Understanding Ellen White

Ellen White and her contemporaries

Ellen White’s understanding of the relationship between her writings and Scripture stands in sharp contrast to what other “prophets” of her era thought of the relationship between their writings and the Bible. Joseph Smith and Mary Baker Eddy, for example, were contemporaries who viewed their writings as being, at the very least, on the same level with Scripture. So, too, did Ann Lee, who lived in the eighteenth century. UEGW 49.5

Ann Lee, founder of the Shaker movement, was a charismatic and controversial figure. Her followers initially thought that she was the woman “ clothed with the sun and crowned with the stars” in Revelation and later that she was a female Christ. Lee herself never claimed to be Jesus Christ, though she asserted that when she spoke it was the indwelling Christ that was being heard. Her almost hypnotic personality and mystical draw conspired to make her the embodiment of Shakerism, which in its heyday boasted approximately six thousand followers in the United States. ²¹ UEGW 50.1

Mother Ann, as Lee came to be called, because of her “manifest spiritual authority,” triggered a body of material known as the Testimonies. The four-volume set is a “collection of the personal accounts, memories, testimonies, and stories which originally circulated orally among the Shakers,” and was “produced by Shakers for Shakers” over a seventy-year span. ²² While Mother Ann herself did not write the material, the Testimonies are a fair depiction of her thoughts, words, and actions, and were written to influence present and future generations. UEGW 50.2

The Testimonies, while sprinkled with allusions and direct quotes from the Bible, betray Lee’s belief that her words were as important as those found in Scripture. She claimed to have received significant revelations directly from God, through which “many deep and important mysteries were there revealed to her; and by the power and authority of the Holy Ghost, she was there commissioned to take the lead of this society.” ²³ UEGW 50.3

Mary Baker Eddy and Ellen G. White were contemporaries whose lives parallel each other in several ways. Both were born in New England, were ill early in life, wrote prodigiously, and fought charges of plagiarism. Eddy believed that Scripture was flawed, the result of “scribal error or theological misunderstanding,” and was loathe to embrace any passage of Scripture “without first dissecting and analyzing it.” She unearthed “new layers of meaning” as a result of her vigorous, thorough analyses; many unique, if not radical, interpretations of Scripture flowed from her pen. ²⁴ UEGW 50.4

Eddy was familiar with the stories of the Bible, saying that her call to ministry mirrored that of Samuel, though it was a female voice that called her, and she compared herself to the child Jesus who astonished the priests in the temple with His learning. ²⁵ After the death of P. P. Quimby, the “magnetic physician” who powerfully influenced her thinking, she retreated to reflect on her mission and search the Bible for guidance and direction. She asserted that “the Bible was my textbook. It answered my questions as to how I was healed; but the Scriptures had to me a new meaning, a new tongue.” In Science and Health, Eddy claimed that “the Bible has been my only authority, I have had no other guide in ‘the straight and narrow way’ of Truth.” ²⁶ UEGW 50.5

As author of Science and Health, “the textbook of Christian Science,” Eddy believed that “whosoever learns the letter of the book, must also gain its spiritual significance, in order to demonstrate Christian Science.” Science and Health has gone through hundreds of editions and is a guiding force for Christian Scientists. They still believe in her interpretation of Scripture. Indeed, her interpretation is “Key to the Scriptures.” UEGW 51.1

The founding “prophet” of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, Joseph Smith, believed that it was the Holy Spirit that inspired him, an unlettered man, to pen the Book of Mormon, as well as the “corrected translation of the Holy Scriptures.” The Bible needed to be corrected because “many parts which are plain and most precious, and also many covenants of the Lord” had been removed so as to “pervert the right ways of the Lord” and “blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.” The removal of significant parts of the Bible had been done by “the great and abominable church.” ²⁷ Smith believed that the Book of Mormon contained the “Word of God,” and Mormons claim that it contains the everlasting gospel. UEGW 51.2

Ann Lee, Mary Baker Eddy, and Joseph Smith made claims about their writings that Ellen White never made, and Eddy and Smith went as far as presuming that they could correct or upgrade the sacred canon. They claimed to have the authority to do so, with Eddy believing that her writings were “key” to understanding the Bible. The Testimonies of Ann Lee may tempt one to equate them with the Testimonies for the Church authored by Ellen White, but the temptation must be resisted. UEGW 51.3

At no time did Ellen White even hint that Scripture could be replaced by her writings, or that her writings could function on par with Scripture. Neither did White believe that Scripture may be fully understood only when viewed through the lens of her writings. It is abundantly clear that Ellen White did not believe that her writings should be used as some sort of final arbiter in matters relating to Christian faith, or as the basis for doctrine. Ellen White immersed herself in the words of Scripture, memorizing extended portions of the Bible and quoting profusely from it. Her counsels were grounded in Scripture, which, to the end of her life, was the organizing principle of her life and ministry. UEGW 51.4

The unalterable position of Ellen White that Scripture towered in significance over her writings was rooted in the nature of the call and commission she received from God. White asserts that, in conscripting her for service, God told her, “Your work . . . is to bear my word . . . and with pen and voice to reprove from the Word actions that are not right. Exhort from the Word. I will make my Word open to you. . . . In true eloquence of simplicity, with voice and pen, the messages that I give shall be heard from one who has never learned in the schools.” ²⁸ UEGW 52.1

An inspired prophet in the tradition of several noncanonical prophets, Ellen White’s writings, though not on the same level with Scripture, are special. What White wrote was not intended to be treated with benign neglect. Her writings were intended to play a significant role in the life of the believer, to highlight and to exalt the truths of Scripture, and to point people back to the Bible, “the authoritative, infallible revelation” of God’s will and the “standard of character, the revealer of doctrines, and the test of experience.” ²⁹ UEGW 52.2