On Sabbath afternoon, May 26, 2001, Ronald L. Numbers, a well-known specialist in the history of science and religion at the University of Wisconsin, presented a lecture at Loma Linda, California entitled "The Quest for the Historical Ellen G. White." His presentation summarized what has been learned during the last three decades or so of historical research about one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, Loma Linda University, and many other institutions.

This lecture was cosponsored by the Adventist Today Foundation and the Association of Adventist Forums as the third Richard Hammill Memorial Lecture. The Hammill Lectures are coordinated for these organizations by Ervin Taylor, an anthropologist at the University of California, Riverside.

My condensed version of Professor Numbers’s summary of recent research highlights seven ways in which our understanding of Ellen G. White may be more complete today than it was three decades ago:

1. In her early years, she probably associated with the so-called "shouting Methodists" and may have participated in some of their emotionally excessive forms of worship.
2. Her writings make substantial use of other written documents without identifying those sources in ways that are required today and probably were expected in her time and place.
3. The articles and books that were published under her name received extensive editorial improvements, first from her husband James, and then from other skilled wordsmiths.
4. Her long marriage to James was a complex relationship that was beset at times by intense conflict.
5. Throughout the whole of her life she suffered from many physical and psychological ailments.
6. She was mistaken about several things that range in scope from the medical consequences of masturbation, on one extreme, to the history of the universe, on the other.
7. She was not always candid about these matters.

In response to questions, both at the lecture and at a reception convened the night before at the home of his cousins, Doctor and Mrs. Bruce Branson, Numbers doubted that Ellen White’s visionary experiences are best attributed to the neurological results of a childhood accident in which she was struck in the face by a thrown rock. Because so many others in her time and place who experienced no such physical trauma also experienced visions like Ellen White’s, he believes it is more helpful to attribute them to the religious expectations of those with whom she then associated.

When asked about the possibility that Ellen Gould White descended in part from African Americans named Gould who had settled in New England, Numbers reported that it is known that members of an African-American family of that name did live near her childhood home in Portland, Maine. However, he also indicated that no link had been definitively established between her and them.

Some suggested to Numbers that it would be possible to compare the genetic profiles of the descendants of Ellen Gould White and the African-American Goulds of Portland, Maine, to see if they are similar. Others asked, "So what?" What difference would it make, what difference should it make, if we discovered that Ellen White was related to them, or if we learned that she wasn’t?

The "so what?" questions interest me the most, not only about Ellen White’s racial identity but also about all the historical information we increasingly have about her and other religious leaders of the past. What difference does it make? What difference should it make?

Perhaps we would do well to avoid two errors when hazarding answers to such "so what?" questions. One is the mistake of historical ignorance. Contrary to what some say, ignorance is not bliss. It is dangerous. The less we know about the past, the more likely we are to misunderstand it in ways that hurt others and ourselves. The more we know about the past, the more likely we are to live in the present and for the future in healthy and healing ways. Dismissive ignorance is not a viable option. It wounds and kills.

The other mistake is that of the so-called "genetic fallacy." This is the logical error of evaluating a message according to what we respect and don’t respect about its messenger. If we rejected all assertions that were first made by people whose actions and attitudes we do not wholly admire, we would be far less informed and our lives would be much less comfortable! It is a good thing to evaluate the validity of a message. It is also a good thing to evaluate the trustworthiness of a messenger. But it is usually best not to do one while we are doing the other!

Even if Ellen White lived a life that was beyond ethical reproach in every way, she may have been mistaken in some things she said. The opposite is also true: even if her life were reprehensible in every regard, something she said may nevertheless be true.

Most of us believe, for instance, that Adolf Hitler was a bad person who spoke many untruths. Nevertheless, it is altogether likely that he did say some things that were correct. Again, it is one thing to assess a message and another to evaluate a messenger. Both can be done, but not at the same moment and not by the same standards.

Because we are finite and fallible, we human beings are usually better at assessing messages than we are at evaluating messengers, though we must do some of both. I suspect that Ellen White was neither a saint nor an unpardonable sinner, but rather a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, good traits and bad, triumphs and failures. My hunch is that in these respects she probably was a lot like many of us: persons who stand in constant need of God’s forgiving and empowering compassion. Beyond that, I prefer to leave the judgment of her character to Someone who is wiser than I, just as I do regarding all others.

I also believe that those of us who are Seventh-day Adventist Christians should increasingly become more skilled at assessing all messages, including those of Ellen White, so as more precisely to separate the wheat from the chaff. If we continue justifying the validity of what Ellen White said by appealing to who she was, if we continue committing the genetic fallacy on her behalf, we will have no one to blame but ourselves if some reject certain truths she taught because they cannot respect everything she did and was. That outcome would be both silly and sad.

The wisdom of Scripture is still helpful: "Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil." (1 Thess. 5. KJV).

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