I just watched the Adventist Today Donald McAdams, “A Review of the Ellen White Revisionist History Since 1970” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr10b-_UycA
This presentation had in attendance 3 of the authors of the new book Reclaiming the Prophet. The book was planned and written for the purpose as described by an AI app: “The book "Reclaiming the Prophet: An Honest Defense of Ellen White’s Gift" is a collection of essays by 11 scholars, edited by Eric Anderson, that aims to provide a balanced and historical perspective on Ellen White's role and influence within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The book seeks to address the increasing polarization within the church regarding Ellen White by offering a "new consensus" and "reconstruction" of her role and influence.This presentation was given when the book was just about to be published by Pacific Press. The book was since withdrawn. You can read about the withdrawal of the book at the Atoday site. However, the presentation on May 25, 2025, was before that announcement, and those present expected the book to be available in June.
Donald McAdam's presentation was interesting, as he was present during the period when major changes occurred in Adventism. He then presents us with the premise of the book which seems to be based upon what he calls Revisionist Historians' work. I am quoting from the transcripts, and I have edited them for clarity. The time codes are provided at the start of each quote.
53:38
“So we don't need to throw out Ellen White We just need to understand her better And I think I can get to that point The revisionist historians of the last 50 years have have gradually fleshed out this picture”
First, a note about Revisionist history. I don't like the term, and even looking it up, we can see it is used positively and negatively. Among the few references I looked at I tend to agree with the statement that all history is actually revisionist. That is, any historian who finds something true that others may have missed is actually revising the story of history. See The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History is Revisionist History. So avoiding that distraction here is what McAdam's tells us about the Revisionist historians:
57:27
“Okay So let's talk about the revisionist historians first of all I need to define what I mean by a revisionist historian I mean one that will look at the primary sources and try to look at all of the primary sources not someone else's account but primary sources and to look at all of them and and then try to face the facts as they are there in these sources and then finally make judgments that are consistent with the weight of the evidence So let me say two things about the historical craft. Historians make statements of fact and those need to be based on a on a primary source and they should be able to footnote it if necessary. They also make judgments that is they look at a whole lot of facts that some disagree with Some some are this way some are this way some are this way And they try to draw together a conclusion and make a judgment about what really happened or what the real issues were. And those judgments are important and that that's why people read history And I can give you a lot of examples You know why did Wellington win the battle of Waterloo they're all different kinds of opinions Historians weigh all this evidence and they try to come up with some conclusion and that's a judgment And revisionist historians should come up with honest judgments based on the weight of the evidence Okay so that's what I mean by a revisionist historian Uh now I also want...” 58:57
Here is his statement about Ellen White and Revisionist historians:
1:00:02
Right so let's just take Ellen White for a minute and then I'll get into these revisionist historians If Ellen White says "I had a vision and I'm writing it out." There is no way to know whether she had a vision or not. And there's no way to know for sure if the vision was inspired or whether it was just a dream or a hallucination or a seizure or ecstatic experience, there's no there's no way a historian can do that right what the historian can do is show if what was written is true or not true or original or not original,Right so you can by faith believe that Ellen White had visions and that she had visions from God but you can't believe by faith that she didn't borrow because you can prove she did .And you can't believe by faith that she didn't make any mistakes because you can prove she did. So that's how faith and reason work. There has to be a reason for your faith Otherwise you can have faith in anything You can have faith in witches you can have faith in Joseph Smith you can have faith in Muhammad you can have faith in anything. The way you choose to have faith in something because overall it makes sense to you And then you feel it And you might be wrong but nevertheless you believe it by faith. Now the revisionist historians have not abandoned faith in Ellen White's inspiration. They can't there's no way to say "No she didn't see that in a vision," or "No God didn't reveal that to her." That's that's something historians can't do So the revision historians don't do that What they do, do is describe what happened And sometimes they leave it to the reader to make sense of it but they nevertheless stick with the facts and where the facts lead them they follow, now there's been a lot of revisionist work but it mostly didn't start until the 21st century And I have a whole list of the scholars who have done this And I want to critique each one briefly and then I want to go to where I think the church is today 1:02:09
So for McAdams the Revisionist historians must start and end with a belief in the inspiration of Ellen White. That seems a fatal flaw in his definition of Revisionist historians. They are all looking at the same facts, but their judgment of those facts is restricted to one outcome.
Here he discusses the new book Reclaiming the Prophet.
1:26:50
“The premise of this book is something new and fresh and I'm going to conclude on this and I recommend you should buy this book It's not expensive It's online and it's short You can read it you know in an afternoon. the premise of this book is that the scholarship of the revisionist historians is settled We we don't want to dispute it We don't want to argue about it We don't want to deny it We accept it We accept it. But what do we do with it, what is the value of Ellen White to us today how is she relevant for the church and the answer is the Lord used her in ways that we may not be able to explain but he did use her. We believe that because of the power of the books themselves not only was she a historical force of great significance we wouldn't have a church without her. Her writings point us to the Bible They point us to the cross they uplift our spirits they bring comfort to us in times of sorrow and there the value for Ellen White to the church is not [does not finish the thought but goes to the quotation] here's a quotation that comes from one of the 1919 Bible conference leaders and I want to find this and read it to you this is H Camden Lacy who was one of the participants in the 1919 Bible conference and he says quote, in our estimate of the spirit of prophecy isn't its value to us, more in the spiritual light it throws into our own hearts and lives than in the intellectual accuracy, in historical and theological matters and I think we know what the answer to that is Yes.”
I find this fascinating that the value of the belief in the inspiration of Ellen White is found in the spiritual light that it throws into our hearts. If a person finds some value then they believe she is a prophet. I guess that would make a whole lot of people who believe Max Lucado is a prophet. But I don't think that is actually how the Bible teaches us to recognize a prophet. It seems that the Revisionist historians have, if McAdams is to be believed, so limited themselves as to be useless with their judgments.
McAdams believes Adventism is at a turning point.
55:40
But in 1919 and in the 1970s church leaders were afraid I think that's the right word They were afraid that the unity of the church would fracture if they opened this up. And in the 1919 they were able to keep it in [hidden in archives of the 1919 Bible Conference]. In the 1970s they couldn't [Spectrum's publication of the Ellen White section of the 1919 Bible Conference full version now available at the archives]and and so they recognizing that they couldn't you would think they would have made some attempts to try to cope with it because the revisionist historians have not gone away and what they've produced since is now an overwhelming body of knowledge. And I do believe that right now we are in another turning point. Right now we are in another turning point, And if the church leaders don't recognize this I think Ellen White is going to be lost entirely to the Adventist church not she just forgotten as irrelevant to keep her relevant in the church which I think is important and good for the church we need to understand her differently And this book is an attempt to do so which I will get to at the end and I think might be encouraging to some but I do think the church leaders in the 70s and the to be specific 1980 I think they failed I think they I think they made the wrong decision I think they should have tried to open it up 56:49
Here I am in some agreement, Adventism is at a turning point, it moves away from Ellen White as a prophet, or it moves into a cult that follows Ellen White for it doctrines. Maintaining her as a prophetic authority will lead to being identified as a non-Christian cult. Meaning the doctrines of the Church are based upon Ellen White rather than the Bible. The alternative is this middle path of the so-called Revisionist historians, which is that she is inspired in a relatively vague way that if you get a spiritual boost in some way from her writings, she is important to you and important to the church because the church has her in its tradition. This leaves the other option that I think is the best option; that she did not have any prophetic authority and her work was mostly borrowed from others, and that, contrary to the claims she makes, she is not a messenger of God. At least not any more than any other Christian who points to Jesus as our Savior and the Bible as inspired information about God and his dealings with people. Which I will say is a good thing about Christians, we don't have to be always right and loving and accurate, but we always should point to Jesus Christ, and we learned about Him in the Bible and develop our doctrines from the Bible.
There is one more interesting point that I will add as I am a follower on FaceBook of Steve Daily and there was this question asked in the above presentation. The question was asked:
2:08:53
just do you have any thoughts or comments on Steve Daily's book i've heard a lot of negative about it I've not read it but I just wondered if you have and I hear it's pretty negative about Ellen White Just that's my question Thank you.
Donald McAdams answer was:
“I read the first chapter and I quit because I considered it a polemic not a work of history”
So a book titled Ellen G. White A Psycobiography was not history so McAdams put it down. It is a polemic that is true, It is an argument against the traditional SDA beliefs about Ellen White using psychology, reason, and history. But he has better companions now he has Revisionist Historians who will only rock the boat and not follow the history and reason to its logical conclusions. Again, if it does not make judgments acceptable, it cannot be history, even though most all history makes judgments about the facts of history. It is, to my view, a sad commentary on the scholarship of these authors of Reclaiming the Prophet.
