Monday, May 16, 2016

SDA History: Moses Hull

Moses Hull was an SDA evangelist who felt he could debate spiritualists. In Paw Paw, Michigan he did just that alone against warnings by E.G.W.
While there he ended up being eventually converted and leaving the faith.
Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists,
 for you will be defiled by them.
Leviticus 19:31 NIV

"Brother Hull, you were shown me under the soothing influence of a fascination which will prove
fatal unless the spell is broken. You have parleyed with Satan, and reasoned with him, and tarried upon forbidden ground, and have exercised your mind in things which were too great for you, and by indulging in doubts and unbelief have attracted evil angels around you, and driven from you the pure and holy angels of God. ....... it was presumption in you to go forth to meet a spiritualist when you were yourself enshrouded and bewildered by clouds of unbelief. You went to battle with Satan and his host without an armor, and have been grievously wounded, and are insensible to your wound. I greatly fear that the thunders and lightnings of Sinai would fail to move you. You are in Satan's easy chair and do not see your fearful condition and make an effort to escape. If you proceed in the way you have started, misery and woe are before you."
Testimonies for the Church vol.1, p.428429,431 E.G.W.

"Born in Waldo, Ohio, Hull was a member of the United Brethren Church in his teens. He joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1857, and became a prominent minister and debater for that denomination. In September 1863, Hull preached his last sermon as an Adventist minister.
he turned most of energies towards the promotion of Spiritualism, specifically Christian Spiritualism, which saw spirit communication as the culmination of Christianity. He gained prominence in the movement for a series of debates with ministers, the outcome of which was evident in that the spiritualists rather than the ministers had the transcripts published. Hull became identified largely with Victoria Woodhull and the women's rights wing of the movement, which launched the Equal Rights Party campaign in 1872. Later, he became a national leader of the Greenback-Labor Party and various attempts to secure more rights for the farmers, the workers and women.
Soon after, he divorced his wife, Elvira, and married fellow spiritualist Mattie Brown Sawyer. He ran for Congress in 1906 on the ticket of the Socialist Party, and died in January 1907."
 wikipedia
"September 20, 1863, a congregation meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire, United States, was very surprised when it heard the speaker announce that he was not going to preach anymore; instead, he was returning to his home in Indiana. Moses Hull, the immensely popular speaker, forceful debater, and writer, was leaving the Adventist ministry. Most church members first learned about Hull’s apostasy when they read a notice that appeared in the January 5, 1864, issue of the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald (now called Adventist Review) announcing that Hull had become a spiritualist.This was followed a week later in the Review with a description of a public meeting conducted by Hull in Battle Creek, where for the first time he advocated spiritualism.
. In part, he admitted to having the debate in Paw Paw with W. F. Jamieson, or more precisely with “some demon professing to be the spirit of Mr. Downing, speaking through W. F. Jamieson.” Hull then added, “I now doubt the propriety of discussing with such spirits.”  When Hull admitted to debating not with W. F. Jamieson but with a demon claiming to be the spirit of a Mr. Downing, he knew precisely what he was doing.
During Moses Hull’s years as a spiritualist, not only did he publish several papers and write a number of books and pamphlets promoting spiritualism, but also he left his wife and then lived common-law with Mattie Sawyer, a spiritualist medium. Their outspoken advocacy of “free love” caused such a scandal that even the spiritualists backed away from supporting them for a while. From 1902 Hull served as the first president of the Morris Pratt Institute, an educational institution established to train spiritualist mediums."
AdventistReview
"And, at the Ninth Annual convention of the National Spiritualist Association held in Washington, D.C., Morris and Zulema Pratt presented a letter to the N.S.A. offering them the properties in
Whitewater, Wisconsin to be utilized "for educational purposes along the lines of the Moses Hull and A.J. Weaver Training School with such alteration in systems of teaching and curriculum as educators may think it wise to make." However, the N.S.A. was only eight years in being and felt the financial burden of a school would be too much for them at the time.
Morris Pratt's dream did not end there. On November 2, 1901, he filed a petition for incorporation which resulted in the Morris Pratt Institute becoming a corporation on December 11, 1901. The school was to be managed by nine trustees, two of which were to be members of the National Spiritualist Association and one was to be the President of the Wisconsin State Spiritualist Association. It was Morris Pratt's desire that the trustworthy, dedicated Moses Hull be the President. The subjects to be taught at the school were Science, Mathematics, and Language. Special courses were Oratory, Voice and Physical Culture, English and Rhetoric, Bible Exegetics, Higher Criticism, Logic and Parliamentary Law, Comparative Theology and Psychic Culture. The principles of the school were:
a. Maintenance of the individuality of each student,
b. perfect freedom of thought and expression so long as unkind personalities were avoided, highest authority,
c. reason and experience accepted as the highest authority,
d. no discrimination because of one's ideas,
e. all narrow and sectarian ruts carefully avoided, and
f. the desired aim to make all students original thinkers.
However, Morris Pratt passed to spirit on December 2, 1902 before his dream became an operational reality. Thus, Moses Hull followed Pratt's plans and opened the school on September 29, 1903. Professor A.J. Weaver was the first Principal, Moses Hull was the president and teacher of Homelectics;
Moses Hull ...became acquainted with an Adventist. This meeting led him into an investigation of the new idea and remembering the Bible "Try all things..," led him to becoming a Seventh Day Adventist. But, the questioning of life after death by an Adventist minister at the point of his transition, led Moses into other avenues.
He began attending seances and soon commenced lecturing at Spiritualist societies and churches. Soon thereafter he commenced teaching the Bible from a Spiritualist's view. This was followed later with his publishing two volumes, entitled "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Spiritualism." Recorded as historical documents are the Jamieson-Hull debate which convinced Hull of the truth of Spiritualism and the Hull-Covert Debate. For the last ten years of his life he held a commission from the N.S.A. making him the official champion debater in behalf of Spiritualism in America." MorrisPrattInstitute