Laurel Damsteegt
Those who feel called out to join the movement in favor of woman's rights and the so-called dress reform, might as well sever all connection with the third angel's message. The spirit which attends the one cannot be in harmony with the other. The Scriptures are plain upon the relations and rights of men and women. Spiritualists have, to quite an extent, adopted this singular mode of dress. Seventh-day Adventists, who believe in the restoration of the gifts, are often branded as spiritualists. Let them adopt this costume and their influence is dead.
Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 421
The author of chapter 17 of Women in Ministry, "Ellen White and Women's Rights,"1 makes a study of the above passage, mostly to show that it has nothing to do with the ongoing struggle within the Seventh-day Adventist church to ordain women to the gospel ministry.
This Women in Ministry author admits that spiritualism was connected with the Woman's Rights Movement of the 19th century, but says spiritualism declined at the end of that century. Therefore, she feels that Mrs. White's warning in the passage above does not apply to the ordination question our church faces today. Through a discussion of editorial changes and a full-blown study on "rights," she seeks to make this passage of "none effect."
This chapter will seek to show that spiritualism was not only a part of the earlier women's movement, but it is a vital part of this movement today. Instead of spiritualism fading out, as the Women in Ministry chapter indicates, it has crescendoed into the New Age movement and is very much a part of the whole feminist movement and, indeed, our very culture. Spiritualism deals not only with the obvious--rappings, necromancy, and divination--it has very much to do with a philosophy carefully delineated in The Great Controversy. There we are told that this insidious, pervasive movement will be instrumental in setting aside the authority of Scripture to bring about the joining of hands of all Christendom to bring on the final movements.2
Women's ordination is but a small step in the feminist agenda. To believe that ordination itself is the only issue for women in the Seventh-day Adventist church is surely naive. Ordination, the laying on of hands that would give an ecclesiastical blessing for a woman to function fully as a minister of the gospel of the Seventh-day Adventist church, adds little to what she already does or can do. But ordination is necessary as a vital stepping stone in the feminist agenda for a robust total "equality" of position. The recent document, "The President's Commission on Women in Ministry--Report," tells just a bit of what is on the agenda for the Seventh-day Adventist woman, pushing reluctant Adventists to put women in line not only for pastorates but also for conference and union leadership and even the presidency of the General Conference.3
Women in Ministry differs from other Adventist publications pushing for women's ordination in that its authors present themselves as theologically conservative. Their conservative approach makes ordination of women appear innocuous. It seems that an attempt has been made to disassociate women's ordination from feminism and even from liberal Adventism.
If the issue were just over sending out fine Christian women to evangelize and win souls, no one would have a problem. But the issue is not women doing God's work with heart and soul. The issue is who is behind the agenda to bring feminist perspectives into the Seventh-day Adventist church. The prince of the powers of darkness has poisoned even the most beautiful and powerful avenues of reaching people.
Bound up in this "simple" issue are such important considerations as the foundations of our faith. If we interpret Scripture to allow women to oversee, or to "usurp authority over the man" (1 Tim. 2:12), we are going directly contrary to Scripture. Just how important is this changing of the meaning of Scripture? Suppose we were to change the name or being of God from our Heavenly Father, which the Bible calls Him, to Mother or Light, as many in the feminist movement urge, would we not create a new idolatry? If we deem man and woman the same, as many feminists promote, do we not open the door to androgyny, great perversion, and wickedness? If we discard the biblical roles that distinguish men and women, do we not insult the Creator who crafted us differently for His glory?
Feminism has seeped into every fiber of the current generation. It is not something most are even aware of, because education has been thoroughly revamped by feminism. It seeks to change attitudes even in kindergarten and throughout school.4 Most people living in this culture don't even realize how much feminism has affected them.
I can understand that some proponents of women's ordination might feel resentful when ideas expressed in Women in Ministry are compared to radical feminism. But feminism is a continuum. All feminism has the same roots and leans in the same direction--variations are just matters of degree. Yesterday's radical feminism has become today's norm. Furthermore, feminism transcends denominational distinctions, which is one reason why we face it within our church. To quote Mary A. Kassian,
"In spite of their political, sociological, or theological nuances, feminists all adhere to a common presupposition. It is this common presupposition that has shaped and dictated the progression of feminism's philosophical development. Moreover, in the Church, feminism transcends denominational distinctions. The denominational ties of Roman Catholic, Baptist, United Church, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Anglican, and Jew are all superseded by the common bond of feminism. . . .The major consideration was only that women's concerns were being pursued within the context of established Judeo-Christian institutions."5
Unfortunately, some proponents of women's ordination do not realize what is behind the scenes. They are totally Christian and kindly naive, yet they are totally deceived about the issues involved here. Supporting this feminist agenda item is dangerous because it is part of a much larger picture, one that we have been warned against. "Those who feel called out to join the movement in favor of woman's rights and the so-called dress reform, might as well sever all connection with the third angel's message."
In 1975 I wrote a research paper entitled "Attending Spirits" that showed how the women's rights movement of the 1900s was directly linked to spiritualism.6 I tediously paged through early Adventist periodicals up through 18817 (we never dreamed of CD-ROM searches in those days) to get a feel for the feminist concerns and issues that surrounded the now-well-known statement (Testimonies for the Church 1:421) quoted at the beginning of this chapter.
I puzzled over how women's rights could be considered spiritualistic. I pored over the periodicals looking for clues.
Then I discovered an important lead. In the September 26, 1871, Review and Herald, Uriah Smith published a most insightful article, "Victoria C. Woodhull."8 This opened the whole issue for me. In an account of spiritualistic mediums of that day, he told how the career of Mrs. Woodhull was "planned and executed thus far wholly by the spirits."9
I had not previously heard of Victoria C. Woodhull. Now I began digging into the histories and found that she was a renowned spiritualist who, because of direct spirit-leading, became one of the foremost women's rights activists of her time.
Finding out about Victoria C. Woodhull opened up for me a whole study on spiritualism in the women's rights movement. My conclusions, drawn in 1975, were that there was legitimate concern enough for Adventists to distance themselves from the women's rights movement: "SDA publications were quick to link Mrs. Woodhull's gross immorality first to spiritualism and then to the surge for equality, or woman's rights. In the final analysis one could get the idea that early Adventists considered such rights to be a facet of Spiritualism."10
Imagine my amazement in reviewing current secular literature to find newly published evidence supporting this early study! In the last three years four major works have come out about Victoria C. Woodhull and spiritualism.11 Some devotee has even made an extensive web site listing a complete bibliography of books, videos, articles, and reviews about Victoria C. Woodhull!12
While other women's rights activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had struggled vainly to make an impact on society, Woodhull, at the direct leading of the spirits, proclaimed herself a candidate for President of the United States and was granted a hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the Joint Houses of Congress! She drew up "The Woodhull Memorial," a document dealing with woman's suffrage, and presented it to the joint committee. Astonished women's rights advocates couldn't believe her inroads and welcomed her into their inner circle (for a while, anyway).
But fascinated as I was by these assertions, I was astonished when I came to understand the strong spiritualist trends among many of the other women's rights activists in the early post-civil war years. Spiritualism was a "new" religious movement dominated by women.13 Its two strong attractions were "rebellion against death [espousing necromancy] and rebellion against authority."14 Spiritualist women were among the first to speak in "promiscuous assemblies" (gatherings of both sexes), giving special messages said to be from the spirits of such men as Socrates and Benjamin Franklin. "Not surprisingly, the rights of women were very much on the minds of these great thinkers."15
"At a time when no churches ordained women and many forbade them to speak aloud in church, Spiritualist women had equal authority, equal opportunities, and equal numbers in religious leadership."16 "Spiritualism validated the female authoritative voice and permitted women an active professional and spiritual role largely denied them elsewhere."17
"Spiritualism and woman's rights drew from the same well: Both were responses to the control, subjugation, and repression of women by church and state. Both believed in universal suffrage--the equality of all human beings. For women--sheltered, repressed, powerless--the line between divine inspiration, the courage of one's convictions, and spirit guidance became blurred. Not all woman's rights advocates became Spiritualists, but spiritualism embraced woman's rights."18
I have been shocked to note how many of the leading personalities in the women's rights movement actually consulted the dead or had spiritualistic philosophies. Among them were Harriet Beecher Stowe,19 Isabella Beecher Hooker, 20 Horace and Mary Greeley,21 and even Henry Ward Beecher, the powerful preacher.22
Susan B. Anthony wrote, "Oh dear, dear! If the spirits would only just make me a trance medium and put the rights into my mouth. You can't think how earnestly I have prayed to be made a speaking medium for a whole week. If they would only come to me thus, I'd give them a hearty welcome."23
Elizabeth Cady Stanton heard spirit raps and "miraculously" wrote the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments on the famous McClintock "spirit table."24 Later, her very detailed instructions for her funeral included being dressed in ordinary clothes, and that "common sense women should conduct the services." The mahogany McClintock spirit table was placed at the head of her coffin.25 This table, now famous, is presently housed at the Smithsonian as a symbol of early feminism and its spiritualistic connection.
Victoria C. Woodhull claimed that the "Woodhull Memorial" she presented to Congress was conceived by the spirits as she dictated it to someone while she was in a trance.26
Even "conservative" women's rights leaders were spiritualists. Harriet Beecher Stowe (who had no use for Woodhull) regularly "contacted" her dead son. Spiritualists claim that Uncle Tom's Cabin was dictated to her by the spirits.27
These persons not only had the philosophy, they also followed the lifestyle and had dealings with the spirits that clearly define them as spiritualists. Amazing.
Bound up in this woman, Victoria C. Woodhull, and the women's rights movement were tenets of spiritualism waiting to be revealed.
Spiritualism seeks to equalize the roles of women and men under the guise of "love"; it makes marriage look foolish and tears down Christianity by voiding scriptural authority.
When Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennie C. Claflin, came to public notice, they were mediums and stock brokers on Wall Street and published a small weekly newspaper. Beautiful, totally immoral, and assertive, these women scandalized the papers with their blatant sexual openness. Driven by the spirits to lead a "social revolution," they delighted in publicizing the immoral behavior of the famous people of their time to support their sexual revolution, which was totally against marriage and the biblical roles of women. These sisters tried to show how people doing evil things could still be viewed as "good."
Henry Ward Beecher, probably the most famous preacher of that era, taught a gospel of love to his huge church.28 Victoria C. Woodhull came to know many of the naughty details of his liaisons, and she blackmailed him. She wanted him to "come out" and support her sexual revolution. He would have nothing to do with her, so she published one of his sordid stories.
Woodhull felt that doing evil was not "evil," but being hypocritical about it was. Being a "good person" does not mean being righteous, she said; a "good person" can do very evil things.
This is a significant tenet of spiritualism, that there is no difference between good and evil, that morality is not really all that important. Ellen White focused on this aspect of spiritualism:
"Love is dwelt upon as the chief attribute of God, but it is degraded to a weak sentimentalism, making little distinction between good and evil. God's justice, His denunciations of sin, the requirements of His holy law, are all kept out of sight. The people are taught to regard the Decalogue as a dead letter. Pleasing, bewitching fables captivate the senses and lead men to reject the Bible as the foundation of their faith."29
Woodhull and Claflin (under the inspiration of the spirits) and a few of the more radical women's rights advocates understood what their conservative sisters could not. Religion and marriage were the two institutions obstructing the way of "true" social equality. Christianity, very fundamental and biblical in those days, taught the headship of men in the home and church according to the writings of Paul. To these women activists, marriage bound the woman and kept her from reaching her full potential. How could she find freedom when she had no "choice?"
Shocking to the Victorian mentality of the last century were Woodhull's vulgar remarks:
"If I want sexual intercourse with one hundred men I shall have it . . . and this sexual intercourse business may as well be discussed now, and discussed until you are so familiar with your sexual organs that a reference to them will no longer make the blush mount to your face any more than a reference to any other part of your body. . . . I do not propose to have any blush on my face for any act of my life. My life has been my own. I have nothing to apologize for."30
Woodhull and Claflin taught that woman should be free to truly love whomever and whenever she pleased (like the men). In a talk entitled "The Scarecrows of Sexual Freedom," Woodhull denounced a "loveless and indissoluble marriage" as "legalized prostitution."
"They say I have come to break up the family. I say amen to that with all my heart. . . . In a perfected sexuality shall continuous life be found. . . . Such to me, my brothers and sisters, is the sublime mission of Spiritualism, to be outwrought through the sexual emancipation of woman, and her return to self ownership, and to individualized existence." 31
In one of her speeches, Mrs. Woodhull announced that she had "declared relentless warfare against marriage, and ha[d] sworn to wage it `until the last vestige of this remnant of savagery shall be wiped from the otherwise fair face of present civilization.'"32
So far, I have shown that spiritualism was deeply involved in the feminist movement in the nineteenth century. Women in Ministry acknowledges this. But Women in Ministry says spiritualism has no part in the feminist movement today--and therefore Mrs. White's warning, quoted at the beginning of the chapter, does not apply to the ordination question our church faces today. Let's take a look at modern feminism.
Current literature depicts Woodhull as a prototype of modern feminists and of the whole feminist movement that has saturated our culture. "Victoria never stopped believing that the spirits had brought her into the world to lead a `social revolution.' She said that from her birth, and even before, she had been marked for this fate."33
Despite the fact that she was far more radical than others in her day and that ultimately she became an icon that for years blackened the women's rights movement, feminists today are grateful for her lead. "Woodhull rejected the 19th century definition of women's role. Women must `own themselves,' she said. In her life and views she was more than a century before her time."34 Gloria Steinem, one of today's leading feminists, urges women to "catch the spirit of the real Victoria Woodhull."35
Today her spiritualistic philosophy permeates our culture. Sex education and the X-rated media have created a society that never blushes over any type of immorality. A president can be "good" while doing evil deeds; more and more people cohabit36 because they "love" each other; single-parent families are on the increase. An ever-growing number of persons who do get married divorce.
The practical outworking of the Woodhull and Claflin morality has affected our church. Instead of being a sacred covenant, marriage sometimes becomes a temporary alliance. The divorce rate climbs. Children are left to single-parent homes. Some members give themselves permission to sin on the basis that God loves us so much He doesn't care even if we make an intentional, premeditated "mistake." Despite all the marriage classes and counseling available today, the Adventist home is in jeopardy.
Feminism has gone far beyond even the most blatant imaginings of Victoria Woodhull and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Whereas Elizabeth Cady Stanton took the first steps in breaking down male-female distinctions in dress by donning (for a while) the bloomer costume,37 and Victoria Woodhull broke down the reserve in speaking openly about sexuality, gender issues hadn't even been dreamed of.
Today, as we are beginning to see the full implications of gender, perhaps we can better understand the reason for God's distinctions in roles and dress.38 Note how the United Nations agency in charge of research on women is seeking to recast gender. Their statement below shows how a person is not necessarily born with a specific gender; gender develops socially, politically, or economically:
"Gender is a concept that refers to a system of roles and relationships between women and men that are determined not by biology but the social, political, and economic context. One's biological sex is a natural given; gender is constructed. . . . Gender can be seen as the `process by which individuals who are born into biological categories of male or female become the social categories of women and men through the acquisition of locally defined attributes of masculinity and femininity.'" 39
We still often believe the term "gender" is the same as what used to be "sex" on a demographic form. Not so, the feminists tell us. Gender includes far more than "male" and "female." One radical feminist calls for a "reversion of an unobstructed pansexuality." 40 Such can include male and female, but also homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.41
"Young women openly enter into intimate relationships with both genders that are more than just experiments. They resist being described as straight or gay--or even bisexual, which some think suggests promiscuity and one-night stands. Instead they use words like fluid and omnisexual." 42
"`Family,' too, has been redefined so the term `could refer to two roommates.'"43
Is the feminist movement something Adventists want to be identified with, or did Mrs. White have a reason for saying that any who feel called to join it might as well leave the church?
In the 19th century, a higher-critical method of interpreting Scripture was making inroads into Christianity. Scholars interpreted the Bible in new and creative ways, and many "errors" were "discovered." Many matters long accepted as settled suddenly were unsettled.
Higher criticism maintains that one cannot read Scripture and believe that God gave it as it reads. Rather, one must come to understand that the Bible was written by many authors who expressed the "myths" and situations of their own culture.
"Scholarship" breathed doubt into the Word. Skeptical scholars suggested that many of the stories were not really true, though their authors may have truly believed them. Creation, authorship, miracles, Bible stories, all came under attack. Historical-critical methodology was, and still is, fond of dwelling on the "errors" and "discrepancies" in Scripture. Instead of building faith, historical criticism places doubt, distrust and disillusionment in the hearts and minds of readers.
In short, higher critics viewed the Bible as a man-made book that recorded man's experience. All who believed that God Himself was the Author of infallible Scripture were derided as "fundamentalists."
Leaders of the women's rights movement found those criticisms very much to their liking. These leaders were soon in the forefront of the discussion of Scripture. Just as today there are moderates and radicals in attitudes and views towards Scripture, so also back then.
Moderate Feminism and Scripture. An example of moderate feminism was Miss Frances E. Willard, President of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She had such a positive impact on the women's movement that she is remembered today by a statue in the Capitol Building of the United States.
Miss Willard and another woman were elected by local Methodist boards to serve as delegates to a Methodist General Conference. The church leaders refused to seat them. Willard became so angry that she wrote Woman in the Pulpit, a book promoting the ordination of women. But ordination of women was not achieved in her church in her day. (Most interestingly, a colleague, Mrs. S. M. I. Henry, a national evangelist of the W.C.T.U. and a close friend and fellow worker of Miss Frances Willard, disagreed with her on the ordination issue. Mrs. S. M. I. Henry later became a Seventh-day Adventist and was largely responsible for beginning a "Woman's Work" within the Adventist church. Mrs. Henry believed in the plain reading of the Scriptures. This is why she accepted the Sabbath and why she did not believe in the ordination of women, though she very strongly believed in women becoming involved in gospel work.)44
Moderates such as Frances E. Willard, predecessors of today's "biblical feminists," maintained that tradition is built on man's Scriptural misinterpretation, that there is a better way of reading controverted passages. Literalism is the culprit, not the Bible itself.45 Moderates would have you compare passages. They would sincerely uphold Scripture as the Word of God but point a finger at man, who has made it seem oppressive. Said Miss Willard:
"I think that men have read their own selfish theories into the Book, that theologians have not in the past sufficiently recognized the progressive quality of its revelation, nor adequately discriminated between its records as history and its principles of ethics of religion, nor have they until recently perceived that it is not in any sense a scientific treatise; but I believe that the Bible comes to us from God, and that it is a sufficient rule of faith and of practice. . . . To me the Bible is the dear and sacred home book which makes a hallowed motherhood possible because it raises woman up, and with her lifts toward heaven the world."46
Miss Willard was a contemporary of Mrs. White and spoke strongly about ordaining women to the gospel ministry. Isn't it interesting that, in contrast to Frances Willard, who interpreted Scripture to mean it was necessary, Ellen White never once mentioned ordaining women to a pulpit ministry? Nor was Ellen G. White ever called Elder White or Pastor Ellen. She always called herself Sister White.
As a special messenger from the Lord, she gave plenty of messages advocating that women work for the Lord with all their hearts and souls. Indeed, the Bible and Mrs. White call for participation of women in the soul-winning ministry. And women who work in soul-winning lines are to be paid fairly; Mrs. White repeatedly calls for remuneration to wives of ministers who work alongside their husbands,47 a fact which Adventists on both sides of the women's issue affirm.48 But Mrs. White had no special vision or counsel showing women as pastors or having hands laid on them for that role, advocating women's ordination. She was not even ordained herself.49
Radical Feminists and Scripture. Radicals of the 19th century, on the other hand, looked at the Bible itself as the problem. Donna Behnke, who discusses the issue of inspiration and early feminism in a Ph.D. dissertation, cites Elizabeth Cady Stanton's views on Scripture as an example of the higher-critical methodology being used in Stanton's day. "She not only used higher criticism and rejected biblical literalism, but also refused to believe the Bible itself was inspired. . . . No amount of rationalizing could erase the fact that the Bible taught principles adverse to women."50
Mrs. Stanton edited The Woman's Bible that compiled all the passages of the Bible relative to women with essays authored by various individuals about each "problem text." "The first step in the elevation of women under all systems of religion is to convince them that the great Spirit of the Universe is in no way responsible for any of these absurdities. . . . The Woman's Bible comes to the ordinary reader like a real benediction. It tells her the good Lord did not write the Book; that the garden scene is a fable; that she is in no way responsible for the laws of the Universe."51
Stanton was radical and endured much opposition from churchmen and other more conservative feminists who believed that women were elevated by Scripture. But she was by no means alone in her fight. Another author maintained that "whatever progress woman has made in any department of effort, she has accomplished independently of, and in opposition to, the so-called inspired and infallible `Word of God,' and that this book has been of more injury to her than has any other which has ever been written in the history of the world."52
In one especially heated women's rights convention, in Philadelphia in 1854, the role of revelation came to the fore. Many views were aired. One spokesman, a Rev. Grew, maintained that "unless women were prepared to discredit the entire Bible from beginning to end, . . . they would have to acquiesce and admit that it taught their subjection."53
In the heated discussion William Lloyd Garrison, "author, anti-slavery speaker, and pioneer `liberator' who also became an ardent pioneer spiritualist,"54 arose and bluntly stated the view of inspiration held by radical women's rights advocates as well as spiritualists:
"Why go to the Bible? What question was ever settled by the Bible? What question of theology or any other department? None that I ever heard of! With this same version of the Bible, and the same ability to read it, we find that it has filled all Christendom with theological confusion. All are Ishmaelites; each man's hand against his neighbor.
"The human mind is greater than any book, the mind sits in judgment on every book. If there be truth in the book, we take it; if error, we discard it. Why refer to the Bible? In this country, the Bible has been used to support slavery and capital punishment; while in the old countries, it has been quoted to sustain all manner of tyranny and persecution. All reforms are anti-Bible. We must look at all things rationally. We find women endowed with certain capacities, and it is of no importance if any book denies her such capacities."55
The Woman's Bible sought to explain away the plain Word of God using myths and allegories and culture--higher-critical methodology. Ursula Bright boldly declared of the Bible:
"It is a grand volume, a masterpiece composed of clever, ingenious fables, containing great verities; but it reveals the latter only to those who, like the Initiates, have a key to its inner meaning; a tale sublime in its morality and didactics truly--still a tale and an allegory; a repertory of invented personages in its older Jewish portions, and of dark sayings and parables in its later additions, and thus quite misleading to any one ignorant of its esotericism. . . .
"Slowly we see a light breaking. When the dawn comes we shall have a revision of the Bible on very different lines from any yet attempted. In the meantime may we not ask, Is there any curse or crime which has not appealed to the Bible for support? Polygamy, capital punishment, slavery and war have all done so. Why not the subjection of women? Let us hold fast that which is good in the Bible and the rest will modify itself in the future, as it has done in the past, to the needs of humanity and the advance of knowledge."56
In the nineteenth century, rationalism and the effects of the Enlightenment were prominent in intellectual circles. Josephine Henry explicitly revealed the end of the rational approach.
"The by-paths of ecclesiastical history are fetid with the records of crimes against women; and the `half has never been told.' And what of the history which Christianity is making today? . . . Answer, ye mental dwarfs and moral monstrosities, and tell what the Holy Bible has done for you. . . .
"When Reason reigns and Science lights the way, a countless host of women will move in majesty down the coming centuries. A voice will cry, `Who are these?' and the answer will ring out: `these are the mothers of the coming race, who have locked the door of the Temple of Faith and thrown the key away; "these are they which came out of great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the" fountain of knowledge.'"57
Was this blatant, blasphemous hatred for inspiration as it reads just in the feminism of the past? Oh no! If anything, today's feminism has gone far beyond this and reinterpreted all of the Bible in various and radical ways.
Today's feminists go well beyond the view of earlier women's rights' views of biblical inspiration. In 1968, Mary Daly in The Church and the Second Sex argued that the Bible authors were merely men of their times who could never be "free of the prejudices of their epochs."58 Therefore, women of the church have just as much right to direct current theology as Paul did in Scripture, to act as prophets, and to guide the church in a new direction.59
As modern feminist theology has developed, the Bible is viewed not so much as a timeless Book that applies to all peoples in all times to shape all culture, but a Book to be picked apart and subjected to acceptance or rejection relative to their own culture or situation.60
According to one published report, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza argues that "feminists must employ a `hermeneutics of suspicion'--that is, they must systematically assume that the Bible's male authors and interpreters deliberately covered up the role of women in early Christianity. . . . The wider implication of the Schüssler Fiorenza work is that the biblical texts cannot be authoritative Scriptures for women until they are critically reinterpreted from women's experiences of oppression. And what is true for the Bible holds for every other dimension of the Christian religion."61
Through such methods the Bible is rewritten and Christianity redesigned to better fit women. Schüssler Fiorenza states, "Women today not only rewrite biblical stories about women, but also reformulate patriarchal prayers and create feminist rituals celebrating our ancestors. We rediscover in story and poetry, in drama and liturgy, in song and dance, our biblical foresisters' sufferings and victories. . . . In ever new images and symbols we seek to rename the God of the Bible and the significance of Jesus. . . . We not only spin tales about the voyages of Prisca, the missionary, or about Junia, the apostle, but also dance Sarah's circle and experience prophetic enthusiasm. We sing litanies of praise to our foresisters and pray laments of mourning for the lost stories of our foremothers."62
Even biblical feminists (believers in both the Bible and feminism) like Hardesty and Scanzoni, who in the 1970s wrote A Biblical Approach to Women's Liberation, "altered traditional hermeneutics to present the thesis that equality between men and women was to be reflected by the obliteration of sex roles in Church and marriage . . . known as the egalitarian position. Egalitarians prided themselves in being both feminist and Biblical."63
"Biblical feminists chose Galatians 3:28, `In Christ there is neither male nor female . . . ,' as the crux around which to interpret Scripture. Notwithstanding that the context of this verse dealt with who could become a Christian and on what basis--and not with male/female roles." This crux became the measuring stick by which all other Scripture was to be measured. "Biblical feminists decided that equality meant monolithic, undifferentiated role-interchangeability. Rather than gleaning their definition of equality from the Bible, Biblical feminists adopted the feminist definition of equality that was current in contemporary North American society. They chose `equality' as their crux interpretum and then demanded that all Biblical interpretation support their predetermined, feminist definition."64
If some Scripture did not suit their fancy, they would label it "unauthentic or incorrect" or creatively seek for new meanings of Greek words like kephale (head)65 and then argue that these new definitions altered the meaning of the text. "Finally, passages that could not be discounted in any of these ways were handled by labeling them `cultural' and hence inapplicable to the contemporary Church."66
However, feminists have a way of "evolving." "Conservative Biblical feminism is no longer advanced by those who initiated it. Writers such as Scanzoni, Hardesty, and Mollenkott have left evangelicalism to join liberal religious feminism."67 In order to embrace both the Bible and concerns of the women's movement they ended up compromising the Bible.
As Phyllis Trible, a very liberal feminist, once said, "A feminist who loves the Bible produces, in the thinking of many, an oxymoron. Perhaps clever as rhetoric, the description offers no possibility for existential integrity. After all, if no man can serve two masters, no woman can serve two authorities, a master called scripture and a mistress called feminism."68
Our only hope is to seek a simple, childlike interpretation of Scripture. Carsten Johnsen once defined spiritualistic interpretation of Scripture as "an insisting egocentric desire to spiritualize away the tangible reality of God's living Word, ignore its simple message, distort and reject its plain command."69 He showed how Kellogg's pantheism, which Ellen G. White rebuked, spiritualized away the plain, simple, real Word of God. This was called the alpha of apostasy. The omega, which is to be much worse, was still to come.
The author of the chapter "Ellen White and Women's Rights" goes to some effort to define Ellen White's meaning of "rights," but soft-pedals the issue of the spiritualistic roots of the women's rights movement. According to her, the statement in the first volume of Testimonies for the Church, page 421, "one of the few on women's rights, is one of the most direct, yet it is potentially ambiguous and misunderstood."70
Remember, this is the passage we began with: "Those who feel called out to join the movement in favor of women's rights . . . might as well sever all connection with the third angel's message. The spirit which attends the one cannot be in harmony with the other."
In order to come to a so-called "better" understanding of what this passage means, the author uses questions, projections, underlying issues, and an analysis of the principles to make an otherwise plain paragraph obscure, subtle and ambiguous. If one doesn't agree with the prophet, speculating about her grammar and context can muddy the water sufficiently to make room for softer interpretations.
In essence, here is the problem that the author raises with this powerful passage. The quotation came out of a testimony, first published in 1864, called "The Cause in the East." When it was republished in the first volume of the Testimonies, "slight editorial changes occurred--mostly in the 1880s--between Ellen White's statement in the original and that published in Testimonies to the Church, 1:421. White wrote, `the relations and rights of women and men,' while the editors corrected to `of men and women' [her italics] probably to conform to common usage. If Ellen White was intentionally referring to women first, why might she have wished to emphasize women's rights over men's? Perhaps she believed women's rights were more endangered. Support for this possibility is suggested by her writing far more about the need for women to protect their personal boundaries, to develop themselves, to be sensitive to their call to service, and to see their coequal roles in the home than about men's needs in these areas."71
Any time there are "editorial changes" one has to ask, Who made them and why? In the statement quoted above, the Women in Ministry author presupposes that the first edition of the testimony represented the real Ellen White; the second, that of the "editors."
Here a higher-critical methodology is subtly being used on Ellen White.72 Observe how much speculation has entered into this analysis. Note all the tentative, suggestive words: "probably," "if," "might have," "perhaps," "possibility," "suggested." The plain fact is that the paragraph was changed under Ellen White's supervision by her own editors, Marian Davis and Mary White, who edited everything she wrote during that period. The passage was not edited secretly or post-mortem.73 Mrs. White had another thirty-five years to protest the changes if she didn't agree with them. Editors attempted to clarify, not change, any sense that was originally intended. In discussing the editorial changes, the preface to the volume noted:
"Some grammatical and rhetorical changes also have been made for the sake of strength and clearness. In making these changes great care has been taken to preserve every idea, and in no case have either words or sentences been omitted unless as above indicated, to avoid unnecessary repetition."74
Sister White intended to speak about the rights and relations of women and men, or men and women; either way means the same thing, because she wasn't stressing the rights of one over the other but the relation between the two.
The Women in Ministry author continues with the chapter's analysis:
"Another change is perhaps more significant. The original wording was `Those who feel called out to join the Woman's Rights Movement,' but this was replaced with `Those who feel called out to join the movement in favor of woman's rights' [her italics]. The modification communicates a subtle but significant change in focus from the specific movement called the Woman's Rights Movement to the larger context of anyone favoring women's rights. Thus the specificity that may have been intended is removed in favor of a more general application."75
Here the author implies that there was a motive behind the "editor's" change from the Woman's Right's Movement to "anyone favoring women's rights." She felt Ellen White was specifying only the Woman's Rights Movement and did not mean the broader issue of standing up for one's rights. By contrast, however, we have detailed how the Woman's Rights advocates were truly spiritualistic. We have also detailed how their daughters today carry on and have extended their notions and philosophies more extensively. Feminism has not left Spiritualism behind in deed (morality), philosophy (existentialism), theology (feminist theology), or mysticism (New Age and goddess rituals).
The next pages of the Women in Ministry chapter give an excellent study on "rights" in Ellen White's writings. Essentially, the author cites examples of Ellen White's views of such relationships as government and citizen, church leadership and member, parent and child, and husband and wife. In each scenario the author shows how those in authority have the responsibility of guarding the interests and individuality of those under them. She also tactfully shares how those abused "are to allow the denial of their rights in a spirit of humble submission." Those who are violated should patiently "bear the violation of their rights."76 If defrauded, rather than take the grievance to the courts of justice one should rather "suffer loss and wrong."77 She concludes that "Christians need not contend for their rights because `God will deal with the one who violates these rights. . . . An account is kept of all these matters, and for all the Lord declares that He will avenge.'"78
As good as the analysis of Ellen White's use of rights is, one is left asking, "So, how does understanding rights in all these various situations change the plain meaning of our Testimonies passage?" Ellen White surely connected the women's rights movement or feminism to spiritualism. God never tells us to fight for our rights but to surrender, submit, be humble, be poor in spirit, show self-abnegation and self-denial. In a famous passage Mrs. White tells us that dissatisfaction with one's "sphere" was a cause of Eve's sin and compares Eve to women who are dissatisfied with their roles.
"Eve had been perfectly happy by her husband's side in her Eden home; but, like restless modern Eves, she was flattered with the hope of entering a higher sphere than that which God had assigned her. In attempting to rise above her original position, she fell far below it. A similar result will be reached by all who are unwilling to take up cheerfully their life duties in accordance with God's plan. In their efforts to reach positions for which He has not fitted them, many are leaving vacant the place where they might be a blessing. In their desire for a higher sphere, many have sacrificed true womanly dignity and nobility of character, and have left undone the very work that Heaven appointed them."79
Some of the most important sentences of this Women in Ministry chapter do not have endnotes. This is especially true whenever the author discusses ordination. Suddenly the endnotes become very sparse. In an otherwise heavily-referenced article, one can't help but wish this next sentence had been supported by an endnote: "Because today's ordination issue is not associated with secular, political, religious, or social reform movements such as those in the nineteenth century, this principle does not relate as it did when Ellen White wrote."80
Has the author read the current scene correctly? It seems to me that women's ordination is very much a cultural expectation and is very much urged by modern feminism. It is not disassociated from the religious and secular movements of our day. It is a part of their stream.
Here's another key sentence that I wish had been supported by evidence: "Because Ellen White makes it clear that women have a right to accept a call from God to ministry, and all persons should receive equal remuneration and recognition for equal work performed, it seems likely she would support women's ordination."81
Our Women in Ministry author has not made it clear that Ellen White says that God calls women to an ordained ministry. Perhaps the editor might have cross-referenced these positive assertions with other authors who did attempt to show this within the book.
The Women in Ministry chapter we have been considering, "Ellen White and Women's Rights," seems to indicate that spiritualism waned. It says:
"Ellen White's wise advice to avoid any association with spiritualism was soon validated. After exerting significant force on religious thinking and various women's reform movements in the 1850s and early 1960s [sic], spiritualism fell into disrepute and scandal in the 1870s. Spiritualists continued to fight for the radical reforms of the 1850s even after many women's rights leaders distanced themselves from spiritualism because its ideas of `free love' were not helping the cause. Thereafter women's rights leaders more narrowly focused on suffrage, which was achieved by the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.82
But was this the end of the alliance between spiritualism and feminism? No! I have already given some evidence. Here is more. Karen Linsey has written that spiritualism is even more involved than formerly.
"The Feminist spirituality movement began to emerge in the mid-1970s and has become one of the largest submovements within feminism. [It is] amorphous, blending radical feminism, pacifism, witchcraft, Eastern mysticism, goddess worship, animism, psychic healing and a variety of practices normally associated with the occult."83
Within feminism today there is a whole neo-pagan revival which harks back to the goddesses of Greece and Rome, a renewal of interest in the Craft (witchcraft), and the New Age revival of ritual and its blending of the earth and environment with religion. Margot Adler writes,
"I have begun to see a resurgence of women returning to the Goddess, seeing themselves as Her daughters, finding Pagan-equality, self-identification, and individual strength for women. Paganism has been for all practical purposes, anti-establishment spirituality. Feminists and Pagans are both coming from the same source without realizing it, and heading toward the same goal without realizing it, and the two are now beginning to interlace."84
Note the spiritualistic doctrine embedded in the following quotation from the program notes of the feminist 1998 Re-Imagining Revival, a convention attended by 900 feminists from major Protestant denominations. "I found God in myself and I loved her, I loved her fiercely." Another, attributed to the late liberal Paul Tillich, has echoes of Victoria C. Woodhull: "No sexuality is unclean in the context of the sacred. In the heart and soul of the deities, we are all loved, and it doesn't matter who (you) are sleeping with."85
Compare these statements with the following passages from The Great Controversy: "Spiritualism teaches `that man is the creature of progression; that it is his destiny from his birth to progress, even to eternity, toward the God-head.' And again: `Each mind will judge itself and not another.' `The judgment will be right, because it is the judgment of self. . . . The throne is within you.' Said a spiritualistic teacher, as the `spiritual consciousness' awoke within him: `My fellow-men, all were unfallen demigods.' And another declares, `Any just and perfect being is Christ.'"86 And another: "And to complete his work, he declares, through the spirits that `true knowledge places man above all law;' that `whatever is, is right;' that `God doth not condemn;' and that `all sins which are committed are innocent.'"87
Seventh-day Adventists must wake up and become sensitive to the inroads of spiritualism at the end of time. True, spiritualism does not always assume its medium-spirit-rapping guise, so some may think it has diminished. Once again we can thank Mrs. White for warning us about this change.
"It is true that spiritualism is now changing its form and, veiling some of its more objectionable features, is assuming a Christian guise. But its utterances from the platform and the press have been before the public for many years, and in these its real character stands revealed. These teachings cannot be denied or hidden. . . . While it formerly denounced Christ and the Bible, it now professes to accept both. But the Bible is interpreted in a manner that is pleasing to the unrenewed heart, while its solemn and vital truths are made of no effect."88
Spiritualism has broken out of its denominational castings to be absorbed by psychology, philosophy, and Eastern religions that have spawned the popular New Age Movement. It is preached from every theater and TV in the world because it has become our culture.89
Mrs. White had an important vision about the destiny of spiritualism.
"I saw the rapidity with which this delusion was spreading. A train of cars was shown me, going with the speed of lightning. The angel bade me look carefully. I fixed my eyes upon the train. It seemed that the whole world was on board. Then he showed me the conductor, a fair, stately person, whom all the passengers looked up to and reverenced. I was perplexed and asked my attending angel who it was. He said, `It is Satan. He is the conductor, in the form of an angel of light. He has taken the world captive. They are given over to strong delusions, to believe a lie that they may be damned. . . .'
"He who is the father of lies, blinds and deceives the world by sending forth his angels to speak for the apostles, and to make it appear that they contradict what they wrote by the dictation of the Holy Ghost when on earth. These lying angels make the apostles to corrupt their own teachings and to declare them to be adulterated. By so doing, Satan delights to throw professed Christians and all the world into uncertainty about the Word of God. That holy Book cuts directly across his track and thwarts his plans; therefore he leads men to doubt the divine origin of the Bible."90
I was interested to note that some parts of chapter 17 in Women in Ministry concurred with my earlier estimates of spiritualism in the women's rights movement.91 However, the rest of the chapter tries to prove that the women's rights movement of the 19th century has nothing to do with the present thrust to ordain women to the gospel ministry. Here we differ.
As I mentioned earlier, in 1975 I wrote a research paper entitled, "Attending Spirits," showing how the women's rights movement of the 1900s was directly linked to spiritualism. I would like to conclude my present response to chapter 17 of Women in Ministry with the same conclusion I made in 1975: "that the radical feminists were far beyond their time; modern Liberation [feminism] has encompassed most of their thought and has moved on. Further study in basic tenets of current Women's Liberation and a comparative study to the [Women's] Rights of the 1860's and '70s which was considered to be spiritualism, might prove that the undercurrents of these Movements are analogous, so that the principle of 1T 421 is still most valid."92
"Those who feel called out to join the movement in favor of woman's rights and the so-called dress reform, might as well sever all connection with the third angel's message."
I wouldn't dare to be so blunt. Ellen White said it.
1. Alicia Worley, "Ellen White and Women's Rights," Women in Ministry (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 1998), pp. 355-376.
2. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1950), p. 588. Note the philosophy outlined as being spiritualism in Chapter 34, "Can Our Dead Speak to Us?" (in other versions known as "Spiritualism") and the safeguard recommended on p. 559. See also J. H. Waggoner, The Nature and Tendency of Modern Spiritualism (Battle Creek: Steam Press of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, 1877).
3. The President's Commission on Women in Ministry--Report," in Adventists Affirm 12/3 (Fall 1998): 13. See pp. 399-404 of this volume.
4. Dale O'Leary, The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality (Lafayette, La.: Vital Issues Press, 1997), p. 31.
5. Mary A. Kassian, The Feminist Gospel (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1992), p. xi.
6. Unpublished manuscript by Laurel Ann Nelson, "Attending Spirits," Spring, 1975.
7. Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vols. 15-53, 1860-1881; The Health Reformer, vols. 1-13, 1866-1878; and Signs of the Times, vols. 1-6, 1874-1880.
8. Uriah Smith, "Victoria C. Woodhull," Review and Herald, September 26, 1871, p. 116.
9. Ibid.
10. Laurel Nelson, "Attending Spirits," p. 60.
11. Lois Beachy Underhill, The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull (Bridgehampton, N. Y.: Bridge Works Publishing Co., 1995); Barbara Goldsmith, Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull (New York, N. Y.: Harper Perennial, 1998); Ann Braude, Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America (Boston, Mass.: Beacon, 1989); Mary Gabriel, Notorious Victoria (Chapel Hill, N. C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1998).
12. http://members.tripod.com/~Victoria_Woodhull.
13. Goldsmith, p. 27.
14. Braude, p. 2.
15. Goldsmith, p. 35.
16. Braude, p. 3.
17. Alex Owen, The Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), p. 6.
18. Goldsmith, p. 49.
19. Ibid., p. 267.
20. Ibid., p. 251.
21. Ibid., p. 58.
22. Ibid., p. 36.
23. Ibid., pp. 38, 39, 48, 435.
24. This particular table belonged to spiritualists Thomas and Mary Ann McClintock. The beginnings of its fame are described: "The tilt-top table with three legs was a common fixture in many parlors but now, according to those present, a remarkable occurrence took place. As members of the group presented their ideas, the table began to vibrate with raps of approval from the spirits. As word of this phenomenon spread, the McClintocks' table became famous as the first `spirit table.' Soon it was believed that certain tables served as catalysts to transmit the thoughts of the spirits." Goldsmith, p. 32. Later it was found that spirits could produce "automatic writing."
25. Goldsmith, p. 435.
26. Ibid., p. 248.
27. Ibid., p. 267. Centennial Book of Modern Spiritualism in America, p. 250.
28. Ibid., p. 36; pp. 85, 86.
29. The Great Controversy, p. 558.
30. Underhill, p. 254.
31. Page Smith, Daughters of the Promised Land (Boston: Little Brown and Company), p. 152, emphasis mine.
32. J. H. Waggoner, "Present Standing of Spiritualism," Review and Herald, November 18, 1873, p. 178.
33. Goldsmith, p. 7.
34. http://members.tripod.com/~Victoria_Woodhull/
35. Underhill, xvii.
36. "Self-ownership" is a very important facet of cohabitors. "It may resemble a marriage, but both partners are highly aware it is far more than the lack of a `piece of paper' that separates them from married couples. Each member of the pair places greater value on his own autonomy than on the durability of the relationship." Mona Charen, "Before you decide on moving in. . . ", Washington Times, March 26, 1999.
37. For more on the dress reform aspects of this issue see my paper, "Attending Spirits," pp. 44-58. A copy of it is at the Ellen G. White Estate Branch Office, Andrews University.
38. "I saw that God's order has been reversed, and His special directions disregarded, by those who adopt the American costume. I was referred to Deuteronomy 22:5: `The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.' God would not have His people adopt the so-called reform dress. It is immodest apparel, wholly unfitted for the modest, humble followers of Christ.
"There is an increasing tendency to have women in their dress and appearance as near like the other sex as possible, and to fashion their dress very much like that of men, but God pronounces it abomination. `In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety.' 1 Tim. 2:9." Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, 1:421.
39. "Gender Concepts in Development Planning: Basic Approach" (INSTRAW, 1995), p. 11, in O'Leary, p. 120.
40. O'Leary, p. 107.
41. Ibid., pp. 86-93.
42. Wendy Bounds, "Dating Games Today Break Traditional Gender Roles," Wall Street Journal, April 26, 1995), p. B-1 in O'Leary, p. 38. There is a campus-based faith organization that "works to enhance the spiritual lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals at the University of Minnesota. We are sponsored by the United Methodist Church, Lutheran Campus Ministries, University Episcopal Center and University Baptist Church." "Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Faith Advocate Group," The Christian News, May 31, 1999, p. 15.
43. O'Leary, p. 24.
44. For more information see Laurel Damsteegt, "S.M.I. Henry: Pioneer in Women's Ministry," Adventists Affirm, 9/1 (Spring, 1995): 18.
45. Donna Alberta Behnke, Created in God's Image: Religious Issues in the Woman's Rights Movement of the Nineteenth Century (Evanston, Ill.: Ph.D. Dissertation, Northwestern University, June 1975), p. 129.
46. Frances E. Willard in The Woman's Bible, Part II (New York: European Publishing Company, 1898), pp. 201-202.
47. In the Spring of 1977 I had the opportunity of doing extensive research on the minister-wife team of Stephen and Hetty Haskell. In Chapter 9 of that paper I thoroughly discuss Ellen White's views of remuneration to women. (See "Humble Giants," by Laurel Damsteegt [nee Nelson], pp. 74-80. "Humble Giants" is at the Ellen G. White Estate Branch Office, Andrews University.) In essence, women are to be recognized separately from their husbands and each receive wages. The most complete manuscript of Ellen White's views on women and wages is Manuscript 43a, 1898 (Manuscript Release #330), found in Manuscript Releases, 5:323-327.
48. See Laurel Damsteegt, "Shall Women Minister?" Adventists Affirm, 9/1 (Spring 1995): 4.
49. See William Fagal's discussion on Ellen White's view of ordination in "Did Ellen White Support the Ordination of Women?" Ministry, February 1989, pp. 6-9. Reprinted in this volume, beginning on page 279.
50. Behnke, p. 135.
51. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's letter to the editor of The Critic in support of The Woman's Bible, in Up From the Pedestal (Chicago, Ill.: Quadrangle, 1968), p. 119. Cited in Behnke, p. 136.
52. "E.M." in The Woman's Bible, Part II, p. 203.
53. Behnke, p. 95.
54. Centennial Book of Modern Spiritualism, p. 107.
55. Behnke, p. 96.
56. Ursula Bright, The Woman's Bible, Part II, pp. 188, 189.
57. Josephine K. Henry, The Woman's Bible, Part II, p. 198.
58. Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1968), pp. 74-75.
59. Ibid., p. 185.
60. Mary A. Kassian, The Feminist Gospel (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1992), p. 90.
61. Pamela Abramson, Mark Starr, Patricia King, "Feminism and the Churches," Newsweek, Feb. 13, 1989, p. 61.
62. Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, "Emerging Issues in Feminist Biblical Interpretation," Christian Feminism: Visions of a New Humanity, ed. Judith L. Weidman (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984), p. 53.
63. Kassian, p. 206.
64. Ibid., pp. 208, 209.
65. Kassian's footnote on p. 277: "Berkeley and Alvera Mickelsen, Philip Payne, Gilbert Bilezikian and Catherine Kroeger have recently argued that `kephale,' the Greek word for `head,' means `source' and therefore does not contain any implications for authority or an authority structure. For a detailed discussion regarding the meaning of kephale and an interaction with their theory, refer to `The Meaning of Kepahale (Head): A Response to Recent Studies,' by Wayne Grudem, published in Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, eds. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1991), pp. 425-468."
66. Kassian, p. 211.
67. Ibid., p. 216.
68. Phyllis Trible, quoted in Kassian, p. 109.
69. Carsten Johnsen, The Mystic "Omega" of End-Time Crisis (Sisteron, France: n.d.), p. 43.
70. Worley, p. 355.
71. Ibid., p. 356.
72. For how some Adventists are using the higher-critical approach to studying Ellen White, see an example in Jan Daffern's, "The Masculinization of Ellen White," Ponderings, 2/3 (March, April 1989): 23.
73. For the full story and concerns about the editing of the Testimonies see Ron Graybill, "Visions and Revisions, Part II: Editing the Testimonies," Ministry, April, 1994, p. 9.
74. Publishers, "Preface to Third Edition," Testimonies for the Church (Battle Creek: Review and Herald, 1885), page iii.
75. Worley, pp. 356, 357, emphasis hers.
76. Ibid., p. 365.
77. Ibid., p. 365.
78. Ibid., p. 365.
79. Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 59.
80. Worley, p. 368.
81. Ibid., p. 369
82. Ibid., p. 367.
83. Karen Linsey, MS, quoted by Allan Turner in "Wimmin, Wiccans, and Goddess Worship," http://allanturner.com/ss09.html.
84. Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), p. 177.
85. "Feminists Exchanging Truth for a Lie," Christian News, October 19, 1998, p. 21. See also, "Earthquake in the Mainline, Christianity Today, November 14, 1994, pp. 39-43 about the 1993 Re-Imagining Colloquium. Even though the colloquium represented mainline churches (Presbyterian Church [U.S.A.] [PCUSA], the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA], the American Baptist Convention [ABC], the United Church of Christ, and four religious communities of Roman Catholics), Christianity Today minces no words: "What other language besides `heresy' is appropriate where the Incarnation and Trinity were derided, where Scripture was contradicted, and where a goddess named Sophia was actively promoted" (ibid., p. 39).
86. The Great Controversy, p. 554.
87. Ibid., p. 555, emphasis original.
88. Ibid., pp. 557-558, emphasis original.
89. For more explicit coverage of how spiritualism has affected our current culture, see Laurel Damsteegt's article, "Doctrine of Devils," Adventists Affirm, 11/1 (Spring, 1997): 41-52.
90. Early Writings, pp. 263, 264.
91. Worley, p. 366.
92. L. Damsteegt (nee Nelson), "Attending Spirits," p. 62.
Laurel Damsteegt, M.Div., M.S.P.H., in addition to family responsibilities, works with her husband in producing materials about the history of God's people since Bible times.