The Story of my Deconversion, Deprogramming, Reconversion and Awakening - Part 2 : My Investigative Judgment of E.G. White

 I should be more specific about what I meant when I said I rejected Ellen G. White at the end of Part 1 of this series of blogs about my de-conversion, deprogramming, reconversion and awakening. The brevity of the sentence may have lead people to believe that I made a decisive and potentially emotional clean break from her writings and the Seventh-day Adventist Church (“SDA”), that would be an incorrect assumption.  For the next two decades I became more involved in church activities while exploring deeply what I personally believed.

This careful approach is the direct result of an experience I had a couple of years before hearing Bishop Hill under that big tent. I was an undergrad at a public university experiencing what I would describe as my version of the Amish Rumspringa.  Rumspringa is described as a period of time in which Amish youth experience the non-Amish world. I was experiencing things that the restrictions my SDA parents imposed on me prevented me from previously experiencing. I don’t remember the context in which the conversation occurred but I was speaking with the young lady I was dating at the time and she being a former Adventist told me with some concern that I could not continue living a double life and that I would have to choose between the world or the church because. To her surprise and displeasure I rather quickly told her I choose the world. I admit it was an uninformed decision driven by emotion. Nevertheless, I wrote a letter to my church board resigning and outlining my reasons.

My exit from the church was short lived. A vivid dream abruptly changed my mind. In the dream I was experiencing the end of the world. Fire was raining down on my community and what was strange is none of my neighbors in the dream seemed concerned. I woke up in a cold sweat, called my pastor and arranged to be re-baptized. 

It wasn’t fear that drove me back, but what I perceived as divine love. Up until that time I was diligently study my Bible seeking answers to certain unresolved questions. I was halted between two opinions, as they say in church, a position that ministers and evangelists have no patience for. An indecisive person effects their membership tallies. They urge people to quickly make decisions for baptism with stories of damnation and sudden death that occurs after a person receives the invitation and rejects it. Some go as far as to suggest that Satan is looking on and will immediately take your life to avoid the risk of you making a decision for God. But this was not that, I rejected God and rather than callous wiping His hands of me God reached out to me in the way that He knew I would respond, at least that is what I thought at the time. So with questions still on my mind I entered the baptismal pool a second time. Strangely I seemed to be the only one enthusiastic about it, but that’s another story.

I interpreted the dream as a warning.  I knew God knew my heart and that I was genuinely halted between more than just two opinions, that I was having difficulty resolving some issues and although I may outwardly portray a particular image of a good SDA, my mind was elsewhere. What the evangelists and preachers seem to imply about people in such a position is not great.  They describe God as impatient and willing to forsake individuals who find themselves not completely converted and allows them to fall into the hand of an eagerly awaiting Satan. Individuals had to choose God quickly or risk being killed and lost for eternity.  This is not an exaggeration or rhetoric. Comb through the content of many sermon appeals for baptism and you will find anecdote after anecdote of that individual who delayed in making the decision only to die moments or weeks later without making “their election sure.” So in this case God knowing my heart reached out via a dream to tell me that I was on the wrong path.  I knew that any conversion I would have as a part of this experience without conviction would be know conversion at all. Such profession of faith with the mouth and not the heart would not be sufficient, but in a parallel to the vision that the Apostle Peter had in Acts 10  regarding unclean meats that Peter interpreted as a message to not be concern with the Jewish and Gentile distinction, I interpreted the dream as the all knowing God communicating to me that my lukewarm mental state was ok so long as I was still  earnestly seeking truth. So that was what I committed to do. I couldn’t do anything about my doubt but explore and seek answers to those questions. I committed, however, to never make a decision involving my spiritual life lightly. I would carefully study the matter, pray about it and wait until I am absolutely clear on the subject before making a decision to change the status quo of my beliefs.  

My status quo with regard to Ellen G. White was that she was the last day manifestation of the gift of the spirit of prophecy and that all of her writings were given by direct inspiration of God.  She was essentially my pope. Some background is needed here. The Roman Catholic Church claims authority over all Christianity as the keepers of apostolic tradition. They argue that there has been an unbroken succession of church bishops from the time of Jesus Christ until present day who faithfully carried not only scripture but the traditions of the faith. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church the task of interpreting the word of God whether in written form or in tradition is vested uniquely in the Pope and the bishops of the church.  Seventh-day Adventist claim the unique role as God’s remnant church, meaning the last group of Christians who remain faithful to God in the last days of earth before Jesus Christ’s second coming.  The remnant are identified in Revelation 14:12 as those who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, which is the Spirit of Prophecy. The common Seventh-day Adventist views their once uniqueness observants of Saturday as the biblical Sabbath as evidence of keeping all of God’s commandments and the identified the writing of Ellen G.White of the manifestation of the spirit of prophecy.  Belief 18 states it this way. “This gift is an identifying mark of the remnant church and we believe it was manifested in the ministry of Ellen G. White. Her writings speak with prophetic authority and provide comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction to the church. They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested.” It is with this “prophetic authority” that Ellen G. White assumed a similar role to that of the Bishops of Catholicism, in particular the pope. Her writings became the definitive authority on interpreting the word of God for SDAs.

With Bishop Hill’s admonishment not to view the Bible through the lens of my denomination I began to explore Ellen G. White’s role as a prophetess. I applied the test of a prophet found in various Bible texts and used by church authorities to prove her authority and confirm the church’s status as the remnant. There are 4 main test and they are as follows in no particular order:

1. The test of agreement with biblical law and the prophets. ("To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” - Isaiah 8:20.)

2.  Test of fulfillment of prophecy.  (“When the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet know that the Lord has truly sent him.” - Isaiah 8:20; ”If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.” Deuteronomy 18:22)

3. The test of attitude toward the incarnation of Jesus (“Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” - 1 John 4:2)

4. The test of fruitage (“Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” - Matthew 7:20)

To investigate the first two test I simply turned to the appendices of her published writings. In the appendix you will find apologists’ answers to numerous writings that fail to meet the criteria of these first two tests. I won’t go into detail here because it is not the point of this blog post to convert or dissuade individuals, but rather to provide my story, however I will highlight one found on page 276 of the book Early Writings.  She wrote the following about the actual scene she saw of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ just six years before the Emancipation Proclamation:

“I saw that the slave master will have to answer for the soul of his slave whom he has kept in ignorance; and the sins of the slave will be visited upon the master. God cannot take to heaven the slave who has been kept in ignorance and degradation, knowing nothing of God or the Bible, fearing nothing but his master's lash, and holding a lower position than the brutes.”  

The appendix explains the statement as follows:

“[T]he message is not made invalid, for even today there are millions of men and women in actual or virtual slavery in different parts of the world. It is not possible to pass judgment on a prophecy of the future until we have reached the time for the fulfillment of that prophecy.” 

Through the lens of the denomination that explanation makes complete sense but objectively this is a failed prophecy and there are others. The appendices are filled with similar explanations, but you only need to select one for the test of a prophet to fail.  My conclusion then was my rejection of Ellen G. White as an authority and the presumption that everything she wrote and identified as being written under inspiration were in fact communications from God. I did not completely disregard her writings, rather I rejected her status as an authority and God’s mouth piece. I downgraded the individual Ellen G. White to the status of an ordinary human being with ideas she desire to share and her writings to Bible commentary. She was an ordinary human-being prone to the same motivation that all people that may have spilt into her writings.