Ellen White has never been more relevant than she is today. And she will be even more relevant in 2000 A.D. But, after saying that, we must quickly ask, which Ellen White are we talking about? From many standpoints, she is not the person that many have made her out to be. The most fundamental questions involving Seventh-day Adventists today are simply: Will the real Ellen White stand up? And what is her message?

No matter what anyone thinks, or wants to believe, we are where we are. And where we are calls for a repackaging, or a re-imaging, or a just plain, laser-clear image of Ellen White--whatever words one chooses. A generation or two of Seventh-day Adventists are suffering from either historical amnesia or conceptual hi-jacking when it comes to who she was and what she contributed to the development of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and to the millions who have found God as their Friend through her ministry.

Without Ellen White, it is unlikely that the Seventh-day Adventist Church would have lasted a hundred years, if even fifty. She was the unifying steel cord that counseled and charted the development of a unique, world-wide church organization, the largest Protestant educational system in the world, a global circle of publishing houses and a system of literature distribution, a distinctive system of interactive, integrating principles of health that has stood the test of time, and health institutions that have ringed the earth. Ellen White and the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church are as interconnected as the warp and woof of a beautiful rug, or the indissoluble union of the Anglo-Saxon languages into the English we know today.

But she was more than an organizing genius. Without her distinctive theological message, there would have been no motivation, no rationale, no particular reason for all this effort. To motivate a few hundred relatively poor men and women more than 150 years ago to forsake ordinary conveniences, material security, and often the approval of their friends, to launch a movement that they were convinced was God’s special plan to prepare a people for the soon-coming Lord--that took something that this world has not seen very often since Creation.

And, in case no one has noticed lately, Ellen was a frail teenager whom physicians gave only months to live when her first assignment was given her by the Lord. That message from the Lord came at a time when New England had its share of aspiring women prophetesses. If this were a race for recognition, young Ellen Harmon started out several laps behind those whom we would have chosen to lead a people in fulfillment of such responsibilities envisioned in Rev. 14.

And in a way, that is the point: men and women who knew her well, who traveled with her in those early years, who watched her in vision and heard her messages, who saw her carry almost impossible loads as a young mother and intrepid traveler in the worst of weather, who listened to guidance that turned their brains toward clear-headed Bible study--they developed a confidence in her that went to base rock. And as her 70 years of ministry went on, strong, hard-nosed men and women learned to trust her guidance, even when it meant radical changes in their personal lives. The acid test of integrity is whether a person walks the talk, practicing what is preached--and she surely passed that test. That record is unimpeachable. What her contemporaries want us to know today is that she can be listened to with confidence. In other words--trust her.

So here we are 83 years after her death. Does she need repackaging? Some say Yes, and some, No. And both are right. It all depends on what is going on in each person’s experience.

Now timeout, for a little perspective. The last 25 years especially have been learning years for us all. Some have been surprised somewhat, others have been disappointed a lot, depending on one’s paradigm as to how revelation and inspiration works. In fact, for some the disappointment has led to hurt, perhaps to rejection of all they once knew about Ellen White.

In writing Messenger of the Lord I tried to speak to all--to the surprises, the disappointments, the cynicism, the hurt, and possibly the rejection--wherever one is on the continuum. For those second-generation kids who heard from well-meaning parents that Sister White was a wet-blanket, Ellen needs to be repackaged. For those who understood, from well-meaning teachers and parents that Ellen was a polished, porcelain saint, ten-feet tall, with superhuman attributes, Ellen needs repackaging. For those who heard the swish of a theological club whenever they heard Mrs. White quoted, she surely needs repackaging. If her literary genius was given as one of the strongest evidences of her inspiration, bad packaging. If her writings were understood as exactly the way the angels gave her the messages so that each word must be regarded as an unmovable pearl, she surely needs repackaging.

In the writing of Messenger, I don’t think I missed any rocks in the road that had to be turned over if I were to keep my own sanity and integrity. I worked with a sense of identity with those who heard those strange noises and felt the sting of those allegations and strident charges. And to some extent I felt like Ezekiel: "I sat where they sat, and was . . . astonished" (Eze. 3:15)

My first step was to discover for myself the real Ellen. I wanted to read for myself what her contemporaries thought of her. What kind of a wife and mother was she? What did the general public think of her? How did she handle tough times and towering disappointment? How did she do her writing? What about assistants and her great love for reading? How did she deliver her sermons? What about those extemporaneous sermons that were taken down verbatim without those phantom editors who supposedly did the writing for her?

My next step was to get into contemporary documents to see the extent of her involvement in the development of core Adventist teachings. Just what was her contribution to institutional history and how did she make any difference--and there was plenty to review.

I took a long, sympathetic look at the various factions that developed in the 1850s and on. What was the real problem with the early dissidents? A pattern soon emerged that exists to this day.

But the searing truth that overshadowed everything else I was putting away for the forthcoming pages was the simple concept that the message is more important than the messenger, even though the messenger glowed with remarkable assets. I thought of Biblical prophets. No one knows very much about even the best known writers. But we have their time-tested messages. The bottom line became laser sharp: the content is more important than the container.

With that simple, indisputable concept, the book came together fairly easily. What was that message? For Ellen White the Great Controversy Theme was the conceptual "key" to understanding humanity’s greatest questions. For her it was the "central theme of the Bible," and its aim was the "restoration in the human soul of the image of God." (See Ed:125, 190). For Ellen, the one word, "restoration," summarizes the purpose of the gospel, moving far beyond merely "forgiveness," as wonderful as forgiveness is to weak sinners.

This theme evolved in her writings as the emerging oak sapling from the acorn. It formed the sturdy trunk out of which came the great branches we call the Adventist principles of education, health care, environmental responsibility, government relations, and many other concerns.

Too often, however, we may have emphasized the branches and forgotten that it was that great trunk of the Great Controversy Theme that has made the Seventh-day Adventist Church into a distinctive theological voice. To those who say that she lifted this Theme from others, we can only ask, "From whom?"

The Great Controversy Theme forms the integrated, coherent and distinctively Adventist way of looking at such topics as evil and suffering in this world and beyond, the deeper and higher view of the atonement, the ethical norms for goodness and badness, the highest responsibilities for meaningful living and the rationale for life after death in an orderly universe.

Her charming focus and insistence on understanding the character of God became the framework for understanding oft-confused aspects of the plan of salvation. Getting the character of God right, something that Satan had done a remarkable job of misrepresenting, would not only be the drama behind the Great Controversy Theme, but serve as the highest motivation for changing sinners into saints. Where in the theological world will anyone find such conceptual architecture as we find in the Conflict of the Ages Series? And she did it so often with uncomplicated simplicity--a simplicity that professional theologians often overlook.

We are not suggesting that Adventist doctrines are derived from the visions of Ellen White. Far from it. But there is a time-tested relationship. On one hand, core Adventist doctrine is derived from the Bible; on the other, the writings of Ellen White are a consensus of Scripture . Nothing is clearer in Adventist history.

But in the nineteenth century, the seeker for Biblical truths had one huge problem: Which church, which religious leader, should one follow? All Protestants contended that they believed in the Bible, and the Bible only. Yet, the religious scene was nothing better than a circus. How could God use any one of the established churches in 1844 to tell His story of how He planned to bring this world to a close?

God did what He had to do. He broke into the human stream as He had done many times before when He needed a fuller understanding of truth to be proclaimed. One time it was Moses, then an Isaiah, than a John the Baptist and a Paul. This time God spoke to a deeply spiritual teenager and gave her an enormous assignment. Part of that assignment was to correct the theological errors of the time and to comfort the saints.

How did He help Ellen do it? By leading her along in visions as fast as her maturing mind could grasp her responsibilities. By participating in Bible studies with others, such as with her husband and Joseph Bates, and then those remarkable Sabbath and Sanctuary Conferences in 1848.

What happened in those Bible studies? When Brother A and B and C and D found themselves in deadlock situations, with no union or peace in sight, they would stop and pray and pray some more. And Ellen would have a vision. You can imagine their eagerness to know what she had learned. She would turn to Brother B and say, "I have been instructed that we should listen to you again." Then Brother C and A and D would turn to Brother B and say, "Brother B, would you please go over your study again." And when he finished, they all said, "Thank you, Brother B, it all makes sense now. And thank you, Ellen for pointing out the correct Biblical path."

Ellen was not the originator of distinctive Adventist doctrines, she was the confirmer. That’s what prophets have always done: Bible study plus confirmation by the prophet equals present truth.

What does all this have to do with the relevancy of Ellen White? Much in every way! Absent Ellen White’s writings, no one today would have the foggiest understanding of how this world is to end and what that message is that God wants the whole world to hear before He comes. The message is more important than the messenger, the content more than the container.

Another way to observe her relevancy is to note the fruit of her messages.

Who are the Bible students in the Seventh-day Adventist Church? Who are the front-line sharers of gospel truth in the Adventist Church today? Researchers conducted a study of church growth, surveying 8,200 Seventh-day Adventists attending 193 churches throughout the North American Division. One of the survey areas dealt with the degree of involvement in regular study of Ellen White’s books: The following categories of this section of the survey are very instructive:

And there were many other comparisons. The researchers concluded: "Seldom does a research study find the evidence so heavily weighted toward one conclusion. In the church growth survey, on every single item that deals with personal attitudes or practices, the member who regularly studies Ellen White’s books tends to rank higher than does the member who reads them only occasionally or never. . . . And these differences are found not only in the total profile but in each of the ethnic components. White, Black, and Hispanic readers, as groups, are each superior to nonreaders. . . . [Readers] actually bring more people into the church. . . . The church is especially challenged to seek ways to involve younger members and newer converts in this study [of Ellen White’s writings]. For it is these groups that hold the future of the church, and it is precisely these groups that are the least involved at the current time in the regular study of these writings." Ministry, October, 1982.

Our young people need to hear the "weight of evidence" that has brought Adventist joy to millions over the years. That "weight of evidence" would include:

For me and others, Ellen White answers the basic questions of a seeker’s mind and heart. I have discovered Hosea’s message to work out in my life: "Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets (6:5)." I have seen Jehoshaphat’s conviction work out in the lives of thousands in my day: "Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established; believe His prophets, and you will succeed" (2 Chron. 20:20, RSV).