"I know people who, because of a few comments in Ellen White's book The Great Controversy, have a great fondness for the Albigensians (or Cathars), who were also considered heretics. Many were killed for their faith. These Cathars were very different from the Waldensians. They believed that Jesus was an angel, denied Jesus was really a man who died and was resurrected, and believed the Old Testament came from Satan. They discouraged marriage. They were in their day what David Koresh's Branch Davidians are in ours. Were they heretics or martyrs? Could they be both?"

"Thus Rome decreed that the light of God's Word should be extinguished, and the people should be shut up in darkness. But Heaven had provided other agencies for the preservation of the church. Many of the Waldenses and Albigenses, driven by persecution from their homes in France and Italy, came to Bohemia. Though they dared not teach openly, they labored zealously in secret. Thus the true faith was preserved from century to century." GC 97

"Century after century the blood of the saints had been shed. While the Waldenses laid down their lives upon the mountains of Piedmont 'for the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ,' similar witness to the truth had been borne by their brethren, the Albigenses of France. In the days of the Reformation, its disciples had been put to death with horrible tortures. King and nobles, high-born women and delicate maidens, the pride and chivalry of the nation, had feasted their eyes upon the agonies of the martyrs of Jesus." GC 271

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Originally posted by John:
So here we have Ellen White speaking of the Albigenses as being true Christians, while Ed Christian speaks of them as being heretics, basically.

I've done a bit of research on the Albigenses, and it seems that most secular scholars agree with what Ed Christian says. Most secular scholars get their information on the Albigenses from Catholic church historians. The facts are that the Albigenses were exterminated so completely by the Inquisition, their writings destroyed so totally, that little can be directly known about them by regular human means. And Catholics back then were known for lumping together diverse groups who opposed them. A heretic was a heretic, no matter how much they might differ one from another.

One Adventist scholar who disputes the prevalent attitudes about the Albigenses is Dr. Benjamin Wilkinson, in his work Truth Triumphant. Dr. Wilkinson cites several sources who say that the Albigenses and Waldensians were basically the same people. J.A. Wylie in his The History of Protestantism writes about the Albigenses in a favorable light. There are several other authors who do as well.

Does anyone have more extensive knowledge of the Albigenses?

And, what do you make of the fact that Ed Christian, in our official church paper, takes a stance on the Albigenses that's in direct contradiction of what Ellen White wrote about them?

Thoughts?

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