Ellen White's 'Failed' Civil War Prophecy - A Second Look

[Leslie NL Miller]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/ellen-whites-failed-civil-war-prophecy-second-look-miller/edit

[Unchained]

Do you have a working link for those of us who don't use Linkedin?

[whbae]

 

above page is no longer available, I was told when I tried to sign in.

[phkrause]

7 hours ago, Leslie NL Miller said:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/ellen-whites-failed-civil-war-prophecy-second-look-miller/edit

Page Not Found

The page you requested is no longer available, or cannot be found. Please double-check the URL (address) you used, or contact us if you feel you have reached this page in error.

 

I wonder why!!! Besides if you have a problem with EGW, please post it in the threads that were created for that purpose!!!!!!!!!!

[Rossw]

Try here...

Quote

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ellen-whites-failed-civil-war-prophecy-second-look-miller

 

[Rossw]

The statement by EGW in question is this...

Quote

When England does declare war, all nations will have an interest of their own to serve, and there will be general war, general confusion.”

Much of the context before and after the quoted statement is conditional on if England were to decide to go to war with the US. The statement does seem a little confusing but if the condition is taken consistently throughout then it still makes sense as not an absolute prophecy. 

[Kevin H]

All prophecy is conditional upon people's response. The Holy Spirit works with who he can work with. England was preparing to fulfill this prophecy. It would have been fulfilled had not Queen Victoria still have had more power than monarchy has now. She made decisions in consultation with Prince Albert. Prince Albert was a man of God and saw the same thing that Mrs. White was shown in vision. Michael had to deal with Prince Alber's heart similar to working with King Cyrus (but hopefully not as hard). He was able to work out a compromise between England and Lincoln that was able to change the condition of this prophecy.

[Unchained]

Found a working link: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ellen-whites-failed-civil-war-prophecy-second-look-miller?articleId=6160856697859563521#comments-6160856697859563521&trk=prof-post

 

Edit: Rossw beat me to it...

[Leslie NL Miller]

I'm new to this site and am not here to get into arguments with people I don't know. I am an author offering a book for sale that teaches lay people in the church how to give Bible studies in their own homes. I recently saw this Ellen White statement again and realized while it did not come true in 1862, the one isolated sentence I discussed did come true in both 1914 and 1939. Note to phkrause I accepted EGW even before I was baptized and have been a believer ever since. As I said in my post, this supposedly failed conditional prophecy does not shake my faith.

[Rossw]

How was it a "failed" prophecy?

[Kevin H]

It is a "failed" prophecy because she said "When England..." and predicted that England would enter with the south. 

Indeed England was looking at it and it would have been to her advantage to side with the south. Had that happened the America's would be like Europe: several small states competing with each other. The United States, the Confederate States, Texas and California.

F. D. Nichol dealt with this prophecy by inserting the word "If" which the conservatives have latched on to, except that Mrs. White did not use "If" but "when" which Mrs. White's critics latch on to.

But even though Mrs. White did not have the word "If" all prophecies are conditional to our response. Thanks to prince Albert the condition was not met.

 

[Rossw]

I don't see the prophecy as a failure if the conditions for it never materialized.

[Green Cochoa]

47 minutes ago, Kevin H said:

It is a "failed" prophecy because she said "When England..." and predicted that England would enter with the south. 

Indeed England was looking at it and it would have been to her advantage to side with the south. Had that happened the America's would be like Europe: several small states competing with each other. The United States, the Confederate States, Texas and California.

F. D. Nichol dealt with this prophecy by inserting the word "If" which the conservatives have latched on to, except that Mrs. White did not use "If" but "when" which Mrs. White's critics latch on to.

But even though Mrs. White did not have the word "If" all prophecies are conditional to our response. Thanks to prince Albert the condition was not met.
 

When smoke rises, you know the barometric pressure is high.  When smoke stays low, the pressure is low.  Did I use "if"?  But what did I mean?  Apply that to Mrs. White.  End of problem.

I happened to see the "if" right away.  The grammar she used would never have been questioned like this in her day, because people understood it.  Today, people are too uneducated to recognize the grammatical function of the words she used in her English style.  This whole "failure" is not one pertaining to Mrs. White.  It is a "false prophecy" formed in the eye of the reader.  Mrs. White never said what people are saying she said.

I teach English for a living.  Sad to say, many "native English speakers" back home seem to need the instruction as well.

[Green Cochoa]

56 minutes ago, Rossw said:

I don't see the prophecy as a failure if the conditions for it never materialized.

This wasn't even a conditional prophecy unless the condition was if England gets involved.  There were no conditions attached regarding what would have caused England's involvement.  The prophecy was fulfilled very literally in the World Wars.  At those times, "all nations" had "an interest of their own to serve," just as she predicted.

[Rossw]

8 minutes ago, Green Cochoa said:

This wasn't even a conditional prophecy unless the condition was if England gets involved.  There were no conditions attached regarding what would have caused England's involvement.  The prophecy was fulfilled very literally in the World Wars.  At those times, "all nations" had "an interest of their own to serve," just as she predicted.

Was not the context of England in the prophecy directly related to the time of the Civil War?

[Kevin H]

12 hours ago, Rossw said:

Was not the context of England in the prophecy directly related to the time of the Civil War?

Yes it was. The issue is again dealing with the purpose and nature of prophecy. All prophecy is conditional to people's response. The "If" is always implied. 

Dispensatioinalism ignores these "If's" and wants the church to be raptured away so that all the details in the prophecies are fulfilled. 

Mrs. White was talking about how England was indeed planing to join the war at the side of the south. that would have been to England's advantage. However, England did not see that it would have lead to what later became the first world war. God warned Mrs. White about this issues. World War 1 was already in the making. It would have broken out just as predicted except that the Holy Spirit was speaking to the heart of Prince Albert. 

Price Albert was a man of God. He was also German who gave him a bigger perspective than the "What's good for England" views of the Prime Minister and Parliament. The monarchy still had more power than they do today. So Queen Victoria had influence and she would consult her husband in decision making. 

Prince Albert was able to make compromises between England and Lincoln that kept England out of the war. Thus the conditions were not met. The angels held back the winds of strife and World War 1 was postponed about 50 years. And as Green pointed out the events of World War 1 were still there and growing. (in a lot of ways World War 1 has never ended) While the Civil War would have triggered it had not Prince Albert cut the fuse the events that Mrs. White began seeing about Europe and applied to the Civil war but continued to talk about in Prophets and Kings as world war 1 was breaking out were developing. 

The critic looking at only the specific application and not the framework sees it as a failed prophecy because she did not use the word "If" The conservatives correctly see the "If" as implied. But there were things that she was saying about Europe both around the time of the Civil war and 50 years later in Prophets and Kings that we don't realize were references to the first world war that has outlived the war and are still worthy of our study today. (I'd also like to see the connection with the French Revolution which set this in motion). 

Thank you Green for pointing these things out. We often do not see eye to eye, but on some points (and for some reason you still criticize me when I thank you) you show incredible insight. Thank you for your last two points. Bulls-eye! (I hope the fact that we are in agreement on these two posts doesn't scare you away.)

[Rossw]

Kevin, thank you for clarifying Green's point. I understand the bigger picture much better now.

Imagine if England had made war with the US as a lead up to the world wars?Life as we know it would be very different!

 

[Kevin H]

I'd like to look a little more as to what is going on:

Catholic Europe had it's feudal system with it's kings and lords and peasants. Church and State were together. We had the Roman Catholic church and two reformed churches. One was an early attempt of reform but where they did not know how much of the corruption crept into the Bible so while they respected the Bible they did not trust it and tried to read it filtering truth from error. This became Islam. Then there was the reform based on trusting the Bible, Protestantism.  But whether Roman Catholicism, eastern reformed Catholicism (Islam) or western reformed Catholicism (Protestantism) they all believed in the church state. The pilgrims and puritans wanted to set up their version of Catholic Europe in the Americas. But out of this came Roger Williams, and back in Europe the Quakers got a piece of land that could have been a Quaker version of Catholic Europe, but they had the same weird idea that Roger William had;  instead of Catholic Europe with it's church state, to allow liberty of conscience. (What is interesting and I don't know why but Roger Williams hated the religion of Quakerism, but believed that they had a right to their beliefs and were welcomed in Rode Island). 

As the American Revolution started some people like Patrick Henry wanted a protestant version of Catholic Europe here in the US. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were infected with the ideas of Roger Williams and William Penn and wanted the United States to follow the plan of Rode Island and Pennsylvania; to allow all religions free access, to have people listen to all ideas and to accept what made the most sense to them. Jefferson suggested to Madison that they should pray for Henry to die. Madison said he had a better idea, that they should unite to make Patrick Henry governor of Virginia and use that to get his voice out of the congress. Thanks to these four men, Williams, Penn, Jefferson and Madison the American Revolution was something new; based on seeing the laws of Catholic Europe as being inferior to a higher set of law that was not man made but came from God (granted they had a deist view of God and a lot of messed up ideas about God's interventions, but their ideas of liberty of conscience and God's higher law was correct.) The US was based on freedom through good laws based on the inalienable law of the creator, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  (In many ways Seventh-day Adventism was an application of Williams, Penn, Jefferson and Madison applied to religion.)

Then there was the French Revolution. At first Jefferson was excited about the French Revolution, but soon saw it was based on different ideas. Instead of appealing to freedom through the law of God, they looked for freedom through no law and no God. This lead to the reign of terror. It was Satan's ideal society,, but they discovered that it was exhausting for the demons a they had to individualize temptation. They found that they had it a lot easier under Catholic Europe. Napoleon came to power with the same view of freedom being freedom from law. But he came to see freedom as something that only the elite leaders can use that the common people can't handle freedom. This developed into Communism where the government takes care of the common people who can't handle freedom and thus control them. 

Over the past 30 years in American politics we are finding the Republican party leaving the constitution and pushing for a return to Catholic Europe and the ideas of Patrick Henry. We are finding the Democrats responding to this by leaving the constitution and supporting the views of the French Revolution. (well both trends started around the turn of the 20th century, it is the past 30 where they could voice the cry without causing an uproar.)

 These are issues Mrs. White was predicting with her applying them to the civil war and world war 1.

[Kevin H]

23 minutes ago, Rossw said:

Kevin, thank you for clarifying Green's point. I understand the bigger picture much better now.

Imagine if England had made war with the US as a lead up to the world wars?Life as we know it would be very different!

 

Yes indeed. And this is how we work, while we approach the truth from different directions, having these different perspectives help others evaluate the evidence and thus we all can grow to a better understanding of the truth.

Catholic Europe (all 4 forms) in a lot of ways says "We have the truth, you obey it."

The French Revolution (spiritualism/existentialism) says there is no right so either do what is right for you knowing that it might not be right for another person. or let some charismatic leader decide what's best for most people and we all follow it and let them take care of you.

We have to be careful in our own hearts that we don't end up siding with either Catholic Europe or the French Revolution. Today these are where we are seeing people's hearts leading. 

While the specific application to the civil war was fortunately not fulfilled due to the Holy Spirit working on Prince Albert's heart for him to see these larger consequences, and on Lincoln's heart in accepting the counsel of Prince Albert and the compromise. But what happens when we don't have politicians open to the Holy Spirit like Prince Albert and Abraham Lincoln?  

The specific application did not meet it's fulfillment in the Civil war as it could have, due to two hears being open to the Holy Spirit, but the prophecy is still alive and kicking. So much for it being a failed prophecy.

[Rossw]

1 hour ago, Kevin H said:

Over the past 30 years in American politics we are finding the Republican party leaving the constitution and pushing for a return to Catholic Europe and the ideas of Patrick Henry. We are finding the Democrats responding to this by leaving the constitution and supporting the views of the French Revolution. (well both trends started around the turn of the 20th century, it is the past 30 where they could voice the cry without causing an uproar.)

Absolutely fascinating. I've thought this same thing for awhile but have never worded it so clearly.

By the way, my wife's family comes from Rhode Island and to my knowledge are direct descendants of Roger Williams. Kevin, do you know of any Roger Williams books that are available. Or even a good book on Roger Williams? My wife likes reading about him.

[Kevin H]

Not off hand, most of what I've learned has been in school/college, liberty magizine and our other journals, and Vision Video has a good video about him that I've heard in the past. If you come across any please let me know. 

[Kevin H]

Sadly Nelson Aldrich was also a direct decedent of Roger Williams. (He was the senator that was close friends with Rockefeller who started setting up the super rich and federal reserve which works with both the ideas of Catholic Europe with the French Revolution to make the super rich the new feudal lords and kings and keep the rest of us peasants who Napoleon saw as not able to handle freedom; to try to prevent another Teddy Roosevelt from becoming president.)