And how the church struggled to define her status
Dr Lester Devine
Director emeritus
Ellen G White/Seventh-day Adventist Research Centre
This credential, issued in 1885, identifies Ellen White as an ordained minister of the Adventist Church.
From 1871 until her death in 1915, Seventh-day Adventist Church pioneer Ellen White received the same credentials as those issued to ordained ministers—though the church never ordained her and there’s no record of her conducting baptisms, funerals or marriages.
Some years, such as in 1885, the church issued Ellen’s credential with the word “ordained” ruled through. At other times, the word remained unmarked.
The church struggled to define Ellen’s status—the church had no licence or credential to recognise the role of someone called to prophetic ministry, so it gave her the most senior status in spiritual leadership it had. But Ellen never considered herself to be ordained by the church—and didn’t consider such status one to be sought.
In the early years, shortly after the church began employing women in ministry, the church did recognise the issuing of licences put women on the path to ordination. And it considered ordaining them. While this didn’t happen, there’s no record Ellen or the church’s leaders had any theological objection to the ordination of women. If there had been, one would have expected Ellen, in her prophetic ministry to the church, to have provided counsel on the issue.—Record