Further Reflections on Ernest Angley

Further Reflections on Ernest Angley William E. McMahon and James B. Griffis rnest Angley was born in 1922 in Gastonia, North muttering inaudibly. In the latter the Reverend Angley points Carolina.' He credits his parents with giving him a strict to a section of the auditorium and says something like: "There Ereligious upbringing, which kept him from "sowing his are five people in this section suffering from high blood pres- wild oats" too much. He attended Lee College, a Church of sure. Receive the miracle." Presumably those five people are God institution in Cleveland, Tennessee, where he met his wife, then relieved of their hypertension. The service concludes with Esther Lee, nicknamed "Angel." He was never ordained, but a Pentecostal ritual in which the same verses are sung over and received a license to preach in 1943. After several years as a over for about thirty minutes. This has a hypnotic effect on traveling evangelist preaching in tents, Angley came to Akron, many people, who begin shaking and "speaking in tongues." A Ohio, in 1954. For three years he continued to preach in a tent notable resemblance between the Reverend Angley and the and sometimes in the old Liberty Theatre; then, in 1957, he old-time revivalists is that the healer, in this case Angley, is the built the Temple of Healing Stripes, renamed Grace Cathedral, sole attraction. Except for a brief introduction by the choir, in the Ellet area of Akron. Angley is the only performer, either sermonizing, healing, or Every Friday evening Angley holds a lengthy service at leading the congregation in speaking in tongues. Grace Cathedral; material from this service is condensed into a A typical production of his "award winning" television pro- one-hour weekly television program, the "Ernest Angley Hour." gram deletes the last part of the service and compresses the rest The Friday service begins with a musical prelude of about half into a one-hour format that includes a few minutes of singing, an hour. A zippy gospel style is employed to warm up the a twenty-five to thirty-minute condensation of the sermon, and audience. Angley then comes out and delivers a sermon that perhaps a half-dozen cases of healing, presumably the most usually runs about two hours, rambling rather aimlessly on striking examples. Angley periodically breaks in with appeals about such nebulous topics as "Trouble" and "The Way Unto for funds. God." Scripture is interpreted quite freely, and there is little In looking into the career of Ernest Angley and his impact substantive theology in the sermon. A key theme is the standard on the Akron area, we conferred with several people, notably revivalist one of the war between God and the devil, with Dr. Margaret Poloma, sociologist of religion at the University salvation coming from giving oneself wholly over to the Holy of Akron; the Reverend Bob Denton of the Furnace Street Spirit. A mildly puritanical view of morality is put forth as the Mission, whose father preceded Angley and Rex Humbard in audience is enjoined to avoid profanity and the sins of the the evangelical field in this area; and Laura Haferd, religion flesh. editor of the Akron Beacon Journal. We found that Angley The sermon is followed by a healing session of an hour or was regarded in a different light from the other televangelists, so, during which a number of alleged miracles occur. Alcoholics for several reasons: are cured; backs are healed; the lame move freely again. These 1. He keeps a low profile, and it is difficult to get informa- "miracles" occur either by the "slaying of the spirit," in which tion about him. We could find references to him in only two Angley lays his hand on the ailing person, or from a distance. recent books, Poloma's The Charismatic Movement' and Prime In the former the individual falls backward (usually with Time Preachers by Jeffrey Hadden and Charles Swann.' Except assistance) to the floor and many lie there quivering and for a recent article in Time,4 the mass media have generally ignored Angley. 2. Perhaps the main reason for his relative lack of notoriety William E. McMahon and James B. Griffis are both professors is that Angley is apolitical. He keeps his distance from the of philosophy at the University of Akron. They assisted the Religious Right. In 1984 he registered to vote for the first time Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Religion in its in many years, but gave no indication of his political prefer- investigation of Ernest Angley this past winter (see the Spring ences. He has not taken public stands on any issues of note, 1986 issue of FREE INQUIRY) and have conducted follow-up not even abortion. Whereas the claim by theologian Meredith studies in Akron. Sprunger that "religious and political fundamentalists ... draw within their own comfortable belief beds and pull the covers Summer 1986 15 over their heads pretending the rest of the world does not exist, or exists only as an aberration"' seems applicable to Angley, one cannot see him as fomenting hatred or bigotry. The congregation is racially mixed, and his message is relatively mild, i.e., hatred for sin but not any individual or group. 3. There is no evidence of mismanagement of the money taken in, or of its appropriation for personal use. What happens to it is not clear, but presumably much of it is plowed back into the television operation. The Reverend Denton told us that he had friends in the business world who admired the acumen of Angley and his associates; by contrast, Rex Hum- bard seemed incapable of avoiding financial difficulties, which led to his selling his television studio to Angley. Lately, how- ever, Angley has been requesting funding for an "outreach" effort to alleviate starvation in Africa. This operation is likely to face greater scrutiny, as do most relief projects that solicit public donations. 4. There is no obvious trickery at Angley's religious services, such as "curing" people who are known not to be ill, and no mind-reading fakery that we could detect. In short, religious sources in the Akron area appeared to regard Angley's presence as benign, and people who disagree with his style nevertheless believe him to be sincere. The If Angley were only in the entertainment business, the matter Reverend Denton, a more conventional clergyman than his could be left there. But the remaining possibility is of a more father, whose work with victims of crime is highly regarded in serious nature—that he is taking money under false pretenses the social services field, disbelieves in Angley's healing abilities by claiming to do something that he doesn't do and cannot but nevertheless thinks his religious services provide "valuable do—heal the sick. If that is the case, it does not suffice to say therapy" for needy people. (While we were at Grace Cathedral, that it's all right because at least he gives comfort to many Randi commented, "What we are seeing here is a sort of people. Nor does it constitute a justification to say that the morality play.") All of our sources agreed that Angley does not "healer" genuinely believes in the efficacy of his powers, or that advocate a social gospel, but Laura Haferd considers this irrele- most people believe in faith-healing. A recent survey of 560 vant, since this form of religion is aimed mainly at human people conducted by Dr. Poloma in the Akron area indicated desire for personal fulfillment. Dr. Poloma also distinguishes that 73 percent believe in faith-healing of one sort or another between personalistic and social forms of religion, the former and that 12 percent say they actually have been cured thereby placing emphasis on the affective component of experience, the of a "life threatening" ailment. Information of this sort is latter tending toward institutionalization and "creedalism."6 revealing with regard to attitudes, but has little cash value. Angley's irrationalist approach to Christianity is manifested At first glance the question of whether one has the capacity not only in his eschewing of theology but also in his contention to heal (or to be a vehicle for healing) appears to be a simple that the main way the devil corrupts us is through the mind. empirical one, but upon inspection the issue readily becomes Poloma thinks that healing plays a secondary role in this form murky. On the one hand, Dr. Poloma suggested to us that this of religion; what is primary is giving witness and experiencing formulation is a distortion, an attempt to dissociate the phe- conversion,' and as a charismatic Catholic, she sees merit in nomenon from its essential dependence on a context of religious this. experience, which evidently is construed as self-validating. On the other, assuming the existence of truly astounding recoveries "Angley (as do other television healers) claims to following upon faith-healing, one may be inclined to glibly have virtually a one-hundred-percent success write them off as due to psychosomatic causes. Thus on either side of the issue there is an opportunity for question begging, rate." and so we would like to try to clarify the matter somewhat, with special reference to Ernest Angley. iven these considerations, there remain two lines of possi- There is of course a twofold problem here: first with regard Gble criticism of Angley: The first is aesthetic, and as such to the data as such; and, second, regarding its interpretation. it can be dismissed on de gustibus grounds. The consensus is We can start with some simple statistical considerations.

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