Interesting story of D.M. Canright

[Reddogs]

This is the first time I have read the story of D.M. Canright, although I had come across bits and pieces before, its a bit long but worth reading......

http://www.ellenwhitedefend.com/Defense/Canright.pdf

[Haldog]

I read the first half of it tonight. What I found interesting is how the author kept trying to tie Canright's salvation to accepting Ellen's "testimonies" and believing in her. My bible says 'believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Christ and you shall be saved'. I have yet to find mention of having to believe in Ellen to obtain salvation. Maybe the SDA's are using a different bible now days then when I was part of the denomination.

All of these scriptures contradict what Ellen wrote of salvation. John 5:24; 6:39, 40; 19:28, 29; Rom. 8:38, 39; I Tim. 1:12; I John 5:9-13

I choose to follow Christ, not Ellen.

[Lutz13]

Quote:

I choose to follow Christ, not Ellen.

Who ever told you that you have to follow Ellen? Anytime she is mentioned I see you in the thread slamming on her. Don't use her then. She even said that you don't need her, that everything you'll need is in the bible!

[Haldog]

But she lied when she said that.

Shalom

[John317]

This is the first time I have read the story of D.M. Canright, although I had come across bits and pieces before, its a bit long but worth reading......

http://www.ellenwhitedefend.com/Defense/Canright.pdf

A very sad and tragic story and all true and well-documented.

The point is not that he didn't follow Ellen White but that he knew the truth of the Three Angels' Messages and he turned against it and dedicated his life to attacking it.

It's obvious from the evidence that the reason he did this was for himself and not because he actually believed the things he wrote.

[John317]

I choose to follow Christ, not Ellen.

You will never see anything in the writings of Ellen White where she asks people to follow her. She says the same thing that Paul said, "Follow me as I follow Christ."

She would be horrified to think that people think she is asking them to follow her. She can't save anyone and she was the first to say that she herself was a sinner and in need of Christ as Savior. No one can be well acquainted with her and not know this.

It's unfortunate that anyone could possibly have given you a different impression. But that is why we have to study her writings for ourselves personally just as we do the Bible.

[Kevin H]

Elder Canright was stuck in a delema; he was an honest man who had most of his facts right (some were very wrong). His problem was that he was an extream fundamentalist, and like with Daniels, Prescott and Haskell, she was trying to teach him not to be a fundamentalist.

While Daniels and Prescott somewhat learned their lesson and more or less gave up fundamentalism, and Haskell never learned the lesson (and had some intence converstations trying to convince Mrs. White to be a fundamentalist, and finally his views won out in the church), Canright held on to fundamentalism, joined the church which was the most extreamist of the fundamentalist churches. He was confused between his love for Mrs. White yet his refusal to give up fundamentalism and was honest enought to see that Mrs. White did not fit the fundamentalist standard.

Unlike modern critics such as Walter Rea and Ratslaf etc. Canright was honest and tried to figure out from his fundamentalist framework.

Today none of the fundamentalist churches are as extreamily fundamentalist as the Northern Baptists were when Canright lived. It is sad that he could not be living today with the knowlege that fundamentalism was not as strong as he thought it was. If he could understand today, I suspect that he would go the route of Daniels and Prescott, would be a defender of Mrs. White, but one who's defence would not be approved of by the Adventist Theological Society

[John317]

But the evidence from his own writings and from those who were closest to him, including his own brother and mother, is that Canright's main problem was instability and a desire to be held in high esteem. He was double-minded. He went back and forth several times. My view of him is that he was a man who craved the adulation and admiration of people more than truth.

I don't really see him as honest. If he was honest he wouldn't have said in private what he contradicted in public. For instance, he would say in private that Ellen White was a good, Christian woman, but in public he would say such things as in the following link:

http://www.ellenwhite.org/canright/can9.htm

[Kevin H]

What I mean by honest is when you look at the modern critic; Rea, Ratslaf, Martin etc. they

1. Basically bring up the same ideas as Canright, except they don't do as good a job

2. They tend to twist the facts to make Mrs. White look worst than she actually was. Canright (with the exception of his belief that Mrs. White was a lot richer than she actually was) tended to treat the facts fairly and accurately

3. The modern critic tends to twist Mrs. Whites words to make it sound like she's saying what is in the ball park but much different than what she is actually saying (like her questioning if the corsets could cause wasp waists into a statement that they do cause wasp waists. From reporting the historical fact [that you can hear today on the history channel] that England was looking into whether or not it should get involved in the Civil War, they twist into her prophicying that she said that they were going to get involved in the Civil war. Etc. Etc.) You don't find Canright doing these horrible twisting of Mrs. White's words to make her look bad. He shows evidence of trying to be fair to the information.

4 a. Canright lived in the early days of fundamentalism; in a world where churches were becoming either fundamentalists or modernists. You were either a believing fundamentalist or an non-believing modernist, and Canright whole heartedly accepted fundamentalism and joined the Northern Baptists which was the most extreamly fundamentalists. Canright honestly believed that to be a true prophet that the prophet had to be God's pen, not his penman. This is the one point that everything else focuses on, and the one point that everything else stems from. If he could believe that prophets were God's penmen and not his pen he would have had no reason for his rejection of Mrs. White or his attacks on the church. The statements going the two different ways and his denial of them can well be not dishonestly, but the results of a troubled soul who had on the one hand a love for Mrs. White and the message, but on the other hand could not fit it into his paradime that it has to fit fundamentalism, that unless Mrs. White became God's pen that God could not be working through her.

4 b. Today's critic, Rea, Ratslaf etc. are living in a world where even today's strongest fundamentalists are not as strict as the Northern Baptists of Canright's day. Today, even with in Fundamentalism you have the more conservative fundamentalists and more liberal fundamentalists; and besides that there is a growing group of moderates; non-fundamentalists who reject the unbelief of the modernists. Today's critics have the ability to compair Canrights's conserns with what we have learned about the Bible and archaeology durring the 20th century. They are not limited to the idea that you either have to be fundamentalist or modernists as Canright saw himself as limited to. Once again had Canright known that he could have been a more moderate or liberal fundanemetalist, or even leave fundamentalism behind and become a moderate, all his conserns would have fallen flat and he would have had no reason to leave. He was trying to do his best with what he thought were his options. Today's critics know that the extream fundamentalism of Canright does not fit the Biblical evidence that we have learned over the 20th century, yet they continue to present the same conserns.

When you compare Canright to today's critics, Canright comes out looking so different from today's critic. There are qualities about Canright that I find myself greatly respecting and feeling sorry for the poor man with his delema as opposed to the underhanded wisted dishonest and Biblical ignorance shown by today's critics.

[oldsailor29]

Churches are still extremely fundamentalist, including the SDAs.   Most of them think the "word of God" means that God gave the bible writers the words to write.   They think that "divinely inspired" means that God whispered into the ears or into the brains of the bible writers.   They read that the bible writers were God's penmen, and not His pens, and they seem to have no concept of what that means.   This is the basic problem at the foundation of most disagreements on scripture.

People think the divinely inspired bible writers wrote inerrant scripture, and can clearly see that Ellen White didn't.   So they say Ellen wasn't inspired in the same way bible writers were.   From that fundamentalist perspective it would seem they are correct.   But looking at divine inspiration the way it actually is, it is easy to see that the bible writers were inspired exactly the same way Ellen was.

God gives His prophets visions, and they write them out in their own words.   God also gives His prophets authority to write opinions and solutions for problems of their generations.   That is what it means to be God's prophets and God's penmen.

[John317]

God gives His prophets visions, and they write them out in their own words.

This is true, but we have to keep in mind what Ellen White said, which is that she was as dependent on the Holy Spirit in writing the visions as she was in receiving the visions. As we study how she wrote, it becomes very obvious that the Holy Spirit helped her in both the selection of the material and in the writing of those things.

The Bible itself also is very clear that the Scriptures were "God-breathed," and that the Bible writers wrote as they were "carried along by the Holy Spirit." Holy men spoke [wrote] as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 1: 21.

There are instances where Paul shows that he believes the Holy Spirit chose particular words to express the truth of God. See Gal. 3: 6. Paul sees a great significance in the fact that the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to choose the word "seed" and not "seeds" in Gen. 22: 18. If we believe that Moses alone was the one who chose to use that word, apart from the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, we might think that the particular word Moses chose (on his own) was unimportant.

We also have the testimony of David, who said, "The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His [God's] word was on my tongue." 2 Sam 23: 2.

While it's true the prophets were not God's pen-- as in a mechanical dictation-- certainly the Holy Spirit was directly involved in the choice of the words they used in communicating God's revelation.

I believe it makes sense that since God showed them visions and wanted them to communicate an important message, it follows that God did what He needed to do to be sure that that message was communicated effectively so that we can have absolute confidence in it as God's inspired word.