Adventist Voices by Spectrum: The Journal of the Adventist Forum Spectrum

Concluding a 5-part series with Don Casebolt on his book Father Miller's Daughter, we discuss Ellen White's statements about the papacy and Casebolt presents evidence for White's dependence on discredited historians for her statements that the Pope changed the Christian day of worship to Sunday. Casebolt also critiques Samuel Bacchiocchi's contributions to this belief. We conclude by exploring White's idea that masturbation (solitary vice) caused tuberculosis among many ills and was directly responsible for "killing tens of thousands" a year. 

Alex Aamodt shares insights from his week of watching the National Labor Relations Board hearing on the unionization efforts at Loma Linda University Health. He talks about the role played by representatives from the General Conference (David Trim and Bill Knott) who were sworn in to explain institutional structure and Adventist policy on unions rooted in Ellen White's writings. Drawing on the proceedings and his legal and historical research, Aamodt also details key definitions (students or employees), explains the difference between LLUH and LLUHEC, and provides perspectives from both sides: the physician residents/fellows and the arguments made by the lawyers representing LLUH. 

Don McAdams, PhD, discusses his legendary embargoed paper documenting Ellen White’s literary and narrative dependence on Protestant historians. After 50 years it has been published as part of a book titled Ellen White and the Historians: A Neglected Problem and a Forgotten Answer (2022). McAdams discusses how he discovered this issue in the 1970s, how the Ellen White Estate reacted, and why it is finally time for the Adventist Church to openly confront its “founding myth—not the inspiration of Ellen White, but her authority in all matters.”

Japanese American writer, poet, culture critique, David Mura discusses his new book The Stories Whiteness Tell Itself, published by University of Minnesota Press, 2023. Mura grounds his work in historical and fictional narratives that whiteness tells society in order to uphold systems of Black oppression. We discuss his own family history of internment during WWII, James Baldwin, spirituality, as well as how the stages of grief connect to anti-racist awareness.

Former Spectrum journalist, Adventist pastor, and then defense attorney, Thomas L. Dybdahl talks about his life and his new book. Published by The New Press, When Innocence Is Not Enough: Hidden Evidence and the Failed Promise of the Brady Rule tells several gripping tales of crime and the wrongs done to the falsely accused when prosecutors don’t share evidence.

We talk about Millerite O. R. L. Crosier who helped create the Sanctuary Doctrine. He later rejected it, Ellen White, and Adventism. This is part three of this Adventist Voices series with Donald Casebolt about his book, Father Miller’s Daughter (2022).