Objection 57: The Millerite, or Second Advent movement, out of which Seventh-day Adventists sprang, was tainted with weird fanatical actions such as the wearing of ascension robes by the deluded followers of Miller who sat on housetops and haystacks to await the coming of Christ. Multitudes were made insane by the fanatical preaching. The fanaticism was rampant both before and after 1844. This proves that God was not in the movement that brought forth Seventh day Adventism.
For practical purposes let us divide the answer into two parts.
1. What are the facts regarding the Millerite movement up to the date when the second coming of Christ was expected on October 22,1844?
We completely deny the two most commonly framed charges, that ascension robes were worn and that multitudes were made insane by the Millerite preaching. There is no truth to these accusations. Further, we virtually completely deny a wide array of other charges of fanaticism. No movement can prevent at least a few unstable persons from entering its ranks and taking its name, but there was no widespread fanaticism in the Millerite movement.
The proof in support of this sweeping denial is found in the book The Midnight Cry. There the original sources are quoted on every important point of Millerite history, including the question of fanaticism, up to the end of the Millerite movement proper.
2. What are the facts regarding the Millerite movement after 1844?
So long as the movement had united leadership, more or less official publications, and frequent general conferences, the spirit and temper of the movement could be quite accurately determined. An erratic or fanatical individual or group stood out in sharp contrast to the main body, and the spokesmen for the movement could record their disapproval of anything irrational in conduct. Such declarations of disapproval were sometimes necessary, for there are always unstable and fanatical spirits that seek to attach themselves to any new religious movement.
After 1844, when the movement broke up, there was no longer a well-defined and unified company called Millerites, who could unitedly denounce and expel any fanatical spirits who might seek to parade under the name of Millerite or Adventist. All the while a hostile world was ready to accept and broadcast any story, no matter how fanciful, regarding anyone who had espoused the Advent teachings. The marvel is not that charges of fanaticism have come down to us regarding the Millerites in the period immediately following 1844 but that there are not more such stories.
However, if the following six facts are kept in mind, an unprejudiced person will have no difficulty in deciding that Seventh day Adventists, and for that matter, Adventists in general, should not be blackened by such stories.
1. The most plausible stories so widely circulated about the Millerites up to October 22, 1844, have been proved wholly groundless in most instances and grossly exaggerated in the few remaining instances. Why give any more weight to stories told about these people after 1844? Did the storytellers suddenly become more veracious in 1845 and in the years following?
2. The great body of Millerites stand revealed, from a scrutiny of their writings and their conduct up to the end of 1844, as quiet, circumspect people, earnest Christians drawn from many churches. Is it reasonable to believe that they suddenly changed their essential nature and broke forth on every side in fanatical excesses?
3. Such isolated instances of fanaticism as actually occurred after 1844 received only vigorous condemnation from such leadership as did exist, whether among the first-day Adventists or among those who later took the name Seventh-day Adventists.
4. In this twilight period from 1845 to the early 1850's there was no real organization; there were only a handful of the former Millerites who added to their doctrine of the imminence of the Advent, the doctrine of the Sabbath and the heavenly sanctuary. Sometimes a small church group of Adventists would consist only in part of those who had added these two doctrines to their beliefs.
Among the troubled and bewildered Millerites traveled prominently three persons who were the pioneers of the Seventh day Adventist Church: Joseph Bates, James White, and Ellen G. White. They encouraged steadfastness in the faith of the Advent and presented the further truths of the Bible Sabbath and the heavenly sanctuary. Slowly there began to emerge the form of what is now known as the Seventh day Adventist Church.
That these three pioneers met fanaticism at times is clearly recorded in their writings. That they denounced it unsparingly is also recorded. Undoubtedly some who were fanatically inclined were turned from their folly and became stable members of the then-developing Sabbath keeping Advent movement. But that proves only the power of the movement to subdue turbulent spirits. In other words, it proves that Seventh day Adventism is an antidote for fanaticism.
5. The three who pioneered in the Seventh day Adventist movement were with it for many years. They continued to preach the same basic views on religious living throughout all their public life. Hence it is proper to conclude that the more or less well-defined Seventh-day Adventist Church in the 1860's and 1870's, when these three pioneers were still the dominant figures, was constituted of people with essentially the same beliefs and the same ideas of propriety in religious life as were held by those who accepted and followed the teachings and counsel of these pioneers in earlier days.
And when we examine the bona fide official church records of the 1860s and 1870s, do we find anything that warrants the conclusion that Seventh-day Adventists were given to fanatical religious excesses at that time? The answer is emphatically, No! Indeed, the Seventh-day Adventist Church through the hundred years of its history has been singularly free of fanaticism and has ever denounced any variety of it that might rear its head. That is a simple, undebatable fact. It would be strange, indeed, if a movement that has had such a record consistently throughout all its history should have flowed forth from the springs of fanatical excess! Is it possible that we have here the reversal of a hitherto unchallenged dictum that a river cannot rise higher than its source?
6. Quite uniformly the charges of fanaticism on the part of Seventh day Adventists in the years immediately following 1844 have been both vague and general. Obviously it is impossible to answer conclusively an indictment that fails to state names, places, and dates.
However, in 1944, a full century after the alleged fanaticism, an avowed critic published a specific charge of rank fanaticism on the pioneers in the post-1844 days. In The Gathering Call, edited and published by E. S. Ballenger, appeared this charge:
"We affirm without fear of successful contradiction that the S.D.A. pioneers crossed bridges on their hands and knees, to show their humility, and that they also crawled under tables, and under old fashioned stoves to exhibit their humility. It is also a fact that the pioneers used to kiss each other's feet. In their general gatherings, they used to crowd all the men into one room, and each man would put his foot out from under his covers while the man at the head of the line would go down the line and kiss the foot of each one of his brethren. Then the next one would follow until everybody had kissed all the others' feet. These things were practiced, not by ignorant laymen but by such men as J. N. Andrews."
Here was an opportunity finally to run to earth the vague stories about fanaticism among the Adventist pioneers, for here specific instances of fanaticism were mentioned. The charges were unequivocally presented as “a fact” and prefaced with the impressive declaration: “We affirm without fear of successful contradiction.” Here, indeed, was a chance to make a test case of stories of fanaticism on the part of Seventh day Adventists.
The grandson of John Nevins Andrews, engaged in correspondence with Ballenger regarding these charges. The correspondence was placed in my hands. In that correspondence Ballenger admitted that he based his charge wholly on a statement allegedly made to him by Oswald Stowell somewhere between the years 1905 and 1912, when Stowell was “not far from 80 years of age.” In this correspondence Ballenger admitted that Stowell did not say that Andrews kissed the feet of the brethren, but that others, whom Ballenger was unable to name, did so. Ballenger stated that there was no one else living who heard Stowell tell this story!
This correspondence was published in an article entitled “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” in Ministry, May, 1944. This article noted that Oswald Stowell, the alleged source of the story, was a very old man at the time he was said to have told this story, and that the one now retelling it was also very old. Further, that the story had to do with something supposed to have happened a hundred years ago. A story so good as this surely would not have been kept quiet by Stowell—a long-time Seventh day Adventist who had lived in Adventist communities all his life—until his last days.
Yet no one had heard this story before, not even the grandson of J. N. Andrews. A daughter of Stowell's, Mrs. Parker Smith, who had heard from her father's lips many times the narrative of the early days, had never heard it! Her letter, so stating, was also published. In his reply in The Gathering Call, July-August, 1944, Ballenger discussed for eight vehement, adjective-packed pages everything from Adventist preachers' morals to their theology. All this filled space, but was transparently irrelevant in answer to the demand for better evidence for his charge of fanaticism. In fact, Ballenger affected surprise that anyone should take seriously one of the "trivial things" he had brought against Adventists.
Now, men who wish to be taken seriously are not in the habit of prefacing "trivial" charges with the impressive words, “We affirm without fear of successful contradiction.” Perhaps he, in common with other critics who hurl the charge of fanaticism, considers it a trivial thing to make long dead good men look ridiculous. It appears now that the only thing trivial about his charge was the evidence he submitted in support of it.
Thus ended the attempt to pin down what is probably the most specific story ever set forth by an Adventist critic regarding alleged fanatical excesses on the part of the pioneers in that twilight period immediately following 1844.