J. H. Kellogg And The Medical Missionary Work

Another matter of vital importance that was pressing hard upon Ellen White in the year 1899 was the distressing course being pursued in the medical missionary work in America. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was taking steps to divest this work of its denominational ties, in the Battle Creek Sanitarium, the medical school, and the work for the outcasts and socially deprived classes in Chicago. This last mentioned was a fast-burgeoning work that divided his interests and overburdened his body and mind.WV 350.9

Calling for earnest attention were the inroads of pantheistic philosophy insidiously creeping into the teachings of Seventh-day Adventists, threatening the basic theology of the church. A three-week-long General Conference session would open at South Lancaster, Massachusetts, on February 15, and Ellen White applied herself to the preparation of messages to sound solemn warnings and to guard the cause.WV 350.10

In progressive steps Dr. Kellogg worked toward placing the medical work of Seventh-day Adventists on a nondenominational basis. As Kellogg led out in the establishment of the American Medical Missionary College in 1895 (as explained in chapters 23 and 24 of The Story of Our Health Message), he rather stealthily imposed on this important phase of educational work an undenominational identity. The students who enrolled in this medical college were told by Kellogg:WV 351.1

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 (The Medical Missionary, October, 1895 [quoted in The Story of Our Health Message, 294, 295]).WV 351.2

Through the year 1898 Ellen White penned 17 letters to Dr. Kellogg, aggregating some 113 pages; many were messages of caution. In 1899 she wrote another 26 letters to him, averaging nine pages each. The messages that dealt with various phases of medical missionary work were presented first. In the main these were but an amplification of what she had been writing in letters to him over a period of a year or two. Some of the letters contained words of commendation for certain phases of his work; some just newsy reports of developments in Australia, particularly in medical missionary lines; some sounded an alarm; some contained solemn warnings. All were written kindly, carefully, and with understanding. On February 13, 1898, she began her message to the doctor, whom she had known since he was a lad and whom she loved as her own son:WV 351.3

It would give me great satisfaction to have a long visit with you. I have much to say to you, and you have much to say to me. Sometimes I have a strong impression that I shall again bear my testimony upon the old field of Battle Creek (Letter 21, 1898).WV 351.4

To see the man, who had been used so mightily by God and by whose side she had stood through the years, veer away from the message and lose sight of the real objectives of medical missionary work tore Ellen White's soul. Nonetheless, she continued to labor and pray and to communicate through letters.WV 351.5