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By Mark B. Johnson — Boulder, Colorado … I have frequently been asked why it is that an unelected “bureaucrat” like me has the power to promulgate public health orders during a pandemic in Colorado. It’s a long story, and to me, its hero is a “little old lady” who grew up in the mining town of Central City.

In the 1940s, the health of Colorado was abysmal. More than 40% of Colorado draftees for World War II were found to be “not physically fit for the Armed Services.” Colorado had high rates of diphtheria, typhoid, dysentery, and maternal and infant mortality. It was one of the six worst states in the country in regard to smallpox.

In 1944, as Colorado prepared for the return of its soldiers from World War II, Governor John Vivian appointed numerous planning committees, including a committee on public health. The Governor had no real interest in health and was convinced by an aide that the retired Dr. Florence Sabin, an “innocuous, white-haired, little old lady” should chair the committee. She was indeed a “little old lady”, but she was far from innocuous.

Florence had graduated from the prestigious Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she also became the school’s first female professor. Subsequently, she was the first female president of the American Association of Anatomists and the first woman elected into the National Academy of Sciences.

As chair of the Health Committee, Dr. Sabin didn’t “waste” time talking to the state’s legislators, but worked instead with the legislators’ spouses, teaching them about the abysmal state of public health in Colorado. Because of their influence, in 1948 the Legislature passed the “Sabin Health Laws”.

Her constant message had been that the health of the public was too important to leave to politics, and the public health system the Sabin Health Laws established required a professionally trained staff of physicians, nurses, health educators and scientists, hired on the basis of merit, not political bias. And so, because of that “innocuous little old lady,” public health decisions in Colorado were taken out of the hands of politicians and left to scientifically trained public health professionals.

We Adventists have a “white-haired, little old lady” of our own. She, too, was far from innocuous, and was comfortable speaking truth to the powerful. Based on her guidance, we have established the largest Protestant health care system in the world, with a strong focus on whole person care.

The guiding principle behind this focus was her belief that health care, with its intimate, personal, restorative touch, was a living manifestation of the gospel as revealed in the healing ministry of Christ. Because of this aspect of Adventism, there are thousands of professionally trained Adventist health care workers around the world on the frontlines of this pandemic response, putting their lives at risk to treat those in need, just as Christ did.

—Mark B. Johnson, M.D., M.P.H., is executive director, Jefferson County Public Health, and a member of the Governor’s Expert Epidemic Emergency Response Committee for the state of Colorado. Updated, this article appeared first on Facebook and in the Boulder Adventist Church Bulletin, May 14, 2020. IMAGE CREDIT: Taft, P. W. [Florence Sabin as a young girl]. Photographic Print. Portrait. [ca. 1880s]. Public domain, via the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

By Jose Cortes, Jr. – Columbia, Maryland . . . Her name is Liz, she is a retired science teacher who lives about six houses from ours on our street, and just last night she welcomes our family to the neighborhood, as we walked our dog. Nothing wrong with that, unless you know that we have been in this neighborhood for over five years. I know, totally embarrassing that our family, followers of Jesus, Christians, Seventh-day Adventists who love God and love people had not gotten to meet our neighbor, who lives six houses away from ours.

The thing is that prior to the Pandemic, I spent a significant amount of my time traveling, Joanne, my wife, super busy at the office, and most recently pastoring, and our boys with their school and other activities. Well, I know you probably know the feeling, we are all super busy with very little time, so you may be able to relate.

So what changed? What made it possible for us to slowly walk our street and meet our neighbor Liz for the first time in five years. The Pandemic happened, and that has kind of changed everything! All of a sudden, our family gets to walk in our neighborhood, as we didn’t have the time to do before. Having said that, you would never hear me say anything positive about the Pandemic because it is cruel and evil. It has taken away the health of millions, killed hundreds of thousands, including many friends and loved ones, and brought new levels of fear and anxiety to humanity. You will never hear me say that this is our best time, it is not, hospitals are running out of beds and funeral homes are not able to keep up. Neither will you ever hear me say, what I have heard some Christians say and imply, that God sent the Pandemic to punish the world because of our sin. The ultimate way for God to deal with sin was by sending Jesus, not the Pandemic. God wants to save sinners, not kill sinners. God did not send the Pandemic, but He did send you and me to respond to the Pandemic.

I have been encouraged in my conversations with hundreds of Pastors across North America during this time of crisis. Their response to the present situation is impressive. These conversations have brought to the surface certain principles, which perhaps, we should have always followed, but that for sure we need to keep in mind, not only now but for the future.

I have been encouraged by the response that we, as individuals and as a church, have had during this time of crisis. The Pandemic will end, but some principles need to stay after the Pandemic is gone.

1. People are most important: for years we revered our buildings and invested large quantities of funds in purchasing and in maintaining our facilities. Not a bad thing, as long as buildings are not valued more than mission and ministry, which bless people, thus making our buildings the center of worship. After two months, I still see people refer to a church being closed, simply because the building is shut down. Although thousands of our church buildings have now been closed down and sit pretty useless for over eight weeks, the church is still open, because the church is the people, not the building.
2. Compassion: People caring for others and checking on our elderly. Food banks that feed thousands in collaboration with city/state government. Online tutoring. Churches collecting medical equipment to be donated to medical responders in the front lines. Drive-by birthday celebrations. Churches are helping families who lost their jobs. All of these should also stay after the Pandemic is gone. Compassion works during the Pandemic, but even after the Pandemic. Don’t let compassion die after the Pandemic is gone.
3. Small Groups / Virtual Small Groups – I have attended small groups in English and Spanish during the Pandemic. I have experienced community, happy faces, sad faces, smiles, tears, sharing, testimonies, and animated discussions about relevant topics and Scripture during the last few weeks. People will need all of those components after the Pandemic goes away. Small groups are a great setting for community building, relationships, and relevant mission. Virtual small groups even make it easier for people to participate during a hectic week since no extra time is needed to get ready, dress up, and commute.
4. “Everyday church” rather than just “once a week church”: We own buildings that cost millions of dollars that open for 5 or 6 hours a week during regular times (church service and prayer meeting). During the Pandemic, I have seen churches that meet early in the morning for prayer, in the afternoon for Midday Worship, and in the evening for small groups. I go to my social media, and there are always several preachers on, regardless of the time of the day or night. This is an awesome thing! We’ve become the church of the seven days, rather than the church of the seventh-day only, or would you say “the church of the 3 hours on the seventh-day.
5. Use of technology and social media: the Pandemic has helped many, even some who used to knock technology as negative, worldly, and evil, to understand that without technology, it is difficult to stay in touch and operate as a church during this time. Those who were using technology before the Pandemic are way ahead. Still, I have seen a pastor go from no media presence to having services with 100 devices connected online, plus the people connected on Zoom. I am grateful for Pastors and churches who are willing to learn, stretch, and sacrifice to continue to reach their congregations and community.
6. Empowerment and embracement of younger generations and creatives: These are people who should have been embraced and empowered all alone, but now the church needs them more than ever. The other day, I saw a pastor who preached his entire sermon upside down on Facebook Live. I felt bad for him. I was worried his blood would go to his head ;)! The next day I noticed he preached upside – up. I asked, “what happened?” The reply was, “some of the younger people helped me to get it right.” Younger generations and creatives are our children and grandchildren. Most are digital natives; they have gifts many of us have not been given. After the Pandemic goes, we better keep them, embrace them, and empower them. Technology is not evil; it depends on what you use it for. Younger generations and creatives can help pastors and the church to use technology and social media to spread the gospel.
7. Collaboration: the collaboration I have seen among pastors, elders, churches, institutions, and several ministries during the Pandemic, is at an all-time high. This spirit of cooperation will always trump the spirit of competition. “We are in this together” needs to stay a reality way beyond the Pandemic.

The Pandemic will end, but the importance of people, compassion, small groups, the church of the seven days, the use of technology and social media, the empowerment of younger generations and creatives, and the collaboration among all have to remain!

The Pandemic needs to go, but these need to stay! …including our family walks in the neighborhood.

–Pastor Jose Cortes Jr., is an Associate Director of the Ministerial Association and leads Evangelism, Church Planting, and Adventist/Global Mission for the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists. Photo supplied.

This article is courtesy of the North American Division Ministerial Department and was originally published on the NAD Ministerial website.

By CIRO SEPULVEDA — In 1852 Ellen G. White’s youngest son, Edson, three years of age, fell victim to the third global cholera pandemic erupting across the United States, 1846-1860.[1] The White family, at the time, lived across the street from the Erie Canal in Rochester, New York. The first of the seven cholera pandemics flared up in India, near Calcutta, 1817-1824. From there, the contagion moved in all directions, often carried by migrating British Troops.[2] The third pandemic crossed the Atlantic, arriving in Quebec, then continued through the St. Lawrence River and its tributaries in Eastern Canada into the State of New York in the 1850s.[3] In a rented house on Hope Street, as the pandemic spread across Upstate New York, Ellen White penned, “The cholera visited the city, and while it raged, all night long the carriages bearing the dead were heard rumbling through the streets to Mount Hope Cemetery.”[4]

Millions of people died from the seven cholera pandemics. Of the people who developed cholera symptoms, 20% developed severe diarrhea, vomiting, and leg cramps, which led to dehydration, septic shock, and for some, within a matter of hours, death.[5] The people of Rochester felt helpless with no idea where cholera came from, how it entered the body, or what to do to ease the suffering it inflicted. The invisible enemy arrived silently, wreaking havoc on the Whites and the city of Rochester. Ellen White wrote:

“This disease did not cut down merely the low but took victims from every class of society. The most skillful physicians were laid low and borne to Mount Hope. As we passed through the streets in Rochester, at almost every corner, we would meet wagons with plain pine coffins in which to put the dead.”[6]

Her pain piled higher and more profound, watching Edson struggle. Desperately she sought refuge in her faith, writing:

“Our little Edson was attacked, and we carried him to the great Physician. I took him in my arms, and in the name of Jesus rebuked the disease. He felt relief at once, and as a sister commenced praying for the Lord to heal him, the little fellow of three years looked up in astonishment, and said, ‘They need not pray any more, for the Lord has healed me.’ He was very weak, but the disease made no further progress. Yet he gained no strength. Our faith was still to be tried. For three days he ate nothing.”[7]

As Ellen White and her husband battled with the cholera in Rochester, a medical doctor in London’s Soho district, John Snow, launched a plan of mapping the location of cholera cases from his practice. Cholera spread at an alarming rate through the streets of the city. In 1854 England suffered the worst year of the cholera pandemic, experiencing 23,000 deaths. Because no one knew the origins of the contagion, fear petrified the planet. Snow’s collection of data led to the conclusion that cholera came from the water in a public well pump. His pathbreaking research set alight a bright beam of hope over the darkness of the times. A newly developed science grew out of Snow’s work, saving the lives of millions.[8]

A beneficiary of Snow’s work, Ellen White learned to stare down cholera in the years before the Civil War. When she was in her twenties, a young mother of two sons, the experience in Rochester attracted her fascination with diseases and public health. She read books, pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers on the topic voraciously, escalating her learning as she dealt with the illnesses of her husband, four sons, relatives, and Church members. Several visions helped her grasp the scope of the problem. During the next 40 years, the 1850s-1890s, White’s sermons, pamphlets, and books helped the Adventist community create a message highlighting the importance of health in the Christian life.

In 1890 she published a book titled Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, which fleetingly alluded to cholera. White’s comments surfaced as she tried to make clear the significance of personal hygiene in safeguarding the body from illness and disease. She wrote:

“When Lord Palmerston, premier of England, was petitioned by the Scottish clergy to appoint a day of fasting and prayer to avert the cholera, he replied, ‘Cleanse and disinfect your streets and houses, promote cleanliness and health among the poor, and see that they are plentifully supplied with good food and raiment, and employ right sanitary measures generally, and you will have no occasion to fast and pray. Nor will the Lord hear your prayers while these, his preventives, remain unheeded.’”[9]

Ellen White’s usage of Lord Palmerston’s response to the Scottish clergy who sought more prayer and fasting highlights the change she experienced during her lifetime concerning pandemics. In the early 1850s, when no one knew the origins or nature of cholera, rebuking cholera and waiting for a miracle became her only resource. But by the end of the century, when science uncovered where cholera came from and how it spread, she counseled members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to take an active role in confronting pandemics. In her opinion, it became the duty of the Christian to fight diseases.

By 1890 White understood pandemics posed a constant threat to the human community, launching terror on humankind since the dawn of history. Since the plague of Athens in 431 B. C.E., that killed 55,000 Athenians, historians have recorded their devastation.[10] The contagions in the United States appear every 38 to 40 years. Not a one-time event that comes and leaves, but rather consistently with us. In the case of cholera, to this day it has not been eradicated. According to the World Health Organization, cholera infects 1.3 to 4 million people every year, killing 21,000 to 143,000.[11] Ellen White’s approach to pandemics matured over the years and revealed a three-phase approach.

First, do not let the pandemic paralyze you, nor sit and wait for a miracle. White believed that fasting and prayer must not replace an effort to understand the disease or to defeat its threat. As Lord Palmerston stressed, the Lord will not hear prayers from those who ignore and disregard preventive action. White’s faith in God continued firm, but she also felt that disregarding preemptive measures posed an even more significant threat.

Second, men and women must live their daily lives as if pandemics sit waiting around the next curve. On September 29, 2005, Dr. Nabarro of the World Health Organization warned, “We expect the next influenza pandemic to come at any time now.”[12] A good Christian, according to Ellen White, must be vigilant and protect his or her immune system. In the first chapter of her book Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, she states, “Knowledge must be gained in regards to how to eat and drink and dress so as to preserve health.”[13] For her, good Christians must be well informed and continuously attentive to the developments of the triggers of good health.

Third, Christians must not only know their bodies but also be aware of the world around them. They must think for themselves, and avoid getting caught up in wishful thinking or wallowing in conspiracy theories. In England, some are burning 5G cell towers, and in Mexico attacking health workers. She wrote, “Those who have indulged the habits of racing through exciting stories, are crippling their mental strength, and disqualifying themselves for vigorous thought and research.”[14]

We live in a dangerous time. According to David C. Morrison, in an article published by the Foreign Policy Association, the last pandemic flu, the 1968-69 “Hong Kong” outbreak, killed one million people worldwide, and 34,000 in the United States. The 1957-58 “Asian flu” killed at least twice as many, 70,000 in the U.S. The epochal 1918-19 “Spanish flu” managed to kill off some 50 to 100 million, of whom 500,000 were American.[15]

On March 22, 2020, Pastor Gerald Glenn defiantly announced to his congregation in Chesterfield, Virginia, days after Virginians received an order to avoid large-nonessential gatherings of more than ten people, “I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus.” Waiting on God to solve the crisis inflicted by the coronavirus became his only course of action. He refused to cancel the worship services of his congregation and believed a miracle would protect him and his parishioners. Today, the pastor is dead, and his wife diagnosed with COVID-19.[16]

Ellen White’s writings and actions revealed a rational and wise approach to a pandemic. She would not have given her blessing to a course of action that disregards the most up-to-date and scientific evidence. Nor would she approve disdain for directives from the most rational evaluations of the day.

Notes & References:

[1] History.com Editors, “Cholera,” HISTORY, accessed April 10, 2020, https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/history-of-cholera.See also Ellen G. White, Early Writings, Battle Creek, Michigan, Review and Herald Publish Association, 1882.

[2] Ibid.

[3] See Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866, 2nd edition, University of Chicago Press, 2009.

[4] Ellen White, Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, Takoma Park, Washington DC, Review and Herald Publishing Association, n.d.

[5] History.com Editors, “Cholera.”

[6] White, Life Sketches of Ellen G. White.

[7] White.

[8] See Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, 1st edition, Riverhead Books, 2006.

[9] Ellen White, Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, Battle Creek, Michigan, Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1890, 106.

[10] See Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War, Translation edition (OUP Oxford, 2009).

[11] World Health Organization “Cholera.” Found at https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cholera, accessed on April 23, 2020.

[12] David C. Morrison, “Pandemics and National Security,” Great Decisions, 2006, 93–102.

[13] White, Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 12.

[14] White, Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 122.

[15] Morrison, “Pandemics and National Security,” 93.

[16] Michelle Boorstein, “Prominent Virginia Pastor Who Said ‘God Is Larger than This Dreaded Virus’ Dies of Covid-19,” Washington Post, accessed April 25, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/04/13/virginia-pastor-church-dies-coronavirus/.

–Ciro Sepulveda, a retired historian (Ph.D. Notre Dame University, 1976), lives with his wife on a farm in Southern, Tennessee. His latest book Ellen G. White: How to Globalize a Movement, reflects a lifetime of interest in the life and times of Ellen G. White. Before his retirement, he chaired the History Department at Oakwood University for twelve years.

Original article was published by Spectrum Magazine, May 12, 2020. Printed by permission from Spectrum and the author.

Image: The White Family (1864), courtesy of the Ellen G. White Estate.

By Gideon Dayak — Silver Spring, MD . . .Congregations everywhere are looking forward to reopening their doors and beginning live services at churches again. Much of the world has been brought to a near standstill to combat COVID-19 through social distancing. Some regions are starting to relax the stay-at-home orders. The anticipation of worshipping together means plans are necessary that adapt to how church services are conducted.