Just a question--for some of the evangelical Adventists here (one that I know of for sure, being Night), Ellen White is inspired, but after the model talked of by Alden Thompson etc. I have read Thompson's Inspiration and Escaping the Flames. But I am wondering I guess
A. What is it that encourages you to believe that EGW is inspired?
B. What would it take for you to think she is NOT inspired?
C. Do you see her as only "pastoral?" Is doctrinal interpretation inspired? History?
Just trying to understand where you all are coming from.
As those who frequent here know I left the church, partly because I could not agree with aspects of doctrine, including the church's stand on EGW.
Bradford's book is pretty much how I also approach EGW Tall.
http://sdanet.org/atissue/books/bradford/index.htm
A.) As you know, I am well aware of the problems and issues facing EGW, so you know that I am not about to snowball you as an EGW apologist would.
I suppose the thing that continues to keep me believing in her inspiration are that I find she had some fantastic insight into the Bible that seems to venture beyond her limitations, and not just her virtually non-existent formal education. I suppose that could be chalked up to the sources she used for her ideas, but there
must be pieces of her own original thoughts and ideas stemming from her own personal study of the Bible in that mass of material somewhere.
But probably the thing that keeps me hanging on the most is that there is just something I cannot explain about the events surrounding her ministry. There seems to be some miraculous inner-workings going on, assuming the eye-witness testimonies are not fabricated.
Certainly the physical manifestations that surrounded her visions give me pause, as I have not yet dealt with that element of the matter to my satisfaction and there really has not been any convincing evidence provided to prove they were not supernatural in origin.
B.) Honestly, I don't know how to answer this one. She always directed people to Christ and His word, so if she had deviated from that trajectory I would have to discard her.
I realize her works contain some pretty serious theological blunders, but I believe they were interpretations that she sincerely believed at the time. Certainly it is possible she misunderstood and misinterpreted what God had shown her.
The bottom line is the general tenor and trend of her works are in the right direction, notwithstanding some embarrassing tangents that deviated along the way.
In her final public address before she died, the audience was expecting a long discourse. She apparently stood up and merely held up the Bible with aged, shaky hands above her head and said; "I commend to you the Word." Then she sat down.
I can't argue with that.
EGW would be the first to admit she was not perfect, and did not handle things in the best way sometimes:
There were other times when she used her prophetic office to put people down and effectively end discussion. Such was the case with A F Ballenger and his ideas on the sanctuary. She said that he had gathered together a mass of Scripture and his application of these passages was misleading. She appears not to have attempted to show where he was wrong from the Bible rather she defended the traditional views on a basis of "the remarkable beginnings and the long history of the doctrine, and the confirmation of the doctrine given to her in her own visions."It is significant that she does not even try to exegete the passages of Scripture used by Ballenger rather she says this truth had been "sought out by prayerful study, and testified to by the miracle working power from the Lord." It is to her visions that she makes the final court of appeal.
I truly believe she would be appalled and saddened to know that her works have caused so much apostasy, confusion, division and discord in the church today. If she were alive to see the what is going on today, I honestly believe she would admonish us to get rid of all her materials and go with the Bible alone. I don't believe for a second she would think any of this mess was worth it.
C.) I think Bradford summarizes this better than I can:
So what sort of authority does she have with the Adventist community? We know that some would want to give her formal authority. That is, her words are always taken to be true simply because she says so. To them she is the last word on the sciences of biology, geology and history, as well as theology. They would say she can tell you how tall was Adam, how old is the earth and what causes earthquakes. But that type of authority is now gone forever as more Adventists become aware of her sources in some of those areas. No longer can she speak outside of her culture as a timeless voice of authority.
Many others in Adventism would say that they prefer to give her "internal authority." That is when she speaks we will listen to what she has to say and treat her words with respect as one so often used by God. However, when she speaks, they declare that they will weigh up the "intrinsic truthfulness" of what she has to say. They are saying that they will have to be convinced by the strength of argument that she presents. As such they are wittingly or unwittingly following Paul's counsel of 1 Corinthians 14: 29 and 1 Thessalonians 5: 21 where Paul admonishes believers to "judge" or "test" the ideas that come from prophets.
In doing this they also follow the counsel of Ellen White herself who when rebuking those who took an inflexible approach to what she had previously written concerning the age children should commence school, said, "That is how it is, and my mind has been greatly stirred in regard to the idea, 'Why, Sister White has said so and so, and Sister White has said so and so; and therefore we are going right up to it.' God wants us all to have common sense, and He wants us to reason from common sense. Circumstances alter conditions. Circumstances change the relation of things."
Accepting her prophetic authority does not involve laying aside our mind or personal judgment. It means that we will listen carefully to what she has to say and, guided by the same Spirit who gave her a prophetic ministry, we will make valued judgments as to the wisdom of the counsel as Paul admonishes in 1 Corinthians 14:29 and 1 Thessalonians 5:21.
That's pretty much where I stand on that issue.
Some other choice quotes:
Fritz Guy is clear on this point: "The ministry of Ellen White does not define, control, or restrict an Adventist understanding of scripture. That is, what she wrote does not determine in advance the results of Adventist scriptural exegesis; nor did she ever intend her work to be so used. She did not suppose that scripture needed her explanation to make it intelligible; and she did not claim that her understanding was the definitive interpretation of the canonical text. She never said, 'Let me tell you what the Bible means.' She never claimed that her articles and books constituted the definitive commentary on scripture.'. . . A prerequisite to any serious exegesis is the recognition that one does not already know ahead of time what the text is going to say; and no Adventist should be embarrassed if a fresh, careful listening to scripture discloses something different from what it said to Ellen White a hundred years ago" (emphasis added).
Jon Paulien talks of Ellen White as an interpreter of the Bible in this way, "While more study needs to be done on this question, it is my opinion that Ellen White rarely uses Scripture exegetically (i.e. being primarily concerned with the biblical writer's intent). As was the case with the classical prophets of the OT, her main concern was to speak to her contemporary situation. This would generally cause her to use Scripture theologically and homiletically rather than exegetically. To say this is not to limit her authority. Her intention in a given statement should be taken with utmost seriousness. At the same time we must be careful not to limit the authority of the biblical writer, denying that writer's intention on the basis of a homiletical statement that Ellen White never intended to exhaust the meaning of the biblical text."
The big issue here is, "Are Seventh-day Adventists a free people? Are they free to go to the Scriptures and seek truth as did their founding fathers? Or are they locked into the traditional teachings of their past? With all the knowledge they have now at their disposal the current generation of Seventh-day Adventists have lost their innocence. Heppenstall has said, "Freedom belongs to man on religious grounds. Freedom is the gift of God. . . . The most troublesome thing is suppressed truth. It will not stay suppressed. . . . Religion that is afraid of investigation and scholarship tends towards superstition and emotionalism. . . . Blind credulity as to the truth one holds is the refuge of sluggish minds. It relieves the individual from real study of God's word. It settles all differences by silencing all opposing voices and denying the right to ask questions. This takes the meaning out of religion, leaving it ignorant, superficial, intolerant. . . . The Christian possess both love of the truth and love of his neighbour. As the man who is sure of his wife is free from jealously, so the man who is sure of the truth he holds can afford to be courteous and tolerant with others. . . . It is easier to abuse a man by charging him with error and wrong motives than to take time to find out what he actually does believe."
Seventh-day Adventism was meant to be a free, open, living, dynamic movement. While Ellen White was alive she fought for this, but the church slipped into the narrowness of Fundamentalism after her death. Her legacy, with the setting up of an education system, caused the church to become better educated and return closer to Evangelicalism. The struggle taking place inside Seventh-day Adventism today is caused by a movement striving to be what God always wanted it to be. The great issues of the Protestant Reformation are still being fought within Seventh-day Adventism. That is, the battle for freedom to go directly to the Bible and the Bible alone for doctrine and teaching. Only as the Seventh-day Adventist church consistently takes an evangelical stance toward the nature of the inspiration and function of Ellen White can this be possible.
