Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Present-Day Apostasy

In 1848 began those mysterious rappings in Hydesville, New York, that marked the birth of modern Spiritism. Spiritism attracted numbers who were church members, and the supernatural powers that attended this evil thing seemed to them an evidence of the power of God. Of these Mrs. White spoke in the quotation cited too briefly by the critics. EGWC 300.1

The appearance of Spiritism among some of the churches only sharpened the vigorous preaching, “Come out of her, my people,” that had begun a few years earlier. This preaching, Seventh-day Adventists continue to the present day. If there is any difference, it is in the definiteness of it today. We believe the evidence is clearer now than ever it was in the 1840’s, that “Babylon is fallen.” True, slavery has been abolished in the United States, but what other developments have taken place? The answer, briefly, is this: EGWC 300.2

Darwin’s evolution theory, first announced in 1859, and quickly accepted by most of the scientific world, began, erelong, to capture the Christian ministry. Inevitably associated with this theory was the whole philosophy of antisupernaturalism. Darwin’s theory had no room for miracles, no room for the creation, as Moses recorded it, and hence no room for the fall of man. But if there was no fall of man, then the Biblical idea of sin disappears. If man is gradually evolving upward and always has been, there is obviously not only no place for a fall, there is no need for Christ to offer His life for sin that He might thereby lift men up. EGWC 300.3

By the early part of the twentieth century the evolution theory, with all that it implied, had so captured theological seminaries and church leaders that it produced on the part of orthodox ministers a countermovement known as Fundamentalism. But this countermovement only served to highlight the apostasy and to reveal its true dimensions. Fundamentalism has fought a losing battle in all the larger denominations. For a third of a century, at least, various Fundamentalist ministers have spoken out against what they describe as apostasy in the churches, and in language that is as powerful as anything that Mrs. White ever wrote. What is more, there has been heard from the lips of Fundamentalist preachers the very words of Scripture used as the text by Mrs. White in her denunciation of the churches: “Babylon is fallen,” and “Come out of her, my people.” EGWC 300.4

In view of their expressed devotion to the Bible, in the orthodox meaning of those words, Mrs. White’s critics must surely have read and approved the general position and declarations of the Fundamentalist leaders regarding the apostasy in Christendom. We wonder whether they would be willing to tell us in what way Mrs. White’s scathing description of the churches is more vigorous or more devastating? They will probably answer that the difference is this: Fundamentalist preachers are speaking of a condition in the twentieth century, when a certain well-defined apostasy actually exists, and Mrs. White was denouncing the churches in the middle of the nineteenth century, when that condition did not exist. EGWC 301.1

But we reply: Does apostasy any more truly exist in the churches today than slavery did at the time Mrs. White wrote the passage before us? And is holding slaves any less heinous than holding such a doctrine as evolution? Or is belief in Spiritism, the doctrine of devils, less properly the occasion for denunciation than belief in evolution? EGWC 301.2

Quite apart from these points, however, and viewing Mrs. White’s words in the long perspective of a century, it is all to the credit of her claim to inspiration that she wrote as she did regarding the advancing apostasy that would mark Christendom. EGWC 301.3

She saw what others did not see till long afterward, when apostasy was rather suddenly discovered to be entrenched in the Christian church. She saw that the churches, by their very belief in gradual world reform, in opposition to the premillennial, supernatural coming of Christ, were really conditioning themselves to accept the Darwinian evolution theory that the world and man are slowly progressing upward. The only views entertained in the Christian church as to a solution of the tragedy of a sinful world are: (1) the second coming of Christ suddenly to bring in righteousness, and (2) the gradual progress of man toward perfection. The evolution theory fitted beautifully into the latter view, and subtly became the scientific demonstration, so men thought, of the truth of that view. But as evolution came more and more into the thinking of churchmen it increasingly became the explanation for the progress that the world was supposed to be making toward an earthly millennium. Which is another way of saying that modern churchmen almost unconsciously drifted ever nearer to a plainly secular conception of world betterment. EGWC 301.4

It is right here we would remind the Fundamentalists that there is nothing they make more clear in their preaching than that the doctrine of the literal, personal coming of Christ is a touchstone of orthodoxy and a great dividing line between them and all Modernists. And that, of course, is the doctrine that distinguished the Adventists in mid-nineteenth century, when Mrs. White wrote those passages about the churches, which we are considering. The Fundamentalists could have gone a step further in their discussion of what constitutes a touchstone—and God grant they will erelong—and said that the seventh-day Sabbath is a touchstone of orthodoxy and a dividing line between those who stand on the foundation of the Mosaic creation, with all that that implies of Bible doctrine, and those who stand on the evolution theory, with all that that implies. No one can conscientiously keep the seventh-day Sabbath, a memorial of the fact that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and harbor any thought of evolution. EGWC 302.1

It is interesting that Mrs. White did not say that the fall of Babylon was completed in 1844. When she wrote on the subject of the fall of Babylon in 1858 she spoke of it as progressive. ^* When she wrote in 1888 she still spoke of it as progressive. Here are her words: EGWC 302.2

“The message of the second angel did not reach its complete fulfilment in 1844. The churches then experienced a moral fall, in consequence of their refusal of the light of the advent message [the doctrine of the premillennial literal, personal coming of Christ]; but that fall was not complete. As they have continued to reject the special truths for this time [for example, and most strikingly, the truth of the seventh-day Sabbath], they have fallen lower and lower.”—The Great Controversy, 389. EGWC 302.3

But someone may ask: Does not Mrs. White paint a picture of the Christian world in such a way as to make it appear that the only people of God are Seventh-day Adventists and that everyone else is under the irrevocable judgment of God? EGWC 303.1

Such an interpretation of her teaching on the fall of Babylon, or the second angel’s message, is unwarranted. Mrs. White teaches what the Bible teaches on this doctrine. Because Babylon is fallen an angel proclaims: “Come out of her, my people.” Revelation 18:4. The Bible thus declares that God’s “people,” at least a portion of them, are found in Babylon. And that is what Mrs. White teaches. Listen to her words: EGWC 303.2

“Notwithstanding the spiritual darkness and alienation from God that exist in the churches which constitute Babylon, the great body of Christ’s true followers are still to be found in their communion.”—The Great Controversy, 390. EGWC 303.3