But the End Is Not Yet ...
Angry Saints Now Comes on the Scene
Early in 1989, yet another book appeared about "the 1888 General Conference session [declaring it to be] a milestone in their history, a foremost turning point in their theological development.... [and which] changed the shape of Adventism."
Angry Saints should be read carefully by all church members. It is significant that the second Minneapolis century should start off with another major work dealing with our 1888 history. This one is unique in one respect: after nearly 40 years this is the first from denominational presses that deals specifically with 1888 RE-EXAMINED, and in particular condemns it. The authors are mentioned numerous times in the text and footnotes as having a wrong understanding of the 1888 history and message. This can only arouse increased interest in the subject, although the book concludes with the wistful hope that it will now be the last word anyone will speak on the subject of 1888.
We do not know how the Holy Spirit will keep 1888 fresh in the memory of this church. Perhaps the stones will have to cry out, telling how He was at that time treated shamefully, insulted and "injured," and that figuratively Jesus was crucified in the person of the Holy Spirit. For sure, He will give the gift of repentance, somehow.
This new treatise considers that Minneapolis I "was a mixed blessing—largely tragedy, but containing the seeds of unending possibility." The author considers his "book is essentially a study of Adventist history. It is not primarily a theological work." However, he hopes it "will be a blessing to its readers as they wrestle with the great themes of Christian life and thought." It turns out to be very definitely theological. There is no way to separate Adventist history from Adventist theology. There would be no Adventist church or history if it were not for unique Adventist theology.
Repeatedly Angry Saints denies that the objective 1888 message as brought by Jones and Waggoner is what the church needs. What we need instead is a return to a nebulous concept labelled "basic Christianity." Early in the book the statement is made in italics: ”The core of the 1888 message was not some special Adventist contribution to theology. It was a call to return to basic Christianity.” This is repeated some sixteen times, enough to get the point across. The author also frequently defines what he means by "basic Christianity." It is popular "evangelical Christianity."
Now the church must begin our second century since 1888 wrestling with the important question, Is the "third angel's message in verity" no "special Adventist contribution to theology"? This issue zeroes in on the fundamental question of our theological identity: do we have a mission in this world, or not? Who are we? Should we exist as a denominated people, separate, unique, distinct; or should we melt into "evangelical Christianity"?
It is increasingly apparent to Seventh-day Adventists that the 1888 view of justification by faith differs radically from that of the Reformationist "new theology" which has inundated the church since the 1970s. The proponents of the latter fully realize this dichotomy, and thus make every effort to discredit the theology of the authentic 1888 message.
Ellen White was not unaware of the distinction. During the decade following Minneapolis she never advocated adopting the message of contemporary evangelicalism. On the contrary, as late as 1896 she expressed appreciation for the unique theology of Jones and Waggoner because it was a truth that motivates to "obedience to all the commandments of God," including that of the seventh-day Sabbath. Yet that is precisely what "evangelical Christianity" has conspicuously failed to do for hundreds of years, particularly so during the century plus that Seventh-day Adventists have been proclaiming the truth of the Sabbath.
Therefore the repeated urging of Angry Saints raises disturbing questions in the Adventist conscience: (a) Can the Sunday-keeping churches have the correct view of justification by faith? (b) Does the third angel's message in verity consist of a mixture of our distinctive "doctrines" with their "gospel"? (c) In particular, how can the "holiness groups" of Evangelicalism properly appreciate "the faith of Jesus" when they hold to the paganpapal doctrine of natural immortality? How can they appreciate what happened on the cross if they do not believe there is such a thing as death, as the Bible teaches it?
The issue is now joined in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and not far down the road looms the specter of our final confrontation on the same issue with the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. That final conflict over the Sabbath will involve true righteousness by faith versus its counterfeit.
An attempt is made to make Waggoner support this "evangelical" idea by quoting a phrase from one sentence of his book, The Gospel in the Book of Galatians. Waggoner's context cannot support a non-Adventist, evangelical righteousness by faith. On the contrary he deplores Butler's calling upon evangelical theologians to support his premise. Waggoner did not scour evangelical authors as a source for his message. He got it from the Bible. On page 59 he declares:
I must protest once more against your dependence upon the opinion of commentators.... Must we accept Greenfield's opinions as of final authority in matters of faith? I am not prepared to do this. ... If we are to quote the opinions of men as authority, on points of doctrine, we might as well turn Papists at once; for to pin one's faith to the opinions of man is of the very essence of the Papacy. It matters not whether we adhere to the opinions of one man, or to the opinions of forty; whether we have one Pope or forty.... Seventh-day Adventists, of all people in the world, ought to be free from dependence upon the opinions of men.
Waggoner is amazed that Butler does not use scripture to support the point on which his "theory must stand or fall," except there is no scripture to help him (p. 65). So when Butler quotes "Dr. Schaff, Dr. Clarke and Dr. Scott," Waggoner replies with dismay: "Three very good men, no doubt, but three men who are responsible for a vast amount of doctrinal error and false theology.... Has it come to this among Seventh-day Adventists, that the mere opinion of a doctor of divinity must be accepted as final in any discussion?" He is emphatic that what he is saying is distinctly Adventist, based on the Bible, "in harmony with the fundamental principles of truth." Waggoner's entire presentation is in the context of the "third angel's message" which is unique, distinctly Adventist, going far beyond popular ideas of "evangelical Christianity."
To quote a portion of one sentence from Waggoner's book to squeeze him into evangelical "basic Christianity" forces him into a mold foreign to his message. He was concerned that the church move forward in spiritual understanding beyond popular evangelical concepts, not backward to the Sunday-keeping churches' views. In context, here are some of his thoughts from his page 70:
The law of God is the groundwork of all our faith. It may be said to be the backbone of the Third Angel's Message....
If our people should today, as a body (as they will sometime), change their view on this point, it would simply be an acknowledgment that they were better informed to-day than they were yesterday. It would simply be taking an advance step, which is never humiliating except to those whose pride of opinion will not allow them to admit that they can be wrong. It would simply be a step nearer the faith of the great Reformers from the days of Paul to the days of Luther and Wesley. It would be a step closer to the heart of the Third Angel's Message. I do not regard this view which I hold as a new idea at all. It is not a new theory or doctrine. Everything that I have taught is perfectly in harmony with the fundamental principles of truth which have been held not only by our people, but by all the eminent reformers. And so I do not take any credit to myself for advancing it. All I claim for the theory is, that it is consistent, because it sticks to the fundamental principles of the gospel (italics original).
Waggoner modestly disclaims originality or inventing something novel. But Ellen White's inspired appraisal of his message takes precedence over Waggoner's modesty: it was the "beginning" of the loud cry. He claimed that his message was "in harmony with" the truths taught by the Reformers, but he did not claim that it went no further. Rather, he saw the truth of righteousness by faith as a developing entity progressing from what the Reformers saw in their day toward the ultimate revelation in "the third angel's message" and its fruition in the loud cry of Revelation 18:1-4. And even then he did not claim to present the ultimate—only "an advance ... step closer" toward it. He saw righteousness by faith as a truth that would prepare a people for translation at the coming of Christ.
On page 53 Angry Saints states: "Ellen White came to the same viewpoint as Waggoner[,] writing that some had 'expressed fears that we shall dwell too much upon the subject of justification by faith'." The author repeatedly implies that Waggoner's idea of justification by faith was the standard Calvinism or Arminianism of his day, and therefore we should now be content to disregard his actual message and adopt instead the popular views of that subject as held by Sunday-keeping churches ("evangelical Christianity").
In context there is no connection between what is attributed to Waggoner and Ellen White's article in the Review from which these few words are taken.
In the article of April 1, 1890, she actually said:
Some of our brethren have expressed fears that we shall dwell too much upon the subject of justification by faith, but I hope and pray that none will be needlessly alarmed; for there is no danger in presenting this doctrine as it is set forth in the Scriptures.... Some of our brethren are not receiving the message of God upon this subject.
This is not "evangelical Christianity." Never did Ellen White advocate that our ministers borrow "this doctrine" from Moody or Spurgeon or the Keswick speakers of their day. True, some individuals among Sunday-keeping churches had flashes of insight from time to time, but none had the full truth that would prepare a people for the coming of the Lord.
On page 57 another attempt is made to have Ellen White support the idea that the 1888 message was merely the gospel of the Evangelicals, who in turn sense that their ultimate destiny lies in a "reuniting" under the leadership of Rome.
To try to make Ellen White say this, reference is made to a Review article of August 13, 1889. When this article is researched, it will be found that she is not in any way allying herself with the churches of the world, with "evangelical Christianity." She is proclaiming to Adventists that in the face of discouragement and apostasy, "as the precious message of present truth was spoken to the people [in Pennsylvania] by Brn. Jones and Waggoner, the people saw new beauty in the third angel's message, and they were greatly encouraged. They testified to the fact that they had never before attended meetings where they had received so much instruction and such precious light." In 1890 she said that the "message that has been going for the last two years" is specifically given "that a people may be prepared to stand in the day of God."
Thus, as we begin our second century, every is effort being made to deflect attention away from the unique message of justification by faith which Ellen White endorsed to that of "evangelical Christianity."
A sample of further confusion is presented on page 112:
The combining of the basic Christian truths—which they [Jones and Waggoner] had rescued from companionship with error in the holiness movement—with the distinctive Adventist truths had provided, she [Ellen White] implied, completion of the Adventist message. Merging the Adventist distinctives with basic Christianity meant that Adventists now had the loud cry message....
This concept is the foundation of the book, which turns out to be far more than a study of Adventist history; it proposes massive tectonic shifts in Adventist theology. Its thesis surfaces again and again with phrases such as: "Adventist distinctives contexed within the great truths of evangelical Christianity" (p. 128); "Adventist distinctive truths are beautiful, fulfilling, and logical when placed within the context of the great basic truths of evangelical Christianity" (p. 144); "many at Minneapolis and in the post-1888 period spurned the loud cry that subordinated the distinctive Adventist doctrines to the great truths of evangelical Christianity" (p. 147); "Adventists need to realize more fully that they have had the loud cry message since 1888, ... they have had both their distinctive doctrines and the 'proper framework' for those distinctives in the great salvational truths of evangelical Christianity" (p. 150). ("Salvational truths" is a synonym for justification by faith.)
This is also the burden of such Evangelical leaders as the late Walter Martin of The Kingdom of the Cults, Kenneth Samples of the Christian Research Journal, and Desmond Ford of Good News Unlimited. Evangelicals don't mind our holding some peculiar doctrines such as the seventh-day Sabbath provided we abandon the 1888 truths of righteousness by faith and hold their "salvational truths" instead. Louis R. Conradi, our prominent leader in Europe, left the church because he came to believe that Luther, the Reformers, and the Evangelicals had already proclaimed the verity of the third angel's message in their day. Conradi's basic idea was that there was nothing unique in the 1888 message of Christ's righteousness.
Now we are again being told that the reason why there is nothing distinctive about the righteousness by faith message of 1888 is because it was borrowed from the popular churches.
This is not new. It builds upon previous officially endorsed books which asserted that the message of Jones and Waggoner "was the same doctrine that Luther, Wesley, and many other servants of God had been teaching." Froom added that it was the same doctrine that some fifty of the nineteenth century Evangelicals had been preaching.
When Ellen White declared the 1888 message to be "the third angel's message in verity," she saw that it was distinctly different from the popular "holiness" doctrines which she specifically warned against. And she frequently recognized that the 16th century Reformers and the other Evangelicals of her day fell far short in understanding the righteousness by faith truth that would prepare a people for the coming of the Lord.
If we are merely a church among churches that has joined some distinctive "doctrines" onto “evangelical Christianity” we will never be able to cry "mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit." If we are but a segment of "evangelical Christianity" we will never with conviction be able to sound the call, "Come out of her, My people."
"Evangelical Christianity" is certain that the law of God was nailed to the cross. It has no regard for the Sabbath, "no idea" when the second coming of Christ might take place, is certain that the nature of man is immortal (which means Jesus did not really die, hence Calvary was not for real); by and large teaches that God will torture the lost more sadistically than the Nazis tortured their victims; it claims the Saviour was "exempt" from facing temptation as must the rest of humanity; and it abhors the truth of the cleansing of the sanctuary which is fundamental to justification by faith in relation to a preparation for Christ's second coming.
This is the essence of the general confusion that Scripture says is "Babylon." The total package represents the "gospel" as impotent. It can "save" in sin but not from sin. These concepts of "righteousness by faith" have a basic affinity with Romanism along with Sunday as the Lord's day, and pave the way for a more subtle perversion of truth.
Because "evangelical Christianity" rejects the unique ministry of our great High Priest in the Most Holy Place, it considers that "substitution" must continue to function until the second coming of Christ when the saints are raptured. This makes the cleansing of the sanctuary meaningless. It accomodates continual sinning, whereas sin was "condemned" by Christ in the flesh. It does not recognize that the High Priest's ministry must enter a new phase on the anti-typical Day of Atonement. He cannot forever minister His blood in substitution to cover the perpetual sinning of His people. He must accomplish something on the Day of Atonement that was never accomplished previously. He must have a people who overcome "even as" He overcame, a people who "condemn sin in the flesh" through His faith. His High Priestly ministry cannot continue throughout eternity but must end at the close of human probation.
"Evangelical Christianity" has no use for these basics of Ad-ventist justification by faith. Evangelicals scoff at them and hence warn that if we do not abandon them, they will classify us as a cult.
Much has been published in the Centennial (and before) to the effect that it is hopeless to take any special interest in the actual 1888 message because it was "lost." No stenographers recorded it at Minneapolis. Early in the book, page 40, Angry Saints makes a point which is crucial to this question of having or not having a record of what the actual message was at Minneapolis. Waggoner's book, The Gospel in the Book of Galatians, which he had "distributed to the delegates at the Minneapolis meetings, ... must have been fairly close to what he presented there on the relationship of law and gospel that so impressed Ellen White."
If this is true (there is no reason to doubt it), the fact can be settled forever that: (1) we do have a very good idea of what he presented at the 1888 meetings; and (2) his view of the nature of Christ was definitely a vital part of that message. It is highly improbable that Waggoner's Minneapolis presentations were an isolated theological island inconsistent with what he published immediately before and after. How could Ellen White exclude the essential nature of Christ when she pulled out all the stops in endorsing Jones and Waggoner with superlative enthusiasm for nearly a decade?
Waggoner's book placed in the hands of the 1888 delegates rivets with solid logic the view that the sinless Christ took upon Himself man's fallen nature, and that as a consequence He was subject to death. Waggoner uses nearly four pages to drive home his points based on text after text (pp. 60-63). Here is a little taste:
[In] Gal. 4:4 "born under the law," [and] John 1:1, 14: "Word was made flesh," Rom. 8:3, . . you will learn the nature of the flesh which the Word was made:—-"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Christ was born in the likeness of sinful flesh.... Phil. 2:5-7: "... being made in the likeness of men ... in fashion as a man" ... Heb. 2:9: "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels" ... He came into the world on purpose to die; and so from the beginning of his earthly life he was in the same condition that the men are in whom he died to save.... Rom. 1:3: "Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh." What was the nature of David, "according to the flesh"? Sinful, was it not? ... Don't start in horrified astonishment; I am not implying that Christ was a sinner.... One of the most encouraging things in the Bible is the knowledge that Christ took on him the nature of man; to know that his ancestors according to the flesh were sinners. ... If Christ had not been made in all things like unto his brethren, then his sinless life would be no encouragement to us.
Angry Saints is unique in its purpose. In a very pleasing style it sets out to contradict and make void 1888 RE-EXAMINED. Over 20 times the authors are referred to by name in the text or in footnotes, plus inferences such as: "some interpreters," "certain contemporary Adventist writers," "some modern writers," "two recent authors," "one recently published book," and "even as recently as 1987 an influential book." Any reader who knows anything about the 1888 history and the past 40 years will understand the thrust of these references.
In several places specific comments are made to contest the thesis of 1888 REEXAMINED. For instance on page 40, this objection is made: "Contrary to the view of many sincere Seventh-day Adventists, both Waggoner and Ellen White declared that this message was not unique or something new in Christian theology."
On the surface, she appears to contradict herself. Sometimes she did say it was not "new light," and at other times she said specifically that it was indeed "new light." If we let her define her terms, the contradiction disappears:
(a) At Minneapolis she speaks of Christ saying, "A new commandment I give you, That ye love one another," but it was "really an old commandment ... given in the Old Testament." This is her context for defining "new." If there was nothing new in the 1888 message, then there was nothing "new" in Jesus' commandment of love—but no Christian will agree with that, for indeed His words fell "as something strange and new ... upon the ears of the wondering multitude."
In one sense there is "no new thing under the sun," but the Jews were wrong when they rejected Christ because they found nothing "new" in His message, and so are we if we disparage the 1888 message for that assumed reason. Ellen White says that Jones and Waggoner "discovered the precious ore in the rich veins of truth ... that have been hidden for ages." By all standards of human communication, something "discovered" that the world has never seen before is "new."
(b) Because of widespread prejudice "laborers in the cause of truth" should employ a wise methodology and not present the 1888 message as something novel or as a new invention.
(c) In Selected Messages, Book Three, p. 174 she specifically calls it "new and increased light for us as a people, ... precious light to be unfolded to us if we are the people that are to stand in the day of God's preparation." That "if is the key word; rejection of the "new light" made necessary another generation a hundred years or more later to be that "people." In speaking of the 1888 message, she variously referred to it as "new light," "light from heaven for the past year and a half," "light flashing from the throne of God," "new settings," "truths that are entirely new," "new forms," "a new framework," "more light," "increasing light," "things new and old from the treasure-house of His word," "old yet new truths," "more light for us," "light that is new to us," "light that is yet to come to us, ... new ideas," "much light yet to shine forth," "precious old truths in a new light."
(d) Whatever the message was, for sure she had not heard it spoken publicly from other "human lips" for 45 years, even though occasional flashes of partial insight may have appeared in such authors as William Penn, McCloud Campbell, or Thomas Erskine. But they were not concepts generally held by the Evangelicals, and there is no evidence that Jones and Waggoner scoured the books of Evangelicals to find their "gems of truth." No links have come to light tying them to Evangelical sources; they claimed only Bible support.
One problem is whether the 1888 message marked "the beginning" of the latter rain, or only that of the loud cry. Angry Saints declares that "Ellen White did not say that the latter rain had begun with the preaching of Christ's righteousness at Minneapolis." Jones, Starr, Prescott, and the 1893 session "congregation" at Battle Creek, were all simply wrong.
By rebuking those who opposed it, she specifically says that the 1888 message and ministry "outpouring" "at Minneapolis" constituted "showers of the latter rain from heaven." That statement underlies all her numerous references to the 1888 message as the beginning of the work of the fourth angel of Revelation 18. The loud cry and the latter rain must come together, and when Angry Saints agrees that they must come "simultaneously" it has to contradict and invalidate its own thesis.
Even Ellen White's 1892 "loud cry" statement is disparaged in Angry Saints as "a small (and almost isolated) passage," and the authors of 1888 RE-EXAMINED are faulted for reading too much "into it." To the contrary, it appears that she often "referred to that statement again" by repeating the idea. She was virtually obsessed with the thought that a magnificent, unprecedented fulfillment of Revelation 18:1-4 was occurring right before the eyes of the unbelieving brethren. Never had this happened since John wrote Revelation. Impregnating all of her post-1888 writings about the subject is the tragic truth that "the light" which was opposed, denied, and rejected, was that of this fourth "angel" of Revelation 18. It was his message that was "in a great degree" kept away from the church and from the world. Astounding! This is her retrospective view. Yet Angry Saints wants us to soft-pedal that.
About the same time that she wrote the "famous" November 15, 1892 statement in the Review, we find her corroborating it in a letter to her nephew, Frank Belden. Speaking of General Conference and other leadership "who have stood as a granite wall against" the "light [which] has been shining in Battle Creek in clear, bright rays," she says:
God meant that the watchmen should arise, and with united voices send forth a decided message, giving the trumpet a certain sound, that the people might all spring to their post of duty, and act their part in the great work. Then the strong, clear light of that other angel who comes down from heaven having great power, would have filled the earth with his glory. We are years behind; and those who stood in blindness and hindered the advancement of the very message that God meant should go forth from the Minneapolis meeting as a lamp that burneth, have need to humble their hearts before God, and see and understand how the work has been hindered by their blindness of mind and hardness of heart.
Numerous other statements exist linking the 1888 message to the loud cry of Revelation 18. In 1890 she says "several have written to me" asking what is the 1888 message, and "I have answered." Her answer: the angel's message of Revelation 18. Later that year she again identifies it in the same way. Even at Minneapolis there was a strong hint that the message was that of Revelation 18. In a letter to I. D. Van Horn, January 20, 1893, she again deplores Uriah Smith's present, continuing opposition to the 1888 message as opposition to "the angel of Rev. 18, who is to lighten the earth with his glory."
Opposing 1888 RE-EXAMINED is good if it stimulates church members to study out the facts. Even though Angry Saints darkly hints that its authors may be the modern equivalent of the "Smith and Butler" "old guard," and are "theological gladiators," they welcome the closest scrutiny and refutation of their work provided it is based on "the word of the Lord." Their prayer for 40 years has been that only truth may prevail.
Finally at the end of the book we learn who are the "angry saints" roasting in red flames on the cover. They are present-day "Madventists" who ever so sincerely and "earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints." Their fault is that they believe and promote the 1888 message of Christ's righteousness which reveals Him as sent "in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, [who] condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us." Evidently they also think and say ever so tenuously it might be possible that our pioneers and Ellen White were right about the "daily," and they insist that it is possible by the grace of the Saviour to say No to temptation and to honor Him until the end by true heart-obedience to His commandments.
Several questions must engage the attention of the world church:
(1) What actually is the 1888 message? Is it "basic Evangelical" concepts or is it a clearer understanding of righteousness by faith than what the Reformers and the Sundaykeeping churches believed a century ago and still hold today? Is it an understanding of the gospel itself that is parallel to and consistent with the work of the great High Priest on the antitypical Day of Atonement?
1888 RE-EXAMINED says it is. Angry Saints insists that it is not; the Day of Atonement requires no unique Adventist understanding of the gospel of justification by faith.
(2) Did the leadership accept the message nearly a century ago and have we understood and proclaimed it to the church and to the world ever since?
1888 RE-EXAMINED maintains that "in a great degree" they did not and we have not; therefore we need to repent. Angry Saints maintains that by 1895 the leadership did largely accept the message, and that we do not need to re-examine what the 1888 message actually was to see if we are proclaiming it to the church and the world today. Leave it buried.
Angry Saints frankly recognizes that 1888 "was a mixed blessing—largely tragedy, but containing the seeds of unending possibility." Yet there is a mysterious self-contradiction within the book. After opening with this thought of "mixed blessing—largely tragedy," the book closes with the opposite idea.
The author in his final word tells the church that by 1895 Ellen White believed that things had changed and "indicated that the 1888 message had been 'presented and accepted.'" This is dependent on a statement made by her son W. C White in a letter to Dores A. Robinson, September 10, 1895.
This is not, however, the word of Ellen White. What we do have is W. C. White's November 25, 1905 personal confession that in 1895 he came to realize humbly that his judgment was contrary to the discernment of the gift of prophecy. It was in the context of judging the 1888 aftermath that he acknowledges his seriously erroneous judgment.
Further, we have Ellen White's direct testimony that she was appalled by her son's lack of spiritual discernment in this incident and became so sick that "I was like a broken reed. ... I did not expect to recover."
That same year she wrote from Australia to Uriah Smith, June 6, 1896, making the most emphatic statement of her whole career regarding the failures at Minneapolis and since. This appraisal, made more than seven years after the session, tells us that "Satan succeeded." The power of the Holy Spirit was "shut away from our people" and the light for the whole earth was in a great degree kept away "by the action of our own brethren."
Is the assumption true on page 154 of Angry Saints that "enough had accepted it sufficiently for the denomination to move on to its primary mission—preaching the gospel to the world at large"? The very opposite has been the case and this is the reason we have had a "Centennial" and why we are still in this world.
(3) Did Ellen White find fault with the righteousness by faith message or theology of Jones and Waggoner? Frequently Angry Saints tells us yes, based on two statements in MS. 15, 1888 which read as follows:
[1] Dr. Waggoner has spoken to us in a straightforward manner. There is precious light in what he has said. Some things presented in reference to the law in Galatians, if I fully understand his position, do not harmonize with the understanding I have had of this subject....
[2] Some interpretations of Scripture given by Dr. Waggoner I do not regard as correct.
The import of (1) can be completely twisted by leaving out the key phrase, "if I fully understand his position," and this is done in Angry Saints, p. 43.
The import of (2) on the same page can also be twisted out of its context to contradict another statement Ellen White made barely five minutes later: "That which has been presented harmonizes perfectly with the light which God has been pleased to give me during all the years of my experience." Her context is an impassioned plea to the brethren to listen and to investigate. About the same time she said, "I had not one doubt or question in regard to the matter. I knew the light had been presented to us in clear and distinct lines." "Every fiber of my heart said amen." Similar endorsements were made by her hundreds of times.
If in (2), the word "I" is italicized with other first person pronouns, all contradiction evaporates immediately. And this may well have been her emphasis at the time. The context indicates clearly that she is trying to help the brethren by putting herself in their company. She does not consider herself or her personal judgment to be infallible. She is willing to listen, to investigate new light, to learn something; why shouldn't they be willing also? Note:
Some interpretations of Scripture given by Dr. Waggoner I do not regard as correct. But ... the fact that he honestly holds some views of Scripture differing from yours or mine is no reason why we should .... raise a voice of censure against him or his teachings unless we can present weighty reasons for so doing and show him that he is in error.
On the flimsy, untenable foundation of these two wrested statements stands the entire edifice of the 1988 Centennial condemnations of the Jones-Waggoner message, misread statements which have apparently persuaded church leadership to withhold it from the world church.
But our conferences, churches, institutions, "independent ministries," self-supporting work, and missions, all need a more heart-felt appreciation of that "much more abounding grace" revealed in that message. The Lord "sent" it! The spiritual famine which has ensued is not realized, for all seem to feel "rich and increased with goods" without it, but the resultant malnourishment creates spiritual weakness and disease.
The author of Angry Saints is "glad 1988 is now gone and past." The truth will not be gone or past until it is faced for what it is—a confrontation with Christ that cannot forever be evaded.