Many Adventist’s are unaware that Ellen G. White claimed to be shown in vision, not just that foot washing was to be practiced as an ordinance, but also that Adventist’s should practice the holy kiss as a sign of fellowship when parting and when seeing each other again—with the scriptural support being 1 Thessalonians 5:26.
The early Seventh-Day Adventist’s (still Millerites at the time) did indeed practice this. The March 28, 1845 issue of The Liberator, a local newspaper of the day in the region of the Millerites documents the SDAs practicing this with the town claiming it was an “evil in their midst” due to some of the sexual antics is aroused on top of religious fanatical behavior. The March 1845 issue of the Piscataquis Farmer documents the same thing.
The Valentines Day issue of The Advent Review (February 14, 1854) doesn’t just document down that this was happening, but that it is a sign of Christian fellowship, but not to be frequently given. However, they state that it’s a sin to be ashamed of it.
In her 1847 Word to the Little Flock “vision”, regarding the holy kiss, Ellen White claimed that the “synagogue of Satan” knew that God had loved the Little Flock (early SDAs) because they were the ones practicing foot washing and the holy kiss.
Fast forward to 1871, and the July 4 issue of The Advent Review quotes from Puritan William Twisse’s book The Morality of the Fourth Commandment. Twisse makes a statement that it was the work of antichrist as to why the holy kiss had fallen into obscurity. They cite this in support of their practice which seems to bolster Ellen White’s vision from decades prior.
But then in July of 1957, the SDA Church did a complete 180 despite Ellen White’s vision and these claims to the holy kiss being done away with as an ordinance because of the antichrist. In the July 16, 1957 issue of The Youth’s Instructor, an official Adventist publication, they claim that despite the holy kiss being found throughout Paul’s epistles, there is no evidence these injunctions are to be universal in practice by the church until the return of Christ. Why the drastic shift from Ellen’s vision to 100 years later? And why the cherry picking of which of Ellen’s visions the SDA Church decides to follow as binding?
The November 2005 issue of Ministry Magazine—an official publication for SDA clergy—states that Christian’s today are not obligated to dress as Jesus dressed or greet one another with a holy kiss. The June 2015 issue of Ministry Magazine also states that some prescriptions of scripture are no longer relevant to Christians today, including the holy kiss, which was a cultural custom.
They inadvertently called themselves antichrist because at one point they supported the idea that it was the work of antichrist to not practice the holy kiss as an ordinance, which was in line and supported by Ellen White’s “vision.” But now they recognize it was a cultural custom and don’t practice it anymore.
The holy kiss was simply a cultural custom that had nothing to do with being a normative, recurring ordinance for the Christian church.
Ellen White claimed that “whatever contradicts God’s Word, we can be sure proceeds from Satan”, that her writings never contradict God’s Word, and they bear the test of investigation. We’ll let you connect the dots.
