M. L. Andreasen’s Personal Witness how he critically tested EGW by spending time with her

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD); Visiting Professor, Department of Liberal Education, Kyungpook National University, Sangju Campus, South Korea, conjoint lecturer of Avondale College, Australia

The year January 2014 marked the publishing by Review and Herald of an Encyclopedia of Ellen White by Denis Fortin and Jerry Moon (D. Fortin, J. Moon [1^st January 2014], The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia [Washington, DC: Review & Herald Publishing]. It is a product of post-modern period scholars publishing data from the start of Adventism all through the periods of modernism, post-modernism, the digimodernism period until the present paramodernism or “New past Future” period in 2014. The writers tried to accommodate the trends and interests of the audiences of each period.

Despite the all inclusive appearance of this volume, a very key component slipped through the cracks. It is the 1955 testimony of M. L. Andreasen (1876-1962) about Ellen White and how he met her as a critical doctoral student at Chicago University. She allowed him to stay 90 days observing her and her vault to see the original writings about statements that he had questions about. The testimony is online at Youtube.com. Here is my own extraction of it. It is not complete but should be in future. One can search the above volume from cover to cover, but the name of M. L. Andreasen does not appear at all.

Judging from the contributors’ other works and stands on cardinal issues of Adventism, a number of names in the list brings contaminating aspects to historiography of Adventism since they are operating with a hermeneutics of suspicion and secondly, they are conspiracy weepers of the Adventist establishment. Weeping about spiritual decay is a must and crying against superficial doctrinal attitudes but when one is out to downplay the important role of those who sacrificed their whole life for the truth, then one has gone overboard. When such contributors have been strongly admonished academically and they still persist in their confusion aspiring statements, then a question-mark is raised about their sincerity of academics for God’s glory.

1955 Testimony of M. L. Andreasen

“The service this morning will be a little different from the ordinary service for the 11 o clock hour. I have been asked to speak on the subject of the Spirit of Prophecy, more particularly my personal experiences with sister White. There are not many remaining who have known and been with Mrs. White and I thought best that this hour be used for that purpose.

When I became an Adventist, I heard about sister White, but I was given no special instruction. I simply accepted the believe in the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy as I did with many other things without going thoroughly through the subject.

I gave up the eating of unclean things and the drinking of that which is not good and I never go with that.

I was brought up as a protestant [unclear Martin Luther?]…when he placed his hand on the Bible and said, here I stand, here on the Bible, I can do no other God help me’. And so I joined the Adventist church, believing it to be a protestant church.

I was therefore surprised and perplexed when I came to meetings and finding ministers using other books, quoting them and say ‘as the Lord says’. I was perplexed. Because that was not Protestantism according to my notion. But when I left that door I read the books and found them to be very good indeed but that was all I thought of it. Then came the time that I prepare to teach. There I face some questions that I knew I had to settle. Because, if I were to teach children and young people I must know for myself. ‘Not that I hearsay not by reading but I have personally experience it’ says the apostle.

I was attending at the time the Chicago University noted at that time, not now, for its orthodoxy of religion but I stood there at court for the life of Christ. Desire of Ages had just come out and I used that book as complementary reading. And I had opportunity there to go thoroughly into the reading, the teaching of that book.

So day by day I was reading Desire of Ages as my additional reading and compare it with what I learned in class. And I found to my astonishment that many of the perplexing questions that even Higher Critics have to deal with was solved in the Desire of Ages.

I became more and more interested in it and I arrived at last at a climax: what shall I do? What is my position? What ought it to be? And so, leading me into direct action, I said: ‘I’ll go and find sister White and have a talk with her’. So I did.

I was a very young man. And when I knocked on the door, I did not know what to say. And I did what a young student did to me in Union College to say, ‘Here I am what are you going to do about it’.

Sister White received me very kindly. [I quess she often wondered what that was for?]. I said, ‘I like to have the privilege of admission to the vault where all her writings were’. I said ‘I have read all your books and I don’t have an interest in them as such but I want to see how wrote them before anybody heard of it and they correct them and omissions and have editions’.

She looked at me and said ‘You may have the privilege’. And so I went to work on it.

I stayed there three months. I worked almost night and day. I read what was in the vault. It is a tremendous amount of work. I was perplexed when I saw the volume of it. If I had not seen it myself I would have said: ‘No one, however long he has lived, could ever write that much. But there it was. So I read, big humps of it, written by her own hand.

I saw that she did dictate but not much. Most was written by herself in her own handwriting. Then it was given to the stenographers and they copied it on a 8 and a half by 11 paper double space sometimes triple space. Then it was brought back to her for corrections. Sometimes the stenographer would make themselves smaller corrections, but then, they sign their name to the correction and bring it to her for approval or reject them.   

I had brought with me from the university a great many statements that I have found as I was reading the Desire of Ages very critically. I wanted to know how those statements were written before they were printed. Before anybody got hold of it. By it I knew that sister White had never written Desire of Ages.  She couldn’t. Of that I was sure.

I had an experience in class that, gave me a new light on some things.

The teacher, a very provisioned teacher, wrote on the blackboard a sentence: “How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bed”. I had no use for poetry. That is interesting for some. Not for me.

And I said to myself, whoever wrote that means to say that the moon is shining. The teacher apparently read my mind. So he said ‘some of you may think the moon is shining’. He could have said that. But that would not be true to literature. But I did not care for literature.

He could have said ‘the moon is shining sweetly’. But that is silly. But he said “How sweet the moonlight sleeps on this bed”. Suddenly something opened up to me in my mind. He added ‘there are some things that can merely be said unless it is said in poetry’. I have found that to be true. Much of the bible is written in poetry. Because some things cannot be said at all or that well unless it is said in poetry. So from that moment I begin to get into poetry. I said to myself, if I had browning in the class I would teach him how to write.

Now, I was given the task of finding immortal lines in Desire of Ages as I have done on Shakespeare. I don’t believe I put that right. No doubt there are immortal lines in Shakespeare. I began to find more and more immortal lines in Desire of Ages than I had found in Shakespeare. And I knew that sister White could not have written it. And with that in mind I came out to see her.

What if she had written before those proofreaders read it, how it work.

I had brought with me all written statements regarding theology. Because as I have knew that sister White could not have written Desire of Ages, with that beautiful language, because she did not have the education. She couldn’t so all I knew is that she could not have written that book with the theology in it, unless she had a very brought education theologically. And she hasn’t. And I have brought my statements and compare it with her in the original in her own handwriting. Every one of those statements I have found written by her own hand originally. That was astounding to me. I well remembered that I have discovered in Desire of Ages a tremendous statement “in Christ is life, unborrowed underived”. That changed my theology. And the theology of the denomination as I read again and again. I found statement that I knew she did not written but there they were.

When I was done with my work, after three months, I was convinced that those writings can be explained on no other ground but that of divine guidance. I was not yet ready to accept all of them, but I found at that time that those writings were written under the direction of God.

Sister White herself had a pleasant personality. I use to sit with her in the morning, six five and 1 four. She was up writing. She was sitting on her rocking chair. Arms and a writing board and she was writing [audio not clear but paraphrased]. I don’t know why she was accepting me but I was welcome. I went to found out all about her. We had a good time together. ‘Sister White, what do you mean by that statement?’

‘What statement?’

‘Shall I read it, I don’t understand it’.

‘Let’s read. And she is open to read’.

‘I don’t know any more about that than you do.’

I was perplexed.

‘Don’t you know any more than I do know?’

‘I have to study it the same as you do’.

And sometimes she threw light on a statement and sometimes she would say ‘I don’t know’.

That perplexed me greatly until I read the Bible about Peter that had to study his own writing to see what manner ……[unclear audio and paraphrased only].

I have seen all those statements that I have brought with me authenticated in her own handwriting.

To be continued later . . .