Walter T. Rea (June 12, 1922 – August 30, 2014) was a former
Seventh-day Adventist
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and ...
pastor who authored the book, ''The White Lie'' (1982), an account of his research into literary borrowing and uncredited sources in the writings of church co-founder
Ellen G. White
Ellen Gould White (née Harmon; November 26, 1827 – July 16, 1915) was an American woman author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Along with other Adventist leaders such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, she wa ...
. His findings created turmoil in the Adventist Church regarding the
inspiration and authority of White, whom the church claims possessed the
spiritual gift
A spiritual gift or charism (plural: charisms or charismata; in Greek singular: χάρισμα
''charisma'', plural: χαρίσματα ''charismata'') is an extraordinary power given by the Holy Spirit."Spiritual gifts". ''A Dictionary of the ...
of prophecy.
Biography
Rea was born in 1922. He died in August 2014. Rea was a Seventh-day Adventist pastor in
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California.
Incorporate ...
, when he wrote ''The White Lie''. His church employment ended in 1980 after a newspaper article published an account of his findings.
Ellen G. White
While there had been earlier allegations of plagiarism against Ellen G. White, Rea's book, ''The White Lie,'' claimed that up to 80 or 90% of White's writings were plagiarized.
[From Controversy to Crisis: An Updated Assessment of Seventh-day Adventism](_blank)
by Kenneth Samples
Kenneth is an English given name and surname. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: ''Cainnech'' and '' Cináed''. The modern Gaelic form of ''Cainnech'' is ''Coinneach''; the name was derived from a b ...
. ''Christian Research Journal
The Christian Research Institute (CRI) is an evangelical Christian apologetics ministry. It was established in October 1960 in the state of New Jersey by Walter Martin (1928–1989). In 1974, Martin relocated the ministry to San Juan Capistran ...
'' 11:1 (Summer 1988) Rea was the first to document the extent of this borrowing, citing 75 books White depended on.
The Adventist denomination has responded to these charges in various venues.
The church has continued to address related challenges in relation to understanding White’s inspiration, questions on the extent of the literary borrowing and its distinction to plagiarism, and issues of integrity in the absence of illegality.
See also
*
Criticism of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
Criticism of the Seventh-day Adventist Church includes observations made about its teachings, structure, and practices or theological disagreements from various individuals and groups.
Major critics
One of the most prominent early critics of the ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rea, Walter T.
Former Seventh-day Adventists
1922 births
2014 deaths
Critics of Seventh-day Adventism