About book

Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Acknowledgments

Foreword

To the Reader of this Book

Two Kinds of Charges

Questions of Fact Considered

Limitations to Facts, Evidence, and Logic

Explaining the Mysterious

Selecting Charges for Answer

Chapter 1—Mrs. White and the Seventh-day Adventist Church

The Second Distinguishing Mark

Mrs. White Described Briefly

Chapter 2—A Life Sketch of Mrs. WhiteWere Mrs. White’s Visions Due To Nervous Disorders?—Part I

Her Life an Open Book

Her First Deeply Spiritual Experience

Her First Vision

Her Public Ministry Begins

Could Expect Only Skeptical Hearing

Her Encounters With Fanatics

Deep Discouragement Overwhelms Her

The Setting of Her Visions

The Dominating Motive in Her Life

Letters Reveal Her Personality

Extracts From Her Diary

Her View of Parent-Child Relationship

Her Resourcefulness Revealed

Her Pioneering in Medical Work

Public Visions and Night Visions

How She Accepted Death in Her Home

She Travels to Europe

She Pioneers in Australia

Side Lights on Her Closing Years

Her Mood as Death Approaches

Chapter 3—Mrs. White, and Bible Prophets, in VisionWere Mrs. White’s Visions due to Nervous Disorders?—Part II

James White Describes Her Visions

A General Conference President Testifies

Her Night Visions

How Should a Prophet Act in Vision?

The Bible Describes Prophets in Vision

Visions of John, Paul, and Zacharias

Mrs. White’s Critics in Strange Company

Chapter 4—Medical Facts Concerning Certain Nervous MaladiesWere Mrs. White’s Visions due to Nervous Disorders?—Part III

Modern Medical View of Epilepsy

Modern Medical View of Hysteria

The “Hysterical Personality”

Relation of Epilepsy to Hysteria

Modern Medical View of Schizophrenia

The Whole Life Picture Important

Chapter 5—Certain Nervous-Disorder Proofs ExaminedWere Mrs. White’s Visions Due to Nervous Disorders?—Part IV

Why the Public Visions Ceased

John the Baptist’s Question

Why a Miraculous Display at Pentecost?

Public Visions End, but Prophet’s Work Continues

The First Medical Witness Examined

The Second Medical Witness Examined

The Third Medical Witness

The Fourth Medical Witness

The Critic on the Witness Stand

Not Medical Testimony but Emotions Determine Diagnosis

The New Self-delusion Explanation

Chief Weakness in the Argument

The Tottering Edifice and the Wayfarer

Chapter 6—What Do Adventists Claim for Mrs. White’s Writings?

Statements by Adventist Leaders

Mrs. White on Primacy of Bible

An 1887 Editorial Clarifies Question

Chapter 7—The Astronomy Vision

What Are the Sources?

Other Sources Than Mrs. White

Let Us Note the Key Sentences

The Essence of the Charge

What the Context Reveals

But What of Those Moons?

Most Effective Proof for Bates

A Groundless Assumption

Three Phrases Examined

Chapter 8—The Predictions of the 1856 Vision

Conditional Quality of Divine Predictions

A Threat of Judgment Reversed

A Promise Reversed

The Case of Eli

The Implied Qualifying Clause

Theologians Comment on Predictions

Further Reasons for Conditional Predictions

Factors That Affect Promise of Advent

Mrs. White’s Relevant Statements

No Failure in the Word of the Lord

A Final Question Answered

Chapter 9—The Civil War Predictions

Charge Number 1

Charge Number 2

Further Historical Data

What Mrs. White Criticized

Our Consistent Antislavery Position

Charge Number 3

Charge Number 4

Charge Number 5

Charge Number 6

Charge Number 7

Charge Number 8

Charge Number 9

Charge Number 10

Another Reasonable Interpretation

A Parallel Passage

A Remarkable Preview of Our Time

Chapter 10—The Tower of Babel

Two Uses of Strychnine

Chapter 11—“No Antidote” for Strychnine

What We Shall Seek to Prove

The Fashions of a Bygone Day

A Threefold Indictment

An Indictment of Dress in 1862

Styles of Reform Dress

Mrs. White Enters the Dress Discussion

The Visit to Dansville, 1864

Mrs. White Speaks on Dress Reform in 1865

Her Remark on “Gazing-stocks”

The Second Visit to Dansville, 1865

Waggoner Writes of Reform Dress at Battle Creek

Mrs. White Answers Questions on Dress

Mrs. White’s Testimony in 1867

A Further Testimony in 1867

Those Dress Reform Patterns

The Reform Kept in Proper Perspective

Mrs. White on “Simplicity in Dress,” in 1881

Why the Reform Dress Was Discarded

She Refers to a Vision in 1875

Concessions to Human Frailty

Reform Dress Not to Be Revived

What Does Laughter Prove?

Chapter 12—The Reform Dress

Millerites Restudy Positions

The Seventh-Month Movement

Second Angel’s Message

The Climax of the Movement

The Albany Conference

Leaders Did Not Restudy Key Prophecy

457 B.C. Date Questioned

Rise of Seventh-day Adventism

What Hiram Edson Saw

Sabbath Doctrine Accepted

Mingling of Two Beliefs

Seventh-day Adventist Doctrines Begin to Take Shape

Development of Sanctuary Doctrine

Major Differences Between Two Groups

Shut-Door and Sanctuary Doctrine

Vision Supports New Sanctuary Teaching

Early Thinking of Sabbathkeeping Adventists

The Central Point in Shut-Door View

A Logical Lever

James White’s 1847 Statement on Shut Door

The Sabbath Doctrine Takes Definite Form

Substance of Bates’s Argument

The Sabbath as a Seal

The Sabbath and Sanctuary Tied Together

Three Key Doctrines Rounded Out

Doctrine of 144,000 and Enlarged View

Earliest Activities of Sabbathkeeping Group

False Premise Too Often Employed

Sabbathkeepers’ Position Understandable

Sense of Cohesion Developing

James White Reviews the Past

A Prophetic Forecast

Two Groups Contrasted

The Movement Takes Shape

Early Views Summed Up

A Strange Situation

Chapter 13—A Sketch of Early Adventist HistoryMrs. White and the Shut Door—Part I

1. Mrs. White’s Frank Statement

Mrs. White’s Reply to Criticisms

Bible Testimony on Probation’s Close

Babylon and Probation’s Close

Final Closing of Door of Mercy

Adventists Oppose Delusive World-Conversion Idea

Mrs. White Sets Forth No New Doctrine

2. The First Vision Examined

The Key Passage Scrutinized

“All the Wicked World Which God Had Rejected”

Christ’s Sweeping Denunciations

3. Mrs. White’s Vision of February, 1845

4. Her Letter to Eli Curtis

5. Her Endorsement of Crosier’s Article

6. Her Use of Hosea 5:6, 7

Mrs. White’s Words Explain Her Use of Text

7. Her Vision of March 24, 1849

The Argument Against Mrs. White

Paul’s Prediction

Particular Kind of Revivals and Reformations

Further Warnings Against Spiritism

The Crucial Question

Two Passages Compared

8. The So-called Camden Vision

9. “Children of Their Father, the Devil”

Passage Proves Too Much

10. Mrs. White’s Prayer of Blessing on Papers

A Taunting Question Examined

11. Similarity of Her Language to That of Her Associates

12. Mrs. White and Labor for Non-Adventists

Lesson From Activity of Disciples

Bible Provides Parallel to Adventist Experience

Chapter 14—The Shut-Door Charge ExaminedMrs. White and the Shut Door—Part II

A collection of factual evidence regarding the life and work of Mrs. Ellen G. White for answering charges made by her critics.

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