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The Loss of Transcendence, Pt. 8
Kevin D. Paulson reviews Graeme Bradford’s More Than A Prophet (Berrien Springs, MI: Biblical Perspectives, 2006), and People Are Human (Look What They Did To Ellen White) (Victoria, Australia: Signs Publishing Company, 2006).
Presenter: Kevin D. Paulson
Location: Internet
Delivery: 2007-06-06 06:06Z
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2007-06-06 06:06Z
Type: Book Review
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/rar/pau-lot8.php
Conclusion: The Loss of Transcendence
In sum, Graeme Bradford’s books assault the very basis of the Christian message. Both Scripture and the writings of Ellen White are seen as containing substantive errors, thus requiring the “wisdom” and “discernment” of believers—with all their attendant baggage—to keep “wheat” and “chaff” separate (819). Such a doctrine denies the church any objective, transcendent measure of right and wrong. While the reductionist Adventism affirmed at the close of More Than a Prophet claims that “there is objective right and wrong” (820), Bradford’s inspiration doctrine subverts any realistic hope of a standard by which such can be determined. When Bradford writes that one of the great dilemmas of our time is the “loss of any sense of transcendent reality” (821), he seems not to realize his own theology makes the problem worse.
In the garb of a positive title, purporting to defend while in fact subverting the prophetic gift, More Than a Prophet has found its way into the hands of pastors and laypersons. Conference officials have even distributed it to their employees because the title and its apparent recommendations sound so favorable. But its message is like Cleopatra’s cobra, lurking beneath the innocent figs. The reputed words of the ill-fated queen in her final moments comes to mind as one ponders the implications of Bradford’s views for the faith of Seventh-day Adventists: “The taste of these is sharp, and swiftly over.”
Bradford has, despite all, done his church one big favor. By assembling in a single volume nearly all major charges against Ellen White produced by her modern (and not-so-modern) critics, he has made it necessary to demonstrate to a new generation the fallacy and falsity of these charges. Youth and young adults now beckoned by the glory and promise of a restored Adventism can trust their spiritual heritage, and the prophet who helped to shape it, with new confidence.
According to Bradford, no one reading inspired writings can be sure where the divine element ends and the human begins (822). How then can there be an eternal standard of sin and righteousness, a law to show our need of Christ and to measure our standing in God’s judgment (Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:24; James 2:12; 1 John 3:4)? While affirming that “we’re all sinners who need Jesus,” and that “the story of His death and resurrection will always be appropriate to any culture and any age” (823), Bradford’s doctrine of inspiration deprives sinners of the only means of revealing their need of Christ or His saving power. If accepted, his theology would bring back the days of the Old Testament judges, when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25).
Though citing the Protestant sola scriptura in his effort to devalue the testimony of non-canonical prophets (824), Bradford’s pervasive use of scholars as a means of explaining inspired writings belies his claim to the Protestant banner. As certain ones have observed in the past, those holding the theology Bradford teaches in fact follow the principle of sola theologian (825). Indeed, Bradford seems more familiar with the writings of speculating scholars and iconoclastic Adventists than with Scripture, Ellen White, or even the facts of history and contemporary society. How else could he claim today’s culture cries out for reinterpretation of Ellen White’s eschatology (826), when any perusal of current events finds mounting evidence that her predictions have never been more relevant (827)?
Bradford’s claim noted earlier in this review, that a high view of Ellen White’s authority presupposes the insufficiency of the Bible (828), ignores the actual teachings of the Bible as well as its historical testimony. Not only do non-canonical prophets abound in the Bible story, with their ministry revealing no less authority than the canonical ones, but the biblical authorization of the prophetic gift and its function (1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11-14) says nothing of being restricted only to those writings later canonized by the church. Moreover, we have seen Ellen White’s statement that successive divine revelations in history were needed because professed believers failed to appreciate the former revelation (829), thus helping us better understand her statement that if the Bible had been studied as it should have been, her testimonies would not have been needed (830). At no time in the sacred record have any of God’s revelations been “insufficient.” What in fact has been insufficient is the commitment of the faith community to what God has revealed. This has made it necessary, over and over again, for God to repeat Himself.
History’s final generation—its thoughts and habit patterns and ingrained culture clogged with 6,000 years of sin—needs this repetition most of all. The problem is not with the Bible. The problem is with the human heart, its capacity to evade and excuse and rationalize honed through ages of disobedience. Just as Sinai’s thunder was needed to proclaim a law known by the people of God since creation (Genesis 2:2, 3; 9:5, 6; 13:13; 39:9), so the in-depth clarification of God’s will is needed on a wider scale than ever by those who must pass through the final moments of the great controversy. In His infinite wisdom God has given His end-time church 25 million words of authoritative commentary on the Sacred Scriptures, written not in ancient languages vulnerable to the endless tweaking of scholarly speculation, but in today’s universal language of culture and commerce.
Bradford correctly notes Ellen White as saying, “The writers of the Bible were God’s penmen, not His pen” (831). What he seems to forget is Ellen White’s assurance that God guides the pens of those to whom the gift of inspiration is granted: “Who, but Jesus Christ by His Spirit and divine power, guided the pens of the sacred historians that to the world might be presented the precious record of the sayings and work of Jesus Christ?” (832).
Bradford’s denigration of the Bible itself offers evidence that his cry of sola scriptura is less concerned with the exaltation of biblical authority than the subversion of Ellen White’s. The popular illusion of certain ones—proclaimed yet again in a recent editorial (833)—that greater attention to Ellen White’s writings means less attention to the Bible, is not supported by the facts. For one thing, it is simply impossible to study Ellen White’s writings without constant exposure to the Bible. Probably no Christian author in 2,000 years has quoted the Bible more extensively, repetitively, and in-depth than Ellen G. White. (A quick glance at the Scripture index in any of her standard works should be sufficient to demonstrate this point.) Some years ago a survey reported that daily personal Bible study was a habit with 82 percent of those Adventists who regularly read and studied the writings of Ellen White, while only 47 percent of those who didn’t read and study Ellen White studied their Bibles regularly (834).
Bradford seems never to consider that the Ellen White critics he profusely quotes might themselves be factually challenged. His assumption seems very much that of the typical iconoclast—that whoever alleges fault with the establishment is probably right, and those defending that establishment are mere “obsequious hacks and reflectors of an official line” (835).
Regarding Ellen White’s authority in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Bradford concludes:
We know that some would want to give her formal authority. That is, her words are always taken to be true simply because she says so. To them she is the last word on the sciences of biology, geology and history, as well as theology.… But that type of authority has now gone forever as more Adventists become aware of her sources in some of those areas. No longer can she speak outside of her culture as a timeless voice of authority (836).
We earlier noted Bradford’s reference to the following statement:
We may wish with all our hearts that she (Ellen White) could serve us today as scientist or psychologist, as technician or theologian, or as conference or college president, but that is not to be. My firm conviction is that she was not, nor can she be any of these for us (837).
This obituary for the prophet’s authority has been heard before. Back in 1982, in the wake of the Desmond Ford and Walter Rea controversies, the following statement was quoted by Time magazine:
Georgetown University Ethicist Roy Branson, editor of Spectrum, an independent journal for church liberals, says flatly that Adventists will no longer be able to appeal to White as ‘the final authority on a whole range of issues, including biblical and theological interpretation and life-style’ (838).
Evoking memories of Jesus’ statement about the stones crying out (Luke 19:40), Time’s religion editor Richard Ostling replied to the above as follows:
If so, the Seventh-day Adventists would seem to have lost a resource more precious than the millions that went down the [Davenport] drain (839).
Dick Ostling need not have feared. The myriad attacks of critics both suave and strident have failed to sunder Ellen White’s authority in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, for the simple reason—as Martin Luther King said so powerfully—that no lie can last forever. The biblical faithfulness and Christ-centered grandeur of the Ellen G. White writings cannot be gainsaid by the blizzard of falsehoods and angry diatribes in the books, seminars, and Internet sites of her detractors. Moreover, Bradford’s attack on the Bible’s own credibility establishes yet again the firmness of Adventism’s biblical foundation, as well as the painful reality that attacks on fundamental Adventism lead invariably to attacks on Christianity itself. Anyone doubting this reality need only consider how those whose journey away from Adventist orthodoxy began with criticism of Ellen White, now find their publications attacking the biblical creation story (840), the literal Second Coming of Christ (841), the Bible doctrine of human sexuality (842), and much more. The Spectrum magazine blog site recently included the following enlightened observation:
I do know that the Bible, as we know it, is the product of much manipulation (843).
“Progressive,” they call it? Sounds more like fulfillment of the following Ellen White prediction:
It is Satan’s plan to weaken the faith of God’s people in the Testimonies. Satan knows how to make his attacks. He works upon minds to excite jealousy and dissatisfaction toward those at the head of the work. The gifts are next questioned; then, of course, they have but little weight, and instruction given through visions is disregarded. Next follows skepticism in regard to the vital points of our faith, the pillars of our position, then doubt as to the Holy Scriptures, and then the downward march to perdition (844).
Bradford echoes the higher-critical mantra, “The church is part of its culture” (845). This assumption serves the revisionist as a two-pronged argument. First, it persuades him that doctrinal tenets and lifestyle standards are the creature of man—the normal play of thought and counter-thought, action and reaction that appears to be the human story. Bradford seeks to explain the classic Adventist opposition to alcohol, tobacco, jewelry, immodest dress, dancing, and other questionable amusements in this light. He portrays these standards, not—like the classic Adventist—as the logical application of Bible principles to lifestyle issues, but as part of the Fundamentalist Christian reaction against trends in the larger world, a reaction of which Adventists were allegedly partaking (846). To read Bradford, the consciences of Laodiceans need tremble no longer at such standards, for they are the product of a bygone culture, not of transcendent authority.
The second prong of this argument persuades the revisionist that since the church is part of—and the product of—its culture, it must adapt its message and methods if it is to “reach” that culture. And thus the floodgates of cacophony and compromise are loosed on the faith community, submerging its voice in marketing gimmicks and liturgical frivolity. A church that refuses to transcend its culture will invariably be conquered by it.
Reasoning from the false premise that Ellen White’s early teachings are at times contradicted by her later ones, Bradford poses a nonexistent dilemma for those maintaining Ellen White’s authoritative role. “Which Ellen White are you going to quote?” he asks. “The early Ellen White or the later?” (847). In the absence of proof for such contradiction, we confidently answer, Both. Yes, Ellen White grew in her understanding. But she never contradicted herself under inspiration.
The careful student of Ellen White’s counsel shudders at the implications of Bradford’s call to pick and choose which of her writings are of divine origin, and which the expression of human wisdom or cultural influence. The fictive Ellen White contrived by Bradford dissipates in the glare of such passages as the following, some of which we have cited already but which ought to be read again:
Many times in my experience I have been called upon to meet the attitude of a certain class, who acknowledged that the testimonies were from God, but took the position that this matter and that matter were Sister White’s opinion and judgment. This suits those who do not love reproof and correction, and who, if their ideas are crossed, have occasion to explain the difference between the human and the divine.
If the preconceived opinions or particular ideas of some are crossed in being reproved by testimonies, they have a burden at once to make plain their position to discriminate between the testimonies, defining what is Sister White’s human judgment, and what is the word of the Lord. Everything that sustains their cherished ideas is divine, and the testimonies to correct their errors are human—Sister White’s opinion. They make of none effect the counsel of God by their tradition (848).
God is either teaching His people, reproving their wrongs, and strengthening their faith, or He is not. This work is of God, or it is not. God does nothing in partnership with Satan. My work… bears the stamp of God, or the stamp of the enemy. There is no half-way work in the matter. The Testimonies are of the Spirit of God, or of the devil (849).
Yet now when I send you a testimony of warning and reproof, many of you declare it to be merely the opinion of Sister White. You have thereby insulted the Spirit of God (850).
In these letters which I write, in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that which the Lord has presented to me. 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 (851).
You have talked over matters as you viewed them, that the communications from Sister White are not all from the Lord, but a portion is her own mind, her own judgment, which is no better than anybody else’s judgment and ideas. This is one of Satan’s hooks to hang your doubts upon to deceive your soul and the souls of others who will dare to draw the line in this matter and say, This portion which pleases me is from God, but that portion which points out and condemns my course of conduct is from Sister White alone, and bears not the holy signet. You have in this way virtually rejected the whole of the messages, which God in His tender, pitying love has sent to you to save you from moral ruin (852).
In the testimonies sent to Battle Creek, I have given you the light God has given to me. In no case have I given my own judgment or opinion. I have enough to write of what has been shown me, without falling back on my own opinions (853).
I have my work to do, to meet the misconceptions of those who suppose themselves able to say what is testimony from God and what is human production. If those who have done this work continue in this course, satanic agencies will choose for them.
Those who have helped souls to feel at liberty to specify what is of God in the Testimonies and what are the uninspired words of Sister White, will find that they were helping the devil in his work of deception (854).
What reserve power has the Lord with which to reach those who have cast aside His warnings and reproofs, and have accredited the testimonies of the Spirit of God to no higher source than human wisdom? In the judgment, what can you do who have done this, offer as an excuse for turning from the evidences He has given you that God was in the work? (855).
With even greater solemnity, the prophet warns:
One thing is certain: Those Seventh-day Adventists who take their stand under Satan’s banner will first give up their faith in the warnings and reproofs contained in the Testimonies of God’s Spirit (856).
One of the scholars quoted by Bradford declares:
The trouble is that our leaders have put Ellen White on such a high pedestal as authority on history, chronology, science, diet, health, social life… they feel that they would wreck the church if they would dare to admit that she was wrong in any of these disciplines” (857).
But Ellen White isn’t the one on the high pedestal. God is. He is the Source of her counsel to the church. And she is clear it is God, not she, Who is being rejected in the slighting of her messages:
The testimonies I have borne you have in truth been presented to me by the Lord.… It is not I whom you are betraying. It is not I against whom you are so embittered. It is the Lord, who has given me a message to bear to you (858).
The foreword to More Than a Prophet declares, “It is my conviction that this book could have prevented the departure of thousands of Adventist members” (859). In his recent letter to Ministry Bradford writes:
I have received positive feedback from pastors and administrators who have said this book has helped them and their people to recover confidence in Ellen White. Former pastors have said if this book had always been available they would never have left the ministry (860).
But as we have noted repeatedly in the course of this review, churches that compromise doctrine in order to retain members end up losing members instead (861). The Foreword’s author unwittingly gives evidence for this reality when he writes:
Antagonism toward Ellen White is especially evident in most European countries where the use of her writings, especially in preaching, has become a taboo (862).
The extent to which this is true might perhaps be debated. But if true, perhaps it explains the dramatic decline in Adventist membership which recent years have witnessed in most of the countries of Europe (863). A recent letter to the Adventist Review, responding to concern over the acceptance of evolution by some Adventists, spoke approvingly of “fellow believers who do not see any problem accepting ordinary natural science and [who] still believe in the Creator, as most Christians do here in Europe” (864). In context, “ordinary natural science” as described in this letter includes Darwinian evolution. Yet more evidence, perhaps, that resistance to Ellen White’s authority is generally attended by resistance to the Bible itself.
In preparing this book review, I have found myself frustrated at times by the absence of outrage on the part of some who recognize the errors of Bradford’s teachings. The outrageous unorthodoxy of Episcopal Bishop John Spong again come to mind, as well as the failure of his denomination to meet the challenge thus posed. One of Spong’s colleagues observed, lamenting the lack of resolve on the part of his fellow clerics:
We’ve been paralyzed by our politeness (865).
Is a similar paralysis afflicting the Seventh-day Adventist Church? Will the teachings of Graeme Bradford, which undermine the very basis of our beliefs, be permitted to spread and take root without official condemnation? Will the church which defrocked Desmond Ford fail to discipline one whose teachings go even further in their betrayal of the faith? (Not only is the Investigative Judgment absent from Bradford’s reasons as to why he remains an Adventist (866), so is any mention of the Seventh-day Adventist Church as the remnant of Bible prophecy.)
Yes, Ellen White is indeed “more than a prophet” (867). But the teachings of Graeme Bradford make her less than one. Should his teachings be accepted, the Bible itself will be lost. Transcendence, not adaptation, is the church’s key both to faithfulness and relevance. Without transcendent authority, the faith community will gyrate without chart or compass, adrift on the sea of culture, circumstance, and experience, defenseless against worldliness masquerading as wisdom, deception posing as discernment. That the prophetic, authoritative Word of the eternal God might sound once more—transcendent and triumphant—through the ranks of the great Advent movement, is my sincere prayer and most earnest plea.
In closing, to the inspired pen once more:
Men may get up scheme after scheme, and the enemy will seek to seduce souls from the truth; but all who believe that the Lord has spoken through Sister White, and has given her a message, will be safe from the many delusions that will come in these last days (868).
Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established: believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper (2 Chronicles 20:20). GCO
Endnotes
- Bradford, More Than a Prophet, pp. 46, 47, 52, 77-84, 215; People Are Human, p. 149.
- ________, More Than a Prophet, p. 224.
- Ibid., p. 146; People Are Human, p. 160.
- ________, More Than a Prophet, pp. 46, 47, 52.
- ________, People Are Human, p. 161.
- ________, More Than a Prophet, p. 206; People Are Human, p. 134.
- Colin D. Standish & Russell R. Standish, Adventism Vindicated (Paradise, CA: Historic Truth Publications, 1980), p. xiv.
- Bradford, More Than a Prophet, pp. 140-150.
- Take, for example, the growing power of the Religious Right in the American political process—the very sort of Catholic-Protestant, religio-political coalition predicted for the last days in the writings of Ellen White (see The Great Controversy, pp. 581, 588; Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 451). Within the past year alone, five bestselling books—one by a leading political consultant and another by a former U.S. Secretary of State—have detailed the growing influence of these forces in the United States: Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (New York: Penguin Group, 2006); James Rudin, The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plan for the Rest of Us (Avalon Publishing Group, 2006); Dan Gilgoff, The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War (St. Martin’s Press, 2007); Madeleine Albright, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (HarperCollins Publishers, Inc, 2007); Damon Linker, The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege (New York: Doubleday & Co, 2006).
- Bradford, More Than a Prophet, p. 166; People Are Human, p. 97.
- White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 364.
- ________, Life Sketches, p. 198.
- ________, Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 21, quoted by Bradford, More Than a Prophet, p. 171; People Are Human, p. 104.
- White, Reflecting Christ, p. 132.
- Stephen Chavez, “Are We Still Protestant?” Adventist Review, March 22, 2007, p. 5.
- “The Truth About The White Lie,”
www.whiteestate.org/issues/whitelie.html. - Walter C. Utt, “Desmond Ford Raises the Sanctuary Question,” Spectrum, March 1980, p. 7.
- Bradford, More Than a Prophet, p. 128.
- Ibid., p.219; People Are Human, p. 146.
- Ostling, “The Church of Liberal Borrowings,” Time, August 2, 1982, p. 49.
- Ibid.
- See James L. Hayward, ed. Creationism Reconsidered (Roseville, CA: Association of Adventist Forums, 2000);George P. Saxon, “Rating the Creation and the Big Bang,” Spectrum, Summer 2004, pp. 41-44; John McLarty, “Theologians vs. Scientists,” Adventist Today, July-August 2004, pp. 12, 13; Ervin Taylor, “A Historical Dilemma,” Adventist Today, July-August 2004, p. 14, 15; Lester N. Wright, “The Truth About the Origin of Life,” Adventist Today, Jan.-Feb. 2007, pp. 8, 9; Wayne Collins, “Did You Really Create the World in Six Days?” Adventist Today, Jan.-Feb. 2007, p. 11; Gary A. Nowlan, “A Geologist’s Journey from Naïve Certainty to Informed Faith,” Adventist Today, Jan.-Feb. 2007, pp. 12, 13.
- See Michael Zbaraschuk, “What Does ‘Soon’ Mean?” Spectrum, Autumn 2001, pp. 74, 75.
- See Daily, Adventism for a New Generation, pp 296-298; Aubyn Fulton, “The Ontario Experience,” Spectrum, Winter 2006, pp. 51-53; Sherri Babcock, “Spinning the Coin of Truth,” Spectrum, Winter 2006, pp. 54-60; Leif Lind, “A Pastor’s Story,” Spectrum, Winter 2006, pp. 61-69, Ben Kemena, “A Report to My Gay Brothers and Sisters,” Spectrum, Winter 2007, pp. 70-75.
- www.spectrummagazine.typepad.com/the_spectrum_blog/
2007/03/looking_for_god.html. - White, Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 672.
- Bradford, People Are Human, p. 108.
- Ibid., p. 158; People Are Human, p. 46.
- ________, More Than a Prophet, p. 211; People Are Human, p. 143.
- White, Selected Messages, vol. 3, p. 68.
- ________, Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 671.
- Ibid., p. 64.
- Ibid., p. 67.
- ________, Selected Messages, vol. 3, pp. 68, 69.
- Ibid., p. 70.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid., p. 84.
- Lawrence Geraty, “Siegfried H. Horn: A Voice from the Dust Heaps,” Spectrum, Spring 1999, pp. 10-12, quoted by Bradford, People Are Human, p. 155.
- White, Selected Messages, vol. 3, p. 84.
- Bradford, More Than a Prophet, p. 11.
- ________, letter to Ministry, April 2007, p. 27.
- See Dean M. Kelley, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing (New York: Harper & Row, 1982). John Dart, “Mainline Church Strength Shrinks,” Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1985, Part 1-A, pp. 1-8; Kenneth L. Woodward, “From Mainline to Sideline,” Newsweek, Dec. 22, 1986, pp. 54-56; Ostling, “The Church Search,” Time, April 5, 1993, pp. 46, 47; Woodward, “Dead End for the Mainline?” Newsweek, Aug. 9, 1993, pp. 46-48.
- Bradford, More Than a Prophet, p. 12.
- In 1996, Seventh-day Adventist Church membership in the Euro-Africa Division, the Division which includes most of the countries of western and central Europe, stood at 421,998 (Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook, 1996, p. 123). In 2006, Church membership in that same Division stood at 172, 616 (Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook, 2006), p. 65)—a drop of well over 50 percent.
- Kristen Falch Jakobsen, letter to Adventist Review, Sept. 18, 2003, p. 26.
- Ostling, “More Spongtaneous Eruptions,” Time, Feb. 18, 1991, p. 62.
- Bradford, More Than a Prophet, pp. 227-235.
- White, Selected Messages, vol. 1, pp. 32, 34, 36, quoted by Bradford, More Than a Prophet, pp. 108, 109.
- ________, Selected Messages, vol. 3, pp. 83, 84.
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