Talk:Inspiration of Ellen White

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 2007-02-21. The result of the discussion was No consensus.
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Contents

[edit] Material moved from page

[edit] Recent material

Link removed from page:

Please justify why the individuals behind this site are notable enough to be included. Colin MacLaurin 19:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Earlier material

Some of the basic points are helpful, but there is far too much information which is simply not relevant to the topic. Some of it might belong on other pages such as Victor Houteff. Please summarise it drastically. The material does not appear to abide by a neutral point of view.

The site www.gilead.net is linked to several times for the text of White's writings. The site is not a good choice, as it is not highly notable and also appears to represent the POV of Historic Adventism. Please link instead to the Ellen G. White Estate homepage, which is not only far more notable and more representative of mainstream Adventism, but is also the official Ellen White website. Colin MacLaurin 17:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The following section was moved from the article. As requested above, please summarise it drastically to a concise, encyclopedic style. Most of the detail is not relevant to this article, but pertinent shorter remarks could fit it well. It appears to represent a critical POV, whereas Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy states that all major viewpoints be represented. Colin MacLaurin 07:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section mergers with Ellen White

This page is about the nature of the inspiration of Ellen White and her writings. This is a much more specific topic than the general page Ellen White, but this is the particular point controverted. Two reasons for this page:

  1. There is a lot of material for this page
  2. This is the controverted point regarding her. Her existence, her life etc. are not disputed. But her writings/inspiration is what is disputed. Many articles and sections support or dispute her prophetic gift specifically. The existence of this page allows a natural wikilink to be created from these other articles. However a wikilink to the Ellen White page would be off topic. Again, this page would go in the Category:Seventh-day Adventist theology, because it describes a theological belief of the church. But the Ellen White page would not belong in this category. A related concept is the "Spirit of prophecy".

The main page would be left to describe her biography, family life, leadership influence upon the church, role in the 1888 meeting, and even a list of her writings and the major themes within. Colin MacLaurin 10:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure about the theology category link. I can't quite think of why but I see this page as separate from a discussion of the churches theology.
Apart from that, this page is valid according to the comments I made earlier about it. NPOV can easily hold under the title as is. The title does not stop evidence against the gift from being presented so it is not a POV fork. Ansell 12:25, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that any person should get two entries, and if you must keep them seperate, than I would say move this to Ellen White : The Prophetic Gift or something like that. It is almost like you are advertising for her by putting it under prophecy Mattbman 22:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually many people described in Wikipedia have several articles. Consider William Shakespeare for instance. There is a lot of content for Ellen G. White, and in fact the debate as to whether or not her prophetic gift was genuine is the most contentious issue regarding her. An article name change could be justified, but other articles on George W. Bush also use this style - Early life of George W. Bush and Professional life of George W. Bush. One policy stated, "Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles". The policy Wikipedia:Summary style is relevant to this discussion. Colin MacLaurin 16:41, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

What is the best title for this article? Some have suggested it is currently POV, which is certainly not intended. As pointed out by anothers, article titles such as Papal infallibility could also sound POV. "Prophetic gift of Ellen White" is a little clumsy. How about a rename to Inspiration of Ellen White (which currently redirects here), which is a slightly less specific title, and shorter? The word "inspiration" could have a spiritual connotation to a religious person and/or supporter of White, or the entirely humanistic connotation of "creativity" to a critic. Another option would be to merge it into Spirit of Prophecy (Adventist), however I strongly disagree with this, as many Adventists themselves criticise the use of this term. Colin MacLaurin 05:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Support. The proposed title is far more neutral. The current title assumes she had a prophetic gift, which may be contentious to some. MyNameIsNotBob 10:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Support. -- Fyslee/talk 08:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Done. Thanks for the input. I am hoping for more editorial attention to this page. Cheers, Colin MacLaurin 12:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reply to Additions

If I might direct your attention to the title of this page, which have somehow escaped your consideration.

  • The Prophetic Gift of Ellen White.

This page, was therefore devoted history of Mrs. White’s “gift,” and I have striven to create a balance perspective of same, with strong historical overtones. Should one wish to seriously evaluate Mrs. White’s “Prophetic Gift,” in the context of a Wikipedia article, then he must certainly create a balanced portrayal of the history of this “Prophetic gift,” which Mrs. White claimed to possess. Perhaps you, as an Adventist, were incapable of writing a disinterested account of Mrs. White’s “prophetic gift;” previous to my editing of this article, I noticed that it was meandering, overburdened with excessive references to redundant and frequently unknown sources. Your summation of the intrinsic differences between Mrs. Whites partisans and enemies left a great deal to be desired, as well. If the quotations which I used in substantiation of my case are accurate, then I see no reason to alter the references to them. Might I further remind you that Wikipedia is largely patronized by users who are non-Adventists, and therefore the use of accepted Adventist sources is superfluous. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Luciuscrassus (talkcontribs) 13:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC).

Regarding the title, please see my above earlier comment under the section "Title". If you have a recommendation, please supply it. I request that you show me the benefit of the doubt per the assume good faith policy. In my edits I have attempted to give a balanced portrayal. In particular, I have mentioned many critics and linked to their online books, if available. What could have more detail is specific reasons critics give to doubt White's inspiration. Perhaps you could contribute here. I disagree that the sources I have cited are "redundant and frequently unknown" - this could perhaps be argued for a couple but the majority are highly prominent. Regarding your last comment, Wikipedia's NPOV policy is that all major viewpoints be presented. One such major viewpoint is that of critics, one is that of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in this case (both nuanced viewpoints themselves). For the Adventist POV, of course references will be from Adventist sources. Colin MacLaurin 14:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Mainstream" Adventst Scholars

I added a "citation needed for the following, but I believe that is not sufficient. This section needs to be re-worked. As the article already states, there is a diversity of views about EGW's inspiration among SDAs - including among scholars. Who are the "mainstream" scholars, who made the judgement they were mainstream, and what criteria were used? I think this section should be deleted until it can be presented in more careful detail, but I will simply make that suggestion for now and see what others think.

"Typical mainstream Adventist scholars today believe [citation needed]:

  • she was inspired by God... yet she was not infallible (without error)
  • her writings are important to and relevant to the Adventist church today... yet must not form the basis for doctrine
  • her writings are inferior to the Bible and non-canonical... yet superior to ordinary Christian literature
  • she was culturally conditioned to some degree... yet she was not limited to the culture of her day only, but transcended it to some degree
  • she borrowed from other authors... yet was not without discrimination in her inspired usage"

Gogh 02:04, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Many of the applicable references can be found on the rest of the page. See WP:LEAD for what a lead section is all about. In general the lead section is a condensed version of the rest of the page, so if the citations appear in the body then it is sufficient. If you want to copy references so that they appear in both places then feel free, but as such I do not think the statements are totally unfounded. Ansell 23:53, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I do not see the many applicable references later in the page that you suggest should be there. I do see summaries of various positions, but for the most part I do not see substantiation for categorizing some positions as , for example "mainstream". I think you are in danger here of creating more of a theological article than an encycclopedic article. I think you are better off summarizin what the official church documents say on this subject, and then indicating - briefly - what the range of views within the church might be. If you are going to go into the fine distinctions, and describe some as mainstream or majority, then you better find some pretty good support for these claims.Gogh 07:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)