The Story of our Health Message

One Point at Issue

One point at issue between the medical and the evangelistic workers of the church had been the result of a difference of some of the leaders over the use of the word “denominational” as applied to the institutions and work of the medical missionary association. The Seventh-day Adventist Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, created in February, 1893, by act of the General Conference, had succeeded the earlier Health and Temperance Association. (See p. 235.) By 1896 the first part of the name had been changed from “Seventh-day Adventist” to “International.” At first this seemed to be a result of the spread of the work from the United States to other countries in the world. But another reason for the change was indicated in the comments made in the early part of 1898, when it was stated: SHM 293.1

“The International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association is a unique organization in the fact that it is, as far as we know at least, the only association which has undertaken to organize and carry forward medical and philanthropic work independent of any sectarian or denominational control, in home and foreign lands.”—Dr. J. H. Kellogg, in The Medical Missionary, January, 1898. (Italics mine.) SHM 293.2

The agents of the Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association were said to be “here as Christians, and not as Seventh-day Adventists.” They were not here “for the purpose of presenting anything that is peculiarly Seventh-day Adventist in doctrine.” In other words, it was stated to be “simply the undenominational side of the work which Seventh-day Adventists have to do in the world.”—Medical Missionary Conference Bulletin, May, 1899. Extra. SHM 293.3