What shall we do with Ellen White?

by Robert Folkenberg

Originally appearing in From the G.C. President Jan 22, 1996 through April 22, 1996 under the title Off the Back Burner.

From my perspective, as years accumulate into decades and quarter or half centuries, truths dear to Seventh-day Adventists subtly, inconspicuously, slip onto the "back burners" of inattention which, for some (even church employees) begins a transformation into quiet rejection or a sense of irrelevance or optionality. During the next few months, I plan to select a few of these topics and bring them onto the "front burner." Since these brief presentations may not appear in every edition, and to make it easy to refer to or to collect, each segment will be numbered in order.

Segment #1

The first topic is best introduced by a question: "What shall we do with Ellen White?" There is evidence that this question lies at the root of most denominational tensions in 1996. The key word affecting one's answer to this question is "authority" even as it is for every other church struggling with the questions that have troubled Christians for 2000 years. Further, it is clear that without the intervention of the Spirit of Prophecy, the Adventist Church would have had difficulty defining its distinctive message and mission; simply put, its reason for existence.

In the last 25 years, the authority of Ellen White has been attacked and undermined in at least three areas: 1) If, as some say, Mrs. White re-wrote her own history in her later documents, making changes that contradict the facts of her own record and that of others, then she could appear to be a fraud; 2) If other church leaders or the White Estate, for whatever the reasons, have been doing the same, critics could label it as a conspiracy at the heart of our work; 3) If she protested that her messages were uncontaminated by the writings of others, and the facts prove otherwise, what would this indicate about her state of mind and trustworthiness?

This strange state of affairs is the outgrowth of two historical roots which complicate the answers to our question: "What shall we do with Ellen White?"

In the next segment, we will look at those two roots.

Segment #2

In Segment #1, after noting three challenges flung at the credibility of EGW, we said that they grew out of two historical roots. The first cause has been with us for more than a century a mind-set that borders on "verbal inspiration." The second has been nourished since the 1950s that Ellen G. White is more of a devotional or motivational gift to the church than a theological nurturer. Both roots are foreign to the biblical tree called "Spirit of Prophecy"; both are unacceptable.

At least four basic lines of thought will help us answer our leading question: 1) Early Adventists concluded that EGW led with more than human authority what led them to this astonishing conviction? 2) The validity of EGW's claim to authority hinges on the total impact of her ministry, not on charismatic phenomena, nor predictions, nor her remarkable leadership in developing worldwide health and education systems, etc; 3) The authority of EGW rests in her message, not in her as a messenger her contribution lies in the content, not the container; 4) In focusing on her message, we discover the freshness, coherency, and distinctiveness of theological principles unfolding from The Great Controversy theme.

Next week we will begin to examine these four concepts.

Segment #3

Last week we proposed four lines of thought that will help us answer this question. The first was regarding authority: How did early Adventists come to that remarkable, but generally unpopular conviction, that God was giving messages to a young, frail teenager?

In 1855, Adventist leaders who had lived through those electric days of doctrinal formulation met that question head-on. For the previous five years, nothing had appeared in the Review from Ellen White's pen. They all sensed their spiritual drought. At Battle Creek, in view of the present low state of the . . . cause, they prepared a report that said, in part: "Nor have we appreciated the . . . gifts which our blessed Master has vouchsafed to His people; and we greatly fear that we have grieved the Spirit by neglecting the blessings already conferred upon the church. . . . We refer to the visions which God has promised to the remnant in the last days' . . . . Nor do we, as some contend, exalt these gifts . . . above the Bible. . . . While we hold these views [EGW] as emanating from the divine mind, we would confess the inconsistency (which we believe has been displeasing to God) of professedly regarding them as messages from God, and really putting them on a level with the inventions of men. We fear that this has resulted from an unwillingness to bear the reproach of Christ . . . and a desire to conciliate the feelings of our opponents; but the Word and our own experience have taught us that God is not honored, nor His cause advanced, by such a course. . . . While we regard them as coming from God, and entirely harmonizing with His written Word, we must acknowledge ourselves under obligation to abide by their teaching, and be corrected by their admonitions. To say that they are of God, and yet we will not be tested by them, is to say that God's will is not a test or rule for Christians" (Review and Herald: Dec. 4, 1855). This report, accepted unanimously, proved to be a turning point in Adventist history.

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