Donald Edward Casebolt

Child of the Apocalypse: Ellen G. White Donald Edward Casebolt

Ellen White's two thousand visions, revered by her twenty million disciples, were doctrinally inspired by William Miller, who fathered the largest millennial movement in US history. He and Samuel Snow, during the movement's climax, the "Midnight Cry," predicted Christ's Second Coming for exactly October 22, 1844, on the basis of fifteen proof-texts. Ellen was twelve, suffering from severe brain trauma and the conviction that she was hell-bound, when Miller converted her. By sixteen she became convicted that she was having divine dreams and visions confirming Miller's prophetic role and message. When Miller's predictions failed and he repudiated his own predictions, Ellen announced that God had commanded her to endorse Miller's failed "Midnight Cry" as divinely inspired, and her authority replaced Miller's in the "shut-door" faction of ex-Millerites who evolved into the Seventh-day Adventist church. Miller claimed that his dogmas were the result of merely allowing the Bible to interpret itself and that his method was literal commonsense. White seconded this claim and said God's angels routinely guided Miller's interpretations. However, not only were his interpretations falsified, but examination reveals them to be farfetched allegorical treatments of parables. Nonetheless, White's visions and SDA theology still retain many of Miller's falsified predictions.