Ellen G. White, Baal Worship, and Loyalty

How did Ellen White respond to the “Baal worship” she saw in the church?

“The Adventist ministers in Battle Creek turned their backs to the Lord and chose Baal instead.”

I was sitting on a committee that had been called by the General Conference to investigate a question about Seventh-day Adventist leadership during the 1890s. One member of our group was burdened to show that many leading brethren rejected the 1888 message. He seemed to have evidence on his side, and there was no doubting his loyalty to the church; but when he said that in the 1890s leading ministers turned their backs to Christ and chose Baal instead, I was annoyed. Even if the ministers did misbehave, describing their misbehavior as turning their backs to Christ and choosing Baal seemed exaggerated and uncalled for.

Twenty years later I still recall how I felt when the speaker defended himself when challenged. Said he solemnly, “Sister White says it in Testimonies to Ministers.”

I was stunned.

As soon as I got home from the committee session, I took one of my copies of Testimonies to Ministers to a country spot that a friend had put up for sale, sat on a folding chair, and started searching for that Baal statement—if, in fact, it was really there.

I reread the preface of Testimonies to Ministers, reminding myself that most of the testimonies in the book were written while Ellen G. White was a missionary to Australia in the 1890s. When the testimonies arrived in Battle Creek, the brethren published many of them in pamphlet form. In the 1920s the Trustees of the White Estate made selections from these materials, adding some appropriate testimonies written be fore and after the 1890s, and published Testimonies to Ministers.

All through the book I found marvelous Christ-centered, righteousness-by-faith statements appropriate to the post-1888 era. A number of these I had underlined during previous readings. But in between these spiritual statements I found severely critical ones that I hadn’t underlined.

Almost at once I came across the famous words, “The church of Christ, enfeebled and defective as it may be, is the only object on earth on which He bestows His supreme regard” (p. 15; cf. p. 49). The words “His supreme regard” seemed as splendid as ever; but this time I wondered how “enfeebled and defective” I was going to find the church to have been.

Fairly quickly I found the statement about leaders turning their backs to the Lord. It was on page 69: “I inquire of those in responsible positions in Battle Creek, ‘What are you doing? You have turned your back, and not your face, to the Lord.’”

I wished it had not been there.

The statement about Baal seemed to elude me. But at last, to my astonished eyes, there it was, near the back, on pp. 467-468: “With many the cry of the heart has been, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us.’ Baal, Baal, is the choice.”

Remarkable Loyalty. As we ponder Ellen White’s inspired perception into the sinfulness of her fellow Seventh-day Adventists, her ongoing loyalty to the movement becomes the more remarkable. Anyone today contemplating separation from the movement on account of the worldliness of its leaders can be guided by Sr. White’s loyalty. She was not loyal because she was ill-informed. She was loyal in spite of and even because of her uniquely complete information.

Spiritual Problems. Testimonies to Ministers describes a tragically low state of spirituality. “There is an astonishing backsliding with God’s people” (p. 450). “There has been a departure from God among us.” In fact, “infidelity has been making its inroads into our ranks” (p. 467).

Adventists were not choosing only Baal; some were choosing Barabbas. “Unsanctified ministers are arraying themselves against God. . . . While professedly they receive Christ, they embrace Barabbas, and by their actions say, ‘Not this Man, but Barabbas’” (p. 409).

The problem was not confined to leaders. “Many—not a few, but many [her emphasis]—have been losing their spiritual zeal and consecration, and turning away from the light that has been constantly growing brighter and brighter, and have refused to walk in the truth because its sanctifying power upon the soul was not what they desired” (p. 449).

“The warmth of their first love is frozen up, and unless they are watered over by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, their candlestick will be removed out of its place, except they repent and do their first works” (p. 168).

Unchristian Administration.
Low spirituality was coupled with a high-handed administrative style.

“The high-handed power that has been developed, as though position has made men gods, makes me afraid, and ought to cause fear. It is a curse wherever and by whomsoever it is exercised,” for it will inevitably lead not only to “insubordination” but to a “loss of confidence even in the management of faithful men” (p. 361). The General Conference called to Ellen White’s mind the corrupt Sanhedrin of Christ’s day (ibid.).

Dictatorial leadership was not confined to the General Conference.

“The spirit of domination is extending to the presidents of our conferences” (p. 362). It was spreading to the denomination’s schools, publishing houses, and sanitariums: “At the center of the work matters are being shaped so that every other institution is following in the same course” (p. 359).

Nor was the injustice of leadership confined to an isolated instance or two.

“I do not find rest in spirit. Scene after scene [my italics] is presented in symbols before me, and I find no rest until I begin to write out the matter” (ibid.). “Page after page might be written in regard to these things. Whole conferences are becoming leavened with the same perverted principles” (p. 372).

“When men who profess to serve God ignore His parental character and depart from honor and righteousness in dealing with their fellow men, Satan exults, for he has inspired them with his attributes. They are following in the track of Romanism” (p. 362, my italics).

“All heaven is indignant at the spirit that for years has been revealed in our publishing institution at Battle Creek. Unrighteousness is practiced that God will not tolerate. He will visit for these things” (pp. 76-77).

“Oh, if ever a temple upon earth needed purifying, the institutions in Battle Creek need it now!” (p. 296).

What Actually Was Going Wrong? Some of the statements we have looked at are obviously metaphorical: turning the back to Christ, choosing Baal, preferring Barabbas, acting like the Sanhedrin, behaving like Roman Catholics. We know that no altar to Baal was erected in Battle Creek. It is not likely that any Adventist actually shouted, “Away with this Man; give us Barabbas.” Few Jews would have recognized their Sanhedrin in any conference committee.

So just what was Ellen White talking about? What did God show her that was equivalent to acting like Roman bishops, preferring Barabbas, and worshiping Baal?

The context for worshiping Baal was this: “The religion of many among us will be the religion of apostate Israel.” The “religion of the Bible, that teaches forgiveness only through the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour, that advocates righteousness by the faith of the Son of God, has been slighted, spoken against, ridiculed, and rejected” (p. 468). In other words, in rejecting the Christ-centered message of 1888, leaders were choosing a form of paganism.

If something so ordinary as rejecting righteousness by faith was equivalent to Baal worship, many of the other sins so earnestly spoken against were also very ordinary. “Among those who preach the sacred word,” were men who manifested “selfishness, covetousness, pride, strife, contention, hard-heartedness, licentiousness, and evil practices” (p. 162).

“If you harbor pride, self-esteem, a love for the supremacy, vainglory, unholy ambition, murmuring, discontent, bitterness, evil speaking, lying, deception, slandering”—the ordinary sins of ambitious churchmen—“you have not Christ abiding in your heart, and the evidence is the character of Satan. . . . You are not fit for the kingdom of heaven. . . . The furnace fires would consume you, because you are worthless, counterfeit gold” (p. 441, my italics).

“God has a controversy with all who practice the least injustice; for in so doing they reject the authority of God and imperil their interest in the atonement” (p. 373).

Such sins, though ordinary, have an astonishing potential for disaster.
“Let the son of deceit and false witness [i.e., Satan, the father of lies] be entertained by a church that has had great light, great evidence, and that church will [a] discard the message the Lord has sent, and [b] receive the most unreasonable assertions and false suppositions and false theories. . . . [c] Many will stand in our pulpits with the torch of false prophecyin their hands, kindled from the hellish torch of Satan” (pp. 409-410, my italics and outlining).

Ellen G. White’s Exemplary Response.
We noted a few moments ago that Ellen White remained loyal even though she was painfully aware of what was going on. Those sins that sound so ordinary were practiced within a small church “family,” exacerbating their painfulness. Today they would be called “insensitivity,” “harassment,” “discrimination,” and “character defamation.” Though she herself was the brunt of such crimes, Ellen White did not abandon the movement that practiced them. Instead, (a) she worked hard to purify it, reproving sin but also focusing on the glady [gladly] of the church’s strong points, (b) she spoke clearly of the church’s ultimate success, and (c) she continued to endorse the denomination’s institutions.

a. Working to purify the movement.
We have seen that Ellen White worked to purify the movement by remonstrating against what was wrong. At the same time, however, she warned against hasty discipline:

“There is to be no spasmodic, zealous, hasty action taken by church members in cutting off those they may think defective in character. Tares will appear among the wheat; but it would do more harm to weed out the tares, unless in God’s appointed way, than to leave them alone” (p. 46).

Still, if it wasn’t time yet to “weed out the tares”—except “in God’s appointed way”—it was time for some leaders to be put out of office.

“If a man is sanguine of his own powers and seeks to exercise dominion over his brethren, . . . the best and only safe course is to remove him” (p. 362).

Even more important, “now” was the time for “those who are rooted and grounded in the truth” to “manifest their firmness and decision,” and “make known the fact that they are unmoved by the sophistry, maxims, or fables of the ignorant and wavering.” “The best way to deal with error is to present the truth, and leave wild ideas to die out for want of notice” (p. 165).

Yet in speaking out for the truth, care should be taken not to create new divisions over inconsequential “truths.” The early days of the Advent movement provided a model, back when “we tried to make our differences as slight as possible by not dwelling on points that were of minor importance, upon which there were varying opinions. But the burden of every soul was to” help fulfill Christ’s prayer “that His disciples might be one as He and the Father are one” (p. 25).

b. Speaking gladly of strong points.
It was in her darkest days in Australia that Sr. White wrote for the General Conference session of 1893, “In reviewing our past history, having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing, I can say, Praise God! As I see what God has wrought, I am filled with astonishment, and with confidence in Christ as leader. We have nothing to fear for the future except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us” (p. 31).

She went on to say, “We are now a strong people, if we will put our trust in the Lord; for we are handling the mighty truths of the word of God. We have everything to be thankful for. . . . We have many duties to perform because we have been made the depositaries of sacred truth to be given to the world in all its beauty and glory” (ibid.).

c. Remaining hopeful.
Ellen White remained hopeful, knowing that God was in charge of His church.

“The Lord will raise up laborers who realize their own nothingness without special help from God” (p. 361).

During the same dark days in Australia that we referred to a few moments ago she wrote (Dec. 23, 1892),

“Dear Brethren of the General Conference: I testify to my brethren and sisters that the church of Christ, enfeebled and defective as it may be, is the only object on earth on which He bestows His supreme regard.” “‘If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee. . . . Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities’” (p. 15).

Ellen White remained hopeful in God’s leadership, even though as time went on she came to see that what God would do for His church might be severe. In 1895 she wrote, “The Lord will work to purify His church. I tell you in truth, the Lord is about to turn and overturn in the institutions called by His name” (p. 373). “Just how soon this refining process will begin,” she continued, “I cannot say, but it will not be long deferred. He whose fan is in His hand will cleanse His temple of its moral defilement. He will thoroughly purge His floor” (ibid.). We know today that this prophecy was at least partially fulfilled in the fires that burned the Battle Creek Sanitarium and the Review and Herald building in 1902, with the consequent removal of headquarters to Washington, D.C.

This prophecy was at least partially fulfilled in the fires that burned the Battle Creek Sanitarium and the Review and Herald building in 1902.

Sr. White was happy to know that the divine destruction of institutions did not imply divine destruction of the movement. Even though “the church of Christ on earth will be imperfect,” “God does not destroy His church because of its imperfection” (p. 46).

“Although there are evils existing in the church, and will be until the end of the world, the church in these last days is to be the light of the world that is polluted and demoralized by sin” (p. 49).

“Through the church”—the “one church in the world who are at the present time standing in the breach”—“eventually will be made manifest [cf. Eph 3:10] the final and full display of the love of God to the world that is to be lightened with its glory [Rev 18:1-4]. The prayer of Christ that His church may be one as He was one with His Father [John 17] will finally be answered. The rich dowry of the Holy Spirit will be given, and through its constant supply to the people of God they will become witnesses in the world of the power of God unto salvation” (p. 50).

“God Himself will work for Israel. Every lying tongue will be silenced. Angels’ hands will overthrow the deceptive schemes that are being formed. The bulwarks of Satan will never triumph. Victory will attend the third angel’s message” (p. 410, my italics).

d. Endorsing imperfect institutions.
The confidence that Ellen White expressed in Testimonies to Ministers she demonstrated in practice, as we learn from other published sources.

When the founders of Battle Creek College defied her urgent recommendation that the new school be located in the country rather than in town, she did not abandon the institution. She did her best to make it succeed, urging financial support, giving counsel, and conducting revivals, while patiently waiting twenty-seven years (1874-1901) to move it to Berrien Springs.

When Dr. J. H. Kellogg, contrary to oft-repeated counsel, rebuilt the Battle Creek Sanitarium even larger than it had been before the 1902 fire, Sister White urged the brethren at the 1903 General Conference session to support the project with their means. God “does not want His people to be looked upon by the enemy as a people that is going out of sight. . . . The people of God must build that institution up, in the name of the Lord” and place it “on vantage ground” (General Conference Bulletin, 1903, p. 58, April 1). To the puzzled question as to how she could support a rebuilding that was begun contrary to her God-given counsel, she said that although she wished “that a portion of the work of this institution had been taken elsewhere,” nonetheless now that the institution was being rebuilt it “must be helped” and “God will institute ways and means by which it can be helped” (Sunday, April 5; Review, April 14, 1903).

During the years she was writing the testimonies that make up most of Testimonies to Ministers, she was personally suffering the hostility of administrators who had sent her to Australia for the wrong reasons. She neither gave up her faith, went to court, nor started another denomination. She wrote a book about Jesus, The Desire of Ages; she helped win hundreds of new believers to the very denomination whose leadership included some who rejected her; she did not allow the disloyalty of some leaders to blind her to the loyalty of many others; she prayed day and night for both her loyal and her disloyal brethren; and she maintained a constant correspondence with both the loyal and the disloyal ones, important portions of which now compose Testimonies to Ministers.

“But,” someone will ask, “isn’t there more to the story? Didn’t Mrs. White send her tithe directly to certain ministers rather than through church channels?” It is true that for a time, in response to unfair practices, she sent some tithe directly to ministers who were being discriminated against. It is also clear that she felt uncomfortable doing this for fear that others would follow her example.

What did she counsel church members to do when they felt things were not right in the leadership of the church? “Make your complaint, plainly and openly, in the right spirit, to the proper ones. Send in your petitions for things to be adjusted and set in order; but do not withdraw from the work of God, and prove unfaithful, because others are not doing right. . . . If our churches will take their stand upon the Lord’s word and be faithful in paying their tithe into His treasury, more laborers will be encouraged to take up ministerial work” (Testimonies for the Church, 9:249).

Ellen G. White saw the Seventh-day Adventist movement as a fulfillment of the three angels, making its successful future absolutely assured. Individuals might and would defect. Institutions might and would be lost—as they have been in various countries. Administration and ministers might be lost—as turned out to be the case in China in the 1950s. But the message and the movement would go on as certainly as the fulfillment of prophecy.

Those who make light of the third angel’s message do so because they know little of Daniel or the Revelation,” she wrote for the Review of June 8, 1897, during her Australia years. “They have not read these prophecies with a determination to find out the meaning by prayer, by study, and by fasting. If they had had the experience of Daniel or of John, they would know that the third angel’s message will go forth unto perfect victory.” In dramatic affirmation of the Advent movement, she cried,

“All who will gather warmth from the coldness of others, courage from their defections, and loyalty from their treason, will triumph with the third angel’s message” (italics mine).