How do you feel about the 'recent' use of calling EGW a prophet?

[Woody]

When I was growing up - the term 'prophet' was generally avoided in regards to EGW. Now in the last days - the term is not avoided but defended. What made the difference? Has she just grown in esteem? Or - Has our theology changed in regards to a prophet?

What say U ?

[Liz]

Growing up she was always called a prophet. I've never not known her as a prophet. I've always heard that EGW never called herself a prophet, that that was a term "we" placed on her. But I've never studied that out. It always struck me as a little unfair though, if "we" were the ones to call her a prophet then "we" work so hard to discredit her as one.

[Woody]

Thanks Liz for your comment. I think perhaps that I might be a smidgen older than you. Thus our difference in experiences.

But as to the prophet title - After studying it - I've found that she called herself a pastor not a prophet. She considered herself just like all the other ministers of her time. And their work was 'more' than a prophet because their work was a continuing and ongoing work.

[ClubV12]

I see where she called herself a "messenger of God" because her work, as you suggested Woody, was MORE than that of a prophet. Of course the primary reason she did not call herself a prophet, as she herself has said, was because of the 200 some people of her time that DID call themselves a prophet! Actually, I've never see a referrence where she referred to herself as a Pastor, Minister or Evangelist. She never did "Pastor" a church. If anything other than prophet or Pastor would apply, evangelist would be a more accurate description. Technically speaking, she was a licensed Seventh-day Adventist Minister.

[Woody]

Yes. YOu will notice if you study the issue that - all ministers of her time were called "messengers". ANd EGW herself called her collegues messengers - the same title she used for herself.

[ClubV12]

Ah,, I see now where you are making that connection, interesting!

[Woody]

Ah,, I see now where you are making that connection, interesting!

[Naomi]

Quote:

if "we" were the ones to call her a prophet then "we" work so hard to discredit her as one.

Interesting observation Liz. Not everyone works hard to discredit her as a prophet. IMHO not everything that she shared with friends and family was inspired. Just a very gifted, spirtuial lady sharing.

[Woody]

Quote:

if "we" were the ones to call her a prophet then "we" work so hard to discredit her as one.

Interesting observation Liz. Not everyone works hard to discredit her as a prophet. IMHO not everything that she shared with friends and family was inspired. Just a very gifted, spirtuial lady sharing.

Exactly Naomi.

[Kevin H]

I don't think that I understand this well enough to give a clear answer, but I hope to at at least point in a direction that would be helpful with your study, but Archaeology has helped in understanding this.

In the ancient world, including God's people, there were prophetic guilds. The job of Prophet was an office, and there were different kinds of prophets. Some had a universal job and were involved someway in interacting with the government leaders, and it was from this group that PART of their ministry was to write what became the Bible. Then there were prophets who worked with the people in having prophetic guidance in applying the work of the World prophets to their local community.

Now one of the offices for a prophet, and it could be fulfilled by either a world prophet or a local prophet, is the role of "the Lord's Messenger" which meant that this was a prophet who was part of the heaveny counsel and who's job was to bring to earth messages from the heavenly consel.

In the 1800s we had a different view of prophet. Instead of seen as an office, where it is a failable human being doing a job, with both world prophets and local prophets. We tend to see a prophet that is somehow possessed by God becoming not God's penmen but his pen, channeling messages from God, instead of being prevy to the heavenly court and relate their expirence from being prevy to the information.

Sorry Naomi, but your quote shows this misunderstanding that Mrs. White was trying to avoid in these comments, and the fact that you said this shows how she failed (or more how the church has failed her as we will discuss later in this post.)

Naomi was talking about what Mrs. White said that was inspired and was not inspired. This is a false distinction. Words are NOT inspired!!! People are inspired. People are given the office. We do not ask "Was these words President and these words not President" when talking about the President? No, of course not. the words are from a person who happends to be in the office of the President.

Mrs. White addresses different issues from her position from a prophet. She points out that there is a principle and frame work that she got from her expirence of inspiration, or thus holding the office of prophet, and she presents it in the best of her ability according to her background, study, information she had to study and where God's people are in that point. Her frame work is the Great Controversy: The 3 aspects of the trinity, the 3 deceptions of Satan and the rest is how we relate to these issues. She was not a world prophet but meet the discription of what archaeologists call a local prophet, taking the message from the world prophets and applying it to her local situation.

The law of God is absolute, the applications are not absolute. In Life and Writings of Ellen White Dr. Coon pointed out how Mrs. White wrote to a friend of hers giving advice in raising her children. Later Mrs. White wrote to that friend saying "Forget the information I've given you in these letters, I've discovered that they don't work" However, those letters were from a prophet. If we were to understand the role of prophet we would not make the mistake of saying "Mrs. White is a prophet, she wrote this information on raising children, thus this comes right from God and needs to be followed." Issues such as the meaning of the daily, the reform dress, testimony#11, the innkeeper, the Jewish pig herders etc. all fall into place as you understand the prophet office, and not see it being as some magical transformation that makes the person God's pen rather than his penman.

Mrs. White was trying to expain her role where there was the false idea of what a prophet is and many claiming to be prophets and falling into the tradition, while she was trying to teach people the facts when archaeologists have not yet dug up the information.

We failed her by not following her advice. Stephen Haskell very much wanted to have Mrs. White fit the traditional view of what a prophet should be. They kept going around in circles trying to convince each other and both suffered health complications from not being able to convince the other of their understanding of what a prophet should be. Elder Canright ended up leaving the church because he could not fit Mrs. White into what he thought a prophet should be and refused her view of what a prophet was. A. G. Daniels and W.W. Prescott started out with the traditional view of what a prophet was but when Mrs. White learned about it she changed them and convinced them (more or less, probably not completely over) to her view. Other's especially among those who were opposed to Jones and Wagner at 1888 were confused as to Mrs. White's not just joining them, and felt that what Mrs. White wrote before 1888 was inspired but that she gave up her gift of prophecy, apostisided by becoming a trinitarian, focusing on Jesus and the 1888 message and were quite critical of her and Willie White (although their followers tended to "baptize" the post 1888 Ellen White, Willie, Jones and Wagner and makes them faithful to this point of view after all and places the problems to after they died)

In the mid 1800s the church fell into either modernism and preterism (that the Bible was not inspired and that everything only had a local application to the story itself, maybe a historical event but probably a fictional event) or fundamentalism and futurism/dispensationalism (that the Bible is God's word and since God is perfect, his word has to be perfect and that the prophecies were yet to be fullfilled to literal Israel after the church is raptured away). While Mrs. White was able to keep futurisism out, fundamentalism did creep in dispite Mrs. White trying to stop it.

In the early 1900s there were a series of pamflets called "The Fundamentals" and in 1919 there was a Bible Conference in Philadelphia where many churches officially took fundamentalism. Adventists by this time were more social with other Christians, and many of our teachers and leaders were planing to attend the 1919 conference in Philadelphia. Since they were coming here, and since the 1919 Philadelphia conference was so contrary to what Mrs. White taught Willie, Daniels and Prescott, they decided to have a Bible Conference in Washington DC before the Philadelphia conference. Rumors were flying that Willie, Daniels and Prescott, and that the Elderly Mrs. White had apostisised and they wanted to let people know that the church was developing a different view of inspiration that Mrs. White expirenced and taught. Daniels believed that if this false view of what a prophet is should spread that it would spell disaster for the church.

Willie White saw what was happening in the church and found business out of town so he could not attend. Daniels and Presscott were faithful in teaching what Mrs. White taught them. The religion Faculty of Washington Missionary College were teaching Mrs. White's view of inspiration and the prophetic office.

At first it looked like they made progress however after the conference in Washington DC, sadly the group continued on to Philadelphia, and came home with the Philadelphia message. Coming across earler statements from shut door Adventists, Adventists did start isolating again since that was God's message to us. Haskell published the Haskell Bible Handbook in opposition to Daniels, Prescott and Willie. and in the 1923 General Conference, Daniels was fired, Prescott was demoted, and while Willie got to keep his job, it was stripped from any authority and influence (basically Willie was fired, but allowed to come to his office and get a pay check). The Religion department of Washington Missionary College was fired. The new General Conference President, Elder Spicer, was also seen as a heritic, he believed there were two different types of inspiration, one for Mrs. White which was in agreement with her views, Willie, Danils and Prescott, and one for the Bible writers which was in line with the Philadelphia Bible Conference. But unlike Daniels who felt that this other view of inspiration would ultamately spell desaster for the church, Spicer thought that it was a harmless belief and would not try to correct the church.

Arcaheology has shown us that Mrs. White, Willie, Daniels, Prescott and the Religion Department of Washington Missionary College was correct, we are still trying to learn this lesson. Elder Haskell's views are where most typical Adventists are and we, like Canright, are trying to ballance the facts of Mrs. White with the views of the Fundamentalists. I hope this helps.

[phkrause]

As far aback as I can remember she was always considered a prophet. It also seemed to me when growing up that when people had a problem with her counsel that's when they didn't think she was a prophet, but as long as she agreed with there point of view she was just preachy. The other thing I recall is lots of people disliked her because of the others twisted her writings to suit themselves. For me, as I've mentioned on a number of occasions, it never matter to me if she was or was not a prophet. The reason I say that is early on I never liked reading her books, for me they were very difficult to read. But than I came across the GC, that totally changed my opinion of her. I had gone through public school and one year of Academy and my favorite classes were always world history, American history, any kind of history. After this is when I read the GC. also having read through the bible a few times, she just put all the bible and history together like a puzzle that started to make sense. I had heard all the different time prophesies and I just kind of accepted them because how could all these pastors be wrong, but also always wondered a little about them. But that book was awesome, every little piece fit just right. That's when I said she was definitely called to be a prophet. No problem for me at all.

[ClubV12]

PK, if you like history you might enjoy Testimonies Vol 1 on the Civil War.

Outside of what ever spiritual lessons may be in there, it's the best "read" on the Civil War I've ever come across. Once I started reading that section I literally could not put down the book. I was so immersed in it it was like reading a "War Novel" (except it's true). Her vision of the battle on Manasas and the angel disrupting the Northern advance rates right up there with best literature I've read. Gripping!

[phkrause]

Actually I've skimmed through them a bit. From the ones that I've read I've enjoyed them very much. Its the testimonies that most have issues with I think. Some are pretty specific as to who there to, and others are general in there application.

[ClubV12]

When I first started reading them it didn't take any time at all to understand what people were talking about when they said to many use Ellen White as a "club" or "hammer". SO easy to take that counsel out of context and you can find a quote to "back up" just about any argument you want. "Hammer" indeed, and for a new Adventist, surely a bit intimidating. I was left wondering just what I had gotten myself into with this church.

BUT, the more I read the more I began to see the balanced view that is presented, the logic and common sense are quite profound. We would not read the bible and say, "Well, that was for THEIR time." We aren't caught up in the details of the specific counsel in the bible, we look for the principles and ideas that applied then AND now! I read Ellen White in the same way, what is the message behind the message? What is the principle and how does it apply to me, today? The same way I read the bible....

[phkrause]

When I first started reading them it didn't take any time at all to understand what people were talking about when they said to many use Ellen White as a "club" or "hammer". SO easy to take that counsel out of context and you can find a quote to "back up" just about any argument you want. "Hammer" indeed, and for a new Adventist, surely a bit intimidating. I was left wondering just what I had gotten myself into with this church.

BUT, the more I read the more I began to see the balanced view that is presented, the logic and common sense are quite profound. We would not read the bible and say, "Well, that was for THEIR time." We aren't caught up in the details of the specific counsel in the bible, we look for the principles and ideas that applied then AND now! I read Ellen White in the same way, what is the message behind the message? What is the principle and how does it apply to me, today? The same way I read the bible....