The Story of our Health Message

Not a New Position

As in the light of later developments we read statements written earlier by the editor of Medical Missionary, who was Dr. Kellogg himself, we see that this was no new position taken by him. Six years before this and in an article under the head of “Fraternity in Missionary Work,” he had made a call for recruits to become well-trained medical missionaries, both physicians and nurses, and had said: SHM 294.1

“A hundred could be set to work at once in this country alone. Such missionaries are wanted, not to engage in proselyting men and women to a creed, not for the purpose of disseminating a doctrine or doctrines, but to help lift fallen men and women to a higher moral level through the alleviation of their physical sufferings, and the amelioration of their physical wants and necessities, working in the spirit of the Master, who gave to His disciples the commission to preach the gospel and heal the sick. In this beneficent work we can fraternize with every man and every woman who is engaged in the work of blessing, comforting, and helping fallen and suffering humanity. ... SHM 294.2

“If Christians would only tear themselves away from the narrowness of self and the bigotry of church pride and denominationalism, and devote themselves to earnest work for their fellow men, each beginning with his next-door neighbor, or the most needy fellow mortal nearest to him, the gibes of the infidel and the scorner would soon be silenced.”—Ibid., March-April, 1893. SHM 294.3

Again in announcing the opening of the American Medical Missionary College, in 1895, the same writer stated: “This is not a sectarian school. Sectarian doctrines are not to be taught in this medical school. It is a school for the purpose of teaching medical science, theoretically and practically, and gospel missionary work. It is not to be either a Seventh-day Adventist or a Methodist or a Baptist, or any other sectarian school, but a Christian medical college—a missionary medical college, to which all Christian men and Christian women who are ready to devote their lives to Christian work will be admitted.”—Ibid., October, 1895. SHM 294.4

Only a few weeks after the opening of the American Medical Missionary College, which was thus announced to the world as undenominational, there was written by Mrs. White, addressed to the medical superintendent of the sanitarium, a message which emphasized the fact that “the remnant people of God” were to “glorify His name by proclaiming the last message of warning.” The only way in which God’s people could fulfill His expectations was “by being representatives of the truth for this time.” (E. G. White Letter 40, 1895. Quoted in Testimonies for the Church 8:153.) (Italics mine.) SHM 295.1