Cambridge SDA Church

IN DEFENSE OF ELLEN WHITE

IN DEFENSE OF ELLEN WHITE    
 by Lemuel Niere
 

“You must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it”
1 Peter 3:15 (New Living Translation)

 

As a Seventh-day Adventist, I believe in the prophetic gift. That means God has spoken in times past through His servants the prophets, and that God still speaks to us through the prophetic gift based on Joel 2:28-29. The Bible is a product of the prophetic gift. As the apostle Peter in
2 Peter 1:21 says, “For the prophecy came not in olden times by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 

Not all prophets were writing prophets such as those that wrote the Holy Scriptures. To name a few: the prophet Nathan, who was King David’s seer. Gad, Elijah, Elisha, Samuel, and the prophetess Deborah. In New Testament times we have Anna who was at Baby Jesus’s dedication at the temple, and the four daughters of Philip (Acts 21:8-9). These are a sampling of “extra-biblical” prophets and prophetesses whom God used to deliver a special message.

I believe Ellen G. White had the prophetic gift. Her writings were for the edification, exhortation and encouragement of the fledging Adventist church during its formative years. Her messages still speak to us. But there are many detractors who dismiss her as a false prophet, or one who made profit by her books. Criticism against Ellen White can be divided into twelve categories according to Jud Lake in his book, Ellen White Under Fire, Identifying the Mistakes of Her Critics, published by Pacific Press in 2010.

The twelve categories are:

  1. She plagiarised most of her writings.
  2. She taught the shut-door theory in her early ministry.
  3. She claimed inspiration equal to the Bible and contradicted the Bible.
  4. She contradicted herself.
  5. She misunderstood the gospel.
  6. Her prophecies failed.
  7. She derived all her health insights from contemporary health reformers.
  8. She experienced temporal-lobe epilepsy rather than authentic visions.
  9. She suppressed theological mistakes in her writings.
  10. She endorsed the mistakes of the Millerites.
  11. She made some strange statements.
  12. Church leaders have covered up her mistakes and failures.

The response of church members to the Ellen White criticisms is varied: most reject the criticisms; some become angry and attack the critics; others reject Ellen White and leave the church. For one thing, these criticisms and attacks on Ellen White is nothing new. She wrote back in 1883, “From the beginning of my work, I have been pursued by hatred, reproach, and falsehood. Base imputations and slanderous reports have been greedily gathered up and widely circulated by the rebellious, the formalist, and the fanatic. This warfare has been kept up for nearly forty years.”

The best type of response to such criticisms is one modelled on the enterprise of Christian apologetics—a reasoned defense of the Christian faith in light of objections raised against it; one that offers positive evidence on its behalf. 

1 Peter 3:15 is the key that apologists use in defense of Scripture and even of Ellen White. To all who criticise Ellen White and her claims to the prophetic gift, I would enjoin you as the Scriptures says, “Come, and let us reason together saith the Lord…!” Isaiah 1:28. Through candid and friendly dialogue we can address such issues. After all, we are all after truth. “And the truth shall make you free” John 8:32.