By Paul N. Barker
I first saw the light of a day on January the thirteenth, in a little town called Stevensville, Montana, in the year 1901. I was born into a family of Seventh Day Adventist and before being many weeks old I was taken to church, which church I attended for 27 years with the exception of six years when the family lived on a farm near Philipsburg, Montana, where there was no other church of that faith. My first memory about that little church was very impressive, as the members were very sincere in believing that all things temporal would soon end. There was an air of solemnity about their meetings that was not soon forgotten. They were not interested in raising money and never passed a collection plate their being a contribution box at the entrance of the church where one could donate if felt like it.
Stevensville was located one and one half miles from the railroad. The bus that met the trains was a spring wagon with seats on each side drawn from by a pair and mules, and mules being the offspring of a jackass that the driver kept at his place for breeding purposes. This jackass had a lusty voice and would occasionally break the stillness of the night with a loud braying that sometimes startled to church members into thinking they were hearing the opening notes a Gabriel's horn announcing the end of all things temporal.
Shortly after I was born, Mrs. White came out with a testimony that the coming of the Lord was so near that it was time to sell worldly goods and put the money into the "cause". One of the local members, by the name of Hortenberry sold his farm for $3500 and gave the money to the church and lived in abject poverty the rest of his life. His father had just built a new home and was setting out fruit trees when he was roundly chastised verbally by some of the church members because it did not appear that he had not believed in the soon coming of the Lord by setting out trees that would require several years to come into bearing.
When I was four years old, the family moved to Missoula Montana, where we began attending the church there, which was a small smoky liver-colored building alongside the Northern Pacific railroad switchyard where the religious services were often drowned out completely by the noise of switching engines and the banging of cars together. We had not much more than gotten settled here when Mrs. White sent out notices to the churches that the coming of the Lord was so near that no more marriages should be performed in the church and the members who were already married should live as chaste virgins. Consternation was common. While only a child of some five or six years of age I can still visualize the minister in front of the church with tears streaming down his cheeks, confessing to the Church that Satan had tempted him during the dark hours of the night and that he had fallen, but that by God's help he would stand firm the next time, only to repeat the performance the next Sabbath. At my age I could not figure out what awful temptation the minister had during the nights dark hours, and not until I was older was I told what happened. The denomination of today flatly denies that this ever happened, which in no way improves my estimation of their integrity. ("In this age of the world, as the scenes of earth’s history are soon to close and we are about to enter upon the time of trouble such as never was, the fewer the marriages contracted, the better for all, both men and women." 5 Testimonies, p. 366.)
Here in Missoula my father built a large eight room house which became a hotel for wandering ministers of the church as well as a haven for canvassers, who sometimes made it their summer abode. Anyone claiming membership in the church found a warm welcome in our home, and many ministers were out guests, among whom was A. T. Jones of the Jones Waggoner team that brought the doctrine of salvation by grace to the church in the year 1882. Jones told of his conflict with Mrs. White and how he pleaded with her to make known to the church that she was a phony while the members still had time to get their bearings.
To show what extent church members were welcomed into our home, one day a peddler came to our door sick, he was an Adventist who lived back East and was out selling stereo views, which are now collectors items. My father took him into our home and finally sent him to the Catholic hospital and paid for his operation and gave him money for his ticket home. During harvest ingathering my father refused to go out and beg from his friends and made a deal with the church, they were not to ask him to solicit and in return he agreed to mach the entire amount raised by the entire church. It was about this time that Mrs. Fighur and son Ruben and daughter Lydia moved into our community and began attending church, a few years ago Ruben was elected president of the General Conference.
My father being a very enthusiastic member, often engaged the ministers in discussions of doctrine. I was a silent listener and in that way I became familiar with every facet of their creed from A to Z. Later I acquired a photographic copies of most all the hold documents put out by the pioneers, such as "A Word to the Little Flock". And copies of "The Present Truth" and the "Advent Review" which was the forerunner of the present Review and Herald. I am sad to have to relate that I find the Adventist papers denying many things that really happened in their formative years and this has not enhanced my opinion of their integrity in the least.
On reaching maturity I began investigation the Bible on my own and found out that I had been taken for a ride on a soapbubble by the SDA. The bubble burst and I began printing tracts, setting forth the truth as I found it in the Bible and was promptly kicked out of the organization. I wrote to Ruben Fighur and asked him if the conference had a place where a person could submit their deductions of the Bible for examination as I had been disfellowshiped for finding truth in the Bible. He wrote that they did have such a place, and I asked him for the address but never received an answer to my request, and this did not add anything to my respect for their integrity.
I found an Adventist minister whom I considered a real Christian. He had performed several acts of charity similar to what my father had done and I gave this man my tithe money to assist the poor and needy with the understanding that not a single penny of it was ever to find its way into the Adventist treasury. In a short time I was informed this minister had been drooped from membership in the organization. One of the charges brought against him was that he was using tithe money that he should have turned into the organization, this only added to my contempt for such an organization.
The most damaging feature of the organization is the vast amount of falsehoods they print in their books and publications in order to keep their members in ignorance of the early history of the cult and the blunders of their pioneers.
Anyone delving into the early history of the Seventh Day Adventist Church will find that Mrs. White and her followers believed and taught that probation for the world closed in the year 1844 and their only interest was in the "Little Flock" that took part in the '44 movement, they believing that only these would be saved out of the world. They held this belief until the fall of 1851, when they began working for the salvation of sinners. The present Leaders of the church say that the pioneers were for the salvation of sinners since the year 1844, and there is a bronze plaque at the entrance of the Review and Herald building with the inscription to the effect. The real truth of the matter is that Mrs. White and her followers were denouncing those, who were working for the salvation of sinners as traitors and Laodiceans and calling those who professed conversion, children of their father the devil. (Early Writings, P. 228.)
Here is what Mrs. White had to say of the evangelists of her time in the year 1849: "The reformations shown me were not reformations from error to truth but from bad to worse, for those who professed a change of heart had only warpt around a religious garb, which covered up the iniquity of a wicked heart. Some appeared to be really converted, so as to deceive God's people (meaning her and her)—but if their hearts could be seen, they would appear as black as ever." (The Present Truth, August 1, 1849, paragraph 12.) A few of the pioneers began to have some doubts about probation closing in the year 1844 so Mrs. White had a vision for their benefit in the year 1849, in which she claimed that God shew her that the "sabbath and the shut door" was present truth and about sixty of the backsliders admitted their error and once again embraced the shut door doctrine.
Two of the General Conference men Wilcox and Spicer both flatly denied that Mrs. White ever believed or taught the shut door doctrine. Daniels, president for 20 years admits that she did teach it for a time but denies that she ever was shown in vision that it was present truth. Daniels was well acquainted with the Topsham vision when he wrote this. If the real truth ever trickles through to the lay members they will know that Mrs. Whites visions were self induced and this must never be allowed to happen, even if the Leaders have resort to all sorts of falsehoods. It sees that the policy is "Let us do evil that good may abound".
Some people who took part in the '44 movement became disgusted with the fanaticism of the group and dropped out, and here is what Mrs. White wrote about that. "It was just a impossible for them to get back on the path again and go to the city as all the wicked world which God had rejected" in 1844. (A Word to the Little Flock, p. 14.)
"My accompanying angel bade me look for the travail of souls for sinners as used to be, I looked and could see none for the time of their salvation is past". (Early Writings, p. 45.)
This statement is still found in her books but has been emasculated with lying foot note that reads like this: "She did not intend to convey the idea that there could be no more salvation for sinners, as she, herself was at this time working for their salvation."
Signed: Paul N. Barker
More on EGW's marriage hypocrisy and unscientific counsel
“Not Tonight, Honey, I have a headache”!
Ellen G. White must be the originator
EGW: Let the Christian wife refrain, both in word and act, from exciting the animal passions of her husband. Many have no strength at all to waste in this direction. They have already, from their youth up, weakened their brains, and sapped their constitutions, by the gratification of their animal passions. Self-denial and temperance should be the watch-word in married life; then, when children are born to parents, they will not be so liable to have the moral and intellectual organs weak, and the animal strong. Vice in children is almost universal. Is there not a cause? Who have given them the stamp of character? Solemn Appeal, p. 177.
How much sex is excess? No place in the old or new covenant did God give this warning of sexual excess.
EGW: Duty to Avoid Excesses.—It is carrying that which is lawful to excess that makes it a grievous sin. Chapter Title: Marital Duties and Privileges, The Adventist Home, page 122.
Where does the Bible tell people that having sex for pleasure, "God will hold them accountable"?
EGW: Many parents do not obtain the knowledge that they should in the married life. They are not guarded lest Satan take advantage of them and control their minds and their lives. They do not see that God requires them to control their married lives from any excesses. But very few feel it to be a religious duty to govern their passions. They have united themselves in marriage to the object of their choice and, therefore, reason that marriage sanctifies the indulgence of the baser passions. Even men and women professing godliness give loose rein to their lustful passions and have no thought that God holds them accountable for the expenditure of vital energy, which weakens their hold on life and enervates the entire system. The Adventist Home, page 122, paragraph 4, Chapter Title: Marital Duties and Privileges.
Where does the Word of God warn women not to excite their husband to have sex and practice self denial? Do not undress in front of your husband or wear provocative undergarments in front of him. Do not take a shower with him. You had better sleep in separate beds.
EGW: Let Self-denial and Temperance Be the Watchword. --Oh, that I could make all understand their obligation to God to preserve the mental and physical organism in the best condition to render perfect service to their Maker! Let the Christian wife refrain, both in word and act, from exciting the animal passions of her husband. Many have no strength at all to waste in this direction. From their youth up they have weakened the brain and sapped the constitution by the gratification of animal passions. Self-denial and temperance should be the watchword in their married life. The Adventist Home, page 123, Chapter Title: Marital Duties and Privileges.
EGW speaks only as if men only had lust for sex. Was she so blind as not to see that women also enjoyed sex? No where in the Bible does God ever say that sexual relations between a husband and wife that it is "animal passions". (Please send us the text to support EGW.)
EGW: It is not pure love which actuates a man to make his wife an instrument to minister to his lust. It is the animal passions which clamor for indulgence. How few men show their love in the manner specified by the apostle: "Even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might [not pollute it, but] sanctify and cleanse it; . . . that it should be holy and without blemish." This is the quality of love in the marriage relation which God recognizes as holy. Love is a pure and holy principle, but lustful passion will not admit of restraint and will not be dictated to or controlled by reason. It is blind to consequences; it will not reason from cause to effect. The Adventist Home, page 123, Chapter Title: Marital Duties and Privileges.
EGW settled the question of having sex many times by guess what? Having prayer gave her a dispensation to justify having kids. Wow. I wonder if she asked James if it was love or if he was just satisfying his "animal nature"?
EGW: She was married to James White on August 30, 1846, after assuring herself through prayer that this was a proper step. It should be noted that she was well into her ministry, for she had for twenty months been the recipient of visions from the lord. As a result of this union with James White she gave birth to four sons, born in 1847, 1849, 1854, and 1860. Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1, page 218, paragraph 2, Chapter Title: Love and Sexuality in the Human Experience.
EGW: It was in the 1860's—the decade of two basic health-reform visions (June 6, 1863, and December 25, 1865)—that Ellen G. White began to discuss matters relating to sex. Statements in later years provided some elaboration. In referring to sexual intercourse in marriage she employed such terms as "privilege of the marriage relation," "privilege of the family relation," "sexual privileges." Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1, page 218, paragraph 3, Chapter Title: Love and Sexuality in the Human Experience.
EGW has just told a bold face lie. If she was Pinocchio, her pug nose would have jumped out of her face like a banana. She did speak against Adventist marrying and having children. Go to the top of the page.
Some more from Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1, page 218, paragraph 5, Chapter Title: Love and Sexuality in the Human Experience:
Terms such as "passion" and "propensities" are at times used. These are often qualified by such words as baser, animal, lustful, depraved, corrupt . This strong language could lead some readers to assume that all passion is condemned and all sexual activity is evil. The following quotations would hardly sustain this:
In regard to marriage, I would say, Read the Word of God. Even in this time, the last days of this world's history, marriages take place among Seventh-day Adventists....We have, as a people, never forbidden marriage, except in cases where there were obvious reasons that marriage would be misery to both parties. And even then, we have only advised and counseled. Lt 60, 1900.
In this age of the world, as the scenes of earth’s history are soon to close and we are about to enter upon the time of trouble such as never was, the fewer the marriages contracted, the better for all, both men and women. 5 Testimonies, p. 366.
Masturbation only affects females
Females possess less vital force than the other sex, and are deprived very much of the bracing, invigorating air, by their in-doors life. The results of self-abuse in them is seen in various diseases, such as catarrh, dropsy, headache, loss of memory and sight, great weakness in the back and loins, affections of the spine, the head often decays inwardly. Cancerous humor, which would lay dormant in the system their life-time, is inflamed, and commences its eating, destructive work. The mind is often utterly ruined, and insanity takes place. An Appeal to Mothers, p. 27.