Cultish: Ellen G. White & The Millerites Pt. 2

Ellen G. White’s Role, Power, and Family Life

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts One of the co-hosts here. I know you all have been chomping at the bit having to wait an entire week.

We left it on a little bit of a cliffhanger. Andrew thank you for joining us from your brand new super secret headquarters just for a couple days. Appreciate joining back man. Oh.

Absolutely. I was just traveling around, you know that last episode had me floating through Orion's belt and the plating system and I'm back here now.

That's a little scary. Yeah, we're joined back from with a Colleen and Nikki. How are you all doing? Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having us back. Okay. Alright, so the cliffhanger and you're probably wondering to like what am I gonna talk about this picture?

It's interesting you brought up some things in part one about the relationship between Ellen and James and Given that James was the promoter For her and a lot of what was going on and there it was just very interesting.

So the picture when I look at it, it's. Well, it's very 1800s ask with how they look and even though she's very wearing a very traditional 1800s dress She seems to be the person wearing the pants in the picture.

Yeah, and that might be a little of a serrated edge, but that was in my immediate gut instinct when I saw that picture. What do you think that's an accurate assessment, why do you think I went there when I saw that.

Just curious.

My view of things as just reading her stuff over the years and Seeing how it progressed from the beginning when James had a very big doctrinal voice to the end After he died where she could destroy men with a single dream or a testimony from the Lord.

It appears to me that over the years she became quite Enamored with her own power with her own visionary power. And she did reprimand James and correct him and instruct him. But as I said, he was older than she and he died you know, I don't remember the exact year, but I believe it was in the 1860 like 1868 ish and.

And.

He had a stroke and apparently he had a stroke before the stroke that actually killed him right. So he became less Strong and she became stronger. She had to carry on and push through and she did and she Kept those power reins in her hand and as James weakened and died.

She had them firmly and the men in the in the in the organization didn't quite know what to do with her. Yeah, he controlled a lot of things. They had ideas of their own, but she managed them with her testimonies.

Mm-hmm. And.

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Enjoy the podcast. What about you Nikki?

Well, I when you mentioned the picture it makes me actually think about my daughter my 13 year old. We went to Michigan for a former Adventist Fellowship Conference and they have this little village there with all of these schoolhouses and homes that Prominent Adventist lived in their printing presses there and we walked through this tour and we went into Ellen White's home.

By far the nicest home of all of the homes there. And as we went up the stairs the tour guide said look to your right and you'll see James White's room. And We turn and we look and it is the size of a closet and Then we go around the corner and we enter this large room with windows all the way around a bed a rocker all of these Really nice things.

This was Ellen White's room and my daughter to this day says yeah, Ellen White kept her husband in the closet.

Because.

He had this tiny little space and it was just kind of pushed off away while she had all of this luxury.

Around her and her writing desk and it was where she would apparently meet her handsome young man. But I do have to say really quickly Richard is here our tech person on the side. Just making sure we're like, yeah, the right thing.

And he just looked it up and James White died in 1881. I was way off. Mmm, okay.

FYI, yeah, and sometimes when you're only a podcaster just found off the top of the thing and sometimes people go Matt microanalyze. That's just sometimes what's happened. So I appreciate you correcting that.

It's interesting because Again, when you look at a lot of similar religious movements During around the same time frame. Usually it's very patriarchal where you have the man the man who is leading someone who's very charismatic like Joseph Smith Brigham Young Charles Taze Russell and usually at the same time you'll also have Women who are viewed as almost secondary or they're used as a means to their end.

It seems like in this case, it's almost a reversal of those roles that that's kind of what fascinates me about that. What are your thoughts?

Well, I think at the beginning that kind of was the role she was the visionary the one that he needed in order to have the The imprimatur from God to make the declarations and get the following but as time went on I absolutely agree the power reversed and by the time he died.

I mean she didn't die till 1915 so she ran that organization With a lot of tumult, but with an iron hand and it started. It's I do believe that started to shift before he died.

Yeah, a Phil Johnson in his lecture. You can look this up on YouTube. You've listened to the lecture. He said something as I was prepping Just a couple hours ago is that if you can if you look at a lot of the photos of Ellen G White she is usually not looking directly into the camera.

She's kind of looking off. She kind of has. It's a little some of the pictures are a little creepy to be honest. Yeah, it does seem there seems to be an overall aesthetic like I I am in the know I have a special secret knowledge that no one else has and I think I would agree with Phil Johnson's assessment.

What do we know about her like as a person like well in just in day-to-day life? I know she had these times where she's having these grand visions and and Seeing these apocalyptic visions and kind of making up this there that we mentioned the syncretism.

Theologically, which makes the whole language very very complex and nuanced which we're going to decipher. What do we know about just her? But what she was like day in and day out like what a typical day look like for Ellen.

Well, you know, I couldn't say day-to-day, but I do know that in general. She was portrayed as very sickly. She was sick a lot. She she when she was a child third grade, I believe. She was hit in the head with a rock from a fellow schoolmate our friend Cheryl Granger who Sometimes writes for a proclamation has always said I would love to know what she did.

To incite that much anger out of a fellow schoolmate to hit her in the head with the rock. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question to be honest, but it hit her. Hit her in the nose apparently broke her nose and she was unconscious for three weeks.

So She probably had head damage brain damage of some sort and she was very upset when she came to because she didn't look like herself anymore and. So she was sickly and the the myth the internal myth is that she had to drop out of school.

She never went past the third grade and really couldn't read or write. The fact is that apparently she could read and write quite well even though she might have been sickly and might have had trouble concentrating because.

Remember when we went to Andrews University Nikki and in the study library and the James Wyatt Library. They have it's a in their special study library that you can only go into with permission. They have a large a large wall.

Covered with glass and wood bookcases that are under lock and key and they are her private collection of books. Hundreds of books on every subject imaginable including the occult. So she was clearly reading yeah, but the myth inside is that she was sickly so she did have apparently fits and faintings and.

And Nikki talk about her relationship with her children. Oh.

So.

She actually said that even the letters that she writes are inspired by God everything She writes. And as I was kind of looking at Adventism and trying to figure out is this is this right? Is it wrong?

I found these letters. She wrote to her son and she told her son God does not love naughty children.

And.

As I read that and I I worked my way through some of these other letters. I forget what she she had a Dream she wrote to him about of him in hell suffering, which is interesting because they don't believe in hell, right?

But she was very Manipulative very I I don't know. I always think that if we could we would find a diagnosis for this woman.

I think so to borderline.

Narcissistic, I'm not sure but she was. She was highly controlling and manipulative and used her visions to control Not only these people who were establishing doctrines, but children neighbors anyone of influence so I Think she was a very nosy woman.

She has books that she wrote Fleshing out people's secret sins that she sees in vision and calling them out on it and destroying them publishing them print. She was a very mean woman.

Also those children those letters to her children Were necessary because she traveled so much and I find this to be interesting too, especially since she wrote child guidance Education and all these books on councils for teachers but she herself would be gone weeks to even months at a time when her children were very young and She would leave them in the care of people.

She knew not necessarily relatives I don't even know who really but they would be in her care and then she'd hear reports about them and then she'd write them these manipulative letters when she'd hear that they would be Disobedient.

Mm-hmm. And.

Then you have this whole other aspect that's always so uncomfortable to talk about and I guess I'd want to give a warning here in Case anyone's listening with their kids. Sure she would give strong advice to parents about what to do with their children and She would suggest that they tie their hands to their beds and tie them up to prevent them from masturbating because that will cause mental illness.

Blindness a.

Variety of things. She had a lot of guidance on the sexual relationship in a marriage.

Women were not to undress in front of their husbands because it would excite animal passions.

Which and and she believed in the vital force so you're only allowed so much energy in your lifetime and you have to spend it carefully and things like Marital sex will deplete your vital force and you won't have as much energy to serve God.

So so in her masturbation for children would do that too so in her in her day-to-day.

She was very preoccupied with controlling and.

And I.

Wouldn't want to know her in her day-to-day either and she was also deceptive you know the the health message and all of the advice that she left a strong legacy of non-meat-eating and no. Nothing like tea and coffee or stimulants, you know and yet.

Good people with you know, who knew her well and traveled with her have written about later in her life How she would be on a trip and she would ask for oysters. Or they find her eating her oysters behind a screen where nobody could see her.

She would write about having you know, butchered a pig when she had already said pigs shouldn't be eaten. So there was this duplicity about her and I think also there was a lot of Obsessive guilt and shame attached to that because she would write about Agonizing over her problems.

I mean she wrote about her addiction to get this vinegar and I want to say wait a minute. It had to be wine. Yeah, you know vinegar is the next step after wine. Yeah, but you would talk about trying to give it up and having hallucinations if she gave it up now.

I don't believe she's addicted to vinegar. That sounds like alcohol, yeah.

Yeah, just real quick. I have a question just that'll compliment what you're talking about right now and Andrew I'll let you jump in with questions you have in just a moment as soon as you're talking about you know those graphic depictions as far as the rigid restrictions on sexual behavior both with Children and also with chrome nuts between wives and husbands.

My brain immediately went to David Koresh. Oh, yes. He He's directly he was directly influenced and again, this is not about David Koresh. But I think we can just bring it up for a moment. The reason why I immediately thought of him if anyone knows this whole story of Waco is that in Mount Carmel?

Even prior to the standoff in Waco David Koresh had implemented very rigid restrictions at the time of the raid if I'm not mistaken is That he had a policy that he was the only person in the compound who was allowed to have sex.

No one even husbands and wives couldn't and he would use that what just off really quickly. Like what do you know about Koresh and sort of the influences that white would have had on him? Because I know he did come from a branch of Seventh-day Advent and but it was a spin-off just real quickly before he'd go back to LNG white.

You know, I don't know a lot about him personally. He was a branch Davidian. Yes, and he He actually I I I know Personally a couple who had been the pastor and the pastor's wife of an Adventist Church in Hawaii.

That David Koresh was a member of and that was before he became David Koresh. He was actually Vernon Howell or whatever his name was. How was his name, correct? And when he was Vernon Howell, he was he wasn't completely.

Okay mentally apparently. He was a little unstable in his personality. But he was very much devoted to Ellen White and her eschatological visions and Predictions and they had actually asked him this couple that I knew To leave that church because he was so disruptive and it was after that that he formed his you know his con his community up at Mount Carmel and Actually, I had a student in Idaho in the in the late 70s or early 80s who I learned later died in that fire at Waco, so Yeah, he was he was an Adventist Adventist want to distance themselves from that.

He was a branch Davidian but branch Davidians will tell you they are definitely related to Adventism and they and they honor Ellen. They follow Ellen White so he was related to that and he didn't practice his whole thing with he was the only one who could Have sex with the women in the convent.

That is not in the in the community. That was not an Adventist teaching. That was his own perversion of everything but he was related to Adventism and I did follow Ellen White and I Believe this is actually true.

I've heard it from several places that there was a an Adventist PR director who helped the government Understand how to get rid of him at Waco. Well, they knew how he thought.

Fascinating fascinating. Yeah, so just I appreciate you sharing that. I just thought of that immediately. I just jumping back to Ellen G White. Andrew What thoughts and questions do you have right now?

What's on your mind?

Yeah, so I was wondering as the Seventh day Adventism. I believe it started in March of 1863. Let's say even like yeah a little officially exactly like even a little bit before then and after it's official.

What was her role. You said she traveled right. Did she travel as this like Apostle or something like. Was she the end-all be-all of these general conferences when they'd have doctrinal disagreements.

Like what. What did she do exactly?

It was her visions. And yes in the beginning She was James's traveling companion and prior to the organization of the of the denom of the I don't want to call it a denomination prior to its organization.

She.

Provided the Inspiration that gave James credibility during the Millerite movement and just after the Millerite movement, so he would use her visions as a way of controlling the people that he was trying to coalesce into an organization because He could control he if he could control a church and have access to their tithe, which was a mandate.

You know, he could make money if he could if he could publish her visions, which he did he could make money. It was a money-making thing. In fact, I'm Dudley Kenwright who had who was a Contemporary of the whites and actually worked with them and lived in their home as a young man.

He actually ultimately left Seventh-day Adventism, but he writes about them and he says that when she died in 1915 the year she died she she earned a hundred thousand dollars in royalties from her books now that was 1915.

So she was she was the prophet and as the prophet or the messenger. She had the authority from God so she gave authority to the Adventist doctrines and after the denomination or after the organization formulated itself officially.

She continued to have those Testimonies and visions and guided them. So she was the source of God's will for them when you um.

When you I appreciate that when you look at a different cult for example Joseph Smith Mormonism early 1800s Mormonism both with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. There was always chaos. Specifically a Joseph Smith wherever he went there is always batting back and forth of the state Joseph Smith.

His death ended in a very violent way towards people radically opposed to him. With Ellen G. White, I mean her controversies seem to be more Internally within people following her maybe having doubts being jaded by these end times visions that didn't come to fruition.

What was she. Was there any sort of? Controversy. Great controversies outside of her Apocalyptic visions just with Society with the state anything similar to early Mormon history. Would she kind of a person to kind of go along to get along?

What was that like?

It's a good question actually. Unlike Joseph Smith. She didn't have political controversy with the state that I am aware of. What she did have was a lot of internal controversy and.

She.

She had within Adventism. There was controversy between her and for example, John Harvey Kellogg Who began as an Adventist began working for the whites and they considered him like a protege a brilliant young doctor.

Who eventually built a Battle Creek sanitarium and the health reconditioning center that he made famous and He ultimately was pushed out of Adventism because of theological disagreements with Ellen white.

Which actually people who have studied that believe there was probably Theology was the cover story. For the fact that he was a financial Threat to her she wanted control of that Battle Creek sanitarium and he said no I've founded this.

So they parted ways, you know based on Theological things over the Trinity. How ironic that these people who didn't believe in the classic Christian Trinity were arguing over the Trinity. But there were other men to in fact on in our proclamation emails.

We've just been sending out the chapters of the book cast out for the cross of Christ by Albion Ballinger. Now he wrote and lived his father was a founding Adventist and he grew up in Adventism and knew Ellen white as a young man when she was an old woman, but he grew up and she Had a vision finally that he had to leave Adventism or else go to England and get out of the way of the general conference.

Because he didn't believe in her visions and so she would destroy people. Through her visions through her testimonies if they didn't agree with her or if they threatened her or if they threatened her financially.

She her grip was very tight and there was a lot of internal conflict, but it wasn't with the state. Mm-hmm.

It's interesting that it really wasn't with her but but the overall feeling of Seventh-day Adventist throughout I think the entire history of the organization is to fear the government. Right. Because the government is.

What's going to come ultimately in the last days during Jacob's time of trouble? It's really that the church and the government are gonna turn on Seventh-day Adventists.

Yeah.

And we are going to have to flee and run to the hills and they are going to be given Legal permission to come and kill us because we keep the Sabbath, right? And so we're raised with this and we believe this is true.

And so you do everything you can to keep peace and make nice with the government and this is why they're very committed to. They've got a lot of representation in DC to maintain the separation of church and state.

Because they really don't want to see these laws pass that they're promoting these Sunday laws. That are gonna get people killed and remember they they're always throughout their history thinking that Jesus is gonna come in my lifetime.

So every Adventist that ever lived is waiting for the laws to turn against them.

You can imagine this the talk of Sunday laws that has burgeoned in the last two years.

So so what what was like a the kovat in 2020 like within the SDA world? Like all of a sudden there's churches where some some are closing down and stuff like that. What was going on?

Hard to speak from the inside name is isn't that great but I can tell you this during 2020 we started our former Adventist podcast in October of 2019. When kovat hit in March of 2020 the lockdowns we started getting Emails from people who said I haven't been going to church and I finally had time to look around and ask some questions.

We've had so many people who found our podcast and have been writing to us and have Actually left Adventism because they've started to study their own questions.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know about the church about it. I don't either we. It's nice to know what the Lord's doing in the sad Isn't it? But I will say that in Adventism anything that happens whether it's a tsunami a hurricane a political upset anything is The last great event before Something's gonna happen.

I remember in on September 11 when the towers fell. There was a lot of talk because in Ellen White's books is it testimonies to the church? I think he has volume 9 page 11. All right. Yeah, she tells a vision of two buildings falling to the ground and so everybody thought to see everybody thought this is it.

This is it Sunday laws coming. And the Sunday law, you know, that means Mark of the Beast. If you go to church on Sunday, that means you get the mark of the beast.

That is the sign of the mark of the beast and that is that LMG White's teachings or is that something that's an involvement?

That's a part of the great controversy. World view.

Sabbath keeping seventh-day Sabbath is the seal of God. Going to church on Sunday is the mark of the beast. Yeah come out of her my people leave Babylon. That means come out of all of apostate Protestantism which has taken on the Catholic mark of the beast and you get back to the true church.

Nikki how long were you in the seventh-day Adventist Church for again?

30 years. 30 years. I was. I was born into it on my mom's side. Fifth generation. Okay, they went all the way back to Ellen in Maine. Okay.

I'm assuming we're roughly the same eight. We're roughly probably around the same age. What what were like major events that you live through as a seventh-day Adventist. World events? You mentioned 9-eleven you think of like why 2k when everyone thought that all the air all your thing was gonna shut off.

There you know on the verge of the year 2000. There's all these like millennial cults and just a lot of uncertainty with a year 2000 like where are some events that you live through as a seventh-day Adventist like people world events of people know.

You know, I lived on the East Coast during Hurricane Hugo. I don't know if you remember that and I remember thinking this was it. It was in Florida, but I was in New England and it spun off tornadoes.

And so we had a tornado come through our town and then that happens really quickly. I don't know if you've been in a tornado, but you can have blue skies and all of the sudden you you know. You've got this storm swirling around you and I thought here we go.

I live in Arizona.

It's the only thing we've had are the dust storms. Okay, we had to pull to the side of the freeway for a little bit and then I've only seen the movie Twister. That's as much as I know about tornadoes.

Yeah, it's the only one I ever went through. Because I think I've spent most of my life in California. I bounced back and forth. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to think of a lot of of the political things that went on.

You know, we had the the war in Iraq and just about anything though. Could set it off and get people wondering, you know, you hear about laws that are gonna be passed. That Sunday law has been floating around DC forever.

And I don't know if it really has been but even anything that the Pope does. Or if an important person goes to visit the Pope. Just about anything can set that off. Yeah.

Well, just because the reason why yeah. Cuz just the reason why I asked is that if you look at like the awake magazine from the Watchtower Bible and track society. They'll usually will be articulating a current event or they'll have these this imagery of like stuff Meteorites falling from the sky and buildings falling down and people running away looking horrified and they'll view current event.

Yeah, they'll view current events in that light. I think would be good. Maybe the both you can tag-team together because again you're this whole movement organization took from today. To its origins has always been these syncretistic apocalyptic visions that also affect Soteriology Christology all those things.

I'm just wondering maybe you could take us inside the mind of somebody who is a seventh-day Adventist. How do they view current events through the lens of the end times when event like September 11th happens or even like 2020 with all the uncertainty, you know.

How do they view that. And how does that affect their worldview. And you probably there's probably still ways in which he's probably still think.

That way today. I'm not sure. I I do and maybe I'm maybe I'm there could be.

I don't know. Maybe there's some who maybe there's some who do you know, some some. Yeah, what I mean is some ex-cult members will have sort of this. You might be like a PTSD. We're like immediately like it's something triggers them and there may have been people that you minister to.

Where all of a sudden something happens and they see an event or they see something to do with that. Maybe this is end times and immediately go back into how you're growing up and indoctrinated.

You know related to that. We are like Nikki said we're all taught that Christians are going to come and hunt and kill us as Adventists in the time of trouble. Because we refused to honor Sunday so we're going to be running to the hills and hiding in caves and trying to escape and.

That the Sunday law will come in two phases first It will be national here in the United States and then international and it will be legal for people to take their guns and hunt and kill. When we left Adventism in 1998.

9 Richards parents well back up. They were very conservative historic Adventists who remained that way until they died. But very right. I mean they were not like I refused to look I don't want to know they would argue with him.

They they knew why they believed what they believed. His mother. Especially chapter and verse for everything she believed. And when we left she said to him one night in dead seriousness Are you gonna kill me now?

Because Ellen said those who leave will be the worst Persecutors those who once kept the Sabbath and don't no longer do will be the worst persecutors. Will you kill me now?

So.

That's common. In fact.

That camp. I don't. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about. So they they prepare People from a very young age for this Sunday law that's going to come. They have something called pathfinders I don't know if you've heard of it.

It's kind of like a Girl Scout Boy Scout kind of thing.

Yeah, and we had by the way, and they teach these kids.

What they can eat in the woods. They take them out there and they teach them what edible plants are and how to survive when it's time to run. Well, there's a camp called camp a salvo. I'll saw but I can never say it correctly and either but it's in Michigan Michigan.

Yeah, and a few years back They had a Sabbath afternoon activity. Where the kids broke off into different groups and the adults and the camp counselors were play actors. They were soldiers. They had guns and the kids had to run through the woods and try to stay away from these soldiers and if they got captured they had to determine if they were going to die for the Sabbath or not.

And there was a photographer there named Alan Ho I think and He photographed this and there are images of children on Their knees in the field with their hands over their head and adults pointing guns at them at their heads.

And and so this kind of thing goes on all over the place. There are people who when these pictures came out in a lot of our former Adventist forums and on Facebook chat groups would talk about. Oh when I was a kid, they had Soldiers storm our church on a Sabbath morning and we didn't know it was fake and we were terrified.

And so there's a lot of traumatizing that goes on. There was required reading for your generation you want to tell them about my book.

Published by actually a 17 year old girl named Mary Kay silver who it was an assignment for her Bible class and she wrote a story fictional story of fleeing during the time of trouble and Being accosted with people with guns and the parents didn't go with her.

And I mean it was a terrifying book. We all and My husband Richard says that in his Bible class they were given an assignment to write a similar thing using Mary Kay as a model.

Wow, is this this kind? Oh.

So this interpretation of thinking that Christians are going to go after them because their view of the Sabbath. Because you're saying fleet of the mountains in the all of a discourse I mean Christian people depending on your view of eschatology.

You'll have different variations of the timing and what Jesus meant by that. But specifically the passage when Jesus says when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies flee to the mountains. Is that the passage that they kind of pull from to derive that sort of eschatological interpretation?

That's how I was taught that and and it was also a support for the Sabbath because Jesus says pray that it's not in the Winter or on the Sabbath. Yes.

So yeah.

And when I left Adventism and started reading the Bible and believing the words it became clear that I would have to flee to the mountains of Judea. Right. It didn't work for everybody everywhere in all time.

No, and and that I also understood that passage to mean when that Sunday laws passed. That's when you flee.

Hmm. Okay, you had asked how different events Can trigger this. It's anything that goes on. Has everybody wanting to be five steps ahead of the Sunday law? Yeah, so they may not actually be talking about a Sunday law.

But when the towers fell or I had a sibling when bird flu came. She was getting ready to sell her tent trailer and decided bird flu is here. So we have plagues. I'm gonna keep that in case we have to run to the hills.

It informs everything about that traumatizing early on.

The Great Controversy Worldview and End-Times Fear

Okay, and what questions do you have. Yeah, so is there a need by people that are as Seventh-day Adventist to want to be included in the mainstream Christian Church because it sounds to me like There they wouldn't want to right.

So it's the mainstream Christian Church that is gonna kill them hunt them down with the government. Why is there this weird blurring of distinctions that is going on? Why is there this weird? Christian language that is being used to make them seem like they are Christian, you know, like why is that such a good question?