No, I was not implying the leadership didn’t believe in what they were doing.  I meant that they have a lot at stake if they should decide they could be wrong. I meant that without EGW, the SDA church would probably cease to exist...and that to keep their church going, they need to keep her. I don’t believe the motive was financial in the beginning, but I do think it’s certainly a factor for many now who depend on their salaries and pension benefits, etc...just to name a couple things, along with their publishing business...not to mention their credibility all over the world and their colleges and institutions.

Your last paragraph was interesting...."carefully worded"…
wonder why they feel the need to “carefully word” things?

[quote author="Glorify Him"]My point Greg is that what she claims and even what the loyalists claim ... is not what I read in strict reading of the Fundamental Belief #18 .

I heartily recommend John Ankerberg’s show with Walter Martin and William Johnson. William Johnson was questioned by Walter Martin regarding church’s position on the authority of Ellen White.

One single question was important for him: “Is Ellen White the infallible interpreter of the Scripture for the SDA church?”

Johnson answered that EGW is not an infallible interpreter. Walter Martin quoted statements on the contrary from Adventist publications like Adventist Review, Sabbath School Quarterly etc. Every time, Johnson appealed to the Fundamental Statements of Belief as having the highest authority. Martin replied by saying that these fundamental beliefs are useless because high ranking officials, speaking in official publications, are contradicting the fundamental beliefs.

Johnson argued that the fundamental beliefs had the highest authority because they are the product of the General Conference in session, leaving the possibility that what happens out of session is not as authoritative. Walter Martin replied by saying that the Adventist theology, and the authority for the publications, everything is done by the denomination with the approval of the General Conference, that they don’t want to assume responsibility for what the church does. I think Martin is right: under the umbrella of a fundamental belief which can be interpreted very loosely, they can say that EGW is not infallible, and that she’s infallible. It depends on what someone reads in the fundamental belief.

Walter Martin proceeded after this to verify if William Johnson is telling the truth regarding the position of the church about Ellen White as an infallible interpreter. I’ll try to reproduce the exchanges:

Walter Martin: “If tonight, if you or any other Seventh-day Adventist said: ‘Mrs. White was wrong in her interpretation of the Investigative Judgment, the Sanctuary, on clean foods’, something of that nature, ‘she is wrong, and we disagree with her, and here is some scripture to back it up, we don’t take that position’, what would happen to you?”

4 seconds silence....

William Johnson: “Same as would happen, I presume, if a Baptist minister stood up and said, ‘I don’t believe baptism is a significant doctrine’”

Walter Martin: “Ah, then you are admitting that Mrs. White is a test of faith. She’s a test of faith, if she’s wrong, you’re out”

William Johnson: “No, I’m not admitting that at all. I’m saying that the superiors of that minister will come and say ‘Let sit down and study this together and see the facts...’”

Walter Martin: “The final bottom line is: You disagree with Mrs. White, you’re out”

Johnson: “The bottom line is the 27 Fundamental Beliefs, and you talked about the General Conference in session, it is only the General Conference in session, which is a large gathering from around the world that can change in any way the fundamental beliefs of the church”

Of course, the fundamental beliefs are the same as Ellen White’s beliefs, the IJ and Sanctuary from the fundamental beliefs are endorsed by Ellen White, but, according to Johnson, when somebody is kicked out for rejecting the IJ it is not because he is disagreeing with Ellen’s interpretation of Scripture, but with the Fundamental Beliefs which are in fact Ellen White’s interpretations of Scripture.

Gabriel

[quote author="DeeAnna Edens"]
Your last paragraph was interesting...."carefully worded"…
wonder why they feel the need to “carefully word” things?

Because the beliefs are certainly to be carefully scrutinized and picked apart by interested parties in and outside of the church, anxious for the statements of belief to exactly fit their view of truth or anxious to find something upon which to dispute. 

Well, they have a LOT at stake—I understand that much.

Oh, did you say no one is getting rich ?  You may find this website interesting for starters.
http://www.wherethemoneygoes.com and in the search box, type in the word “adventist”.

Big business + religion = having a LOT at stake.

I believe that the FB as it currently states is wrong and was merely a backlash from Walter Rea and Des Ford. Bacchiocchi shows the contradiction quite well in one of his newsletters. How can both the bible and EGW be an ‘authoritative source of truth’? In theory EGW is not put as the infallible interpreter of scripture but in practice many SDAs feel she is and will support this by going back to the FB. Yet, others will go back to her writings and the other FBs and say that her writings are not on par with scripture and are not the infallible interpreter.

Change the FB back to what it was in the 1932 statement and you’d have no problems. The church really shot itself in the foot by wording it like they did.

[quote author="Guibox"]Change the FB back to what it was in the 1932 statement and you’d have no problems.

Infallibility matters when theological disagreements appear, not when details are at stake. Walter Martin made this clear when he asked the CG:

Do you regard the interpretations of the Bible by Ellen G. White to be infallible, that is, to be the infallible rule of interpreting Scripture? For instance: if an issue comes up where you are debating something and Mrs. White speaks on it; is that the infallible voice?

When adventists will be free to reject Investigative Judgment, or other teachings of Ellen, will be free to say “Mrs. White was wrong here or there”, then you’ll have no problems. Until then Ellen White is in practice the infallible authority.

For all defenders of Ellen White: We are on your side in defending Ellen White in the face of unfair accusations brought by other former Adventists, like “she was a demon worshiper” and the Adventist Jesus is a demon. At the same time, we disagree with the authority she assumed in the church. She appealed to her prophetic authority over the Scripture in Ballenger’s case, and even if she let people come to their conclusions from a Bible study regarding secondary subjects, she had not let them contradict the “pillars of the faith” for which she claimed divine authority coming from her visions. Deliberately she claimed authority over the Bible, authority to interpret the Bible.

The truths given us after the passing of the time in 1844 are just as certain and unchangeable as when the Lord gave them to us in answer to our urgent prayers. The visions that the Lord has given me are so remarkable that we know that what we have accepted is the truth. This was demonstrated by the Holy Spirit Ellen White, MR 760, p. 22, (Letter 50, 1906, to W. W. Simpson, January 30, 1906)

Gabriel

I was raised a 3rd generation Seventh-day Adventist and
was a product of the Adventist school system (4 years
academy and one year at LaSierra College).  I left the SDA
church and after some years of personal searching, degrees in Philosophy and Economics (Columbia University), found
fellowship in the Methodist church.

Today I am concerned about publically promulgated doctrines of the SDA church such as the Investigative Judgment, the
primacy of Ellen G. White, and doctrines which cast
questions on the completed work of Calvary.

I have put my observations and arguments into a personal
web site: http://www.ChristianText.com.  I would be interested in
hearing from informed Christians who might care to review
these materials as to the validity of ‘sola scriptura’ of
the materials.

Glenn Weeks

Hi Glenn,

Visiting your site my impression was that you attach a lot of importance to economics, instead of the centrality of Christ’s death and resurrection, the gospel by which we are saved (1 Cor. 15:1-3). It seems also that you are on a lonely road of rewriting of Christian basic history, for example a three days trial of Jesus, a Christian Jubilee as the reason for Stephen’s death, elements with few support if ever in the plain Scriptures. My friendly recommendation is to be concerned more with your soul and your status before God, if your sins are washed in Jesus blood, if you have peace with God being justified by faith alone (Rom. 5:1). What former adventists need most is to have deep roots in the love of God that is beyond any understanding, since in Adventism our status before God was always conditioned by our capacity of doing what was right.

What it really counts is what we need in order to stand before an Almighty and entirely holy God, who will judge every deed, every thought, every impulse, everything which is against His holy law. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Rom. 1:18 Before him we need to have a clear record of our lives, 100% free of any spot, and this clear record is found only in Christ’s perfect robe of righteousness. Repentance for our sins, and for any trust in ourselves, in our ability to do what God asks us to do, together with a full reliance on God who justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5), these subjects are of crucial importance for anybody. Make sure that you are fully believing the gospel. This world is temporary, what counts for eternity is of utmost importance.

Gabriel

Gabriel:

Thank you for looking at the web site.  It does appear that the subject is being approached from two different eschatological orientations which lends to different conclusions. Chapter 9, The Symbolic Code, develops the Textualist concept of justification by faith.

Glenn

Posted anonymously by: Brian

Wow, to call the Adventist message anti-biblical is going too far.  Making Ellen White’s writings on par with the Bible is erroneous I believe, but using her to study the Bible is incredible.  If you haven’t done it, I suggest doing it and you’ll see for yourself.  In Patriarchs and Prophets, and Prophets and Kings, you’ll find she’s in harmony with the Bible.  People make such a huge deal out of Ellen White. Take this stand....sola scriptura, the Bible and the Bible only.  From there, it’s okay to read christian literature to help with your relationship with Jesus, and using Ellen White is an incredible way of doing that. I was a huge sceptic of hers all my life because I heard so many conservative adventists quoting her all the time.  It came to the point that I disliked Ellen White completely.  That was before reading Patriarchs and Prophets however.... that book completely changed my outlook on her, and anyone who discredits Ellen White, I’ll tell them to read Patriarchs and Prophets with an open Bible next to them.

How is the Adventist church in any way, shape, or form cultish?  Because they don’t eat pork? Or they have their own schools? It’s no more a cult that Catholics.... They are the most Bible-based church out there… Why is it every other protestant church coming from the reformation still worships on Sunday?  The Catholic church proudly boasts that it was their changing of the Sabbath, as a mark of the church’s ecclesiastical power.  Nowhere in the Bible is that change mentioned, yet every church follows blindly.  To call Adventistism anti-biblical is way off-based.

Brian

Posted anonymously by: dwayne

Brian,

How much ‘erroneous’ness does the Bible allow a prophet before they become a false prophet?

You say that egw was “in harmony with the Bible”. I also used to think that… until my eyes were annointed and my ears unstopped by the Spirit of the living God.

Nothing can prepare one for the shock of discovering that they were indeed deceived by the very teachings of their own denomination. Yet, the more I submitted to God’s Spirit and His Holy Word, the more I realized that I was believing a lie.

Is satan your sin bearing scapegoat? Really? How many sin bearers does it take to bear the sins of an sda?

There are many more teachings where egw does not line up with the Bible. Suffice to say, egw is a false prophet and being deceived is only a refusal away from allowing God’s Word to take precedence in your life.

With respect, I would suggest some serious research before defending what you seem to be so comfortable with. Babylon does fall. Truth always triumphs. Praise His Glorious Name!

Posted anonymously by: Faye

I was a 4th generation Adventist.  My Great-Grandmother became a convert somewhere around 1880 in Battle Creek, MI, which was the heart of Adventism at that time.  When my Grandfather died in 1966, we found boxes of old Adventist pamphlets, Review & Harold’s, etc. that had been printed in the late 1800’s.  Adventists today would be horrified to read some of the stuff EGW and her husband, James, were advocating at that time.  I was a teenager when my Grandfather died and a student at an Adventist Academy.  I read the EGW writings from the 1880 era and was stunned to find out that the reason we didn’t eat such things as pepper had nothing to do with health.  She stated that spices caused abnormal sexual behavior (self-gratification) and that the asylums were full of people that had gone insane from eating spices then practicing self-gratification.  There were many more pamphlets and editorials from EGW that you won’t see on any Adventist website or even from the White Estate website, with edicts from EGW that were just scientifically wrong. 

Growing up in the church in the 50’s and 60’s, we were always taught that all of EGW’s writings were from God.  If that was the case, I wondered, how on earth could God have been so wrong?  I questioned that both at school and with my minister at the time.  I was never given any satisfactory answer and of course, the church was not printing some of her more unscientific proclamations anymore.  In fact, no one I knew in the church at that time, had even heard of any of this stuff since all of her more controversial writings were all safely locked away in the White Estate vaults and no longer in print anywhere.

The Adventists like to now say that EGW was ahead of her times in her health stance.  That may be true but they should look into her reasons for stating it at the time.  It had more to do with curbing sex than it had to do with health.  Also, I think it is a fairly well documented fact now that EGW ate meat and even ate oysters up until about 1890, thirty years AFTER she wrote we shouldn’t eat meat.

When I took my stand on EGW back in 1967, that I no longer believed her writings were prophetic, I was ex-communicated from the church.  I was literally called up before the church board and told I either had to believe EGW was THE PROPHET or I could not be a member.  Mind you, I was still a teenager and was called before a board of about 9 men, all in their 40’s and 50’s.  I was literally told that I would not be saved and would receive the mark of the beast.  That was pretty scary stuff back then.  It tore my family apart.  My mother spent the next 25 years of her life praying, not for my salvation but that I would somehow see the light and again believe that EGW was a prophet.  She was also convinced I couldn’t be saved unless I believed EGW. 

EGW was the final authority on everything Biblical at the Adventist Academy in those days.  Whenever there was any question, the teachers would ALWAYS refer to her.  The answer was ALWAYS “Let’s see what Sister White says” and they would open The Great Controversy or one of her other books, to find the answer to the question. 

The Adventists hate the term “cult” but I am here to tell you, I was raised in a cult.  Everything we did was based on the teachings of EGW.  It was an extraordinary cult-like atmosphere.

It took me thirty years to discover God’s Grace.  I never learned that from my SDA teachings.  We were told Jesus died for our sins BUT there was still a big book up in heaven with our name in it where every deed we had ever done or ever would do was being recorded.  We weren’t really going to know until we faced God if he had really forgiven us or not so we had to keep doing good works, paying tithes, spreading the word, passing out Steps to Christ to non-believers, etc., and maybe we might get a pass from God.  It was a very frightening way to live.  I didn’t know anyone that ever thought they were going to be “good” enough.

We were not taught “Sola Scriptura.” We were taught read the Bible and when you have a question, see what Sister White wrote on it.

Posted anonymously by: Glenn Weeks

Gabriel Prokschi:

Had occasion to again look at your response to an earlier post regarding my web site:  http://www.ChristianText.com

My first response was an acknowlegement of your visit to the site as I professionally acknowlege all editorial comments.  However, a re-reading of your response finds serious shortcomings.

It is the contention of ChristianText.com that SDA Historicism, the basic SDA worldview, is in error and that what former Adventists need most is not pie-in-the-sky ‘deep roots in the love of God’ but a re-evaluation of all Bible doctrine.  Amorphous emotionalism does not replace careful Biblical textual exegesis which your answer lacked.

Glenn Weeks

Faye,

Thank you for sharing your story with us. Your story is compelling and it points out the very troubling aspects of Adventism, particularly in the segments of the church that put Ellen White’s writings on par (or above) Scripture. Given the difficulty with which people face the decision to leave Adventism even today, it must have been extraordinarily difficult for you to stand your ground as a teenager under the circumstances you describe. Those elders who presumed to speak for God will have a lot to answer for in the age to come.

The feeling many Adventists have of not being “good enough” is just terribly tragic. The Bible is full of wonderful promises for believers that are our living water (John 4:10-14). It’s hard to live as a Christian without the assurance that what Christ did on Calvary was for you and was finished for all time.

Faye, thanks again for joining us, and feel free to share your comments anytime!

Greg