Vanishing Visions

By Dirk Anderson, 2003

By 1851, the young Adventist movement stood at a crossroads, and so did its prophet. The "shut door" had been slammed closed, then quietly reopened. But Ellen White's earlier visions still declared salvation closed to all but the Millerites. What do you do when your prophet's visions turn out to be false? James White had the answer. He took his wife's visions—the very words believers had been told came straight from heaven—and edited them. Whole sections vanished. The embarrassing "shut door" vanished. And with the stroke of an editor's pen, the problem went away. What began as damage control became a lifelong pattern—a legacy built not only on visions, but on revisions.

James Deletes 19% of Original Visions

By 1851, James and Ellen White had quietly abandoned their doctrine that the door of salvation was shut for all except the Advent believers—those Millerites who never recanted from their delusion about the return of Christ in 1844. Now, however, they faced a new problem. What were they going to do with all of the statements prophetess Ellen White made—in vision—regarding the door of salvation being shut?

James White devised a clever solution. He would simply reprint Mrs. White's earlier visions and expunge out the falsehoods. In late 1851, he published his revised version of her visions in a pamphlet entitled Experiences and Views. This cleaned-up document did not contain any of Mrs. White's failed revelations about the Shut Door doctrine, including entire visions.

As could be expected, some of the members of the tiny sect were aghast over the exclusion of whole visions, which they had been led to believe had come directly from God. Mrs. White describes how James defused this crisis situation:

At one time in the early days of the message, Father Butler and Elder Hart became confused in regard to the testimonies. In great distress they groaned and wept, but for some time they would not give the reasons for their perplexity. However, being pressed to give a reason for their faithless speech and manner, Elder Hart referred to a small pamphlet that had been published as the visions of Sister White, and said that to his certain knowledge, some visions were not included. Before a large audience, these brethren both talked strongly about their losing confidence in the work.

My husband handed the little pamphlet to Elder Hart, and requested him to read what was printed on the title page. 'A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Mrs. E. G. White,' he read.

For a moment there was silence, and then my husband explained that we had been very short of means, and were able to print at first only a small pamphlet, and he promised the brethren that when sufficient means was raised, the visions should be published more fully in book form.

Elder Butler was deeply moved, and after the explanation had been made, he said, 'Let us bow before God.' Prayers, weeping, and confessions followed, such as we have seldom heard. Father Butler said: 'Brother White, forgive me; I was afraid you were concealing from us some of the light we ought to have. Forgive me, Sister White.' Then the power of God came into the meeting in a wonderful manner.¹

Despite James' excuse about a lack of publishing funds, it is extraordinarily unlikely that James cut out only the most controversial parts of Ellen's visions for this reason. Nevertheless, Butler accepted James' explanation, and the crisis abated for a while. For many years the deletion seemed forgotten. However, it would raise its ugly head again when the book Early Writings was published in 1882. Afterwards, the publishers would discover that it was not really the earliest writings of Ellen White, but James' 1851 revision of those writings.

Did James Keep His Promise?

Despite James White's greatly improved financial situation during the remaining 30 years of his life, he never kept his promise to elders Butler and Hart. As the years passed and the sect moved further away from its earlier shut door stance, its leaders began to even deny that such a view was ever held. It became evident that the omissions and deletions in the 1851 printing were not at all coincidental.

Damage Control Mode

To avoid drawing more attention to his wife's prophetic blunders, James—who was then editor of the sect's paper—"decided to suspend printing his wife's visions to avoid arousing further controversy."² Her "visions" and "testimonies" did not appear again in the paper until a new editor took James' place in 1855. By then, the controversy had cooled down and many of the new members had no idea their prophet had seen a false doctrine in her visions.

Another method of damage control exercised by James was to attempt to collect some of the earlier writings of Ellen White that were being published by the enemies of the sect to reveal the ugly truth about Ellen. In the 1860s, when some former Seventh-day Adventists began publishing embarrassing and damaging testimonies that Mrs. White had written, James was quick to put a stop to it. In an 1867 article he wrote for the Review, he forbid the victims of Ellen's testimonies from keeping them in their possession:

2. Whereas, It has been a common thing for persons in different churches, who have been reproved by the visions, to make bad use of such testimonies to their own injury and the injury of the church; therefore,
Resolved, That it, is the opinion of this church, that persons corrected by the testimonies should not have said testimonies in their possesion, in writing; but they should be deposited with the elder or elders of the church of which they are members; and if they wish to read them, to refresh their memory, they should do it at the house of the elder or elders, and not take a copy of any part whatever of the testimony, in writing, away with them.³

This strange pronouncement raised some eyebrows in the larger Sabbath-keeping community. W.H. Brinkerhoff responded by accusing James of "covering up and suppressing of that which purports to be the word of God," insinuating the Whites were trying to withhold the testimonies from public awareness, lest they expose his wife's true character.⁴ In 1867, Brinkerhoff wrote in the Hope of Israel:

Are the visions of such weak, puny material that they must now be kept from the commonality? Why not let the poor soul intended to be gulled by them, have the precious treasure in his possession? Ah! the visions may turn and rend its author, as many have already done. ... Yes, he may [make a bad use of it], when his eyes are opened, read through this soul polluting scheme, and use the vision against its author.⁵

Conclusion

James White's covert edits and Ellen's silence about them tell a story far louder than any vision ever could. What began as a desperate attempt to save credibility after 1844 became a pattern of concealment that reshaped early Adventist history. The "shut door" was not simply a forgotten doctrine—it was a door deliberately closed on the truth. And when the truth was edited to fit a new narrative, it revealed a prophet who manufactured visions to align with the current theology of Adventist leaders.