Promises of Purity
Adventist Approaches to Sanctification through Health Reform
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.40529Keywords:
Seventh-day Adventism, Ellen G. White, dietary reform, Battle Creek Sanitarium, John Harvey KelloggAbstract
At the turn of the nineteenth century “purity” movements, like those practiced at the Seventh-day Adventist Battle Creek Sanitarium, were an outlet for individuals striving to reconcile their health with heterodox religious views about the Second Coming of Christ. This article examines the letters and writings of professed prophet Ellen G. White and Adventist promotional materials for the Battle Creek Sanitarium as they relate to broader health reforms at the time. In pamphlets, catalogues, and menus, the Sanitarium promised patients/patrons the latest medical advances to help restore their bodies, while White also hoped to save their souls. According to White, sanctification was possible through austerities in diet and health reform, making “the San” and its offshoots religiously significant players in the spiritual and health marketplaces of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
References
Abzug, Robert H. 1994. Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
AdventHealth. n.d. “Who We Are.” https://www.adventhealth.com/who-we-are
AT News Team. n.d. “Polls Report that Five Percent of Americans are Vegetarians, 41 Percent of Adventists in the U.S.”AdventistToday.org. https://atoday.org/polls-reportthat-five-percent-of-americans-are-vegetarians-41-percent-of-adventists-inthe-u-s/
Bates, Joseph. 1846. The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment. NewBedford: Press of Benjamin Lindsey.
Battle Creek Food Company. 1935. “Pointers on Battle Creek Sanitarium Health Foods.” Battle Creek Sanitarium.
March 11, 1888. Menu.
August 9, 1911. Menu.
August 18, 1911. Menu.
Christmas 1910. Menu. (HSBC)
New Year 1927. Menu. (HSBC)
Thanksgiving 1927. Menu. (HSBC)
Bull, Malcolm and Keith Lockhart. 2007. Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream. 2nd Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Burt, Merlin D. n.d. “Understanding Ellen White.” EGW Writings. https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/13959.18#18
Butler, Mary, et al. 1994. The Battle Creek Idea: Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Jacksonville, FL: Heritage Publishing.
Carson, Gerald. 1957. Cornflake Crusade: From the Pulpit to the Breakfast Table. New York: Rinehart & Company.
Cutler, David and Grant Miller. 2005. “The Role of Public Health Improvements in Health Advances: The Twentieth-Century United States.” Demography 42(1): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2005.0002
Douglas, Mary. 1993. “The Forbidden Animals in Leviticus.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 18(59): 3–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/030908929301805901
Douglass, Herbert E. 1998. Messenger of the Lord: the Prophetic Ministry of Ellen G. White. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association.
Ellen G. White Estate. 1976. A Critique of the Book Prophetess of Health. Washington, DC: The Ellen G. White Estate.
Finke, Roger and Rodney Stark. 2005. The Churching of America, 1776–2005: Winners and Losers in our Religious Economy. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Flexner, Abraham. 1910. “Medical Education in America: Rethinking the Training of American Doctors.” The Atlantic Monthly (June): 798–814.
Graham, Sylvester. 1837. A Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making. Boston, MA: Light & Stearns. Heritage Health Foods.
n.d. “Our Story.” http://heritagehealthfood.com/home/our-story/International Vegetarian Union.
n. d. “Rev. William Metcalfe (1788–1862).” https://ivu.org/history/usa19/metcalfe.html
Jester, Susan. 1996. A Mighty Baptism: Race, Gender, and the Creation of American Protestantism. Cornell: Cornell University Press.
Kellogg, Ella Eaton. 1893. Science in the Kitchen: A Scientific Treatise on Food Substances and their Dietetic Properties, Together with a Practical Explanation of the Principles of Healthful Cookery, and a Large Number of Original, Palatable, and Wholesome Recipes. Chicago, IL: Modern Medicine Publishing Co.
Kellogg, John Harvey. 1908. “The Battle Creek Sanitarium System: History, Organization, Methods.” Battle Creek Michigan.
Letter to W.C. White, April 9, (EGW).
Ladies of the Broadway Presbyterian Church. 1878. The Cook’s Friend: A Collection of Valuable Recipes. Logansport, IN: Journal Company Book and Job Print.
Land, Gary. 2005. Historical Dictionary of Seventh-day Adventists. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press.
Levterov, Theodore. n.d. “Understanding Ellen White.” EGW Writings. https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/13959.1126#1127
Ludmerer, Kenneth M. 1988. Learning to Heal: The Development of American Medical Education. New York: Basic Books.
McMahon, Don S. 2005. Acquired or Inspired. Oakland, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association.
Mintz, Sidney. 1986. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin Books.
Numbers, Ronald L. 2008. Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans.
Owen, Robert Dale. 1831. Moral Physiology; or, A Brief Plain Treatise on the Population Question. 2nd Edition. New York: Wright & Owen.
Patrick, Arthur. 2014. “Author.” In Ellen Harmon White: American Prophet, edited by Terrie Dopp Aamodt, et al., 91–109 Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199373857.003.0005
Rapport, Jeremy. 2014. “Join Us! Come Eat!: Vegetarianism in the Formative Period of the Seventhday Adventists and the Unity School of Christianity.” In Religion, Food, and Eating in North America, edited by Benjamin E. Zeller, Marie W. Dallam, Reid L. Neilson and Nora L. Rubel, 23–41. New York: Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/zell16030-004
Rea, Walter T. 1982. The White Lie. Turlock, CA: M & R Publications.
Ross, Alice. 1993. “Health and Diet in 19th-century America: A Food Historian’s Point of View.” Historical Archaeology 27(2): 42–56. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374172
Satter, Beryl. 1999. Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought Movement, 1875–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Seventh-day Adventist Church. 2019. “Seventh-day Adventist World Church Statistics 2018.” https://www.adventist.org/articles/seventh-day-adventist-world-church-statistics-2018/
Shew, Dr. Joel. 1857. The Hydropathic Family Physician: A Ready Prescriber and Hygienic Advisor. New York: Fowler & Wells.
Shprintzen, Adam D. 2013. The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817–1921. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.5149/9781469608921_Shprintzen
Suzuki, Nanumi. 2010. “Popular Health Movements and Diet Reform in Nineteenth-Century America.” The Japanese Journal of American Studies 21: 111–137.
Taves, Ann. 2014. “Visions.” In Ellen Harmon White: American Prophet, edited by Terrie Dopp Aamodt, Gary Land and Ronald L. Numbers, 30–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199373857.003.0002
Vande Vere, Emmett K. 1986. “Years of Expansion, 1865–1885.” In Adventism in America: A History, edited by Gary Land, 66–95. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans.
Wesley, John. 1770. A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, as Believed and Taught by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, from the year 1725, to the year 1765. Bristol: William Pine.
White, Ellen G. n.d. a. “Sanctification.” EGW Writings. https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1024.14
n.d. b. Spalding and Magan’s Unpublished Manuscript Testimonies by Ellen G. White. http://egwtext.whiteestate.org/publication.php?pubtype=Book&bookCode=SpM&lang=en&pagenumber=394&m=1.
“The Otsego Vision of
” DF 105. (EGW)
“The Health Institute.” In Testimonies for the Church, vol. 3. Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald Publishing. (EGW)
Letter to John Harvey Kellogg, May 15, (K-10-1891). (EGW)
Letter to a Physician, St. Helena Sanitarium, August 12, (EGW)
a. “God’s Design in Our Sanitariums.” In Testimonies for the Church 6. Oakland, CA: Pacific Press. (EGW)
b.Letter, July 15. (EGW)
“Go Forward.” Bible Training School 1(2): 27–28. (EGW)
a. Letter to Brother and Sister Kress, March 11. (EGW)
b.Letter to Brother and Sister Kress, June 24. (EGW)
“Lessons from the Third Chapter of Revelation: A Form of Godliness without Power,” Manuscript 50 (May 21). (EGW)
The Ministry of Healing. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association. (EGW)
“The Health Reform.” In Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, 4th Edition. Oakland, California: Pacific Press. (EGW)
The Faith I Live By. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing.
Counsels on Diet and Foods. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association.
Reflecting Christ. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association.
Manuscript Releases, Vol. 16 [Nos. 1186-1235]. EGW Writings. https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/65.873
Sermons and Talks, Volume 1. Silver Spring, MD: E. G. White Estate.
Williams, Peter W. 1990. America’s Religions: Traditions and Cultures. New York: MacMillan.
Williams, Susan. 2006. Food in the United States, 1820s–1890. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Wilson, Brian C. 2014. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the Religion of Biologic Living. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
