Prior to her involvement in Millerism, Ellen Harmon (later Ellen White) grew up in the Methodist Church. This is a common appeal many Adventists make, including SDA theologians, when seeking to add legitimacy to Seventh-Day Adventism. Most often claiming they are Wesleyan in their theology due to having an Arminian bent to their soteriology. Which is rather interesting considering they will also tell you that they are “heirs of the Protestant Reformers.”
Speaking on this, SDA historian George R. Knight writes:
A third orientation that formed a significant part of early Adventism’s theological context was Methodism. The Methodist or Wesleyan movement has special importance to Seventh-day Adventists because its third founder, Ellen G. White, grew up in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
George Knight, A Search for Identity: The Development of Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs, pg. 32
But what many aren’t aware of is that Ellen White’s family was not just Methodists, but specifically Shouting Methodists, a term coined in the 19th century for Methodists known for their fits of shouting and wailing. What started as loud exclamations to the heavens turned into fits of clapping and shuffling of the feet. Shouting then became a dance full of clapping, leaping and praise. But most often they would engage in a “ring shout.”
They would get in rings and frantically shout as loud as possible believing that those that shouted the loudest, God would hear and pour out an increase in the Holy Spirit. It was not seen as an act of prayer, but of worship and praise. It was pure excess and fanaticism as even the SDA Church has recognized.
The evidence of this shouting can even be found in a number of Methodist hymns. Such as in Shouting Satan’s Kingdom Down which states “‘shout, shout, we’re gaining ground, we’ll shout old Satan’s kingdom down.'”
This was the early environment that the Adventist prophetess was raised in and brought with her to Millerism where more fanaticism regarding eschatology and the apocalypse abounded. When the Harmon family tried taking the Advent message of William Miller back to the Chestnut Street Methodist Church, they were kicked out for doctrines that did not align with Methodism.
In Ellen White’s own telling, she claims they were kicked out for believing in the literal second coming of Jesus Christ and no one, not even the pastor, could show them from the Bible why they were wrong. But that doesn’t go against what the Methodist Church teaches. The Methodist Church, since it’s founding to the present day, has always affirmed the second coming—as can be seen in Article 3 of their Articles of Religion.
What Millerism was promoting was a specific date for Christ’s return—something the scriptures strictly forbids (Matthew 24:36). Ellen White and her family were spreading this within the Methodist congregation seeking to convert people to Millerism. When the church leadership had to initiate church discipline, the Harmons refused to listen which led to them being disfellowshipped, as can be seen in the letter and records provided from the Chestnut Street Methodist Church which is still around to this day.
This led to Ellen White clearly harboring resentment toward the Methodist Church as she later would go on to teach and claim that this action on the part of the Methodist Church was evidence of Revelation 14:8 being true—that Babylon had fallen and the Methodist Church was a part of this apostate downfall. This was clearly influenced by the other Millerite belief that there was a Great Apostasy immediately after the apostles such that the Church fell away and needed to be restored. What’s known as restorationism and includes cults/sects such as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, Seventh-Day Adventists and others.
Ellen White’s upbringing was an immersion in charismatic excesses and experience in one fanatic sect after the next. It gives a clearer picture into the life that would later follow her and adds some skin to the bones of why the Seventh-Day Adventist movement had such a rough start and continues to deal with the ramifications of this fanaticism in their own ranks to this day.
