Other historians have praised his historical writing. The authors of Seeking a Sanctuary describe:
The most valuable contribution to the study of the denomination's formative period is still Jonathan M. Butler's landmark essay, "Adventism and the American Experience," [...][2]
He authored an article in 1979 claiming
Ellen White's endtime scenario was culturally conditioned to the point of being more at place in her time than now.[3]Walter Rea describes it as "a brilliant piece," which "sent shock waves through the church".[4]
Yet like numerous other authors, the church found his writings on White and other history challenging and difficult to cope with officially.[5] He claimed, "many of the names identified with advances in
Ellen White studies" (including himself) are no longer in church employment, "and most of them are no longer active church members."[6] Butler later stopped working as an academic historian.[7]
The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the Nineteenth Century (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1987), co-edited with
Ronald Numbers
"Adventism and the American Experience" chapter in The Rise of Adventism: A Commentary on the Social and Religious Ferment of Mid-Nineteenth Century America, edited by Edwin Scott Gaustad (Harper & Row, 1974)
Butler with Rennie B. Schoepflin, "Charismatic Women and Health:
Mary Baker Eddy, Ellen G. White, and
Aimee Semple McPherson", p337–365 in Women, Health, and Medicine in America: A Historical Handbook, ed. Rima D. Apple (New York: Garland, 1990)
"The Historian as Heretic", introduction to Ronald Numbers, Prophetess of Health, 2nd edn. onwards, p1–41.
Reprinted in Spectrum 23:2 (August 1993), 43–64
Softly and Tenderly: Heaven and Hell in American Revivalism, 1870–1920. Carlson Publishing, 1991
Articles
"Theological Roots of Pentecostalism", Church History 58:3 (S 1989), p408–409; a review of
Donald Dayton's 1987 book of the same name
"Thunder and Trumpets: Millerites and Dissenting Religion in Upstate New York, 1800–1850". Church History, 55:2 (1986), p240–241
"From Millerism to Seventh-Day Adventism: 'boundlessness to consolidation'". Church History, 55:1 (1986), p50–64
"Prophecy, Gender, and Culture: Ellen Gould Harmon (White) and the Roots of Seventh-day Adventism." Religion and American Culture 1 (1991), p3–29;
JSTOR link
^Butler graduated from La Sierra College in 1967, as class president: see Associated Students of La Sierra College, Meteor [Riverside, CA: La Sierra College 1967] 160). Butler's own professed date of birth is April 16, 1945.