their affections or laying up their treasure in the world. The time is not far distant, when, like the early disciples, we shall be forced to seek a refuge in desolate and solitary places. As the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman armies was the signal for flight to the Judean Christians, so the assumption of power on the part of our nation [the U.S.] in the decree enforcing the papal sabbath will be a warning to us. It will then be time to leave the large cities, preparatory to leaving the smaller ones for retired homes in secluded places among the mountains” (5T 464, 465).