John Harvey Kellogg - Theological Views

Theological Views

A member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Dr. Kellogg held a prominent role as a speaker at church meetings. He promoted a practical, common sense religion.

Dr. Kellogg expressed his ideas in a creative manner and some members of the church objected to what he said. At the Seventeenth Annual Session of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, October 4, 1878, the following action was taken:

"WHEREAS, The impression has gone out from some unknown cause that J. H. Kellogg, M.D., holds infidel sentiments, which does him great injustice, and also endangers his influence as physician-in-chief of the Sanitarium; therefore

"RESOLVED, That in our opinion justice to the doctor and the Institute under his medical charge, demand that he should have the privilege of making his sentiments known, and that he be invited to address those assembled on this ground, upon the harmony of science and the Sacred Scriptures.

"This resolution was unanimously adopted, after which the Conference adjourned to the call of the chair.

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At the start of the 20th century, his views of indwelling divinity seemed like pantheism to many other Adventist leaders. As an example of these controversial ideas, at the 1901 General Conference he said:

"Take the sunflower, for example. It looks straight at the sun. It watches and follows the sun all day long, looking straight at it all the time; and as the sun dips down below the horizon, you see that sunflower still looking at it; and as the sun turns around and comes up in the morning, the flower is looking toward the sun rising. It is God in the sunflower that makes it do this…

"Some of you have watched a flower winding up a string, a morning glory winding around a string. Perhaps you have seen a vine climbing up a lattice, and you have watched the end coming out, and turning in, back and forth, between the interstices of the lattice. How does the vine know what to do? There is an intelligence that is present in the plant, in all vegetation…

"The heart is a muscle. The heart beats. My arm will contract and cause the fist to beat; but it beats only when my will commands. But here is a muscle in the body that beats when I am asleep. It beats when my will is inactive and I am utterly unconscious. It keeps on beating all the time. What will is it that causes this heart to beat? The heart can not beat once without a command. To me it is a most wonderful thing that a man's heart goes on beating. It does not beat by means of my will; for I can not stop the heart's beating, or make it beat faster or slower by commanding it by my will. But there is a will that controls the heart. It is the divine will that causes it to beat, and in the beating of that heart that you can feel, as you put your hand upon the breast, or as you put your finger against the pulse, an evidence of the divine presence that we have within us, that God is within, that there is an intelligence, a power, a will within, that is commanding the functions of our bodies and controlling them…"

The issues that had been simmering came to a head in December 1902 when the Battle Creek Sanitarium, owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was destroyed by fire. Ellen G. White told Dr. Kellogg not to rebuild it. He decided to ignore her advice, and was able to gain control of the board of directors. He wrote a book titled The Living Temple which he hoped would pay the costs of reconstruction. When the book was published, it was sharply criticized by Ellen G. White for what she considered to be its many statements of pantheism (God is in everything). He made all or almost all the corrections she suggested. But it did not work. In 1907, he was "disfellowshipped".