ADVENTIST HISTORY
unpopular truth was more acceptable than a popular error.... We do find some, sorry to say, that cling to the popular error, at the sacrifice of the unpopular truth. While some are declaring that they have nothing to do with the matter, yet we still hear them preaching the Earth a Globe, and [they] are teaching it from their high schools and colleges.”20 Reading these accounts over a century later, in an age when
the spherical, moving Earth is an unquestioned fact, Gleason’s geocentric and flat-earth ideas seem silly, and Ellen White’s refutation of them appears to be just a minor—if odd—event in Adventist history. Yet, one wonders why White dodged these questions when
she had no hesitation addressing so many other matters having to do with science. Of the manner of Earth’s creation and its age she was certain, because God had told her. Tat there were better cures for disease than physicians used, God had also revealed to her. But instead of refuting the flat-earth theory, she refused to discuss it, calling it a matter of no particular importance—and wondering if it could be known at all. Gleason believed there were no unimportant questions. He
had to resolve every contradiction to prove the Bible true. White countered in Gospel Workers that “petty strife and contention over questions of no importance has no part in God’s great plan,” and only one thing proves the Bible true: the experience of salvation and life in Christ. “Let those who wish for something new,” she wrote on page 314, “seek for that newness of life resulting from the new birth. Let them purify their souls by obeying the truth, and act in harmony with the instruction that Christ has given.” Tose who went beyond the themes of salvation “lead their
hearers into a field of thistles, as it were, and leave them there.”21 Tat’s counsel we might wish she had followed herself.
1 Te small but defiant International Flat Earth Research Society (IFERS), based in Lancaster, California, at one point claimed 3,500 members. Its president, Charles K. Johnson, denied the “theory” of a global Earth, insisting that Australians do not hang by their feet with their heads downward. He regarded modern testimonies to a spherical Earth, such as satellite pictures and space travel, as satanically inspired (and possibly Communist) hoaxes meant to undermine the credibility of Scripture. Johnson published the quarterly Flat Earth News, in which he regularly labeled scientists as liars and “demented dope fiends.” In a phone conversation in 1991, he told me that because he placed great importance on the Ten Commandments, he had studied Adventist teachings and even briefly worshiped with Adventists. He later rejected all organized religion for “bearing false witness” in regard to flat-earth theory. In 1995, a fire in Johnson’s home destroyed the IFERS library and all of its records. Johnson died in 2001. Daniel Shenton resurrected IFERS in 2009 with a website at
theflatearthsociety.org. He had 550 members as of the end of 2024. Te first member was English musician Tomas Dolby, who had a 1984 album titled Te Flat Earth. 2 Ellen G. White, Gospel Workers (1915), p. 314. 3 Alexander Gleason, Is the Bible from Heaven? Is the Earth a Globe? (1893 ed.), p. 382. 4 Whimsical pseudonyms and excessively descriptive book titles were the fashion among Flat Earthers. Another zetetic philosopher, Tomas Winship (under the pseudonym “Rectangle”), wrote Zetetic Cosmogony: or, Conclusive Evidence Tat the World Is Not a Rotating Globe, But a Stationary Plane Circle (1899). 5 Gleason, p. 366. 6 White, Gospel Workers, p. 314. 7 Gleason, p. 386. 8 White, Te Great Controversy (1888), pp. 767-768.
9 Gleason, p. 391. 10
B-43-87. 11
White, Letter 43 to M. H. Brown from Basel, Switzerland (Apr. 15, 1887), File Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia (1966), p. 1428. 13 White, Manuscript 145 (Aug. 28, 1904).
12 White, Letter 43 (1887). 14 White, Letter 390 (Aug. 29, 1904).
15 White, Manuscript Release No. 1289 (Sept. 12, 1904). 16 White, Manuscript 155 (Sept. 4, 1904). 17 White, Letter 280a (Sept. 3, 1904). 18 White, Letter 167 (1900). 19 Gleason, p. 383. 20 Ibid., p. 384.
21 White, Gospel Workers, p. 315.
34 AD VENTIS T T OD A Y
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