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Ellen Harmon White: American Prophet
In America, as in Britain, the Victorian era enjoyed a long life, stretching from the 1830s to the 1910s. It marked the transition from a pre-modern to a modern way of life. Ellen Harmon White's life (1827-1915) spanned those years and then some, but the last three months of a single year, 1844, served as the pivot for everything else. When the Lord failed to return on October 22, as she and other followers of William Miller had predicted, White did not lose heart.
Fired by a vision she experienced, White played the principal role in transforming a remnant minority of Millerites into the sturdy sect that soon came to be known as the Seventh-day Adventists. She and a small group of fellow believers emphasized a Saturday Sabbath and an imminent Advent. Today that flourishing denomination posts eighteen million adherents globally and one of the largest education, hospital, publishing, and missionary outreach programs in the world.
Over the course of her life White generated 70,000 manuscript pages and letters, and produced 40 books that have enjoyed extremely wide circulation. She ranks as one of the most gifted and influential religious leaders in American history and this volume tells her story in a new and remarkably informative way. Some of the contributors identify with the Adventist tradition, some with other Christian denominations, and some with no religious tradition at all. Their essays call for White to be seen as a significant figure in American religious history and for her to be understood within the context of her times.
Fired by a vision she experienced, White played the principal role in transforming a remnant minority of Millerites into the sturdy sect that soon came to be known as the Seventh-day Adventists. She and a small group of fellow believers emphasized a Saturday Sabbath and an imminent Advent. Today that flourishing denomination posts eighteen million adherents globally and one of the largest education, hospital, publishing, and missionary outreach programs in the world.
Over the course of her life White generated 70,000 manuscript pages and letters, and produced 40 books that have enjoyed extremely wide circulation. She ranks as one of the most gifted and influential religious leaders in American history and this volume tells her story in a new and remarkably informative way. Some of the contributors identify with the Adventist tradition, some with other Christian denominations, and some with no religious tradition at all. Their essays call for White to be seen as a significant figure in American religious history and for her to be understood within the context of her times.
394 pages, Hardcover
First published April 18, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 6, 2014
An excellent collection of essays from a 2009 Conference. In essence this volume is a follow-up from a group largely made of historians from the 1970s (Land, Numbers, Butler, Graybill, etc.) as a compendium of scholarly research on Ellen G. White's life and thought. It provides excellent contextualization, but one should be aware this is far from a work of Adventist apologetics. While it does serve a useful role as a corrective to unsubstantiated claims or even hagiography, this is not a work that is intended to build faith in her prophetic life and ministry. One significant positive, both of the conference and the book, is increased engagement with historians outside of Adventism. I found this to be a stimulating read, although I disagreed with a number of the authors and their interpretation of sources. I will definitely write a more extended review later on about this volume.
November 25, 2015
Excellent historical treatment of one of the main founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Covers a broad range of issues relating to her life and ministry while avoiding the often hagiographic and purely antagonistic approaches that define the majority of other works exploring her biography.
December 19, 2015
As a lifelong Seventh-day Adventist, I grew up hearing "Mrs. White says..." but not really understanding the theological, historical, and cultural impacts Ellen White held over the Seventh-day Adventist Church until I got to college. And now, I believe this volume provides an interesting and multi-faceted examination of her writings, life, theological impact, and cultural impact upon a denomination that is simultaneously known and unknown in the world.
For me, as an academic and literary scholar, the chapter on culture proved the most fascinating. To this day, I have encountered people in the SDA church reluctant to read "fiction," simply because White wrote extensively against it. And I think the author brought up an interesting point--here, her own lack of formal education probably did not assist her in coming to literary fiction that rose above the sensationalist stories and pulp romances that were more easily accessible than more enduring works.
For me, as an academic and literary scholar, the chapter on culture proved the most fascinating. To this day, I have encountered people in the SDA church reluctant to read "fiction," simply because White wrote extensively against it. And I think the author brought up an interesting point--here, her own lack of formal education probably did not assist her in coming to literary fiction that rose above the sensationalist stories and pulp romances that were more easily accessible than more enduring works.
February 17, 2016
A great review of different aspects of Ellen White's life and legacy. Each chapter is written by a different author who specialized in that aspect of Ellen White's life, so you are bound to get a variety of perspectives that interact with each other as well as they complement each other.
The authors are not non-Adventist, but they do seem to be professionally unbiased or at least reasonable in their claims and sensible to an audience wider than Seventh - day Adventists.
The authors are not non-Adventist, but they do seem to be professionally unbiased or at least reasonable in their claims and sensible to an audience wider than Seventh - day Adventists.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews