Ellen White

[Gregory Matthews]

A recent article in Adventist Today asked whether we should consider Ellen White to be equal to the Bible. pr as a fraud.  I posted the following in response:

In my opinion, we owe much to the guidance that she gave to us as a developing denomination. I do not believe that we would be the denomination that we are today if we had not had her advice. However, when it comes to spiritual advice and doctrine, I believe that we should look beyond her to the Bible. Over the years that she ministered in this denomination, her doctrinal understandings changed in many areas as she developed her beliefs. She grew, over the years in understanding the Biblical beliefs, as we must. We should not limit our growth to some point in her Christian growth. She would not want that.

I will expand a bit beyond what I posted in AT.  I consider our denomination to be indebted to her in the following areas:

*  Publishing:   I consider her to be a primary source behind this area of our denominational life.

*  Missions:  I do not think that we would have the emphasis on world missions if it had not been for her.

 *  Health care:  She is clerly the one who encouraged that area of our ministry.

*  Education:  We would not have the extensive school system if it had not been for her.

 

 

[Kevin H]

Indeed!!! May I add to the list:

She kept us more orthodox than where some of our members wanted to go. 

She gave us a focus on the issues of the great controversy.

She helps us to hold more encouraging views about hell fire than tradition does. 

She tried (we can argue over how successful she was) to give us a balance between the Fundamentalist approach to scripture, and the Biblical minimalists approach to scripture. If we could follow what she offered to share with us we can be careful scholars open to the historical and archaeological and linguistic breakthroughts, and not get all frazzeled if it does not fit Fundamentalist tradition, yet we can see God as real and the Bible as God's book.