One aspect of a pastor's responsibility is the dual role of a prophet - "to afflict the comfortable" and "to comfort the afflicted".
The prophetic role of afflicting the comfortable often brought the ancient prophets into confrontation with the leaders of the church and the rulers of the state.
Imagine the discomfort Nathan the prophet must have felt as he went in to confront King David about his sin of adultery with Bathsheba. King David had already ordered the murder of Bathsheba's husband in an attempt to cover his sin of adultery. Would King David order the murder of anyone, even a prophet, who dared to question his actions?
Imagine the discomfort Ellen White must have felt when she decided that she must support the gospel-centered ministry of A.T. Jones and E.J. Waggoner, two young "upstart" ministers from California who were challenging the firmly established law-centered ministry of "the brethren of experience", including the President of the General Conference, at the General Conference session of 1888. Imagine how unhappy Ellen White must have been when she was told in 1891 that "the brethren" had decided that she should go to Australia to help establish the work there. It did not require prophetic insight or a revelation from God to see that this "mission" to Australia was really an attempt to banish Ellen White from Battle Creek and thus minimize her influence among American Adventists. Because Ellen White believed the voice of the General Conference was the voice of God (a belief she later rejected), she went to Australia.
Could feelings of rejection by "the brethren" at the General Conference in Battle Creek explain why Ellen White chose publishers other than the Review & Herald, even a non-SDA publisher, to print the new books she wrote during the years she was in Australia and even after her return to America? Most SDAs are not aware that STEPS TO CHRIST was initially published in 1892 by Fleming H. Revell, a non-SDA who was brother-in-law of Dwight L. Moody - America's leading evangelist at the time. The fact is that not a single new original book by Ellen White was released by the Review & Herald between 1891 and the time of her death in 1915! Pacific Press was given the rights to publish Ellen White's major works - THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES series (DESIRE OF AGES-1898, GREAT CONTROVERSY-1907,1911, PATRIARCHS & PROPHETS-originally published by the R&H in 1890, ACTS OF THE APOSTLES-1911 and PROPHETS AND KINGS-1917), the nine volume set of the TESTIMONIES TO THE CHURCH, EDUCATION-1903, MINISTRY OF HEALING-1905, COUNSELS TO PARENTS, TEACHERS AND STUDENTS-1913 and LIFE SKETCHES-1915. (The R&H continued to publish some of EGW's older works and a few new compilations like GOSPEL WORKERS-1892, CHRISTIAN EDUCATION-1893.) When Ellen White returned to America, she did not return to denominational headquarters at Battle Creek in Michigan where she had lived for 35 years before her exile in Australia, but established her residence in California near the Pacific Press Publishing Association which had become her primary publisher during her Australian exile. It was only after the 1937 death of her son Willie White, who served as Ellen White's assistant for the last 34 years of her life and then Director of the White Estate for more than twenty years after her death, that the Review & Herald Publishing Association began to publish a significant number of Ellen White's books - mostly compilations of statements drawn from the already published and unpublished writings of Ellen White.
Imagine the discomfort and anguish a pastor must feel when he is forced to choose between his role as pastor/shepherd of the members of the church and the demands of those denominational administrators who see the pastor's primary role as promoter/defender of the interests and income of the institutional structure. Any pastor who places the interests of the members of the congregations he serves above the interests of the institutional structure runs the risk of being labelled as a "disloyal" or "unreliable" employee. He may then be banished to a spiritual "Siberia" where he will endure a "re-education" process which has been designed to transform him into a "loyal" and "reliable" employee - a "hireling" who will obey without question.
Is a pastor being "disloyal" when he places the interests of the people of God above the demands of denominational administrators and bureaucrats?
Was Ellen White being "disloyal" when she supported the gospel-centered preaching of A.T. Jones and E.J. Waggoner rather than the law-centered preaching of "brethren of experience" like GC President George Butler and R&H Editor Uriah Smith?
Was Nathan being "disloyal" when he confronted King David about his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah?
When the Great Judge calls us to give account of our lives, He will ask whether we have been "loyal" to Him - not whether we have been "loyal" to men and human institutions.
Pastor Wayne Willey