The Story of our Health Message

A Summary of Variant Views

The variant views regarding health reform and the medical missionary work that were to become the forerunners of a wider divergence may be summed up as follows: SHM 299.2

1. A trend on the part of ministers and lay church members to ignore or to oppose some of the principles of health reform as they had been accepted and taught in the earlier days. SHM 299.3

2. An increasing spirit of independence on the part of leaders in the medical missionary work and a spirit of criticism against the evangelistic workers. SHM 299.4

3. The tendency on the part of the medical workers to consider theirs as an undenominational work—philanthropic and humanitarian—but not primarily as a factor in the dissemination of the distinctive truths committed to Seventh-day Adventists. SHM 299.5

4. A disproportionate expenditure of energy and means in work for the unfortunate and degraded classes in a few large cities, in view of the worldwide call to medical missionary evangelism. SHM 299.6

5. The calling of too large a number of youth from training in evangelistic lines to that of professional health and philanthropic work. This was too often effected by a belittling of the importance of the work of the ministry. SHM 300.1

Other differences in fundamental doctrinal teachings and in conflicting plans of organization as they became more manifest will be considered later. Yet notwithstanding the regrettable variances of belief and policy, the training of scores and hundreds of devoted Christian nurses and physicians went rapidly forward. And when, as will be seen later, these differences became so prominent as to lead to separation, the great majority stood conscientiously and understandingly with the denomination and were prepared to take their places in the reorganized medical work of later years. SHM 300.2