(EGW Summit Review Pt 3)
Jud Lake is the presenter for this topic. Jud Lake is the Professor of Preaching and ADventist Studies at the School of Religion, Southern Adventist University. He is passionate advocate of expository preaching and Ellen White’s prophetic ministry.
He begins the presentation by reviewing the issues of the critics against Ellen White. He correctly notes that most of the material is a rehash of critics from ages past, from Snooks and Brinkerhoff to D.M. Canright. He gets around to mentioning Sydney Cleveland, Dirk Anderson, Dale Ratzlaff, Robert Sanders, and more in his rundown of the critics.
Next he goes through a review of positive apologetic material supporting Ellen White. He mentions several books (including many currently out of print) that are good sources of information regarding Ellen White and how to react to her critics. In addition, he does a quick rundown of the websites currently available to combat these issues as well.
In the conclusion, Lake concludes that all of the critics (at least the most outspoken ones) are former Seventh-day Adventists who left the church because of disillusionment from their view of Ellen White. Unfortunately, the view that he claims they buy in to is the one discussed by Craig Newborn on the previous talk - verbal inspiration. Correctly claiming that these critics do not take the material in context, he makes the case against verbal inspiration as the main reason for people leaving the church! While I find this intriguing, it’s quite possible he’s right - it also leads to people to leave the church because they find the liberal viewpoint has overrun the church and they can no longer feel welcomed in the church!
- Wrong view of inspiration - verbal inspiration.
- Consistantly ignore literary and historical context of the writings.
- Repeat the same fallacies in their arguements as previous.
- Ignore the books that uplift Christ (Desire of Ages, Steps to Christ, etc.).
- Rarely, if ever, engage and refute the classic EGW apologetic works.
He finally closes with ideas on how to refute the critics and deal with them. He correctly points out that we should not criticize the critics, but rather review and engage the material, and dispute it point by point! Overall, it is a good presentation. However, several references to Knight and Newborn and the prior presentations has validated my initial concerns from Knight … the summit’s focus seems to be geared towards creating a “modern” understanding of Ellen White. In this understanding, anyone who holds up the inspired writings of the Spirit of Prophecy as the Lord’s communications to his last-day remnant church, and believes in them 100% as they read (not using modern criticisms like some do on the Bible) is on the same road as the disillusioned anti-EGW critics! In fact, people who believe this way are responsible for this backlash against the church!
The next presentation covers inspiration and how it works … as well as addressing the charge of plagiarism against EGW and whether or not she used other sources for her writings.
I can’t wait …
May 12th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
For a different view on the Summit as well as quotes from the Summit see my comments at
http://cafesda.blogspot.com
I had to laugh at this comment above:
“He finally closes with ideas on how to refute the critics and deal with them. He correctly points out that we should not criticize the critics, but rather review and engage the material, and dispute it point by point!”
That was basically Jud Lake’s whole presentation…criticizing the critics.
May 13th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Hi Ron!
Thanks for visiting the site … I’ve visited your blog a time or two as well
Judging by your comments I perceive that you have pretty much discounted the EGW Summit as a presentation of obfuscation (I know that term is thrown around alot by the anti-EGW subculture). Sorry to hear that. While I don’t agree with the thrust of the summit (i.e., that a strict interpretation of EGW is leading to the schism in the denomination … I actually feel the reverse is true), I did find Jud Lake’s presentation interesting as a whole.
Many good resources were presented and recommended for those interested in apologetics of the Spirit of Prophecy. Anyone reading the comments, I would recommend you listen to the presentation first before making a judgement of the seminar.
Ron, thanks again for the visit!
May 16th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
No I don’t think the summit was obfuscation, Jud Lake being the exception. The other presentations were attempting to present a progressive view of EGW in which the SDA church can begin to say she grew and changed in her understanding. Which no one would have a problem with except for her claims to not be giving her opinion but writing what God presented to her.
So they are left in a dilemma in which they have to assign different writings more importance then other writings. Which again is not a problem as no one thinks her letters carry as much authority as published articles and books. At least not until the White Estate publishes letter portions as books. Something which the summit admitted, there are problems with the compilations.
There is one address at the summit that really should be heard, it is Greg Newborn’s A Path to Disengagement
http://ellenwhitesummit.foxyre.....bps%29.mp3
June 4th, 2007 at 6:45 am
Hello,
I’m writing to you from Germany. I’ve left the adventist church last year after 14 years membership because of unbiblical teachings of SDA church. Me and my wife are now free of the bondages your are dealing with and discussing here.
The most important thing is that more and more people are called by God to leave this church to uphold God’s souverenty, become Christ centric and absolutely trust on his inspired WORD and not mix it up with all the teachings of E.G.White.
I wish you God’s guidance to prove her writing in the light of bible.
Cheers,
Viktor