Ellen White and the Role of Women in the Church

2. “Ordination” of Women Physicians

Since Mrs. White said that women should train as physicians, ⁴ and in another statement she calls for an “ordination” of physicians who are engaged in missionary work and soul-winning, some have felt that here we would find her authorization for ordaining women. The latter statement reads as follows: EWRWC 3.1

The work of the true medical missionary is largely a spiritual work. It includes prayer and the laying on of hands; he therefore should be as sacredly set apart for his work as is the minister of the gospel. Those who are selected to act the part of missionary physicians, are to be set apart as such. This will strengthen them against the temptation to withdraw from the sanitarium work to engage in private practice. No selfish motive should be allowed to draw the worker from his post of duty. We are living in a time of solemn responsibilities; a time when consecrated work is to be done. Let us seek the Lord diligently and understandingly. ⁵

Does Ellen White here call for physicians to be ordained as ministers? Were that her intention, she could have said it much more directly: “he therefore should be set apart as a minister.” But her wording, as I understand it, is more circuitous simply because she intends something else. He is to be as sacredly set apart as is the minister. The missionary physician is to be set apart as such. As what? As a missionary physician. That is made even clearer by the motivation for doing it—to strengthen him against the temptation to leave the sanitarium work to engage in private practice. Ordaining physicians as ministers would not be likely to have a bearing on that, but ordaining them as missionary physicians would. EWRWC 3.2

In speaking of the spiritual nature of the work of a true medical missionary, Mrs. White says this work “involves prayer and the laying on of hands.” No one would argue that she was here saying that the work of the medical missionary involved ordaining people to the gospel ministry, or even ordaining elders. Quite clearly she is here speaking of prayer for the sick. This statement is an indication that the expression “prayer and the laying on of hands” may refer to more than one thing, not simply to ordination to the gospel ministry. EWRWC 3.3

So again we return to the important question to ask when considering these statements of Ellen White: when she called for ordination, it was ordination to what? This statement will not support the assertion that she called for women to be included in the ordained pastoral ministry. EWRWC 3.4