Messenger of the Lord

Linkage of the Minister and the Physician

The Great Controversy Theme seeks “restoration” as the goal of salvation. Whatever subject Ellen White focuses on, this goal integrates all of its aspects. Thus the Great Controversy Theme informs the basis and purpose of health reform. It naturally follows, then, that the physician and the minister are to “work in tandem. Like harnessed horses, they ... [are] to pull the Adventist carriage at the same speed.” ⁴² MOL 296.1

In the developing years of Adventist health work, Ellen White riveted her contemporaries on the importance of joining health reform with the completion of the gospel commission. ⁴³ For her, the gospel evangelist/minister and the gospel healer were to work together with mutual aims and joint evangelistic efforts. ⁴⁴ MOL 296.2

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was one of the few leaders who took Mrs. White’s counsel on health seriously. Few gospel ministers saw the same connection between the health message and spiritual development. ⁴⁵ And her support of Dr. Kellogg was never in doubt, until—until Dr. Kellogg’s fertile mind began to misunderstand the purpose of his own health message. MOL 296.3

In 1896 he was instrumental in changing the name of his health network from the Seventh-day Adventist Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association to the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association. Two years later he explained that this organization was developed “to carry forward medical and philanthropic work independent of any sectarian or denominational control, in home and foreign lands.” ⁴⁶ In 1898 he declared at a convention of the association that the delegates gathered “here as Christians, and not as Seventh-day Adventists.” ⁴⁷ MOL 296.4

Ellen White had been exceedingly patient with Dr. Kellogg, whom she and her husband had personally sponsored in getting his medical degree. ⁴⁸ She knew well the resentment and unpleasantries that some of the ministers had directed at him. And she knew also his untactful sharpness. But when he openly defied the denomination, which through the years had supplied the money for the development of his famous Battle Creek Sanitarium, she felt compelled to speak openly: “It has been stated that the Battle Creek Sanitarium is not denominational. But if ever an institution was established to be denominational in every sense of the word, this sanitarium was.” ⁴⁹ MOL 296.5

Dr. Kellogg was permitting health reform to eclipse theological principles. The situation came to a head, symbolized by the “iceberg” analogy. ⁵⁰ Though Ellen White groaned under the pending rupture between the ministers and the physicians, she was deeply sympathetic for her friend, Dr. Kellogg. In 1904 she wrote of her frustration and her empathy for him. But in that same letter she also wrote: “My brethren, the Lord calls for unity, for oneness. We are to be one in the faith. I want to tell you that when the gospel ministers and the medical missionary workers are not united, there is placed on our churches the worst evil that can be placed there.... It is time that we stood upon a united platform. But we cannot unite with Dr. Kellogg until he stands where he can be a safe leader of the flock of God.” ⁵¹ MOL 296.6

The challenge ever since 1904 has been to address “the worst evil” that could rest on the Seventh-day Adventist Church. If the challenge is to be met, both ministers and physicians must restudy the counsel of Ellen White regarding the purpose of church healthcare institutions, rethink the purpose of the “everlasting gospel” that must be proclaimed credibly before Jesus returns, and make a new commitment to the inspired principles set forth by Ellen White. MOL 296.7