Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- I INTRODUCTION
- II MAJOR INFLUENCES IN ADVENTIST MORAL THOUGHT
- III ISSUES OF HUMAN SEXUALITY
- 5 Marital relations among Adventists: the pursuit of purity
- 6 Adventists and intimacy: the celebration of sex
- 7 Adventists and abortion: early hostility
- 8 Abortion: tensions in the institutionalized church
- 9 Early adventist women: in the shadow of the prophetess
- 10 Adventist women in the modern church: the pain of liberation
- 11 Divorce in Adventism: a perennial problem
- 12 Divorcing and enforcing: problems with principles and procedures
- 13 Homosexuality: the sin unnamed among Adventists
- 14 Homosexuality in Adventism: sin, disease or preference?
- IV POSTSCRIPT
- Notes
- Select bibliography
9 - Early adventist women: in the shadow of the prophetess
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- I INTRODUCTION
- II MAJOR INFLUENCES IN ADVENTIST MORAL THOUGHT
- III ISSUES OF HUMAN SEXUALITY
- 5 Marital relations among Adventists: the pursuit of purity
- 6 Adventists and intimacy: the celebration of sex
- 7 Adventists and abortion: early hostility
- 8 Abortion: tensions in the institutionalized church
- 9 Early adventist women: in the shadow of the prophetess
- 10 Adventist women in the modern church: the pain of liberation
- 11 Divorce in Adventism: a perennial problem
- 12 Divorcing and enforcing: problems with principles and procedures
- 13 Homosexuality: the sin unnamed among Adventists
- 14 Homosexuality in Adventism: sin, disease or preference?
- IV POSTSCRIPT
- Notes
- Select bibliography
Summary
Introduction
Both members and observers of the Seventh-day Adventist church acknowledge the profound influence exerted on the movement by its charismatic leader, Ellen G. White. Robin Theobald rightly judged that
there are good grounds for doubting whether, in the absence of Mrs White, this particular remnant of the Millerite movement could have overcome the pronounced fissiparous tendencies which typically attend an apparent disconfirmation of prophecy …
Ellen White's voluminous writings have continued to shape Adventist faith and practice to a considerable extent to the present day. The fact that a woman has had such an enormous impact on the development of Adventism raises some important questions. Did her presence as a church leader help to dissolve prejudice against women assuming positions of responsibility? To what extent was her role restricted by the social constraints of the times? Did her presence as leader have a feminizing effect on doctrine, behaviour, and organization? Some awareness of the social context in which Ellen White lived is vital to the resolution of such questions.
The role of women in the United States
Americans in the nineteenth century shared the view that women should be unassertive and devoted to the moral welfare of their families. Theirs was to cultivate piety and master ‘the housewifely arts’. Women were, however, encouraged by popular magazines of the day to exercise an ‘influence … paramount to authority’ by employing a ‘decorous deviousness’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Millennial Dreams and Moral DilemmasSeventh-Day Adventism and Contemporary Ethics, pp. 134 - 151Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990