Ellen White: Woman of Vision

Dr. J. H. Kellogg

On the final Tuesday morning of the session Ellen White spoke concerning Dr. Kellogg and Battle Creek problems. In her address on these sensitive points, she stated: WV 482.5

It has been presented to me that in view of Dr. Kellogg's course of action at the Berrien Springs meetings [May 17-26, 1904], we are not to treat him as a man led of the Lord, who should be invited to attend our general meetings as a teacher and leader (Manuscript 70, 1905). WV 482.6

The feelings of distress and some of the burdens she carried because of the defections of Dr. J. H. Kellogg and Elders A. T. Jones and A. F. Ballenger she could not lay aside. She had seen that Kellogg's pantheistic views, because they took away the personality of God and Jesus Christ, undercut the sanctuary truth, the cornerstone of the message, so precious to the pioneers. Now with Ballenger's direct attack on this point, there was occasion for added concern. WV 482.7

Two days after the close of the session she wrote words that forecast distressing times: WV 482.8

The Lord now calls upon me to make plain to others that which has been made plain to me.... I have no liberty to withhold any longer the matters that I have written. There is much that must be brought out (Letter 319, 1905). WV 483.1

Concerning the magnitude of the threat to the very existence of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as shown to her in vision, she wrote a few months later: WV 483.2

Had the theories contained in Living Temple been received by our people, had not a message been sent by the Lord to counteract these theories, the third angel's message would no longer have been given to the world, but pleasing fables would have been proclaimed everywhere. Men would have been led to believe a lie instead of the truth of the Word of God. An army of those who take pleasure in unrighteousness would have sprung into action. WV 483.3

The roll was spread before me. The presentation was as though that against which the Lord was warning His people had actually taken place. I shall not attempt to describe the presentation, but to me it was a living reality. I saw that if the erroneous sentiments contained in Living Temple were received, souls would be bound up in fallacies. Men would be so completely controlled by the mind of one man that they would act as if they were subjects of his will. Working through men, Satan was trying to turn into fables the truths that have made us what we are (Letter 338, 1905). WV 483.4

In document after document in the months that followed the 1905 General Conference session, Ellen White wrote not only of the threat of the Kellogg teachings but dealt explicitly with the error of Ballenger's positions on the sanctuary truth, basing her warnings on repeated visions. She made it clear that if there was one fundamental truth that had come to the pioneers by Bible study and revelation, it was the sanctuary truth, and she indicated that Satan would bring one attack after another on this fundamental point. WV 483.5

The year 1905 marked the rapidly growing rift between the medical interests, headed by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and church leaders and the church organization itself. WV 483.6

The steps taken following the General Conference sessions of 1901 and 1903 to bind the medical work to the denomination were seen by Dr. Kellogg as a challenge to the institution he dominated. The organization of a medical department and the appointment of a medical department secretary confirmed this in his mind. In seeming desperation he launched an aggressive program to develop Battle Creek Sanitarium into an even stronger base of influence, and entered upon an aggressive campaign to unsettle confidence in Ellen White and church leaders. WV 483.7

It was now clear to the leaders of the medical missionary interests in Battle Creek that medical work fostered by the Seventh-day Adventist Church was to be under the control of the church, for it was a branch of the work of the church. It was not to be dominated by leaders of medical interests in Battle Creek who had set about to make the medical missionary work undenominational. WV 484.1

Emissaries of Dr. Kellogg were sent out to hold a line of allegiance to him and the policies for which he stood. These Battle Creek-directed emissaries were sent to parts of the world where medical missionary work was promulgated. In a quiet and stealthy way they struck at the foundations of confidence in the Ellen White counsels (AGD to WCW, October 12, 1905). WV 484.2

The groundwork for this had been established in the critical attitude toward church leaders and Ellen White's support for moving the headquarters of the church and the Review and Herald publishing plant to Washington, D.C. The issues were intensified as plans now blossomed to make Battle Creek a great educational center—greater and more influential than anything that had preceded it. WV 484.3