Strategy of False Prophetic Movements

1. Largely paralleling the early advent movement in time was the Mormon development, headed by their “prophet,” Joseph Smith (1805-1844), who asserted that he received direct communication from God. Smith claimed to have received many “visions” between 1820 and 1844. Some of the “revelations” led to such abhorrent practices as baptism for the dead and plurality of wives. Joseph Smith’s career ended in his murder by a mob in 1844 while he was awaiting trial.EGWMR 27.3

2. Another less-known group, likewise claiming divine illumination, were the Shakers, who reached their high point of influence in America in 1830, but continued strongly during the next few decades. Following their self-styled prophet, Ann Lee, who claimed to be no less than Christ Himself incarnate in woman’s flesh, the Shakers were characterized by a communal form of life, celibacy, spiritism, and belief in the dual personality of God. Naturally this group was not in good favor.EGWMR 27.4

3. Even within the advent movement of the nineteenth century, although in general characterized by freedom from excitement and fanaticism, there were a few instances of manifestations of a spurious nature, both in the Old World and in the New. Edward Irving (1792-1834), prominent in the advent ministry in Great Britain, about the year 1830 permitted the supposed gift of tongues to be exercised in his church. As a result, Irving was deprived of his pulpit, but he continued with the fanatical group. The influence of his experience, however, led to distinct reproach of the advent cause in Great Britain.EGWMR 27.5

4. The outbreaks in America, involving Starkweather and Gorgas, were of little importance so far as influence on the movement was concerned, as they were both immediately repudiated. But they caused Adventists in general to brace themselves against any and all “spiritual” manifestations. Note the following extreme action taken at the Boston Advent Conference on May 29, 1843: “We have no confidence whatever in any visions, dreams, or private revelations.”—Second Advent of Christ, June 21, 1843 (Cleveland; edited by Charles Fitch).EGWMR 27.6

5. In September, 1844, there appeared in the advent quarterly, The Advent Shield, an article entitled “The Reformation of Luther—Its Similarity to the Present Times,” written by Sylvester Bliss, one of the leaders in the cause. Stress was placed on the detrimental effects of the fanatical outbreaks, in Luther’s day, of the “prophets” of Zwickau, who claimed direct revelations from Deity, but whose teachings led to lamentable disorders. In summarizing his comparison of the advent movement to the Reformation, Bliss, enumerating the dangers from without and within, spoke of some “internal enemies, endeavoring to eat out its very vitals, and to wreck the ship of Zion on the rocks and quicksands of fanaticism, by leading those who favor it into unseemly excesses, and the extravagancies of mysticism,” and warned “against the reveries of enthusiastical hallucinations.”—Page 162.EGWMR 27.7

Fanaticism, however, was not rife in the great advent movement, and, lest the reader reach misleading conclusions on this point from the foregoing allusions, we here present the testimony of one who not only passed through the disappointment, but who also witnessed, through vision, the outstanding religious movements down through the span of time: “Of all the great religious movements since the days of the apostles, none have been more free from human imperfection and the wiles of Satan than was that of the autumn of 1844”—E. G. White, The Great Controversy, 401. Nevertheless, the manifestations of spurious “gifts,” with the resulting warnings sounded by the leaders, did prepare the large body of Adventists, and the Christian world generally, to doubt and repudiate the genuine gift when it should appear. This was a master stroke on the part of the enemy.EGWMR 27.8