P. William Dysinger, MD, MPH
The Historical Perspective of Health Evangelism in the Adventist Church—Part 2
In part one, we looked at the purchase of the Loma Linda property in 1905, and the early challenges the institution faced as it tried to implement Ellen White’s counsels regarding medical missionary training and evangelism.
Ellen White’s vision for evangelistic reform
During the night of February 27, 1910, Ellen White was shown new ways to work the cities. For this mission, she called for “companies (teams) to be organized and diligently trained to labor in our important cities.”
When news of this new approach to medical evangelism reached Loma Linda, John H. N. Tindall was chosen by the faculty to try out the new methodology in a pilot program in nearby San Bernardino where all previous evangelistic efforts had failed. Tindall, a relatively new convert to Adventism, was, at the time, a Bible student at Loma Linda.
John Tindall had grown up in a Methodist home in California, but the doctrine of hell-fire so deeply offended him that he became an atheist. While studying law in San Diego, he detoured to join a gold strike near the Mexican border. There he met one he called “a man of mystery.” That person read to him from the writings of Ellen White, leading Tindall from the “gold field rocks” to the “Rock of Ages.” Shortly after, in 1908, he enrolled as a “Bible and Special student” at the College of Evangelists.
When the call came to Tindall to pioneer this new approach, he faced a struggle, His wife had not yet become an Adventist and they had a young infant. His wife was unhappy about the arrangement because it meant her husband would be totally immersed in the campaign for six weeks.
One of the college teachers, Charles Garnsey, and his wife, Margaret—both nurses—completed this first medical evangelistic team. They pitched their tent next to a building where a prominent ladies’ club met. Overhearing one of the health talks, the president invited Tindall to address her club. Having thus gained access to influential city leaders, he rejoiced when the editor of the newspaper gave the Adventists much advertising space, gratis, through editorials and full-page reports of the meetings.
At the end of this pilot program in San Bernardino, 16 people were baptized, Tindall’s wife included. The results electrified Loma Linda. Suddenly, the cities had become a viable mission field. Thereafter, Tindall became a full-time church employed medical evangelist and did many other campaigns elsewhere.
Tindall’s approach to evangelism
Tindall’s usual plan involved gathering a team of “paid conference workers.” They included the evangelist and his assistant, Bible workers, doctors, nurses, a singing evangelist, and cooks. Then he organized local church members to give Bible studies and simple treatments. They also distributed announcements and ushered at the meetings. Always skilled at public relation and community involvement, Tindall interviewed prominent business firms and asked for contributions, which always came in.
Tindall usually secured the largest and best-equipped auditorium in town; he also rented a smaller hall to accommodate treatments, cooking classes and other training. His usual pattern was to convene three meetings each week, focusing Tuesdays and Thursdays on health and nutrition, ending with doctrine on Sunday.
In Oklahoma City, the audience of 1,700 swelled to more than 2,000 after the Sabbath had been presented. When the popular evangelical preacher Billy Sunday arrived in town, many predicted a greatly decreased attendance. After all, Billy Sunday had the support of major city officials as well as the leading newspapers. Amazingly, the audiences at the Adventist lectures increased. At the last meeting, 500 people stood to indicate their belief in the message presented.
“Billy Sunday got the crowds,” someone remarked, “but Tindall got the converts.”
Gratified by what Tindall had done, the Oklahoma state medical director declared: “If other religious people would do as practical a work [as Tindall], it would be a great help to people everywhere.”
Tindall’s many efforts brought exciting results and allayed much prejudice against Adventists. Conference workers received good training for future work, and church members savored a new, exhilarating sense of service. Financially, his campaigns carried their own weight and stimulated faithful tithe paying. Months later, it was reported that “every new convert had been thoroughly instructed in every doctrine and every reform in physical, mental, and spiritual habits.”
Perhaps the most significant results of Tindall’s medical-evangelism approach proved to be the solid long-term establishment of people “in the faith.” Most of Tindall’s public efforts, which always included major training efforts, took six months or more to complete. His Field School of Health Evangelism in San Francisco (1927-31) proved to be the largest evangelistic training effort ever undertaken by a CME medical evangelist.
Church Health Education
Unfortunately, the next phase of the church health education to ministers story is told too quickly. Discussing the attempt to merge health and religion education, J. G. Smoot of Andrews University stated to R. E. Cleveland of LLU: “Sometimes it takes a great deal of effort for an idea to be born.” To that piece of wisdom we must add another truth: “And the maintenance of the idea afterwards is seldom easy.”
LLU conscientiously attempted to serve its sponsoring Church from the first day of classes in 1906. Although the ideal of medical evangelism training waxed and waned through the years, the original vision was never lost.
In 1947, the newly organized School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine’s first effort was to teach a six-week course “in health evangelism (that is, medical evangelism) and tropical hygiene to mission appointees, Bible instructors, ministers, and other educators seeking knowledge of basic health principles.” The Adventist Church provided an annual subsidy to the College of Medical Evangelists (CME) to encourage this kind of Church health education.
As dean of the new School of Public Health in 1967 and first chair of its department of Health Education, Dr. Mervyn Hardinge vigorously supported the church as an important site for health education. Today, interest in “religion and health” and “faith-based initiatives” is high, but Loma Linda was at least 30 years ahead of the current interest.
P. T. Magan in 1938 had dreamed that at Loma Linda a minister “of the right stamp” would be found to help unite medical ministry and the “preaching of the gospel.” In 1969, Wilbur K. Nelson, an ordained minister-missionary with a doctorate in Asian studies and an MPH degree, joined the faculty at Loma Linda. From his studies, Nelson was convinced that ministers as opinion leaders, with minimal guidance from health professionals, could readily adapt to community health education work. In 1970 he helped initiate the first two field schools of health evangelism jointly sponsored by both Andrews and Loma Linda University—one in Savannah, GA and the other in eastern Pennsylvania.
Ministerial training in health evangelism at Loma Linda in the 1970s
At this point, more than 20 ministerial students at the Theological Seminary at Andrews University formally indicated a desire to take additional study at Loma Linda. Despite little enthusiasm in Michigan, an agreement was finally reached in 1973 for a conjoint degree that combined a master’s degree in public health with an MDiv. This “program in church health education offers the minister opportunity to supplement his [theological] preparation with information and skills essential for the promotion of total health in his church and community,” the academic bulletin proclaimed.
The program continued throughout the decade of the ‘70s, with much interest from the theology students, but in 1980, without forewarning, James Crawford, then dean of the SPH at Loma Linda, received a letter from the Provost at Andrews University. It began affirming that the conjoint program had been “helpful to a group of our students.” It ended, however, with the suggestion that the “experiment” be discontinued.
Dean Crawford did not take the news passively. He appealed to Thomas Blincoe, then dean of Andrews University Theological Seminary: “Let’s not give up on this, Tom. Somehow God would have our ministers trained in the basic understanding of health ministry. They constantly deal with human beings—body, mind and spirit. We must find an appropriate way for them to receive more practical training in these lines.”
The sub-specialty of church health education disappeared from the Loma Linda bulletin in 1986, but the influence carries on through the many ministerial graduates from Loma Linda. These include the current president of the General Conference of SDA, Ted N. C. Wilson; the current general VP (and current Chair of the LLU Governing Board) Lowell Cooper; Matthew Bediako, retired Secretary of the GC; and many other leaders such as Philip G. Semaan and G. Edward Reid. Wilson states about his experience: “It has been a very valuable experience to use this training in the pastoral and departmental areas of church work. Health ministry provides multiple opportunities to encourage people to live life to the fullest.”
To be continued…
(Adapted from the book Health to the People by P. William Dysinger, MD, MPH)