Episode 2
· 45:47
We decided to put together a bonus episode because about two thirds of the way into the previous episode, we were like, man, if we try to pack up all of the shut door information into one episode, it's gonna be longer than we want the episode to be, and it's gonna be super dense and difficult to follow. So here we are at the bonus episode. To really quickly summarize, in the first episode, when we were talking about the 1844 context of the shut door theology, we were basically saying that the early Adventists or Millerites, they believed essentially that the door of probation had closed in 1844, and the wicked world which God had rejected was referring to basically everyone who did not believe in the 1844 message would be lost. And even in the 1844 context, Orlando discovered a really powerful quote that I absolutely want him to share with us about really all the implications of the 1844. It's a little bit more than just them being lost, but we'll talk about that in a second.
Nick:After 1844, the Adventists claimed that their use of the term shut door theology had changed, so it was no longer referring to the context of Jesus was going to come back in 1844, but it was referring to the context of Jesus, His physical location in the heavenly sanctuary has changed, and His work in the heavenly sanctuary has changed. He was in the holy place before, and in 1844 he moved from the holy place to the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary. So that shift is what they claimed was really what happened in 1844. But I'll let Orlando kind of take it from here so he can tell us a little bit more about what he found.
Orlando:All right. Well, let's go ahead and take a look at how, I guess, like modern day Adventism views the whole concept of the shut door, right? Because there are quite a few different ways to look at it, right? The Ellen White estate asserts that the term shut door evolved throughout the course of time to refer to the door of the holy place in the heavenly sanctuary being closed and the door to the most holy place being opened. Now the Ellen White estate does acknowledge that for a period of time the shut door referred to essentially people who either rejected the Millerite message or who were Millerites but then eventually rejected the message after October 22 as having lost their salvation.
Orlando:And they based that off of something that Ellen White said in a letter that she wrote in 1882 or 1883. My memory is failing me there. And so that's pretty much what sums up the Ellen White estate of view and subsequently the traditional Adventist view. But we're going to take a look at how that isn't necessarily the case. The two definitions, they existed simultaneously, right?
Orlando:So let's get into how the idea of a heavenly sanctuary was introduced to the post disappointment group of the literalist bridegroom Adventists. So the story begins with a farmer by the name of Hiram Edson and he was a part of the Millerite movement. He became a preacher in the movement. Then of course, the great disappointment happens and he's just devastated, like really the rest of the Millerites. So the next day he was walking through a cornfield in order to avoid some of the people that were making fun of the Millerites.
Orlando:As he's walking through this field, that's pretty brutal stuff.
Nick:That's rough, dude.
Orlando:Yeah. And so as he's walking through this field, his attention is directed toward the sky and he sees the sky just opening up and he sees Jesus entering into the Most Holy Place. And so he was shook by this experience. And he relayed this experience to some other individuals. One of them was ORL Crozier, who would eventually help Edson to get this published into a newspaper known as the Day Dawn.
Orlando:And that's when it really took, the idea took flight. And then a few months later, Ellen White would have her bridegroom vision in February 1845. And in this vision, she also saw Jesus in the Most Holy Place.
Nick:Before we go on to kinda talk about the sanctuary, I just wanted to make sure that we mentioned this unless you were already planning on mentioning this later about what you and I had talked about was the true context of the 1844 context of the shut door. Right? Like, what did Ellen White believe?
Orlando:Yeah. Let's dive into that. Okay, so I've got a quote here and it's a bit of a block quote, but I think it will be insightful. Okay, so I saw, this is Ellen White speaking, I saw that the nominal churches, as the Jews crucified Jesus, they had crucified these messages and therefore they have no knowledge of the move made in heaven or of the way into the Most Holy, and they cannot be benefited by the intercession of Jesus there. Like the Jews who offered their useless sacrifices, they offer up their useless prayers to the apartment which Jesus had left, and Satan, pleased with the deception of the professed followers of Christ, fastens them in his snare and assumes a religious character and leads the mind of these professed Christians to himself and works with his power, his signs and lying wonders.
Nick:Jesus had physically moved from one spot in the heavenly sanctuary to another, right? So that another implication of this was when they prayed to God, and God would not hear their prayers. Mhmm. Because they were trying to reach God in the heavenly sanctuary in the holy place.
Nick:But he had moved to the most holy place. Therefore, anyone who did not believe in the 1844 message that the Millerites were preaching, their prayers would not get through to God.
Orlando:Yeah. And I think it's important to highlight that you have a group of people who, for one reason or another, did not accept the message of the Millerites. But a lot of that was predicated on the fact that the Millerite movement that they were date setting. Hey, in order for you to be a part of this group, you have to believe that we as a group can understand or ascertain when Jesus is coming back, right? And that idea alone just kind of flies in the face of scripture, Right?
Orlando:So you have a basic premise for this Millerite group that flies in the face of scripture. And I think that alone was a stumbling block for many, many Christians. They're like okay well maybe this is interesting but oh they're date setting, they're claiming that they know when Jesus is coming back. Okay surely this cannot be of God because they're date setting. Now of course the Millerites were mistaken and they went on a long theological journey to get to a state where they had a better understanding.
Orlando:But from the outset, I think it's irresponsible for these early pioneers to say, well, these people who rejected the Millerite message or who were once Millerites but then rejected the message, they're lost. Jesus can't hear their prayers. Don't know, that strikes me as spiritual malpractice.
Nick:Yeah, I just think that the two angles that I can think of, it's like one, were being exclusionary, right? They were saying, it's our way or the highway. If you don't believe this particular thing, then you're not part of our group. The only other option is, well, you're not going to be saved because it's like really binary. Right.
Nick:But then the other option and the other context of this, God literally not hearing their prayers. Yeah. I mean, it's really aggressive. Like you said, it's theological malpractice because not only is it we're being exclusionary and we're saying this group has the sole truth and outside of this belief, there is no salvation. But we're saying this is your belief is going to affect how you interact with God.
Nick:So it's like it takes it to that other level where it's like you you are going to break the bridge of communication with God if you don't believe this.
Orlando:And what are the implications of the idea that God no longer hears a person's prayers?
Nick:Yeah. And what's interesting to me from what we found is in my upbringing in the Seventh day Adventist Church, I was under the impression that this change in 1844 when they went from Jesus is gonna come back on this date to Jesus was just moving from the holy place to the most holy place. My understanding was always this is where they stopped date setting. We had discovered, okay, maybe in like the late 1840s, they were doing this. But you stumbled across some interesting 1850s stuff that would kind of say otherwise.
Nick:I just kind of want you to share a little bit more about what you found.
Orlando:Yeah, let's dive into that. So that really starts off with Joseph Bates. So in 1850 he published a book about the Day of Atonement. He asserted that after 10/22/1844, another period of time, of prophetic time, had begun. And this prophetic period of time was based off of the Day of Atonement.
Orlando:And so in regard to the Day of Atonement, once a year, right, you would have the high priest who would go into the Most Holy Place and he would sprinkle blood onto the mercy seat, right? And he would sprinkle blood on it seven times, right? So seven individual sprinkles of blood. Bates understood that to mean that those seven sprinkles represented seven years. And at the end of the seven years, you would have the second coming of Christ because you believe that the work of Christ's atonement would have wrapped up by 10/22/1851.
Nick:So we went from October 1844 as the second coming. And I think that's where most of our knowledge ends. Right. Or at least I think that's where most of mainstream Adventism is familiar with is that was like the last second coming prediction that the Adventist had. But due to this Joseph Bates prediction about the seven years, he had predicted that it was, like you said, in 1851.
Nick:So we we have now a new second coming prediction that Jesus is gonna come back on 10/22/1851. Now, we were discussing was this is Joseph Bates, another one of the founders of the Seventh day Adventist Church, not Ellen White. And the Adventists don't believe that Joseph Bates was speaking with prophetic authority, right? That he is a prophet of the church, but they do believe that Ellen White speaks with prophetic authority, which we'll do another quick little sidebar on that later later today. But so we were thinking, okay.
Nick:Is there any proof that Ellen White was also in this boat believing that oh, in the eighteen fifties, Jesus was gonna come back again. And was she using prophetic authority to say, not only do I believe that Jesus was gonna come back in eighteen fifties, but God told me that he was gonna come back in 1850.
Orlando:I was just just browsing, you know, as I usually do, trying to figure out a little bit more about the history of Ellen White. What are things that go unreported or underreported regarding the early days? And when I'm talking early days, I'm talking before the establishment of the Adventist church because I think it's such a fascinating time period And within traditional Adventist heritage classes, it's a very flattened time period where they talk about 1844, they talk about, yeah, they were mistaken about the nature of the event, but something still happened. And then you have the establishment of the Sabbath, the state of the dead and then we just kind of zoom to 1863 with the establishment of the Adventist institution or the institutional church and then it just kind of keeps going. But I think this is a really fascinating time period where the pioneers were trying to figure things out, they made mistakes.
Orlando:And I think that's okay because this was a very confusing time period. There's a lot going on, a lot of different religious splinter groups coming out of this period of time. So I think it's fascinating. But to kind of circle back to the quotes in question, I'm going to read a few quotes from Ellen White from the year 1850. Now bear in mind that Bates's date for the second coming was 10/22/1851 and the following quotes from Ellen White are from 1850.
Orlando:And so let's begin. So this is from Early Writings, page 64: In a view given 06/27/1850, my accompanying angel said, Time is almost finished. Do you reflect the lovely image of Jesus, as you should? Then I was pointed to the earth and saw that there would have to be a getting ready among those who have of late embraced the third angel's message. Said the angel, Get ready, get ready, get ready.
Orlando:You will have to die a greater death to the world than you have ever died yet. I saw that there was a great work to do for them, but little time in which to do it. Some of us have had time to get the truth and to advance step by step, and every step we have taken has given us strength to take the next. But now time is almost finished, and what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months.
Nick:Yeah. Some thoughts on this. First of all is if I knew that this is a kind of thing Ellen White was writing in the eighteen fifties, I too would have wanted to skip to the next decade in my retelling of Adventist church history. You know?
Nick:But to kind of highlight what you were just saying, this context, you know, the context is so important because a lot of times people will argue that as the Millerites and early Adventists were studying scripture, they were able to change their minds. They grew in their understanding. The things that they learned in the past, they were really kind of taking apart and reframing and in light of new understanding, in light of continued study. But what I have to come back to is what room do we have for correction of old understanding when the context of where that understanding came from was directly from God himself. Right?
Nick:Because in that context, it's like if I study the Bible and I incorrectly interpret a text or I, like, look at the Hebrew or Greek and and I make, like, a wrong assumption. Right? I can come back later and say, oh, my bad. I had misinterpreted this. I looked at it this a wrong way.
Nick:This is what I believe it's actually saying. So picture that context. Right?
Nick:And now let's picture the context of let me say let me say the words he was using here. My accompanying angel told me that Jesus was coming back in a couple months. Do you see the difference in context? It's like, how do I then say, just kidding. God was wrong.
Nick:It's either God is wrong and not all knowing or that vision is false and you're not a prophet, but both things can't coincide. So this is saying that Ellen White herself in 1850 said that her accompanying angel, in other words, God showed her. Right? This is a divine message is what she means when she says her accompanied angel. A divine message was given to her that Jesus was going to come back later that year or very soon at least and that she needed to get ready, get ready, get ready.
Nick:And then she finished that quote in early writings by saying, what we have been years learning, in other words, it's been what, like six years since 1844, they will have to learn in a few months. So Ellen White is basically saying that God tells her that a hundred and fifty years ago, there was there were, like, a couple months left before Jesus' second coming. So what are we supposed to do with that? You know, like, how did you react when you when you first came across that quote? I know that she's got, like, two other eighteen fifty quotes that you wanted to share, but how do you feel about this whole eighteen fifty divine prediction?
Orlando:Yeah. It was a bit surprising because I was under the assumption that there was no more date setting. Now, I will say that she doesn't give an explicit date. She claims that her accompanying angel is saying, you know, time time is short. Right?
Orlando:Like, Jesus is about to come back. So get ready. Right? So she doesn't engage in explicit date setting, but she is giving off this idea that Jesus is coming soon. Right?
Orlando:You guys need to get ready. And of course, like in the Bible, if we're going to Revelation, the word soon has a wide semantic range, right? Behold, I'm coming quickly or soon, those two are synonymous, that can be flexible. And maybe an argument can be made that, is this Kairos time, is this Kronos time? That's a discussion for another time.
Orlando:But nevertheless, I was still a little surprised. I was like, oh, like this is, curious. And so naturally, you know, there were some other quotes of hers that established this same idea. So I'm gonna share another one. So the previous one that I read was from June 1850.
Orlando:The next one is from September of the same year. Some are looking too far off for the coming of the Lord. Time has continued a few years longer than they expected. Therefore, they think it may continue a few years more. And in this way, their minds are being led from present truth out after the world.
Orlando:In these things I saw great danger. For if the mind is filled with other things, present truth is shut out, and there is no place in our foreheads for the seal of the living God. I saw that the time for Jesus to be in the Most Holy Place was nearly finished, and that time can last but a very little longer. What leisure time we have should be spent in searching the Bible, which is to judge us in the last day.
Nick:In June, she said we have, like, a few months left. Three months later in September, she's saying the time can last but a very little longer. And it's continuing that context of, okay, if he went to the most holy place in 1844, in 1850, we find him there in the most holy place. But she's saying he's almost like ready to move on now. He's ready to leave the heavenly
Orlando:His work is almost over.
Nick:Honestly, if you're tuning in and this is your first episode that you've heard, right, and I really encourage that you go back and listen to the episode we did before this one, episode number two, because I think it's tempting to look at these things and say, okay, like, you're sharing two Ellen White quotes, you're telling me that I should question her prophetic authority or her status. But just I wanted to make it clear, this is a continuation of what we've been looking into. These are the quotes that we're looking at in this episode in this particular context, but this is just part of the bigger picture of years of revisions, redactions, conflicting things, things going against Scripture. So obviously, we try to tell you everything in one episode, it would take us forever. So definitely encourage you to go back and listen to those.
Nick:And let us know what you think, because it's important to me to specify that we're trying to really lay out this bigger picture or this bigger context of this is not the first time that this has happened or these are not the only quotes we found. But yeah, so then a couple months after that, in November, you found one more thing from 1850.
Orlando:Yeah, so the quote that I just read was from September, and there is another letter that was written 11/01/1850 to brother and sister Loveland. My vision comes up before me, and the words of the angel even now seem to ring in my ears. Quote, Get ready, get ready, get ready. Time is almost finished, almost finished, almost finished. Cry, cry for the arm of the Lord to be revealed, for the arm of the Lord to be revealed.
Orlando:Time is almost finished. What you do, you must do quickly. And that is from a letter 26, manuscript release, volume eight.
Nick:I'm gonna try to not think about that too hard and that she said, what you do, you must do quickly. That's literally what Jesus told Judas but let's not okay. I'm like, let me try not to think about that
Nick:I know. Right? But I digress. And I really wanna mention this point. That last part that was shared was a letter.
Nick:So when I say the word letter, Orlando, you know where I'm going with this, to brother and sister Loveland, right, in 11/01/1850. What we tend to get exposed to is one explanation for Ellen White's prophetic authority, or one explanation for the contradictions or things that kind of seem off in some of the writings of Ellen White, is that, oh, this was just a letter. Like, this was not meant to be publicly published and distributed like we have it now. She was just writing a letter to a local, you know, church friend or acquaintance or whatever. The letter was just giving instruction just like we would communicate like via email or text today.
Nick:It was just a conversation. It was not in the context of a prophetic vision or a prophetic edict. So therefore, we must parse her writings and make a differentiation between this is something that she saw in vision and this is like, oh, she's just writing a commentary or she's just writing a letter. The question is, would Ellen White agree with that parsing or with that statement? Would Ellen White agree with the fact that we need to be able to separate her writings into two categories?
Nick:So this was actually done in the church. And in the 1870s and 80s, so we're literally talking just twenty years after this very statement, very close to this very statement that we just read, the Adventists were making distinctions between what she wrote in books, what was like a prophetic edict or divine message, and letters or counsels to people. So they were calling her letters or counsels to people the testimonies. Right? So the testimonies and everything else were two different buckets.
Nick:So the idea was that not everything that was written was prophetic, but it's not lessening or diminishing her prophetic authority. It is not lessening who we think she is as a prophet. It's merely two different categories. So Ellen, she wrote to the Battle Creek Church in 1882. So this was thirty years after these letters.
Nick:And she wrote, you are rebelling against God. You have their history. You know how stubborn they were in their own opinions. They decided that their judgment was better than that of Moses. When I went to Colorado and I was so burdened for you that in my weakness I arose at 03:00 in the morning to write to you, God was speaking through clay.
Nick:You might say, now here we go, you might say that this communication was only a letter. In other words, you're differentiating, right, between my prophetic messages and me writing a letter to Rando. You may say that this was just a letter. Yes, it was a letter, but it was prompted by the Spirit of God to bring before your mind things that had been shown to me. In these letters, which I write in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that which the Lord has presented to me.
Nick:I do not write one article in the paper expressing merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision, the precious rays of light shining from the throne. So I personally believe that Ellen White would not allow us to parse it out. I think that she believed, as I just read in this quote, that everything that she wrote, whether it was a letter, whether it was a commentary, whether it was a divine edict, it was all inspired. It all came from the throne of God.
Nick:She compared herself to Moses in this quote, if you missed that, and she said that opposing her would be opposing God himself. And we see other messages like that throughout the the time that that she was alive. I used to believe what the Adventists were told would tell me that, oh, well, Ellen White never claimed to be a prophet. So we shouldn't use that word. Right?
Nick:We shouldn't give her that responsibility because she didn't claim to be a prophet. God was using her. So this is this is one of the roughest ones that we've had to deal with when we when we ran across all this stuff because she's not giving us much room here for a moderate view of her writings.
Orlando:Yeah, for me, the longest time, I believe that there was a moderate way, in regard to interact with her writings, right? Which was, yeah, you know, there is some stuff that is definitely, has prophetic authority, but then there are other things that may not be inspired per se, right? This is more of her speaking on her own accord, Her giving her own personal wisdom, personal experience to very specific instances, because that's really what many of her letters were. They were written to specific individuals in a very specific context, right? Throughout the course of Adventist history, the understanding of that morphed from specific individuals to specific context to, Oh, there is a general applicability to these letters.
Orlando:But I just don't think there is room for that, given what she has said. And she said exactly that, that we, as members of the denomination, we do not have the right to be able to adjudicate between what is inspired of her writing and what is not inspired. Like we as a church body do not have that privilege. And I'm reminded of a Bible verse from 1st Thessalonians, I believe it's chapter five, the context of this is testing prophecy, right, testing prophetic oracles. And so Paul is saying here, do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies, test all things, hold fast to what is good, abstain from every form of evil.
Orlando:Right? Now, hold fast to what is good and abstain from every form of evil, the context of that is to test all things and to not despise prophecy, right? So I think Paul is giving us, is giving the church body this ability to be able to decide, okay, if someone has claimed that they are a prophet and that they are receiving messages from God, okay, we get to evaluate. We get to carefully examine the writings of the prophet and we get to decide, okay, like this is what's correct, this is what's incorrect. And there doesn't seem to be a punishment for a prophet getting stuff wrong in the New Testament.
Orlando:There's no talk of excommunication for, Oh, if the prophet gets something wrong, it's just test all things. If it's helpful, keep it. If it's not helpful, abstain.
Nick:And that was our previous understanding of how we were supposed to approach Ellen White's writings. Our previous understanding was, let's test all things. If there's not good in them, if there's things that she wrote contrary to scripture, we can parse those out. If there's things that are in harmony with scripture and were leading us closer to God, then, you know, we can use our discernment and parse them out. But she does not seem to to allow for that.
Nick:It's like not only should we not be parsing things out, but there is no bad in her writings. There isn't an un uninspired part of her writings. It's this is the inspired pen. God led her in these conclusions. Either I was shown in vision or my accompanied angel told me or God showed me.
Orlando:I was reading Dr. Lake's book. Dr. Judd Lake. He wrote a book titled Ellen White Under Fire.
Orlando:And this book was written to defend the writings of Ellen White from her critics. And I found something really interesting that he wrote regarding Ellen White's authority, or really just the authority of a prophet versus the authority of the Bible. And so I'll share that here. So he gives a really interesting analogy. And so he says, in the military, for example, the general of the army carries the highest degree of authority.
Orlando:When a lower ranked officer, such as a lieutenant, gives an order to a foot soldier, that soldier is obligated to obey the lieutenant's order with no less a degree of obedience than if the general had issued the order personally. The lieutenant is simply carrying out the orders of the highest ranking authority, the general of the army. The same is true with regard to inspired canonical and postcanonical writings. Because the authority in these writings lies in their inspiration, they require full equal obedience. Ellen White's writings, for example, constantly appeal to the Bible as the highest authority.
Orlando:Her appeals and admonitions are inspired applications of scripture, always leading readers back to it. And he has a quote here. If the bible should show the visions were not in harmony with it, the bible would stand and the visions would be given up. And that is a quote from George Butler. But supporters of Mrs. White who carefully studied the bible have never found her to have given in admonition contrary to it.
Orlando:Now here's the kicker. As a post canonical manifestation of the prophetic gift then, Ellen White merits full obedience. But this obedience will always lead one into harmony with biblical principles. In the sense, the canon of scripture is the highest highest authority, like the general, and Mrs. White's post canonical writings are a lesser authority, like the lieutenant. But the obedience but the obedience both deserved is the same.
Nick:It's so funny because I feel like Adventists engage in doublespeak all the time, right? Because there's the 28 fundamental beliefs. We'll get into this in the next episode. I believe it's seventeenth or eighteenth, The fundamental belief on the gift of prophecy specifically mentions Ellen G. White.
Nick:And it mentions that along with that, that the Adventist church, they have no creed. We have no creed except for sola scriptura, scripture alone. Right? This is one of, like, the basic tenets of Protestantism, is sola scriptura. But Ellen White's writings can be used as a guide, can be used for reproof, for admonition, for guidance, to help us understand the Bible better.
Nick:So it's almost like we don't have any other creed besides Scripture. And how do we understand Scripture, our only creed? Through the lens of Ellen White. That's how we can understand Scripture. So you see what I mean by double speak.
Nick:Right? It's like you're saying that we only have one creed, but that's not really true if the only way to follow that one creed is to do it with the context of Ellen White's writings. So and in this case, Dr. Lake is comparing, and I love Dr. Lake Orlando and I were both students of Dr. Lake in our undergraduate program.
Nick:So in this case, this is not some random person we're quoting. We have personal experience with the guy, and I have nothing bad to say about him. But this quote troubles me because he's essentially saying, first of all, he's comparing obedience to Ellen White to a military context in which soldiers obey their superiors without question. And that is how we too should listen to Ellen White. But then he says that because Ellen White speaks with prophetic authority, she never contradicts Scripture.
Nick:Nothing that she says goes against the Bible. It always points back to the Bible. Therefore, Ellen White demands complete obedience. That's what's troubling about all this.
Orlando:Yeah. And the only way that what you just laid out works is if you assume that she never goes against the bible. That everything she wrote is in accordance.
Nick:Have to have like a basis level of infallibility in order to be able to say like, okay, if she can never be wrong, if she can never go against scripture, if she always points back to scripture, therefore, she demands complete obedience. You know what I mean? And as we wrap this up, this is actually a really good segue to just introduce the next episode and do a quick teaser. The second half of the series, we only have, like, two more episodes or so left in the series, is we've gone through Millerite Movement, early Adventist Church history, and then Ellen White during her lifetime, things that she said, things that the church has edited, redacted, or just not shared very publicly. But that whole point of all this is to lead us to modern times.
Nick:How does the Seventh day Adventist Church view Ellen White today? What happened from her early beginnings in the Millerite movement to Ellen White must be obeyed? Right? Like, how do we get here? So the next episode we want to talk about is fundamentalism.
Nick:The rise of fundamentalism in world history, how that affected the Seventh day Adventist Church. We want to talk about the fact that the influences of fundamentalism are what led to the Seventh Day Adventist Church writing a set of beliefs for the first time, like physically publishing and writing their fundamental beliefs of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, how they added Ellen White's name to the fundamental beliefs, and then what does this mean for us today? Are the fundamental beliefs of the Seventh day Adventist Church basically a cliff notes version of what they believe, merely there to give us a quick little summary of here's the quick intro on what we believe, or is it a test of fellowship? As in, you have to believe all of these fundamental beliefs in order to be considered a Seventh day Adventist, which includes that Ellen White was a prophet, that everything she said was inspired, that the things that she said were good for instruction, good to guide us through scripture.
Orlando:A few points of clarification because I think it's always good to have nuance. Sure. With what we've just talked about, right? These very extreme quotes where Ellen White says, Everything that I've written, it's from God. You cannot differentiate between the two, right?
Orlando:It makes sense why you have some extreme conservatives within Adventism who are like, we have to be aware of everything that Ellen White wrote, right? Because to ignore one of those things is to essentially ignore God, right? And if we don't do our due diligence in reading everything from her, we are thus making poor use of our time, which, you know, to be an uber fundamentalist, God will hold us accountable to that. And, you know, that for some interpret that to mean you're lost, right? You forfeit your salvation because you didn't spend as much, you know, every waking moment diving into the testimonies in order to see if there was another rule within the writings of Ellen White that you broke or that you weren't aware of but you needed to keep, right?
Orlando:So it makes sense because I've been on online Adventist forums and I've seen the extremists. I'm just like, for the longest time, it didn't make any sense. How can people have these beliefs? And given some of the more extreme stuff that Ellen White has written alongside the extreme stuff that conservative, very, very conservative Adventists have written. It makes sense.
Orlando:But on the other side of the coin, I recognize that there are a lot of Adventists who do maintain this more middle of the road approach to Ellen White, where, sure, for them, Conflict of the Ages series totally inspired, really helpful for their spiritual walk. And yet, nonetheless, they don't necessarily live their life dictated by the scruples that you'll find in the Testimonies for the Church volumes one through nine. They drink coffee. Right? They they eat meat.
Orlando:Right? And, again, like, you if you take some of what Ellen White wrote to its logical conclusion, then you can't ignore anything that she wrote. And yet we have a large subset of Adventists who can on one hand affirm that she was a prophet and that she was really helpful, and at the same time not live by every single scruple and dictate that she wrote. And for the longest time, that was purported to be like the middle road where it's just like, okay, we can carefully examine what she wrote. We can say, oh, well, context or this doesn't necessarily apply.
Orlando:But it's hard to square that circle with what she's written. And I myself am still on this journey. It's not just because I'm doing this podcast doesn't mean that I've got this whole Ellen White thing figured out, and I'm living my life basically. Nick and I, we're still navigating this for ourselves.
Nick:Yeah. Honestly, the podcast was a byproduct of the journey, not the journey itself. Right? So the podcast was, we've been living in this cognitive dissonance bubble, figuring out how to navigate these things. And for years, trying to navigate and understand the cognitive dissonance and make sense of things.
Nick:So that's what led us to start the podcast. Not that we're like, we have arrived at the conclusion. Figured it all out. Let's put it out into the ether. That's what we really want to do in the next episodes is try to continue in this journey and figure out figure out how to navigate all this.
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