For my Civil War in Memory class, we watched the 1940 Raoul Walsh film Dark Command staring John Wayne and Walter Pidgeon. The film was very different from Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind in that it did not portray slavery in a positive light. The story takes place in Kansas and … Continue reading Class Notes →

During her lifetime, Ellen White wrote dozens of books whose texts came from God and at time had quotes that came directly from angels. She even wrote a nine-volume work called Testimonies of the Church that helped in the creation of the Seventh-day Adventists. One thing that sets her apart from Joseph Smith is that … Continue reading Class Notes →

In March of 1963, Martin Luther King was arrested for violating and injunction against marching in Birmingham Al. While in prison he wrote possibly his most famous justification of his cause. He had been criticized by ministers of rocking the boat and causing more harm than good. In his letters he spelled out that he … Continue reading Class Notes →

It was on Christmas Day 1865 that Ellen White received the vision for the establishment of the Health Institute that would take care of the sick and also teach her doctrines of preventive medicine. This became the forerunner for the chain of Seventh-Day Adventist medical institutions around the world, health being a major part of … Continue reading Class Notes →

The first real challenge to the Brown V. BOE decision happened at Central High School in Little Rock, AR. Knowing that Black students planned to attend Central High the governor called out the national guard to protect them. However, they had no plans of protecting them, instead they deemed it unsafe for the students and … Continue reading Class Notes →

Born 22 years the junior of Joseph Smith, Ellen White had a similar background. Both born in New England and raised during the Second Great Awakening they were surrounded by religious excitement. While Smith was not connected with any religious movement, White joined with the Millerite movement led by William Miller who had predicted Christ’s … Continue reading Class Notes →

To me the death of JFK started a new era in America. It seems that before his death Americans trusted and respected our leaders. You did not always like and agree with them, but respected the office. Americans also seemed to have a basic trust in America. The idea that we were being told the … Continue reading Class Notes →

In studying the Seventh Day Adventists Rene Noorbergen wrote about Ellen White, “Convinced through her prophecies that the world was rapidly approaching its end, she led and counseled a large segment of the religious world of her time into a deeper spiritual and social awareness. But she did more than that. Her spiritual, medical and … Continue reading Class Notes →

While the 1939 movie Gone with the Wind is one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces of all time, it also did more to push the Lost Cause Myth than any other movie ever made. In the movie the slaves were happy and loyal, and the Southern cause was just, even if that cause was slavery. … Continue reading Class Notes →

Shipp’s last chapter looked closely at the 1916 General Conference of the LDS Church. The prophet Joseph F. Smith, nephew of Joseph Smith knew that things were greatly changing for the Church. She wrote, “this was a sermon that the Saints very much needed to hear, since the behavioral boundary that had once separated the … Continue reading Class Notes →