Neal C. Wilson, served as General Conference

General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is the governing organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is located in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, where it moved in 1989...

 president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Seventh-day Adventist Church

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...

 from 1979 through to 1990. Wilson was head of the North American Division

North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in the United States, Canada, and Bermuda is officially organized as the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists...

 when elected on January 3, 1979, to take the place of the ailing former General Conference president Robert Pierson, who had resigned for reasons of health.

He was succeeded as General Conference President on July 6, 1990, by Robert Folkenberg who was then the President of the Carolina Conference. Wilson died December 14, 2010. He was 90 years old.

Biography

Neal C. Wilson was president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists from 1979 to 1990. He received his elementary and secondary education, plus two years of college, in Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, and India. These were countries where his father served the Seventh-day Adventist Church in pastoral and administrative posts. Wilson is an alumnus of Pacific Union College

Pacific Union College

Pacific Union College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Angwin, California, United States. It is the only four-year college in Napa County, California....

 in Angwin, California.

Neal C. Wilson's son, Ted N. C. Wilson

Ted N. C. Wilson

Ted N. C. Wilson, is the current President of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church as of his naming to that position in June, 2010...

, would follow his father's footsteps and is the current president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

Crisis

Neal C. Wilson was involved in several crisis during his tenure, one involved what some claim was some financial mismanagement by a investment manager, Donald Daventport. Church leaders, members, and a number of conferences and unions had been investing funds with Davenport, and there were issues in the repayment of the funds when Davenport declared bankruptcy.

Neal C. Wilson later appointed a President’s Review Commission to spend a year investigating the entire matter. The result was some church officers “received letters of reprimand, and one who had already retired man was “disciplined.
Neal C. Wilson also appointed the Sanctuary Review Committee which was a group of biblical scholars and administrators which met to decide the church's response to theologian Desmond Ford

Desmond Ford

Desmond "Des" Ford is an evangelical Christian and an Australian theologian. He is the father of pornography gossip columnist Luke Ford....

, who had challenged details of the church's "investigative judgment

Investigative judgment

The investigative judgment is a unique Seventh-day Adventist doctrine, which asserts that a divine judgment of professed Christians has been in progress since 1844. It is intimately related to the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and was described by the church's prophet and pioneer...

" teaching. The meeting was held from 11–15 August, 1980, at the Glacier View Ranch

Glacier View Ranch

Glacier View Ranch is an alpine Christian retreat and conference centre located near Boulder, Colorado in the United States. During the summer holidays, it runs summer camps for children and teenagers in the Rocky Mountain Conference of Seventh-day Adventists...

, a church-owned spiritual retreat and conference centre in Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. As a result, Desmond Ford's credentials were revoked and was the cause of much controversy in the church, and the church experienced the largest exit of teachers and ministers in its history. One modern commentator describes 'Glacier View' as "Adventist shorthand for pain, dissension and division".