Adventist Today truth mixed with lies

 Adventist Today once again strives to rewrite the beliefs of the Adventist church. The article Three ways to misuse Ellen White's writings Here are the three ways that Ron Hessel suggests are misuses:

Many take Ellen White to be a divinely inspired infallible biblical interpreter. She never claimed that. She refused to take that role.

I have yet to meet anyone who has claimed that Ellen White was a "divinely inspired, infallible biblical interpreter." In fact, while I would agree that she refused that role, I know of no one in history who would have accepted it.  Once you set infallible into anything, it nullifies the rest of the sentence. Infallible is simply too high a bar for any human to achieve. So the first suggested misuse of Ellen White's writings is not accurate and meaningless.

So why use a rather deceptive suggestion? The answer is that Hessel is attempting to make a straw man argument. It is not uncommon for Adventists to say that Ellen White is an inspired commentator. This is what Morris Venden did in his book from 1980 where he wrote:

“We have an inspired commentary that was given for the purpose of settling the disagreements among the uninspired commentaries. What do you do when the scholars disagree? Do you have to become a better scholar than the best in order to settle the disagreement in your own mind? No.”

Dealing with a straw man is much easier than dealing with what the Adventist church actually says. If you can accept the straw man accusations, you can accept the rationalizations against the straw man and come to the conclusions that Hessel thinks are meaningful yet they are not.

He then says:

I can’t say this strongly enough: Ellen White is not to be used as the interpreter of the Bible. The Bible interprets Ellen White. If Ellen White were the final say on the Bible, it would mean that she had authority over the Bible. She does not.

He puts this forth as simply something that is true. But every Adventist knows it is not true. And it is easily demonstrated. The Adventist church holds something they call the Great Controversy view. It revolves around things done in heaven before the creation of earth. None of it is found in the Bible but it is the central core of Adventist teaching, and it is solely because of the writings of Ellen White. Review the above Great Controversy view article by Herbert Douglas and see if it is originated in the Bible or not. It is in fact stated in brief in Fundamental Belief #8:

Belief 8: The Great Controversy

All humanity is now involved in a great controversy between Christ and Satan regarding the character of God, His law, and His sovereignty over the universe. This conflict originated in heaven when a created being, endowed with freedom of choice, in self-exaltation became Satan, God’s adversary, and led into rebellion a portion of the angels...

See the Lucifer Myth for more details

Hessel's second misuse rests on the assumption of perfection.

Isn’t a prophet supposed to always get things right? Be absolutely perfect in every word? Some people treat Ellen White’s writings that way. 

Let me say this clearly: Ellen White got stuff wrong.

Setting up that some people expect perfection is once again a straw man. Does the Adventist church say that Ellen White was perfect, if so give the quote. We can give a quote from Ellen White on her writings, but while it seems incredibly exaggerated, it does not claim perfection. 

"God is either teaching His church, reproving their wrongs and strengthening their faith, or He is not. This work is of God, or it is not. God does nothing in partnership with Satan. My work... bears the stamp of God or the stamp of the enemy. There is no halfway work in the matter. The Testimonies are of the Spirit of God, or of the devil." (Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 4, p. 230; also cited in Vol. 5, p. 671).

She invites her readers to make the choice when they find that she is wrong, but it was not perfection that she was asserting. Perfection is too high a bar for any writer. Language is a tremendous thing that has advanced societies all over the world, but it is not something that depends on the perfection of ideas presented or perceived by the reader. 

Like the first and second straw man, Hessel's third suggestion of misuse is this:

Another way in which Ellen White gets misused is by trying to apply everything she said to today. You can’t do that. Don’t try to apply everything Ellen White says to your life. You can’t do it. Nobody can. It will drive you insane. Consider this instruction from the 1860s:

Hopefully, people have learned by now that when you see words like "everything," "always," and other generalization those are often logical fallacies. Applying everything someone wrote to today is another impossible idea. So it is easy to say. You can't apply her statements about eggs today the way you could have applied them in 1860. Though you will notice he never tells the reader how it applied in 1860. He even tries to guess at a reason, thinking it is something about refrigeration, when in 1860, people traveled very short distances, and refrigeration would have little effect, especially on eggs. In 1860 unless a farm was close to a rail line or riverboat, the distance of eggs to their destination was a radius of 30 miles. In short, the majority of eggs were sold in less than a day's journey from the farm that produced them.

While it is tempting to want to believe his conclusion, it, like his other statements, is simply wrong:

And if you have a problem believing Ellen White’s prophetic gift, that’s okay. Lots of people did, all through the church’s history—even in her own time. It is not a reason to leave the church. It is not a requirement to believe that Ellen White was a prophet to belong to the Adventist Church. Use your common sense, and the Bible as a filter when trying to figure out what parts of her writings are applicable to any situation.

 It is not in fact Okay because while Hessel links to another article he had written on Adventist Today, which was titled You Don't Have to Believe Ellen White is a Prophet to Be an Adventist. Which, sadly, is just another demonstration of deceptive information. You can read my response to that article here. 

Another Adventist Today Lie Baptismal vows

The Baptismal vows call the member to   Affirm that "I know and understand the fundamental Bible principles as taught by the Seventh-day Adventist Church..." That is from Baptismal vow number 11, which Hessel somehow managed to miss in his article. 

I wish Adventist Today luck in changing the Adventist church, but you will never get there by deceiving and ignoring the real positions of the Adventist church. This pretending needs to stop. Deal with the problems, deal with the issues, be honest. Yes, you can reject Ellen White as a prophet and be part of the Adventist church, but they will get rid of you when you become a problem to them, and if you don't believe their prophet is a prophet, they remove you from any position of responsibility sooner or later. If you feel God is leading you to change the Adventist church than follow God's leading but I suggest just take the one precaution of not working for the Adventist church for you salary. We have seen too many of our scholars who did that and only after they retired could they be honest about what they really thought of Ellen White. The Adventist church needs more young people standing up for truth and not waiting until they retire to stand for truth.