ABSTRACT
Though Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventists, Christian Scientists, and Jehovah's Witnesses share many important commonalities with other Christian traditions, such as Catholicism and mainline and evangelical Protestant groups, they bear some prominent beliefs and practices on health, human nature, and death that set them apart. The distinguishing features result from each group's different interpretations of scripture's teachings on health, sin, human nature, and reality, though the four do share a generally similar outlook on sexual morality and importance of right, healthful living. Each in its own way represents a response to the challenges that the advancement of modern science posed to nineteenth-century America. Latter-day Saints and Seventh-day Adventists showed great openness to the healing methods of modern science and allowed the best of science to inform their health practices. Jehovah's Witnesses generally followed the same path, though they could not embrace modern science as openly as the former two due to the literal reading of scripture's teachings on blood.
