Understanding Ellen White

6. Avoid extreme interpretations

The history of the Christian church is laced with those who would place the most extreme interpretations on God’s counsels and then define their fanaticism as “faithfulness.” Unfortunately, the same has been true of some in the Adventist branch of the Christian tree. A leaning toward extremism seems to be a constituent part of fallen human nature. God has sought to correct that tendency through His prophets. UEGW 73.6

Though balance typified Ellen White’s writings, it does not always characterize those who read them. A case in point is Ellen White’s counsel to a physician who had taken “extreme views of health reform” after reading her writings. “Health reform becomes health deform, a health destroyer, when it is carried to extremes.” ²⁰ UEGW 74.1

Ellen White had to deal with extremists throughout her ministry. In 1894 she pointed out that UEGW 74.2

there is a class of people who are always ready to go off on some tangent, who want to catch up something strange and wonderful and new; but God would have all move calmly, considerately, choosing our words in harmony with the solid truth for this time, which requires to be presented to the mind as free from that which is emotional as possible, while still bearing the intensity and solemnity that it is proper it should bear. We must guard against creating extremes, guard against encouraging those who would either be in the fire or in the water. ²¹ UEGW 74.3

Nearly four decades earlier, Mrs. White had written that she “saw that many have taken advantage of what God has shown in regard to the sins and wrongs of others. They have taken the extreme meaning of what has been shown in vision, and then have pressed it until it has a tendency to weaken the faith of many in what God has shown” ²² UEGW 74.4