Ellen White's Doubters

By Dirk Anderson, last updated July 2026

If Ellen White really spoke for God, who would be the first to recognize it? Her husband. Her children. The pioneers who traveled with her. The editors who published her books. The General Conference presidents who worked beside her. Yet the historical record reveals something unexpected: many of the people closest to Ellen White became some of her most persistent skeptics.

Contrary to the popular Seventh-day Adventist [SDA] narrative, doubts about Ellen White did not originate primarily with hostile outsiders. They arose from inside her own movement—among family members, trusted colleagues, church leaders, and even Ellen White herself.

The Doubters

As early as 1855, Ellen White wrote that her visions were being curtailed because of her followers' disbelief:

I saw that the reason why visions have not been more frequent of late, is, they have not been appreciated by the Church. ... Many of those who have professed faith in them, have not heeded them.¹

Notice that many SDAs doubted her visions, not just a few.

Over the years, some who doubted Ellen White's visions left (or were expelled from) the SDA Church. Examples include A.T. Jones and Dr. J.H. Kellogg. Meanwhile, others chose to remain in the sect. Following is a list of SDA leaders who remained in the church while having reservations about Ellen White and her testimonies:

Joseph Bates, Adventist Pioneer - A witness to some of Ellen Harmon's early visions, Bates was, in his own words, "for a long time unwilling to believe that it [the visions] was any thing more than what was produced by a protracted debilitated state of her body."² Later, Bates' doubts were erased when she conveniently had a vision on his favorite subject—astronomy.

J.N. Andrews, Adventist Pioneer - In a testimony many believed aimed at J.N. Andrews and Uriah Smith, Ellen angrily rebukes those "closely connected" with the Whites in the work who had "witnessed the manifestations of the power of God many times" and yet "allowed Satan to control their minds" with doubt.³ Andrews later confessed to James White that the testimonies caused such "terror and distress" to him that he felt he could not "make that use of them that is such a blessing to others."⁴

J.N. Loughborough, Adventist Pioneer - When he was young, SDA minister Henry Brown was acquainted with Loughborough. Brown wrote the following eye-opening account in his memoirs in 1984:

Elder Loughborough had been holding a series of lectures to us on the terrible cost of salvation for man. It meant that very God had to yield himself as a ransom. I think this is the belief by all Protestants today. He tells the story that the angels went to the Father to plead that they might die for the human race rather than Jesus die, and that God had said to them, 'No, if we would save man, God must die in his stead.' And that is a Biblical truth.

But there appeared in one of the Adventist magazines at the time a statement by Mrs. White in which she said, 'When Christ was crucified it was His human nature that died. Deity did not sink and die, that would have been impossible.' (Letter #250, 1904. Review and Herald 1882 article, The Upward Look.)

I took this down to Elder Loughborough. I didn't know at the time that he was in an uncertain state -- he could not accept Mrs. White as a prophetess, which we will bring in later. I said, 'Elder, you say that God was to be sacrificed. But here Mrs. White says a human body was all that was required. Is it true that all the world was saved through the death of a human body? Or was it a God that died?'

I could see the sadness on the face of the elder man in which he shook his head sadly and said, 'Henry, that should never have been printed. They printed it a long time ago and I insisted that it not be printed again. Now I see they have done it again.'⁵

James White, Co-founder of the SDA Church - Of all people, one would expect the husband of the prophet to stand firmly behind his wife's prophetic calling. However, from the very beginning, James seemed to doubt some of her visions. For example, in one early vision, Ellen White made a statement that raised James' concern:

I saw those who have been baptized as a door into the churches, would have to be baptized again as a door into the faith. Those who have not been baptized since 1844 will have to be before Jesus comes.⁶

As a result of this vision, many Adventists who had been previously baptized into Christian churches were re-baptized after 1844. However, James refused to be re-baptized. He reportedly told John Loughborough that he would have to "examine the Bible in regard to it."⁷ Obviously, James did not believe all his wife's visions aligned with Scripture.

At times, James seemed to have little interest in Ellen's testimonies when she directed her barbs toward him. After one such incident he wrote:

I shall use the old head God gave me until he reveals that I am wrong. Your head won't fit my shoulders. Keep it where it belongs, and I will try to honor God in using my own. I shall be glad to hear from you but don't waste your precious time and strength in lecturing me on matters of mere opinions.⁸

In later years, James was notorious for ignoring his wife's health testimonies. Mrs. White lamented that she could not take James along with her on her travels because he had "habits of eating and sleeping" that did not "impress the people correctly."⁹ She felt that James undermined her authority:

You do not mean to do it, but many times you lessen faith in my testimonies by unguarded expressions and views and feelings which you manifest.¹⁰

In his later years, James annoyed Ellen by accusing her of "being led by a wrong spirit."¹¹

Other Family Members of Ellen White - Of Ellen White's seven siblings, only her sister Sarah would formally join the SDA church. Her brother Robert accepted the Sabbath, but died before the formation of the SDA Church. Her sister Mary expressed some interest in the church but never joined. Ellen White blamed it on others, writing:

J. Turner labored to turn my friends and even my relatives against me, and he succeeded in a measure.¹²

Even her son Edson had his doubts. Mrs. White lamented that he was not listening to her counsel: "pursuing your own course of action independent of Willie's and my advice and counsel."¹³ Edson later wrote back to his mother saying, "I have no religious inclinations now in the least."¹⁴ Although he later recovered his faith in Christ, he had lingering doubts about his mother's testimonies. At one point, he made charges that his brother Willie was influencing the testimonies. Mrs. White retorted:

I am cut to the heart when I think that my son gives occasion for disbelief in the testimonies that God has given me for his people, causing the confidence of some to be shaken.¹⁵

She urged him to stop expressing his doubts regarding her testimonies:

If you do not decidedly change your course of action, you will do more to weaken the confidence of the church in the integrity of the Testimonies than all other influences combined can do.¹⁶

Another relative who expressed his doubts was Franklin E. Belden, Ellen White's nephew. He wrote many hymns for the SDA Church. In 1888, at the General Conference session, he questioned Ellen White’s inspiration, supposing she was being influenced by W. C. White, A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner. Later, while working at the SDA Publishing House in Battle Creek, he reportedly said, "I have not known of one soul being converted through the reading of Great Controversy."¹⁷ He continued to harbor doubts about Ellen White for the remainder of his life. Shortly before he died, when visited by members of the sect, he reportedly asked sarcastically: "Do you still believe in that woman?"¹⁸

Uriah Smith, Editor of the Review and Herald - Uriah Smith and his wife Harriet had their doubts regarding Mrs. White. Although he defended Ellen White with vigor early in his career, after receiving a testimony he believed to be unfair and inaccurate, Uriah harbored doubts for a period of time in the early 1880s. He wrote in a letter to a fellow Adventist minister, "It seems to me that the testimonies, practically, have come into that shape, that it is not of any use to try to defend the erroneous claims that are now put forth for them."¹⁹

A.G. Daniells, General Conference President - Daniells was a close associate of the White family for over forty years. Despite that, he apparently had his own personal doubts about Ellen White and her testimonies. For example, Daniells did not take her testimonies against meat-eating seriously. In 1919, he convened a secret conference with top SDA leaders to discuss the role of Ellen White in the sect. Among his many comments he expressed some doubt regarding some of her other health testimonies, "I have eaten pounds of butter at her table myself, and dozens of eggs. I could not explain that in her own family if I believe that she believed those were the Lord's own words to the world."²⁰

Ellen White, Prophetess - Yes, surprisingly enough, even Ellen White sometimes doubted her own mission. After the failure of her shut door visions in the early 1850s, Mrs. White became less prominent for a period of time. James decided not to publish her visions in the Review and Herald. With limited public exposure, her visions became less frequent, and finally, in 1855, she concluded her "work in God's cause was done," and she had "no further duty to do."²¹

She not only doubted her mission, but at times she seemed to doubt the authority of her own testimonies. Her contradictory practices on eating meat, wearing jewelry, paying tithe, and other issues seem to indicate she sometimes had little regard for her own testimonies.

Her Home Church - Even Mrs. White's home church seemed to doubt her. In 1880, she lamented:

While some in Battle Creek have professedly believed the testimonies, they have been trampling them under their feet. But few have read them with interest; but few have heeded them.²²

Many Ministers - Many ministers privately expressed their doubts about Ellen White and her testimonies. This became an increasing problem after the death of James White. Some suspected that Mrs. White was being influenced by others. A mini-crisis of doubt arose in 1888 after she adopted E.J. Waggoner's view on the law in Galatians 3. Waggoner took the Protestant position that it was the Ten Commandments. At that time, SDAs understood it to be the ceremonial law. This understanding was based on a vision Ellen White had in 1856. A number of SDA ministers were aghast that Ellen adopted Waggoner's position, which was contrary to her own vision. Many ministers began to doubt her, fearing she was falling under the influence of others. She rebuked them soundly:

God did not raise me up to come across the plains to speak to you and you sit here to question His message and question whether Sister White is the same as she used to be in years gone by. I have in many things gone way back and given you that which was given me in years past, because then you acknowledged Sister White was right. But somehow it has changed now, and Sister White is different.²³

Horatio and Lizzie Lay were pioneers in the SDA health ministry. At first the Lays had a good relationship with Ellen White, but that soured after White fired off several testimonies critical of Lizzie.

In 1890, White complained that Lizzie had been telling other Sabbath-keepers that leading SDA ministers no longer regarded her testimonies as they once had. She reportedly named prominent leaders such as Uriah Smith, George Butler, D.M. Canright, and others, saying they believed "Sister White's work and influence was a thing of the past" and that the church had "got beyond the need of the testimonies."²⁴

More revealing, however, was why Lizzie had lost confidence. White records her complaint in a single sentence: "A reproof was given to their family which was not true." White never attempted to explain that the testimony actually was true. Instead, she dismissed the objection by reporting that Lizzie's husband still believed every word of the testimonies and considered his wife and daughters "not in a clear spiritual state."²⁵ In other words, the factual accuracy of the testimony was never addressed. The issue was redirected from whether the testimony was true to whether the critics were sufficiently spiritual.

The letter contains another remarkable admission. White acknowledged that she was hearing these same reports "everywhere" regarding respected sect leaders. Rather than denying that confidence in her visions was collapsing among the sect's leadership, she lamented that those who had received unfavorable testimonies were using the growing skepticism as evidence that her reproofs were false. Those who questioned Ellen White's inspiration were portrayed not as people raising legitimate concerns, but as spiritually defective individuals whose unbelief—not the accuracy of her testimonies—was the real problem.

After the 1888 crisis passed, another crisis soon developed in Battle Creek in the early 1900s. It seems many of the older ministers began to doubt both Ellen White and the SDA Sanctuary doctrine. Mrs. White laments:

Ministers who have been believers in the foundation truths that have made us what we are—Seventh-day Adventists; ministers who went to Battle Creek to teach and strengthen the truths of the Bible, are now, when old and gray-headed, turning from the grand truths of the Bible, and accepting infidel sentiments. This means that the next step will be a denial of a personal God, pulling down the bulwarks of the faith that is plainly revealed in the Scriptures. The sanctuary question is the foundation of our faith.²⁶

In 1902, White complained that sect leaders doubted her to an alarming extent:

I have but very little confidence that the Lord is giving these men in positions of responsibility spiritual eyesight and heavenly discernment. I am thrown into perplexity over their course; and I desire now to attend to my special work, to have no part in any of their councils and to attend no camp-meetings nigh or afar off. My mind shall not be dragged into confusion by the tendency they manifest to work directly contrary to the light that God has given me. I am done. ... When I attend the different meetings, I am compelled to deal with men standing in responsible places who I know are not exerting an influence that God can endorse.²⁷

The surprising extent of the ministers who doubted her prophetic role is troubling, especially considering the fact that many of these men either knew her personally or had heard her speak.

White's Response: Contempt, Not Answers

Here is what is remarkable. The doubters documented in this article were not cranks or outsiders. They were pioneers, editors, General Conference presidents, her own child, her own home church. They had legitimate, documentable reasons to question her — failed predictions, contradictory testimonies, plagiarized writings, and nonsensical health teachings that she herself often ignored. Any honest prophet faced with this level of credible internal skepticism might have paused to answer the objections on their merits.

Ellen White did not pause. She did not answer the objections. What she did instead was reach into her prophetic arsenal and pull out the same weapon every time: she declared that doubt itself was a spiritual disease, and that anyone infected with it was morally defective, satanically influenced, or both.

In 1882, she wrote that skepticism about the Testimonies was the work of Satan spreading like a contagion through the churches: “Doubt and even disbelief of the testimonies of the Spirit of God is leavening our churches everywhere. Satan would have it thus.”²⁸ Notice the logic. You doubt her. Satan wants you to doubt her. Therefore your doubt is Satan's work. Your own judgment about her credibility is not a conclusion you reached by an intelligent analysis of the facts — it is a disease you caught from the devil.

She went further. Those who doubted were not merely mistaken — they lacked “spirituality.” In her own words: “I was shown that many had so little spirituality that they did not understand the value of the Testimonies or their real object.”²⁹ So the General Conference president who had eaten butter and eggs at her table and drew the obvious conclusions about her dietary testimonies — he lacked spirituality. The editor of the Review and Herald who believed he had been treated unfairly and said so — he lacked spirituality. J.N. Andrews, who spent his life in sacrificial missionary service and privately expressed reservations — spiritually deficient. The diagnosis was always the same, and it was always the doubter's fault.

Those who encouraged others to think critically about the Testimonies were even worse. White described them as spiritually ignorant agents of confusion who “encourage questionings and doubts instead of removing them, because they are ignorant of the spirit and power and force of the Testimonies.”³⁰ But she reserved her most thunderous contempt for those she considered actively resistant. People who had not submitted to the Testimonies were, in her words, “unconsecrated, proud, and rebellious,” spreading a “poisonous atmosphere” around them. Their end? Christ Himself would say to them on the day of final judgment: “Depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity.” Their entire Christian profession, she added, was “a deception, a fraud.”³¹

According to Ellen White, a person who examined the evidence and concluded that her Testimonies were not from God was not merely wrong. They were a fraud. A worker of iniquity. Destined for damnation. The people documented in this article — the founders, the editors, the presidents, the ministers — if they maintained their doubts, this is what she said awaited them.

She also had a ready explanation for why people doubted: it was not because the Testimonies had problems, but because the doubters had sins they did not want rebuked:

The Testimonies of His Spirit call your attention to the Scriptures, point out your defects of character, and rebuke your sins; therefore you do not heed them. And to justify your carnal, ease-loving course you begin to doubt whether the Testimonies are from God.³²

And if someone offered a reasoned explanation for their skepticism, she dismissed it without examination: “The true reason is not given. It is a lack of moral courage.”³³

This is not the behavior of a prophet who welcomes testing. Deuteronomy 18 tells Israel to test their prophets, and promises that false ones will be exposed. The apostle Paul told the Thessalonians to “prove all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). The Bereans were commended in Acts 17 precisely because they did not take an apostle's word for it — they searched the Scriptures to see if the things they were being told were true. Ellen White's response to the same impulse was to call it satanic, carnal, cowardly, and fraudulent. She did not invite scrutiny. She punished it.

And here is the final indictment. In every case documented in this article, the doubters had good reason to doubt. The shut-door visions failed. The health testimonies she ignored in her own home. The literary borrowings she never disclosed. The Testimonies edited and managed by staff without her full awareness. The predictions that didn't come to pass. These were not the complaints of people looking for excuses to live carelessly. They were the conclusions of people who looked at the facts. Ellen White's answer to that evidence was not “let me address your concerns.” It was: “Satan has ability to suggest doubts and to devise objections to the pointed testimony that God sends.”³⁴

In other words: your doubt is a symptom of sin. The cure is to stop thinking and start obeying!

Conclusion

It was not just her critics who doubted Ellen White. Her closest associates, her friends, and even her own family members had doubts about her. It was not just later generations who would doubt her. The people who knew her and heard her in person had their doubts about her. This was especially true in her early years, when her "visions" supported the false doctrine of the shut door of salvation. In a letter written in 1851, she lamented:

The visions trouble many. They [know] not what to make of them.³⁵

Ellen complained that the editor of the open door Adventist newspaper, the Advent Herald, said that her "visions were known to be 'the result of mesmeric operations.'"³⁶ Some felt that Mrs. White's testimonies were not always originating from visions, but rather that she "had been told circumstances" by other people in the church.³⁷ This widespread doubt is also mentioned in an article in 1883, where she admitted many doubted her strongly enough to publicly question her calling:

These attacks have been repeated hundreds of times during the past forty years...³⁸

Troubling doubts swirled around Ellen White from the beginning of her ministry to the very end — even among her own followers. In 1919, S.N. Haskell summed it up well, writing that many viewed White "as a good woman, albeit not necessarily inspired."³⁹

These doubters were not bad people. They were not frauds. They were people who looked at the facts and realized that they had good reason to question and doubt Ellen White. After all, she failed the Biblical tests of a prophet.