Discovering the New Covenant by Greg Taylor - exAdventist Outreach

THE ISSUE OF ELLEN G. WHITE
city of God.” 18 “As long as man is full of weakness—for
himself he cannot save his soul—he should never dare to say
‘I am saved’ ” 19 Even in some of her later works, such as The
Great Controversy, this perfectionism is still present. Read
the chapter on the investigative judgment entitled Facing
Life’s Record and see what you think. With just these issues
alone we are compelled to say that Ellen White is, at best,
unreliable as a prophet. We surely cannot say that we should
take her opinions as a companion volume to the Bible.
We believe there are some key reasons why it is hard to
let the full truth about EGW come out. One key reason may
be the identity issue within the church. Adventists have a
vested interest in preserving their claim that EGW was a true
prophet on the scale of one of the biblical prophets. It is part
of the “remnant church” identity. The decision of the Bible
Conference held in 1919 by the General Conference was that
there should be an immediate disclosure of the problems
with Ellen White as a prophetic voice in the church. The
amount of material copied and the attempts to hide the facts
was considered by her long-time fellow laborer, W. W.
Prescott and others, to be dishonest and deceptive. 20
Prompted by the discovery that the book Life Sketches
from the Life of Paul had been borrowed almost in its
entirety, and without recognition, from a book by Coneybeare
and Howson, 21 they attempted to help people under-
18 Ellen G. White, The Kress Collection, p. 120.
19 Ellen G. White, Bible Echo, 1897-02-08.
20 Desmond Ford, Daniel 8:14 (Newcastle California, Ford Publications,
1980) p. 370.
21 Sydney Cleveland, White Washed, (Glendale Arizona, Life Assurance
Ministries, 2000) p. 12-22. The official minutes of the 1919 Bible
conference were discovered in a vault at the General Conference
headquarters in 1974. The documents had been intentionally sealed with
instructions that they were not to be opened for 50 years! The leaders had
knowingly covered up the issues with Ellen Whites plagarism rather then
face the disappointment and backlash of the membership in the church.
So the myths about Ellen White continued.
51