ANSWER: [Brother Anderson] We sometimes hear: "Okay, so she made a few mistakes. Big deal! Everyone makes mistakes, right?" Were her mistakes really minor and of little import?

Perhaps it is a matter of perception. We have a pretty high standard for someone who claims the “Holy Ghost” authored their writings and whose writings are called the "Spirit of Prophecy." Maybe you are willing to accept a few false prophecies, a falsehood received in vision, and over 50 contradictions to the Bible as being an acceptable level of mistakes in books authored by the Holy Ghost, but we cannot.

The truth is that Mrs. White not only made serious errors that misled the SDA church, she also contradicted herself and the Bible scores of times, and she failed six of the seven Biblical tests of a prophet. Her teachings about the shut door of salvation caused her followers to ignore Christ's commission to take the gospel into all the world for nearly 5 years! Think of all the lost souls who failed to hear the gospel for 5 years while the early Adventists were following Mrs. White's "shut door" visions! How anyone could call that a "minor" mistake? Prophets are supposed to expose false teachings, not propagate them for five years!

[Dale Ratzlaff] From my years of teaching Adventist students and pastoring two Adventist churches, I found that few Adventists had a clear understanding of the gospel, the most important article of faith. Why would this be? If Adventists have another 52 books that are supposed to help one understand the truth of the Bible, why the uncertainty on its major tenet? The statements of Ellen White on the gospel are mixed: good, excellent, poor, confused, wrong. Which one is the "continuing and authoratative source of truth"?