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Ellen G. White
Prophet?
or Plagiarist!
The White Lie!
By Walter T. Rea
Chapter 2: Go Shut the Door
by Walter Rea
Click to View Order Walter Rea's book: "The White Lie"
The development of the Adventist ghetto began almost at once after the
Millerite movement reached its peak in 1844 and started its descent. With
the help of Ellen White and her "visions," God was allowed to do some of
the carpenter work on the walls. Ellen was "shown" that the door of mercy
was shut for all those who had not accepted the 1844 message; so the world
and most of those in it were left outside the door. Linden gives a very
adequate picture of the events in his book The Last Trump.'
Exclusiveness, which starts early in any religious plan, took off at once.
It's akin to the attitude "Lord, bless me and my wife, my son John and his
wife, us four and no more." The shut door view was never really accepted by
William Miller himself but circulated among some of the rejects. It lasted
officially until after 1850, when the door was opened a little crack for
the young of the faithful members to slip through, and later for the
spouses of those who believed.
It is surprising what a little leaven will do to a whole lump. Even today
Adventists speak of the non-members as "outsiders," "brothers-in-law or
sisters-in-law of the church," or slipping once in a while, "the
unsaved." In fact, in the Adventist concept, both earlier and later, just
about everybody was and is unsaved. The first reason for this, the "shut
door," was soon dropped because those who missed the boat of 1844 began to
die off. Afterward, the unsaved, even down to our time, became all those
who didn't accept Christ. All Christians knew that, but to make it a little
different, and perhaps to add charm, the Adventist view came to mean anyone
who worshiped on Sunday (Catholic or Protestant); anyone who smoked,
chewed, drank, wenched, went to shows, or wore or ate anything that
Adventists didn't-in general,
anyone who was not officially part of their show. In fact, the Adventist
view probably was not much different from other views that went before; it
just combined everything into one list to make it easier to find the
persons the church wanted to reject and to keep that door shut a little
longer.
Even those around Ellen had trouble keeping her from drawing things too
tight with her visions. James, her editor husband, had to make it clear
that there might be a crack in the door that Ellen did not have control of.
In 1851 he felt impelled to publish in the Review and Herald a lengthy
editorial (with reference to "those who have had any of the gifts of the
Spirit") that included these words:
Those on whom Heaven bestows the greatest blessings are in most danger of
being "exalted," and of falling, therefore, they need to be exhorted to be
humble, and watched over carefully. But how often have such been looked
upon as almost infallible, and they themselves have been apt to drink in
the extremely dangerous idea that all their impressions were the direct
promptings of the Spirit of the Lord [italics added] 2
The same editorial was reprinted in full in the editorial pages in 1853.
Then in an 1855 editorial, James White referred to those previously
published statements to the same effect and added: "No writer of the Review
has ever referred to them [the visions] as authority on any point. The
Review for five years has not published one of them." 3 With this
statement, the battle was joined. James was to lose out.
It takes a dexterous mind to work its way through two problems at the same
time. Often such a mind comes up with worthless answers, but it's lots of
fun. In theology it's downright enjoyable. To learn to say nothing well is
the first rule. The second rule is to say it in such a way that no one can
question your philosophical conclusions (if you arrive at any). It's like
learning a little bit about everything, so that soon you know everything
about nothing. In most libraries, the religion department is under the
subject heading of philosophy-and that is what it is, the defining and
redefining of terms and ideas that have defied defining for centuries.
Ellen and her helpers were masters at reworking past ideas. After the great
disappointment of October 22, 1844, and the futile setting of a few more
times and dates, and after consigning most of the world to hell for' not
believing what the Millerites/Adventists themselves were wrong about and
didn't understand, the group still had that problem of the shut door of
mercy. As "time continued a little longer," in the words of Ellen, the
problem became more pressing. If they opened the door theologically, they
would be admitting they had been wrong. If they kept it shut, and the good
Lord didn't come to get t hem out of the dilemma, they would all die off
and it wouldn't make any difference whether the door was open or shut.
With the skill of a surgeon, Ellen and her group cut their way through
without opening the door at all, but at the same time acting as if they
were really doing so. This balancing act was done by accepting what turned
into the "main pillar" of the Advent faith, the theory of the sanctuary.
This theory, which became the major doctrine of the church, was first
emphasized by O. R. L. Crosier, who afterward repudiated it 4 What the
theory does is open the door here on earth but then close it in the courts
above. In the words of that once popular song, "Nice work if you can get
it, and you can get it if you try." The Adventists did try harder than
most. (In fact they are still trying, and that is what has caused the big
ado about the separate though related concerns expressed by Paxton,
Brinsmead, and Ford).5
To make the very long story short, here is what took place after the
disappointment when Christ did not come in 1844. Walking through the
cornfield with his thoughts one day, a former Millerite said it came to his
mind that the date the Millerites had accepted was correct but the event
was hazy. It was not this earth that was cut off from mercy and about to
receive justice, but the other way around. It was in heaven that justice
was being decided (and mercy was still available here on earth). This
process required a lot of heavenly bookkeeping, looking through the
records, further recording of deeds done and not done, and compiling of
vast amounts of figures that would take some time to total -thus the idea
of probation. In addition, there was even room for the things we didn't do
or think of. Ellen was supposed to have written that "we shall individually
be held responsible for doing one jot less than we have ability to do....
We shall be judged according to what we ought to have done, but did not
accomplish because we did not use our powers to glorify God.... For all the
knowledge and ability that we might have gained and did not, there will be
an eternal loss."6
It was like a call to the colors. No matter that some have suggested that
the poor man in the cornfield might have seen a scarecrow instead of a
vision. No coach could have inspired his team with a better speech. With a
"let's win one for the gipper," the players ran onto the field- and have
been running ever since, having devised one of the most elaborate systems
of salvation by works that the world has ever seen since the fall of
Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
Having accepted that justice was being settled in heaven since 1844, the
Adventists never did relish the idea of mercy and grace being too available
on earth. In the 1970s and 1980s when the Australians (Paxton, Brinsmead,
and Ford) spoke their minds, the cheap shot at them was that they were
peddling "cheap grace." This just goes to show that those who grumbled had
not accepted the Gospel view that grace is even cheaper than that-it's
free.
When these men went public, the system banned them like the bomb. When they
went to tapes to advance their views, the leaders said that whoever
listened had "tape worms." Thereupon the leaders closed their meeting by
announcing that their own talks were on tapes and were available for a
small fee at the door. (It is well known that churches sell more tapes than
most, but it's the competition that hurts. Somebody is always trying to
muscle in on that heavenly franchise.)
In the late 1970s and 1980s, Desmond Ford, a most gifted speaker, was
knocking so hard at that door of mercy that his voice was beginning to be
heard around the world. There is nothing administrators like less than
challenges and loud noises. Above all, they don't like to be told about
theology, a subject that is as foreign to them as the Greek some of they
barely passed and have never used. But that door that Ellen and her helpers
had shut in 1844 had to be kept shut. So, like the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse, they all boarded their modern horses and headed for the
Sanctuary Review Committee meeting at Glacier View Ranch in Colorado August
10, 1980.
The security there would have made the CIA proud and the presidential
convention would look like a Boy Scout gathering. It was a truly
international group of about 115, the majority fitting the "executive"
category and thus beholden to the church in one way or another. Some of the
administrators, who (to say it kindly) were not theologically oriented,
tried to lean on that dosed door-and even suggested some form of oath of
loyalty to founder Ellen and her concepts. If the meeting proved anything
at all it was that shooting a man from a distance these days would be a
whole lot cheaper than hanging him in public. It proved also that justice
(as defined by the leaders), not mercy, was still the theme of the church.
In the end, after a lot of finger-play and charades, Ford was sacked?
The outcome had never really been in doubt. So it was no surprise when the
"good old" Review trumpeted: "Overview of a historic meeting: the Sanctuary
Review Committee, characterized by unity and controlled by the Holy Spirit,
finds strong support for the church's historic position." 8 Those hinges on
that closed door had gotten mighty rusty since 1844 and Ellen's foray into
theology. Although friends and foes alike had been trying desperately for
decades to open up the door a little, the elders were smart enough to see
what perhaps others (such as theologians) did not see: that is, if that
shut door is ever opened, the Adventist heaven and ghetto is desecrated by
being made available to all, regardless of race, creed, or color, and the
Adventist church and system will have lost forever its heavenly franchise.
Events had to be shaped that way, for part of the Adventist theology is
that the redeemed (meaning them, the faithful Adventists, of course) will
some day, during the golden age of the millennium, sit on those
pearly white thrones in the Far Beyond and help to judge the wicked. There
all the juicy morsels of others' acts and sins will be finally revealed to
them. That thought alone has helped many faithful go on to the end. To
think of knowing all about everybody who didn't make it, and why. And when
it's all finished, they will give God a vote of confidence and thanks that
things have turned out the way they felt they should from the beginning. 9
Another very important reason in the Adventist mind for keeping that door
closed either here or in heaven is evangelism. How could they ever cope
with the idea that others with dissimilar habits, customs, and mores a.-e
just as saved as they are? What would it do to the idea Adventists have
that all the other churches of the world are the whores and harlots that
the book of Revelation speaks of? This idea had come direct from the
prophet. She had seen torture chambers in the basements of Catholic
churches, where all men that finally worshiped on Sunday were to have a
"mark of the beast," and where Adventists, as the Waldenses and Hussites of
old, were to be hunted like dogs in the mountain fastnesses, to be
dispossessed and finally killed by the sword.'
Fear has no peer as a substitute for motivation to action. With fear the
lame can scale the highest wall, the blind can see enough to get out of the
way, and the mute can have instant fluency. Love, the motivation encouraged
by the Scriptures, had its best (and some think last) demonstration on the
Cross-and that was a long time ago. Besides, love has to be learned. Fear,
with its twin sister Guilt, always lurks in the shadows of the mind and is
readily available if someone touches the right button. And theologians,
divines, and spiritual administrators are experts at touching the right
buttons.
To the 1844 leftovers, the idea was not new that justice had to be
purchased by the penitent and mercy was free. But the idea was given
emphasis by the pen of Ellen White, in whose mind shadows darker than most
lay close to the surface. In her Testimonies for the Church she tells of
her early experience.
It cannot be disregarded that at nine years of age she was struck with a
stone, and the blow was so severe that her later impression was that she
nearly died. She was disfigured for life. She said she lay "in a stUpor,'
for three weeks. When she began to recover and saw how disfigured she was,
she wanted to die. She became melancholy and avoided company. She said, "My
nervous system was prostrated." She was terribly frightened and lonely, and
often she was terrified by the thought that she might be "eternally lost."
She thought that "the fate of a Condemned sinner" would be hers, and she
feared that she would lose her reason.
So here is a teenager who from the age of thirteen to seventeen was feeble,
sickly, unschooled, impressionable, and abnormally religious and excitable
at the time she first attended William Miller's 1840 lectures predicting
the end of the world in 1843-44. During this time she herself felt that
she was shut out from heaven. Indeed, because of her experience in life,
she was shuto~, and thus out, from those around her. With time, her
attitudes were modified and she came to feel somewhat more accepted. But
her writings, even throughout the books she published in the 1870s and
1880s, show clearly a person who looked with great apprehensiveness on much
that was the real life around her. She lived in a frightening world and
longed for the time when all she was afraid of would finally end.'2
This isolation she was able to provide for herself. Her shut door, though,
is still closed in the minds of Adventists today. With each new world or
local crisis, each new custom that is unacceptable, and all changing mores,
the Adventist shuts his door a little tighter, sleeps with his bags packed,
and longs for that final act of justice that will give him and his Clan,
only, the assurance of mercy they so much need.'3
William S. Sadler-widely known Chicago physician and surgeon of his time,
writer, personal friend of Ellen White, son-in-law of John Harvey
Kellogg-wrote:
Every now and then some one arises who attempts to make other people
believe in the things which they see or hear in their own minds.
Self-styled "prophets" arise to convince us of the reality of their
visions. Odd geniuses appear who tell us of the voices they hear, and if
they seem fairly sane and socially conventional in every way, they are
sometimes able to build up vast followings, to create cults and establish
churches; whereas, if they are too bold in their imaginings, if they see a
little too far or hear a little too much, they are promptly seized and
quickly lodged safe within the confines of an Insane asylum 4
This psychic haven is a safe region, not subject to challenge by logic,
argument, evidence, or reality. And in spite of being denied all these
nutrients of rational behavior and persuasion, men will still believe in
the unbelievable. The ideas of the shut door, the investigative judgment,
the denial of the biblical doctrine of divine grace and mercy freely
available to all since the Cross were all taken by the Adventists and made
conditional-on the basis of concepts rejected by most (even the
originators) but endorsed and promoted by Ellen White
And this brings us now to the last door that was closed in 1844 by Ellen
and the leftover Millerites-the Gospel, the Good News of salvation. The
Adventist sins are never really forgiven. They are carried on the books of
heaven until payday, the Judgment-Day. No system that thrives and
perpetuates itself on such a scandal can bring happiness to the human mind
or experience.
The constant reviews by the church system, the daily inspections demanded
by the mind, and the judgmental investigations of life, the comparisons
with the lives of others to see if one measures up-these sap the strength
and courage. By the time the "true believer" has done his daily spiritual
calisthenics and checked over his list of do's and don'ts he is depleted.
His concept of life is that God flays him over every hill, down every dale,
through every forest, until, exhausted, he drops dead. In each case, if his
dues are paid up, the Lord bends over and says, "Well done, thou good and
faithful servant."' 5
In such a system, the patron saint becomes the substitute for the Saviour.
Heaven and the here-and-now are viewed through the eyes of that
nineteenth-century saint. Works become the way to win or keep the
concessions granted by the privileged, and life becomes a "holy"
competition with other believers. No man likes to compete in an area in
which he doesn't excel; so each one stakes out a claim that he can work
best. It might be diet with one, clothing with another, monasticism for the
extreme. Whatever the task, life becomes a vast effort to outdo the
competition by climbing that greased pole first. If one can only "endure to
the end" and outlast or outsmart the competition, justice says that his
place is assured in the hereafter, even if it was hell living in the here
and now.
Thus it has always been and always will be when the Ellens of the earth
convince followers that by heavenly bookkeeping God will save or even
satisfy the human soul or desire for justice. Whenever theologians or
believers try playing semantical games with doctrines, they always end up
losing the Saviour and the Gospel here and make a mystic mess of the
hereafter. How little did young Ellen and her small band of true believers
realize when they shut the door in 1844, that in trying to save face
because of the disappointment experienced they were really taking away the
Lord from tens of thousands and closing a door of love and mercy forever
for many others. Such has been the experience of all who have tried to
become, under whatever title, the keeper of the keys of salvation-that
Gospel of Good News.
References and Notes
1. I ngemar Linden, The Last Trump, (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1978)
pp. 80- 07.
2. James White], "The Gifts of the Gospel Church," Second Advent Review
nn./l.SabAn.th Heral./11 (21 ADril lX5l\- 7(\.
3. Uames White], "The Gifts of the Gospel Church," Review 4 (9June 1853):
13; J. W., "A Test," Review 7 (16 October 1855): 61.
4. L. Richard Conradi, The Founders of the Seuenth-day Adventist
Denomination
(Plainview, NJ: The Amencan Sabbath Tract Society, 1939).
5. Robert D. Brinsmead,Judged ov the Gospel. Desmond Ford, Daniel 8:14, the
Day of Atonement, and the lnvestigativeJudgment. Geoffrey J. Paxton, The
Shaking
of Adventism.
6. Ellen G. White, Chnst's Object Lessons (Mountain View: Pacific Press
l'ub
fishing Association, 1900), p. 363.
7. Review 157 (May,June,July 1980).
8. Review 157 (4 September 1980).
9. EGW, The Creat Controversy between Chnst and Satan (Mountain View:
PPPA, 1888, 1911). See chapter 28, "Facing Life's Record (The Investigative
Judgment)," and chapter 41, "Desolation of the Earth." Recent studies show
that a large part of these chapters came from the writings of Uriah Smith.
10. EGW, Early Wntings (Washington: Review and Herald Publishing Assm
aatlon, 1882), pp. 277-85. See also EGW's Country LivZng (Washington:
RHPA,
11. EGW, Testimonies for the Church, 9 vols. (Mountain View: PPPA, 1885
1909), vol. 1, pp. 9-16, 25.
12. EGW, Chnstian Expenence and Teachings (Mountain View: PPPA, 1922),
13.dionathan M. Butler, "The World of E. G. White and the End of the
Worl ,"Spectrum 10, no. 2 (August 1979): 2-13.
14. William S. Sadler, The Truth about Spintuali~m (Chicago: A. C. McClurg
&
15. Matthew 25:21.
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