A NOTICE REGARDING MORE THAN A PROPHET

Dr. Graeme Bradford, retired professor from the Theology Department of Avondale College, recently authored a privately-published book entitled, More Than a Prophet: How We Lost and Found Again the Real Ellen White.  The Foreword and advertising of the book's first edition incorrectly stated that the manuscript was evaluated favorably by officers of the Ellen G. White Estate. In actuality, while recognizing elements of the book on which we can agree, the White Estate staff has strong concerns regarding several of the viewpoints expressed in the book.

Included among these concerns are the following:

• The book expresses the view that prophets in the New Testament and beyond generally carry less authority than Old Testament prophets, and that the individual and/or congregation must separate the wheat from the chaff in the messages even of genuine prophets. Such a view confirms people in the human tendency to accept what they like in inspired writings and to reject as “chaff” the things with which they disagree. Click here for further discussion concerning this interpretation.
• The book suggests that because Ellen White used sources in her writings relating to history, prophecy, health, or theology, the views she expressed may have originated more from her contemporaries than divine inspiration.  Her depiction of end-time events, for example, as found in The Great Controversy, is portrayed as deriving primarily from the expectations of 19^th century North American Adventists, having little application to today’s global society. 
• While the White Estate staff recognizes that Ellen White was fallible and subject to human frailties—not unlike the biblical prophets—we maintain that certain positions taken in the book do not fairly reflect the understanding of Ellen White and her associates regarding her prophetic ministry, and fail to represent fully Ellen White’s prophetic contributions to the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

For a well-balanced discussion of God’s system of communication with human beings, we recommend The Voice of the Spirit, by the former director of the White Estate, Dr. Juan Carlos Viera, and Messenger of the Lord, by Dr. Herbert E. Douglass.