This subject is of great importance to Seventh-day Adventists. There is significant discussion and tension regarding Ellen G. White’s authority, especially recently following Pr. Ryan Day’s resignation from his role at 3ABN.
Clearly, Day is not the only prominent individual who has departed from the church for this or related reasons. One may wonder about the reasons behind this. Is this the beginning of the “shaking” that some devoted Adventists are promoting via viral YouTube videos or in social media comments? Are there deeper issues involved that require further careful examination?
Ellen G. White: Her Background as a Shouting Methodist
Whenever examining a religious movement, including their beliefs, it’s helpful to travel back to the very start.
Historically Adventists were refugees from Baptist and Methodist churches, bringing with them the most fervent excesses of their former worship styles. They believed and expected that manifestations and loss of control were the ways God confirmed His relationship with them.
From the very beginning, Methodism was both anti-intellectual and pro-manifestation, adopting a wide variety of physical demonstrations as proof of the presence of God. Ellen G. White was raised by her family in this environment, where swooning, fainting, yelling, prophesying, and other spiritual manifestations were a common occurrence. Early in her prophetic career, Ellen Harmon (White) was among Adventists who adopted the lengthy, loud, and chaotic style of “Shouting Methodist” services, a worship style that had arisen during the First Great Awakening and had reached its’ peak during the early 19th Century.
To provide an illustration, the following example is from a Methodist songbook, The Hesperian Harp of 1848, a song between a “Methodist” and a “Formalist,” in which the “Formalist” gives a picture of the Methodists:
“Such groaning and shouting, it sets me to doubting.
I fear such religion is only a dream.
The preachers were stamping, the people were jumping,
And screaming so loud that I nothing could hear….
The men they were bawling, the women were squalling,
I know not for my part how any could pray….
Amid such a clatter who knows what’s the matter?
Or who can attend unto what is declared?
To see them behaving, like drunkards, all raving,
And lying and rolling prostrate on the ground.
I really felt awful, and sometimes felt fearful
That I’d be the next that would come tumbling down.”
In the end, the “Formalist” came “tumbling down”. His heart was “glowing,” Christ’s love was “flowing,” and “peace, pardon, and comfort” he found.”1
These manifestations were regarded by the Shouting Methodist as undeniable evidence that the spirit of God has powerfully descended upon the affected congregant, and that the spirit had taken control of them.
A Medical Condition or a Spiritual Experience?
Molleurus Couperus, M.D. wrote about the significance of Ellen White’s brain injury. Click here for full article. Many scholars have wondered if her brain injury contributed to her visions, hyper-moralism, and other unexplained behaviours. They argue that a significant brain injury may have contributed to her visions, similarly to how some individuals with epilepsy perceive auras, angelic forms, and other remarkable manifestations during seizures. However, it is unlikely that the affected Methodist congregants were all experiencing epileptic seizures; such a claim would be untenable .
It would be naïve to assume that Ellen White was the only Shouting Methodist to receive legitimate dreams and visions. Many young women, before and during White’s time, experienced similar manifestations. A key difference is that most did not have access to a wide audience, printing presses and influential men with financial resources, who were keen to use the visions as confirmation of their ideas.
During this period several other religious visionaries also arose, all vying for attention in a culture where visions and other manifestations were common. All claimed profound visions and messages from God, resonating with some of those seeking truth. There were many others whose impact was silenced due to fierce competition and a lack of resources, their visions and voices becoming mere shadows in history.
The Authority of Ellen G. White
Ellen G. White’s authority is the focal point of this discussion. The Seventh-day Adventist Church holds that she is a messenger of God, and many believe her writings should be regarded as on par with scripture. Church members are guided to interpret the Bible through the perspective of her writings.
Below are some quotes dealing with White’s authority, as sourced by Couperus;
In 1851, when Ellen G. White was not viewed as an authority, James White wrote in the Review and Herald (April 21, 1851):
“Every Christian is, therefore, duty bound to take the Bible as a perfect rule of faith and duty…. He is not at liberty to turn from them [the Scriptures] to learn his duty through any of the gifts. We say that the very moment he does, he places the gifts in the wrong place, and takes an extremely dangerous position.”
In the same Review, he added:
“God’s Word is an ever-lasting rock. On that we can stand with confidence at all time. Though the Lord gives dreams, designed generally for the individuals who have them, to comfort, correct, or to instruct in extreme trials or dangers, yet to suppose that he designs to guide in general duties by dreams, is unscriptural, and very dangerous.”
Four years later, James White wrote:
“There is a class of persons who are determined that the Review and its conductors make the view of Mrs. White a test of doctrine and Christian fellowship…. What has the Review to do with Mrs. W.’s views? The sentiments published in its columns are all drawn from the Holy Scriptures. No writer of the Review has ever referred to them as authority on any point.”
In 1883, Elder G.I. Butler, president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, wrote:
“Our enemies try very hard to make it appear that we make the visions a test of fellowship. It would be most absurd and impossible to do so, even if we would do it. With people in all parts of the world embracing our views who never saw Sister White or heard of her, how could we make them a test of fellowship?…. They claim that there are many among us who do not believe the visions. This is true; yet these are in our churches, and are not disfellowshipped. They have claimed…that Elders Smith, Canright, and Gage did not believe the visions; yet all of them are members of our churches, two of them hold credentials as ministers, and one of them holds very important offices….No, we do not make the visions a test, and never have.” (Review & Herald, Vol. 60, No. 33, pg. 12)
As time went on, Ellen White was more and more accepted in the Seventh-day Adventist church as a person with authority; and her influence became that of a real prophet, even though she herself refused to call herself one – preferring the title “the Lord’s Messenger.” She believed that her work included “much more than the word ‘prophet’ signifies.”1
What she believed about the importance of, and divine involvement in, her work is clear in the following statements:
“The Testimonies are of the Spirit of God, or of the devil. In arraying yourself against the servants of God you are doing a work either for God or for the devil.”2
“If you seek to turn aside the counsel of God to suit yourselves, if you lessen the confidence of God’s people in the testimonies He has sent them, you are rebelling against God as certainly as were Korah, Dathan, and Abiram…. In these letters which I write, in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that which the Lord has presented to me. I do not write one article in the paper expressing merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision – the precious rays of light shining from the throne. It is true concerning the articles in our papers and in the many volumes of my books.”3,4
Why did Ellen reach these conclusions about her work? It may have been a gradual process influenced by those who believed her visionary experiences were of divine origin. Starting with her first dreams and continuing to her last vision, Ellen became convinced that they were direct, divine revelations, allowing her to affirm: “In ancient times God spoke to men by the mouths of the prophets and apostles. In these days He speaks to them by the Testimonies of His Spirit.“5
However, during Ellen’s lifetime there were those who questioned the divine origin of her visions. James White in 1847 published a letter from “a beloved brother” regarding Ellen’s visions.
“I cannot endorse sister Ellen’s visions as being of divine inspiration, as you and she think them to be; yet I do not suspect the least shade of dishonesty in either of you in this matter….I think that what she and you regard as visions from the Lord, are only religious reveries, in which her imagination runs without control upon themes in which she is most deeply interested. While so absorbed in these reveries, she is lost to everything around her. Reveries are of two kinds, sinful and religious. Hers is the latter.”6
Others suggest mental or physical causes. Ellen mentions mesmerism (a form of hypnosis) as being claimed as a cause or explanation for her visions. This possibility even suggested itself to her. 7
Another explanation for her visions was hysteria, a diagnosis she also attributed to a fellow church member.
“Dear Sister F., you have a diseased imagination…. You are doing positive injury, not only to yourself, but to the other members of your family, and – especially your mother…. Her mind is becoming unbalanced by the frequent fits of hysteria which she is compelled to witness.” 8
Early coworkers of Ellen and James, such as Isaac Wellcome, baptized by James White in 1844 and active in the Second Advent Movement, dismissed the supernatural origin of Ellen’s visions. He wrote:
“Ellen G. Harmon… was strangely exercised in body and mind… falling to the floor… (we remember catching her twice to save her from falling upon the floor)… in meetings she would speak with great vehemence and rapidity until falling down, when, as she claimed, wonderful views of heaven and what was being transacted there were shown her. She claimed to have seen that Christ had left the office of mediation and assumed that of Judge, had closed the door of mercy, and was blotting out the names, from the book of life…. We saw her in Poland, Portland, Topsham, and Brunswick during the beginning of this career, and often heard her speak, and several times saw her fall, and heard her relate wonders which she said her heavenly Father permitted her to see. Her supernatural or abnormal views were not readily understood as visions, but as spiritual views of unseen things, which were quite common among the Methodists…. These visions were but the echoes of Elder [Joseph] Turner and others’ preaching, and we regard them as the product of the overexcited imagination of her mind, and not as facts.” 9
With a multitude of prophets, both past and present, asserting they have received divine messages from God, the task of discerning the truth of these claims is a subject for research amongst scholars and laypersons alike.
Numerous discussions have emerged regarding Ellen White’s inspiration, with an abundance of websites, YouTube and other social media posts, featuring Adventists, former Adventists and other individuals. The Internet Archive also contains much relevant historical material which can assist in historical research.
The Ellen G. White Estate has recently made available many online resources for study. Ultimately, it is up to each individual to examine the evidence, reflect and reach their own conclusions. While this debate ensues I believe it would be unwise for Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders to actively discourage the debate amongst enquiring minds.
Citations
1. Winthrop S. Hudson. Encounter, Winter 1968, volume 29
2. E. G. White, Selected Messages 1:32.
3. E. G. White, Testimonies for the Church 4 (1876):230 (reprint Oakland, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1948).
4. Ibid. 5:66-67; idem, Selected Messages 1:29.
5. Review and Herald, 20 Jan. 1903; Ellen G. White, Colporteur Ministry (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1953). 125.
6. E. G. White, Testimonies for the Church 4:147-148.
7. J. White. A Word to the Little Flock. 22.
8. E. G- White, Early Writings of Mrs. White (1882; reprint, Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association. 1925). 22.
9. E. G. White, Testimonies for the Church 5:3 1 0.
10. Isaac Wellcome, History of the Second Advent Message (Yarmouth, Maine: Advent Christian Publication Society, 1874); Jacob Brinkerhoff, The Seventh-day Adventists and Mrs. White’s Visions (Marion, Iowa: Advent and Sabbath Advocate, 1884), 4-6.
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