CHAPTER 27 Mrs. White's Teachings on Healthful Living

Reason for Health Doctrine

Our physical habits, including our eating habits, have a relation to religion. Man is a complex being composed of body, soul, and spirit. Whatever affects one part of man affects, at least indirectly, the other parts. The medical world has recently come to realize this and gives particular attention to it in terms of psychosomatic medicine. This term simply means soul-body medicine. The medical world speaks of the interaction of the mind and the body of man, and sometimes of the interaction of body, mind, and spirit. Thus Mrs. White is building on an obviously rational foundation when she erects her health teachings, as she certainly does, on the premise that there is a definite interaction between the different parts of man.

Even Mrs. White's critics will surely agree to this premise. They know that if evil ideas are brought to the mind through lewd conversation or pictures, for example, there may be calamitous effects upon the body in lustful excesses that break down the physical constitution. Here the scripture is fulfilled that evil communications corrupt good manners. The evil began with the mind, but it did not end there. The body, too, was affected. The reverse is also true, that words of cheer and happiness and hope spoken into the ears of an individual can mean new health to his body. Here applies the scripture that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.

The critics will also agree to the premise when the action begins with the body and the reaction affects mind and spirit. They agree that liquor drinking is bad. They subscribe to the rather obvious truth that when liquor goes into a man's stomach it reflexly affects his mind and benumbs his spiritual faculties. Here apply the warnings of Scripture against strong drink. To the extent that a person's mental and spiritual faculties are benumbed, to that extent he is unable to understand the will of God or to give obedience to it. And it is because the baleful effects of liquor are in direct ratio to the amount consumed that temperance societies, which at first were only moderation societies, now quite rigidly insist on total abstinence.

Reasoning to Logical Conclusion

Mrs. White's teachings on healthful living simply carry the logic of the premise to its ultimate conclusion. She declared that there are habits and practices other than liquor drinking that adversely affect the body and in turn affect mind and spirit. For example, she went on to indict tobacco, And we think that at least some of her critics will follow her in this. Nor will they be impressed by the question so confidently asked by the smoker: Where is the text in the Bible that prohibits the use of tobacco? Further, the critics will certainly subscribe to Mrs. White's teaching that overwork not only affects the body adversely but may also dull the mind and spirit to the point where spiritual truths cannot be clearly discerned.

Likewise we believe they will agree with her declaration that bad air, lack of sleep, and lack of proper exercise by sedentary workers have a deleterious effect on the body, and at least indirectly on the mind and spirit. What minister but has grieved at seeing his congregation drowsing when they should have been listening to spiritual truths? And the trouble need not be ministerial lack of fire; it may simply be lack of fresh air. In other words, what we take into our lungs, as well as into our stomachs, can have vast effects on mind and spirit.

We think that the critics will go a step further in agreement with Mrs. White's teachings on health. She says much about the value of abstemiousness and the evils of gluttony. Nothing is more prominent in her health views. She makes plain that the food eaten may be wholesome, but if eaten to excess will produce, first, a bad effect on the body, and in turn a clouding of mental and spiritual faculties. What minister is there but has noticed with dismay that at an afternoon service there may be such drowsiness that some worshipers receive little if any spiritual good from the service? And is it not generally agreed in the ministerial fraternity that the trouble may lie, not in the quality of the spiritual food being offered by the minister, but in the quantity of literal food that has been eaten by the worshipers?

We are also sure that the critics will heartily subscribe to another important feature of Mrs. White's teaching—the importance of cleanliness and the health-giving value of frequent bathing. Seventh-day Adventists did not create the saying “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” but we subscribe to it. We also find ourselves in agreement with what modern medicine has to say about the value, to the body, of water, used both internally and externally. And when the body is in good condition, the mind and spirit can more easily apprehend important truths.

Remarkable Agreement by Critics

To sum up: Critics believe as firmly as does Mrs. White that our physical habits are interlocked with our spiritual life. They will agree that constant liquor drinking may cause a man to lose heaven, even though they admit that abstinence from drink gives him no guarantee of final residence there. They will agree that the man who knows the value of soap and water is presumptuous in praying to be saved from disease unless he comes to God literally with clean hands, even though they admit that bodily cleanliness does not assure such salvation. Nor will the critics hesitate to agree, in the light of modern medical findings on overweight, that a man may dig his grave with his teeth, even though they insist that he can never hope to eat his way into heaven by abstemiousness. And, consistently, they will also need to agree that a man who knows of the deleterious effects of overeating would be presumptuous in following up an enormous meal with a prayer to God for long life.

In short, the critics really believe that the kingdom of God does have a certain relation to “meat and drink” and “washings,” and that a man's eternal life, to say nothing of his present life, may be vitally affected by his physical habits, including dietary habits. They are sure that obedience to physical laws will help us to “keep under” the body (1 Cor. 9:27), and thus aid us on the heavenward journey, even though such obedience cannot, in itself, guarantee heaven to us. And in so believing they are not one whit the less believers in the prime truth that we are saved by grace and not by works.

Mrs. White Presents Balanced Health Teaching

Even so with Mrs. White. She set forth the principles of healthful living as being vital to healthy bodies, and in turn to healthy minds and spirits. She declared that some might lose heaven who knowingly and willfully violated these principles. At the same time she rebuked those who took the other extreme of viewing healthful living, particularly diet reform, as a form of penance whereby a man may ensure entrance to heaven. To a family that took this extreme, she wrote:

“I saw that you had mistaken notions about afflicting your bodies, depriving yourselves of nourishing food. These things led some of the church to think that God is surely with you, or you would not deny self, and sacrifice thus. But I saw that none of these things will make you more holy. The heathen do all this, but receive no reward for it. A broken and contrite spirit before God is in his sight of great price. I saw that your views concerning these things are erroneous.”—Testimonies, vol. 1, p. 205.

To others, who made light of the whole subject of health reform, she wrote:

“Some have sneered at this work of reform, and have said it was all unnecessary; that it was an excitement to divert minds from present truth. They have said that matters were being carried to extremes. Such do not know what they are talking about. While men and women professing godliness are diseased from the crown of their head to the soles of their feet, while their physical, mental, and moral energies are enfeebled through gratification of depraved appetite and excessive labor, how can they weigh the evidences of truth, and comprehend the requirements of God? If their moral and intellectual faculties are beclouded, they cannot appreciate the value of the atonement or the exalted character of the work of God, nor delight in the study of his word. How can a nervous dyspeptic be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh him a reason of the hope that is in him, with meekness and fear? How soon would such a one become confused and agitated, and by his diseased imagination be led to view matters in altogether a wrong light, and by a lack of that meekness and calmness which characterized the life of Christ, be caused to dishonor his profession while contending with unreasonable men? Viewing matters from a high religious stand-point, we must be thorough reformers in order to be Christ-like.”—Ibid., pp. 487, 488.

In the following words Mrs. White sets forth the principle underlying the whole doctrine of health reform that she preached:

“Let it ever be kept before the mind that the great object of hygienic reform is to secure the highest possible development of mind and soul and body. All the laws of nature—which are the laws of God—are designed for our good. Obedience to them will promote our happiness in this life, and will aid us in a preparation for the life to come.”—Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, p. 120. See also Counsels on Diet and Foods, p. 23.


Four Reasons for Eliminating Certain Foods

Flesh food was only one of a number of foods that Mrs. White said are not ideal foods. Against some she was more pronounced than against others. She gave the following reasons for discarding certain foods and drinks:

1. Simply unwholesome, and thus place an unnecessary strain on the digestive system.

2. Possible or probable carriers of disease.

3. Unduly stimulating, or irritating, to the body.

4. Their use necessitates taking the lives of God's creatures.

These are not mystical or ceremonial reasons, and certainly not moral reasons in the sense in which the word “moral” is usually understood. Rather they are physical and humanitarian reasons. They acquire a moral quality because of two facts: (1) The laws of nature are the laws of God, and (2) our physical habits react upon our mental and spiritual faculties and upon our physical strength and life span. We are to dedicate all our strength—physical, mental, and spiritual—to God, and thus to eschew any habit or practice that would impair or cut short our service for God. Many Christian churches think of liquor drinking as having a moral aspect, sometimes even to the extent of disfellowshiping a drinker. But the act of drinking is a physical act. It acquires its moral quality because of the reflex effect upon the mental and spiritual faculties and upon bodily efficiency and life expectancy that results from the entrance of the liquor into the body. Many would also agree that the same may be said of tobacco.

On a logical extension of such reasoning rests Mrs. White's declaration that all our physical habits and practices have a moral quality. Here the command of Paul takes on peculiar significance: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 10:31.

Appeals to Avoid Extremes

Though Mrs. White set forth the ideal diet program for the Christian, she presented it with repeated appeals to avoid extremes, to be sure that in discarding certain foods and drinks the diet is not impoverished. Nothing could more sharply distinguish her from the fanatic than this fact that she did not present these dietary teachings in a sweepingly unqualified way, with no notice taken of the specific needs of the body, the dietary limitations of different countries, the degree of knowledge of food preparation possessed by different people, and the speed with which some can adapt themselves to a changed diet. For example, she wrote:

“We do not mark out any precise line to be followed in diet; but we do say that in countries where there are fruits, grains, and nuts in abundance, flesh food is not the right food for God's people.”—Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 159.

Then she adds almost immediately: “We are not to make the use of flesh food a test of fellowship.”

The substance of her whole teaching regarding the subject of diet might be summed up thus: We should eat the most nutritious, most wholesome food available, seeking ever to walk in all the light revealed, that in our physical life we may ever more fully come into harmony with the divine laws that should govern us physically, even as we seek, by God's enabling grace, to come ever more fully into harmony with the divine laws that should govern us spiritually. The true Christian never loses sight of the fact that physical law and moral law are alike expressions of the mind and the will of God. He “giveth to all life, and breath, and all things,” for “in him we live, and move, and have our being.”

The Jerusalem Council's Action

Acts 15:28, 29 is quoted to support the claim that all restrictions on meat and drink have been done away in the Christian Era, because the ceremonial requirements of Judaism have been done away. We have already shown that there is nothing ceremonial in the dietary teachings of Mrs. White. We wish, now, to show that the very text quoted to prove that in the Christian Era there are no restrictions on foods really proves the opposite. The Jerusalem Council deliberated on the question of ceremonial requirements and prohibitions and decided that strictly ceremonial features of the Old Testament Era were no longer binding. The question before them was not whether the Gentiles should be allowed to eat meat. That was allowed by Moses, who was “read in the synagogues every sabbath day.” Hence the council ruling did not discuss it, but the council, so far from saying that what the Gentiles ate had no relation to right living, specifically set up certain restrictions: “That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which,” added the council, “if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.”

No Christian reasons that if a man keeps himself from fornication he has fulfilled all the moral requirements of Christianity. Then why should anyone reason that the limited dietary restrictions set up by the council—and they were restrictions—represent all that might be listed? Mrs. White simply provides reasons why certain further restrictions should be placed upon the diet.

http://www.whiteestate.org/books/egwhc/EGWHCc27.html