Seventh-day Adventist belief breakdown: belief 18 of 28

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has 28 fundamental beliefs. I debunk claims, list underlying beliefs, and snark. Belief 18 is "The Gift of Prophecy" aka the belief about SDA prophetess Ellen White.

Nov 22, 2024

Photo accompanying this post is from the Wikipedia article about Ellen White (White). Under “Details”: “English: Portrait of Ellen G. White (1827-1915), American author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Battle Creek, Michigan, 1864.”

Historical fashion aside: I know a little about historical clothing. White’s dress in the photograph is fashionably accurate for 1864 when photo was taken.

She's wearing a solid color gown with added contrasting lace collar and cloth cuffs. (Victorians loved interchangeable clothing; collars, cuffs, bodices, and sleeves were swapped out so one could wear the same skirt and yet have a variety of outfits.)

Her buttons are shiny—they would have flashed in the light as she moved. She wears a two-tone ribbon brooch at her neck. It’s darker than her dress so it’s either a matching shade or another color altogether. It looks like there's a a bit of velvet edging on her bodice’s dropped shoulders.

In 1864, wet plate photography was the latest photo tech. It’s sensitive to blue light only. Because science of light, this means:

“Warm colors, those favoring red, such as orange, green and some yellows, may appear as black in the finished image.

“Cool colors, those favoring blue, such as sky blue, violet and lavender, appear white [in the photo].”

Source: https://www.militaryimagesmagazine-digital.com/2020/12/03/color-wet-plate-photography-winter-2021/

Therefore, White’s somber dark gown and brooch may have been a cheery solid tone of “orange, green, and (or) some yellows” in real life.

Her white cuffs and collar may have been white or a shade of “sky blue, violet and lavender” in real life.

So there you have it; science shows somberly-clad White may have been wearing something colorful in that photo.

Intro info: All beliefs are from the official Seventh-day Adventist Church website, Adventist.org. https://www.adventist.org/beliefs/

Per their website, Adventists reserve the right to change or update beliefs.

Therefore, this page is archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20240127045827/https://www.adventist.org/beliefs/

Terminology: Seventh-day Adventists refer to themselves as “SDA” or “Adventist” for short. My writings do too.

Links to all prior snarked beliefs are available at the bottom of this post.

Debunking belief 6: SDA belief 6 is Young Earth Creationism. Further SDA beliefs are built on that pseudoscience claim. An exhaustive source to debunk it is here: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/

The Adventist prophetess plagiarized: Adventist prophetess Ellen White plagiarized her books and visions. Adventists claim White didn't plagiarize because reasons. Test The Prophet debunks each of those reasons, and shows first edition Victorian Era books White plagiarized from: https://www.youtube.com/@TesttheProphet

A webpage documenting White’s plagiarism is here: https://nonsda.org/egw/plagiarism.html

On debunking: Religious beliefs are not debunkable for believers. Fundamentalist Christians, such as Adventists, use Bible verses to claim belief [“faith”] is “evidence” on par with objective, measurable things like gravity.

This tactic derails debates by shifting burden of proof. The believer no longer has to prove their religion; instead the nonbeliever has to prove strong belief (faith) “evidence” is not the same as observable evidence.

In the midst of this, the believer feels their holy book, their god, and their faith is “attacked”.

So I do not argue Bible verses about faith being evidence. I debunk concrete SDA claims, offer historical context of SDA claims, and provide resources with different verse interpretations. And I snark.

Shout out to fellow exSDA Jonny: Do you want to hear hymns played directly from the Adventist hymnal? It sounds exactly like the church organ music I loved growing up. His Pingu, Bluey, and Lord of the Rings organ covers, are great, too. https://youtube.com/@JonnyMusicOrganist

On to snark of belief 18!

18. The Gift of Prophecy

Preliminary underlying beliefs:

I blogged the full SDA beliefs from when god created angels until the beginning of the Bible here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/seventh-day-adventist-beliefs-the

SDA unabridged End Times mythology from October 22, 1844, until eternity is here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/seventh-day-adventist-unabridged

Underlying beliefs summarized: Adventists believe the 66-book Protestant version of Bible is literally historically true and accurate, that the Bible god created the world in six days 6,000 to 10,000 years ago (Young Earth Creationism), and all evidence to the contrary is from Satan. The Bible god is all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful, and immortal.

Adventists believe disobeying god’s laws as written in the Bible is “sin”, and sin brings all bad things and death into the world.

Adventists believe god created angels which are supernatural immortal creatures who do both good and evil [ex: the Angel of Death killing all domesticated animals’s firstborn and all Egyptian firstborn who weren't in a blood spattered threshold house] on god’s behalf. Angels and god live in a utopian city called heaven located in (or near) the Constellation Orion’s Belt, per Adventist prophetess Ellen White.

“…we could look up through the open space in Orion, whence came the voice of God. The Holy City [heaven] will come down through that open space.” Source: https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/28.326

Before humans were created, one of god’s angels, now named Satan, rebelled against god. And 1/3 of the angels chose to side with him. There was war in heaven. God won and kicked the rebel angels out of heaven. The rebel angels are now called demons.

Soon god will bring heaven to planet earth, resurrect all humans, take the true believing humans to live forever with him in heaven, and burn to death all the unbelieving humans. This is called the Second Coming.

Adventists believe god created the first humans immortal in a perfect earth with no suffering nor death. The first humans disobeyed god. That is why there's sin and death on earth. All-powerful, all-loving god decided all animals, plants, microbes, and future humans deserved suffering and death because two humans disobeyed him. God chose no other options.

Satan and his demons now fight an invisible war on earth with god over humans’s fate. Satan wants humans to be burned to death in the Second Coming. God wants humans to live forever with him in heaven.

Adventists believe in the Trinity, that Jesus is god and lived a sinless life on earth, was crucified for the world’s sins, was resurrected and now is in heaven.

To become immortal after Jesus’s return, people must psychically tell Jesus they accept Jesus his sacrifice for sin, a process called being “born again” or “being saved”.

Then humans must follow their consciences best as they can, avoid sin, and confess all future sins to god as they occur to maintain salvation.

Right now on earth Satan and demons, tempt people away from god. Adventists teach that doubting Adventism, yoga, and the theory of evolution are Satanic. Private wrong thoughts are sins, too. Participating in these things and not confessing wrong thoughts to god can cause one to lose their salvation.

Last but not least, Adventists teach one can make god return to earth sooner by telling everyone about Seventh-day Adventism. To do this, Adventists are supposed to give 10% of all income to the SDA Church, witness as much as possible, volunteer for the church, only marry an SDA, raised all children within the church, give out lots of SDA books, and give more money to the church in offerings. It also means dying Adventists are often harassed to sign their estates over to the SDA Church.

This money-grabbing control method works. The Seventh-day Adventist Church is the 7th wealthiest religion in the world with $15.6 billion in 1998. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_religious_organizations

Text of belief 18:

The Scriptures testify that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prophecy.

Bible verses say the 1/3 of god called the Holy Spirit is currently here on planet earth. Adventists say the Holy Spirit functions as all humans’s consciences.

Bible verses also say that saved people are given gifts by the Holy Spirit.

Wikipedia summarizes the gifts of the Holy Spirit:

“These abilities, often termed "charismatic gifts", are the word of knowledge, increased faith, the gifts of healing, the gift of miracles, prophecy, the discernment of spirits, and speaking in tongues. To these are added the gifts of apostles, prophets, teachers, helps (connected to service of the poor and sick), and governments (or leadership ability) which are connected with certain offices in the Church. These gifts are given by the Holy Spirit to individuals, but their purpose is to build up the entire Church.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_gift

Of note here: The gift of prophecy is one of twelve total gifts of the Holy Spirit. It’s not ranked as better than, it’s simply one of 12.

This gift is an identifying mark of the remnant church

There’s a LOT of underlying beliefs there:

There is a Last True Church called the “remnant”. “Remnant” is a Bible verse term Adventists use to refer to themselves.

Underlying unspoken misinformation: Adventists claim the SDA Church is like the very earliest Christian Church. “A ‘remnant’ is the first cloth on a bolt of fabric and the last left! So we Adventists, the remnant, are like the first church!” —actual thing I was frequently taught in Adventism.

This is a control method. Adventists teach the earliest Christian Church members were united, harmonious, supportive, loving (except for the fallouts between leaders and theological fights as documented in the Bible).

Per Ellen White,

“Money, time, influence—all the gifts they [true believing Adventists] have received from God's hand, they will value only as a means of advancing the work of the gospel. Thus it was in the early church;” https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/127.281?ss=eyJwYXJhbXMiOnsicXVlcnkiOiJBYSA3MS4xIiwibGFuZyI6ImVuIn0sInNnX2luZGV4IjoiMCJ9#287

Right there is the control method. It’s the same every time: “Early Church was [insert fabulous thing here, citation needed and seldom supplied] so SDAs should too!”

Actual fact: The early Christian churches fought about everything. Adventists aren't taught this. Those curious about early Christian church theology fights can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_early_Christian_theology

This is an Evangelical Christian control method, too. One can read more about it here: https://rolltodisbelieve.com/why-evangelicals-lean-so-hard-on-original-christianity/

The remnant church has an “identifying mark”. It will have a Real Prophet. Just one prophet.

Adventists don’t say why god is so stingy on handing out the gift of prophecy to its members. Only one SDA member, Ellen White, is the Real Prophet. Others have popped up claiming to be SDA prophets. The SDA Church disavows them all. Wikipedia lists a lot of the disavowed Untrue SDA Prophets here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_in_the_Seventh-day_Adventist_Church

ALL the other churches with prophets are either Satanic or misled. Because prophets are common in Christianity, Adventists have to have Reasons why their prophet is the Only True Prophet. They claim White’s writings were extraordinary, factual, with health rules that were ahead of known Victorian Era science, and she wrote prophecies which were fulfilled. They emphasize she had a brain injury, a third grade education, lifelong illness, and wrote beautifully. This is miraculous, SDAs say.

Adventists omit that White’s writings were heavily edited. Here's a White Estate—the official Ellen White organization to publish her writings—source on her editors for 5 books. 4 editors. https://ellenwhite.org/questions-and-answers/13

Here's another source, SDA university Andrews. By 1881, on page 2, there's over ten different editors listed. https://www.andrews.edu/~jmoon/Documents/GSEM_534/Class_outline/03a.pdf

and we believe it was manifested in the ministry of Ellen G. White.

Translation:

“We believe” = we say so

“it was manifested” = god gave us Adventists our own True Prophet

“in the ministry” = in the American tax-free religious business

“of Ellen G. White” = of the SDA prophetess Ellen White

Her writings speak with prophetic authority

This claim, debunked:

Failed Ellen White prophecies about Jesus’s return: https://nonsda.org/egw/criticd.shtml
Official White Estate defense on one of Ellen White’s failed prophecies boils down to “Adventists can make Jesus return sooner by Adventisting very hard. We didn’t Adventist hard enough, so Ellen White is still a prophetess”. They call this excuse “conditional prophecy”. https://text.egwwritings.org/read/660.2699
Another source with other failed prophecies of Ellen White: https://answeringadventism.com/were-ellen-whites-failed-prophecies-all-conditional/
The fact Ellen White plagiarized her “visions” from other published books. For one example, go to this video at time mark 18:30.

and provide comfort

Translation is “well, actually”: There's some comfort in the ~100,000 pages Ellen White wrote and plagiarized. This is to be expected from someone founding a church. (Source on that number is from the official White Estate, an organization White herself created to translate and publish her writings.) https://whiteestate.org/about/issues1/about-egw/writings/literary-productions/how-many-books/

There's a lot of terror in White’s teachings. My first nightmare as a child age 6 or 7 was a recurrent, full-color nightmare of my family being murdered by Catholics in front of me during the Time of Trouble. I wrote it here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/my-second-dream

White’s End Times writings are terrifying. Per SDA theology, there will be a Time of Trouble when all SDAs worldwide will be imprisoned, tortured, and/or have to flee to the wilderness to escape all that. Everyone worldwide will blame SDAs for all that is wrong with the world and will rejoice in torturing Adventists, say Adventists.

Here's three screenshots (of about ten screens total) of a reference summary on Ellen White’s teachings about the Time of Trouble: https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/11161.2286941#286947

In this screenshot about the Time of Trouble, White writes unprepared SDAs will suffer “agony”. Angels “cannot” deliver SDAs. Angels “cannot protect” anyone who sins.

Sure, she writes angels can “protect”, but SDAs still must suffer because unspecified reasons. That's terrifying.

Here White writes SDAs will have “anguish of souls” if there's any forgotten unconfessed sin. This is because, per White’s writings, every single sin must be individually remembered and confessed prior to the Time of Trouble. White writes that Jesus will stop forgiving sins, so once the Time of Trouble starts, nobody can become saved. This is right here in that part saying “Christ’s mediatorial work [his ability to forgive sins] ceases [so if you sin, you can't be forgiven]”.

This doctrine, combined with “thoughts are sins too!” causes religious scrupulosity, guilt, and anxiety in true believing SDAs.

It’s a control tactic. Anxious, guilty, religiously scrupulous people are more easily controlled to donate money, routinely tithe 10% of all income, volunteer for the church, and even sign over their estate on their deathbed.

White writes about “deepest distress and anguish”, “character tested”, “believers unable to stand”. That's terror-inducing.

Here there's “evil angels will exercise destructive powers”, the need of “faith that can endure weariness, delay, and hunger”, “fearful ordeal” and “fate of unprepared souls”.

Per White, SDAs in the Time of Triuble will be hungry and tired and fighting demons. And scared they aren't and can't be saved. That's terror-inducing.

Just to terrorize every Adventist even more, there's this:

This is quoted in SDA circles as “Ellen White says the Time of Trouble will be worse than what you can imagine”. Good enough summation.

I was told this by my Sabbath School teachers, my Pathfinder leaders, and Young Disciple Camp leaders.

Story time aside: My parents loved history and wanted us kids to know what actually happened in the world. To that end, they supplied factual history books, first-hand accounts of historical events (up to WW2 Era), and multiple floor-to-ceiling bookshelf walls crammed with books—SDA books, encyclopedias, National Geographic’s, all kinds.

I was raised on Anne Frank’s journal, other first-hand accounts of the Holocaust, a first-hand account of an escape from Russian gulags, a first-hand account of the Armenian Genocide (by SDA Serpouhi Tavoukdjian, I recommend), books by and that movie about Christian Holocaust survivor Corrie Ten Boom.

As a very imaginative child and teen, I tried to imagine and prepare for things worse than those genocides. Because Ellen White said the Time of Trouble will be worse than anything imaginable. Of course I had nightmares. My story is common amongst SDA children and teens.

>guidance, instruction, and correction to the church.

Translation:

First off, that's a Bible verse phrase.“Guidance, instruction, and correction” is from 2 Timothy 3:16, a Bible verse about how Scriptures are used. It’s often quoted in SDA sermons, Revelation seminars, children’s stories, etc. Adventists had me memorize it when I was under age 10, to a little ditty that runs rent-free in my mind.

Reading that Bible verse phrase written into this belief indoctrinates Adventists that Ellen White’s writings are to be used like the Bible.

Second, Ellen White wrote about practically every topic available. Wikipedia lists “theology, music, End Times, health, education, church leadership”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachings_of_Ellen_G._White

Just off hand I can add to that list masturbation, silencing an SDA pastor pedophile, mythical effects of being CSA’d, how eating spicy foods makes one horny, how eating graham flour helps cure one of masturbation, modest dress, the importance of keeping children in the home with their mom, how every home should have her writings in it, and how her writings are the Holy Spirit working through her “weak husk” of a body to tell all the world The Truth.

White specialized in slippery slope arguments and Victorian Era health myths.

Here's one combo slippery-slope argument and Victorian health myth. In her book An Appeal to Mothers, White wrote:

The slippery slope part: “Secret vice masturbation] is the destroyer of high resolve, earnest endeavor, and strength of will to form a good religious character.” https://text.egwwritings.org/read/122.607

Do you masturbate? You aren’t capable of forming a “good religious character”.

The Victorian Era health myth part: “The result of self-abuse [masturbation] in them [women] is seen in various diseases, such as catarrh, dropsy, headache, loss of memory and sight, great weakness in the back and loins, affections of the spine, and frequently, inward decay of the head.” https://text.egwwritings.org/read/122.607

These are mainly nonspecific symptoms that happen to most people as they age. Everyone’s sight is affected as they age.

White, though, claims these symptoms as happening only to masturbating women. So let's go with that. Except for “dropsy” and “inward decay of the head”, all of these symptoms occur in perimenopause and menopause.

Women experience perimenopause (lasts up to 8 years or so) and menopause (lasts up to ten years or so). During this time women lose estrogen which affects everything in their body. Peri- and menopausal women can suffer memory loss, headaches, kyphosis, bone loss, back pain (aka “affectations of the spine”), muscle loss including muscle loss of “back and loins”, nerve pain, and a whole hellish handbook of other symptoms.

Some women experience menopause with few issues. White would assume those were non-masturbating women.

Curious humans can go read the subreddit r/menopause. The women there also know best how to mitigate all that shit.

Neither menopause nor perimenopause cause “inward decay of the head”. I have no damn clue what normal woman’s issue that could refer to.

“Catarrh” is inflamed sinuses. Are you a woman with occasional sinus allergies? It’s because you masturbate, says Ellen White.

“Dropsy” is edema, or retained fluids in the extremities. Wikipedia has a lot of listed causes. “Is female and masturbates” is not one.

So the SDA prophetess wrote factually wrong things about the health effects of masturbation. An all-knowing god could have told her better, but he didn't.

They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested.

Translation: This final sentence is a sop to liberal SDAs who frown on White’s extremist writings. It is also for mainstream Bible-believing Protestants considering converting to Adventism and rightfully wary of White’s influence in the SDA Church.

With this sentence, Adventists pretend to have 100% tested all of Ellen White’s writings against all of the Bible’s teachings.

They pretend to hold the Bible as the highest textual authority while holding Ellen White to a nebulous, never-exactly-specified lower level.

Ellen White has written failed prophecies, damaging advice, completely untrue health claims, and egregiously horrible things like telling a pedophile to not confess to police. I wrote about that here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/the-seventh-day-adventist-church-811

(Num. 12:6; 2 Chron. 20:20; Amos 3:7; Joel 2:28, 29; Acts 2:14-21; 2 Tim. 3:16, 17; Heb. 1:1-3; Rev. 12:17; 19:10; 22:8, 9.)

This is virtue-signaling for Bible-believing people studying SDA doctrine who want to know Adventists follow the Bible. A bunch of Bible verses in parenthesis is how Christians virtue-signal to other Christians that they’re hardcore Bible-ing. Rarely are the verses looked up.

My snark and debunking of SDA Belief 18 ends here. Committed readers who want to read all those parenthesis Bible verse proofs can keep on scrolling down.

Because “Ellen White is a prophetess AND is proof that Adventism is god’s Last True Church” is a huge claim, I will copy and paste all of those parenthesis verses. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'll use NIV version, which SDAs use often, unless otherwise specified. Readers can decide for themselves if these verses fully justify SDA Belief 18.

Numbers 12:6 “he said, “Listen to my words: When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams.”

2 Chronicles 20:20 “Early in the morning they left for the Desert of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful.””

Amos 3:7 “Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.”

Joel 2:28, 29 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”

Acts 2:14-21 “Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. ¹⁵These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! ¹⁶No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

¹⁷“‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
¹⁸Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.
¹⁹I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
²⁰The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
²¹And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.’^[^a^]

2 Timothy 3:16, 17 (in Authorized KJV because that's the version the written SDA belief phrase is from) “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: ¹⁷that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”

Hebrews 1:1-3 “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, ²but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. ³The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”

Revelation 12:17 “Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.”

Revelation 19:10 “At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers and sisters who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For it is the Spirit of prophecy who bears testimony to Jesus.””

Revelation 22:8, 9 “I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. ⁹But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!””

All prior Seventh-day Adventist beliefs, snarked:

Belief 1, “Holy Scriptures”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief

Belief 2, “The Trinity”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief-91e

Belief 3, “God the Father”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief-961

Belief 4, “God the Son”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief-0d8

Belief 5, “God the Holy Spirit”, is snarked here:

https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/seventh-day-adventist-belief-breakdown

Belief 6, “Creation”, is snarked here: