The Voice of The Spirit

The Church And Governmental Rulings

There are times when the church is confronted with the laws of certain countries that limit freedom of speech, or antidefamation laws that prohibit any expression that tends to discredit the government, its official institutions, or the religious bodies of the country. It is in these circumstances that some expressions of The Great Controversy could place the church in legal difficulties. The concern of the leaders of the church in those areas, and the advice of the trustees of the Ellen White Estate of what to do under those circumstances, may be illustrated by two experiences, one in Europe, and the other in South America. VOTS 89.3

During the 1950s, the German Penal Code was modified and an antidefamation law added that declared the following: VOTS 90.1

A person who gives offense by blasphemy in publically pronouncing insulting utterances against God, or who publicly makes insulting remarks against any one of the Christian churches or any other religious denomination enjoying corporation rights in the German Bundesrepublik, or their institutions, or their rites, or who commits some insulting mischief in a church building or any other place destined for religious gatherings will be punished with imprisonment up to three years. ¹⁵ VOTS 90.2

The leaders of the then Central European Division immediately requested authorization to change or to remove some twenty-five sentences from The Great Controversy that could be considered offensive against Catholics. As a result, the trustees of the White Estate took the following action: VOTS 90.3

That in the matter of The Great Controversy to be published in Hamburg, we approve the deletions that have been proposed by the Central European Division, and that in so doing the Trustees wish it explicitly understood that these deletions do not involve in any instance any editing of the remaining material or any changes in the E. G. White writings. ¹⁶ VOTS 90.4

A similar situation presented itself in South America during the 1970s. The editor-in-chief of the publishing house there expressed his deep concern about the problem in the following letter directed to the Trustees: VOTS 91.1

The government of [the country] where our publishing house is located, has issued a law that establishes heavy punishments to every one, religious or not, that offends any other religious organization. The fact is that The Great Controversy, as it is in Spanish right now, has a lot of words and phrases that easily can be interpreted as insults to the Catholic Church, with which the government is united. ¹⁷ VOTS 91.2

The trustees of the Ellen White writings, knowing that similar experiences existed in other places, had already made a recommendation in 1949 based on the suggestion from the author herself in 1913: VOTS 91.3

VOTED: That we leave the matter of the use of the terms designating the Catholic Church to the individual fields. In those places where it is deemed that the present terminology of Great Controversy on this point would be offensive, the Trustees are agreed to the substitution of terms which do not in any way change the meaning. In those fields where present wording is not offensive, it is recommended that we abide by the original wording. ¹⁸ VOTS 91.4

This may not be the end of the story. The church may yet face new and difficult situations in the near future. We have already been warned that this will be the case. Meanwhile, when it is within the church’s province to do so, it follows the recommendation of Ellen White herself that we must not “publish one sentence, especially by way of personalities ... that will stir up our enemies against us.” ¹⁹ VOTS 92.1