HOW THE END CAME

The story of how Madison destroyed itself  

Madison decided to obtain accreditation  

Accreditation brings heavy debt  

The terrible end of Madison  

Confederating with the Baptists  

The pioneers had passed away  

A brief overview of Madison's children  

How Madison injured its offspring  

Sutherland recognized the danger  

Madison and Loma Linda took the same path  

Turning our eyes to the blueprint  

Cadwallader's fourteen points  

First, Madison decided to follow along the pathway approved by the accrediting associations. A nursing program had began in 1914; and, in April 1917, the Southern Accrediting Association accepted the Madison High School into its association. By 1919, a three-year registered nursing program was in operation. In 1922, their junior college was recognized by Tennessee State. Formal graduations began in 1927. That year, the high school was accepted into the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools (SACSS).

In 1928, Madison was accredited by SACSS as a junior college. In 1930, Sutherland set in motion plans to make Madison a senior college; and, in November 1933, it was accepted as a four-year college by the Tennessee College Association. This, Sutherland felt, was necessary because an accredited premedical course was a full four years in length.

By 1963, having tasted the fruits of accreditation and degrees, 140 of Madison's graduates had gone on--not to found new missionary outposts--but to obtain doctorates of one type or another.

A fund-raising letter by Lida Scott in 1929 provides a hint of how much money had to be kept pouring into the many improvements needed to meet accreditation agency demands:

In order to meet the standard of a senior college, we are seeking financial assistance. Our requirements are a library of 10,000 volumes, an Agricultural and Home Economics Building, Science Building, Liberal Arts Building, and a Normal Building with some additional student cottages. It will cost in the neighborhood of $100,000 to equip the buildings and provide additional necessary facilities.--Lida Scott to G.F. Peabody, December 16, 1929.

Second, the other way in which Madison diverged from the blueprint was in yielding to the temptation to go into debt. This is how it happened:

In order to meet the ever new and changing accreditation requirements, Madison was faced with a dilemma: either go steeply into debt or have the accreditation agencies close down their nursing program and hospital. Madison decided to go into debt in order to provide new and upgraded facilities. But the large amount of money needed to pay off that debt was so massive, that the school, alumni, and other friends could not raise enough of it. So the entire institution was lost.

Accreditation, always a will-o-the-wisp, ever calling for more equipment, buildings, and library upgrades, had finished off the institution.

Of course, Madison could have chosen to lose the accreditation--but instead it lost, not only the accreditation, but everything else with it! All that remained was a denominational look-alike, acute-care hospital.

At the height of the financial crisis, on February 3, 1963, the constituency of Madison voted to transfer control of Madison to the Southern Union Conference. The Union accepted control on February 7, pending General Conference approval, which was received on April 4.

Please understand: This transfer was only made because church leaders had promised that they would continue the full school, with its instructional and vocational divisions.

In spite of that agreement, this did not happen.

The action taken in 1963 to transfer the operation of the college and hospital to the Adventist Church was in harmony with the statement appearing in 1914 in the pamphlet, Ownership and Control of the Madison School, by Dr. E.A. Sutherland . . The founders of the school have put themselves on record as being willing, whenever it shall appear to be for the best interests of the school . . to turn over the property to any corporation that the [Southern] Union Conference may form for holding the same, provided such corporation is qualified to carry out the aim and objects for which the school was founded.

The executive committee of the Southern Union accepted the recommendation of the [Madison College and Sanitarium] constituency. Therefore, ownership of the college and hospital was transferred to the SDA denomination in April 1963. In 1964, Madison College was closed.--Pictorial History of Madison College: 1904-1964 (Madison College Anniversary edition, 1967), p. 84.

Before the ink on the agreement was dry, on April 4, 1963 the entrance sign, Madison Sanitarium, was taken down and Madison Hospital was put in its place. Rather quickly, it was changed into an acute-care facility, like the hospitals in town: St. Thomas, Baptist, Vanderbilt, and the others.

On November 6, the State of Tennessee announced that it had withdrawn approval for the Colleges nursing education program until further requirements and higher standards had been approved by the accreditating association.

Although our other denominational schools were happily chained to the ever-demanding accreditation bandwagon, it was thought that funds were not available to do this at Madison, now a church-controlled institution.

Of course, that meant that, although the school would lose its nursing accreditation--it could still continue on doing what Ellen White said it should do: be a vocational training school for missionary workers.

Not so; the new owners saw no value in such activities--even though the school acreage and industries could essentially meet its own expenses.

On February 6, 1964, the board voted not only to close down the nursing school--but the entire college as well. Yet only the nursing program had lost its accreditation! The premedical accreditation had been lost earlier, and Madison did not close down when that happened! The work God gave Madison to do was far broader than meeting accreditation requirements. In fact, the divinely given blueprint forbade any conformity to worldly standards.

Having earlier been assured that under church control everything would continue on as before, and astounded at what was about to happen, the students and alumni did what they could to save the situation. But the institution was no longer theirs to save; it now belonged to someone else, someone Ellen White never wanted it to belong to. And all efforts failed.

It is true that an accredited nursing program could not continue--but the rest of the college could have remained open. The immense acreage, filled with cottages, gardens, orchards; and agriculture, buildings, and repair equipment--all of it could have continued. Continued doing what? Providing the kind of blueprint education that Ellen White and the rainbow seven had started 60 years earlier.

That could easily have been done by deeding the entire property, less the sanitarium which the Southern Union wanted, to the alumni.

But, instead, the new owners shut down everything except the academy and sanitarium. Madison College was officially closed as of September 1, 1964, one year after having been given to the Union and 60 years after the school opened in 1904.

With Madison College closed, and Madison Sanitarium now a Southern Union acute-care hospital, most of the acreage and all of the vocational industries equipment, worth millions of dollars, was sold off.

Madison Foods was turned over to the Southern Union Association in 1964 and then sold to Nutritional International Corporation (Worthington Foods). In 1972, the Madison food factory was closed down entirely; and the factory equipment was moved to Worthington, Ohio.

Madison Academy continues to operate under the Kentucky-Tennessee Conference.

In 1976, control of Madison Hospital was handed over to Adventist Health System/Sunbelt.

In 1985, AHS/Sunbelt changed the name of the hospital to Tennessee Christian Medical Center (TCMC). You will hardly find the word, Adventist, anywhere in its building complex.

Then, on November 15, 1996, what were called festivities were held. In order to realize what happened, you need to understand that Baptist Hospital in Nashville is middle Tennessee's largest nonprofit medical center. Several years earlier, TCMC and Baptist entered into negotiations to explore ways to work more closely together.

The 1996 festivities were in celebration of a new partnership, which included all this: (1) Joint TCMC/Baptist ownership of a new nonprofit organization (Baptist Tennessee Christian Medical Group, Inc.). (2) BTCMG became the employer of all physicians at the various Madison facilities. (3) A new five-story, 95,000 square foot medical office building (named Baptist Medical Plaza), wide enough to fill a city block, was built next to TCMC. It is owned solely by Baptist Hospital. (4) Initiation of Baptist-Centra Care, a jointly owned organization which owns the clinics operated by the two denominations. (5) The two business development departments work closely together to negotiate access to managed care contracts.

It is all jointly owned; and, by mutual agreement, the phrases, Adventist, Seventh-day Adventist, Ellen White, and similar terms are nowhere to be found, anywhere on the premises.

This massive, new facility, costing tens of millions of dollars, was jointly financed by our AHS/Sunbelt and Baptist Hospital. Yet the name indicates that it is totally owned by the Baptists. A Baptist, by the way, is in charge of it. (For more information on this, see our tract, Madison Unites with the Baptists [WM745].)

With sadness, we acknowledge that we could not afford to keep Madison College and its vocational school and grounds open, but we could spend millions in order to confederate with the Baptists--by sharing Madison Hospital with them.

Tragically, the story did not end even there. More recently, Baptist Hospital entered into an affiliation with Saint Thomas Health Services, an enormous Catholic hospital in Nashville. Since we were already closely intertwined with Baptist, our Madison facility probably came under the umbrella of this new affiliation.

Ellen White expressed the deepest concerns that Madison would be successful, adhere to the blueprint, and continually send out workers which would start new institutions or work as missionaries here and abroad. What did Madison actually accomplish?

By 1963, when it was taken over by the conference, 302 graduates had gone into self-supporting institutional work; and 228 had entered denominational service. Of the latter, 64 were serving in 23 countries outside the North American Division. Since 1963, about 60 others, who earlier had attended Madison, had gone to foreign fields as missionary workers.

Why was it thought necessary to close down such a valuable school? Madison probably had a higher ratio of missionary graduates than any other Adventist school.

At one time as many as 50 outpost schools and centers functioned in seven of the Southern Statesall of them offspring of Madison, started by its graduates. Some grew rather large and others did not; yet all fulfilled their purpose.

Dr Sutherland contemplated these units with a great deal of satisfaction. As a parent rejoices in the accomplishments of his children, so Madison College feels a pardonable pride . . in the good work done by the small institutions. Ira Gish and Harry Christman, Madison: Gods Beautiful Farm, p. 142.

As early as 1909, 13 rural or hill schools had been started, with more than 500 children in attendance. These units included schools and sanitariums, located on farms, and vegetarian cafeterias and treatment rooms in several large southern cities (Nashville, Knoxville, Louisville, Memphis, Birmingham, and Asheville). Each one usually led to the formation of a local congregation.

Some of these include Little Creek School and Sanitarium in Knoxville, Tennessee (now Heritage Academy in Crossville, Tennessee); Pine Forest Academy and Sanitarium-Hospital in Chunky, Mississippi; Harbert Hills Academy and Sanitarium in Savannah, Tennessee; and Chestnut Hill Farm School in Portland, Tennessee.

Some later became conference institutions. These included: Fletcher Academy and Hospital in Fletcher, North Carolina; Highland Academy (originally Fountainhead Academy) in Portland, Tennessee; Mount Pisgah Academy (originally Pisgah School and Sanitarium) in Candler, North Carolina; Georgia-Cumberland Academy (originally Hurlbutt Farm School and Scott Sanitarium) in Calhoun, Georgia.

A separate institution modeled on the Madison plan is Wildwood Sanitarium and Institute in Wildwood, Georgia. Other units of the Wildwood type include Stone Cave Institute in Daus, Tennessee; Eden Valley Institute in Loveland, Colorado; and Castle Valley Institute in Moab, Utah.

Unfortunately, in its later years, instead of sending more workers out into the field to start units, Madison absorbed the best workers from the units to help it maintain its professional status with the accreditation agencies.

A number of unit leaders--including Elder W.D. Frazee, W.E. Straw, and A.W. Spalding --deplored what was happening. This problem continued for many years before Madison's demise.

Jerry Moon, an Andrews University church historian, interviewed Ralph Martin, a Madison alumnus and founder of Oakhaven Institute, before his death.

I had a fairly detailed visit with Ralph Martin at Oak Haven here in Michigan. He explained to me the impact the four-year degree program [required by the AMA for all premedical schools, of which Madison was one] had on the Madison units, drawing in leading educators from the units to the mother school, and keeping the students who had come up through the units--keeping them so long [so many years] at Madison that they lost their vision of going back to the units to evangelize their own people, and instead developing a new ambition for college degrees and graduate work, etc. So both faculty and potential future faculty were drawn out of the units. As the units declined, the source of Madison's enrollment dried up, and as enrollment declined, the whole system spiraled in decline.--Jerry Moon, letter dated August 5, 1992.

Commenting on this problem, James Lee, an expert in the field of blueprint education, wrote this:

Based upon the witness of Madison's alumni, it has been suggested that the financial and academic effort by Madison, to offer degrees and an accredited premedical course, became so self-consuming that it led step by step in a downward spiral in which Madison swallowed its own offspring, and then the Conference in 1964 did to Madison as it had been doing to its children--the Conference swallowed Madison.--James Lee, Barriers Hindering Adventism's Mystic Stone, p. 111.

Rather consistently, all the problems pointed to one primary error: the craze for accreditation and degrees.

Instead of turning out self-sacrificing workers, the graduates decided to become professionals. J.H. Kellogg earlier said that the degree system professionalizes and kills the medical missionary work (1901 General Conference Bulletin, pp.  71-73).

Did Sutherland realize that he was diverging from the blueprint by permitting Madison to mirror worldly educational standards instead of Gods standards?

In 1929, when Sutherland and his associates at Madison were planning to add a liberal arts curriculum, he explained his thinking in a sermon with the revealing title, Fear Not to Go Down into Egypt. He considered it safe to enter into business agreements with the worldlings in charge of the accrediting associations.

In a 1931 Madison Survey article, Why Should Madison Become a Senior College? he defended the idea by referring to the Old Testament story of Jeremiah wearing a wooden yoke which, if Judah resisted, would result in an iron yoke (Jer 28:13). In other words, by the 1930s Sutherland was thinking that, if we did not join with the world, we would soon be in still worse circumstances. He had concluded that affiliating with the world was what we needed to do in these last days, in order to carry on our work effectively! Far too many of our people today believe the same thing.

Yet Ellen Whites original plan was that Madison, and its offspring schools, would turn out missionaries who would not need accreditation or degrees to do their work. Somehow, in a zeal to emulate the worlds grandeur, Sutherland had forgotten the reason for Madison's existence.

Only in looking to the light in the Spirit of Prophecy, and obeying that light, can we find our way out of the dark cave. Here are statements not quoted elsewhere in this present book:

The past course has been crooked. Wrong methods have been followed. But the errors of the past are unconfessed and unrepented of. Men have in their own minds justified the course that was then taken. They have viewed things, from beginning to end, in an altogether false light; and from the present showing, the same course will be followed in the future.--September 8, 1901; Unpublished Testimonies, p. 178.

Many think that worldly appearance is necessary in our work, in order that the right impression may be made. But this is an error . . There should be no striving for recognition from the world in order to gain character and influence for the truth.--EGW, July 23, 1901; 4 Review, pp. 319-320.

All this higher education that is being planned will be extinguished; for it is spurious. The more simple the education of our workers, the less connection they have with the men whom God is not leading, the more will be accomplished. Work will be done in the simplicity of true godliness, and the old, old times will be back when, under the Holy Spirits guidance, thousands were converted in a day. When the truth in its simplicity is lived in every place, then God will work through His angels as He worked on the day of Pentecost.--EGW, November 1905; Series B, No. 7, pp. 63-64.

We need now to begin over again. Reforms must be entered into with heart and soul and will. Errors may be hoary with age; but age does not make error truth, nor truth error. Altogether too long have the old customs and habits been followed. The Lord would now have every idea that is false put away from teachers and students. We are not at liberty to teach that which shall meet the worlds standard or the standard of the church, simply because it is the custom to do so. The lessons which Christ taught are to be the standard. That which the Lord has spoken concerning the instruction to be given in our schools is to be strictly regarded; for if there is not in some respects an education of an altogether different character from that which has been carried on in some of our schools, we need not have gone to the expense of purchasing lands and erecting school buildings.6 Testimonies, p. 142.

If a worldly influence is to bear sway in our school, then sell it out to worldlings and let them take the entire control; and those who have invested their means in that institution will establish another school, to be conducted, not upon the plan of popular schools, nor according to the desires of principal and teachers, but upon the plan which God has specified.5 Testimonies, pp. 25-26.

Before we can carry the message of present truth in all its fullness to other countries, we must first break every yoke [connecting us to the world]. We must come into the line of true education, walking in the wisdom of God, and not in the wisdom of the world. God calls for messengers who will be true reformers. We must educate, educate, to prepare a people who will understand the message, and then give the message to the world.--EGW, Series B, No. 11, p. 30.

Those who place themselves under Gods control, to be led and guided by Him, will catch the steady tread of the events ordained by Him to take place. Inspired with the Spirit of Him who gave His life for the life of the world, they will no longer stand still in impotency, pointing to what they cannot do. Putting on the armor of heaven, they will go forth to the warfare, willing to do and dare for God, knowing that His omnipotence will supply their need.7 Testimonies, p. 14.

Though in many respects our institutions of learning have swung into worldly conformity, though step by step they have advanced toward the world, they are prisoners of hope. Fate has not so woven its meshes about their workings that they need to remain helpless and in uncertainty. If they will listen to His voice and follow in His ways, God will correct and enlighten them, and bring them back to their upright position of distinction from the world. When the advantage of working upon Christian principles is discerned, when self is hid in Christ, much greater progress will be made; for each worker will feel his own human weakness; he will supplicate for the wisdom and grace of God, and will receive the divine help that is pledged for every emergency.

Opposing circumstances should create a firm determination to overcome them. One barrier broken down will give greater ability and courage to go forward. Press in the right direction, and make a change, solidly, intelligently. Then circumstances will be your helpers and not your hindrances. Make a beginning. The oak is in the acorn.6 Testimonies, p. 145.

There is a little hope in one direction. Take the young men and women, and place them where they will come as little in contact with our churches as possible, that the low grade of piety which is current in this day shall not leaven their ideas of what it means to be a Christian.--EGW to S.N. Haskell, May 9, 1892; Manuscript H16f, 1892.

Young men who have never made a success in the temporal duties of life will be equally unprepared to engage in the higher duties. A religious experience is gained only through conflict, through disappointment, through severe discipline of self, through earnest prayer. The steps to heaven must be taken one at a time, and every advance step gives strength for the next.--Counsels to Teachers, p. 100.

Even in seeking a preparation for Gods service, many are turned aside by wrong methods of education. Life is too generally regarded as made up of distinct periods, the period of learning and the period of doing--of preparation and of achievement. In preparation for a life of service the youth are sent to school, to acquire knowledge by the study of books. Cut off from the responsibilities of everyday life, they become absorbed in study, and often lose sight of its purpose. The ardour of their early consecration dies out, and too many take up with some personal, selfish ambition.

Upon their graduation, thousands find themselves out of touch with life. They have so long dealt with the abstract and theoretical that when the whole being must be roused to meet the sharp contests of real life, they are unprepared.--Education, p. 265.

An education derived chiefly from books leads to superficial thinking. Practical work encourages close observation and independent thought. Rightly performed, it tends to develop that practical wisdom which we call common sense. It develops ability to plan and execute, strengthens courage and perseverance, and calls for the exercise of tact and skill.--Education, p. 220.

The students in the school are to be taught to be strict health reformers.--EGW, February 20, 1908; Counsels on Diets and Foods, p. 450.

We plead for sanitariums, not expensive, mammoth sanitariums, but homelike institutions, in pleasant places.--Medical Ministry, p. 323.

Let our sanitariums become what they should be--homes where healing is ministered to sin-sick souls. And this will be done when the workers have a living connection with the Great Healer.--Counsels on Health, p. 542.

In Australia we also worked as Christian medical missionaries. At times I made my home in Cooranbong an asylum for the sick and afflicted. My secretary, who had received a training in the Battle Creek Sanitarium, stood by my side, and did the work of a missionary nurse. No charge was made for her services, and we won the confidence of the people by the interest that we manifested in the sick and suffering.1 Selected Messages, p. 34.

It is presented to me that wherever there is a sanitarium, there must be a school, and that school must be carried on in such a way that it makes an impression on all who shall visit the Sanitarium. People will come into that school. They will see how that school is managed.3 Selected Messages, p. 225.

Sanitariums are to be established all through our world, and managed by a people who are in harmony with Gods laws, a people who will cooperate with God in advocating the truth that determines the case of every soul for whom Christ died.--Medical Ministry, p. 26.

The great medical institutions of our cities, called sanitariums, do but a small part of the good they might do were they located where the patients could have the advantages of outdoor life. I have been instructed that sanitariums are to be established in many places in the country, and that the work of these institutions will greatly advance the cause of health and righteousness.--Counsels on Health, p. 169.

In the work of the school [at Loma Linda] maintain simplicity. No argument is so powerful as is success founded on simplicity. You may attain success in the education of students as medical missionaries without a medical school that can qualify physicians to compete with the physicians of the world. Let the students be given a practical education. The less dependent you are upon worldly methods of education, the better it will be for the students.--EGW to J.A. Burden, March 24, 1908; 9 Testimonies, p. 175.

The laws of Christ's kingdom are so simple, and yet so complete, that man-made additions will create confusion. And the more simple our plans for the work of Gods service, the more we shall accomplish.7 Testimonies, p. 215.

Everything bearing the divine stamp unites simplicity with utility.--3 Testimonies, p. 409.

God often uses the simplest means to accomplish the greatest results.--Desire of Ages, p. 822.

Our ideas of education take too narrow and too low a range. There is need of a broader scope, a higher aim. True education means more than the pursual of a certain course of study. It means more than a preparation for the life that now is. It has to do with the whole being, and with the whole period of existence possible to man. It is the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers. It prepares the student for the joy of service in this world and for the higher joy of wider service in the world to come.--Education, p. 13.

Higher than the highest human thought can reach is Gods ideal for His children. Godliness--godlikeness--is the goal to be reached.--Education, p. 18.

There is not room for all the passages which could be quoted. This coming Sabbath afternoon, you may want to read the following: 6 Testimonies, pp. 126-151; 8 Testimonies, pp. 250-251; 104-106; 5 Testimonies, pp. 76-79; 9 Testimonies, p. 175.

In our book, The Medical Missionary Manual, will be found many, many more statements--all of them classified under their respective headings. It is the most complete, single collection of Spirit of Prophecy statements available on the principles and practice of medical missionary work.

We urge you to obtain a copy. It is available from us at a very low price, when purchased in small boxfuls. This book is being used as a textbook in medical missionary training classes, both in the United States and overseas. A Spanish edition of that book is also available.

Dr. E.M. Cadwallader, in his History of S.D.A. Education (pp. 126-127), summarized 14 points which he considered vital to a Seventh-day Adventist philosophy of education. Here is a digest of those 14 points:

  1 - Seventh-day Adventist education must be based on the messages found in the Spirit of Prophecy.

  2 - When those messages are followed, a good outcome will always occur.

   3 - Boarding schools should be located in a rural, scenic location, within practical distance from urban centers.

  4 - Intellectual studies should be combined with work experiences. Only then can the students be properly trained for life and church work.

   5 - Industries should be established to furnish work for the students and supplement the schools operating income.

   6 - Those in charge should build in faith, planning for the future and reasonable permanency.

  7 - Students should understand the difference between our schools and others, either public or private; they should be made acquainted with the educational principles in the Spirit of Prophecy.

  8 - Students should be taught those counsels, especially as they apply to young people.

 9 - Our educators should carefully study the Spirit of Prophecy, and teach it through chapel talks and sermons.

10 - Our schools should be operated by Christian men and women who have a proven record in leadership, rapport with students, many interests, a broad education, and an understanding of true education.

11 - Some form of systematic student aid is advisable; for many potential workers for God are unable to completely finance their education.

12 - Teachers and staff, if they do not actually work with the students, should let it be evident in their lives that they believe in the dignity of labor.

13 - Useful occupations, Christian help work, and missionary endeavors should generally replace sports and organized amusements.

14 - Educators should study the Spirit of Prophecy writings on the subject of recreation.