The Transformation of Pentecostal Healing, 1906-2006 Joseph W

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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

THE TRANSFORMATION OF PENTECOSTAL HEALING, 1906-2006

JOSEPH W. WILLIAMS

A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Religion in Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2008

The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Joseph Williams defended on October 29, 2008.

______Amanda Porterfield Professor Directing Dissertation

______Frederick Davis Outside Committee Member

______John Corrigan Committee Member

______Grant Wacker Committee Member

Approved:

______John Corrigan, Chair, Department of Religion

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

For Karen

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Numerous individuals have contributed to this project. I am especially grateful to my dissertation adviser, Amanda Porterfield, for her constant encouragement and critical insight, and to the other members of my committee, John Corrigan, Grant Wacker, and Frederick Davis, who graciously lent their expertise at various stages of the writing process. I could not have asked for better mentors. Many other professors also helped guide me towards the successful completion of this dissertation. In particular, Curtis Evans, Martin Kavka, and Amy Koehlinger, all faculty in the Department of Religion at Florida State, provided helpful feedback as my ideas first began to take shape, while Ruth Schwartz Cowan, David Daniels, Kathleen Flake, and Sean McCloud responded to conference papers. Raynard Smith directed me to hard-to-find sources. I am also very thankful for fellow graduate students in the American Religious History track at Florida State who made graduate school a fun and engaging place to be: Kelly Baker, Todd Brenneman, Robert Britt-Mills, Laura Brock, Jeff Danese, Shawntel Ensminger, Michael Gueno, Tammy Heise, Katie Hladky, Shaun Horton, Jason Leto, Gene Mills, Michael Pasquier, Barton Price, Molly Reed, Arthur Remillard, Brooke Sherrard, and Howell Williams. In the course of my research I have had the good fortune of working with dedicated archivists and librarians who went out of their way to help me track down materials related to my research. Special thanks go to Mark Roberts and the staff at the Holy Spirit Research Center in Tulsa, OK; to Darrin Rodgers and the staff of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center in Springfield, MO; to David Roebuck and Susan Fletcher at the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center in Cleveland, TN; to Harold Hunter and the staff at the archives of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church in Bethany, OK; to Robert Shuster and Paul Erickson at the Billy Graham Center Archives in Wheaton, IL; and to Nurah-Rosalie Jeter at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City. I am also indebted to Reggie Jones and Velma Smith at Florida State University’s Strozier Library for their assistance—and patience—as I repeatedly exceeded my quota for interlibrary books. Financial assistance provided by Professor Ralph Berry and the selection committee for the Edward H. and Marie C. Kingsbury Award, as well as a dissertation research grant provided by the Florida State Office of Graduate Studies, helped make much of this research possible.

The greatest support I received over the past several years came from my family. My grandfather Ward Williams’s commitment to higher education paved the way for my current endeavors. Ruth and Thomas Atkinson, Don and Nina Helms, Joyce Strader, Jeane Sherman, Mary Jo Williams, and Grandma Russell always let me know that they were backing me 100 percent, frequently going out of their way to search their libraries and local used bookstores for books related to my topic, or driving down for extended baby-sitting visits that freed up large chunks of time for me to write (on this last count, I also want to thank “Aunt” Valerie for her repeated generosity). My brother David kept me humble throughout the entire process by reminding me that when all is said and done I still will not be a “real” doctor. My parents, Paul and Sofia Williams, and my in-laws, Paul and Shirley Furrow, provided a steady stream of encouragement even when the process took longer than I originally expected. Also, my beautiful daughter Elise, who had her first birthday a week before I defended the dissertation, provided great motivation for finishing this project even as she brought a level of joy to my life that I have never experienced. I love you sweet pea. Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to my wife Karen. More than anyone else she bore the brunt of my late-night writing sessions, and she witnessed firsthand my detachment from this world as I got lost in pentecostal periodicals and healing tracts. Thank you for loving me through it all. My life simply does not make sense without you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Abbreviations ...... vii Abstract ...... viii

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

1. “MAKING MEDICINE SPIRITUAL”: THE MEDICALIZATION OF PENTECOSTAL HEALING ...... 16

2. THE BIBLE CURE: ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN PENTECOSTAL AND CHARISMATIC HEALING ...... 59

3. WEIGHTLESS IN THE SPIRIT: DIET, FITNESS AND HEALTH IN THE PENTECOSTAL TRADITION ...... 95

4. MINDING THE SPIRIT: THE MIND AND PSYCHOLOGY IN PENTECOSTAL AND CHARISMATIC HEALING...... 135

5. HEALING THE WOUNDS OF THE MODERN WORLD: PENTECOSTAL HEALING IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY ...... 181

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 204

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 232

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

American Standard Version (ASV)

King James Version (KJV)

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

New International Version (NIV)

Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM)

Oral Roberts University (ORU)

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ABSTRACT

This dissertation traces changes in pentecostal healing practices within the United States since pentecostalism’s inception in the early 1900s. Though divine healing has always served as a hallmark of pentecostal spirituality, changing demographics, the appearance of charismatic renewal, and other trends at work within American society set the stage for many within the movement to adapt their healing practices to complement and at times co-opt healing methods prominent within the broader culture. Claims of dramatic divine interventions by no means disappeared, yet the strident denunciations of the medical profession characteristic of early pentecostalism gave way to an unabashed embrace of “natural” healing methods associated with the use of medicine, natural substances, and to a certain degree psychology. The naturalization of divine healing within the movement signified a profound shift away from key aspects of the original pentecostal vision of healing. Whereas early pentecostals typically condemned reliance on medicines, mental healing, or various other natural means of healing, in the second half of the twentieth century healers combined divine healing with traditional medicine, alternative medicine, as well as psychology and psychoanalysis. Despite the very real transformation of divine healing at work among pentecostals and charismatics, both early believers and their successors frequently adopted a form of metaphysical spirituality that resisted thoroughgoing materialism even as it allowed for the Spirit’s manifestation in and through the natural world. When believers in the latter half of the twentieth century discovered new ways in which modern medicine and other natural means could coincide with their belief in supernatural agency, however, the metaphysical assumptions that implicitly informed early pentecostals’ conceptions of the Spirit’s work became increasingly explicit. By the latter decades of the twentieth century pentecostals and charismatics wholeheartedly participated in the creation of a modern therapeutic culture of spiritually infused materialism that was fully mainstream. Believers’ appropriation of medicine on their own terms contributed to and reflected adherents’ successful transition from the margins of American society to their current position as an arbiter of the faith of millions of Americans.

viii

INTRODUCTION

1 It is important to note that the term “natural” is by no means a self-evident concept. Though my use of the term here encompasses the use of medicines, individuals discussed throughout this dissertation frequently distinguished their “natural” approaches to healing from the “invasive,” “synthetic,” and “technological” substances and practices employed by orthodox physicians. Defining just what constitutes a natural remedy, however, proves a highly subjective enterprise. As James Whorton notes, “Natural is also pliable, a value-laden concept capable of being stretched to encompass all manner of subjective notions of purity, beauty, and truth. Systems of health promotion based on the reformer’s ideas of what is ‘natural’ thus tend to leap beyond science to become hygienic religions, religions charged with health commandments demonstrable only by faith and crowned with physical rewards unattainable to nonbelievers,” James C. Whorton, “Patient, Heal Thyself: Popular Health Reform Movements as Unorthodox Medicine,” in Other Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America, ed. Norman Gevitz (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 80.

depicted divine healing as a marriage of medicine and spirituality. Other enterprising individuals promoted forms of alternative medicine under the banner of divine healing. Still others combined supernatural healing with psychology and psychoanalysis. In each of these cases adherents within the movement increasingly stressed God’s work through humans and nature. Despite the very real transformation of divine healing at work among pentecostals and charismatics, a connective thread united believers’ approach to healing throughout the movement’s history. Both early believers and their successors frequently adopted a form of metaphysical spirituality that resisted thoroughgoing materialism even as it allowed for the Spirit’s manifestation in and through the natural world. For all of early pentecostals’ denunciations of natural healing methods and for all of their focus on the role of spiritual warfare in the healing process, the saints were actually quite comfortable describing the Holy Spirit in physical terms and in viewing the human body and physical objects as bearers of God’s healing power. Metaphysical assumptions implicitly informed their conceptions of the Spirit’s work; this inclination to collapse sharp distinctions between supernatural and natural realms helps explain why so many pentecostal believers in the second half of the twentieth century joined in with their charismatic successors in embracing natural healing methods.2 Once believers discovered new ways in which modern medicine and other natural means could coincide with their belief in supernatural agency, their affinities to metaphysical forms of spirituality became increasingly explicit. By the latter decades of the twentieth century pentecostals and charismatics wholeheartedly participated in the creation of a modern therapeutic culture of

2 For surveys of American religion that incorporate significant discussion of the history of metaphysical religion in the United States, see esp. Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); Robert C. Fuller, Alternative Medicine and American Religious Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); and Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, & Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). My use of the term “metaphysical” and “metaphysical religion” draws in particular on the work of Catherine Albanese. Albanese identifies the American metaphysical tradition with the following four traits: 1. A preoccupation with the mind—broadly defined—and its powers. 2. A confidence in the theory of correspondence wherein the visible world proves a microcosm of powers and essences within the universe (and thus proves a key point of contact for accessing immaterial realities). 3. A focus on movement and energy. 4. A “yearning for salvation understood as solace, comfort, therapy, and healing.” See Albanese, Republic of Mind and Spirit, 13-16, 399-412.

spiritually infused materialism that was fully mainstream.3 Believers’ appropriation of medicine on their own terms and their revaluation of themes implicitly present in the earliest expressions of the movement both contributed to and reflected adherents’ successful transition from the margins of American society to their current position as an arbiter of the faith of millions of Americans.

The Transformation of Pentecostal Healing Considering early pentecostals’ strident denunciations of all natural remedies, it is tempting to view early pentecostal healing as a reflection of believers’ elevation of the spiritual world over and above the natural world. Throughout the movement’s history, in fact, resistance to thoroughgoing materialism proved a perennial theme. Believers distrusted anything that seemed to diminish God’s active intervention in their lives or to deny the need for individuals to place their physical wellbeing in God’s hands. Furthermore, the strong emphasis on the connections between sin and sickness and on spiritual warfare in the healing process resisted naturalistic explanations of disease and its cure. At the same time, as later pentecostals shed their opposition to natural means of healing, they brought to the fore longstanding pentecostal affinities to metaphysical conceptions of healing wherein the human body and natural substances transmitted divine power. Metaphysical religions in the United States such as Mesmerism, New Thought, and a variety of other alternative healing traditions typically collapsed stark distinctions between supernatural and natural realms. Practitioners within these traditions were indebted especially to the theories of figures such as Emanuel Swedenborg who denied any sharp division between natural and spiritual worlds, or between visible and invisible spheres of the cosmos. Instead Swedenborg posited an inherent correspondence between these “layers” of reality. Metaphysical believers usually described physical and spiritual realms as intrinsically “made of the same stuff,” as one historian writes, which in turn allowed for a vision of the natural world as permeated with divine

3 Here I define materialism simply as a focus on this world in contrast to a focus on an otherworldly supernatural realm. I am not using the term in the stronger, philosophical sense, which indicates a belief that only the physical world actually exists, nor am I using it to suggest a preoccupation with worldly possessions, though a thisworldly focus often does reinforce consumerist tendencies.

energy.4 In highlighting the inherent similarities uniting the physical and spiritual worlds, advocates of metaphysical religion encouraged a more impersonal notion of the supernatural as a realm of reality that followed predictable laws and patterns. By learning the nature of these spiritual laws and patterns, then, practitioners could reliably tap into this source of power just as scientists could learn the laws of physics and then harness those principles for their own purposes. In fact, metaphysical traditions in the United States frequently cast their theories as a form of science, as can be seen in Mary Baker Eddy’s promotion of mental healing under the banner of Christian Science. More important, such an explicit combination of scientific claims with overt supernaturalism allowed believers to tap into the cultural authority of scientific knowledge while simultaneously critiquing thoroughgoing naturalistic and rationalistic assumptions. Aspects of early pentecostal healing overlapped considerably with metaphysical healing practices. Just as metaphysical practitioners frequently focused on the supernatural power coursing through the physical world, so early believers posited the human body and physical objects such as Bibles, ministry periodicals, and pieces of cloth as potential transmitters of divine power. Other pentecostals articulated visions of healing prioritizing the role of the mind and of speech as key conduits of the supernatural in the healing process. Moreover, early pentecostal conceptions of the Holy Spirit frequently approximated metaphysical notions of the universe that tended to treat the supernatural as an impersonal force governed by discernable spiritual laws. A few of the saints even went so far as to describe the Spirit’s work utilizing the language of science.5 In short, when pentecostals and charismatics explicitly spiritualized natural means of healing in the latter decades of the twentieth century, they accentuated metaphysical themes that had been implicit within the early movement. In essence, they reprioritized traditional emphases: deliverance from evil spirits and appeals for direct divine intervention increasingly

4 The terminology used to refer to this divine energy varied, as Catherine Albanese notes, ranging from references to the Infinite Mind, to Truth, to Idea, to Nature, et cetera, Albanese, Republic of Mind and Spirit, 13-14.

5 All of these affinities between pentecostalism and metaphysical religion are explored in more detail throughout the dissertation.

shared the spotlight with an emphasis on human agency and on the Spirit’s ability to work through natural substances.

Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing within Modern American Culture The history of the relationship between divine healing and natural healing within the pentecostal tradition provides a particularly valuable vantage point for assessing pentecostals’ relationship to modern American culture. As it happens, healing was frequently just as important a marker of early pentecostal spirituality as was speaking in tongues or believers’ closely related emphasis on Christ’s soon return.6 Furthermore, whereas very few outsiders offered competing versions of tongues, conventional doctors, alternative practitioners, and other religious healers supplied a steady stream of competing practical solutions to a wide variety of ailments, as well as competing conceptual frameworks for making sense of the nature illness.7 The rising prestige of the medical profession along with a continued obsession with health and fitness within American culture throughout the twentieth century ensured that pentecostals would repeatedly need to address how their understanding of divine healing fit with the rapid technological and scientific advances shaping modern health practices in the United States. The story of healing in the movement also adds new insight into the complex relationship between pentecostals and their charismatic successors. From the start of the movement in the early 1900s, pentecostals stood apart from other American Protestants based on their insistence that every believer should experience a subsequent work of grace following salvation, referred to as the baptism in the Holy Spirit, that was accompanied by speaking in tongues.8 Pentecostals

6 As the historian Grant Wacker writes, “Modern Pentecostals commonly distinguish themselves from other Protestants by the doctrine and practice of speaking in tongues. This represents a certain loss of historical memory, for an overview of the early literature leaves little doubt that in the beginning divine healing was, if not equally distinctive, at least equally important,” Grant Wacker, “The Pentecostal Tradition,” in Caring and Curing, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Darrel W. Amundsen (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986), 520-21.

7 Throughout the dissertation I use a variety of terms to contrast the forms of medicine practiced by MDs with their competitors. As an indication of MDs’ greater numbers and their claims to purely scientific forms of healing, I use terms such as conventional, mainstream, and orthodox medicine to distinguish their methods from rival healing models on the American healing scene, which I label using terms such as alternative, natural, and unorthodox medicine.

8 In the words of the historian Allan Anderson, most early pentecostal testimonies “spoke of a longing for the [baptism in the Holy Spirit], followed by extreme physical sensations and feelings of

were about much more than just tongues, however. The Spirit showered a wide array of spiritual gifts on the saints, including the ability to prophesy regarding the future, to supernaturally know things they had no reason to know, and to watch illness retreat as they prayed. Pentecostal denominations sprang up beginning in the 1910s, and with the appearance of the charismatic movement in the second half of the twentieth century pentecostal emphases became much more prominent in the historic churches as well as in independent congregations. Observers of the movement typically cast pentecostalism and the charismatic movement as part of a similar impulse towards experiential, supernatural Christianity, yet highlight significant differences that separated pentecostals and charismatics. While charismatics shared pentecostals’ stress on the empowerment of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life and similarly practiced the spiritual gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12, not all charismatics shared pentecostals’ clear prioritization of tongues as the necessary mark of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Instead, many formulated their understanding of the baptism in the Holy Spirit in relation to pre-existing theological frameworks within their particular tradition.9 Furthermore, many pentecostals saw their denominations as the only true bastions of the “full gospel message” while

elation, and culminating in a release usually involving speaking in tongues,” see Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 197-98. Though pentecostals’ insistence that tongues accompany the baptism in the Holy Spirit was unique, the language of the baptism in the Holy Spirit circulated widely among evangelicals during the latter decades of the nineteenth century. See esp. Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Francis Asbury, 1987), 87-113.

9 Dennis Bennett’s declaration to his Episcopal congregation in Van Nuys, CA, on April 3, 1960, that he experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit and spoke “in other tongues” is often highlighted as a useful historical marker signifying the emergence of the charismatic movement. News of Bennett’s controversial announcement spread rapidly via articles in Newsweek (July 4, 1960) and Time (August 15, 1960). For useful overviews of the charismatic movement, see Stanley M. Burgess, “Charismatic Revival and Renewal,” in Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America, ed. Michael James McClymond (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 99-102; Peter Hocken, “Charismatic Movement,” in The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Ed M. Van der Maas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2002), 477-519; Margaret M. Poloma, The Charismatic Movement: Is There a New Pentecost? (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982); and Richard Quebedeaux, The New Charismatics II, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983). For brief yet useful summaries of the various theological positions pentecostals and charismatics argued in relation to tongues, see Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism, 192-95; Vinson Synan, The Holiness- Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 254-55. For a collection of articles addressing speaking in tongues from a variety of exegetical, historical, theological, and social scientific perspectives, see Watson E. Mills, Speaking in Tongues: A Guide to Research on Glossolalia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986).

many charismatics resisted identification with pentecostals, who were often perceived as social outcasts.10 Important social and cultural differences often did separate pentecostals from charismatics. As various phenomena associated with pentecostal services gained greater prominence within mainline Protestant, Episcopalian, and Catholic churches, large numbers of individuals hailing from a solidly middle class background swelled the ranks of the faithful. Whereas early pentecostals were stereotyped as poor, uneducated individuals, a number of whom were minorities, charismatics—at least during the initial surge of charismatic renewal—were on the whole white, frequently well-educated, and economically comfortable.11 Not surprisingly, at times historians key in on demographic markers to distinguish pentecostals from charismatics. Richard Quebedeaux, for example, depicts pentecostals as sectarian, flamboyant, marginalized and anti-intellectual; charismatics, he claims, tended to be ecumenical, more reserved, “mainstream,” and intellectually sophisticated. For Quebedeaux many of these differences boiled down to basic socioeconomic, educational, as well as racial dissimilarities that produced very different models of the spirit-filled life.12 In his history of healing among pentecostals and charismatics, David Edwin Harrell Jr. draws on similar distinctions to make sense of pentecostals and charismatics’ differing approaches to healing. He chronicles the explosive growth of numerous independent pentecostal healing ministries beginning in the 1940s, and their rapid decline by the end of the 1950s. As

10 For further discussion of the antagonism that existed between some pentecostals and charismatics, see Edith Waldvogel Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 222-41; David Edwin Harrell, All Things Are Possible: The Healing & Charismatic Revivals in Modern America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975), esp. 231-33; and Quebedeaux, New Charismatics II, 208-10.

11 As Virginia Hine wrote in 1969, it was now clear that one of the trademarks of pentecostal spirituality, speaking in tongues, occurred “also among well-educated, socially successful, and well- adjusted, socially successful, and well-adjusted personality types,” Virginia H. Hine, “Pentecostal Glossolalia: Toward a Functional Interpretation,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 8, no. 2 (1969): 224. Specifically regarding race, despite the fact that many observers identified the charismatic renewal as a largely white, middle-class phenomenon, as Scott Billingsley notes, African Americans also figured prominently within the charismatic movement beginning especially in the 1980s. See Scott Billingsley, It’s a New Day: Race and Gender in the Modern Charismatic Movement (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2008).

12 Quebedeaux, New Charismatics II, 175-92.

deliverance evangelists garnered smaller and smaller crowds, a few perpetuated healing crusades replete with dramatic deliverances from sickness-causing demons, but others adapted their message to accord with the more subdued middle-class sensibilities represented by charismatics in the historic churches who were warming to pentecostal forms of spirituality. Harrell highlights figures such as Gordon Lindsay, Morris Cerullo, and especially Oral Roberts as prominent players in the mid-century revivals who successfully adapted their ministries to appeal to the burgeoning charismatic renewal. Though Harrell never suggests that these figures abandoned their pentecostal backers, his work frequently reinforces a sharp differentiation between pentecostals’ predilection for flamboyant revivalism when compared with charismatics’ desire for intellectually sophisticated articulations of the healing message.13 Several factors caution against drawing too sharp of a division between pentecostals and charismatics. For one, as Harrell himself argues, pentecostals played an important role in spreading their form of spirituality beyond traditional pentecostal denominations. In addition to his discussion of mid-century healing revivalists who transitioned towards more reserved, ecumenical ministries, Harrell also describes other leaders with pentecostal backgrounds whose emphasis on healing attracted a significant charismatic audience, including Derek Prince, Kenneth Hagin, and David Wilkerson.14 In a similar vein, the pentecostal businessman Demos Shakarian organized the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International in 1951 as an interdenominational vehicle for spreading the “full gospel” message among professionals, while figures such as the South African-born pentecostal David du Plessis broke ranks with fellow pentecostals by cheering the ecumenism characteristic of the charismatic movement and working to establish a dialogue with believers in the historic churches.15 Numerous pentecostals also contributed directly to the spiritual experiences of Catholic charismatics and others in the

13 Harrell, All Things Are Possible, esp. 165-68, 206-8, 150-59.

14 For further discussion of pentecostals who successfully adapted their ministries to provide leadership within the charismatic movement, see Ibid., esp. 138-93. Harrell’s student, Scott Billingsley, follows his mentor in this regard, claiming matter-of-factly that the “healing revival spawned the charismatic movement,” Billingsley, It’s a New Day, 22.

15 See esp. Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 222-41; and Peter Hocken, Streams of Renewal, rev. ed. (Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster Press, 1997), esp. 1-4. Hocken’s study focuses primarily on pentecostals and charismatics in Britain, yet his history frequently incorporates related developments in the United States and elsewhere. Also see Hocken, “Charismatic Movement,” 477-519.

mainline churches such as Harald Bredesen and Agnes Sanford. All of these activities helped pave the way for the rapid spread of pentecostal-style spirituality within the historic churches.16 Interpreters who posit sharp differentiations between pentecostals and charismatics also overlook the rising socioeconomic status of the average pentecostal since World War II.17 According to the historian Grant Wacker, even in the early movement a “conspicuous minority” of pentecostal leaders “plainly enjoyed upper-middle-class standing,” or “at least a solidly middle-class position.”18 As the century progressed, more and more pentecostals achieved similar levels of status and wealth. The formation of groups such as the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship graphically illustrated the growing number of professionals within pentecostal circles. These trends only accelerated in the ensuing decades. By the 1970s and 80s pentecostals such as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Bakker presided over multimillion dollar media empires. In the words of historian Edith Blumhofer, “[M]any pentecostals enjoyed seeing their own become stars. . . . [T]hey took pride in and lavished funds on those who gave them visibility and reshaped their public image.” Whereas early pentecostals embraced a holiness ethic that eschewed worldly indulgences, later generations “seemed inclined to revel in possessions and to find appealing emphases that emanated from independent Pentecostal centers urging the reasonableness of health and wealth for believers.”19 Blumhofer’s comments regarding

16 While I highlight pentecostals’ contributions to the charismatic renewal, it is important to recognize the way in which the charismatic movement built on precedents within the historic churches as well. Synan addresses both pentecostals’ contributions to the charismatic movement and also highlights some of the trends in the historic churches in Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition, esp. 220-52. Also see Quebedeaux, New Charismatics II, esp. 59-63; and Hocken, Streams of Renewal, esp. 50-55, 189-92.

17 Harrell mentions the rising socioeconomic status of pentecostals as a key factor facilitating the rise of the mid-century independent healing ministries, yet he consistently attributes the more subdued form of healing within the movement to the impact of charismatics as opposed to internal dynamics among traditional pentecostals, Harrell, All Things Are Possible, esp. 19-21, 144-49.

18 Though a much smaller percentage of “rank-and-file” believers achieved a high level of wealth, education, or profession, Wacker stresses that even here the “typical convert paralleled the demographic and biographical profile of the typical American in most though not quite all respects,” Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 197-216, quotations 203, 205. Recent research by R. G. Robins and Randall Stephens corroborates Wacker’s claims. See R.G. Robins, A.J. Tomlinson: Plainfolk Modernist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 31; and Randall J. Stephens, The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 206-7.

19 Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 254-60, quotation 256.

pentecostals’ changing socioeconomic status and her reference to pentecostal purveyors of prosperity teachings point to the ways in which pentecostals themselves and not just charismatics both participated in and contributed to the mainstreaming of pentecostal spirituality. In the second half of the twentieth century numerous pentecostals proved more than ready to shed the strictures of holiness orthodoxy and instead enjoy new forms of spirituality simultaneously in tune with the work of the Spirit and with the dictates of American consumer and therapeutic culture. Specifically regarding the innovative healing rituals described in this dissertation, the appearance of more sophisticated practices merging divine healing with traditional medicine, alternative medicine, as well as psychology cannot be attributed solely to the impact of charismatics on pentecostal healing. While it is true that many charismatics lacked pentecostals’ traditional ambivalence towards the medical profession, psychology, and higher education, and while it is true that these traits played an important role in the naturalization of healing within the movement, too much of a focus on the distinctions between pentecostals and charismatics misses the way in which changing demographics among pentecostals as well as their changing attitudes towards medical science helped set the stage for naturalized healing regimens by the end of the twentieth century. More important, it misses the way in which the naturalization of divine healing among adherents reinforced impulses already at work in early pentecostal circles. In each of the chapters within this dissertation I attempt to do justice to the profound shift in pentecostal attitudes towards the role of the natural world in the healing process without losing sight of the connective threads uniting pentecostals’ healing practices throughout the twentieth century. Chapter 1, “Making Medicine Spiritual: The Medicalization of Pentecostal Healing,” traces the dramatic transformation of early pentecostals’ staunch repudiation of the medical establishment into later believers’ widespread support of the use of medicine. Several factors contributed to early pentecostals’ rejection of physicians, but one of the most important points of resistance involved pentecostals’ rejection of the thoroughgoing materialism that they associated with the medical profession. Even as pentecostals adapted their healing practices to accord with medical findings later in the century, in fact, this same resistance to purely naturalistic explanations of the universe remained a prominent theme. What did change was pentecostals and their charismatic successors’ willingness to reconfigure their understanding of healing to

encompass God working through medicines and doctors. In particular, a number of prominent healers within pentecostal and charismatic circles utilized the language of holistic healing to retain their commitment to supernatural forms of healing while also affirming the validity of medical science. No one in the movement better represented (or disseminated) these developments than Oral Roberts, who repeatedly called for a merger of medicine and spiritual healing and built a medical school, hospital, and research center with that very goal in mind. Chapter 2, “The Bible Cure: Alternative Medicine in Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing,” expands on the argument delineated in Chapter 1 by tracing the development of Roberts’s legacy among later healers within the movement who shared his passion for merging scientific and spiritual forms of healing. Whereas Roberts sought to combine divine healing with orthodox medicine, his successors tapped into the popularity of alternative medicine and in particular naturopathy, a form of healing predicated on the healing powers inherent within natural substances and the human body. Pentecostals and charismatics would steadfastly resist any overt pantheistic rhetoric, yet prominent healers in the movement nevertheless shared naturopaths’ reverence for the power of all things natural to produce health and healing. As it happens, pentecostal healing had always reflected many of the same impulses that fueled the popularity of alternative medicine, such as their openness to the impact of immaterial forces working in and through the body and their holistic focus on the interconnections between physical and spiritual wellbeing. Moreover, early pentecostal conceptions of the Holy Spirit frequently approximated other metaphysical assumptions prevalent in alternative medicine, including a tendency to depict the supernatural as an impersonal force governed by discernable spiritual laws and a repudiation of dualistic inclinations that treat the natural and supernatural as starkly different entities. In short, pentecostals and charismatics’ turn to natural healing methods cultivated new, explicitly metaphysical approaches to divine healing that nevertheless drew on long-standing tendencies implicit within the early movement. Chapter 3, “Weightless in the Spirit: Pentecostal Healing and American Fitness Culture,” charts the changing role of the body in pentecostal spirituality, especially in terms of its relationship to the traditional spiritual discipline of fasting. Drawing on their close ties to the holiness movement of the nineteenth century, early adherents typically disciplined the body to enhance their spiritual power and their standing before God. As demographic changes within the movement took hold and as emphases associated with the Word of Faith branch of

pentecostalism spread, however, later believers increasingly participated in a broader evangelical diet culture focused the creation of thin, fit bodies. Such trends carried forward the longstanding ascetic impulse within the movement as well as pentecostals’ commitment to the Spirit’s ability to interact with and heal the body, but they also elevated the body to a new level of prominence. Never before had physical appearance served as such a clear indicator of the Spirit’s activity. Never to the same degree had spiritual warfare revolved around making spiritual perfection visible in the physical realm. More important, by exteriorizing the Spirit’s empowerment of the body believers further cemented their commitment to a form of spiritually infused materialism that dovetailed neatly with mainstream currents in American society. Chapter 4, “Minding the Spirit: Psychology and the Mind in Pentecostal Healing,” examines pentecostals and charismatics’ appropriation of mental and psychological forms of healing. Despite early pentecostals’ evident antagonism towards rival healing groups and in particular towards mind-cure proponents such as Christian Science, mental forms of healing— mediated through the teachings of individuals who had been exposed to New Thought emphases—would make an indelible impact on adherents’ approaches to healing by the latter half of the century. In fact, as with other aspects of metaphysical religion, New Thought assumptions were not entirely foreign to the early movement. The insistence by divine healing advocates and early pentecostals that believers confidently expect physical healings despite the presence of countervailing symptoms closely resembled mind-cure adherents’ emphasis on the power of positive thinking and affirmative prayers. Where most early adherents hinted at the importance of the mind and speech in healing, later healers left no doubt. Word of Faith ministers such as Kenneth Hagin confidently promoted their “new” insights into biblical truths regarding the power of “positive confession”; healers associated with the inner healing movement appropriated concepts directly from secular psychology. Though very different in many respects, for healers within both of these branches of the pentecostal and charismatic movement the mind served as a key point of contact transmitting divine power to the body and emotions. At the end of the day, the ultimate responsibility for healing still lay with the Spirit, but the innovations represented by these trends further “naturalized” and “humanized” divine healing by accentuating the role of human agency in the healing process to an unprecedented degree.

Chapter 5, “Healing the Wounds of the Modern World: Pentecostal Healing in the Late Twentieth Century,” highlights the practical implications of pentecostals and charismatics’ embrace of metaphysical forms of healing over the course of twentieth century. On the one hand, by combining divine healing with medical, dietary, and psychological therapies, believers made the healing process more predictable and therefore marketable. Not surprisingly, many of the figures discussed throughout this dissertation discovered new ways to package divine healing—whether as dietary supplements, exercise products, or countless self-help books—and sell their merchandise both inside and outside traditional pentecostal and charismatic circles. This consumerization of healing within the movement points to the significant degree of acculturation at work in the transformation of pentecostal healing over the course of the twentieth century. Acculturation and accommodation are only part of the story, however. More often than not the pentecostal and charismatic healers discussed in this dissertation did more than just appropriate and market key aspects of traditional medicine, alternative medicine, and psychological forms of healing. Rather, they explicitly sought to Christianize these rival healing practices by merging them with divine healing. In this respect, New Thought spirituality, alternative medicine as well as the broader holistic healing movement all served as models of a spiritually infused materialism capable of claiming the authority of science while still allowing for the role of immaterial forces interacting with the body. In borrowing a page out of the playbook of rival metaphysical healers in American culture, adherents worked in very intentional ways to minimize the perceived conflict between their own commitment to supernatural intervention in human affairs and the scientific, materialist currents prominent in American culture. They attempted no less than to heal the wounds of the modern world. The resulting innovations in pentecostal healing illustrated the explicit coming together of pentecostal spirituality with mainstream American culture—a transformation that played a crucial role in believers’ transition from a religious fringe movement to a major player in American religion and in American culture more broadly. Pentecostals openly embraced the modern world like never before—that is, as long it was baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Loose ends, Caveats, and Disclaimers The various chapters of this dissertation cover the gamut of American pentecostal and charismatic Christianity throughout the twentieth century, variously addressing trends associated with denominational pentecostalism, independent healing evangelists and writers, Word of Faith groups, and charismatic Catholic and Episcopal healers. Without denying the ambitious nature of this project, there are specific ways in which I have tried to limit its scope. First, this study is not meant to reflect an exhaustive catalogue of healing within the pentecostal movement throughout the twentieth century. Rather, each chapter highlights different examples of prominent healers’ increasingly explicit spiritualization of natural means of healing. Though I insert comments throughout the dissertation acknowledging the fact that adherents frequently participated selectively in the developments I describe—spiritualized forms of psychology, for example, encountered stiff resistance from various segments of the movement—at the end of the day my goal is to chronicle the dramatic changes at work in the healing practices of numerous adherents, focusing mostly on the writings of well-known pentecostal and charismatic leaders. In a related vein, while I certainly discuss pentecostals’ indebtedness to nineteenth- century divine healing advocates, I do not provide sustained analysis of the emergence of divine healing among late-nineteenth century evangelicals or address in-depth the ways they anticipated pentecostals’ approach to scientific forms of healing. Here, the history of medicine in the United States loomed large in my decision. In particular, many of the advances in medical science during the nineteenth century did not begin to pay significant dividends in terms of therapeutic practice until the early twentieth century, and it was not until the 1920s that the medical establishment effectively established its monopoly over the American healing marketplace. Prior to this time, religious healers and other unorthodox practitioners frequently dismissed orthodox physicians as opportunistic frauds peddling ineffective or downright dangerous medicines. For their part, divine healing advocates and many pentecostal healers could also point to the sheer multiplicity of natural healing methods and theories as evidence of the unreliable nature of so- called scientific approaches to healing. With the dramatic successes and attendant prestige accorded to the medical establishment beginning in the early decades of the twentieth century, however, dismissing scientific healing methods as inferior and ineffective became much more difficult. Much more than had been the case during the late nineteenth-century, believers during the twentieth century experienced a sharp tension between their advocacy of divine healing and

modern healing options linked to increasingly reliable thisworldly remedies. Focusing on pentecostal forms of healing during the twentieth century allows me to zero in on the various innovations that developed in Christian divine healing in the United States in large part as responses to this increased tension. A third factor narrowing the scope of the dissertation involves its focus on areas of continuity between the early movement and later developments. Whenever possible I have spotlighted pentecostal figures whose ministries anticipated later changes in the broader movement such as Oral Roberts, Franklin Hall, and healing evangelists influenced by the teachings of E. W. Kenyon. As these names suggest, because most of the innovation in pentecostal healing over the course of the twentieth century occurred outside of the formal control of traditional pentecostal denominations, I focus on independent ministries much more than on the official denominational pronouncements regarding healing. Furthermore, in order to bolster my argument regarding the connections between early pentecostal healing and its successors, when I discuss charismatic groups and individuals who operated outside of explicitly pentecostal contexts I have tried to focus on figures who managed to disseminate their views via communication outlets known to attract a high proportion of pentecostal readers and viewers (representative mediums include Charisma magazine and the Trinity Broadcast Network). Finally, it is no accident that this dissertation is entitled “The Transformation of Pentecostal Healing” as opposed to “The Transformation of Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing.” Despite the fact that I address various charismatic healers who reworked pentecostal emphases, and despite the fact that numerous sources of influence contributed to pentecostals and charismatics’ evolving attitudes regarding healing, at the end of the day the seeds of these changes were already present within the early movement. Though healing practices changed significantly as believers increasingly embraced modern science and an emphasis on the natural world, pentecostals and charismatics at the end of the century accentuated and intensified aspects of the pentecostal DNA that could already be discerned among believers during the early 1900s. Pentecostals throughout the twentieth century discovered innovative ways to baptize the natural world in the Holy Spirit; believers in the latter decades of the twentieth century simply did so much more explicitly than their forbearers.

CHAPTER ONE

“MAKING MEDICINE SPIRITUAL”: THE MEDICALIZATION OF PENTECOSTAL HEALING

Early pentecostals proved no friend of the medical profession at the turn of the twentieth century. In a “Questions Answered” section of a 1908 issue of Apostolic Faith, the flagship periodical of the early movement, the editor responded to the direct question: “Do you teach that it is wrong to take medicine?” The answer, most likely penned by the early revival leader William Seymour, was simple and to the point. “Yes,” he wrote, “Medicine is for unbelievers.” The acceptable “remedy for the saints of God,” on the other hand, involved prayer and the anointing of the sick with oil as detailed in James 5:14.1 Fast-forward nearly one hundred years and the contrast between early pentecostals and their later descendants is readily apparent. During the last decades of the twentieth century, medical professionals came to populate the ranks of pentecostal and charismatic churches, pentecostal denominations and organizations sent out medical missionaries, and formally licensed medical doctors frequently taught and wrote on healing for pentecostal and charismatic audiences. Whereas early pentecostal healing focused mainly on the role of faith-filled prayer, believers in the latter half of the twentieth century felt comfortable seeking out expert medical advice regarding their illnesses even as they prayed

1 Apostolic Faith 1, no. 11 (Oct-Jan 1908): 2. The Apostolic Faith [Calif.] periodical was published out of the Azusa Mission in Los Angeles. Printed from 1906 through 1908, the periodical sought to invigorate the faithful and attract sympathetic observers to the pentecostal message during the earliest days of the pentecostal revivals. Reaching a circulation of 40,000, it has been dubbed “the pentecostal revival’s flagship periodical.” Scholars have long believed that William J. Seymour, one of the key founders of the early movement, edited the papers, though it is likely that Clara E. Lum assisted Seymour and should be seen as co-editor. For more regarding the origins and publishing history of the periodical, see Edith L. Blumhofer and Grant Wacker, “Who Edited the Azusa Apostolic Faith Papers?” Assemblies of God Heritage 21 (2001): 15-21.

fervently for divine intervention. Even more significant, popular healers within the movement such as Oral Roberts called for a merger of scientific and spiritual healing. It is important to note that the transformation of pentecostals’ attitudes towards medicine should not be read as a sudden, newfound appreciation of science and its benefits. Scientific and technological advances fascinated early pentecostals. Though they frequently rejected medical science, many did so precisely because they viewed it as bad science, believing that doctors peddled fraudulent medicines and practices that frequently did more harm than good. Such sentiments reflected the state of the medical establishment at the turn of the twentieth century even as they reinforced the deep-seated class conflicts that separated pentecostals from the emerging professional class of doctors. As medical science garnered success after success over the course of the twentieth century, however, and as pentecostals themselves improved their socioeconomic status, two of the main barriers to believers’ use of medicines and physicians crumbled. In the process, a radically different relationship between medical professionals and pentecostals emerged, as did new, explicitly metaphysical forms of healing combining scientific insights with a confidence in God’s healing power. In cultivating metaphysical forms of healing, pentecostals and charismatics recapitulated another major plank supporting early pentecostals’ denunciation of medical science, namely their rejection of thoroughgoing materialism. As adherents warmed to the medical establishment in the latter decades of the twentieth century such sentiments certainly became less pronounced, but they did not disappear. Instead, pentecostal and charismatic saints appropriated medical healing practices on their own terms. These later believers perpetuated their predecessors’ resistance to de-supernaturalized conceptions of the world by highlighting the continued importance of spiritual wellbeing for physical health, by affirming God’s use of physicians and medicines to heal, and by insisting that God was still very willing to bypass any thisworldly means of cure. As such, advocates of holistic healing who stressed the spiritual dimensions of health proved natural allies for pentecostals and their charismatic successors, and the language of holism provided a context in which many healers in the movement retained their resistance to naturalism while still adapting to modern healing methodologies. Pentecostal healing changed drastically over the course of the twentieth century, but God remained intimately tied to the healing process.

Early Pentecostals and the Medical Establishment Deep antagonism characterized pentecostals’ relationship with orthodox physicians in the early 1900s. When the early pentecostal evangelist and historian of the movement Frank Bartleman endured a series of illnesses, he confidently proclaimed, “I never feared disease and vermin in the work [among the poor in the slums]. And God kept me. I threw away my own medicine bottles of which I had several when I was first converted, and had never heard of Divine Healing. It seemed an easy matter to trust the Lord for my body when He had done so much for my soul.”2 A.J. Tomlinson, founder of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN), reflected the same staunch repudiation of the medical profession. “Haven’t you sworn to obey the commands of your Lord?” he asked his readers. “Doesn’t He tell you what to do in case of sickness? And does He say if that fails to call for a physician?” Tomlinson continued, “Die rather than go contrary to the plain teaching in God’s Word!”3 Pentecostals’ attitudes towards healing and towards the medical establishment grew out of the divine healing movement among late-nineteenth-century evangelicals, most of whom identified with the nineteenth-century Wesleyan holiness and Reformed Higher Life movements. The healing practices of these evangelicals in fact can be read as a logical extension of the holiness emphasis on sanctification wherein teachings regarding the perfectibility of the soul were extrapolated to apply in the physical realm to the human body as well.4

2 Frank Bartleman, From Plow to Pulpit: From Maine to California, in Witness to Pentecost: The Life of Frank Bartleman (1924; repr. New York: Garland, 1985), 23.

3 A. J. Tomlinson, The Last Great Conflict, ed. Donald W. Dayton (1913; repr. New York: Garland Publishing, 1985), 15-16.

4 Individuals in the Wesleyan holiness and Reformed Higher Life movements (sometimes referred to as the Keswick tradition) usually advocated a second crisis experience, referred to as “entire sanctification” or the “baptism with the Holy Spirit,” that followed a believer’s initial salvation and purified the soul from the effects of sin. Due to their Calvinistic understanding regarding human nature, individuals in Reformed churches often rejected the language of perfectionism that circulated among holiness advocates, pointing instead to the pervasive presence of sin in individuals’ lives. Even within these circles, however, influential leaders such as the Presbyterian William E. Boardman eventually adapted holiness themes for Reformed audiences as can be seen in Boardman’s The Higher Christian Life (1858). For discussion of the holiness and Higher Life movements, see for example Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Francis Asbury, 1987); Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996); and David D. Bundy, “Keswick and the Experience of Evangelical Piety,” in Modern Christian Revivals, ed. Edith Waldvogel Blumhofer and Randall Balmer (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993). For further discussion of the connections between divine healing and these

Part of a much wider revolt within nineteenth-century American religion against Calvinistic forms of determinism that taught believers to patiently endure suffering as an act of submission to God, divine healing advocates called believers to actively lay claim to God’s promise of physical health in this life.5 “Perhaps no objection [to divine healing] is more strongly urged,” wrote the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance and divine healing advocate A. B. Simpson, than the claim that “[g]lory accrues to God from our submission to His will in sickness; the results of sanctified affliction are blessed.” To the contrary, Simpson believed divine healing to be “the divine prescription for disease, and no obedient Christian can safely ignore it.”6 Though important differences existed among proponents of “faith cure,” they all could agree with Simpson that Christians needlessly endured suffering when God had in fact provided a means of deliverance accessible to every believer. movements, see Jonathan R. Baer, “Redeemed Bodies: The Functions of Divine Healing in Incipient Pentecostalism,” Church History 70, no. 4 (2001): 735-37; Edith Waldvogel Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 11-42; Heather D. Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician: Suffering and Divine Healing in American Culture, 1860-1900 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 6-11; and Grant Wacker, “The Pentecostal Tradition,” in Caring and Curing, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Darrel W. Amundsen (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986), 516-20.

5 Both Baer and Curtis highlight Calvinism’s declining power during the nineteenth century and the importance of this development for the emergence of the divine healing movement. As Curtis writes, “By emphasizing victory over affliction and active service beyond the confines of the sickroom, advocates of faith healing endeavored to articulate and embody an alternative devotional ethic that uncoupled the longstanding link between corporeal suffering and spiritual holiness,” Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, 6. Also see Jonathan R. Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies: Divine Healing in Modernizing America” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2002), esp. 14-15. For the broader theological context, see Robert Mullin’s discussion of the decreasing influence of Calvinism in the intellectual debates over miracles by the end of the nineteenth century, Robert Bruce Mullin, Miracles and the Modern Religious Imagination (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).

6 A. B. Simpson, The Gospel of Healing, in Healing: The Three Great Classics on Divine Healing, ed. Jonathan L. Graf (1888; repr. Camp Hill: Christian Publications, 1992), 313, 295. Many of Simpson’s emphases, including divine healing, foreshadowed the teachings of early pentecostals at the turn of the twentieth century. A number of individuals associated with Simpson and the Christian and Missionary Alliance in fact eventually left the organization and joined pentecostal denominations such as the Assemblies of God. Despite the strong similarities between the two groups, Simpson never accepted pentecostals’ teachings regarding speaking in tongues as the “initial evidence” of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and at times he criticized various excesses that he associated with pentecostal groups. See Daniel J. Evearitt, Body & Soul: Evangelism and the Social Concern of A.B. Simpson (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1994); Charles Nienkirchen, A.B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement: A Study in Continuity, Crisis, and Change (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992); A. E. Thompson, A.B. Simpson: His Life and Work, rev. ed. (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1960); and Nancy Hardesty, Faith Cure: Divine Healing in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 41-44.

Instead of passive acquiescence, late nineteenth-century proponents of divine healing admonished the afflicted to activate faith and trust God for healing. Referring to verses in the gospel of Mark, the Baptist minister A. J. Gordon noted Christ’s promise that miraculous signs— including divine healing—would “follow them that believe.” “It is important to observe,” he wrote, “that this rich cluster of miraculous promises all hangs by a single stem, faith.”7 As the historian Heather Curtis explains, for its nineteenth-century proponents, divine healing “meant believing that God had banished sickness from the body, despite any sensory evidence to the contrary, and acting accordingly. Trusting the Great Physician, therefore, involved training the senses to ignore lingering pain or symptoms of sickness and disciplining the body to ‘act faith’ by getting out of bed and serving God through energetic engagement with others.”8 Simpson’s description of his own healing illustrates Curtis’s point. He recounted making a pledge to God placing his health in God’s hands. Immediately afterwards Simpson wrote, “It had only been a few moments, but I knew that something was done. Every fiber of my soul was tingling with a sense of God’s presence.” Significantly, Simpson remembered that he did “not know whether my body felt better or not. I did not care to feel it. It was so glorious to believe it simply and to know that henceforth, God had it in hand.”9 As bearers of the late-nineteenth-century legacy of divine healing, the earliest pentecostals tended to embrace the more radical applications of the faith-cure teachings, including a strong emphasis on spiritual warfare in the healing process as well as absolute prohibitions against seeking out medical aid.10 Late nineteenth-century evangelicals who promoted divine healing also highlighted sin as the true root of sickness, but they usually did not

7 Gordon specifically referred to Mark 16:17-18, A. J. Gordon, The Ministry of Healing (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1882), 26. For further discussion of Gordon’s ministry see Scott M. Gibson, A.J. Gordon: American Premillennialist (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001); and Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 20-21.

8 Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, 12.

9 Simpson, Gospel of Healing, 363-64.

10 My understanding of the distinctions setting early pentecostal healing apart from that of its late- nineteenth-century forbearers has been shaped especially by Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” 200- 326; Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, esp. 196-202; James William Opp, The Lord for the Body: Religion, Medicine and Protestant Faith Healing in Canada, 1880-1930 (Montreal: Ithaca, 2005), 121- 75; and Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), esp. 26-28.

share pentecostals’ strong emphasis on deliverance from demonic powers. Here, the activities of radical healers such as John Alexander Dowie in Zion City, Illinois, and Frank W. Sandford in Durham, Maine, as well as pentecostals’ connections to the separatist holiness groups of the 1880s and 90s proved crucial. Many pentecostals hailed from “come-outer” Methodist groups who decried the stagnation they sensed in more mainstream Methodist churches. Pentecostals’ imbibed the combative ethos that permeated these radical evangelical communities, which in turn helped shape their conception of healing as a pitched battle against hostile forces.11 In addition, numerous early pentecostals—including figures such as Charles Parham, who helped establish pentecostals’ trademark teaching regarding the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues—associated in one way or another with radical healers such as Dowie and Sandford. Dowie and Sandford’s flamboyant, aggressive style, their staunch repudiation of physicians, and their insistent connections between Satan and illness prefigured later pentecostal themes.12 Early pentecostals at times acknowledged the adverse impact of bad habits and diet for a person’s health, yet ultimately Satan and sin proved the true sources of sickness. A commenter in the Apostolic Faith captured the assumptions supporting early pentecostals’ view of illness: “Every sickness is of the devil.” In the Garden of Eden, the writer continued, humans were “pure and happy and knew no sickness.” When Satan, the “unholy visitor came in to the garden,” however, Adam and Eve’s “whole system was poisoned and it has been flowing in the blood of all the human family down the ages.”13

11 For discussion of the role of divine healing within these separatist Methodist groups, see Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” 173-75; and Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, esp. 196-202.

12 Dowie died in 1907, shortly after the outbreak of the pentecostal revivals. Despite his influence on numerous early believers, he never identified with the pentecostal movement. For further discussion of Dowie’s life and ministry as well as his important connections to the early pentecostal movement, see Baer, “Redeemed Bodies,” 748-54; Paul G. Chappell, “The Divine Healing Movement in America” (Ph.D. diss., Drew University, 1983), 284-340; Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, esp. 197-98; Grant Wacker, “Marching to Zion: Religion in a Modern Utopian Community,” Church History 54, no. 4 (1985): 496-511; and Edith L. Blumhofer, “The Christian Catholic Apostolic Church and the Apostolic Faith: A Study in the 1906 Pentecostal Revival,” in Charismatic Experiences in History, ed. Cecil M. Robeck (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1985), 126-46. For his part, Sandford established his Holy Ghost and Us Bible School in the mid 1890s. Like Dowie, Sandford never identified with pentecostalism, though he did influence early pentecostal leaders such as Charles Parham and A. J. Tomlinson. See Wacker, Heaven Below, esp. 155-56; and Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” 219-32.

13 Apostolic Faith 1, no. 10 (Sept. 1907): 2.

Frequently Satan employed demonic emissaries in his attacks on the bodies of believers. “Demons are of a multiplied variety,” wrote one pentecostal. Alongside the “unclean demons” and “witchcraft and fortune-telling demons” catalogued by this particular believer, it is striking how many of the demons related to the body and health. There were “deaf and dumb demons,” demons of “insanity” and of “various forms of sickness” (not to mention “screeching and yelling demons”). “There are demons that act more particularly on the body,” the writer continued, “or some organ, or appetite of the body.”14 In the words of a member of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN), demons alternately wrecked havoc in believers’ bodies, minds, and spirits: “When the spirits attack the body there is pain and sickness; when they attack the soul it is insanity; when they play on the spirit, actuate the spirit, it is sin.”15 Given the strong emphasis on the role of Satan and his demonic hordes in sickness, deliverance naturally played a key role in its removal. When C. H. Mason, the founder of the pentecostal Church of God in Christ, described the healing of a woman on crutches, he indicated that after praying and laying hands on the woman, “Satan was rebuked at once.” Following this prayer, the woman walked on her own unaided.16 Elsewhere Mason described how “[h]undreds have been healed by my laying on hands and praying to God to rebuke the enemy (the devil).” 17 The healing evangelist Maria Woodworth-Etter, who was known for the prevalence of trance- like phenomena in her meetings, recounted the story of a woman who had been tormented for nine years ever since a “restless, shaking spirit had taken hold her.” Following prayer, however, “this nervous spirit went out and she slept for nine hours.”18 Another woman testified how God gave her the “discernment of spirits” after which she suddenly could see the “epileptic demons, demons that had been tormenting me so long.” After four days of prayer and fasting along with

14 “Demoniac Possession,” The Pentecost 2, no. 9-10 (1910): 10.

15 F. J. Lee, “Insanity—Demonology,” Church of God Evangel 11, no. 47: 3.

16 C. H. Mason, The Whole Truth 4, no. 4 (October 1911): 2.

17 C. H. Mason, The History and Life Work of Elder C.H. Mason, Chief Apostle, and His Co- Laborers, ed. Mary Mason (1924; repr. Memphis, TN: Church of God in Christ, 1987), 31.

18 Maria B. Woodworth-Etter, Questions and Answers on Divine Healing, rev. ed. (Indianapolis, IN: published by author, n.d.), 37.

a “hard fight with the devil” she finally obtained victory.19 Demonic powers were by no means always mentioned in healing testimonies, and pentecostal ministers regularly zeroed in on other factors in the healing process such as the importance of studying scriptures related to God’s healing promises and the role of unconfessed sin as a barrier to healing.20 But the frequent testimonies linking restored health with deliverance highlighted the close connection between spiritual warfare and healing within the movement.21 Given their naturalistic understanding of disease, physicians repeatedly found themselves in pentecostals’ crosshairs.22 Though some early pentecostals admitted that medical care could be beneficial for non-Christians, for many reliance on human aid seemed antithetical to their understanding of the spiritual nature of disease. According to the doctor-turned-divine-healing advocate Lilian Yeomans, sickness’s origin in spiritual realities necessitated otherworldly solutions, “[A]ll human remedies . . . are not radical enough; they fail to reach the cause of the trouble.”23 Moreover, resorting to medical and other naturalistic healing methods denied the

19 Margaret Gill, Apostolic Faith, 1, no. 6 (February-March 1907): 6.

20 See for example P. C. Nelson, Does Christ Heal Today? Messages of Faith, Hope and Cheer for the Afflicted (Dallas, TX: Herald of Healing, n.d.), 28-30; and Woodworth-Etter, Questions and Answers, 18-19.

21 For further discussion of the role of demons in early pentecostal healing, see Robert Mapes Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 93-97; Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” 254-88; and Wacker, “Pentecostal Tradition,” 523-24.

22 Most late-nineteenth-century divine healing advocates insisted on the superiority of divine healing when compared to natural means such as medicines, yet they usually proved less strident than pentecostals in their criticisms of doctors and medicine. See Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, esp. 159-60. In his work on divine healing, the well-known faith-cure proponent Charles Cullis, himself a homeopathic physician, wrote, “I do not in any wise wish to detract from the valuable services of the medical profession, or which I am a member. I only desire to prove to the world that ‘man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,’ and that when the ‘profession’ pronounces a case hopeless, the promise of God remains as a testimony to the truth of His Word,” Charles Cullis, Faith Cures; or, Answers to Prayer in the Healing of the Sick (Boston: Willard Tract Repository, 1879), 6. This is not to deny the fact, however, that late-nineteenth century healers, including Cullis, usually treated divine healing as a superior form of healing. For more on Cullis’s attitudes towards the medical profession, see esp. Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” 67-68.

23 Lilian B. Yeomans, “Divine Healing,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 484-485 (1923): 5. For brief discussions of Yeomans’s life and significance in the divine healing movement, see Edith Waldvogel Blumhofer, Aimee Semple Mcpherson: Everybody’s Sister (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 255-56; and Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” 300-01. A more moderate position was voiced by a

ready availability of God’s power for all who called on him. As one commenter in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) put it, the “Lord’s People” were expected to trust God for both their health and that of their children. Those who “resort to remedies” dishonored God’s name. “I do not see how people can be doing the will of the Father and take medicine,” the writer continued, “when the Father has arranged for their healing by the power of God.”24 “If that once victorious saint now calls a physician of the world to come with his drugs,” wrote another, “this has a tendency every time to mummify the subject until at last he stands as a spiritual mummy, not having any spiritual victory.” Such a believer “can’t testify to the thing that seems to stir the devil the most—divine healing.”25 Instead, spiritual vitality required an unflinching confidence in the availability of divine assistance and no-holds-barred warfare against Satan’s physical attacks on the body. Physicians’ greatest sin then involved their embrace of naturalistic explanations of reality that downplayed a role for supernatural powers. Parham, for example, lambasted “[s]cientists, infidels, and higher critics—a trinity of the same species,” for their disbelief in the face of the “miraculous and supernatural, as though the unseen God, who governs all forces, were incapable of causing humanity to feel and realize His saving and healing power.” “Medical science and her practicers,” he continued, “are mentioned throughout the Old and New Testament in connection with those guilty of the vilest sins against God and humanity.”26 According to Parham, dead, formalistic churches lacked the “old-time salvation attended by all its fullness and power,” and “medical missionaries” were among those promulgating this powerless gospel. “The Lord is wearily waiting for the modern church,” he wrote, “with its medical missionaries, to do something.” Due to their failure to draw on the supernatural resources that facilitated

pentecostal writer in 1928 who admitted that the use of “medicine, drugs or remedies” may have been “all right for the children of the world . . . but not for God’s children.” F. B., “Hints Regarding Divine Healing,” Golden Grain 3, no. 10 (1928): 28. For works assessing early pentecostals’ relationship with the medical establishment see Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” esp. 200-326; Wacker, Heaven Below, esp. 191-92; Wacker, “Pentecostal Tradition,” 516-25; R.G. Robins, A.J. Tomlinson: Plainfolk Modernist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), esp. 40-46; and Hardesty, Faith Cure, 72-86.

24 “Healing and Health,” Church of God Evangel 9, no. 2 (1918): 1.

25 F. J. Lee, “Reality of Demons,” Church of God Evangel 11, no. 23 (1920): 3.

26 Charles Parham, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, in The Sermons of Charles F. Parham, ed. Donald W. Dayton (1944; repr. New York: Garland Publishing, 1985), 41.

dramatic signs and wonders (such as divine healing), God instead “has chosen to again give His wisdom, grace, healing, miracles, and empowerment in speech through a restored Pentecost to carry this wonderful Gospel to all the world.”27 Early pentecostals would have heartily amened Parham’s diatribe against the naturalistic assumptions of physicians and other unbelievers, yet it is important to note that less spiritual, more thisworldly forces also shaped pentecostals’ antagonism towards the medical establishment. For one, class conflict fueled much of the vitriol pentecostals heaped on physicians. While physicians were busy climbing the American social ladder, many pentecostals remained rooted in a “plainfolk” culture. “Plainfolk were not necessarily poor folk: the status was largely self-ascribed,” writes R. G. Robins. “[M]ost came from ranks of society low enough to have grounds for discontent with the status quo but high enough to aspire to reshape it and to have enough resources to form institutions capable of bearing those aspirations.” More than economic standing, Robins argues, the key hallmark of plainfolk culture “was one’s appropriation of the lore of the honest, hardworking ordinary American.”28 To a significant degree, then, early pentecostals’ disavowal of medicine and physicians flowed out of the sharp class differences separating them from the growing professional class of physicians. Indicative of the class warfare at work in early pentecostals’ rejection of medicines, a frequent complaint the saints levied against doctors centered on the way in which medical professionals preyed on the poor for their own gain. In the words of one early pentecostal, medicine was nothing more than a quintessential “humbug and fraud and largely a scheme invented by tricksters to make money.”29 As the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) leader A. J. Tomlinson explained to his readers, “I do not need to point out to you the thousands of wealthy druggists and physicians made so by the ill fate of the millions of unfortunates who have doped themselves with pills and patent medicine.”30 When a doctor happened to give good advice

27 Charles Parham, The Everlasting Gospel, in The Sermons of Charles F. Parham, ed. Donald W. Dayton (1911; repr. New York: Garland Publishing, 1985), 64, 39.

28 Robins, A.J. Tomlinson, 31, 20.

29 “Sickness and Health,” Church of God Evangel 5, no. 28 (1914): 2.

30 Tomlinson, Last Great Conflict, 81.

regarding practical prescriptions for health, asked another, why not obtain it directly from the Bible “without money and without price”?31 Ironically, testimony after testimony culled from early pentecostal periodicals told of adherents who had visited a doctor.32 One woman within the Pentecostal Holiness Church, for example, testified to being healed of “growths that doctors and remedies had never reached. I found more healing in the hem of Jesus’ garment than in all the remedies I could get from doctors.”33 As this statement suggests, the typical testimony cast physicians in a distinctly negative light; after seeking out medical advice sick individuals turned to supernatural healing when they discovered the doctor’s medicines and regimens powerless to heal. While the presence of numerous testimonies referencing doctors’ visits calls into question just how committed the average pentecostal was to the rigid anti-medicine rhetoric spilling from pentecostal pulpits, the content of most of these testimonies suggests that for a significant proportion of early pentecostals their rejection of modern medicine stemmed not only from spiritual concerns but also from a very practical assessment of the efficacy of the drugs offered by physicians. The title of a testimony published in the Church of God Evangel articulated a

31 Lilian B. Yeomans, “Bible Studies in Divine Healing: Dietetics,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 497 (1923): 7.

32 As Wacker writes, “[I]t is clear that many—perhaps most—Pentecostals did consult physicians,” Wacker, “Pentecostal Tradition,” 524. In fact, in a few exceptional cases, early pentecostals signaled their approval of physicians. In 1923, F. F. Bosworth, who was known as theological maverick, indicated his openness to the medical community in a sermon entitled “Thirty-One Questions.” “If sickness is the will of God,” he asked, “then would not every physician be a law-breaker, every trained nurse be defying the Almighty, every hospital a house of rebellion instead of a house of mercy, and instead of supporting hospitals should we not then do our utmost to close them?” F. F. Bosworth, Christ the Healer, rev. ed. (1948; repr. Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1973), 211. For a brief summary of Bosworth’s career, see David Edwin Harrell, All Things Are Possible: The Healing & Charismatic Revivals in Modern America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975), 14-15. Likewise, Hugh Bowling and Watson Sorrow, Georgia Pentecostal Holiness pastors, created a stir when they defended the use of remedies. “I have never stated that healing by medical aid was divine healing,” Bowling averred, “but do state I see no Bible [sic] to condemn any one for receiving medical aid, and I see nothing to teach that such aid will hinder God working in a supernatural way,” Hugh Bowling, “My Position on Divine Healing,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 3, no. 53 (1920): 5. Comments such as these triggered alarm among denominational leaders who sought a trial of Bowling and Sorrow for deviating from the teachings of the church. Following their expulsion, they and their followers established the Congregational Holiness Church. For more on Bowling and the subsequent denomination he formed, see Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” 277-79; and Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 196-97.

33 Sarah E. Mitchel, “Testimonies,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 4, no. 25 (1920): 16.

recurring theme: “Healed When Doctor Was Dismissed.”34 “If medical science were God’s chosen way of meeting our need in sickness,” added Yeomans, “it would not be so uncertain, unreliable, fluctuating, and changing, nor so diverse in its teaching.”35 Pentecostals were certainly not alone in their conclusions. Important advances were made in medical science during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century—the appearance of germ theory, for example, transformed scientists’ conceptions of disease and its transmission—yet these advances had not yet produced much in the way of reliable medicines such as the antibiotics that appeared later in the twentieth century. In fact, according to the historian of American medicine John Harley Warner, it was not until the latter decades of the nineteenth century that a significant number of American physicians shifted away from “specificity” (i.e. forms of therapeutic practice that stressed the local, context-dependent nature of illness) in favor of “universalism” (i.e. forms of therapeutic practice rooted in the conclusions of experimental science and indiscriminately applied to different patients).36 As Abraham Flexner’s famous 1910 report on the condition of American medical education attested, many individuals who attached MD to their names received their degrees from institutions with few resources and even fewer reservations about awarding diplomas.37 Numerous pentecostals

34 Mrs. George Martin, “Healed When Doctor Was Dismissed,” Church of God Evangel 13, no. 32 (1922): 3.

35 Lilian B. Yeomans, Healing from Heaven, rev. ed. (1926; repr. Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1973), 68.

36 John Harley Warner, “From Specificity to Universalism in Medical Therapuetics: Tranformation in the 19th-Century United States,” in Sickness and Health in America: Reading in the History of Medicine and Public Health, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 87-101.

37 As Paul Starr writes, in his report Flexner demonstrated that “claims made by the weaker, mostly proprietary schools in their catalogues were patently false. Touted laboratories were nowhere to be found, or consisted of a few vagrant test tubes squirreled away in a cigar box; corpses reeked because of the failure to use dissecting rooms. Libraries had no books; alleged faculty members were busily occupied in private practice. Purported requirements for admission were waived for anyone who would pay the fees,” Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 119. Ronald Numbers offers a concise history of the professionalization of American Medicine, paying special attention to the optimism associated with the profession during the early nineteenth century that quickly turned to pessimism by the mid-1800s, followed again by a period of reform and ascendancy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Speaking of the state of the medical profession at the turn of the twentieth century, the same time that pentecostals burst on the American scene, Numbers notes, “In spite of substantial improvements in medical education and the passage of

viewed doctors as professional con artists who touted their medical degrees to profit from medicines that were useless at best, downright dangerous at worst. Regarding the unreliability of physicians’ claims, many early pentecostals followed Dowie’s oft-repeated condemnations of medicine as anything but science. Time and time again Dowie pointed to the competing claims of allopathic, homeopathic, osteopathic, and naturopathic physicians, to name a few, to drive home his point that no scientific consensus existed regarding the nature of disease or its cure. “There is nothing, apart from scriptural considerations altogether,” he wrote, “so purely speculative and so wholly unscientific as the practice of medicine.” “Science is accurate knowledge,” he wrote, “Where is there any accurate knowledge in medicine?”38 When the early pentecostal W. A. Redding compiled a series of statements in the Latter Rain Evangel by a variety of scientists and medical doctors who questioned the efficacy of medicines, he followed a rhetorical device frequently employed by pentecostal healers, many of whom recycled the same quotes. Redding accused physicians of doing more than going against the instructions in God’s word regarding proper avenues of healing; he accused them of going against the very dictates of proper science. He quoted a French doctor who admitted that “medicine is a great humbug. It is nothing like science. Doctors are mere empirics when they are not charlatans. . . . I must repeat to you that there is no such thing as medical science.” “I grant you, people are cured,” the Frenchman continued, “but how? Nature does a great deal, but doctors do devilish little.” Using the words of the president of the Philadelphia Medical Society, Redding went on to insist that physicians relied on the “spirit of speculation,” and based their “pompous recommendations” on medical claims that “differ very widely from every other

licensing laws, the medical profession at the end of the century still contained, according to one knowledgeable physician, ‘a vast number of incompetents, large numbers of moral degenerates, and crowds of pure tradesmen,’” Ronald L. Numbers, “The Fall and Rise of the American Medical Profession,” in Sickness and Health in America: Reading in the History of Medicine and Public Health, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 231.

38 John Alexander Dowie, “A Voice to Zion and God’s People in Every Land,” Leaves of Healing 7, no. 23 (1900): 717.

species of evidence.” Redding’s choice of quotations here suggested that he did not reject “true science” per se; he simply objected to deceptive practices masquerading as empirical truth.39 Along the same lines, John G. Lake, a pentecostal pastor in Spokane, WA, well-known for his emphasis on healing, quoted an American surgeon who described surgery as a “confession of helplessness. Being unable to assist the diseased organ, we remove it.” Another expert confirmed that there “is no such thing as the science of medicine. From the days of Hippocrates and Galen until now we have been stumbling in the dark, from diagnosis to diagnosis, from treatment to treatment.”40 As these statements suggest, many pentecostals did not reject science in general so much as they rejected medical science in particular. More than just ineffective, many pentecostals thought medicines patently dangerous. One believer simply could not understand why Christians would ever surrender to the “doctor’s care for him to dope with strong medicine that the human body was never created to receive or endure” instead of placing their families’ wellbeing “in the hands of God.”41 Parham singled out medical science as the “octopus-god Molloch, in whose arms [individuals] have confidently laid so many of their loved ones and seen them perish.” He acknowledged the benefits of “[s]anitary and quarantine laws,” but mocked medical science’s lack of success. “[M]edical science stands with fettered hands,” he proclaimed, “in the presence of consumption, catarrh, cancers, fevers and many other diseases.” Given the fact that physicians now had over “4000 years practice,” Parham could hardly understand why individuals still allowed themselves to be “doped, blistered, bled and dissected” when the field of medical

39 Quoted in W. A. Redding, “Doctors and Medicine,” The Latter Rain Evangel 11, no. 8 (1919): 20.

40 John G. Lake, The John G. Lake Sermons on Dominion over Demons, Disease and Death, ed. Gordon Lindsay, 2nd ed. (Shreveport, LA: Christ for the Nations, 1949), 134-35.

41 “Healing and Health,” 1. In the most sustained argument to date for pentecostals’ affinities to modern American culture, including Americans’ “glorification of science, technology, and power,” see Robins, A.J. Tomlinson, esp. 9-62, quotation 37. Moreover, Edward Gitre’s study of the 1904-5 Welsh Revival (a precursor to pentecostal revivals in the U.S.) highlights the way in which pentecostal spirituality sacralized the technologies of modernity, in particular those associated with mass transit such as the railway. Instead of “receding into oblivion in the face of ‘modernity,’” he claims, “believers reinscribed the sacred onto physical bodies and physical space—and technologies of modernization.” As such, Gitre labels the Welsh Revival the first “modern revival,” Edward J. Gitre, “The 1904-05 Welsh Revival: Modernization, Technologies, and Techniques of the Self,” Church History 73, no. 4 (2004): 827.

science had gained “little more” insight since biblical times.42 For her part, Woodworth-Etter cited a Dr. Bell who asked “how much more divine power” would be required to “overcome both the disease and the ill effect of the drug” as opposed to simply curing the disease itself.43 Redding quoted one MD who admitted that “[a]ll medicines are poisonous,” and another who acknowledged that physicians had “destroyed more lives than war, pestilence and famine combined.” In short, the “world . . . would be happier if drugs were unknown.”44 It is important to note that some early pentecostals were careful to distinguish certain types of physicians who utilized good science from those who relied on faulty knowledge. E. N. Bell, often a moderate voice within the Assemblies of God, took pains to differentiate between a rejection of medical science associated with the efficacy of medicines—which he did not view as a science at all—and other valuable tasks physicians performed such as surgery or nursing those who were ill. He specifically approved of opticians, claiming that optometrists based their practices on “optics, or the laws of light as applied to vision,” which was “a real science and not largely guesswork as is the administration of medicines.” “Dentistry,” he added, “is a much more accurate science than materia medica.” In the end, Bell insisted that his goal was “not to run down the doctor,” and believed that any doctor, “[i]f he is an honest one,” would agree with his claims, “for I got these facts from physicians themselves.”45 In stark contrast to their distrust of medicine, early pentecostals frequently praised other modern advancements in science and technology. “In our own country—a young giant among nations—do we find some of the greatest strides,” boasted a contributor to the Church of God Evangel. “Six great transcontinental trunk lines connect the Atlantic and Pacific shores. The ‘iron horses’ hurry over the plains . . . and slide down the other side with their long trains of freight and human souls behind them.”46 The writer read these developments as a sign that the end of time was near, yet the article pulsed with a palpable excitement felt by the author as he

42 Parham, Voice Crying in the Wilderness, 41.

43 Woodworth-Etter, Questions and Answers, 15.

44 Quoted in Redding, “Doctors and Medicine,” 20-22.

45 E. N. Bell, “Questions and Answers,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 452-53 (1922): 8. For further discussion of Bell as a moderating figure, see Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” 287-88.

46 L. Howard Juillerat, “Many Shall Run to and Fro,” Church of God Evangel 9, no. 34 (1918): 1.

observed modern technological advances. The Pentecostal Holiness Church leader G. F. Taylor likewise spoke for many fellow pentecostals when he suggested that premillennialists like himself who looked for the soon-coming return of Jesus to the earth nevertheless “appreciate the telegraph, the telephone, the automobile, the airship, and all other modern inventions for good” (though he quickly added that premillennialists “do not see that these things are bringing the world to Christ”).47 In his attempt to spur believers on to new spiritual heights, Tomlinson wrote admiringly of the scientific spirit of discovery. He praised astronomers who constantly produced “new and more powerful glasses for the purpose of discovering, if possible, new worlds.” He spoke of “[d]iving bells and torpedo-boats” that assisted exploration of the “depths of the sea.” “Balloons and airships are carrying [humans] above in the air, all in search of the unseen and unknown. The physical world is full of excitement, wild prophesies and projects,” he observed.48 Significantly, like the truly reliable forms of science and technology, many pentecostals felt they had good hard data to support divine healing. The testimonies they heard week in and week out from fellow pentecostals confirmed the ineptitude of physicians even as they validated—at least for those within the pentecostal fold—their own approach to healing.49 As Yeomans pointed out, various prescriptions (including her grandmother’s “spring medicine” consisting of sulphur, chamomile, sassafras, herbs, and molasses) may prove to be “one huge blunder, or big mistake . . . but there is no mistake about God’s remedies. They are unfailing, and we surely need them.”50 While immunity from disease was the “unrealized ideal of medical science,” she would write, it was “realizable by any simple child of God who will take his stand

47 George F. Taylor, “Editorial,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 4, no. 23 (1920): 9.

48 Tomlinson, Last Great Conflict, 37-38.

49 Obviously, most outsiders remained skeptical regarding pentecostals’ claims. In this sense, early pentecostals resembled what Grant Wacker terms an “intellectually coherent subculture.” According to Wacker, for such closed groups, “what counts for good evidence, reliable warrants, and sound conclusions in their fixed social universe remains stubbornly distinct from what counts for good evidence, reliable warrants, and sound conclusions outside their subculture,” Grant Wacker, “Understanding the Past, Using the Past: Reflections on Two Approaches to History,” in Religious Advocacy and American History, ed. Bruce Kuklick and D.G. Hart (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 172.

50 Lilian B. Yeomans, The Great Physician (1933; repr. Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1961), 50.

on the promises of God and not stagger at them through unbelief.”51 The saints were convinced that the evidence backed up their claims regarding the superiority of their brand of healing when compared to other rival products in the healing marketplace of the early twentieth century. In fact, at least a few believers went so far as to describe divine healing as patently scientific. “If we could make the world understand the pregnant vitality of the Spirit of God,” wrote the pentecostal healer John G. Lake, “men would discover that healing is not only a matter of faith, and a matter of the Grace of God, but a perfectly scientific application of God’s Spirit to man’s needs.”52 Lake’s mentor, Dowie, also insisted on the scientific nature of his view on divine healing. Describing a service in which he spoke on divine healing, he recounted how the message “fell with great spiritual power and impressiveness into the hearts of the many strangers present. . . . It was Scriptural, logical, scientific and convincing.”53 The healing evangelist F. F. Bosworth, whom Grant Wacker describes as the “most respected healing evangelist of the 1910s and 1920s,” insisted that it was the opponents of divine healing who abandoned true science. “Being governed by natural sight is unscientific because it does not take into account all the facts,” he wrote. In particular, “Healing by natural means only is unscientific because it overlooks important facts—the supernatural agency in disease as well as the privilege of the supernatural in its recovery.”54 Of course, many outsiders would disagree with Dowie, Lake, and Bosworth regarding exactly what the terms “science” and “scientific” entailed. Their comments, however, help to explain—at least in part—why many pentecostals eventually felt comfortable changing their attitudes towards the medical profession as physicians produced increasingly efficacious medicines and practices.

51 Yeomans, Healing from Heaven, 3-4, 42-43.

52 Lake, John G. Lake Sermons, 47.

53 During the same message he helpfully explained that the root word for science “means accurate and positive knowledge,” John Alexander Dowie, “Elijah’s Restoration: Messages of Purity, Peace and Power,” Leaves of Healing 10, no. 18 (1902): 817, 821. Robins notes similar examples related to Dowie’s ministry, see Robins, A.J. Tomlinson, 46.

54 Bosworth, Christ the Healer, 125-26.

Changing Attitudes towards Medicine and Doctors In time, the dissenting voices within the early movement who challenged the party line regarding physicians and medicine moved from the background to the forefront. As early as 1932 a regional superintendent within the Assemblies of God could list doctors alongside lawyers, ministers, scientists, and aviators as “men who succeed, . . . men who have prepared for life’s battles in their particular line and are qualified to meet the obstacles which come before them.”55 “A good doctor prescribes the right regime,” wrote another pentecostal in 1940, “so does God’s Word.”56 Several factors contributed to the appearance of more and more pro-doctor statements. For one, the average pentecostals’ improved social standing, especially following World War II, deflected the class-based antagonism towards doctors characteristic of the early movement and accelerated pentecostals’ embrace of mainstream medicine as a valid method of healing. As one historian notes, by the late 1940s and 50s, pentecostals “began to show up in places where they had not been seen before . . . . [F]or the first time, there were pentecostal lawyers, medical doctors, and university professors.”57 Other changes within the pentecostal movement also added to pentecostals’ desire to move away from some of their more radical claims. Beginning as early as the 1910s pragmatic considerations led many pentecostals to shed their anti-institutional bias and develop denominations and licensing requirements for ministers in an attempt to regulate the movement. In the process, pentecostal churches slowly began to look more and more like their more respectable mainstream Protestant counterparts. Similarly, pentecostals began to deviate from the strict logic of their premillennial beliefs wherein expectation of Christ’s imminent Second Coming nullified the value of political activity. Many saints for example joined with their fellow Americans and actively supported the U. S. government in World War I in a show of patriotic

55 David Burris, “Making the Pentecostal Sunday School Go,” Pentecostal Evangel (1932): 6.

56 J. Bashford Bishop, “The Sunday School Lesson,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 1373 (1940): 10.

57 Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition, 222. For further discussion of the impact of post-World War II demographic changes within the movement on pentecostal healing and on pentecostals’ relationship with the medical profession, see Wacker, “Pentecostal Tradition,” esp. 525-32.

fervor.58 As pentecostals increasingly moderated their resistance to mainstream American culture, such trends would have reinforced the appeal of more modest teachings regarding divine healing. Perhaps more important than all of these influences, it is crucial to also note the medical establishment’s growing prestige—and success—and the way in which this prestige and success made it much more difficult for pentecostals to shrug off physicians’ claims regarding the power of medicine.59 Signs of orthodox physicians’ eventual monopolization of the American healing scene emerged towards the end of the 1800s. The application of germ theory in the late nineteenth century paved the way for improvements in public health, such as efforts to purify public water and milk supplies. These advances contributed not only to a sharp decline in instances of water and food-born diseases, but they also bolstered the American public’s appreciation of medical science. In addition, though wonder drugs such as antibiotics had yet to appear, physicians’ improving diagnostic abilities abetted their ever-increasing authority in the early 1900s, as did the development of antiseptic surgery.60 Medical science’s accomplishments in the early 1900s only hinted at the success and power orthodox medical practitioners would enjoy as the century progressed. For example, medical scientists introduced the use of sulfa drugs and subsequent antibiotics such as penicillin during the 1930s and 40s. They developed antiviral vaccines during the 1940s and 50s (though a smallpox vaccine had been available much earlier). Rapid progress in immunology,

58 For discussion of the impact of World War I on pentecostals, and discussion of institution-building within the movement as seen in the Assemblies of God, see Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 142-63. R. Laurence Moore also discusses pentecostals’ movement away from their early apolitical stance and towards full-fledged patriotism and engagement with the wider culture in R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 128-49. Other historians take up the role of healing evangelists in bringing pentecostal spirituality closer to the mainstream beginning in the 1920s, frequently highlighting the role of Aimee Semple McPherson. See Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” 289-326; Opp, Lord for the Body, 146-75; Blumhofer, Aimee Semple Mcpherson; and Matthew Avery Sutton, Aimee Semple Mcpherson and the Resurrection of Christian America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).

59 Hardesty briefly highlights the importance of the medical establishment’s success in changing pentecostals’ minds. She also notes the efficacy of medicines such as quinine that helped combat diseases frequently encountered by pentecostal missionaries, and the way in which this would have changed pentecostal sentiments towards physicians, Hardesty, Faith Cure, 129-47.

60 For discussion of these changes, see Starr, Social Transformation of American Medicine, 134-44.

pharmacology, and surgical technology eventually opened the door to death-defying surgeries including the first human heart transplant in 1967 and other organ replacement surgeries.61 Doctors in turn converted medical science’s growing technical mastery into social authority. Medical professionals successfully lobbied for strict licensing and educational guidelines during the first half of the twentieth century, emerging “as the strongest and most influential profession in America.”62 As Paul Starr writes, the twenties in particular saw the consolidation of professional power within the medical profession as doctors’ “prestige, aided by the successes of medical science, became securely established in American culture. The twenties were a decade when legislators, district attorneys, AMA [American Medical Association] publicists, and public health officials took up the war against ‘quackery’ as a great cause of enlightened government and exposed and prosecuted ‘cultists’ and operators of diploma mills.”63 The correspondence between the timing of the medical establishment’s consolidation of its power and pentecostals’ acceptance of physicians reinforces the notion that a pragmatic evaluation of medicine’s effectiveness likely played an important role in many early believers’ initial rejection—as well as their ultimate embrace—of physicians. As orthodox physicians garnered more and more evidence to support the efficacy of their methods, pentecostals who previously dismissed physicians as frauds would have felt increasing pressure to renegotiate their relationship to modern medicine. Significantly, the considerable power and prestige attained by physicians in the twentieth century provoked a variety of responses within the pentecostal movement. The majority of pentecostals simply learned to accept doctors as valid healers without abandoning their belief in specifically supernatural forms of healing. This transition from a staunch rejection of medicines

61 John Burnham, for example, discusses the social prestige enjoyed by physicians during the first half of the twentieth century, though he also notes the subsequent attacks on the profession that became louder and louder beginning in the 1950s. See John C. Burnham, “American Medicine’s Golden Age: What Happened to It?” in Sickness and Health in America: Reading in the History of Medicine and Public Health, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 284-94. For discussion of physicians’ use of antibiotics, the “wonder-drugs,” see John Parascandola, “The Introduction of Antibiotics into Therapeutics,” in Sickness and Health in America: Reading in the History of Medicine and Public Health, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 102-12.

62 Numbers, “Fall and Rise of the American Medical Profession,” 225.

63 Starr, Social Transformation of American Medicine, 134-44, 262.

to an open embrace of medicines undoubtedly caused more than a little consternation for many believers. One pentecostal in 1953 related the strong ambivalence he felt when consulting a physician. “I purchased the medicine,” he explained, “and I can truthfully say I lived up to the prescription which [the doctor] gave me.” Nevertheless, he “felt so condemned” about using medicine that it hurt him “almost more to do what I was doing than the actual suffering I went through.” Even so, he implored the reader, “Please do not think I am knocking doctors and medicine, because I know that doctors are helping so many people.”64 Such rapprochement between adherents and the medical profession—even if halting and grudging—set the stage for innovative approaches to healing within the movement that explicitly combined the advances of medical science with the time-tested insights of Christians throughout the centuries. Others, however, responded by simply reasserting the superiority of divine healing over any and every rival method. For these individuals, the growing body of evidence pointing to physicians’ success only upped the ante as it elevated the temptation believers faced to trust in natural remedies.

Countervailing Trends The popularity of deliverance evangelists who led the pentecostal healing revivals of the 1940s and 50s seemed to signal a retreat from an acceptance of medical professionals within the movement before these trends even had a chance to take hold.65 Independent ministers such as

64 Cecil Bridges, “Divine Healing,” Church of God Evangel 44, no. 4 (1953): 11.

65 The rise of the New Order of the Latter Rain movement in the late 1940s coincided with the emergence of the post-World War II healing revivals and reflected many of the same emphases regarding healing. Like many of the deliverance evangelists, New Order ministers stressed the link between healing and exorcism from demons. The New Order first appeared in Canada under the leadership of George and Ernest Hawtin and Percy Hunt in 1947. Convinced that other pentecostals had lost the power of the Holy Spirit, leaders condemned denominationalism and also emphasized the role of present-day apostles and prophets in restoring the supernatural power of the New Testament church. Many within the established pentecostal denominations saw the New Order as divisive and dangerous due to its emphasis on contemporary prophets who criticized the status quo. Despite this resistance, the emphases of the New Order were especially influential in independent pentecostal churches. Myrtle D. Beall of Detroit, MI, and Thomas Wyatt of Portland, OR, helped spread New Order teachings beyond Canada and into the United States, and several figures associated with the movement would continue to wield influence in the burgeoning charismatic movement during the 1960s and 70s. For more on the New Order of the Latter Rain, see Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 203-11; L. Thomas Holdcroft, “The New Order of the Latter Rain,” Pneuma 2 (1980): 46-60; Richard Riss, “The Latter Rain Movement of 1948,” Pneuma 4, no. 1 (1982): 32-45; R. M. Riss, “Latter Rain Movement,” in International Dictionary of Pentecostal and

William Branham, Oral Roberts, Jack Coe, and A.A. Allen, like several of their predecessors in the early days of the movement, drew large crowds hungry to see supernatural manifestations and dramatic healings.66 At the same time that religious Americans more broadly sought to shore up their faith and safeguard against the menace of “godless Communism,” figures such as Allen saw the healing campaigns and supernatural testimonies as a bulwark against anti-religious forces. “So, keep your eyes on these people who claim that nobody is getting healed!” Allen instructed. “Either they are Communists, or (perhaps without even knowing it!) they are assisting the Communists in their plan to destroy the Church in America!”67 Most of the mid-century healers consistently stressed deliverance from demons as the key to healing. The prominent evangelist William Branham’s view of cancer illustrated his assumptions regarding the demonic nature of illness. He indicated that cancer usually started with a bruise, which damaged a cell, which in turn opened the door for a demon to enter the body. The demon then “starts growing, he begins to multiply cells. . . . Cell on top of cell, cell on top of cell, cell, any way, any where, just they have no form of nothing like a human being after its nature.”68 To truly deal with the root of the problem, then, required deliverance. Other healing evangelists replicated Branham’s approach. According to T. L. Osborn, a prominent healer who found success both inside and outside North America, when he first heard Branham’s explication of the nature of disease “the whole matter began to clear up for me.” He and his wife concluded that “sickness is of the devil, and we have power over the devil in Jesus’

Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Ed M. Van der Maas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 830-33; and Wacker, “Pentecostal Tradition,” 525.

66 For helpful profiles of a number of the deliverance evangelists of the 1940s, 50s and 60s, see Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 211-21; David R. Kinsley, Health, Healing, and Religion: A Cross- Cultural Perspective (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996), 119-38; Harrell, All Things Are Possible. Stephen Jackson Pullum, “Foul Demons, Come Out!”: The Rhetoric of Twentieth-Century American Faith Healing (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), 25-86; C. Douglas Weaver, The Healer-Prophet, William Marrion Branham: A Study of the Prophetic in American Pentecostalism (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987); and Wacker, “Pentecostal Tradition,” 526-27.

67 A. A. Allen, “My Statement on Healing,” Miracle Magazine 4, no. 3 (1958): 2. Apocalyptic prophecies related to the Cold War frequently appeared in the periodicals of the mid-century healing revivalists. In his work on divine healing among early pentecostals, in fact, Baer notes the frequent correlation between major wars and healing revivals, suggesting that “Cold War fears may have helped lay the groundwork for [the mid-century healing revivals],” Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies,” 53n76.

68 William Branham, Demonology (Jeffersonville, IN: Spoken Word Publications, 1976), 31-32.

Name. . . . We’ll rebuke the devil that has bound and possessed their bodies with disease; we’ll cast out the evil ‘spirits of infirmity’; the diseases will then die, and the sick will recover.”69 For his part, Roberts claimed a special ability to sense God’s healing power in his right hand and to also detect the presence of demons. He eventually moderated—though by no means relinquished—his emphasis on demons, yet during his early ministry in particular demons loomed large as the source of illness.70 Not surprisingly considering the stark distinction between physicians’ understanding of sickness and the framework espoused by the deliverance evangelists, strong anti-medical rhetoric proved a recurring theme among many of the mid-century healing ministries. “Do you believe God turned His work over to the church, His anointed, Holy Ghost filled believers as was in evidence on the day of Pentecost,” Allen wrote, “or did He turn His work over to manufacturing plants, drug companies, and medical centers? Can you find one place in the Bible where Jesus ever said He turned his job over to medicine, drugs, surgery, or doctors? . . . If that group of doctors is being used of God to heal the sick, and if God is healing through those doctors, why is it that they are fighting me and what I preach from the Word of God?”71 The popular healer Jack Coe warned his listeners that anyone who sought medical aid would be forced to accept the “mark of the beast” and be identified with Satanic forces during the last days of human history before Christ’s return.72 In addition to more moderate statements suggesting God provided physicians on behalf of non-believers, Osborn pointed believers to verses in 2 Chronicles and

69 T. L. Osborn, Healing the Sick (Tulsa, OK: T.L. Osborn Evanglistic Association, 1959), 127.

70 Roberts indicated that he eventually backed off claims that all diseases reflected demonic influence after being confronted by a group of pentecostal ministers, David Edwin Harrell, Oral Roberts: An American Life (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 89-90. Also see Oral Roberts, If You Need Healing Do These Things, 2nd ed. (Tulsa, OK: Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, 1957), 30- 33. In an interesting exception, despite his strident anti-medicalism, the popular healing evangelist Jack Coe warned against making too close a connection between illness and demons. “[T]here is a definite difference between demon possession and sickness!” he wrote. “I have seen many men praying for the sick and almost without exception, they would say, ‘You demon of headache, gallstones, etc., loose this person!’ Everything was a ‘demon,’ whether it was fallen arches or arthritis. I DON’T BELIEVE THAT! You will seldom here me call a sickness ‘A Devil,’” Jack Coe, Curing the Incurable (Dallas: Herald of Healing, n.d.), 42. For more on Jack Coe’s career, see Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 214-15; and Harrell, All Things Are Possible, esp. 58-63.

71 A. A. Allen, “Does God Heal Thru Medicine? Part II,” Miracle Magazine 6, no. 6 (1961): 2-3.

72 See Harrell, All Things Are Possible, 101.

Isaiah long used by pentecostals to warn against the use of doctors, “Asa died in his sickness because he sought ‘not to the Lord, but to the physicians,’” whereas in Isaiah chapter thirty-eight “Hezekiah lived, because he sought not to the physicians, but to the Lord.”73 The basic issue at stake for these healers, much as it had been for earlier pentecostals, could be encapsulated in a simple question: should the sick person trust God or rely on natural means of healing and human aid? Every illness proved a litmus test of the individual’s level of faith and standing before God. The success of the medical establishment only heightened the stakes in these pentecostals’ search for God’s best path to health and healing. For all their claims regarding the superiority of divine healing, it is interesting to note the way in which many of the mid-century pentecostal healers insisted that they had no intention of disparaging the medical community or the usefulness of their work; many of the prominent deliverance evangelists avoided early pentecostals’ denunciations of modern medicine as unreliable and useless. Roberts stood out due to his very clear support of the medical profession, yet several of the other healing evangelists also qualified their anti-medical rhetoric.74 “I am not writing to condemn, belittle, or discourage the use of medicines or drugs by people that have no faith or trust in God,” Allen wrote in 1961. The problem with believers’ utilization of natural approaches to healing however was that they stole glory away from God.75 In the same book in

73 Osborn, Healing the Sick, 192-93. Harrell also provides a brief summary of the healing evangelists’ approach to medicines and doctors, Harrell, All Things Are Possible, 101.

74 From early on in his ministry Roberts made his support of doctors clear. “I believe God gives us good doctors,” he wrote in 1957. “I believe he gives us good doctors because he wants man to be well.” Roberts insisted that God expected humans to make use of natural healing methods. Of course, doctors had limitations, and certain things were beyond their control. When humans reached those points of limitation God’s power was then available. “I am expected to do for myself the things which I can do,” Roberts continued. “But the things beyond my power and beyond the power of any other mortal man are in God’s power, and I come to God boldly, believing in him that he can raise me up as the Bible promises,” Oral Roberts, “The Science of Faith,” Abundant Life 11, no. 2 (1957): 4. “The herbs from which our most curative medicines are extracted were made by God and the skill in their most effective use is a gift of the Almighty God,” he later added, Roberts, If You Need Healing, 80-81. While Roberts was not the first pentecostal to express such a clear endorsement of the medical profession, considering his influence Roberts undoubtedly helped spur the growing approval of mainstream medicine in pentecostal circles.

75 Allen, “Does God Heal Thru Medicine? Part II,” 2-3. Harrell quotes another revivalist who claimed, “I’m merely telling you that doctors cannot heal. They can keep you alive and I thank God for them. I wouldn’t want to live in a city without them. I believe in them. But I don’t believe they can heal,” quoted in Harrell, All Things Are Possible, 101.

which he defined illness as demonic in origin and quoted Bible verses regarding the dangers of seeking medical aid, Osborn articulated themes reminiscent of comments made by F. F. Bosworth, “Since sickness is of Satan, every manner of relieving the suffering must be ordained of God.” “[E]very means of relief must be a blessing,” he continued, “whether it be the ‘prayer of faith,’ or the ‘gift of healing,’ for those who serve God faithfully and who believe and trust His divine promises, or ‘medical science’ for those who do not serve God, and who do not have faith in God’s divine promises to heal.”76 Many of the revivalists would have agreed with the response given in a “Questions and Answers” section of central periodical of the mid-century healing revivals, The Voice of Healing. Reprising a theme that appeared among a few of the more moderate early pentecostals, the author admitted that physicians could “assist nature,” though “God alone can heal.” That said, “[m]edicines and drugs are not necessary for those whose faith is in Christ, the Great Physician.”77 Carving out a valid role for doctors while simultaneously giving primacy to divine healing was not new within the divine healing movement and can be traced back to prominent evangelical healers during the late nineteenth century, yet considering the pentecostal context and the dramatic deliverance meetings conducted by these healers, this type of disclaimer revealed the progress the medical establishment had made during the twentieth century in convincing even the most skeptical observers regarding the usefulness of their services. To be sure, given the close association between illness and demon possession on the part of many of

76 Osborn, Healing the Sick, 131. Branham serves as another interesting example of the complexity of the healing evangelists’ approach to the medical profession. He always insisted on the primacy of divine healing, yet Branham’s beliefs were put to the test when his wife developed a tumor. The Branhams initially sought healing through prayer alone, yet as the tumor continued to grow they relented and went ahead with the surgery. Severely discouraged, Branham indicated that “our faith is not sufficient.” According to historian C. Douglas Weaver, the healer’s relationship to the medical community was further complicated by the fact that Branham and his family routinely accepted medical treatment. On the whole, however, Weaver concludes that Branham’s attitude toward medicine was “more akin to the earliest pentecostals [for whom medicine was suspect],” Weaver, Healer-Prophet, 66- 68, quotation 67. Conflicting impulses were also apparent during a 1953 sermon Branham delivered in Indiana. Just before assuring his audience that “there’s not one speck of medicine ever did cure any sickness,” he told his listeners, “I salute every doctor. Yes, sir. Every medical science, God bless them for the help that they’ve done for people,” Branham, Demonology, 33. Weaver suggests that such statements point to Branham’s belief that “medicine merely kept the body clean while God performed healing,” Weaver, Healer-Prophet, 66.

77 Probably editor Gordon Lindsay, “Questions and Answers on Divine Healing,” The Voice of Healing 1, no. 9 (1948): 13, 15.

the healing evangelists, and considering the fact that natural healing nearly always took a backseat to the extraordinary possibilities of supernatural healing, most of the prominent pentecostal healers during the 1940s and 50s did more to reinstate the antimedical implications of pentecostals’ traditional antagonism towards the medical profession than they did to challenge these attitudes. Even here amidst individuals intent on reviving the connections between divine healing and spiritual warfare, however, (an often grudging) respect for advances in medical science emerged.

Partners in Healings: Medicine as a Complement to Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing While the dramatic encounters with evil spirits represented by the deliverance evangelists of the 1940s and 50s were by no means discarded from the repertoire of later pentecostal healers, in important respects, the disapproval voiced by several of the mid-century deliverance evangelists regarding believers’ use of medicines and other natural means of healing proved ill- suited to survive future developments within pentecostal and charismatic circles.78 For one, doctors themselves became more visible among pentecostals. The Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International (FGBMFI) catered to a wide variety of pentecostal and charismatic professionals, including doctors, and signaled their growing presence within the movement. Founded by the pentecostal businessman Demos Shakarian in 1951, this interdenominational group offered a venue for fellowship and evangelism. In stark contrast to popular conceptions of pentecostals as uneducated, poor Christians operating out of tents and rural churches, the group often met in hotel ballrooms and the like.79 As one writer for the Full

78 For further discussion of pentecostals’ willingness to simultaneously seek both medical aid and supernatural intervention for their illnesses, see Wacker, “Pentecostal Tradition,” esp. 527-31; Margaret M. Poloma, The Charismatic Movement: Is There a New Pentecost? (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982), 92-93; Margaret M. Poloma, The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads: Charisma and Institutional Dilemmas (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), 6-8, 58-60; and Hardesty, Faith Cure, 152.

79 Throughout its history the FGBMFI attracted pentecostals and charismatics from a variety of denominations, and has often maintained close ties with independent ministries including the deliverance evangelists of the 1940s and 50s and the Word of Faith leaders such as Kenneth Hagin Sr. and Kenneth Copeland. See Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith, 225-26; Harrell, All Things Are Possible, 146-49; Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition, 223-24; and J. R. Ziegler, “Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International,” in The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Ed M. Van der Maas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 653-54.

Gospel Business Men’s Voice suggested, doctors were particularly valuable converts precisely because “few have more opportunities to reach souls than the Christian doctor.”80 Similar logic spurred a growing openness within some pentecostal denominations towards medical missions as an avenue of evangelization. In 1961, the executive director of the Assemblies of God’s Division of Foreign Missions (now the Assemblies of God World Missions), J. Philip Hogan, commissioned the physician Jere Melilli to assess the viability of a medical program for Africa. Despite this clear openness to the potential of medical missions, resistance appeared as many adherents believed denominational funds were better spent on more direct evangelistic efforts aimed strictly at conversion. Melilli himself indicated that if he “were going to be a full-time missionary today, I would not go to Africa as a medical missionary, but rather as an evangelist.”81 In 1964, Hogan clarified the denomination’s position: “We are not critical of missions that emphasize medical and educational programs, nor are we unmindful of the physical and material needs of people in countries where we serve.” That said, neither did Hogan view medical missions as cost-effective considering the denomination’s priorities. “We never have appointed a medical doctor,” he continued, “and it is unlikely that we will do so in the foreseeable future.”82 Despite this initial resistance, the Assemblies of God eventually approved the formation of HealthCare Ministries in 1984. Founded by Paul Williams, a physician, HealthCare Ministries organized doctors and other medical professionals for short term trips across the globe. Though those treated for various illnesses on mission trips received medical care regardless of whether or not they accepted the missionaries’ message, evangelism remained a central goal. Medicine served “as a tool to reach people for Christ: a way to gain access to areas that would otherwise be closed, and reach people who would otherwise be unresponsive.”83

80 Vance Byars, “A Doctor Calls Upon the Great Physician,” Full Gospel Business Men’s Voice 12, no. 9 (1964): 14.

81 Melilli quoted in Everett A. Wilson, Strategy of the Spirit: J. Philip Hogan and the Growth of the Assemblies of God Worldwide, 1960-1990 (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press, 1997), 144.

82 J. Philip Hogan, “How Do We Compare?” Missionary Forum (3rd quarter 1964): 7, quoted in Wilson, Strategy of the Spirit, 142-43.

83 “About HealthCare Ministries,” http://www.healthcareministries.org (accessed May 9, 2007). Also see Wilson, Strategy of the Spirit, 46; and Gary B. McGee, This Gospel Shall Be Preached (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1989), 252-54. Similar efforts have also developed outside of the formal

The influx of charismatics into the movement since the 1960s only served to strengthen the acceptance of medical professionals by pentecostals. The charismatic renewal attracted many highly educated professionals, including physicians, and many charismatics lacked pentecostals’ traditionally ambivalent attitudes towards higher learning and medicine.84 The Episcopalian healer Agnes Sanford, for example, wrote extensively on healing, and by the 1960s several of her works were published by charismatic presses and helped shape many charismatics’ approach to healing. Sanford unequivocally supported medical professionals. “We are not too proud to go to God’s servants, the clergy, for our spiritual help,” she explained. “Why should we be too proud to go to God’s servants, the doctors, for our physical help?” Sanford similarly approved of medicines. “All things are of God,” she wrote. “The antibiotics, for instance, are a source of power implanted in nature for man’s use, just as electricity is a source of power implanted in nature for man’s use.”85 Throughout her ministry, the healing evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman similarly demonstrated a desire for a cordial relationship with conventional doctors, and she frequently had physicians on the stage with her during meetings. She criticized doctors for their tendency to discount the miraculous, but had no qualms about the validity of their profession.86 According to her

denominations. For example, Operation Blessing, a non-profit humanitarian organization started by Pat Robertson in 1979, added a Medical Services Program in 1994 dedicated to similar short term missions and disaster relief. For a brief history of the organization, see “History,” http://www.ob.org/about/history.asp (accessed May 9, 2007). In one notable endeavor, in 1996 the organization retrofitted an L-1011 plane to serve as a “flying hospital.”

84 Richard Quebedeaux for example contrasts charismatics’ greater openness to higher education and science when compared to those within the historic pentecostal denominations, see Richard Quebedeaux, The New Charismatics II, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983), 187-89. It is important to note that while Quebedeaux’s comparisons are useful, his portrait of the distinctions separating pentecostals and charismatics is overdrawn.

85 Agnes Sanford, The Healing Light, rev. ed. (1947; repr. Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1972), 64.

86 Kulhman’s early relationship with pentecostals was somewhat strained due to her status as a divorcee and due to the fact that she did not emphasize speaking in tongues in her services or as part of her personal testimony. See D. J. Wilson, “Kuhlman, Kathryn,” in The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Ed M. Van der Maas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 826-27; and Wayne E. Warner, Kathryn Kuhlman: The Woman Behind the Miracles (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Publications, 1993), 73-76. Nevertheless, Kuhlman did not shy away from an association with pentecostalism. “I’m as pentecostal as anybody who stands behind the pulpit,” she wrote. “I’ve taken my stand before the whole world. I’ve taken my stand before millions.

biographer, Kuhlman “tried to maintain rapport with the medical profession, and through the years several doctors were willing—even eager—to appear at her meetings to assist in the healing ministry or speak a word of commendation.”87 Writing in the mid-1980s, the popular charismatic healers Charles and Frances Hunter actively collaborated with physicians in an effort to identify the specific sources of diseases in order to more effectively target their prayers. The Hunters offered forty-three pages in their Handbook for Healing listing various diseases with a brief description of their medical cause. These descriptions then formed the basis of specific instructions regarding how to pray. The reader suffering from arteriosclerosis learned that arteriosclerosis involved a hardening of the arteries, for which the authors recommended a prayer calling for a “divine ‘roto-rooter’ of God’s power to completely clean out all the arteries of all cholesterol plaques.” Regarding Addison’s disease, a failure of the adrenal glands, the Hunter’s indicated that healing prayer should “command a creative miracle—a new pair of adrenal glands.” While it is obvious the prescriptions offered by the Hunters usually bypassed any normal medical recommendations for the various illnesses described, the “Happy Hunters” nevertheless saw medical professionals and their knowledge of the body as crucial participants in the healing process. The Hunters’ Healing Explosion services, in fact, frequently involved a doctors’ panel, open to any doctors in attendance, meant to provide insights into the nature of various ailments. Describing these panels, the Hunters wrote, “We never know who is coming, but He always brings new experts from many fields of medicine.” These panels have included “medical doctors, orthopedic surgeons, pediatricians, obstetricians, podiatrists, chiropractors, ophthalmologists, opticians, optometrists, dentists, orthodontists, nutritionists, gynecologists, osteopaths, pathologists, surgeons, and other fields of medicine.” The “great medical knowledge” offered by these professionals, they explained, “combined with the spiritual knowledge God gives, has brought about many healings which might not have otherwise been accomplished.” Given this debt, the

I’ve declared my position. I’m as pentecostal as the Word of God. But I want nothing to do with fanaticism. I want nothing to do with the demonstrations of the flesh,” Kathryn Kuhlman, A Glimpse into Glory (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1979), 111-12.

87 Warner, Kathryn Kuhlman, 178. Of course, she also had her detractors within the medical profession, most notably William Nolen who came to the conclusion that her healing claims, despite Kuhlman’s sincerity, were simply false, William A. Nolen, Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1976).

Hunters dedicated three pages of their Handbook for Healing to thanking medical professionals, listing over eighty specific doctors and nurses for lending their expertise to facilitate the Hunters’ ministry.88 In addition to bolstering pentecostals’ growing openness to the medical profession, the influx of charismatics also strengthened criticisms of the anti-intellectualism associated with earlier healing evangelists. Jamie Buckingham, a popular spokesperson within the movement, conceded that there “are frauds and fakes among us. There are those who ‘blab in gibberish.’ There are those who fake ‘going under the power’ for the sake of notoriety.” Regarding healing, there were also “‘healers’ who proclaim miracles which simply will not stand up under medical investigation.” Buckingham pleaded with his audience to remember that “[f]or every real gift there is a counterfeit,” and that “Satan only counterfeits that which is of ultimate value.” That said, Buckingham never backed down from his insistent critique of excesses within the movement.89 To be sure, a number of pentecostals did not hesitate to voice their own criticisms of the healing evangelists and their sensational claims, as can be seen in some of the established denominations’ efforts to distance themselves from the mid-century healing revival.90 A 1974 position paper on divine healing endorsed by the Assemblies of God reflected a chastened understanding of the nature of divine healing: “In humility we recognize that we do not understand all that pertains to divine healing. We still see through a glass darkly. We do not understand why some are healed and others are not . . . . Scripture makes it clear, however, that our part is to preach the Word and expect the signs to follow.”91 Many pentecostals would have also agreed with a Baptist MD writing for the charismatic periodical Logos who lambasted those who mocked doctors or embellished facts and diagnoses. Pointing to a form of spiritual one-upmanship, Angus Sargeant lamented a tendency in

88 Charles and Francis Hunter, Handbook for Healing (Kingwood, TX: Hunter Books, 1987), 104, 101, 20-21, 8-10.

89 Jamie Buckingham, “Forget Not His Healing Touch,” Charisma 13, no. 3 (1987): 37.

90 See Harrell, All Things Are Possible, 107-16.

91 “Divine Healing: An Integral Part of the Gospel,” http://www.ag.org/top/Beliefs/Position_Papers/pp_downloads/pp_4184_healing.pdf (accessed September 12, 2008).

pentecostal and charismatic circles to “use sarcasm, and treat with cynicism [physicians] from whom we have sought help in the past—and from whom we will probably seek help in the future.” In an effort to stress Jesus as the “Great Physician,” Sargeant believed pentecostals and charismatics denigrated the valid work of doctors when they should in fact encourage people to accept doctors’ authority and obey their orders. More than that, to make their points, he believed many believers exaggerated the evidence at hand in an effort to boost their claims to healing. Divine health was better than divine healing, he concluded, “though not nearly as sensational.”92 Sargeant’s admonitions reflected well the attitudes of many pentecostals and charismatics by the latter part of the twentieth century. While belief in divine healing remained strong, increasingly it was seen as a complement to, not a substitute for, medical care. As seen in the growing number of physicians in pentecostal and charismatic ranks, as well as in the embrace of medical missions, believers utilized the benefits of modern technological and medical advances even as they prayed for divine intervention. Few would dispute the charismatic Catholic Francis MacNutt’s statement that “[s]ometimes God works through nature and the skill of doctors; sometimes he works directly through prayer and sometimes through both, but always there should be cooperation, mutual respect and an admiration for the variety of ways in which God manifests his glory.”93 As one Church of God in Christ minister explained, “Faith in our doctors is very important . . . . I knew the doctors could only administer medication and treatment, but God was the healer.”94

Making Medicine Spiritual When combined with adherents’ traditional commitment to supernatural conceptions of illness and its cure, the newfound appreciation for physicians within the movement set the stage for believers’ participation in a much broader shift towards holistic medicine in American

92 Angus Sargeant, “A Call for Healing Honesty,” Logos 5, no. 2 (1975): 9-11.

93 Francis MacNutt, Healing (1974; repr. New York: Bantam Books, 1977), 50. In her work on healing among pentecostals and charismatics, Poloma in particular highlights the way in which sacralizing forces frequently coincide with secular impulses within the movement without any apparent conflict. See Poloma, Assemblies of God at the Crossroads, 6-8, 58-60.

94 Henry L. Knight, Death Came Knocking . . . But Life Answered the Door (Los Angeles: Milligan Books, 2006), 91.

culture. In the words of the historian James Whorton, holistic practitioners voiced a critique of the “impersonal, dehumanizing tendencies of an orthodox medicine committed to specialization and sophisticated technology,” opting instead for “care that treats the whole patient as a complex individual whose health is determined by the interaction of his mind and spirit, as well as work and home environment, with his body.”95 Historically, doctors have noted that proper treatment required an understanding of patients’ living environment, habits, and even their temperamental makeup (usually linked to the presence of substances, known as humors, that were believed to determine a person’s disposition) ever since the days of Hippocrates in ancient Greece, yet during the latter half of the nineteenth century a paradigmatic shift occurred within medical therapeutics wherein doctors zeroed in on specific diseases and on specific microorganisms that attacked the human body. The emphasis on predictable pathways of disease lessened physicians’ focus on each individual’s unique experience of a disease, and what came to be known as holism increasingly took a backseat among orthodox physicians.96 Instead, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries holistic forms of healing flourished most clearly among alternative physicians such as homeopaths, osteopaths, chiropractics, and a wide range of mental healers. Holistic health practitioners vigorously critiqued the “synthetic” and “invasive” methods employed by conventional doctors.97 Significantly, another face of the holistic health movement included individuals who wanted to tap the healing capacities of religion while still working largely within the framework provided by the medical establishment. Many of these attempts to merge religion and mainstream medicine during the twentieth century were closely related to the burgeoning field of psychiatry.98 Moreover, by mid-century over 25

95 James C. Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 336-37.

96 Warner indicates for example that “[p]hysicians began to think more in terms of specific disease entities and disease-specific causation, and less in terms of general destabilizing forces that unbalanced the body’s natural equilibrium,” Warner, “Specificity to Universalism,” esp. 93-99, quotation 94. Whorton addresses the historical connections between holistic-type approaches to wellbeing and traditional medicine in James C. Whorton, Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), esp. 15.

97 For a more thorough account of alternative medicine, see Chapter 2.

98 I address attempts to merge religious healing and psychiatry in more detail in Chapter 4.

percent of all individuals in hospitals found themselves in religious hospitals,99 and by the latter decades of the twentieth century popular physicians such as Andrew Weil and the surgeon Bernie Siegel repeatedly sought to combine their medical training with a spiritualized approach to healing. Siegel frequently drew on Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious in his discussion of healing with his patients and readers, describing God as “the same potential healing force—an intelligent, loving energy or light—in each person’s life. . . . God is a resource. The energy of hope and faith is always available.”100 Weil, a Harvard-trained physician who rebelled against the medical establishment in favor of alternative medicine in the early 1970s, eventually began to advocate a form of “integrative medicine” combining the best of both worlds. In answer to a question regarding his relationship to traditional medicine, he responded, “I really think I’m in the middle. Sometimes, I’m attacking traditional medicine, sometimes I’m defending it; sometimes I’m defending alternative medicine and sometimes attacking it, so I think I’m pretty even handed in my criticism. I’m unique in that I’m not aligned with any one school of thought.”101 Underlying each of these attempts to unite traditional medicine with religion was a basic conviction that orthodox medicine unnecessarily limited its healing potential by ignoring the spiritual needs and spiritual resources at work in the healing process. For all its advances and

99 I should note, however, that Ronald Numbers and Darrel Amundsen indicate that “most denominationally affiliated hospitals were distinguished more by their names than by their medical practices, admissions policies, or the religious beliefs of their staffs,” Ronald L. Numbers and Darrel W. Amundsen, eds., Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 2-3. Of course, Christian hospitals were hardly a new phenomenon; they appeared throughout the history of Christianity. See Amanda Porterfield, Healing in the History of Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), esp. 52-53, 110-12.

100 Bernie S. Siegel, Love, Medicine, & Miracles: Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon’s Experience with Exceptional Patients (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 179.

101 “Interview with Dr. Andrew Weil: Eight Weeks to Optimum Health,” http://www.manyhands.com/innerview/weil.html (accessed June 10, 2008). In an attempt to practically implement his ideas, Weil founded the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona in 1994 (which eventually became the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine) with the aim of encouraging orthodox physicians to become well-versed in alternative therapies so that they could direct patients to the various available alternative methodologies. For specific examples of Weil’s works, see Andrew Weil, Spontaneous Healing: How to Discover and Enhance Your Body’s Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself (New York: Knopf, 1995); and Andrew Weil, Eight Weeks to Optimum Health: A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body’s Natural Healing Power (New York: Knopf, 1997).

discoveries, these individuals claimed, modern medicine needed religion. Though some pentecostal and charismatic healers ultimately promoted a more thoroughgoing censure of the medical establishment, many opted for this less insistent critique that celebrated the achievements of modern medicine while simultaneously highlighting its limitations if divorced from knowledge regarding the spiritual component of human existence.102 As it happens, close affinities always existed between pentecostal healing and holistic assumptions. Given pentecostals’ focus on the spiritual origins of illness, healing by definition involved the restoration of the entire person and moved well beyond physical healing. Reports from the Azusa Street revivals in 1906 captured this tendency. An anonymous contributor to the Apostolic Faith pointed to the full-person healing received during the revival. Jesus’ “Blood cleanses from all sin, and brings health, joy, salvation, and eternal life.”103 What more did a person need? Pentecostals’ focus on the correlation between personal sin and sickness as well as their insistence that healing and not just salvation flowed from Christ’s atoning death on the cross likewise encouraged believers to connect personal and physical transformation in their thinking. “One great proof that healing is in the Atonement,” wrote the healing evangelist Charles Price, “is that salvation for the soul and healing for the body have always gone hand in hand.” “Poor, sin-sick, suffering humanity,” he continued, “Jesus not only atoned for your sickness, but He atoned for your sicknesses as well.”104 For pentecostals physical healing was only part of the multi-faceted salvation purchased through Christ’s death; Christ transformed the entire person, body, mind, and spirit. Of course, despite their confidence in the role of spiritual powers in the healing process, most early pentecostals did not share holistic practitioners’ simultaneous commitment to natural healing methods (whether medical or otherwise). As an increasing number of pentecostals explicitly acknowledged the healing power of nature and physicians, however, this changed by the latter half of the twentieth century. More and more believers drew on classic themes within the holistic movement, describing both disease and its cure as a consequence of both natural and

102 For discussion of pentecostals and charismatics’ shift towards more radical forms of alternative medicine and away from conventional medicine, see Chapter 2.

103 Apostolic Faith, 1, no. 8 (1907): 2.

104 Charles S. Price, “Is Healing in the Atonement?” Golden Grain 5, no. 8 (1930): 22-23.

supernatural factors. Many pentecostals, for example, accepted their doctor’s assessment regarding the nature of their illness while simultaneously situating their diagnoses to fit with a “more encompassing religious weltanschauung” emphasizing God’s control over events, or the role of demonic powers operating behind the scenes.105 Others worked more explicitly to change the actual practice of medicine based on spiritual insights. No one did more to spur the movement in this direction than Oral Roberts. As early as 1949 Roberts discussed the role of natural and supernatural agents in the healing process, as well as the interconnection between the body, mind, and spirit. He admitted that there were instances when “nature has not been weakened beyond its power to resist disease,” in which case the body “responds to medical treatment since the doctor can assist nature.” On the other hand, when “worry and fear grip your spirit and your mind is tormented with doubt, then nature is unable to function and there is no doctor nor medicine that can bring recovery to your body from sickness and disease.” Given the ultimate unity of the body, mind, and spirit, then, Roberts concluded that “[t]he miracle of healing starts from within.” He quoted a doctor who explained “that there is little medical hope for people whose souls are wrong with God, whose spiritual channels are blocked, whose minds are beset by fears and frustrations.”106

105 See Poloma, Assemblies of God at the Crossroads, 58-60. The inclination to add a distinctly spiritual explanation to otherwise naturalistic formulations of illness was present even in the earliest days of the movement. At least a few early pentecostals, for example, sought to explain the germ theory of disease by claiming a close connection between germs and spirits. “Diseases are produced in the human system by animalcules, microbes and bacteria and these germinate into disease,” acknowledged one Church of God (Cleveland, TN) adherent. “I agree with Brother Lee that these germs are demons and they cause all diseases,” S. R. Mitchell, “Divine Healing,” Church of God Evangel 12, no. 28 (1921): 2. In an article on demon possession, Gordon Lindsay, a prominent promoter of the post-World War II evangelists, admitted that “a boil is caused by a germ (we are informed by medical authorities),” but he quickly added, “we see that Satan is the agent by which germ diseases are made to afflict humanity,” Gordon Lindsay, “Demon Oppression and Sickness,” The Voice of Healing 2, no. 12 (1950): 12.

106 Oral Roberts, “The Healing of Cancer,” Healing Waters 2, no. 3 (1949): 2, 14. Commenting on the holistic trends within mainstream American medicine, Roberts quoted a friend who suggested that “[m]ore and more I believe medicine is moving in this direction, toward whole man healing.” “Isn’t that exciting?” Roberts responded. “Jesus is a restorer of the human being . . . the healer of your whole person . . . body, mind, and spirit, and medicine is moving in that direction!” Oral Roberts, “How to See Disease as ‘Dis-Ease’ and Start Learning to Be a Whole Person,” Abundant Life 30, no. 10 (1976): 4. For a helpful overview of the development of Roberts’s thinking regarding “wholeness” and “whole-man healing,” as well as a basic timeframe for when these ideas germinated in Roberts’s mind, see Harrell, Oral Roberts, 456-60.

Roberts was not the only pentecostal or charismatic drawing on the language of holism to describe healing. Writing for the charismatic journal Logos, Barbara Pursey described the complex interplay between the body, mind, and spirit in disease and its healing, “A disease in one area can spread and infect other areas where open doors of weakness exist,” she wrote. “Conversely, healing can spread from the first point of contact—whether body, soul (mind, emotions, memory), or spirit—into other areas in time, when there is openness to healing love.”107 Kuhlman also chided physicians for their lack of holistic focus, “Many of our fine medical men will agree that religion is good for mental healing, the healing of the mind. And they all agree that religion is healing for the soul. And yet few admit that the power of God for the healing of the body is reasonable. When after all the three are all interlocked.”108 In a similar vein, the popular charismatic writer and healer Francis MacNutt stressed that sickness could originate either in the spirit, the emotions, the body, or in the demonic. Despite the differing roots of disease, however, MacNutt made it clear that the four categories he described easily bled into another. Sickness of the spirit often contributed to emotional and bodily sickness; sickness of the emotions often contributed to spiritual and bodily sickness, and so forth.109 What set Roberts apart from others who shared his criticisms of the limitations of conventional medicine involved his attempt to explicitly merge medical and spiritual models of healing by training “spirit-filled” doctors. Other figures in the movement certainly formulated sophisticated models of healing that incorporated the findings of psychology and that highlighted the import of the spirit in the healing process; Roberts led the way, however, in calling for a radical transformation in the way traditional physicians practiced their profession.110 In crafting his vision for reforming the practice of medicine, Roberts was greatly influenced by his friend William Standish Reed, an Episcopalian physician who served as a

107 Barbara Pursey, “Healing Is for the Whole Person,” Logos 9, no. 1 (1979): 23.

108 Kathryn Kuhlman, “Healing of the Body, Mind & Spirit,” (Pittsburgh, PA: Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation, 1960), audio recording, Records of the Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation, Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton.

109 MacNutt, Healing, 145-51.

110 For further discussion of attempts to merge psychology with divine healing within the movement, see Chapter 4.

prominent early spokesperson for holistic healing within the movement. Founder and president of the Christian Medical Foundation International, an organization created in 1962 to provide a network of support for pentecostal and charismatic physicians, Reed developed the concept of logo-psychosomatic healing based in part on his awareness of the efforts of earlier figures who sought to combine medicine and religion such as Richard Cabot. “The logos is the spirit of man,” he declared to an audience at ORU in 1964, “the psychi is the mind of man, and the somatic is the body of man. . . . We need someone who has the synthetic mind, who can take all of these various aspects of man and put us back together again.” In a crucial move, Reed’s vision required Christian—and more specifically, pentecostal and charismatic—doctors, “The only kind of doctors that can fill this particular bill are those who are baptized with the Holy Ghost because they do not know otherwise what the spirit is.”111 He concluded that “medicine and nursing in America (and this includes the entire Western world) has failed in only one major respect. We have ignored Jesus Christ, his holy word and his holiness in our professions.” The only solution Reed saw for the difficulties faced by the medical establishment was “to make medicine spiritual” by combining traditional medicine with prayer.112 While Reed sought to implement his vision by encouraging and organizing doctors who were open to the Spirit’s healing work, it required someone with Roberts’s clout to marshal the resources necessary to build an institution dedicated to training spirit-empowered physicians. The first step in this direction occurred during the 1960s when Roberts put together plans for Oral Roberts University (ORU). Established in 1965, ORU eventually expanded beyond its focus on undergraduate education and included graduate schools—not the least of which included the school of medicine that opened in 1978.113 According to his biographer, Roberts had contemplated opening a school of medicine at least since the early 1960s. Impressed by the medical missions employed by the Seventh Day Adventists, he answered a query in 1963 as to whether or not the university would “turn out medical doctors as the Seven Day Adventist people are turning out.” “God has a magnificent

111 Quoted in Harrell, Oral Roberts, 458-59.

112 William Standish Reed, “Is It Time for a New Medicine?” Logos 9 (1979): 12-13. Also see “Christian Medical Foundation International,” http://wwmedical.com/cmf/ (accessed May 15, 2007).

113 See Harrell, Oral Roberts, esp. 207-52, 374-79.

program in the future for this university,” Roberts responded, “and He happened to tap on the shoulder some men who aren’t scared of anything.” As it happened, getting the medical school accredited was not for the faint of heart. Roberts faced stiff opposition—especially from local doctors at other hospitals in Tulsa, Oklahoma—in part due to concerns that he intended to eventually build a hospital in the region (which in fact he did). In addition to the medical school, he also opened a school of dentistry and a school of nursing.114 With each of these graduate programs, Roberts’s vision entailed educating dentists, doctors, and nurses who would then utilize their training to not only bring healing to suffering individuals around the globe, but salvation as well. In 1976 he spoke of “physicians and dentists that I can envision going out from ORU’s medical and dental schools into the far corners of the earth where God’s light is dim and His voice is heard small, taking his love and healing power.”115

114 Ibid., 374-79, quotation 367.

115 Quoted in Yvonne Nance, “Doctor Ron Lamb Says: ‘ORU Turned Me On . . . And Turned My Life Around . . .’” Abundant Life (1976): 23. Also see Harrell, Oral Roberts, 392-96. Roberts reported that during the fight to obtain accreditation he told the head of the American Medical Association committee that “there were approximately 530,000 doctors in the United States but only about 400 medical missionaries in the whole mission field. . . . ‘That is why God has commissioned me to build a medical school at ORU,’ I told him.” Though he saw these healing teams ministering to Native Americans in the United States, he also wanted to “use medicine to open nations now closed to missionaries.” Roberts’s vision regarding the medical school also played an important role in his infamous appeal to supporters in 1987 for eight million dollars lest God “call him home” to heaven. As Roberts recounted the events leading up to his plea, in the early years of the school he was confident that his “message from the Lord about raising up medical missionaries was getting through” to the faculty and students. To his dismay, as students began to graduate with their MDs, he realized “that I had not been understood.” Upon further investigation, he was told that students simply could not afford to immediately go into the mission field while they owed multiple tens of thousands of dollars for their medical education. Roberts recalled reacting skeptically to students’ claim that they had to work in the U.S. to pay off their debt. Instead, he expected students to enter the mission field on faith. “I operate solely by faith,” he reasoned. “If I could start at ground zero on the medical school . . . by faith only, why couldn’t they?” “I probably thought that since I obeyed whatever God said to me, at any cost,” he continued, “every other believer working with me would do the same.” In the words of a physician he spoke with regarding the issue, Roberts concluded that doctors, as scientists, had “never had to live by faith in the gospel sense as you do. We’re just not there yet,” Oral Roberts, Still Doing the Impossible (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2002), 148-50. It was this frustration over ORU’s inability to produce medical missionaries that led Roberts to claim that God would allow him to die if he did not raise eight million dollar to fund scholarships for the medical students. Immediately following Roberts’s announcement regarding this revelation the healing evangelist became the butt of jokes nationwide. “‘Your Money or my life’ plea is latest for savvy fund-raiser,” touted the St. Petersburg Times. The author compared Roberts’s latest call for money to past petitions, including his “publicity spectacular” insisting that a 900-foot Jesus had commanded him to finish an earlier project, Jay Horning, “The Oral

Roberts sought to do much more than simply train medical professionals for missions, however. Apart from the sheer magnitude of his efforts, the key innovation represented by Roberts’s creation of a medical school and his support of medical missionaries stemmed from an evolving vision in which he sought to transform the practice of both medicine and supernatural healing by merging the two. For Roberts, the explicit combination and commingling of medicine with spiritual forms of healing was nothing less than a “new concept in medical science.”116 In his eyes, the physicians trained at ORU would possess a revolutionary ability to heal based on their willingness to fuse supernatural and natural forms of healing.117 “There is a coming together for the first time, at least in my lifetime of the great healing systems of God,” he wrote. “I believe that all healing is from God. I believe that He only has different ‘delivery systems.’”118 Roberts saw a blueprint of God’s plan to merge medical science and prayer in scripture. Jesus himself had affirmed “the need to merge all of God’s healing systems,” Roberts claimed, pointing to Matthew 9:12 NIV where Jesus said “[i]t is not the healthy who need a doctor, but

Roberts Appeal,” St. Petersburg Times, January 20 1987, 1. Another writer reported with regret: “Mr. Roberts raised this cash for his apparently extortionist God—though there is no clear evidence to show how the dollars are to be spent—and lives on to ask for more and more and more,” “Praise the Lord and Pass the Loot,” The Economist, May 16 1987, 23. As these comments suggest, not a few observers were disappointed when Roberts met his goal and forestalled his date with destiny. Frequently lost in the din of controversy surrounding Roberts’s fundraising methods, however, was the fact that his appeal arose out of frustration that the vision regarding medical missions was not materializing fast enough. The episode revealed just how far pentecostalism had come. Whereas numerous early pentecostals considered doctors money-hungry frauds, roughly eighty years later a figure such as Roberts could claim that God would demand his life if adherents did not donate millions of dollars to fund the training of doctors for missions work.

116 Oral Roberts, “I Believe the Cure for Cancer Has a Spiritual Origin,” Abundant Life 31, no. 1 (1977): 2.

117 Poloma briefly acknowledges the attempts by Roberts’ and others to transform the practice of traditional medicine, but quickly discounts its chances for success. Speaking of his attempt to build a charismatic hospital, she suggests that a “divine message or vision communicated to Roberts, might spark enthusiasm for the project, but such events are unlikely to be part of its daily operation,” Poloma, Charismatic Movement, 104-8. While Poloma may be right regarding attempts to institutionalize divine healing in traditional hospitals, as I argue in Chapter 2, a practical manifestation of Roberts’s vision eventually emerged in the form of pentecostal and charismatic healers who transformed (but did not totally abandon) medical models of healing by borrowing from alternative practitioners.

118 Oral Roberts, “God Still Heals Today—He Is Just Using Different ‘Delivery Systems’,” Abundant Life 30, no. 1 (1976): 16.

the sick.” Due to the “scarcity of physicians . . . at the time,” Roberts concluded, Jesus was unable to make the ideal a reality. Despite the lack of physicians during biblical times, God’s ideal of combining the skills of doctors and spiritual healers began to take shape during the ministry of the Apostle Paul. On the one hand, the Apostle Paul relied on divine intervention as “miracles of healing were wrought by God through his hands.” Alongside the Apostle Paul’s ministry, “suddenly there arose a physician” as well, “a skilled doctor by the name of Luke, and he joined Paul’s powerful evangelistic team.” Significantly, for Roberts, once this healing tandem was formed, “the two streams of God’s healing power started to merge.” Despite this hopeful beginning, the healing model provided by Luke and Paul was not heeded by subsequent generations. Roberts observed that by the late twentieth century the conditions present during Jesus’ and the Apostle Paul’s lifetime had been reversed. Now there were “hundreds of thousands of physicians, men and women who are dedicated to healing people through medical skill,” but far too few spiritual healers.119 By the mid-1970s Roberts was convinced that the time was right to fulfill God’s vision for merging these “two streams.” “We are seeing thousands of doctors who are practicing at the top level of their competence who also believe that the inner spirit of man has to be touched by a greater power,” he wrote. “Also we are seeing people who believe in the power of prayer going to their doctor gratefully, carrying their faith and accepting the great God-given and hard- worked-for gift that the physician brings. The two ‘delivery systems’ are coming together more and more every day.”120 With everything in place, all God needed was someone to implement the new vision of healing, and Roberts believed himself to be called of God to do just that; God directed him to stand “in the gap to help unify these delivery systems of our healing Lord.”121 The culmination of Roberts’s dream emerged in 1977 when he announced plans to build the City of Faith, which in addition to the medical school served as a very tangible manifestation of his vision for a new form of medicine bringing together medical and spiritual healing. The blueprint for the complex called for three buildings, including a thirty-story hospital with 777

119 Oral Roberts, “The Master Plan God Has Given Me,” Abundant Life 31, no. 11 (1977): 3-4. Early pentecostals frequently claimed that Luke did not practice medicine after becoming a disciple of Christ.

120 Roberts, “God Still Heals Today,” 16.

121 Roberts, “Cure for Cancer Has a Spiritual Origin,” 2.

beds, a sixty-story clinic, and a twenty-story medical research center. Directly in front of the buildings stood a sixty-foot bronze sculpture of praying hands. According to a ministry brochure, “One hand represents the hand of prayer raised to God, the source of health and healing, and the other the hand of the physician raised in commitment to place all of God’s healing power in operation for every patient and against every disease.”122 At the City of Faith, Roberts pictured “some of the greatest medical scientists of the world seeking a breakthrough for cancer, and heart disease, and studying the problems of aging, and researching in other problem areas in an atmosphere that’s filled with prayer and faith.”123 As these comments suggest, Roberts’s vision of a spiritualized medicine went beyond merging prayer and medicine when treating patients. He also envisioned new forms of medical research conducted within a spiritualized context. Roberts’s interest in cancer research provided insight into why he believed research at the City of Faith would be superior to secular research. Cancer according to Roberts represented a special form of disease that had to be dealt with on both a spiritual and medical level if progress were to be made towards a cure, and Roberts was confident that “God intends for there to be a medical breakthrough in cancer research.” The problem, however, lay in the fact that cancer had a “spiritual origin” and was “different from all other diseases.” As he prayed for individuals suffering from cancer throughout his years of ministry, he would “smell this terrible odor” and “be reminded of Beelzebub which is the name of the chief demon.” Though careful to clarify that he did not see cancer as a sign of demon possession, he nevertheless concluded that “cancer had a relationship to this chief of demons, Beelzebub.”124 Based on these assumptions Roberts proclaimed, “I believe that only in an atmosphere where God is uplifted, where men can have insights from God coming though their minds and spirit, only then will we ever find a breakthrough for cancer.” As a complex dedicated to research conducted in an atmosphere charged with prayer, Roberts believed “with all my heart that from [the City of Faith] will come one of the major breakthroughs in our

122 Quoted in Harrell, Oral Roberts, 382.

123 Roberts, “Master Plan,” 7.

124 Roberts, “Cure for Cancer Has a Spiritual Origin,” 3-4. Roberts had long expressed special interest in the healing of cancer. See Roberts, “Healing of Cancer.”

lifetime.”125 “As we gather together competent cancer researchers and seek to see them filled with the Holy Spirit,” he wrote, “I believe the climate will be created in which there is the possibility of a dramatic breakthrough for the cure of cancer. . . . [T]here must be a unifying of [medical research] with the power of the Holy Spirit.”126 In short, both the medical school and the City of Faith testified to Roberts’s desire for institutions where “prayer, medical science, and hard work mix for many miracles.” 127 Pentecostal healing had traveled far indeed.

Conclusion As it happens, both Roberts’s medical school and his City of Faith eventually closed in 1989 due to financial difficulties. Ever the optimist, Roberts recast these negative events as part of God’s plan—he even went so far as to tout the closing of the City of Faith as “one of the greatest victories not only of my life but in Christendom.” Roberts compared the closing of the City of Faith to the death of Christ. He recalled hearing God speak to him while in prayer: “Do you know why I did not permit [Jesus] to live to be 40, or 50, or 60, or 80? Or even more years in His physical and bodily form? . . . I had My Son to have His public ministry for only three years so My larger purpose would not be localized only in His physical presence in time and space.” God then indicated to Roberts that in a similar fashion he had Roberts “build the City of Faith large enough to capture the imagination of the entire world about the merging of My healing streams of prayer and medicine. I did not want this revelation localized in Tulsa, however.” Now that the job of merging prayer and medicine “is done,” the time had come to make the message known “to all people and to go into all future generations.”128 Roberts’s rationalization regarding the closing of the City of Faith did little to placate critics who saw the venture as a colossal waste of funds, yet efforts to merge divine healing and medicine would in fact survive within the movement—and even thrive—in spite of the setbacks

125 Roberts, “Master Plan,” 7.

126 Roberts, “Cure for Cancer Has a Spiritual Origin,” 3-4.

127 Oral Roberts, “Where Prayer and Medical Science Mix for Miracles,” Abundant Life 31, no. 8 (1977): 12.

128 Quoted in Stephen Strang, “Oral Roberts: Victory out of Defeat,” Charisma 15, no. 5 (1989): 81, 86-87.

experienced in Tulsa. Figures such as Roberts and Reed set the stage for future healers, many of whom had received medical degrees, to explore other innovative ways to combine natural and supernatural methods in their healing techniques. These figures, who are discussed in more detail in Chapter 2, stood much closer to those vocal critics of the medical establishment who rejected conventional therapies in favor of truly “natural” remedies. The overall trajectory of Roberts’s ministry and those who followed in his footsteps symbolized—albeit in dramatic fashion—developments in the pentecostal tradition as a whole. As pentecostals encountered the rising prestige and effectiveness of the medical establishment over the course of the twentieth century, they faced a choice. They could continue to advocate divine healing at the expense of modern medicine, or they could adapt their methods to fit with the increasingly persuasive evidence regarding medical efficacy. Most chose the latter, borrowing a page out of the playbook of holistic medicine. In the process, pentecostals joined with charismatics in taking their healing practices mainstream without relinquishing a spiritualized understanding of the healing process.

CHAPTER TWO

THE BIBLE CURE: ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN PENTECOSTAL AND CHARISMATIC HEALING

Oral Roberts’s push to merge spiritual healing with medicine signaled important changes in pentecostals and charismatics’ approaches to healing. Subsequent healers within the movement, however, moved beyond his focus on a spiritualized form of mainstream medicine. Enterprising pentecostal and charismatic individuals began to promote everything from biblically sanctioned natural diet supplements and vitamins to books detailing biblical diets backed by the latest scientific research. While at first glance it appears that these healers simply reflected (and profited from) the renewed attention given to fitness and health within American culture in the final decades of the twentieth century, the underlying rationale justifying their healing techniques and products also tapped into the burgeoning popularity of alternative medicine—and in particular naturopathy—that celebrated the healing powers inherent within natural substances and the human body.1 Pentecostals and charismatics would resist overt pantheistic rhetoric, yet prominent figures in the movement nevertheless shared naturopaths’ reverence for the power of all things natural to produce health and healing. These healers who stressed the way in which spiritual power flowed through matter and natural substances perpetuated Roberts’s desire to combine natural and supernatural healing, yet they also differed in important respects from his approach. Whereas Roberts shared alternative medicine’s stress on holistic healing and treating the patient as an integrated whole—body, mind, and spirit—he envisioned holistic medicine as a union of

1 Throughout this chapter I draw in particular on James Whorton’s characterizations of key aspects of alternative medicine. See James C. Whorton, Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), esp. 4-16.

prayer with orthodox methods; “natural healing” for Roberts encompassed the efforts of doctors utilizing medicine and surgery. Later figures tended to downplay (and often specifically critique) traditional medicine. Instead they promoted alternative, “truly” natural therapies that reflected metaphysical assumptions premised on a high valuation of nature.2 The willingness of pentecostals and charismatics in the latter decades of the twentieth century to utilize natural healing methods represented a sharp break from early pentecostal teachings. The earliest saints stressed God’s direct intervention on nature as opposed to through nature; later healers, on the other hand, increasingly described divine healing utilizing naturopathic terminology and philosophy, assiduously searching for scriptural precedents justifying the use of natural substances in healing. By aligning so closely with naturopathic methodologies, pentecostals and charismatics reflected evolving attitudes within the movement regarding the relationship between the natural world and the supernatural world. Believers increasingly borrowed the “cultural property” of healers with much closer ties to metaphysical religion than to the radical American evangelical world that gave birth to pentecostalism.3 Whereas pentecostals always stoutly resisted the “disenchantment” and “de-supernaturalization” of the world that they feared accompanied the development of highly technological and industrialized societies, by the end of the twentieth century specific leaders within the movement promoted a dualistic metaphysic; they celebrated the ways in which God acted through the natural world even as they continued to resist the thoroughgoing materialism associated with traditional medicine. Such metaphysical themes were implicit in the early movement, especially in early pentecostals’ very thisworldly metaphors for the Holy Spirit and in their belief that divine power could be transmitted through physical objects, but never before had the connections between supernatural power and natural substances taken center stage as they did in the latter decades of the twentieth century.

2 It is important to note that the terms “natural” and or “nature” are by no means self-evident concepts and defining just what constitutes a natural remedy proves a highly subjective enterprise. See Introduction, footnote 1.

3 Pentecostals and charismatics’ willingness to “borrow” from metaphysical traditions is a perfect example of the type of religious exchange highlighted by Catherine Albanese. See esp. Catherine L. Albanese, “Exchanging Selves, Exchanging Souls: Contact, Combination, and American Religious History,” in Retelling U.S. Religious History, ed. Thomas A. Tweed (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), 200-26.

Alternative Medicine at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century When pentecostalism burst on the scene at the turn of the twentieth century, numerous unorthodox healers also operated on the fringe of traditional medicine. These alternative practitioners were hardly newcomers. Americans throughout the colonies and early republic utilized a hodgepodge of healing methodologies ranging from “old-world” practices brought over from Europe that were often connected to astrology (and popularized via the ubiquitous almanac), to Native American and West African healing practices such as the use of botanical drugs and the art of conjure, to “regular” doctors’ use of purgatives, bleeding, and blistering.4 With the growing professionalization of conventional medicine during the 1800s, alternative healing systems emerged that provided rival paradigms challenging conventional doctors’ confidence in their “heroic therapies.” By all accounts, mainstream physicians’ rudimentary prescriptions often created considerable suffering and left the door open for competitors to hawk their healing alternatives to the American public. Fed by eighteenth-century Enlightenment trends that lauded the power of reason, traditional doctors represented a developing medical orthodoxy during the first half of the nineteenth century that struggled to assert itself but that eventually monopolized the American healing marketplace by the early twentieth century.5 Their approach placed healing in the hands of an all-knowing physician trained in the medical sciences who wielded his expertise to fight disease. Medical training during the early nineteenth century typically armed the physician with weapons such as calomel (a widely used cathartic with less than desirable side-effects including the loss of teeth), blistering, and blood letting.6

4 Useful discussions of non-traditional healing practices in the colonies and early republic can be found in Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), esp. 21-118; and Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 67-97. For discussion of more traditional medicine in the colonies, see Eric H. Christianson, “Medicine in New England,” in Medicine in the New World: New Spain, New France, and New England, ed. Ronald L. Numbers (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), 101-53.

5 For further discussion of the history of traditional medicine in the United States, see Chapter 1. For statistics on the growing number of medical schools and societies during the early nineteenth century, see William G. Rothstein, American Physicians in the Nineteenth Century: From Sects to Science (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), esp. 71, 92, 93.

6 Physicians’ reliance on emetics, diuretics, etc. reflected the prevailing views during the early nineteenth century that health required a state of equilibrium between an individual and the environment.

Dissidents dubbed traditional medicine “allopathy” (literally “other than the disease”), a derogatory term intended to highlight mainstream doctors’ application of methods unrelated to the actual problem at hand. Rival practitioners formulated a variety of alternatives to the medical establishment’s heroics, yet they could all agree that the medical establishment’s methods ignored the vis medicatrix naturae (the healing power of nature) to the detriment of all who suffered physically.7 As it happens, by the second half of the century, regular physicians increasingly acknowledged how important the body’s natural ability to resist disease was to the healing process—influenced in no small part no doubt by the success of alternative practitioners. By that time, however, distinctive healing systems predicated on the vis medicatrix naturae had already taken root, producing the deeply entrenched rivalry between the orthodox mainstream and so-called “quackery” that would only begin to dissolve towards the end of the twentieth century.8 Representative of alternative healing trends, in the early decades of the nineteenth century Samuel Thomson heralded the power of botanical treatments that he discovered in the backwoods of New Hampshire. Thomson focused in particular on restoring the body’s natural production of heat, which he identified as the root of true health. Not for the faint of heart, Thomsonian medicine made liberal use of lobelia, the “Emetic Herb,” and various other substances and procedures including cayenne enemas. Though cayenne enemas hardly qualified

Emetics, diuretics, and the like were seen as key tools facilitating physicians’ regulation of patients’ interactions with their surroundings. In the words of Charles Rosenberg, “The physician’s most potent weapon was his ability to ‘regulate the secretions’—to extract blood, to promote the perspiration, or the urination, or defecation which attested to his having helped the body to regain its customary equilibrium.” See Charles Rosenberg, “The Therapeutic Revolution: Medicine, Meaning, and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century America,” in The Therapeutic Revolution, ed. Morris J. Vogel (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979), 6. Some medical historians, it should be noted, are careful to point out that the “heroic procedures” were not followed as aggressively by many within the profession. See for example Eric Christianson’s discussion of eighteenth century medicine in Christianson, “Medicine in New England,” 141-42.

7 Despite the origins of the term “allopathy,” orthodox practitioners eventually accepted the label, ignoring its negative connotations. Whorton stresses alternative practitioners’ faith in nature as the common denominator joining a widely diverse set of beliefs and practices and setting them apart from orthodox medicine (though he acknowledges the fact that by the late nineteenth century physicians increasingly admitted the importance of the body’s natural response in overcoming disease). See Whorton, Nature Cures, esp. 4-7.

8 For discussion of physicians’ greater willingness during the second half of the nineteenth century to countenance the role of nature to produce healing, see Rosenberg, “Therapeutic Revolution,” esp. 14-21.

as “non-heroic” procedures, Thomsonians vigorously demarcated their use of “vegetable” substances that shared the healing powers of nature from regular physician’s reliance on “mineral” substances (such as calomel, the mercury compound frequently used by regular doctors) that were, according to Thomsonians, not only devoid of nature’s healing power but downright destructive if introduced into the human body.9 During the latter half of the nineteenth century, homeopathic remedies developed in Germany by Samuel Hahnemann also proved extremely popular in the United States. Offering sufferers a variety of mineral, botanical, and animal products believed to initiate healing by producing symptoms identical to those experienced by the sufferer, homeopathic healers sought to cure “likes with likes.” Despite skepticism regarding Hahnemann’s “doctrine of infinitesimals” wherein practitioners diluted various healing substances into doses of a millionth of a gram and lower, his system nevertheless caught on, and many American socialites made use of homeopathic procedures during the nineteenth century. Part of homeopathy’s success undoubtedly stemmed from the fact that it did not aggravate illness as did much orthodox practice of the time.10 More important, homeopathy tapped into Americans’ confidence—fed by Romantic sensibilities that came to fore during the middle third of the nineteenth century—in the ability of nature to heal. Hahnemann’s approach focused on stimulating “vital forces” that animated the physical universe and the human body. Put simply, homeopathy awakened the body’s natural healing powers. His infinitesimal dilutions were meant to eliminate the material impediments that bound the dynamic healing powers inherent in the substance being used, which in turn stimulated the vital forces within the human body. As a testament to Americans’ confidence in

9 For further discussion of Thomsonianism, see Robert C. Fuller, Alternative Medicine and American Religious Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 17-22; William G. Rothstein, “The Botanical Movements and Orthodox Medicine,” in Other Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America, ed. Norman Gevitz (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), esp. 42-46; and Whorton, Nature Cures, 25-48.

10 For further discussion of homeopathy, see Fuller, Alternative Medicine, 22-26; Martin Kaufman, “Homeopathy in America: The Rise and Fall and Persistence of a Medical Heresy,” in Other Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America, ed. Norman Gevitz (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 99-123; Whorton, Nature Cures, 49-75; and Naomi Rogers, An Alternative Path: The Making and Remaking of Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital of Philadelphia (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998).

the healing power of nature, around the same time that pentecostals established their presence in the U.S. at the turn of the twentieth century, estimates place the number of homeopaths at 10,000, with an additional 10,000 other alternative doctors, and approximately 110,000 mainstream doctors.11 As these figures suggest, though homeopaths represented the largest alternative healing system challenging conventional medicine at the beginning of the twentieth century, they were by no means alone. Thomson’s botanical methods persisted within physio-medical and eclectic groups; the burgeoning fields of chiropractic and osteopathic medicine focused on the healing powers released through careful manipulation of dislocated joints (particularly in the spine);12 naturopathy sought to facilitate healing by cleansing the body of inner impurities via dietary choices, baths, herbs, and so forth; in addition, Christian Scientists inspired by their founder Mary Baker Eddy employed healing techniques concentrating on the power of the mind to secure healing.13

11 Rothstein, American Physicians, 345. At the end of the 1920s researchers estimate there were around 150,000 conventional physicians and 36,000 rival practitioners. See Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 126-27.

12 I group osteopathic and chiropractic medicine together here due to their similar procedures, despite the fact that the underlying theories motivating those actions proved very different (and often led to bitter recriminations between the two groups). For an overview of the history of osteopathy, see Norman Gevitz, The DOs: Osteopathic Medicine in America, 2nd ed. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). For surveys of the history chiropractic medicine, see Walter I. Wardwell, Chiropractic: History and Evolution of a New Profession (St. Louis, MO: Mosby-Year Book, 1992); Walter I. Wardwell, “Chiropractors: Evolution to Acceptance,” in Other Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America, ed. Norman Gevitz (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 157-91; and J. Stuart Moore, Chiropractic in America: The History of a Medical Alternative (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).

13 The groups mentioned represented popular alternative options available to Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century. I did not include other alternative systems (such as mesmerism, hydrotherapy, and the like) that reached their apex in the nineteenth century—and indeed helped shaped the assumptions and practices of later groups—but nevertheless lacked a coherent following in the early 1900s. Useful overviews of alternative medicine in the United States include Norman Gevitz, Other Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988); and Whorton, Nature Cures. For discussion of the relationship between alternative medicine and religion, see esp. Fuller, Alternative Medicine. For more on the most explicitly Christian alternative healing system mentioned above, Christian Science, see biographies of its founder, Mary Baker Eddy, Gillian Gill, Mary Baker Eddy (Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1998); and Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966). For discussion of Christian Scientists’ struggles with the medical establishment, see Rennie B. Schoepflin, Christian Science on Trial: Religious Healing in America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).

Early Pentecostals and Alternative Medicine In their official rhetoric, many pentecostals lumped alternative practitioners together with the reviled allopaths. A careful look at early pentecostal sources, however, reveals a much more complicated relationship between unorthodox medicine and early pentecostalism. On the one hand, pentecostal condemnations of unconventional doctors appeared frequently in early pentecostal literature. Those who attended meetings held by the influential forerunner of pentecostalism John Alexander Dowie heard him lambast the various “paths” seeking to aid suffering humanity. Highlighting the competing theories of healing represented by the various practitioners of natural healing, he asked, “Is the science of medicine homeopathy, allopathy, hydropathy or psychopathy? Which of the ‘paths’ that lead to the grave is it?” “Let those who say that medicine is a science,” he continued, “just agree on which school is scientific. Certainly the similia similibus men who say that like cures like are not in agreement with the contraria contraribus men who say that the contrary cures the contrary.”14 Like Dowie, several early pentecostals considered the sheer number of conflicting approaches to healing as a confirmation that healing could not be found by relying on human wisdom; only God provided a reliable cure.15 For other pentecostals, alternative practitioners simply represented one more stop in their futile search for health before they embraced the truth of divine healing. One family seeking treatment for their epileptic son began with a doctor who “did nothing for the child except to put him in warm water, and massage him.” After their son showed no improvement, they then tried chloroform treatments to no avail. Then they took him to a chiropractor. “Every day except Sundays we took him there for seven months,” the father reported. Desperate for help, they finally found relief at one of the pentecostal healing evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson’s healing services when she introduced them to the “Great Physician.”16 In a similar story, a pentecostal missionary recounted his early interactions with alternative practitioners while

14 John Alexander Dowie, “God Afflicted in His People’s Affliction,” Leaves of Healing 5, no. 17 (1899): 316.

15 See for example Lilian B. Yeomans, Healing from Heaven, rev. ed. (1926; repr. Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1973), 68; and E. N. Bell, “Questions and Answers,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 452-53 (1922): 8.

16 Fred Knutson, “From Dark Despair to Sunlit Service,” Bridal Call 12, no. 7 (1928): 29.

seeking relief from a fever contracted in Africa. He first went to “the Clifton Springs Sanitariun at Clifton Springs, N. Y., but got very little help. I then tried allopath, homeopath, and osteopath treatments, and about every other path I heard about.” Relief only came however when he “tried God’s path, and was prayed for in a pentecostal meeting in Toronto, Canada.”17 Several pentecostals reserved their most direct criticism of alternative medicine for Christian Scientists, who of all the alternative healers most closely approximated the pentecostal message given their explicitly Christian worldview. As such, Christian Scientists stood as obvious rivals in the realm of religious healing, and pentecostals held nothing back when they attacked Christian Scientists’ beliefs and practices. “As a system of healing, Christian Science is a fraud,” wrote the Pentecostal Holiness leader George F. Taylor. “It is a well known fact that despondent and melancholy feelings will have their effect in the physical system, and so will pleasant and cheerful feelings, and Christian Science seeks to take advantage of these in order to pose as a system of healing.” 18 Objecting to any form of teaching focusing on the power of the mind instead of the power of Jesus’ death, another commenter in the Pentecostal Holiness Advocate claimed that “‘spiritism,’ ‘Christian Science,’ ‘Theosophy,’ ‘New Thought’ . . . all belong to the false prophet class of the last days, classified by the Scriptures as the teachings of ‘seducing spirits and doctrines of demons,’ that is doctrines taught directly or indirectly by demons.”19 Despite these negative characterizations of alternative medicine—and despite the fact that most early pentecostals never acknowledged (or saw) the similarities—pentecostal healing reflected many of the same traits exhibited by advocates of unconventional medicine. Most obvious, both pentecostals and alternative practitioners rejected traditional medicine.20

17 J. M. Perkins and Jessie Arms Perkins, “Two Veterans Return from the Field,” Christ’s Ambassadors Monthly 4, no. 10 (1929): 8.

18 George F. Taylor, “Basis of Union,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 1, no. 51 (1918): 4.

19 T. Smart, “Not Sons of God but Children of Wrath,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 4, no. 21 (1920): 11.

20 Whorton, Nature Cures, 4-16. Susan Curtis discusses the overlap between alternative medicine and the divine healing movement during the late nineteenth century, focusing in particular on the two groups’ shared focus on personal responsibility for health as well as their shared resistance to medicines, Heather D. Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician: Suffering and Divine Healing in American Culture, 1860-1900 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), esp. 59-68.

According to the majority of unconventional doctors, medicines caused more harm than good and bypassed the gentler remedies afforded through attunement with the natural world. Pentecostals who radically opposed all natural forms of intervention could nevertheless heartily “Amen” unorthodox physicians’ sermonizing on the evils of medicines and drugs.21 Though Charles Parham vigorously disagreed with alternative doctors’ methodologies, for example, he at least understood why many found unconventional healing practices appealing. Considering the dangers associated with medicines, he asked, why should it be surprising that many individuals were turning instead “to osteopathy, Christian Science, hypnotic and magnetic healing”?22 Along these same lines, Dowie proclaimed a “sneaking fondness for the Homeopath.” Referring to homeopaths’ practice of infinitesimal doses, he confided, “The thing about the Homeopath that one likes is that one may take a whole bottleful of his medicine without resultant harm.” Though hardly an endorsement for a homeopath to be proud of (in fact, Dowie went on to indicate that “[y]ou might just as well put a few spoonfuls of your medicine into Lake Michigan, and then administer lake water by the bucketful”), his comments indicated a degree of appreciation for homeopaths’ (relative) avoidance of medicine when compared with the level of medicines contained in prescriptions doled out by “regular” MDs.23 None of the above comments reflected a ringing endorsement of alternative options, but they do signify at a minimum that many pentecostals could identify with alternative practitioners in so far as they too stood outside the medical mainstream and waged a “war on drugs.” Pentecostals and other unorthodox practitioners were also united in their opposition to traditional physicians’ prioritization of theoretical knowledge over the practical insights gained through experience and intuition. If a therapy worked, both groups argued, who needed a theoretical explanation to justify putting it into practice? In their eyes, conventional doctors lost sight of common sense in their pursuit of a scientific ideal, fighting healing practices that

21 For example, the numerous repudiations of medicine’s efficacy, discussed in more detail in Chapter 1, could just as easily have been written by any number of alternative practitioners.

22 Charles Parham, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, in The Sermons of Charles F. Parham, ed. Donald W. Dayton (1944; repr. New York: Garland Publishing, 1985), 41.

23 John Alexander Dowie, “New York Visitation of Elijah the Restorer and Zion Restoration Host,” Leaves of Healing 16, no. 17 (1905): 541. As it happens, Charles Cullis, one of the most famous late nineteenth-century proponents of faith cure, was a homeopathic physician and maintained his practice even as he promoted divine healing. See Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, 59-63.

alleviated suffering due to scruples over whether or not these practices made sense in light of current scientific knowledge.24 Early pentecostals inherited their confidence in intuition and in the knowledge gained through experience from nineteenth-century evangelicals who were convinced that their immediate perceptions of the world around them confirmed their deepest religious convictions. In what the historian Mark Noll has termed “methodological Common Sense,” evangelicals asserted that “truths about consciousness, the world, or religion must be built by a strict induction from irreducible facts of experience.”25 Whereas many evangelical theologians tended to locate proof of Christianity in the miracles described in scripture or in observation of nature, however, participants within the pentecostal movement (along with other radical evangelicals) discovered this same assurance in daily events and in their own physical experiences of the supernatural.26 No doctor’s theory could sway a believer’s confidence in the reality of his or her experience of divine healing; divine healing worked, and that was all pentecostals needed to know. Reporting on her own healing revivals, McPherson insisted, “[I]f ‘Seeing is believing’ one could not be a doubter long. Blind eyes were opened, deaf ears unstopped and the lame in several instances left their crutches behind, leaping and jumping with joy as they went away.”

24 For discussion of physicians’ appreciation of the cultural authority provided by linking medical therapeutics to experimental science around the turn of the twentieth century see Gerald L. Geison, “Divided We Stand: Physiologists and Clinicians in the American Context,” in Sickness and Health in America: Reading in the History of Medicine and Public Health, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), esp. 125-27.

25 Far from being relegated to a few intellectual elites, Common Sense assumptions filtered down to the average evangelical parishioner during the nineteenth century. See Mark A. Noll, “Common Sense Traditions and American Evangelical Thought,” American Quarterly 37 (1985): 222-23; and George M. Marsden, “Everyone One’s Own Interpreter: The Bible, Science, and Authority in Mid-Nineteenth- Century America,” in The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History, ed. Nathan O. Hatch and Mark A. Noll (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 79-100. For discussion of these trends in relation to pentecostals, and in particular in relation to their reading of scripture, see Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 75.

26 For further discussion of pentecostals’ use of their experiences as proof of the reality of their worldview see Joseph W. Williams, “Modernity Baptized in the Spirit,” in Agency in the Margins: Stories of Outsider Rhetoric, ed. Anne Meade Stockdell-Giesler (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Forthcoming).

McPherson was convinced that these healing services “preach a louder and more convincing sermon than the most eloquent words ever could do.”27 The lack of doubt evidenced by these comments mirrored the type of “know-so” confidence buoying alternative physicians who similarly highlighted their experiences as healers to skeptics. As one ad for chiropractors in Duluth, Minnesota, put it, “You cannot get around fact no matter how skeptical you are. . . . ‘Results’ are the great arguments that will win. If you would know what Chiropractic can do, ask the person who has given us a fair trial.”28 According to both pentecostals and alternative practitioners, their methods produced results more reliable than so-called medical “science.” Doctors could keep their theories; pentecostals knew where to go when they needed a sure answer to their suffering. Another key commonality uniting pentecostal with alternative critics of mainstream medicine involved the holistic impulse to move beyond treating discrete diseases and instead recognize the intimate connections between physical and spiritual health. Though important distinctions separated the “holistic” movement since the 1970s from its antecedents in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, suffice to say that most alternative healing systems in the U.S. since the nineteenth century described health and healing in basic holistic terms due to their tendency to depict healing as the restoration of harmony between the physical body and intangible powers that permeated human bodies and the entire cosmos.29 The connections pentecostals made between sin and disease, as well as their understanding of Christ’s sacrifice as

27 Aimee Semple McPherson, “Glimpses of the Great San Diego Revival,” Bridal Call 4, no. 10 (1921): 10.

28 Advertisement for Drs. Clyde and Margaret Crow, Chiropractors, Duluth News Tribune, November 25, 1917, 6.

29 The metaphysical orientations of alternative therapies tended to be especially clear in the teachings of each movement’s founder, though subsequent practitioners frequently downplayed these supernatural references as the twentieth century progressed in an effort to bolster the scientific basis of their claims. The history of osteopathy is an especially good example of the professionalization of alternative therapies, see Gevitz, DOs: Osteopathic Medicine in America. For a discussion of the resurging popularity of highly spiritualized alternative approaches towards the end of the twentieth century, see Fuller, Alternative Medicine, 91-117.

a multifaceted atonement for both the spirits and bodies of believers revealed natural affinities between their approaches to healing and that of alternative healers.30 In perhaps the most significant area of overlap connecting early pentecostals with alternative medicine, pentecostals’ conceptions of the Holy Spirit frequently looked a lot like unorthodox physicians’ metaphysical notions of the universe that narrowed the distinction between supernatural and natural realms.31 Most non-traditional healing systems in the nineteenth and early twentieth century reflected metaphysical assumptions in their belief in impersonal powers—often closely associated with “nature”—operating outside of a Newtonian universe governed by the laws of chemistry and physics. D.D. Palmer, for example, the founder of chiropractic, lectured on the “Innate” power coursing through the human body, a form of “Universal Intelligence” permeating all of creation. According to Palmer dislocations in various joints, especially in the spinal cord, put pressure on the nerves and limited the flow of the Innate power. In the words of an early chiropractic manual, “We are well when Innate Intelligence has unhindered freedom to act thru the physical brain, nerves and tissues. . . . Diseases are caused by a LACK OF CURRENT OF INNATE MENTAL IMPULSES,” which in turn led to all manner of illnesses.32 Similar types of metaphysical powers animated the thoughts of other alternative

30 See Chapter 1. The relationship between physical healing and broader forms of salvation in pentecostal practice also highlights a key distinction that separated pentecostals from alternative practitioners: though healing functioned as a crucial plank in pentecostals’ message to the world, at the end of the day, pentecostals were very concerned about the hereafter and not simply about their quality of life on earth. The salvific dimension of their program—centering on the basic Christian narrative regarding bondage to sin and the atoning work of Jesus’ death and resurrection—set pentecostals apart from those alternative practitioners who, despite the moral overtones in their teachings, tended to maintain a more thoroughly pragmatic focus on the restoration of health and healing. That said, pentecostals never doubted that God was very concerned with alleviating their physical suffering in the here and now. Two other important distinctions separating early pentecostals from unconventional doctors also deserve mention: pentecostals did not receive formal payments as healthcare practitioners (though this began to change by the end of the century as certain healers sold nutritional products) and, due to their explicitly religious status, they usually did not have to deal with the same licensing battles that plagued other alternative healers.

31 For further discussion of my understanding of metaphysical traditions in the United States, see the Introduction.

32 In turn, for chiropractors manipulating the spine and adjusting these subluxated joints offered a drugless source of healing that restored the proper flow of Innate and brought about healing. Quoted in Fuller, Alternative Medicine, 72.

healers as well, as seen in Christian Scientists’ espousal of the “Divine Mind,”33 early osteopaths’ confidence in the power of electricity (touted by the movement’s founder as the “highest known order of force” placed in the body by God),34 and naturopaths’ awe before the mysterious, life-giving powers of nature itself.35 Early pentecostals’ descriptions of the Holy Spirit were often quite similar to the metaphysical descriptions of the supernatural espoused by unorthodox healers. Pentecostals throughout the movement’s history depicted the Holy Spirit as a substance-like force, building on biblical passages that compared the Spirit to forces of nature. Jesus, for example, likened the activity of the Holy Spirit to wind. Just as the “wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound therof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”36 Similarly, the arrival of the Holy Spirit on earth following Christ’s ascension coincided with “a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.”37 Another common image utilized by pentecostals involved references to the “Shekina glory.”38 An extra-biblical term, it generally referred to palpable manifestations of God when the saints gathered in worship. “The great Shekina glory is still resting upon us,” wrote one believer. Another recounted, “[T]he great Shekina glory rests upon us day and night, and we are filled and thrilled with the power of the Holy Spirit.”39 In a less theological vein, pentecostals also likened the Spirit to everything from electricity, to liquids, to fire, to modern forms of energy production. “It is one of the most

33 Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (Boston, MA: Christian Science Board of Directors, 1994).

34 Andrew Still quoted in Fuller, Alternative Medicine, 84.

35 For an overview of naturopathic history and philosophy, see Whorton, Nature Cures, 191-217.

36 John 4:8 KJV.

37 Acts 2:2-3 KJV.

38 1 Kings 8:10-11 KJV. For a more detailed discussion of early pentecostals’ conceptions of “Shekina glory,” see Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, & Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 337-41.

39 Apostolic Faith 1, no. 4 (Dec. 1906): 1, 2.

difficult things in all the world for people who are not familiar with the ministry of healing to comprehend that the Spirit of God is tangible, actual, a living quantity, just as real as electricity,” wrote the healing evangelist John G. Lake. The Holy Spirit is “[j]ust as real as any other native force,” he added.40 A smattering of testimonies culled from the Apostolic Faith periodical associated with the initial Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles illustrated similar trends. Celia Freeman recounted that on “March 13th, 1907, the electrical shock of the Holy Ghost from heaven fell on me. I died seemingly and I became helpless as a babe.”41 Brother George E. Berg claimed that the Holy Spirit felt like “balls of fire . . . [that] went through me from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet.” He literally felt his heart enlarged. Far from a mere metaphor, Berg recounted real fear that that the “vessel might not hold the glory and power that seemed to rush into me like water.”42 A Brother Hezmalhalch told how the Holy Spirit manifested through a young girl. “As I went toward her,” he reported, “I shall never forget the power I felt when about two feet from the child, I felt as if batteries of mighty power had seized my body and the whole was one great reservoir of electric forces.”43 Such descriptions of the Holy Spirit would continue to appear in testimonies throughout the twentieth century. Pentecostals’ impersonal descriptions of the Spirit as a substance-like force contributed to their belief that healing power could be transmitted via humans or other physical objects, just as electricity could pass from one point to the next via power lines. Believers frequently ministered healing by laying hands on the sick, for example, or by placing Bibles, pentecostal periodicals, or handkerchiefs that had been prayed over on the sufferer’s body.44 Here again, by focusing on physical objects as transmitters of divine power, early pentecostals mimicked the metaphysical inclination to blur rigid differentiations between natural and supernatural realms. If pressed, of

40 John G. Lake, The John G. Lake Sermons on Dominion over Demons, Disease and Death, ed. Gordon Lindsay, 2nd ed. (Shreveport, LA: Christ for the Nations, 1949), 47, 56.

41 Apostolic Faith 1, no. 8 (May 1907): 4.

42 Apostolic Faith 1, no. 4 (Dec. 1906): 3.

43 Apostolic Faith 1, no. 5 (Jan. 1907): 4.

44 For numerous examples of the ways in which early pentecostals used the human body or other physical objects to transmit God’s power, see Kimberly Ervin Alexander’s detailed description of healing practices within the various denominations, Kimberly Ervin Alexander, Pentecostal Healing: Models in Theology and Practice (Dorset, U.K.: Deo, 2006), 64-194.

course, early pentecostals would have repudiated the metaphysical leanings evident among many alternative practitioners and readily affirmed more traditional notions of God as a personal being. As their descriptions of the Holy Spirit suggested, however, at times early pentecostals resembled their competitors more than they would have liked to admit. Considering the various areas of overlap mentioned above linking pentecostals with alternative healers, it is not surprising that while most early pentecostals clearly distinguished supernatural healing from mundane prescriptions, voices could be heard allowing for the use of natural remedies untainted by the label “drug” or “medicine.” 45 The Assembly of God leader E. N. Bell addressed this issue when asked if natural means of healing should be employed when children were involved—a subject of considerable interest to pentecostals considering governmental actions against religious groups that refused medical care to minors. Bell clarified that he did not speak for the General Council of the Assemblies of God as a whole, but nevertheless indicated that he for one would not object if an adherent consulted a doctor in such a situation, though he recommended that they “call a physician who will not give poisonous drugs, such as Physio-Medicos, Osteopaths or Homeopaths.”46 The use of natural remedies and alternative methods proved widespread enough, in fact, to require rebuttal by more conservative pentecostals. An author in the periodical Golden Grains lamented the fact that the “use of lemonade, ginger tea for a cold, a plaster for an ace, alcohol for outward application is urged by some, but they fail to recognize that the use of the natural will interfere with and retard the workings of the Supernatural. We are apt to trust in what we are doing rather than in the Lord.”47 Other pentecostals acknowledged the efficaciousness of alternative practices, even if they did not recommend them. One pentecostal teacher tried to answer how a man who was “a broken man physically, financially, and spiritually” nevertheless “improved in health” and became a “strong, prosperous, happy man” after consulting a Christian Scientist. Instead of denying the healing, the teacher relegated the benefits of Christian Science to the “natural

45 For discussion of early pentecostals who were open to the use of medicine, see Chapter 1.

46 E. N. Bell, “Questions and Answers,” The Weekly Evangel, no. No. 131 (1916): 8.

47 F. B., “Hints Regarding Divine Healing,” Golden Grain 3, no. 10 (1928): 28-29.

powers God has given” to all humans. Pentecostal healing, conversely, proved a genuine miracle effected by divine intervention.48 Along the same lines, G. F. Taylor insisted that the original leaders of the Pentecostal Holiness Church taught that “there is healing in Jesus Christ absolutely independent of all material aid.” That said, the writer went on to note that the church had “never objected to any one having a physician or taking remedies.” Those actions simply should not be confused with divine healing. Though Taylor overstated the support within the denomination for the use of “remedies,” the very fact that he could claim otherwise highlighted just how many adherents within the movement likely utilized natural forms of healing.49 One pentecostal woman went so far as to claim that God himself commanded a mother to take her child to a homeopath physician for healing of epileptic fits. As Mrs. Fannie Reif recounted in the Latter Rain Evangel, “[a]fter months of prayer and persuasion” the child initially received relief simply through the mother’s prayers. When the epileptic fits returned in a year, however, the “Lord spoke to the woman . . . that she should get a doctor for her child.” Initially resistant to the idea, the woman eventually relented and went “to a homeopathic doctor, who gave her some little pills.” The results would have shocked the sensibilities of any good pentecostal listening to Reif’s account: “After the child took one dose of the pills she never had another fit, and was healed from that time on.” Though Reif explained God’s deviation from his stated healing plan as an attempt to deal with the mother’s pride “because she was so critical and harsh of His children who did not believe as she did,” it is nevertheless significant that when God directed the woman to a doctor, he pointed her to an alternative physician.50 Pentecostals’ clear

48 S. S. Times, “Appreciating Salvation,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 9, no. 43 (1926): 11.

49 That the author had more than just traditional medicines and drugs in mind when using the term “remedies” becomes clear later in the article when he distinguishes between “physicians, drugs, medicine, or remedies,” George F. Taylor, “Editorial,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 3, no. 51 (1920): 9. It is also important to note that Taylor wrote these remarks while the Pentecostal Holiness Church was embroiled in controversy over the use of natural means in healing. Despite the moderate comments listed here, he appeared to change his thinking in this regard, joining those within the denomination who rejected the use means. See George F. Taylor, “A Statement,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 3, no. 53 (1920): 3. For a helpful overview of these debates within the church, see Jonathan R. Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies: Divine Healing in Modernizing America” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2002), 274- 79.

50 Fannie Reif quoted in “One Who Walked and Talked with God,” The Latter Rain Evangel 23, no. 12 (1931): 19. It is also worth noting that Reif’s testimony occurred in the context of healing for children,

prioritization of direct divine intervention did not always equal a denial of unorthodox healers’ effectiveness. Despite their differences, at the end of the day pentecostals stood much closer to alternative healers than they did to orthodox physicians. James Whorton’s comment that “alternative healing systems have carried the battle against the mechanistic, reductionistic orientation of mainstream medicine down to the present” applied equally well to pentecostals.51 This proximity in turn helps to explain why many pentecostals and charismatics embraced certain forms of alternative medicine by the end of the century. In fact, the real question is why pentecostals and charismatics gravitated first towards mainstream medicine and only subsequently warmed up to alternative methodologies. Historically pentecostals had much more in common with alternative practitioners than they did with the medical establishment. The answer rests in the sheer dominance traditional medicine enjoyed throughout most of the twentieth century. Interest in alternative medicine in the United States during the middle decades of the century declined as the medical establishment garnered increasing public support and sought stricter licensing requirements. Though alternative healers such as osteopaths and chiropractors did not disappear from the healing scene, they evidenced an increasing willingness to conform to requirements that brought them closer to the healing models espoused by the medical establishment, such as incorporating standard science courses into their training curriculums.52 In short, the medical profession’s expanding monopoly on healing as the twentieth century progressed helps to explain why pentecostals in the second half of the century at first seemed to favor mainstream models of healing. By the 1960s and 70s, however, alternative medicine staged a comeback. The renewed attention given to these healing systems in turn opened the door for innovative pentecostal and charismatic healers to expand Roberts’s vision of healing combining natural and supernatural powers by turning to alternative medicine.

a very controversial subject when it came to religious forms of healing that led states to pass laws forcing parents to seek medical care for minors regardless of the parents’ religious beliefs.

51 Whorton, Nature Cures, 10.

52 These areas of compromise are discussed in more detail below.

The Resurgence of Holistic Medicine A variety of factors contributed to the surging popularity of alternative methodologies during the final decades of the twentieth century. Skyrocketing medical costs, the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of disease, and exposure to Eastern forms of medical care all lessened the appeal of traditional medicine and opened the door for rival alternatives to regain some of their diminished credibility. As one MD put it, “I didn’t intend to let the ‘discovery’ of acupuncture turn me into a gullible person, but I did resolve that I would no longer have a closed mind.”53 At the same time that traditional medicine encountered new problems and scrutiny, alternative medical practitioners transformed their image and gained a degree of mainstream respectability that was not present during the earlier decades of the twentieth century when conventional medical practitioners established their predominance. Osteopaths and chiropractors increasingly distanced themselves from the metaphysical frameworks that shaped their founders’ philosophies; many also submitted to licensing laws requiring basic levels of training in various scientific disciplines. While purists within the various branches of alternative medicine decried these changes as an abdication of the original mission of their particular healing system, pragmatists responded by pointing to the genuine successes of medical orthodoxy. Though these reformers still critiqued MDs for being too quick to resort to invasive procedures and medicines, they nevertheless argued that compromise was the only workable route if they were to remain a reputable option.54

53 William A. Nolen, Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1976), 14. For discussion of specific critiques of the medical profession that grew in intensity beginning in the 1950s, and analysis of the appeal of alternative medicine, see John C. Burnham, “American Medicine’s Golden Age: What Happened to It?” in Sickness and Health in America: Reading in the History of Medicine and Public Health, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 284-94; Mary Ruggie, Marginal to Mainstream: Alternative Medicine in America (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 43-74; and Whorton, Nature Cures, 245-51. Amanda Portferfield addresses the implications of the increasing gender consciousness of the 1960s and 70s for conceptions of the body and healing in Amanda Porterfield, The Transformation of American Religion: The Story of a Late-Twentieth-Century Awakening (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 163-201. For discussion of the impact of Eastern forms of medicine, such as acupuncture, see Whorton, Nature Cures, 245-70. These trends are also addressed briefly in Chapter 1.

54 See Gevitz, DOs: Osteopathic Medicine in America. Whorton, Nature Cures, 221-43, 271-95.

The surest sign of alternative medicine’s growing acceptance throughout American culture in the late twentieth century involved the growing willingness of mainstream physicians to acknowledge the viability of some alternative methodologies. Physicians earlier in the century typically cast scorn on everything from osteopathy, chiropractic, and naturopathy, not to mention several other methodologies popular during the nineteenth century that failed to maintain a significant following in the twentieth century. The “medical cults,” according to their despisers, “feed on human hope as well as on human ignorance and credulity.”55 By the end of the century, the relationship between MDs and their alternative counterparts thawed considerably. A significant number of MDs—especially family practitioners—began referring their patients to alternative physicians such as chiropractors for certain ailments. Prominent figures such as the physician Andrew Weil called for the development of integrative medicine, combining the insights of traditional medicine with previously marginal practices. Furthermore, by 1991 the U.S. Senate directed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish a panel (eventually referred to as the Office of Alternative Medicine [OAM]) to begin assessing the potential efficacy of various alternative practices. The Appropriations Committee only allocated two million dollars towards the effort—a small fraction of the NIH’s budget—yet this formal recognition of alternative therapies and their potential benefits provided a new degree of legitimacy to unorthodox methods. Throughout the 90s and into the twenty-first century the funding appropriated to the OAM steadily increased. By 1998, the OAM became the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine— the addition of the term “complementary” providing one more indication of alternative medicine’s transition away from the fringes of mainstream medicine.56

Pentecostals and Charismatics’ Embrace of Alternative Methodologies since the 1970s Just as alternative medical practitioners were able to transform their image over the final decades of the twentieth century, certain pentecostal and charismatic healers also discovered significant new outlets to influence the broader culture, in no small part due to their willingness

55 James Walsh, Joseph Foote, and John Ambrose, Safeguarding Children’s Nerves: A Handbook of Mental Hygiene (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1924), 25.

56 As the title of a recent study indicates, alternative medicine has gone from “marginal to mainstream.” See Ruggie, Marginal to Mainstream; and Whorton, Nature Cures, 272-95.

to modify their healing practices to coincide with the growing acceptance of alternative means of healing. These figures exploited the blurring of the boundaries separating alternative medicine from traditional medicine, at once offering a message ostensibly in line with the latest scientific research and with the holistic movement’s spiritualization of medicine. To promote their belief that God used natural products and dietary regimens to heal, pentecostals and charismatics simultaneously drew on the authority of scientific studies that supported their practices even as they searched for scriptures that they believed authorized the specific methodologies they proposed. These trends perpetuated Oral Roberts’s vision to merge natural and supernatural healing, yet they also moved beyond Roberts’s focus on merging religious healing with orthodox medicine. Instead, like good metaphysicians, the clear emphasis was on the power of nature to heal as opposed to the use of any “invasive” procedures or “synthetic” substances. In particular, specific healers within the pentecostal and charismatic movement mimicked trends among naturopathic alternative healers. First promoted in the United States by Benedict Lust, naturopathy literally means “nature disease,” but generally refers to alternative approaches to healing that stress the importance of cleansing the body of inner impurities. In the words of James Whorton, for naturopaths, “Imposing self-control and returning to nature’s intended mode of life (hygeiotherapy, in other words) was a necessary first step but was not always sufficient. Then active measures to rid the body of impurities had to be brought into play—but only measures that were friendly to nature by offering support or stimulation.” Key to naturopathic philosophy, the true source of sickness originated from unnatural habits and choices as opposed to factors outside of the body; though practitioners did not deny the existence of germs, bacteria, etc., they saw them as symptoms of bad choices and not the source of illness. This emphasis on the individual’s responsibility for disease added a moral dimension to naturopathic physicians’ healing program and proved an important point of continuity with religious interpretations of illness.57 In practice naturopaths incorporated everything from careful dietary guidelines, to exercise, massage, and baths and herbs. This eclecticism continued into the twenty-first century, making it difficult to pigeonhole naturopathic prescriptions for particular practices. (One study of American naturopaths published in 2002, for example, discovered two hundred different

57 Whorton, Nature Cures, 191-217.

treatments prescribed by licensed naturopaths for individuals suffering from multiple sclerosis).58 Considering the sheer range of therapies employed by naturopaths, in fact, it is tempting to simply equate “naturopathy” with “alternative medicine.”59 It remains useful, however, to maintain a distinction between the two terms. Whereas many alternative practitioners share naturopaths’ confidence in the vis medicatrix naturae, other individuals accept the efficaciousness of alternative practices while discarding the philosophical and religious baggage that has typically accompanied such systems. “Naturopathy,” as I use the term here, highlights the practitioner’s commitment on some philosophical/metaphysical level to the inherent healing power of nature. Despite the diverse recommendations offered by various naturopaths, they all reflect a recognition—usually still expressed in language with metaphysical overtones—of the power of nature to heal.60 As it happens, pentecostals and charismatics in the late twentieth century found (and created) a congenial home within the field of naturopathic medicine. It is worthwhile noting that even in the early pentecostal movement there were already signs of compatibility between pentecostal healing and naturopathic emphases. For many pentecostals some of the activities advocated by naturopaths would have appeared simply as plain good common sense. God would have pentecostals “observe the laws that govern the body,” wrote J. R. Miller. “Good food, air, sunshine, exercise, are consistent with the will and

58 Shinto, et al., “Survey of Licensed Naturopathic Physicians in the United States Who Treat People with Multiple Sclerosis,” poster presented at the International Scientific Conference on Complementary, Alternative and Integrative Medicine Research, Boston, MA, April 12-14, 2002, cited in Ruggie, Marginal to Mainstream, 178.

59 Exemplary of naturopaths’ eclecticism, a handbook of alternative therapies published in the 1990s dedicated separate chapters to various alternative approaches to healing including homeopathy, hydropathy, herbal therapy, juice therapy, and vitamin and mineral therapy. Notably, naturopathy did not receive a distinct chapter. Instead, when naturopathy was mentioned in the text, the author simply noted that naturopathy “uses a number of alternative techniques, including homeopathy, acupuncture, massage, hydrotherapy, nutritional counseling and herbal and vitamin therapies,” Bill Gottlieb and Doug Dollemore, New Choices in Natural Healing: Over 1,800 of the Best Self-Help Remedies from the World of Alternative Medicine (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1995), 5.

60 Regarding the metaphysical underpinnings of naturopathy, the main naturopathic journal published by Lust highlighted the role of “vital forces” working within the body: “Naturopathy employs physiological, mechanical and psychological sciences to rebuild, purify and normalize the vital forces of the body,” Naturopath and Herald of Health, 42, no. 11 (November 1937): 1. This description of naturopathy appeared directly under the journal title.

provision of God for our bodies. Be natural. Don’t overeat. Don’t starve. ‘Let your moderation be known to all men.’ Don’t worry. Don’t hurry. . . . A morning walk is a splendid adjunct to the morning watch.”61 The pentecostal healer Lilian Yeomans acknowledged that some physicians offered valuable advice regarding “foods, exercise, bathing, etc., which we require to keep us in first-class,” though she quickly added that any useful advice given by health professionals could be obtained “without money and without price” from the scriptures. Significantly, she also suggested that these insights were present within nature itself. Sounding very much like a Christian naturopath, she continued, “[W]hile the Scriptures are all-sufficient on every point, there is no doubt that it is profitable to study God’s Word as we find it written in Nature, where we find ‘sermons in stones and songs in running brooks,’ and especially in the fearful and wonderful structure of our own bodies.”62 If a doctor’s efforts help at all, added E. N. Bell, it is because “[h]e will work with nature, and help thus, if he knows how. He will give you proper directions about nursing, and such like, which is often more important than the medicine he gives.”63 Though Bell appeared to have mainstream medicine in mind here, his remark mirrored naturopaths’ emphasis on nature, not physicians. Expressions of faith in the healing power of nature did not figure prominently in early pentecostal rhetoric since they tended to distract from pentecostals’ standard line regarding total reliance on God’s power, yet as the above comments indicate, pentecostals often had no trouble distinguishing between preventative habits that aided nature’s ability to ward off disease and reliance on professional healers or the use of unnatural medicines.64 One reader of the Pentecostal Holiness Advocate asked why the editor claimed that it was “‘our duty’ to keep our teeth picked of particles of food, and our bodies washed with soap in order to keep off disease— would it not be just as much our duty to take something to purge our system from malaria in

61 J. R. Miller, “How to Keep in Health,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 402-03 (1921): 5.

62 Lilian B. Yeomans, “Bible Studies in Divine Healing: Dietetics,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 497 (1923): 6-7.

63 Bell, “Questions and Answers,” 8.

64 As Wacker notes, however, “one of the constant problems for responsible denominational officials was ‘extremism,’ which they defined as refusal to cooperate with nature by washing a wound, wearing eyeglasses, or seeing a dentist,” Grant Wacker, “The Pentecostal Tradition,” in Caring and Curing, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Darrel W. Amundsen (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986), 524.

order to keep off fever and other diseases?” In his response, the editor carefully differentiated between natural habits and practices that maintained health and those that repaired health. “Jesus did not die to pick our teeth nor to wash our hands, but He did die to heal our bodies of disease,” the editor reasoned. As such, if an individual’s “system has malaria in it, you are already diseased, and Jesus died to heal you. Jesus did not die to put clothes on my body to keep me warm; but if through some means I take cold, He died to heal me.” Along similar lines, every individual had the responsibility to avoid exposure to diseases. Those who acted carelessly in this regard “do so contrary to the will of God.” “I do say it is our duty to pick our teeth and wash our hands,” he concluded, “but that these things are not parallel with the taking of drugs.”65 The continuity between early pentecostals’ views and naturopathy only went so far, however, as early pentecostals would have rejected naturopathy’s tendency to search for “drugless” medicines found in nature. When Alice Luce of the Assemblies of God condemned the use of medicines in the 1930s, for example, she argued that just because “man has made drugs from herbs does not prove that God ever intended them to be put to such a use.” She found no evidence in scripture where God directed individuals to create or use medicines out of plants. Even Luce, though, could have agreed with much naturopathic philosophy regarding the importance of a natural diet for the maintenance of health. “Does not common sense itself tell us that it is better to take the iron needed by our bodies in the form of spinach, lettuce, or other foods made by God Himself rather than in drugs which are made by man?” she asked. “Who else understands the composition of the human body or its needs so well as He who made it?”66 Whereas the early correlations between pentecostal healing and naturopathy only appeared sporadically in pentecostal literature, by the late twentieth century the connections moved from the background to the foreground as certain influential pentecostal and charismatic healers explicitly linked God’s healing power with nature. These later figures recommended a variety of alternative practices in their healing regimens, but the most consistent emphases in their writings matched naturopathic assumptions and teachings.

65 George F. Taylor, “Question Box,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 3, no. 51 (1920): 10.

66 Alice E. Luce, “The Great Physician and His Medicines,” Pentecostal Evangel (1930): 6. The connections between early pentecostalism and the nineteenth century holiness movement encouraged many pentecostals to carefully avoid gluttony, establishing another area of connection with the naturopathic emphasis on cleansing the body through diet. The overlap between early pentecostals and health reformers who focused specifically on diet is discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.

One of the first signs of pentecostals and charismatics’ more aggressive turn to naturopathic forms of healing appeared in the writings of Franklin Hall in the late 1940s. Though ostracized for his extreme teachings, Hall exerted significant influence among the mid- century healing evangelists through his well-known books, such as the Atomic Power with God through Prayer and Fasting (1946), that promoted fasting as a spiritual discipline.67 Significantly, Hall’s writing contained heavy doses of naturopathic justifications for the practice. Fasting lived “on the very poisons one wishes to abolish,” he wrote. By extension, the practice helped prevent all manner of sickness.68 Considering the very practical benefits of fasting, Hall did not hesitate to recommend the practice for every individual. “Regardless of the great spiritual results of a week or two of fasting now and then,” he wrote, “our earthly tabernacle so greatly needs this fast for cleansing that everyone owes it to himself to take a fast of this kind three or four times a year at the very least.” He went on to specify specific times of year when fasting would prove most beneficial. In the spring, for example, following a typical “heavy winter diet” it made sense to fast since at that time “our bodies are heavily laden with toxic poisons, more than at any other time, and are very much in need of housecleaning to remain well and healthy.” He also recommended fasting at the end of summer, “as a safety first measure against the wintry colds and for fortitude,” and at mid-winter to “insure good circulation to the system when exercise is at the minimum, and will fortify the body for the rest of the season against disease.”69 In 1989 Hall was still preaching his naturopathic message to pentecostal and charismatic audiences: “Due to cooked and refined foods and non-foods and hundreds of chemicals, it is normal now for the colon to be packed with hard, encrusted fecal matter that poisons the blood stream and can be the source for many diseases.” To drive home his point, Hall included pictures of diseased colons, full of hardened fecal matter, and concluded with an

67 Hall’s writings and his influence within the movement are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.

68 Franklin Hall, The Fasting Prayer (San Diego, CA: Franklin Hall, 1947), 116-18, 194. Elsewhere, Hall also claimed that when “regular systematic fastings are gone into” calcification and ulceration of the vascular walls simply did not occur, Franklin Hall, Glorified Fasting: The Abc of Fasting (San Diego, CA: Franklin Hall, 1948), 15.

69 Hall, The Fasting Prayer, 194.

injunction to the reader, “Only YOU can determine to do something about it.”70 More than any other pentecostal at mid-century Hall helped disseminate naturopathic assumptions regarding the importance of a natural diet and of cleansing the body of impurities.71 By the early 1970s other figures within the movement picked up on similar themes and advocated diets consisting of organic, natural substances untainted by modern technology. On the one hand, the organic foods movement cannot be conflated with naturopathy, yet many proponents of organic foods share naturopaths’ confidence in the healing power of natural substances. As such, many individuals attracted to the use of organic foods likewise embraced alternative healing methodologies.72 An early promoter of “natural” foods among pentecostals and charismatics was Frank Ford, founder of the organic food distributor Arrowhead Mills. Ford started his business in 1960—over a decade before he embraced charismatic Christianity—and by the early 1970s he joined the movement and soon advertised his products in charismatic periodicals.73 One ad for his Simpler Life Cookbook asked, “If the Lord has been quickening you to cleanse the temple of

70 Franklin Hall, “Bro. Hall’s Health Deapartment: Getting Your Colon Cleansed,” Miracle Word 24, no. 1 (1989): 20.

71 Hall’s emphasis on cleansing the colon fit well with a longstanding tendency within American culture to depict constipation as a result of the negative impact of urbanization and industrialization on the body. As one historian notes, “[T]he scourge of constipation has advanced hand in hand with the spread of industrial civilization, and at every step been blamed on society’s estrangement from the natural modes of living that prevailed in times long gone,” James C. Whorton, Inner Hygiene: Constipation and the Pursuit of Health in Modern Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 258.

72 For discussion of the close connections between the growing organic foods industry and the holistic healing movement, see James C. Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 331-39.

73 Ford recounted his battle with depression beginning in 1973, followed by a period of inner searching and exploration of a variety of religious and philosophical systems. Exhausted and disillusioned, he eventually said a prayer indicating to God that he “gave up.” “Instantly,” Ford recounted, “this tremendous surge of relief came over me. An absolutely physical weight seemed to lift and, since then, I’ve felt filled with joy and energy.” Following this dramatic encounter, Ford eventually understood his experience as similar in nature to charismatic Christianity. He realized that “that it’s happening to thousands of people . . . all around the world and of every denomination. It’s been called charismatic Christianity, which refers to the direct ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit,’” Frank Ford, “Frank Ford on Religion,” The Mother Earth News (September/October 1974), http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1974-09-01/Interview-With-Frank-Ford.aspx (accessed September 12, 2008).

the Holy Spirit by cleansing your body of the foods of ‘Babylon’—highly refined foods full of preservatives, nitrates, coloring agents, hydrogenated fats and refined sugar—we would like to hear from you.” The ad criticized “this diet handed to us by modern food processing” and reported that “many believers are returning to eating foods the way God made them.” The advertisement drew on both the nomenclature of the burgeoning holistic movement as well as the apocalyptic fears imbibed by pentecostals and charismatics as they read works such as Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth: “We here at Arrowhead Mills believe we have neglected the whole person that God wants us to be in the difficult times which lie just ahead. . . . People who know how to raise a garden and cook properly with whole grains, beans and seeds will be able to help others in the natural realm to improve the health of their families and to enjoy the foods which God created for our use before humanistic arrogance, through technology, changed them into something harmful to our health.”74 Ford’s explicit differentiation between natural foods linked with God’s creative power and “manufactured” foods stripped of this power by modern technology reflected the same underlying glorification of nature that guided naturopathic sensibilities. In the latter decades of the twentieth century, more and more pentecostal and charismatic authors would specifically advocate philosophies and practices that coincided with those espoused by naturopaths. Don Colbert, the author of the popular The Bible Cure series and a graduate of Oral Roberts University School of Medicine, liberally dispensed advice laden with naturopathic assumptions.75 His Toxic Relief: Restore Health and Energy through Fasting and Detoxification described the world in terms of numerous toxins that had been developed through human ignorance. Colbert spelled out the dismal state of worldly existence during the 21st

74 Advertisement for The Simpler Life Cookbook, Charisma 3, no. 1 (1977): 3. Lindsey’s book, in fact, was credited as the best selling non-fiction book of the 1970s by the New York Times, Hal Lindsey and Carole C. Carlson, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1970).

75 A frequent contributor to Charisma, Colbert also published columns in magazines associated with the high profile ministries of John Hagee and Joyce Meyer, and sold widely distributed books (some of which were sold via Wal-Mart) such as Don Colbert, Toxic Relief: Restore Health and Energy through Fasting and Detoxification (Lake Mary, FL: Siloam, 2001); Don Colbert, What Would Jesus Eat? (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2002); and Don Colbert, The Bible Cure for Cancer (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 1999). Colbert’s ministry website can be found at www.drcolbert.com (accessed August 23, 2007). For further discussion regarding Colbert’s success selling products and spreading his message, see Chapter 5.

century: “We live in a toxic world, a toxic planet that is taking a heavy toll upon our bodies every day, whether we know it or not.” In three chapters he then enumerated a whole host of factors that made the reader wonder how humans survived in the modern world at all. Environmentally, Colbert lamented a wide variety of chemicals in the air associated with the manufacture of consumer goods: carbon monoxide, lead, ozone, and sulfuroxides, to name a few. Indoors, another set of dangers awaited: everything from mold, to dust mites, to formaldehyde from carpets, to the toluene from paints. He went on to detail various oranophosphate pesticides used in agriculture that threatened memory loss, depression, anxiety, and various forms of cancer. Chlorine used to purify the water supply formed trihalomethanes which could also lead to cancer. This was not to mention the variety of mass-produced foods overloaded with preservatives or the willfully ingested medicines such as antibiotics that could destroy the balance between good and bad bacteria in the body. For nearly twenty-three pages, Colbert continued to list danger after danger associated with life in modern societies.76 Colbert was not alone in his vision of a world fraught with toxic danger introduced by humans’ careless abandonment of natural ways of life. Jordan Rubin, a popular speaker and writer for pentecostal and charismatic audiences whose The Maker’s Diet made the New York Times bestseller list, repeatedly highlighted technological “marvels” that in actuality involved negative repercussions for health.77 Instead of a modern marvel, the fact that food could “last for decades on a store shelf” indicated an ambush by “our technological and marketing skills.” Similarly, far from being celebrated, the fact that scientists could “splice together the genes of one species into another to ‘custom design’ a selected end product” suggested that science was rapidly outpacing the ability of our bodies to adapt. Instead, Rubin indicated that “our bodies are still ‘genetically wired’ to function best on the foods favored by our ancestors.” Whereas God’s dietary guidelines “contain no refined or processed carbohydrates and only a very small amount of healthy sweeteners . . . [t]he typical American diet is just the opposite.” In short, humans had

76 Colbert, Toxic Relief, 5-28, 153-67, 171-209.

77 See http://www.gardenoflifeusa.com (accessed 26 December 2006); http://www.makersdiet.com/ (accessed 26 December 2006); http://www.biblicalhealthinstitute.com (accessed 28 February 2007); and Alex Johnson, “And God Said: Let There Be Lite,” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6680007/ (accessed 28 February 2007). The Maker’s Diet was published by Strang Communications, a charismatic publishing house. For further discussion regarding Rubin’s success selling products and spreading his message, see Chapter 5.

turned upside down the natural health mechanisms God put in place. As such, Americans “stray far from God’s design with an array of techno-foods rich in empty calories, filled with refined carbohydrates, and woefully inadequate in nutrition.” For nearly ten pages, Rubin extolled the superiority of “primitive diets” that preceded the advent of modern life, citing a naturopathic doctor who found that “a number of aboriginal, primitive societies, in Australia, Africa, and South America successfully passed into the twentieth century and enjoyed remarkably low rates of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease, and other ‘modern’ conditions—until they switched to modern diets.”78 Though less alarmist than figures such as Rubin and Colbert, Reginald Cherry as well clearly situated himself within the burgeoning field of alternative medicine, and in particular naturopathic methods. A physician trained in preventative medicine, Cherry disseminated his ideas through his The Doctor and the Word television program that appeared on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, as well as through several books on biblical healing. He lamented the fact that “for much of this century, merchants of ‘natural’ health products and practitioners of alternative therapies had been shunned by the medical community.” Cherry acknowledged there “often has been good reason for skepticism of some of the fads, the excessive claims, and the emphasis on New Age mysticism associated with health food stores,” but he also insisted that “no one can deny the genuine healing qualities of many natural substances.” He went on to describe various evidence that suggested the ameliorative impact of gingko, selenium, lycopene, and so forth on a variety of illnesses including Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and cancer.79

Critiquing Mainstream Medicine Perhaps the clearest signal that these pentecostal and charismatic healers such as Colbert, Rubin, and Cherry drew on the surging popularity of alternative healing lay in their insistent critiques of traditional medicine’s over-reliance on prescription drugs and invasive surgery. In a chapter entitled “How to Get Sick: A Modern Prescription for Illness,” among numerous other factors, Rubin highlighted the negative impact of “get[ting] all of your immunization shots,” of

78 Jordan Rubin, The Maker’s Diet (Lake Mary, FL: Siloam Press, 2004), 33, 38, 40-49.

79 Reginald Cherry, Healing Prayer: God’s Divine Intervention in Medicine, Faith, and Prayer (Carmel, NY: Guideposts, 1999), 21-42.

“tak[ing] lots of medications,” and of “visit[ing] your medical doctor often.” “Conventional medicine sends its troops into battle against disease armed solely with surgery, pharmaceuticals, and invasive therapies (including chemotherapy and radiation),” he wrote. “Anything outside the ironclad realm of a knife, a pill, or an x-ray machine is considered voodoo or worse. The genuine ‘maintenance’ of health is simply beyond the scope of this ‘take-two-tablets-and-call- me-in-the-morning’ philosophy.”80 Rubin by no means ever suggested that his readers should totally reject orthodox medicine, yet an insistent critique of the medical establishment nevertheless permeated his approach to health and healing. In many respects his challenge to the medical establishment reflected his training background. Unlike Colbert and Cherry, Rubin stood entirely outside of the medical establishment; his training came via alternative sources rather than from traditional medical schools. His website indicated that he earned a doctorate in naturopathic medicine from Peoples University of the Americas School of Natural Medicine and a PhD in Nutrition from the Academy of Natural Therapies. He was also a Certified Nutritional Consultant and a member of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants.81 Rubin’s critique of the medical profession was by far the strongest of those mentioned within this chapter, yet other healers offered similar critiques, if less stridently than Rubin. In laying out his rationale for the importance of diet for dealing with various toxins and for gaining overall health, Colbert contended that “[c]onventional medicine with its prescriptions many

80 Rubin, The Maker’s Diet, 95. Numerous examples expressing similar sentiments can also be found in Chapter 2: “The World’s Healthiest People,” Chapter 4: “Hygiene: The Double-edged Sword,” Chapter 5: “How to Get Sick: A Modern Prescription for Illness,” Chapter 6: “The Desperate Search for Health,” and Chapter 8: “Return to the Maker’s Diet.”

81 Many critics are quick to point out that both the Peoples University of the Americas and the Academy of Natural Therapies are non-accredited (the Academy of Natural Therapies, in fact, only offered correspondence courses and in 2003 was forced to close by the State of Hawaii due in part to its failure to clearly stipulate in its promotional materials that it was not an accredited institution). See “About the Author,” http://www.makersdiet.com/publicsite/index.aspx?puid=2d7449b3-4514-465d- 9167-50e5bd92484f (accessed May 17, 2007). A link to the Peoples University of the Americas can be found at http://www.pua.edu/ (accessed May 17, 2007), and an archived link to the Academy of Natural Therapies can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/20010602160758/www.powerhealth.net/degree_programs.htm (accessed May 17, 2007). For the records associated with the school’s closure in Hawaii see http://www.hawaii.gov/dcca/areas/ocp/udgi/lawsuits/natural_therapies/ (accessed May 18, 2007). The nature of Rubin’s accreditation has led to his vilification on websites such as “Quackwatch.org.” See http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/rubin.html (accessed May 18, 2007).

times cannot help. Medical specialists will have to address the root of this problem.” Quoting Thomas Edison, he wrote, “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”82 When compared to Colbert and Rubin, Cherry proved the least willing to relinquish the benefits of a close association with the medical establishment. In The Doctor and the Word Cherry dedicated an entire chapter to “Why a Christian Should See a Doctor.”83 Nevertheless, Cherry too criticized the medical establishment’s resistance to alternative medicine. He specifically tried to counter physicians’ objection that “phytochemicals, herbal substances, and vitamins . . . ‘have not been studied enough.’” In response to these claims, he pointed to the World Health Organization’s statement claiming that “historic use of an herbal is a valid form of information on safety and efficacy in the absence of scientific evidence to the contrary.” Just as Colbert idealized primitive societies and their diets, Cherry pointed to herbs such as saw palmetto that have “been used by Native American Indian tribes for centuries for prostate problems.” Regarding the lack of double-blind placebo studies for many herbal supplements, he simply asserted that the studies could often cost over $20 million.84 Cherry similarly documented the limitations of conventional medicine in various testimonies included in his books. At times, the Holy Spirit instructed Cherry to turn from traditional medical advice and instead utilize specific dietary regimens as opposed to surgery or medicines. When tests showed three blocked arteries in one of his middle-aged patients, for example, Cherry acknowledged that in past similar situations he had “been led [by God’s guidance] to recommend surgery for patients, and they, in fact have done very well.” Nevertheless, like his patients, he did not “feel peace” about going ahead with the surgery. After praying and “petitioning God for His specific pathway of healing for this patient” he received a “unique program” given him by God for this man’s condition. The regimen consisted of vitamin E to prevent fat build-up; garlic and low-dose aspirin to reduce blood clots; and “other substances such as Co [enzyme] Q-10” that strengthened heart contractions. When combined

82 Colbert, Toxic Relief, 35.

83 Reginald Cherry, The Doctor and the Word (Orlando, FL: Creation House, 1996), 102-6.

84 Cherry, Healing Prayer, 24-27.

with frequent exercise, Cherry reported that the “patient’s chest pain is totally gone.”85 More so than Rubin and even Colbert, Cherry was careful to never denigrate the validity of orthodox medicine and surgery. Instead, a doctor inspired by the Spirit simply knew “when and how to use modern technology or when to back away from technology to allow God to heal supernaturally.” 86 This vision of a “God-centered medical practice,” constantly guided by the Holy Spirit, allowed Cherry to move comfortably between alternative methodologies, traditional approaches, and prayer for direct divine intervention on a case by case basis. Considering his line of nutritional supplements and products, however, Cherry’s less-than-total critique of conventional medicine should not detract from his clear association with alternative methodologies, in particular naturopathic practices.87 As both Cherry and Colbert exemplified, whereas pentecostals and charismatics’ movement towards alternative therapies was in part motivated by dissatisfaction with MDs, adherents by no means entirely rejected mainstream practitioners and their stress on “science- based” medicine. Instead, like many of their fellow Americans, they simply followed up their doctor’s visit with a trip to their alternative practitioner as well.88 Furthermore, alternative practitioners themselves sought as much as possible to legitimate their practices via scientific studies. As such, they tended to operate betwixt and between the twin poles of proven, laboratory-tested findings and metaphysical faith in the healing power of nature.89 Here too, pentecostal and charismatic healers followed the lead of other alternative healers. With the Bible as their lodestar, they confidently promoted their recommendations as both biblically based and scientifically sound.

85 Reginald Cherry, The Bible Cure (Orlando, FL: Creation House, 1998), 56-58.

86 Cherry, The Doctor and the Word, 16.

87 See www.drcherry.com (accessed September 8, 2008).

88 For discussion of Americans’ simultaneous use of both traditional and nontraditional medicine, see Ruggie, Marginal to Mainstream, 45-52.

89 For discussion of recent alternative healers’ appeals to science—and the difficulties that have accompanied those efforts—see Whorton, Nature Cures, esp. 288-95.

Natural Substances, Science and the Bible Given Rubin, Colbert, and Cherry’s naturopathic descriptions of illness as a neglect of God’s natural order, it should come as no surprise that the prescriptions they offered revolved around various therapies—often associated with diet—that they considered natural and unsullied by modern technology. The key difference separating these pentecostals and charismatics’ methods from naturopaths’ involved their repeated appeals to scriptural authority to validate their prescriptions; the Bible served as the central point of mediation allowing these figures to claim simultaneously both scientific and divine authority. Without batting an eye, figures such as Rubin, Colbert, and Cherry stressed the harmony of their prescriptions with the best scientific studies available and the Bible. Since the inception of Christianity Christians have been justifying all sorts of activities and decisions based on scripture. Building on this long tradition, the pentecostal and charismatic figures discussed in this chapter formulated elaborate systems linking specific biblical verses with modern understandings of vitamins and nutrition. For example, though Cherry’s recommendations coincided with modern scientific studies, he insisted that the principles he advocated derived from “deciphering the ancient Hebrew dietary laws, understanding how Jesus anointed natural substances to heal, and how we can pray specifically for healing and overcoming the mountain of our illness.” These insights led to cures for everything from cancer, fatigue, genetic defects, and “even the annoyances of allergies.”90 Exemplary of Cherry’s approach, he attempted to correlate modern day research on fat with biblical dietary restrictions. He pointed out, for example, the way in which science distinguished between high-density lipoproteins and low-density lipoproteins. Turning to scripture, Cherry found the same knowledge written into the biblical text. He quoted the amplified version of Leviticus 3:17: “Say to the Israelites, You shall eat no kind of fat, of ox, or sheep, or goat. The fat of the beast that dies of itself, and the fat of one that is torn with beasts, may be put to any other use, but under no circumstances are you to eat of it.” Based on specific interpretations of the Hebrew, Cherry read these verses as a warning against the dangers of eating too much fat, and also claimed that they distinguished between different kinds of fat.91

90 Cherry, The Bible Cure, ix-x, 1.

91 Ibid., 4-5.

As Cherry’s comments indicated, unlike early pentecostals who stressed God’s activity on nature, he provided a description of divine healing that stressed God’s activity through nature. As such, Cherry represented a radically different conception of God’s relationship to the natural world. While he would not deny God’s ability to heal apart from natural means, he nevertheless opened the door for a notion of God’s activity in the world that challenged the stark dualism that was much more prevalent in the early pentecostal movement. Like Cherry, Rubin insisted that his claims rested on the authority of both the Bible and science. As the title of his New York Times bestseller indicated, he offered readers the “Maker’s Diet” as revealed in scripture. At the same time Rubin stressed the fact that “[m]uch of the information you are about to read has been confirmed by numerous double-blind, placebo- controlled, scientific studies conducted over many years as well as by thousands of years of history.”92 The book itself provided wide-ranging advice for achieving and maintaining health, most of which revolved around dietary decisions. In particular, Rubin highlighted “healing foods” mentioned in the Bible. According to Rubin, these included fish, barley, wheat, olive oil, figs, grapes, berries, soups, and honey, among others. Rubin also identified twenty-one healing herbs and fourteen healing oils—all of which were mentioned in scripture. Like naturopaths more generally, Rubin pinpointed numerous strategies beyond diet that offered God-ordained means for health. He linked hydrotherapy and music therapy to various biblical examples and also emphasized the importance of managing stress by controlling negative thoughts, and of taking enough time to rest and exercise. Again, interspersed throughout the various instructions given by Rubin were references to numerous research studies that reinforced insights he found in the biblical text—sometimes drawn from sources associated with traditional medicine, such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, and sometimes drawn from sources geared towards alternative physicians such as Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, the Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine.93 Colbert’s writings similarly brimmed with simultaneous appeals to science and the Bible. A glance at the table of contents for his 2002 book What Would Jesus Eat? illuminated his basic

92 Rubin, The Maker’s Diet, 130.

93 Ibid., esp. 130-93.

approach: “The Food that Jesus Ate Most Often”; “A Staple in Jesus’ Diet”; “The Meats That Jesus Ate”; “The Vegetables that Jesus Ate”; “Did Jesus Exercise?” (Apparently, Jesus even identified with Americans’ chronic struggle with weight. In Chapter 11 the reader learned how to use “[T]he Foods Jesus Ate to Lose Weight.”) In an effort to determine what in fact Jesus ate, Colbert drew on specific references Jesus made to food, on prescriptions within the Jewish law that Jesus likely abided by, and on current knowledge regarding the typical “Mediterranean diet” prevalent during Jesus’ lifetime. As the reader continued into the heart of the book, however, it quickly became evident that according to Colbert Jesus’ diet had been validated by recent science. “The medical and scientific facts confirm it,” he wrote. “If we eat as Jesus ate, we will be healthier.”94 The message throughout was clear: the modern diet and lifestyle drove humans away from the natural, life-giving patterns of diet and exercise prescribed by God and modeled by Jesus. Subtract Jesus from the equation, and a naturopath could not have said it better. Colbert’s books also reflected basic naturopathic principles by stressing the importance of “detoxifying” the body—a theme implicit in What Would Jesus Eat? but addressed more directly in his other works.95 An earlier book for example specifically offered his readers “toxic relief.” “You can cleanse your body from years of accumulated toxins and their effects,” Colbert promised, “by learning to support your body’s own elaborate system of detoxification” through careful diet and fasting. Again, much of the book was dedicated to very practical dietary advice tied to nutritional research, yet here Colbert specifically linked these studies to the benefits of fasting. Not surprisingly, he spent the latter third of the book detailing specific types of fasts for “detoxing your whole person” followed by various biblical figures. By juxtaposing biblical fasting with nutritional research regarding “detoxification,” Colbert promoted “detoxification” not only as a route to both physical and spiritual purity, but one that is also backed by the twin authorities of science and the Bible.96

94 Colbert, What Would Jesus Eat? x.

95 For discussion of the importance of detoxification in naturopathic prescriptions, see Whorton, Nature Cures, esp. 291.

96 Colbert, Toxic Relief, 6-7, 171-209.

Conclusion To be sure, not everyone within the movement was comfortable with the overtures pentecostal and charismatic healers made to metaphysical models of healing. One charismatic mother discussed her research into the importance of diet for health after she and her husband “felt that the Lord wanted us to explore nutrition more seriously.” As they moved forward, they were uneasy about the non-Christian influences shaping some of the literature on diet and health. The “occult overtones often associated with health foods” and the health “authorities’” connections to “yoga, astrology, TM, or other occult practices” dismayed her. The realization then hit her regarding “how a Christian’s perspective about health food had to be different from the world’s.”97 Colbert’s wife’s reactions to her husband’s explorations of alternative therapies echoed these same concerns. “Some of the avenues in which he was headed scared the dickens out of me,” she admitted. “The people he was learning from were New Agers, some were Hindus, some were involved in Chinese medicines, all these different areas.” “Coming from a charismatic background,” she added, “I’m thinking, Oh no, something’s going to get in him or on him.” After praying over the matter, however, she believed that God revealed to her the fact that “He had been revealing truths related to health and healing to people around the world, regardless of their religion, and that the truths were separate from the religious aspect. He assured her it was possible to have one without the other.”98 Not every pentecostal or charismatic could overcome their hesitancy regarding the non- Christian elements associated with alternative medicine as easily as Mary Colbert. At the same time, a major part of the success of figures such as Rubin, Colbert, and Cherry involved their ability to connect alternative forms of healing with the Bible and therefore make their message palatable to a conservative Christian audience. If the success of the healers’ writings and products was any indication, numerous believers bought into the message of naturalized divine healing. Rubin’s The Maker’s Diet and Colbert’s The Seven Pillars of Health were New York Times bestsellers. Cherry and Rubin developed their own television programs for the Trinity Broadcast Network, The Doctor and the Word and The Great Physician’s Rx for Health and

97 Shari Gundlach, “You Can Lead a Kid to Bean Sprouts . . . But You Can’t Make Him Eat,” New Wine 11, no. 4 (1979): 9-11.

98 See Maureen D. Eha, “He’s Got the Cure,” Charisma 29, no. 4 (2003), http://charismamag.com/articles/index.php?id=8169 (accessed September 14, 2008).

Wellness, respectively. All three figures appeared frequently in the pages of Charisma magazine and on a variety of television programs geared towards pentecostal and charismatic audiences. All three also sold dietary supplements. Rubin’s company, in fact, was named the fifth fastest growing company in the United States in 2003, while Colbert’s ministry website claimed to have conducted millions of transactions in less than a year and a half.99 Given the high-visibility of Colbert, Rubin, and Cherry within pentecostal and charismatic circles, it is safe to say that a significant percentage of their business derived from individuals with pentecostal or charismatic backgrounds. Undoubtedly, however, many non-pentecostals and non-charismatics read the books and bought the products associated with these healers as well; as such, the success of these healers highlights the way in which the transformation of healing within the movement greatly expanded pentecostals and charismatics’ influence outside of their own circles. As different as “naturalized,” metaphysical forms of divine healing looked from their early pentecostal antecedents, the changes discussed in this chapter involved a revaluation of themes already present in the earliest expressions of pentecostal spirituality. Early pentecostals believed physical objects could transmit divine power, they rejected medicines as “unnatural” healing remedies, and they often acknowledged the importance of taking practical common sense actions to aid nature in protecting against disease. Furthermore, early pentecostal conceptions of the Holy Spirit frequently approximated alternative physicians’ metaphysical notions of the universe that treated the supernatural as an impersonal force—closely connected to the natural realm—that was governed by discernable spiritual laws. By the end of the twentieth century, these affinities became more pronounced as believers explicitly endorsed naturalized conceptions of the healing process and depicted God’s power as flowing through natural substances. Like metaphysical groups throughout American history, later healers in the movement assumed an inherent correspondence between the natural world and intangible realities in the cosmos. The Holy Spirit, it turns out, proved more tangible than ever.

99 Entrepreneur Magazine ranked Rubin’s company, Garden of Life, number five on their list of fastest-growing companies in the United States in 2004, “2004 Hot 100,” http://www.entrepreneur.com/hot100/2004.html (accessed 28 February 2007). Also see Colbert’s website, http://www.drcolbert.com (accessed March 3, 2008). The website kept a running total of the number of requests since January 2, 2007, at the bottom of the opening page. For further discussion of pentecostal and charismatic healers’ success in marketing various health products, see Chapter 5.

CHAPTER THREE

WEIGHTLESS IN THE SPIRIT: DIET, FITNESS AND HEALTH IN THE PENTECOSTAL TRADITION

In the mid-1970s pentecostals and charismatics’ approach to health garnered public attention, and once again Oral Roberts was in the middle of the action. The issue at hand involved a newly instituted policy at Oral Roberts University (ORU) in 1976 insisting that overweight students shed their extra pounds. Towards that end, the university implemented an aerobic exercise program requiring physical education courses coupled with careful monitoring of extracurricular activities. When students registered at the university their body fat percentage was measured. Paul Brynteson, chairman of the health, physical education and recreation department at the school, indicated that “an acceptable body fat level is 20 percent for women and 15 percent for men. A woman having more than 35 percent body fat, or a man having more than 25 percent, is considered obese.” Those who were overweight were then required to sign a contract with the university committing to lose the extra weight at the rate of one to two pounds per week. Failure to do so led to probation, and potentially suspension from classes.1 ORU’s commitment to populate its campus with thin, healthy students reflected a significant revaluation of the traditional goals and aims of asceticism within the pentecostal- charismatic tradition. Most early pentecostals would have acknowledged the practical physical benefits of disciplining the body by following temperate eating and drinking habits, yet these rewards were frequently overshadowed by believers’ wariness of the body—a wariness born out of their close association with the radical holiness teachings of the late nineteenth century. The

1 “College Criticized for Get-Thin Policy,” New York Times, December 4, 1977, 31. For further discussion of ORU’s aerobic exercise program, see David Edwin Harrell, Oral Roberts: An American Life (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 362-63.

saints’ renunciative tendencies repeatedly emphasized the way in which the body and its passions as well as other pleasures rooted in the material world served as roadblocks to a single- eyed focus on God. By the 1960s and 70s, on the other hand, pentecostals and charismatics participated in a broader evangelical diet culture that specifically celebrated the holiness of thinness and the sinfulness of fat. Believers’ transformed attitudes towards the body mirrored a radical shift within American Protestantism, observed by R. Marie Griffith, wherein ascetic practices such as fasting no longer functioned simply as a means for controlling the sinful appetites of the body but also facilitated the creation of beautiful and healthy bodies.2 Early pentecostals’ warnings regarding a vain preoccupation with exterior appearance gave way to an expectation that the visible world and especially the human body should mirror the perfection of the spiritual world. In this manner pentecostals and charismatics in the latter half of the twentieth century elevated the importance of the body within the movement, radicalizing early believers’ emphasis on palpable manifestations of God’s presence and power. To be sure, early pentecostals often saw fasting as a means to procure God’s healing touch, yet never before had asceticism been so clearly linked to exterior beauty. Likewise, early pentecostals’ stress on divine healing assumed a direct correlation between the Spirit’s activity and a healthy body, yet never before had physical appearance and the material world so clearly served as an index of the operation of the Spirit.

The Body as Icon of Sin and Icon of Perfection in North American Protestantism Pentecostals’ attitudes towards the body grew out of a long history within Christianity wherein believers sought to mediate competing approaches to the human body that imagined the body as an icon of sin or as an icon of spiritual perfection. The tension in Christian conceptions

2 In summarizing the shift within American Protestants’ attitudes towards the body over the course of American religious history, Griffith writes of the transition “from ideal norms of Christian devotional practice and civic life guided by asceticism and meek repentance to ones openly typified by obsession with perfect health and slenderness as physical signs of regeneration.” The changes I describe within pentecostal and charismatic attitudes towards the body occurred over the course of the twentieth century as opposed to Griffith’s much longer timeline, yet the basic trajectory is similar. In fact, many of the pentecostal and charismatic figures mentioned in this chapter appear in Griffith’s discussion of the broader evangelical diet culture, R. Marie Griffith, Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004), 6. See esp. Chapters 4 and 5.

of the body can be traced all the way back to the writings of the Apostle Paul. As the historian Amanda Porterfield notes, his “theology was radical in its emphasis on the necessity of spiritual control of the body, especially with regard to sex, but still Jewish in its commitment to bodily life and conduct as the domain of God’s creation.” Paul taught his readers to control sinful passions by “putting off the body of the flesh” even as he promised believers that “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”3 No one practice better exemplified Christians’ positive assessment of the potentialities of the body throughout the tradition’s history than the practice of healing. The miraculous cures associated with Jesus’ ministry signaled God’s concern for humans’ physical welfare, and many Christians throughout the centuries sought to channel this same power on behalf of the suffering. To be sure, Christians employed a wide variety of rituals and object in order to access this power, including exorcisms, prayer, icons, and relics, to name a few, yet despite this diversity, healing remained a unifying thread linking Christians throughout history.4 Taking a very different route, Christian adepts throughout the centuries often garnered attention by emphasizing the denial side of Paul’s approach to the human body. Some of the most well-known ascetic heroes provided extreme examples of the way in which disciplines of abstinence provided a medium for believers to demonstrate their total commitment God, even to the point of neglecting their own health. Saint Catherine of Siena’s practice of fasting during the fourteenth century for example proved so intense that her confessors begged her to eat; she eventually died of starvation.5 For individuals such as Saint Catherine, the spiritual arithmetic involved was straightforward: diminishing the body and its passions multiplied the presence of Christ. “I have no intention of making a peace pact between my body and my soul,” wrote

3 Colossians 2:11 (ASV), Romans 8:11 (NIV). Regarding Paul’s conception of the “flesh,” Porterfield adds, “[M]ost scholars agree that flesh in this context is a metaphor for hedonistic behavior, not a repudiation of the body as such,” Amanda Porterfield, Healing in the History of Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 57-60.

4 On the role of healing as a point of continuity linking various manifestations of Christianity throughout history, see esp. Ibid.

5 For more on Catherine of Siena, see Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987), esp. 165-80; and Rudolph M. Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 22-53.

Margaret of Cortona regarding her decision to deny herself food, “and neither do I intend to hold back. Therefore, allow me to tame my body by not altering my diet; I will not stop for the rest of my life, until there is no more life left.”6 It is crucial to note that ascetic rituals did not always fall on the “denial” side of the Apostle Paul’s ledger. In actuality, ascetic rituals frequently proved an important site of negotiation for believers seeking to navigate both sides of his competing visions of the body. In a specifically American context, in fact, the first Protestants on American soil, the Puritans, utilized food abstinence both as a tool to control the sinful impulses of the body and as a means for healing.7 On the one hand, Puritan leaders frequently promoted food abstinence in order to cultivate a spirit of repentance and self-control within the community. Community-wide fasts occurred on designated days throughout the year based on the Christian calendar, and special public fasts were called in extraordinary circumstances when the community faced significant challenges or dealt with especially serious instances of sin among its members. Such public fast days highlighted the longstanding association within Christian spirituality connecting the regulation of the body with the procurement of God’s favor and blessing.8 In a related vein, the Puritans frequently singled out gluttony as a major vice for Christians to avoid. In his

6 Quoted in Bell, Holy Anorexia, 101. Also see Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 142.

7 As recipients of the legacy of the Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century, many American Protestants resisted the ascetic extremism that they associated with Roman Catholicism, yet they too acknowledged the importance of keeping their bodily passions in check. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin, for example, reserved a place for fasting in their understanding of the Christian disciplines. Luther confirmed fasting’s usefulness as a tool to “kill and subdue the pride and lust of the flesh” even as he strenuously objected to those whom he believed fasted “only because they think that these are good works and that they earn much merit by doing them,” Martin Luther, “Treatise on Good Works (1520),” in Selected Writings of Martin Luther, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), 156- 57. John Calvin instructed his readers to find a middle road regarding fasting, neither neglecting the practice or requiring “it to be kept too strictly and rigidly as if it were one of the chief duties, and to extol it with such immoderate praises that men think they have done something noble when they fast.” Instead, fasting should be used “to weaken and subdue the flesh,” or as a preparation “for prayers and holy meditations, or that it may be a testimony of our self-abasement before God when we wish to confess our guilt before him,” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 2:1245-46.

8 Public fasts continued within various Protestant denominations into the nineteenth century. Griffith also discusses the persistence and eventual decline of the practice of fasting more generally over the course of the nineteenth century in Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 32-37.

observations of Native Americans, it amazed Roger Williams that he “could never discerne that excesse of scandalous sins amongst them, which Europe aboundeth with. Drunkennesse and gluttony, generally they know not what sinnes they be.”9 Without discounting the way in which the Puritans’ practice of fasting and their condemnations of gluttony associated the body with sinful, dangerous impulses, at times the Puritans’ ascetic practices highlighted the perfectibility, not the weakness, of the human frame. Besides their public fasts, Puritans also practiced more individual, devotional fasts for physical well-being. The historian David Hall points out that many Puritans in New England utilized prayer and fasting as an antidote for illness even as they consulted doctors and “cunning folk” as well. This connection stemmed from the Puritans’ close association of sin with sickness. In the words of the colonist Lewis Bayley, “Sicknesse comes not by hap or chance . . . but from mans wickednesse.” Given this supposition, rituals of prayer and fasting functioned not only as a means for believers to express their contrition and repentance, but also prepared the way for a restoration of health. When Increase Mather’s children became sick he assumed that he had “not bin thankfull and humble as I should have bin, and therefore God is righteous in afflicting me.” Though dismayed by this negative turn of events, Mather turned to spiritual resources to deal with what he interpreted as a spiritual problem: “This day I Fasted and prayed in my study, begging for the Lives of my two sick children Nath. and Sam.”10 Similarly, other historians have highlighted the way in which Anglican clerics, including many Puritans in North America, emphasized fasting and other acts of self-discipline as useful means to treat mental disorders such as “religious melancholy.”11 As these examples suggest, acts of self-denial such as fasting were seen at times as ways to improve and strengthen both mind and body. The competing attitudes towards the body evident in the Puritans’ approach to asceticism continued to manifest throughout the history of Protestantism in North America, and this tension proved especially pronounced in the legacy left by the eighteenth-century founder of Methodism, John Wesley. A paragon of self-discipline and a tireless missionary both in the American

9 Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America (London: Gregory Dexter, 1643), 135.

10 See David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (New York: Knopf, 1989), 196-204, first quotation 197, second quotation 200.

11 Porterfield, Healing in the History of Christianity, 102-5; and Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 31-32.

colonies and back home in Great Britain, Wesley promoted an ascetic temperament demanding careful regulation of the body. In his Plain Account of Christian Perfection, for example, when Wesley highlighted the way in which certain believers in London failed to live up to Christ’s ideal, one of the key shortcomings he pinpointed involved their lack of temperance. He lamented the way in which some believers did not “use that kind and degree of food, which they know, or might know, would most conduce to the health strength, and vigour of the body.” Others lacked temperance in sleep; they failed to “rigorously adhere to what is best both for body and mind; otherwise they would constantly go to bed and rise early, and at a fixed hour.” Others practiced “neither fasting nor abstinence.” Some simply preferred “that preaching, reading, or conversation, which gives them transient joy and comfort, before that which brings godly sorrow, or instruction in righteousness.” “Such joy is not sanctified,” he continued, “it doth not tend to, and terminate in, the crucifixion of the heart. Such faith doth not centre in God, but rather in itself.”12 Significantly, Wesley’s legacy regarding his approach to the body extended well beyond his determination to subdue the “flesh” in favor of the spirit. For one, in a move with crucial implications for his approach to the body, Wesley insisted that the human frame could be a direct conduit of the Holy Spirit. As chronicled by Ann Taves, by advocating such positions Wesley countered individuals working out of the Reformed tradition, such as Jonathan Edwards. Edwards by no means disavowed the importance of personal encounters with the Holy Spirit—in fact, he stood as one of the most important defenders of this experiential form of Christianity that he inherited from his Puritan forbears—but he did seek to maintain a sharp distinction between the pure activity of the Spirit and humans’ tainted thoughts and actions.13 Following in the footsteps of John Calvin, Edwards highlighted the disastrous consequences of sin on human nature. Due to these assumptions, Taves notes that Edwards distinguished phenomena such as fits, trances, and the like from “true religion.” To do so, Edwards employed naturalistic explanations that separated those phenomena from the world of direct supernatural activity. At

12 John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (London: Epworth Press, 1952), 84-85.

13 For a classic discussion of the “experiential strain” in Puritan spirituality, see Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), esp. 126-28. Also see Amanda Porterfield, The Transformation of American Religion: The Story of a Late- Twentieth-Century Awakening (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), esp. 12-20.

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most, they could be seen as symptoms of supernatural activity, but not as supernatural in and of themselves. Wesley on the other hand embraced bodily manifestations as the direct activity of the Holy Spirit.14 Wesley was also very concerned with the implications of bodily discipline for physical health. Along these very lines, he found time in his busy schedule to write Primitive Physick, a widely popular book on health and healing. Both British and American readers possessed a healthy appetite for such fare; twenty-three editions of the book appeared during Wesley’s lifetime, and it was one of the best selling books of the eighteenth century.15 The majority of Primitive Physick listed a host of maladies and their attendant cures, and could be categorized best as an early form of alternative medicine. Besides these emphases, Wesley also offered wide-ranging practical advice intended to instruct his readers regarding basic bodily disciplines that aided in the maintenance of health. Much of this advice appeared in his introductory comments. Drawing heavily on the writings of George Cheyne, a seventeenth century advocate for carefully regulated diets, Wesley offered several principles necessary for individuals “to retain the Health they have recovered.” Regarding diet, Wesley instructed readers to “suit the Quality and Quantity of Food to the Strength of our Degestion.” For “studious Persons,” this generally worked out to “about eight Ounces of Animal Food, and twelve of Vegetable in twenty-four Hours.” Water also quickened “the Appetite and strengthens the Digestion,” and a “due Degree of Exercise is indispensably necessary to Health and long Life.” Regarding exercise Wesley recommended two to three hours a day of physical activity ranging from walking to riding horses. After providing numerous other specific

14 Taves sees pentecostals as emphasizing the Spirit’s possession of their bodies to different degrees, however, with some proving much more open to a wide variety of physical manifestations of the spirit than others. In fact, she draws parallels between the differences separating Edwards and Wesley’s views of Spirit’s interaction with the body and the differences separating the early pentecostal leaders Charles Parham and William Seymour’s views of the Spirit’s interaction with the body. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, as Taves would admit, all pentecostals stood closer to Wesley than they did Edwards on the matter. For pentecostals, she writes, “[p]osession swept away all barriers between the believer and God and allowed the Spirit to take control of the person,” Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, & Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), esp. 20-75, 328-41, quotation 34.

15 For further discussion regarding Primitive Physick and Wesley’s approach to health and healing, see E. Brooks Holifield, Health and Medicine in the Methodist Tradition: Journey toward Wholeness, ed. Martin E. Marty and Kenneth L. Vaux (New York: Crossroad, 1986), esp. 29-38; and Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 41-43.

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recommendations, Wesley concluded by stressing the love of God, which, by the “unspeakable Joy and perfect Calm, Serenity and Tranquility it gives the Mind . . . becomes the most powerful of all the Means of health and long Life.”16 Given his overriding evangelistic concerns, Wesley did not fit the profile of the single-minded health reformer seeking to transform the world one dieter at a time; he did however provide a poignant example of the overlap between religious asceticism and practical concern regarding physical wellbeing.

Early Pentecostals, the Body, and Asceticism Pentecostals’ approach to the body grew in large part out of the legacy left by Wesley.17 As participants in the holiness tradition early pentecostals imbibed Wesley’s strong ascetic emphasis on bodily discipline as a key to spiritual growth. Such emphases flourished during the

16 John Wesley, Primitive Physick; or, an Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases, 12th ed. (Philadelphia: Andrew Steuart, 1764), xii-xvi. For more on Cheyne and his influence on Wesley, see Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 41-44. Towards the end of his lifetime, Wesley reiterated these themes in his sermon “The More Excellent Way.” There Wesley distinguished between a “higher” and a “lower” path that Christians could choose to follow. The higher path involved making prudent choices in every aspect of life, and some of the areas Wesley highlighted touched on believers’ health; in addition to focusing on how individuals prayed and worked and handled their money, he also honed in on their sleep habits, their dietary choices, and the types of diversions they chose in their spare time. Those who neglected these disciplines and chose the lower path risked not having “so high a place in heaven as they would have had if they had chosen the better part,” John Wesley, “The Most Excellent Way,” in The Works of John Wesley, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1986), 3:262-77, quotation 266.

17 Regarding pentecostals’ indebtedness to Wesley and the holiness tradition that developed among his followers, Vinson Synan argues that the pentecostal movement should be “viewed as the logical outcome of the Holiness crusade which had vexed American Protestantism for 40 years.” He found “repeated calls of the Holiness leadership after 1894 for a ‘new Pentecost’” which “inevitably produced the frame of mind and the intellectual foundations for just such a ‘Pentecost’ to occur.” “Pentecostalism was the child of the Holiness movement,” he concludes, “which in turn was a child of Methodism. Practically all the early Pentecostal leaders were firm advocates of sanctification as a ‘second work of grace’ and simply added the ‘Pentecostal baptism’ with the evidence of speaking in tongues as a ‘third blessing’ superimposed on the other two. Both Parham and Seymour maintained fully the Wesleyan view of sanctification throughout their lives,” Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 105-6. Despite Synan’s articulation of a direct lineage from Wesley to the holiness movement to pentecostalism, there is significant debate among historians of pentecostalism regarding how much the movement is also indebted to Reformed emphases. See for example Edith Lydia Waldvogel, “The ‘Overcoming Life’: A Study in the Reformed Evangelical Origins of Pentecostalism” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1977); and Edith Waldvogel Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993), esp. 11-42.

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late nineteenth century within the radical holiness circles that shaped the spirituality of many early pentecostals. The saints’ commitment to the Spirit’s ability to take possession of their bodies, on the other hand, revealed a high valuation of the body, and at times they also perpetuated Wesley’s more practical concern regarding the natural bodily benefits of temperate eating habits and other bodily disciplines. The pragmatic component in early pentecostals’ approach to diet however was usually overshadowed by their overriding commitment to the spiritual benefits of “subduing the flesh.” Pentecostals’ confidence that the Holy Spirit could directly interact with and enliven their physical bodies manifested not only in the saints’ belief in divine healing, but also in their trademark emphasis on the baptism in the Holy Spirit as evidenced with speaking in tongues. Time and time again pentecostals described the physical impact of the Spirit’s presence. In his description of his baptism in the Holy Spirit, the early pentecostal leader William Durham indicated that he felt as if his “body had suddenly become porous, and that a current of electricity was being turned on me from all sides.” Afterwards, Durham knew that a “living Person had come into me, and that He possessed even my physical being, in a literal sense, in so much that He could at His will take hold of my vocal organs and speak any language He chose through me.”18 Glenn Cook felt as if a “large pipe was fitted over my neck.” The Holy Ghost poured into his body like oil being pumped “under terrific pressure. . . . This was undoubtedly the baptism into the death of Christ.”19 A Brother Burke “asked the Lord to put the Holy Ghost on me.” The Lord answered his prayer, “It came like the outpouring of water on the crown of my head . . . and my heart seemed to expand ten time [sic] larger. Then something rushed through me like I was under a fawcet.”20 In addition to pentecostals’ confidence regarding the Spirit’s ability to take physical possession of individuals, the saints’ more ascetic attitudes towards the body were shaped by their connections to the nineteenth century holiness movement. A byproduct of the revivalistic fervor of the 1820s and 30s, the holiness movement initially centered around Methodists who promoted Wesley’s emphasis on the possibility of Christian perfection (often referred to as entire

18 Apostolic Faith 1, no. 6 (Feb.-Mar. 1907): 4.

19 Apostolic Faith 1, no. 3 (Nov. 1906): 2.

20 Apostolic Faith 1, no. 3 (Nov. 1906): 3.

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sanctification) attained by an all-encompassing commitment to follow Christ and his commands.21 As holiness emphases spread beyond the movement’s Wesleyan roots to impact more and more non-Wesleyan Christians in the second half of the nineteenth century, they helped to keep alive a stress on fasting and other bodily disciplines among evangelicals more generally, including individuals within the Reformed Higher Life movement.22 Almost by definition, holiness Christians were preoccupied with the moral consequences of believers’ daily habits and routines. The early holiness leader Phoebe Palmer began her “Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness” in the 1830s teaching that entire sanctification depended on “an entire and continual reliance on Christ.”23 Though the ultimate goal for Palmer and others like her centered on perfecting the spirit, the route to spiritual perfection demanded careful regulation of the body in everything from dress to speech to diet. As such, holiness advocates proved some of the most prominent nineteenth century Protestant advocates of spiritual disciplines such as fasting.24 Palmer for example followed Wesley’s example by reserving Fridays for fasting in order to maintain her spiritual zeal. Though her health did “not permit my fasting . . . wholly,” she nevertheless found “it well to observe the day in frequent acts

21 See esp. Wesley, Plain Account. As David Bebbington clarifies, “Wesley disagreed with those enlightened thinkers who supposed that all human beings might attain perfection. For Wesley, only the regenerate possess the essential qualification. Experience taught him . . . that believers may progress to a state in which they are free from all known sin. No aspect of Methodist teaching gave more openings for ridicule. There was much glee when a ‘perfect’ sister was detected stealing coal from a ‘sanctified’ brother. Wesley sorrowfully noted such cases, concluding that the state could readily be lost, but he nevertheless insisted on its reality,” D. W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Routledge, 1993), 60.

22 For further discussion of the development of the holiness movement, see Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996); and Charles Edwin Jones, Perfectionist Persuasion: The Holiness Movement and American Methodism, 1867-1936 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002). For discussion of the relationship between the Wesleyan-holiness tradition and the Reformed Higher Life movement, see David D. Bundy, “Keswick and the Experience of Evangelical Piety,” in Modern Christian Revivals, ed. Edith Waldvogel Blumhofer and Randall Balmer (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 118-44.

23 Phoebe Palmer, Present to My Christian Friend on Entire Devotion to God, rev. ed. (London: Alexander Heylin, 1857), 101.

24 Wesley fasted one and sometimes two days a week throughout his lifetime and many who followed in his footsteps tried to emulate his spiritual discipline. See for example the following sermon by Wesley on fasting, John Wesley, “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, VII,” in The Works of John Wesley, ed. Albert Cook Outler (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1984), 1:592-611.

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of self-denial. Paul says, ‘I keep my body under.’ I find it helpful to my spiritual health, to do likewise.”25 Given pentecostals’ strong connection to the Wesleyan holiness movement, it should come as little surprise that early pentecostal leaders taught the faithful to carefully regulate their bodies on behalf of the spirit. As an aspiring pentecostal poet wrote regarding the spiritual benefits of asceticism, Jesus’ disciples who waited for the Holy Spirit after his ascension “were not feasting, they were fasting. . . . [T]hey were filled by the Holy Ghost, not stuffed with a stew or roast. . . . Put out the fire in the kitchen and build it on the altar. More love and more life, fewer dinners and get after the sinners.”26 At times, believers even identified gluttony with demonic activity as can be seen in the testimony of an early pentecostal who thanked God for deliverance from a “morbid and gluttonous demon.”27 Another placed overeating alongside a host of “worldly pleasures” threatening to extinguish the spiritual life of the believer such as “movies, theaters, cards, the dance, Secret societies, unholy alliances, gluttony, tobacco, extravagant dress, newspaper filth, Lord’s day desecration.”28 Overindulgence proved sinful because it distracted individuals from their pursuit of spiritual satisfaction and power. As Anthea Butler notes, dietary practices such as fasting within the early movement “drove out the unclean elements from the body, so that the Holy Spirit could reside within the individual.”29 A. G. Ward warned his readers, “Some folk feast so much that when it comes to a fight with the power of darkness they are of no more value than a wood- chuck. If you feast and overload your stomach, you had better count yourself out when it comes

25 Richard Wheatley, The Life and Letters of Mrs. Phoebe Palmer (1881; repr. New York: Garland, 1984), 99.

26 “The Cooking Squad or the Praying Band,” Golden Grain 6, no. 7 (1931): 15.

27 “Prayer Requests,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 478-79 (1923): 14.

28 “When the Enemy Comes in Like a Flood,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 563 (1924): 1.

29 “Smoking, snuff dipping, and the use of alcohol were forbidden and were ridiculed as improper behavior in sermon and song,” Butler adds. Anthea Butler, “Observing the Lives of the Saints: Sanctification as Practice in the Church of God in Christ,” in Practicing Protestants: Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630-1965, ed. Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Leigh Eric Schmidt, and Mark R. Valeri (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 162.

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to a conflict with the powers of darkness.”30 Along these same lines, in the early months of the Azusa Street revival three days of fasting were set aside “for more power in the meetings. The Lord answered and souls were slain all about.”31 This pattern repeated itself frequently. Members of the Church of God in Christ set aside three days for fasting prior to their annual convention in order to prepare themselves as worthy recipients of God’s presence during the meetings.32 Likewise, participants in a pentecostal convention in Chicago fasted and prayed on the last day of the meetings “that His Spirit might be poured out upon the city of Chicago.”33 Dietary restrictions and fasting were not simply a matter of spiritual concern for early pentecostals, however. Pentecostals also stressed fasting as a way to build up an individual’s faith and receive God’s healing touch. Numerous participants in the late nineteenth century divine healing movement—itself an outgrowth of holiness emphases and a forerunner of pentecostal spirituality—stressed fasting as a tool to secure God’s intervention amidst physical suffering. One testimony recorded in the proto-pentecostal periodical Triumphs of Faith, edited by Carrie Judd Montgomery, illustrated the connection many believers made between fasting and faith-filled prayer. “Within the last two weeks I have been cured of a very severe cold through fasting and the ‘prayer of faith,’” the writer indicated. “I lay considerable stress on fasting” she continued, “for how can we expect so rich a blessing in answer to prayer if we are unwilling to humble ourselves before God by taking up this cross.”34 Similarly, Andrew Murray, an

30 A. G. Ward, “Where Are the Weeping Prophets Today?” The Latter Rain Evangel 20, no. 12 (1928): 6.

31 Apostolic Faith 1, no. 8 (May 1907): 2.

32 Butler, “Observing the Lives of Saints,” 162-63. In her study of women in the Church of God in Christ, for example, Anthea Butler points to the influence of the Baptist Joanna Moore whose periodical Hope conveyed basic holiness presuppositions to African-American women who eventually joined the pentecostal Church of God in Christ. Moore told her readers to “be careful to eat only healthy food and be sure not to eat too much, for the drunkard and glutton are classed together.” Quoted in Anthea D. Butler, Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 20.

33 “The Chicago Convention,” The Latter Rain Evangel 3, no. 9 (1911): 3.

34 Ida M. Garlock, “Joy for Mourning,” Triumphs of Faith 2, no. 1 (1882): 12. For further discussion of the role of fasting among late nineteenth-century proponents of divine healing, see Heather D. Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician: Suffering and Divine Healing in American Culture, 1860-1900 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 116-17.

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influential proponent of holiness trends in Great Britain and South Africa whose works were often quoted by pentecostals in the United States, highlighted the importance of fasting in laying the groundwork for the prayer of faith that preceded God’s miraculous intervention. Murray insisted that “prayer needs fasting for its full growth. . . . Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible; fasting, the other, with which we let loose and cast away the visible.” As such, he believed that “only in a life of moderation and temperance and self-denial that there will be the heart or the strength to pray much.”35 Though Murray had more than just physical healing in mind when he penned these words, the potential ramifications of his discussion of prayer and fasting in the realm of health and healing were obvious. As with late nineteenth-century divine healing advocates, testimonies recounted by some pentecostal sufferers suggested that their dedication to fasting played an important role in establishing an unshakable confidence that they had done their part; having prayed and fasted, it was now only a matter of time before God would come through and intervene supernaturally. Several comments recorded by the healing evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson in an issue of Bridal Call highlighted this type of connection. McPherson recounted the story of a man confined to a cot due to “tuberculosis of the spine.” “Brother,” she asked when he was brought to her at healing revival, “have you faith that Jesus Christ will heal you now?” “Sister, I have,” he responded. “I have been praying and fasting, and I know that He is able and willing!” During the same set of healing services, McPherson also encountered a paralyzed twenty-year-old woman. Again, despite the fact that she had never walked, McPherson reported that “her relatives and grandmother have been praying and fasting all day, and ‘know’ she will be healed. Sure enough, in a moment, she is up and walking to and fro across the platform, hands uplifted, face transformed.”36 Like these individuals, numerous other pentecostals highlighted the importance of fasting for building up their faith as they sought divine intervention.

35 Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer (London: James Nisbet, 1887), 98-99. Walter Hollenweger discusses Murray’s impact on early pentecostalism in South Africa. See Walter J. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals: The Charismatic Movement in the Churches (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1972), 111-16.

36 In the same article, McPherson went on to describe the entire crowd attending her healing crusade in similar terms: “They declared that they had been fasting and praying, and KNEW they had faith to be healed,” Aimee Semple McPherson, “Glimpses of the Great San Diego Revival,” Bridal Call 4, no. 10 (1921): 11, 13, 17.

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In addition to the thisworldly healing benefits of fasting, many pentecostals would have readily acknowledged the benefits of a good diet—and in particular a moderate diet—for maintaining proper health. Such emphases received far less attention than God’s ability to miraculously intervene to restore an individual’s health, but they were present nonetheless. “The regulation of the proper amount of the proper food and drink is temperance,” wrote the editor of the Pentecostal Holiness Advocate. Intemperance, on the other hand, involved taking “food or drink in violation of the laws of health.” Such choices marked a “violation of nature’s laws, and a depreciation of her gifts.”37 William Piper, pastor of the pentecostal Stone Church in Chicago warned his listeners, “Violate the laws of health and you will suffer in your body. You can not be a glutton and not eventually suffer some way in some part of your physical system. . . . Violate a moral or violate a spiritual law and you will suffer the consequences of that violation.”38 For his part, the founder of the Church of God in Christ, C. H. Mason, stressed the importance of eating foods such as fruits, vegetables, and nuts. He even went so far as to hire a staff dietician during the 1930s, and the denomination’s magazine, The Whole Truth, published a column beginning in 1934 providing “short articles on the matter of body, food and true health” written by an expert “regarding the six great principles of the science of dietetics.” 39 In promoting dietary discipline early pentecostals once again revealed their connections to Wesley, yet such teachings also mirrored a long tradition of North American health reform efforts. Wesley of course served as an important figure within this tradition, yet numerous religious health reformers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries carried forward the emphasis on the connections between self-control and personal health. 40 In the early republic, health

37 George F. Taylor, “Sunday School Lesson,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 2, no. 26 (1918): 1-2.

38 William H. Piper, “Be Not Deceived; God Is Not Mocked,” Latter Rain Evangel 3, no. 4 (1911): 16.

39 See Butler, “Observing the Lives of Saints,” 163; and “Health of Body,” The Whole Truth 10, no. 1 (1934): 9.

40 Wesley’s theology corresponded with the underlying philosophy driving North American health reform efforts given his commitment to Arminianism (a position stressing the ability of each individual to take responsibility for their salvation by choosing to respond to God’s grace). Like Wesley, all of the American health reformers mentioned in this chapter—religious and non-religious alike—shared a basic ideological commitment to what James Whorton has referred to as “physical Arminianism.” According to Whorton, for health crusaders “bodily happiness is intended by nature (God), but each person must assume responsibility for his physical salvation and earn it by physiological rectitude. By adherence to

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crusaders tapped into the widespread zeal for social reform percolating throughout the United States as individuals agitated for everything from abolition, to women’s rights, to temperance. For figures such as the health reformer Sylvester Graham, the chief ailment in the United States involved Americans’ diet and personal habits. Graham was convinced that over-stimulation in the form of too much food or too much sexual intercourse led to all forms of spiritual and physical illness, and he spearheaded a crusade lambasting individuals who failed to strictly regulate their diet and sexuality.41 Later in the nineteenth century Seventh Day Adventists such as Ellen G. White and John H. Kellogg embraced the basic contours of Graham’s message, and the success of Kellogg’s breakfast cereals—not to mention his Plain Facts about Sexual Life— pointed to the influence of religious health reformers within American society.42 By the late nineteenth century, numerous health reformers perpetuated a focus on Americans’ diet, though they often detached their message from the explicitly religious context nature’s laws of dress, exercise, and/or diet—especially diet—one may achieve for oneself almost any desired level of vitality, including levels challenging common experience and scientific opinion,” James C. Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 5.

41 “Let every one consider that excessive alimentation is one of the greatest sources evil to the human family,” Graham wrote. “[E]very individual should, as a general rule,” he continued, “restrain himself to the smallest quantity which he finds from careful investigation and enlightened experience and observation will fully meet the alimentary wants of the vital economy of his system, knowing that whatever is more than this is evil!” Sylvester Graham, Lectures on the Science of Human Life (London: Horsell, 1849), 258. For more on Graham, see Stephen Nissenbaum, Sex, Diet, and Debility in Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham and Health Reform (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980); Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness, esp. 38-91; and Karen Iacobbo and Michael Iacobbo, Vegetarian America: A History (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004), 15-70.

42 For further discussion of Ellen G. White and John H. Kellogg’s impact on health reform, see esp. Ronald L. Numbers, Prophetess of Health: Ellen G. White and the Origins of Seventh-Day Adventist Health Reform (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1992); Ronald L. Numbers, “Sex, Science and Salvation: The Sexual Advice of Ellen G. White and John Harvey Kellogg,” in Right Living: An Anglo-American Tradition of Self-Help Medicine and Hygiene, ed. Charles E. Rosenberg (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 206-26; and Iacobbo and Iacobbo, Vegetarian America, esp. 97-100, 126-30. Even adherents to New Thought exhibited a strong focus on bodily discipline. Though their emphasis on the spiritual power of the mind to effect physical healing seemingly downplayed the importance of the body, as Marie Griffith has shown, “the majority of even the most strenuously spirit- minded participants in the burgeoning mind cure movement were unwilling to stake everything on mental force alone: instead, the New Thought body, as a source of endless techniques, remedies, calculations and quantifications, was itself a fount of healing power.” Griffith in fact sees New Thought as a crucial link helping to establish the underlying ethos supporting the contemporary search for the perfect body as seen in American diet culture. For more on the role of the body within New Thought traditions, see Griffith, Born Again Bodies, esp. 69-109, quotation 70.

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that informed figures such as Wesley and Graham. Several trends sparked the average Americans’ interest in health reform apart from explicitly religious concerns. For one, the secularization of health reform efforts corresponded with the medical establishment’s recognition of nutritional science as an important field of inquiry.43 Also, the growing number of white collar jobs led to concern over workers’ increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Fashion trends emerging especially in the 1890s reflected even as they contributed to the growing emphasis on slender bodies. Furthermore, an emerging professional sports culture added to the focus on physical strength and fitness.44 All of these developments created an environment ripe for the formulation of new dietary practices and products promising to help users improve their health and shed extra pounds. Advertisers quickly latched on to the potential of nutritional research for promoting a variety of foods, and a whole host of specific products emerged. The various goods helping consumers achieve a rapturous state of health, vitality, and weight loss ranged from Kruschen Salts (“The

43 It took time for the American medical profession to warm to the idea that obesity posed a significant health risk, yet as early as the 1880s physicians such as Wilbur Atwater at Wesleyan University became interested in establishing ideal caloric values for individuals. In the first decades of the twentieth century scientists also confirmed the importance of trace nutrients—dubbed vitamins—that if lacking in a diet led to diseases such as beriberi, scurvy, and pellagra. Stearns discusses the gradual influence of nutritional research on the medical field in Peter N. Stearns, Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 27-32. For more on the history of vitamins and nutritional research more generally, see Elmer Verner McCollum, A History of Nutrition: The Sequence of Ideas in Nutrition Investigations (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957), esp. 201-419. For discussion of Americans’ love affair with vitamins, see Rima D. Apple, Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996).

44 Stearns elaborates on each of these sources of Americans’ focus on diet and weight loss in Stearns, Fat History, 11-24, 39, 48-68. The emerging professional sports culture further cemented the growing focus on strength and fitness, as can be seen in the complex interaction between religious, gender, and health ideals around the turn of the century. See for example Clifford Putney, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); and Tony Ladd and James A. Mathisen, Muscular Christianity: Evangelical Protestants and the Development of American Sport (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999). Other sources discussing the various historical factors contributing to Americans’ preoccupation with weight and fitness around the turn of the twentieth century include Hillel Schwartz, Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies, and Fat (New York: Free Press, 1986), esp. 75-187; and Peter N. Stearns, “Fat in America,” in Cultures of the Abdomen: Diet, Digestion, and Fat in the Modern World, ed. Christopher E. Forth and Carden-Coyne Ana (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), esp. 239-44. It also worth noting that historians trace the initial modern preoccupation with weight all the way back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when scientists in Europe and Great Britain identified obesity as pathological, Ken Albala, “Weight Loss in the Age of Reason,” in Cultures of the Abdomen: Diet, Digestion, and Fat in the Modern World, ed. Christopher E. Forth and Carden-Coyne Ana (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

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Modern Safe Way—Right Way to Lose Fat”) to Ex-Lax (the key “toward helping nature give you a clear, healthy complexion and bright sparkling eyes”).45 At the same time that entrepreneurs sold their wares, others peddled novel theories and sought to transform Americans’ eating habits. Individuals such as Francis Humphris advocated careful dietary restrictions coupled with electrical stimulation,46 while the “Great Masticator” Horace Fletcher instructed Americans to chew each bite at least twenty times in order to extract the full nutrition.47 Regarding fasting, the health reformer and physician Edward Hooker Dewey popularized his “fasting cure” and “no breakfast plan” wherein food abstention cured a whole host of ills. Besides a regular pattern of only two meals a day, Dewey also recommended extended curative fasts that could last for twenty to thirty days. Based on his observations of patients, Dewey published his theory in the 1890s, insisting that excess food sapped the energy and vitality of the body, opening up the door for disease.48 Other turn-of-the-century health reformers followed Dewey’s lead. In addition to highlighting the importance of diet, Bernarr Macfadden built a publishing empire focused on the benefits of physical exercise and fasting.49 Upton Sinclair

45 See James C. Whorton, Inner Hygiene: Constipation and the Pursuit of Health in Modern Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 104-05. For further discussion regarding the complex intersection of nutritional research, advertising, and manufacture of vitamins as well as the enthusiastic popular response to the “newer nutrition” in the early decades of the twentieth century, see Apple, Vitamania, esp. 13-53; and James C. Whorton, “Eating to Win: Popular Concepts of Diet, Strength, and Energy in the Early Twentieth Century,” in Fitness in American Culture: Images of Health, Sport, and the Body, 1830-1940, ed. Kathryn Grover (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989), 86- 122.

46 Stearns, Fat History, 36.

47 Heavily influenced by New Thought assumptions, Fletcher popularized his unique approach to diet among a significant proportion of middle and upper class Americans. For more on Fletcher, see Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness, 168-81; Stearns, Fat History, 32-35; and Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 106-7.

48 Dewey saw his no breakfast plan as especially liberating for women. Not only would their nutrition increase, he claimed, but they also would no longer have to rise early in the morning to fix breakfast. See Edward Hooker Dewey, Experiences of the No-Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure (Meadville, PA: Edward Hooker Dewey, 1902); Edward Hooker Dewey, The No-Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure (Meadville, PA: Edward Hooker Dewey, 1900); Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness, 262-67; and Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 113-15.

49 For more on the career of Bernarr Macfadden, see Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 116-19; and Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness, 296-303.

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similarly helped to popularize fasting as the key to wellness after writing his more famous exposé of the U.S. meat packing industry.50 Considering the strong presence of health reformers in American culture when pentecostalism burst on the scene it should come as no surprise that pentecostal spirituality in the early 1900s at times overlapped with these broader impulses towards health reform. Unlike many health reformers at the turn of the century, however, pentecostals’ ties to the nineteenth- century holiness movement ensured that the thisworldly, practical benefits of diet and exercise remained distinctly secondary to the spiritual blessings that accompanied those same practices. Moreover, early pentecostals would have decried the health reformers’ stress on physical appearance and weight loss as a vain preoccupation with self. In the ensuing decades, the sharp differences separating pentecostals’ attitudes towards the body from those of health reformers largely disappeared. First, the pragmatic benefits of bodily discipline stepped out of the shadows to become a much more prominent component in pentecostal and charismatic discourse. Second, the particular rewards pentecostals and charismatics sought as they molded their bodies into shape went beyond health to encompass physical appearance and weight loss; the Spirit increasingly partnered with believers in a quest for a beautiful body.

Franklin Hall and the Thisworldly Benefits of Fasting Pentecostals’ attitudes towards fasting in the second half of the twentieth century serve as an excellent barometer of the changing sensibilities within the movement regarding the goals and aims of bodily discipline. Most believers still espoused the traditional pentecostal line regarding the spiritual goals and miracles accessed by disciplining the body through fasting, yet voices increasingly emerged linking the practice to physical well-being. No one did more to spur pentecostals’ retooled understanding of the goals associated with asceticism than the mid-century healing evangelist Franklin Hall. An eccentric figure within the movement, Hall consistently stressed fasting’s role in releasing God’s healing power within the body. As the title of one of his more popular books proclaimed, believers could experience Atomic Power with God through Prayer and Fasting

50 See Upton Sinclair, The Fasting Cure (New York: M. Kennerley, 1911); and Stearns, Fat History, 35.

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(1946). Though Hall was well-known within pentecostal circles around mid-century, he was not always well received. His more radical teachings regarding “bodyfelt salvation” (a teaching that stressed the possibility of a continuous, dynamic physical experience of the “Holy Ghost fire” that brings health and healing) in fact alienated many of his fellow evangelists and he became increasingly isolated. Despite these challenges, the historian David Harrell cites one insider familiar with the pentecostal healing evangelists of the period who claimed that “[e]very one of these men down through the years followed Franklin Hall’s method of fasting.”51 Like the other healing evangelists, Hall frequently highlighted fasting’s otherworldly benefits. He labeled true fasting an inherently “anti-pleasure measure.” As such, “if one is fasting mainly for greater success in business, or for selfish material welfare, or for healing only, or some other personal object—this is an unacceptable fast to God.” The real aim of any true fast rather was the pursuit of “spiritual pleasure.”52 Likewise, fasting served as “perhaps the best way to kill the old man of pride. Pride lives on the appetites, and fasting masters the appetites, therefore pride may be eliminated by a person who will fast occasionally for at least a week or more.”53 In sum, Hall envisioned fasting as the crucial discipline connecting the believer to God. “Fasting is the most potent power of the universe placed at the disposal of all believers,” he concluded. Comparing the power obtained through fasting to the power of the atom bomb, Hall sought “to show to the Christian an even greater power for his spiritual progress that can definitely be obtained through ‘fasting and prayer.’”54 Despite the continuity between Hall and early pentecostal attitudes toward food and diet, his writings also led many pentecostals during the period to explicitly associate fasting with very

51 For a brief but useful overview of Hall and his influence, see David Edwin Harrell, All Things Are Possible: The Healing & Charismatic Revivals in Modern America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975), 80-82, 212-14, quotation 81. For example, Hall contributed an article on fasting in the early years of the revival in The Voice of Healing, the most prominent early periodical dedicated to broadcasting the activities of the healing evangelists such as William Branham during the period, see Franklin Hall, “The Power of Healing,” The Voice of Healing 2, no. 7 (1949): 11. His books were also advertised in the periodicals of other evangelists such as A. A. Allen’s Miracle Magazine. See Advertisement for Glorified Fasting, Miracle Magazine 2, no. 6 (1957): 22.

52 Franklin Hall, Glorified Fasting: The Abc of Fasting (San Diego, CA: Franklin Hall, 1948), 15.

53 Franklin Hall, The Fasting Prayer (San Diego, CA: Franklin Hall, 1947), 196.

54 Hall, “Power of Healing,” 11.

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thisworldly physical benefits and healings. His writings moved seamlessly back and forth between the lofty spiritual attainments made possible by food abstinence and the practice’s more mundane bodily rewards. Here Hall mixed his own intuitions regarding the functions of fasting with the findings of nutritional science. He was convinced evil spirits were attracted to filth and that accumulated toxins in the body invited demonic activity.55 Fasting however purged the body of these toxins since it lived “on the very poisons one wishes to abolish.” When combined with a healthy diet, food abstention helped prevent everything from the common cold to cancer. On this last point, Hall highlighted studies conducted on rats where the “irritating matter coming from canned foods, preservatives, spices, and drugs” caused cancer. Sounding very much like a twentieth century Sylvester Graham in his denunciations of over-stimulation, Hall asked, “If animals get cancer by eating our spiced up, over-seasoned, depleted food, then why should we expect to overcome the consequence of such eating?” Based on such findings Hall went on to group foods into different categories that represented the full spectrum of “stimulation.” These ranged from water (non-stimulating) to coffee, spices, and alcohol (very stimulating). He cited physicians in San Francisco and Chicago with whom he was “personally acquainted” who put “cancer patients on a twelve to fifteen day fast followed by raw vegetable and fruit juices, and many are cured.” As such, fasting proved the natural solution to a wide variety of “disorders or growths which any physician knows are caused by auto-intoxication brought on by overeating.” Articulating a theme that would recur with regularity among later figures within the movement, Hall insisted that the Scriptures were “far ahead of health authorities and medical science.”56 Though Hall was quick to characterize the physical benefits of food abstinence as “secondary blessings of fasting,” he clearly saw fasting as beneficial for the body and he never hesitated to point out the importance of fasting for health and healing.57

55 Hall, Glorified Fasting, 39.

56 In addition, for Hall fasting not only served as a preventative measure but also served as an effective therapeutic agent. “[A] fast may be the very thing that is needed in the natural,” Hall taught, “to bring a person to feel better. In other words, sick people may become well by fasting.” Hall, The Fasting Prayer, 97, 116-19, 194. Elsewhere, Hall also claimed that when “regular systematic fastings are gone into” calcification and ulceration of the vascular walls simply did not occur, Hall, Glorified Fasting, 15.

57 Hall, Glorified Fasting, 15.

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Perhaps more importantly than Hall’s own words, testimonials published in his ministry magazine and books indicated that his emphasis on the practical benefits of fasting and diet struck a responsive chord among readers. Glenn Espich, a barber in Fort Wayne, Indiana, detailed numerous healings that occurred as he prayed for others during his twenty-eight day fast, and he also recorded numerous personal benefits. “My eyesight is fifty percent better,” he beamed, “arthritis has left my body and there are no more aches in my arms.” A brother Albert Fredrick Rowe reported that after fasting for twenty-three days “I feel much better in every way, both in body and spirit. I feel young again and in shaving my beard it cuts as easily as it did when I was twenty or thirty.” Wayne Moufrey of Decatur, Illinois, believed that “cancer is passing from my system and I also have a bad case of sinus that is being cleansed.”58 It is important to note that most of the other healing evangelists did not emphasize fasting to anywhere near the extent that Hall did, and many pentecostals saw his focus on the importance of asceticism and diet as denying the importance of God’s supernatural intervention.59 Hall was very aware of these criticisms. “I have had people say my articles on FASTING contained too much about the natural,” he acknowledged. But he insisted that an individual “never comes to God except he first comes in the natural, and then in the spiritual.” Here Hall drew an analogy illustrative of his unique understanding of the salvation process: “A sinner first makes a natural step toward God before he gets saved. First, he kneels in the natural after he is convicted, then he opens his lips naturally to start a prayer to God. The breath that he breathes to God is natural, his voice is natural, in that he cries out to God in confession as he surrenders his all to God for acceptance; he yields all of his natural powers to God before the spiritual new birth takes place. . . . No one can come to God, saved or unsaved, for any need, large or small, without coming first to God in the natural.” Applying this same logic to fasting, Hall concluded, “When a fast is undertaken it starts in the natural and ends in the spiritual. Natural things in their proper places do play a great part when consecrated to God in drawing us into the spiritual.” In fact, Hall

58 Quoted in Ibid., 22-25.

59 Gordon Lindsay, for example, the editor of The Voice of Healing, eventually told Hall he would not publish advertisements for his books or meetings due to resistance from pentecostal denominations. See Harrell, All Things Are Possible, 81.

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claimed, Jesus Christ “spoke more about wealth and that which pertains to food and eating than about anything else in His ministry.”60 Hall’s defense of fasting prefigured the growing prioritization of the natural world in the spirituality of later pentecostals and charismatics. Though no respectable pentecostal or charismatic would ever deny the power of faith-filled prayers to effect healing, for many within the movement faith began to receive less attention. Even more so than Hall, subsequent leaders—many of whom are discussed in Chapter 2—touted the importance of nutritional research coupled with various bodily disciplines as the key to both spiritual and physical health. (Don Colbert, for example, served as one of the most prominent advocates of spiritual and physical detoxification through fasting.61) The pentecostal and charismatic figures discussed below shared Hall and Colbert’s enthusiasm regarding nutrition and the careful regulation of the body. In a new twist, however, their prioritization of the natural world highlighted the importance of physical beauty and thinness as key markers of spiritual attainment and maturity.

Weightless in the Spirit Widespread participation by pentecostals and charismatics in the American diet and fitness culture began in earnest during the 1970s at the same time that millions of other Americans were similarly caught up in a wave of healthy-minded enthusiasm.62 The growing popularity of organic foods as well as Americans’ newfound love affair with jogging epitomized these changes. The craving for a perfect, healthy body was by no means a new arrival on the

60 Hall, The Fasting Prayer, 120.

61 For further discussion of Colbert, see Chapter 2.

62 Representative articles from the 1970s indicating pentecostals and charismatics’ interest in diet and fitness include Shari Gundlach, “You Can Lead a Kid to Bean Sprouts . . . But You Can’t Make Him Eat,” New Wine 11, no. 4 (1979): 9-11; and Howard Earl, “Health Food: Fact or Fad?,” Logos 8, no. 1 (1978): 26-29. New Wine also published an interview with the fitness guru Dr. Kenneth Cooper entitled “The Healthy Christian.” A Christian himself, Cooper had been dubbed the “father of aerobics” and is credited with coining the term “aerobic.” Within the article Cooper detailed for pentecostals and charismatics the basic components of aerobic exercise and highlighted Americans’ burst of interest in fitness beginning in the 1960s and 70s. At one point, for example, Cooper cited statistics suggesting that the number of Americans who jogged had risen exponentially from one hundred thousand in 1968 to as many as 25 million ten years later. See Dick Leggatt, “The Healthy Christian: An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Kenneth Cooper,” New Wine 11, no. 4 (1979): 4-8.

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American scene, but it did experience resurgence during the final third of the twentieth century. Fit, slender bodies were in, fat was out.63 Significantly, the emphasis on health and fitness manifested within pentecostal and charismatic circles in two distinct—though often complementary—ways. The salient difference that emerged involved distinctive approaches to the natural world and in particular to the human body. On the one hand, some adherents embraced the renewed emphasis on the healing power of nature and natural substances, tapping into trends that had long been present among alternative medical practitioners (see Chapter 2). Though many healers who addressed these themes focused on diet, they usually set their programs up as preventative alternatives to more traditional forms of medical treatment. The figures discussed here, on the other hand, embraced the growing emphasis on the importance of diet and fitness as well, but with less of an emphasis on recovering the power of natural substances to heal. Instead of competing with traditional medicine, these individuals stressed the importance of shedding extra pounds. The clear emphasis involved disciplining the flesh and resisting temptation not only to improve the individual’s relationship with God and achieve optimum health, but to look beautiful as well. The boundaries separating these two tendencies easily blurred at times within the movement; some figures who focused on weight- loss recommended organic foods, for example, while those focusing on achieving divine health through natural foods often stressed the importance of ascetic disciplines such as fasting. Nevertheless, the tenor and emphases of the various authors usually clustered around one pole as opposed to the other. Pentecostals and their charismatic successors first began to pay attention to weight-loss in large numbers beginning especially in the 1970s. As mentioned earlier, however, within the

63 Whorton discusses the turn to organic foods and to running as manifestations of the broader “holistic health explosion” in Crusaders for Fitness. He also succinctly identifies a confluence of factors that contributed to Americans’ turn to alternative approaches to health (which in turn contributed to the growing emphasis on fitness): “The turbulent cultural climate of the late 1960s was unusually favorable to the growth of interest and belief in radical hygiene. Long-building uneasiness about the untoward effects of scientific and technological advance (particularly environmental pollution and food contamination) was joined by the social idealism and hatred of entrenched authority bred by civil rights and Viet Nam protests. The antiestablishment, neo-Romantic utopianism that possessed so many rebellious young made the aquarian generation highly vulnerable to heretical philosophies promising a better, cleaner, peaceful world by a return to natural living,” Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness, 331-49. Quotation on 35-36. For a more detailed discussion of holistic medicine, see Chapter 2.

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broader culture the attack on fat took root towards the end of the nineteenth century, spurred in no small part by growing urbanization, a changing economy characterized by an overabundance of supply, and medical professionals’ increased attention to the connections between weight and health.64 The popular fascination with fasting at the turn of the twentieth century discussed earlier fit well with Americans’ growing attention to thinness. For early pentecostals, however, their stress on fasting did not translate into a preoccupation with weight issues. When Franklin Hall wrote on the subjects of proper diet and fasting in 1947 for example he did not immediately assume that readers would want to fast in order to lose weight. To the contrary, Hall seemed more concerned with those who were underweight. “Many thin people are thin because their functional glands and organs are so burdened and overworked from food over-indulgence they cannot take on weight no matter how much they eat,” he wrote. “I have seen many thin and underweight people gain weight and become of normal weight after a fast of ten days or more followed by weeks of careful eating. In many instances all that was wrong was that they needed to give their organs a much needed vacation and their belly a holiday.” Hall’s sales pitch for fasting would have fallen on deaf ears among most pentecostals and charismatics later in the century. “Daniel’s diet made him appear ‘FATTER AND FAIRER’ than the children of the world,” he asserted.65 Though Hall would be pleased with (and a part of) pentecostals and charismatics’ success in drawing believers’ attention to dietary issues and fasting during the latter third of the century, these later figures often did so in an effort to tip the scales in a decidedly different direction. Pentecostals and charismatics’ transformed attitudes regarding weight loss were put on national display when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged Oral Roberts University in 1977 over its treatment of handicapped and obese students.66 Regarding the university’s handling of handicapped students, critics took aim at the school’s policy of refusing admittance to students in wheelchairs. The school defended itself, claiming that the buildings on

64 See footnote 44.

65 Hall, The Fasting Prayer, 113, 116.

66 For an example of the way this issue was treated in the popular press, see “F Is for Fat,” Newsweek, October 24, 1977.

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campus were not initially built to accommodate the disabled.67 The second issue revolved around the school’s insistence that overweight students shed their extra pounds. Towards that end, in 1976 the university implemented an aerobic exercise program that strictly monitored students’ body-fat percentages and established minimum standards for compliance. Failure to demonstrate progress towards these benchmarks led to probation and potentially suspension from classes. Two years after the program started, four students had been suspended; others simply left the school. One student quoted in the New York Times indicated that the school required him to reduce down to 160 pounds from 215 pounds. Despite his 3.7 grade-point average, he eventually received a letter over his summer break indicating that “before you will be able to complete registration this fall, you must report for your weight check. To be readmitted your weight must be at or below 198 pounds.” After receiving the letter, the student left the university.68 The suspensions contributed to the lawsuit filed by ACLU and the Oklahoma Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities accusing the school of discrimination. The lawsuit targeted both the weight reduction program and ORU’s policy towards those in wheelchairs. In the end, the plaintiffs dropped their complaint regarding the weight reduction program in order to focus solely on ORU’s treatment of the handicapped. By 1978 the school changed its policy towards those in wheelchairs, avoiding a protracted legal battle over the issue. The weight reduction program, however, remained in place.69 The lengths to which ORU was willing to go to keep its campus full of thin, healthy students—to the point of requiring annual checkups for body fat percentage, coupled with threats of suspension from classes and restrictions regarding the acceptance of students in wheelchairs—illustrated the extent to which many pentecostals and charismatics participated in the broader culture’s avid pursuit of health and of the perfect body. In many respects, the dynamics fueling pentecostals and charismatics’ turn towards the American diet culture and their newfound stress on weight loss were the same dynamics fueling Americans’ turn to weight-loss more generally earlier in the century. The historian Peter Stearns

67 For useful summary of the controversy surrounding these policies, see Harrell, Oral Roberts, 362- 63.

68 See “College Criticized for Get-Thin Policy,” 31.

69 Harrell, Oral Roberts, 362-63.

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has argued that Americans’ initial castigations of fat at the turn of the twentieth century occurred as individuals adapted their moral discourse to fit with the increased influence of consumer capitalism and therapeutic paradigms. As Americans increasingly shed their Victorian sensibilities during the early twentieth century in response to the influence of consumer capitalism, explicitly “religious jeremiads” attacking consumerism likewise lost their reformatory power for many Americans. During this period, Stearns contends, older diatribes against gluttony and sexual promiscuity needed to be replaced by “a more subtle set of moral compensations” to fit with Americans’ changing attitudes and values.70 The emerging diet culture among pentecostals and charismatics fit a similar pattern. It is no coincidence that prominent pentecostal and charismatic leaders began to alter their discourse to fit with the American diet culture precisely at a time when adherents were enjoying the fruits of American consumer culture like never before. Following World War II pentecostals’ social standing steadily improved, and the impact of the burgeoning charismatic movement during the 1960s only accelerated this process as newcomers from outside traditional pentecostal circles swelled the movement’s numbers with more and more individuals from the middle and upper- middle class.71 These changes allowed many believers to reap the benefits of consumer capitalism; they also created a context in which more and more adherents were attracted to modified notions of spiritual maturity equating holiness with toned, fit bodies. Adherents usually did not shed the religious dimensions of their discourse, yet they often did adapt their discourse to fit with consumerist, therapeutic sensibilities.72 In addition to socioeconomic factors, the influence of Word of Faith teachings among pentecostals and charismatics since the mid-twentieth century likewise contributed to believers’

70 Stearns, Fat History, 48-68, quotation 59.

71 For further discussion of the changing demographics within the movement, see the Introduction.

72 Significantly, Marie Griffith challenges the sufficiency of Stearns’s argument regarding the secularization of American moral discourse contending that “Christians themselves [and not simply secularizing forces] helped generate the historical shift in religious concern from spirit to body,” Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 12-13. Griffith is surely correct to highlight the role of religious groups in generating a fascination with the body and fitness. Nevertheless, Stearns’s emphasis on the growing influence of consumer capitalism should not be dismissed (as Griffith would no doubt agree). As more and more individuals—religious and non-religious alike—experienced the growing power of consumerism and abundance within their lives around the turn of the twentieth century, moral discourses increasingly reflected the impact of these same forces.

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growing enthusiasm for physical, material evidence of the Spirit’s work. Word of Faith ministers insisted that financial and physical blessings automatically accrued to those living the life God intended. The intellectual forerunner of the movement, E. W. Kenyon, defined the prayer for deliverance and healing not so much as a petition, but rather as a simple exercise of “our Legal Rights.” “You have as much right to demand healing as you have to demand the cashing of a check at a bank where you have a deposit,” he taught.73 Those who followed in Kenyon’s footsteps accentuated the implication of this principle for believers’ material prosperity, often inviting no small amount of criticism. Kenneth Copeland, one of the main proponents of Word of Faith teachings, broke down the core components of the Word of Faith message as follows: “Analyze your needs. Analyze your wants. Go to the Word of God that covers your needs and wants. Don’t relent. Speak faith-filled words.” In order to counter accusations that his teachings equated Christianity with self-centered wish fulfillment, Copeland qualified his comments somewhat by insisting that the believer’s desires must please God.74 More germane for the present study is the way in which Word of Faith ministers contributed to and reinforced pentecostals and charismatics’ expectations for beautiful, fit bodies by teaching adherents to expect material rewards as a sign of the Spirit’s activity.75

73 Essek William Kenyon, The Father and His Family: A Restatment of the Plan of Redemption, 11th ed. (1916; repr. Joshua, TX: Romans VIII Evangelistic Association, 1964), 196. The Word of Faith movement is discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.

74 Kenneth Copeland, “Dominating the Law of Sin and Death,” Believer’s Voice of Victory 13, no. 11 (1985): 5-6.

75 One writer for Charisma, for example, Lona White, illustrated the explicit use of Word of Faith teachings regarding positive confession to address weight loss. “Our confession can work against us if we allow it,” she wrote. “I discovered that often when I get into a situation where food is being served, I babble endlessly about my ‘terrible weight problem’ and that ‘I really shouldn’t be eating this,’ and on and on.” The problem, according to White, was that as she confessed this, she was “feasting not on the Word of faith and hope but of failure. I am drinking vinegar instead of new wine. The moral here: Stop your mouth when it is about to murmur and complain,” Lona Ann White, “Weighting on the Lord,” Charisma 7, no. 9 (1982): 41. Likewise, Marty Copeland, the daughter-in-law of the well known Word of Faith minister Kenneth Copeland, published a wide variety of resources regarding health and fitness from a charismatic perspective and her directions regarding weight loss mirrored her father-in-law’s theology. In her battle with weight, she found herself “slacking off in my prayer and Word time.” This in turn created a weakness exploited by Satan, “When thoughts to indulge came, my spirit man was not strong enough to dominate my flesh, and my mind was not renewed to the Word. I didn’t cast down those thoughts with the Word.” The solution to getting back on track, then, involved a transformation of the mind. “We must be mindful of the devil’s tactics,” she continued, “and keep our spirits and our mouths full of His words—even when we don’t feel like it. . . . All I had to do was repent, get back in prayer,

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Of course, pentecostals and charismatics were by no means the only American Christians participating in the burgeoning fitness culture in the United States. Marie Griffith has noted the initial emergence of the contemporary Christian diet culture in the writings of the Presbyterian Charlie Shedd and the Episcopalians Deborah Pierce and H. Victor Kane. These figures paved the way for later developments within the genre by mediating New Thought emphases on the power of positive thinking and the perfectibility of the body to a Christian audience and by explicitly linking fat with sin. As Griffith writes, “What identified this message as a distinctively Christian one was its rhetoric equating fat with sin, though these writers identified the source of that sin differently: for Shedd, it was ill health and distance from God; for Pierce, gluttony and ugliness; and for Kane, self-indulgence and dietary idolatry.” By the 1970s conservative evangelical authors picked up on similar themes and soon functioned as some the most prominent proponents of Christianized forms of weight-loss in the United States.76 Though Griffith does not highlight the impact of the divine healing movement in also setting the stage for Americans’ fascination with perfect bodies, it is precisely this connection that helps explain why several of the most popular dietary authors were pentecostals and charismatics who quickly assimilated the tools of the trade with great success.77 On the one hand, pentecostal and charismatic weight loss gurus mirrored many of the same emphases that Griffith highlights in relation to the American Christian diet culture more generally.78 Like other evangelicals, pentecostals and charismatics increasingly associated fat back in the Word, and sow to the spirit with my eating and exercise, and I was on my way!” Copeland, Marty. “Facing Fat for the Last Time,” http://www.kcm.org/studycenter/articles/health_healing/facing_fat_last_time.php (accessed October 19, 2007).

76 Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 170. See for example Deborah Pierce, as told to Frances Spatz Leighton, I Prayed Myself Slim: The Prayer-Diet Book (New York: Citadel Press, 1960); H. Victor Kane, Devotions for Dieters (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1967); and Charlie W. Shedd, Pray Your Weight Away (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1957).

77 Curtis makes this point in Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, 207.

78 The traits discussed in this chapter regarding conservative Christian diet culture more generally are drawn from Griffith, Born Again Bodies, esp. 160-238. A clear sign of the close relationship between the broader evangelical diet culture and pentecostals and charismatics’ similar participation in these themes can be seen in a Charisma article where the author provided a largely positive overview of the various Christian weight-loss programs prominent during the 1990s. Though authors such as the charismatic pastor T. D. Jakes were highlighted, many non-pentecostals and non-charismatics were discussed as well. See Carol Chapman Stertzer, “Losing Pounds for God,” Charisma 23, no. 11 (1998): 52-60, 102-4.

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with sin beginning in the 1970s and 80s. One believer began his discussion of adherents’ diet with a more traditional invective against gluttony. “Gluttony or overeating is one of the acceptable sins among Christians,” he lamented. In a sign of broader changes within the movement, however, he went on to specifically link the sin of gluttony with fat, labeling “portly, generously endowed” bodies as sinful bodies. Calling for “an attitude of abhorrence” when it came to issues of fat, he instructed his overweight readers “to get disgusted with yourself. When clothes don’t fit, you look in the mirror and say, ‘Oh, you stuffed sausage, what’s wrong with this?’” To support his association of fat and sin, the author cited the scripture, “Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good” (Romans 12:9).79 Similarly, though the charismatic healing evangelist Francis Hunter often injected a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor into her enormously successful God’s Answer to Fat: Loose it!, she left no doubt regarding the very serious link between fat and sin. Drawing on the sixth chapter of Romans, she taught readers how to read the text specifically with diet and weight loss in mind. She quoted specific verses and inserted her own commentary in italics: “The sixth chapter of Romans really spoke to me concerning dieting,” she wrote. “‘Do not let sin (appetite) control your puny body any longer; do not give in to its sinful desires.’ . . . ‘Don’t you realize that you can choose your own master? You can choose sin (food) (with death) (fat) or else obedience (with acquittal) (or obedience with a weight loss).”80 Pentecostal and charismatic participants in the American diet culture were also like their non-pentecostal, non-charismatic counterparts in that the end goal of their pursuit of the perfect body ultimately included more than just thisworldly goals. Rather, pentecostals and charismatics highlighted the spiritual rewards of shedding extra pounds, including a deeper relationship with God and an improved capacity to witness. “The Lord Jesus Christ did not die to give those who believe in Him as Saviour liberty to cater to their sensual appetites,” Ann Thomas admonished in a bible study directed towards pentecostal and charismatic women. “He died to give Christians the power to keep their own desires in control in order to serve Him and other people.” Thomas’s dietary program was neatly summed up in two of her chapter titles: “Devaluate

79 Dennis Worre, “Fat Christians Can’t Run,” Christ for the Nations 33, no. 10 (1981): 5.

80 Frances Gardner Hunter, God’s Answer to Fat...Loøse It (Houston, TX: Hunter Ministries, 1975), 85.

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Physical Food” and “Eat Lots of Spiritual Food.” As Thomas’s comments indicated, pentecostal and charismatic dietary writers usually tried to avoid the self-serving implications of their advice by teaching their readers to pay attention to their physical appearance for the benefit of others.81 In a similar vein, in her widely popular book written with Marie Chapian, the pentecostal Neva Coyle indicated that conquering sinful eating habits opened the door for believers to say “I am totally victorious over food. . . . Jesus alone satisfies me. Jesus alone gives me strength to handle anger, frustration, and to live up to my daily responsibilities. I need no other reward than to walk in a covenant of obedience with Him.”82 “It’s not about me trying to look good,” Joyce Meyer explained. “But we are the house of God. . . . [W]e are Christ’s personal representatives and God is making his appeal to the lost world through us.”83 Despite these spiritual disclaimers, at the end of the day all of the pentecostal and charismatic figures who tapped into the popular American diet scene offered a vision of health and thinness that freed adherents to embrace the therapeutic and physical ideals of the broader culture.84 Many conservative Christian dietary writers mimicked the rhetoric of self- actualization so prevalent within American culture since the 1960s, and pentecostal and charismatic writers were no exception. As a result of participating in a weight loss program created by Coyle and Chapian, one woman exulted, “I feel much better about myself. I’ve learned how much He cares about me because I spend time with Him every day. . . . [T]he

81 Ann Thomas, God’s Answer to Overeating: A Study of Scriptural Attitudes (Edmonds, WA: Aglow Publications, 1975), 5.

82 Marie Chapian and Neva Coyle, Free to Be Thin (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1979), 170.

83 Joyce Meyer on Life Today. “Look Great, Feel Great, Part I,” first broadcast September 3, 2007. Transcript available at http://www.lifetoday.org/site/DocServer/9-3.doc?docID=1045 (accessed September 12, 2008).

84 R. Marie Griffith provides a helpful discussion of the burgeoning therapeutic culture in the United States more generally and of charismatic women’s participation in that culture specifically in R. Marie Griffith, God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), esp. 33-39, 80-109. In developing her discussion of the changes in evangelicals and charismatics’ attitudes toward American therapeutic culture, Griffith draws especially on David Harrington Watt, A Transforming Faith: Explorations of Twentieth-Century American Evangelicalism (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991).

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change in me personally is far greater than the weight loss.”85 “The Lord Jesus has promised to be your teacher, friend and guide,” Coyle and Chapian added. “Trust Him to speak to you and help you discover yourself.”86 It is important to note that initially the majority of the authors and figures promoting spiritualized dietary practices within the movement were white, and the imagery associated with the wide variety of health products and manuals produced by these healers tended to portray perfect white bodies.87 That said, by the 1990s and early twenty-first century several notable pentecostal and charismatic black leaders published books and advertised products focused on diet and exercise as well.88 The widely popular minister T. D. Jakes’s Lay Aside the Weight detailed his own struggle with weight loss, chronicling his dramatic excision of over one hundred pounds in a little over a year’s time. Though race was not a focus of the book, Jakes briefly addressed the connection between black culture and food. “One of the things that helped me to get an understanding was the effect of my culture on my eating habits,” he wrote. “African Americans, like many other cultures in our society, celebrate most major events with food. We bring food when babies are born; we bring food when people die. We celebrate every holiday with food, and most of our family outings and events are surrounded by lots of fat-filled, sugar-loaded, festive-type foods.” One of the keys to transform his weight, then, involved transforming the African American

85 Quoted in Neva Coyle and Marie Chapian, There’s More to Being Thin Than Being Thin (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1984), 79, 81.

86 Ibid.

87 Again, pentecostals and charismatics were by no means alone in their tendency to prioritize white bodies. Rather, they mirrored broader trends in the American Christian fitness culture. As Griffith points out regarding the evangelical periodical Today’s Christian Woman, “Issues published in the growth period of Christian fitness culture vividly present a more restricted set of body images for white women than for women of color, while yet managing to associate thinness with goodness just as strongly among the latter. White women featured on the magazine’s cover, feature articles, and advertisements were and continue to be almost invariably thin, and articles featuring discussions of weight loss and fitness tips are virtually always illustrated with cartoons or photographs of white women.” Though Griffith notes that women of color portrayed in the magazine were “frequently thin,” she quickly qualifies this observation: “Often enough, however, black women are pictured as heavier than the white ideal, sometimes extensively so,” Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 232.

88 For further discussion of prominent black charismatics in the United States who gained national attention beginning especially in the 1980s, see Scott Billingsley, It’s a New Day: Race and Gender in the Modern Charismatic Movement (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2008).

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culture regarding food. “My first challenge,” he continued, “was to develop good times that were not inundated with fatty foods.”89 Kara Davis, an African American physician in the Chicago area and co-pastor of a charismatic church, similarly targeted obese Christians. A contributor to Spirit-led Woman and Charisma, Davis published Spiritual Secrets to Weight Loss. A bio of Davis’s interest in weight issues highlighted her concern specifically for black American women. While serving as an assistant professor of clinical and internal medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Davis “noticed that an unusually high number of African-American women were obese.” Following this observation, she took an “aggressive step toward educating women of color about emotions and lifestyles that trigger overeating.”90 For her part, Davis held up spiritual maturity as a prerequisite for weight loss. She stressed the fruits of the spirit (e.g. love, joy, peace, gentleness, et cetera) and then applied each as a key principle in her weight loss program. For those readers who lacked the type of spiritual and emotional strength required to immediately implement such a program, however, Davis also allowed for pragmatic concessions. Given the fact that spiritual growth “takes time—sometimes years, decades or even a lifetime,” Davis permitted “assistance in the form of medications and operations while [Christians struggling with obesity] mature in their faith.” Like many of the other pentecostal and charismatic weight-loss experts, the implication of her philosophy was clear: spiritual maturity naturally led to a fit body while spiritual weakness corresponded to obesity.91 Other African Americans cheering pentecostals and charismatics towards health and fitness included Lee Haney and LaVita Weaver. Haney, an eight-time Mr. Olympia, hosted Totalee Fit for the Charismatic TBN Network, “bringing a balance of exercise, diet and spiritual well-being to us.”92 Weaver, who appeared as a co-host with Haney on Totalee Fit, wrote her own Christian health manual, Fit for God, which she billed as “The 8-Week Plan that Kicks the

89 T. D. Jakes, Lay Aside the Weight: Taking Control of It before It Takes Control of You! (Tulsa, OK: Albury, 1997), 62-63.

90 Valerie Lowe, “She’s the Expert on Fat,” Charisma 29, no. 12 (2004): 47.

91 Kara Davis, Spiritual Secrets to Weight Loss (Lake Mary, FL: Siloam Press, 2002), 173-74.

92 “Lee Haney: TotaLee Fit,” http://www.tbn.org/index.php/2/4/p/31.html (accessed April 9, 2008). Also see http://www.leehaney.com/ (accessed April 9, 2008).

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Devil Out and Invites Health and Healing In.”93 As these examples suggest, the pentecostal and charismatic stress on perfectly fit bodies crossed racial barriers within the movement and cannot be associated simply with white adherents.

Spirit-led Weight Loss Each of the characteristics of pentecostal and charismatic diet culture mentioned thus far—believers’ association of fat with sin, their devotional goals, and the correlation of their message with assumptions prevalent in the broader culture—mirrored emphases among non- pentecostal, non-charismatic writers for Christian audiences. If you look close enough, however, it is possible to identify distinctive patterns within the pentecostal and charismatic literature that would have resonated in particular with pentecostal and charismatic audiences. What typically distinguished pentecostals and charismatics from their counterparts in the broader evangelical world involved a very vivid sense regarding the availability of supernatural resources in their struggle with weight. A strong emphasis on the Spirit, in other words, still accompanied believers’ increased focus on the human body and the material world. In at least a few instances, pentecostals and charismatics held out the possibility of direct miraculous intervention in their pursuit of slimness. Hunter recounted how she came to a point of desperation. “GOD, IF I NEVER GET TO EAT ANOTHER THING THAT I REALLY LOVE, I’LL DO IT FOR YOU. I GIVE YOU MY APPETITE.” She claimed that after this engagement of her will, God did a miracle, “HE COMPLETELY TOOK AWAY MY DESIRE FOR FOOD!”94 In an even more dramatic example of immediate divine aid, the mid-century healing evangelist A. A. Allen once asserted that a woman lost two hundred pounds instantly during one of his services. “Mrs. Williams didn’t eat any reducing candy, nor take any reducing pills,” the healing evangelist boasted. “Her weight went down when God healed her. This is what God can do for you, if you will follow His reducing plan!”95 Though these examples proved the exception rather than the rule, they nevertheless demonstrated the persistence among

93 La Vita Weaver, Fit for God: The 8 Week Plan That Kicks the Devil out and Invites Health and Healing In (New York: Doubleday, 2004).

94 Hunter, God’s Answer to Fat, 24-25, 69-71.

95 Alvester Williams, “I Lost over 200 Pounds When I Used God’s Reducing Plan,” Miracle Magazine 6, no. 12 (1961): 3.

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pentecostals and charismatics of a keen sense that God could and would act immediately on behalf of his chosen people, even in relation to weight loss. More typical instances of adherents’ adapting the Christian diet culture to fit with the highly spiritualized worldview prominent among pentecostals and charismatics revolved around the possibility of divine guidance in the weight-loss process. The weight-loss writer Patricia Kreml described the Holy Spirit as the “best authority on proper nutrition, compulsive eating, etc.” As such, dieters need to enroll in “His school” and learn to “listen, ask questions, receive answers, and be taught according to [the Holy Spirit’s] perfect will.”96 Likewise, though much of Joyce Meyer’s advice drew on recurring themes within mainstream weight-loss programs— including the importance of recognizing how food can satisfy emotional deprivations, and of choosing a balanced diet coupled with exercise—she additionally directed her readers to the importance of obeying God’s will for their unique dieting situation. “[S]eek God to discover the particular course of action He wants you to take,” she instructed those seeking to shed extra pounds. “The Lord may tell one person to fast, as He did with me at one point for a particular reason, but He may not want you to fast when you begin changing your eating habits. The Lord will guide you in the way most effective for you.” This personalized guidance extended to the smallest details regarding a person’s choices. “If [the Holy Spirit] leads you one day to eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast instead of half a grapefruit and toast, or an occasional small piece of pie after a satisfying dinner,” she added, “do it.” By listening to the Holy Spirit and “spending time with God before each meal and listening to Him before we start eating,” Christians could bring their habits under control.97 At other times believers were instructed to simply remind themselves of the Spirit’s presence. “When you sit down and eat,” Weaver instructed, “bless your food, pray, and ask the Holy Spirit of God to lead you in your eating.” If believers listened carefully enough, they would recognize when the Spirit indicated that “‘You know you have had enough,’ or ‘That’s too much.’”98 Kreml asked her readers, “Do you realize that the Spirit is right there when you sneak

96 Patricia Banta Kreml, Slim for Him: Biblical Devotions on Diet (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1978), 115.

97 Joyce Meyer, Eat and Stay Thin: Simple, Spiritual, Satisfying Weight Control (Tulsa, OK: Harrison House, 1999), 7, 77, 181.

98 Weaver, Fit for God, 108-9.

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that scoop of ice cream?” Retaining a strong awareness of the immediacy of the Spirit would counteract any sense the believer had that they could eat in secret. “He’s there when you cheat on your diet. He’s there day and night,” she continued. The Spirit stood by when dieters went to “open the refrigerator” or “eat that cookie.” “How sad He must be at those times; how disappointed He is that we don’t reach out to Him for help.”99 Similar themes appeared in the works by Coyle and Chapin. “One certain need is to hear [God] concerning your goal weight,” the authors wrote. “You also need His guidance concerning how many calories you should be eating daily. He is Lord of your body. He knows your frame and exactly how you should take care of it.” As with Meyers, Coyle and Chapian understood this guidance as an ever-present resource for those losing weight. They told the story of a woman who stood in front of the baked goods at the supermarket. She was “quite hungry and knew she could polish off a package of caramel Danish pastries on the way home.” In the midst of this temptation, however, she “heard the Lord gently speaking to her spirit, ‘Don’t do it.’” Strengthened by this guidance, she “turned and walked to the produce department where she chose a bag of apples.” Instead of binge eating, she walked away and “praised God for the ability to obey.”100 On occasion the Spirit also led individuals away from diets. Lisa Bevere’s writings on the subject of diet and weight-loss, for example, stand apart for their strong criticism of the unrealistic body type portrayed within the American diet and fitness culture that “is never what we are and is always just beyond our reach.” Instead, when the Spirit spoke to Bevere, she heard a voice say “If you’ll repent, I will heal your metabolism. Do not diet, and do not weigh yourself. . . . I will teach you how to eat again. Write down the weight you should be, and put it in your Bible.” In order to determine her ideal weight, Bevere indicated that her first thoughts went to the various weight charts she found in magazines such as Glamour, Vogue, and Shape. Then she realized she was looking in the wrong place for guidance, “God, You made me; what should I weigh?”101

99 Kreml, Slim for Him, 114.

100 Coyle and Chapian, There’s More to Being Thin, 31-32.

101 Lisa Bevere, You Are Not What You Weigh: Escaping the Lie and Living the Truth (Orlando, FL: Creation House, 1998), 30, 93. Another popular speaker and author for charismatic audiences who consistently combated unrealistic body expectations was Linda Mintle. See Linda Mintle, Breaking Free

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A final distinctive trend within the pentecostal and charismatic diet culture involved adherents’ understanding of the role of demonic powers in the believer’s struggle with weight. Though other conservative evangelicals would affirm pentecostals and charismatics’ in their insistence that temptation ultimately found its source in Satan, the specific emphasis on deliverance from demonic powers within the pentecostal and charismatic tradition coupled with adherents’ attunement to the role these powers played in their day-to-day lives led many believers to more readily depict their battle with obesity utilizing the terminology of spiritual warfare. Francis Hunter for example described Satan as a shape-shifting power who could manipulate food for his purposes. The devil can “disguise himself as a candy bar,” she wrote. “He can be a cake, with gooey frosting on it. He can be a pudding. . . . The devil tries to tell us if we eat a little something sweet it will satisfy us.” Far from a merely physical issue, for Hunter weight loss engaged the believer in spiritual warfare; demonic temptation to eat required a spiritual battle plan for resisting Satan’s very personal onslaughts.102 T. D. Jakes, like Hunter, cast his struggle as a war against Satanic forces. He detailed his father’s losing battle with weight and its devastating consequences for his father’s health. “Twenty-two years later, I found myself at a similar age fighting a similar challenge,” he wrote. “It was as if Satan had left our family for a season and then returned for the next generation. The devil thought he was going to get a fresh harvest of Jakes’ blood.” Drawing on a familiar discourse among pentecostal and charismatic adherents regarding generational curses and generational spirits that afflict entire families, Jakes concluded that Satan took aim at his family utilizing the weapon of food and weight. “Satan could have at least used a new demon,” Jakes explained. “But no, he used that same demon that attacked my dad. It was then that I realized every man has got to fight his father’s enemy—in one form or another. We all must fight the spirits that have been assigned to our families.”103

from a Negative Self-Image (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2002); and Linda Mintle, Making Peace with Your Thighs: Get Off the Scales and Get on with Your Life (Franklin, TN: Integrity Publishers, 2006). It is also worth noting that Coyle eventually repudiated her earlier works. See Neva Coyle, Loved on a Grander Scale: Affirmation, Acceptance, and Hope for Women Who Struggle with Their Weight (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Publications, 1998); and Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 223-24.

102 Hunter, God’s Answer to Fat, 24-25, 69-71.

103 Jakes, Lay Aside the Weight, 18-19.

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Clearly the increasingly thisworldly aims associated with pentecostal asceticism did not preclude a continued role for spiritual warfare. Though much of the advice given by these authors dovetailed with the type of advice given in most every dietary book, if there was a recurring theme that set pentecostal and charismatic diet literature apart from its counterparts it involved the tangible role supernatural powers played in adherents’ war on weight. The Holy Spirit stayed by believers’ sides guiding them with specific directions in their times of need. The Spirit also enabled adherents to repel the demonic temptations brought by evil spirits seeking to interfere with God’s plans and convince the saints to quit disciplining their bodies. For many pentecostals and charismatics, their newfound dietary disciplines perpetuated past adherents’ highly spiritualized vision of the world (and of the human body) as a battleground between the forces of good and evil; in a new twist, however, those forces now seemed increasingly concerned with believers’ very thisworldly battle with weight during the final third of the twentieth century.

Conclusion I have focused thus far on pentecostal and charismatic dietary writers’ perpetuation of a highly spiritualized worldview, yet these references to supernatural powers increasingly appeared alongside what would be considered standard fare in any dietary guide. Pentecostal and charismatic diet gurus reliably disseminated the basic insights garnered from modern nutritional science; along with numerous scriptural references, they also packed their writings full of nutritious recipes, diet plans, exercise advice, not to mention numerous first-person testimonials. In fact, though confrontations with supernatural powers remained an important component in many pentecostals and charismatics’ battle with weight, the language of spiritual warfare subtly changed at times to encompass deliverance from evil pounds as much as deliverance from evil powers. When Melba Ward, a charismatic dieter who lost over 100 pounds, wrote on weight lost for the periodical published for the Women’s Aglow Fellowship International (an interdenominational group for charismatic women that paralleled the Full Gospel Businesses Men’s Fellowship International), she included references to Satan but tempered her discussion by focusing on her need for “deliverance from weight” more than just deliverance from evil powers. She directed readers to “[r]ecognize how deliverance from

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overweight works: you sow seeds (cut calories) and Jesus delivers you of pounds.” Though Ward specifically mentioned Satan’s ability to attack the believer, the clear emphasis of the article focused on deliverance from calories, not the believer’s battle with the devil.104 Marty Copeland, the daughter-in-law of Word of Faith leader Kenneth Copeland, similarly illustrated the way in which the discourse regarding spiritual warfare within the Word of Faith branch of the movement could be adapted to simultaneously apply to both weight and demonic forces. In a discussion of her renewed battle with weight following one of her pregnancies, she described her initial fitness breakthrough using the terminology of spiritual warfare. “Did God set me free seven years ago [when she initially gained control of her weight and fitness problems]?” she asked her readers. “Yes. Did I receive deliverance from overeating? Yes. Have I enjoyed freedom from the bondage of weight, and kept my weight at a very healthy weight? Yes. Was I experiencing complete control over my eating, and in the best shape of my life? Yes, for all these years.” Like Ward, however, Satan had by no means disappeared from the scene. “When you let your shield of faith down,” she warned, “Satan comes immediately to steal the Word. Whatever areas you were weak in, that’s where he’ll try to tempt you.” “We must be mindful of the devil’s tactics,” she continued, “and keep our spirits and our mouths full of His words—even when we don’t feel like it. . . . All I had to do was repent, get back in prayer, back in the Word, and sow to the spirit with my eating and exercise, and I was on my way!” As Copeland illustrated, among some pentecostal and charismatic diet writers, Satan still lurked in the shadows as a menacing presence even though the language of spiritual warfare at times looked very different from its more traditional antecedents within the movement.105 A few pentecostal and charismatic dietary experts appeared to go further in their adaptations to the American diet culture. By the 1990s individuals appeared who broadened the potential market for pentecostal and charismatic literature regarding weight loss by specifically

104 Melba Ward, “Dieting with Jesus,” Aglow: Magazine for Christian Women, no. 23 (1975): 27.

105 Copeland, Marty, “Facing Fat for the Last Time,” http://www.kcm.org/studycenter/articles/health_healing/facing_fat_last_time.php (accessed October 19, 2007).

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excising aspects of pentecostal and charismatic discourse that may have alienated outsiders, including references to demonic powers or to the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit.106 The choice made by some pentecostal and charismatic diet writers to downplay explicit references to supernatural powers raises important questions. To what extent should the various adaptations of the American diet culture among pentecostals and charismatics be read simply as capitulations to the ethos of consumer capitalism that led adherents away from their traditional forms of piety? Put differently, were pentecostals and charismatics who embraced the gospel of thinness embarking on a path that would inevitably pave the way for adherents to shed their distinctiveness within American society and within the broader evangelical world? For some figures, of course, the answer may be yes. Yet when many of the dietary writers discussed above articulated their visions of thinness, they continued to interject references to the highly spiritualized framework so familiar to pentecostal and charismatic audiences. Writers whose message resonated with more traditional forms of pentecostal and charismatic spirituality such as T. D. Jakes and Joyce Meyer continued to flourish as the movement headed into the twenty-first century. While there had been a radical shift over the course of the twentieth century wherein believers increasingly prioritized the material benefits of ascetic practices, and while the language of spiritual warfare was broadened to encompass the war on weight, spiritual powers still emerged as powerful players in the pentecostal and charismatic diet scene. Other strong areas of continuity with early pentecostalism persisted as well. The pentecostal and charismatic dietary culture perpetuated the holiness ethos so characteristic of the early movement with its demand for careful regulation of the body. All of the pentecostal and charismatic diet experts could affirm Kara Davis’s admonishment of adherents who assumed God was “Jehovah Rapha” (The Lord My Healer) yet missed the conditional nature of God’s promise to keep his people in health. “When God identified Himself as Jehovah Rapha and assured us of protection from disease,” she wrote, “it was under the conditions that His children separate themselves from worldliness. The promise made at Marah was a conditional agreement, with protection from disease contingent upon steadfast obedience to God. My point is this: If we expect God to respond to our infirmities as Jehovah Rapha, the least we should do is keep our

106 I discuss the secularization and acculturation of pentecostals’ discourse regarding healing in more detail in Chapter 5.

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part of the agreement.”107 By emphasizing the importance of disciplining the flesh, pentecostals and charismatic harkened back to themes long resonant within the early movement. Most important, the trends discussed within this chapter also carried forward pentecostals’ embrace of Wesley’s theology regarding the Spirit’s direct interaction with and transformation of the body. Early pentecostals—and indeed Wesley himself—would not have approved of believers’ growing preoccupation with their physical appearance (much less the ostentatious lifestyles or the conspicuous consumption advocated by Word of Faith ministers), yet the avid pursuit of beautiful, fit bodies in the movement functioned as a radicalized form of Wesley’s theology regarding the material manifestations of the Spirit’s activity. As never before, believers’ bodies functioned as an index of the operation of the spirit, making spiritual perfection visible in the natural realm. At the end of the day, pentecostals and charismatics’ pursuit of thinness and physical vitality through discipline represented more than just acquiescence to the dictates of consumer culture or a substitution of nutritional science for more traditional spiritual concerns. Though these forces certainly shaped pentecostal and charismatics’ approach to the body in very significant ways, the pentecostal and charismatic diet culture that emerged also maintained strong ties to longstanding themes in the movement. It reinforced the movement’s ascetic roots; it retooled earlier pentecostals’ understanding of the aims of spiritual warfare; and it exteriorized earlier believers’ search for spirit-empowered bodies. The burgeoning American diet culture that flourished beginning in the 1960s and 70s proved a fruitful medium for pentecostals to transpose their spirituality into a new key that befitted their newfound socioeconomic status even as it recalled the familiar cadences of the movement’s past.

107 Kara Davis, “Why Is the Church So Fat?” Charisma 29, no. 12 (2004): 47.

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CHAPTER FOUR

MINDING THE SPIRIT: THE MIND AND PSYCHOLOGY IN PENTECOSTAL AND CHARISMATIC HEALING

From the start, pentecostals proved leery of psychological and mental forms of healing. One contributor to the Pentecostal Evangel in 1920 acknowledged the impact the mind could have on physical health, yet this did not translate into approval of the numerous mental healers on the American healing scene at the turn of the twentieth century. Rather, “such isms as Christian Science, Psychology, Unity, Spiritualism, New Thought, Theosophy, and many others . . . . are not God.” They all use “a few scriptural truths misapplied and deny practically the fall of man, making their particular ism the thing for man to follow and making men believe that the Bible endorses them.” Not only were these mind-cure advocates “not God,” the author added, but the “devil himself heals people through these isms.”1 Ironically, despite pentecostals’ proclaimed antagonism towards rival healing groups who focused on the power of the mind, their conceptions of the Holy Spirit frequently approximated the type of metaphysical assumptions underlying the perspectives of mental healers. In particular, pentecostals’ conceptions of faith resembled mental healers’ stress on the role of the human mind and of positive thoughts as points of contact transmitting divine power into the visible world. As forms of New Thought spirituality and popular psychology increasingly saturated American culture over the course of the twentieth century, adherents embraced ever- more explicit forms of mental healing by the latter half of the century. At the same time that numerous pentecostals recognized medicines and natural substances as crucial to the healing

1 “Faith and Works,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 358-9 (1920): 9.

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process, other healers “naturalized” and “humanized” the healing process to a significant degree as well in their emphasis on the power of the mind to effect healing.2 Two streams of influence, one represented by the Word of Faith movement, the other by practitioners of inner healing who followed in the footsteps of the Episcopalian healer Agnes Sanford, would serve as conduits for the growing emphasis on the mind as a central player in the healing process. As with figures such as Oral Roberts and the alternative healers discussed in Chapter 2, the specific shape of these teachings reflected bold innovations in pentecostal healing even as they maintained a strong critique of overly naturalized models of healing that focused on the power of the mind to the exclusion of divine power. Word of Faith ministers such as Kenneth Hagin confidently promoted their newfound insights into biblical truths regarding the power “positive confession”; healers associated with the inner healing movement appropriated

2 The impact of New Thought assumptions on pentecostal and charismatic spirituality has been an area of sharp debate not only among pentecostals and charismatics but among American evangelicals more broadly as well. Conservative Christians concerned by these trends have launched polemical attacks highlighting the influence of New Thought within the movement in order to discredit Word of Faith teachers and figures such as Agnes Sanford. For these individuals New Thought teachings poison the pure teachings of Christ and should be treated as dangerous contaminants. See for example D. R. McConnell, A Different Gospel: A Historical and Biblical Analysis of the Modern Faith Movement (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1988); and Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon, The Seduction of Christianity: Spiritual Discernment in the Last Days (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1985). Other individuals within pentecostal and charismatic circles who are more sympathetic to New Thought emphases counter such attacks by either downplaying the influence of New Thought within the movement or by mounting a theological defense explaining why New Thought emphases are in fact biblical. One of the most sustained theological defenses of these trends can be found in William L. De Arteaga, Quenching the Spirit: Discover the Real Spirit Behind the Charismatic Controversy, 2nd ed. (Orlando, FL: Creation House, 1996). Dale Simmons’s study of the intellectual forerunner of the Word of Faith movement, E. W. Kenyon, is more historical than DeArteaga’s volume (though DeArteaga includes a significant amount of history in his book as well), but his work still functions as a rebuttal against the types of claims made by Hunt and McConnell. Without denying the influence of New Thought on Kenyon, Simmons nevertheless highlights the strong affinities between New Thought and the evangelical faith-cure movement of the late nineteenth century, suggesting that the latter did more to shape Kenyon than did the former. See Dale H. Simmons, E. W. Kenyon and the Postbellum Pursuit of Peace, Power, and Plenty (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1997). Though I sidestep the theological concerns at stake in these debates, by highlighting the impact of New Thought within the movement, this chapter inevitably takes up many of the same issues addressed by the authors mentioned above. For example, I agree with Simmons regarding the similarities he finds connecting New Thought spirituality with themes in the divine healing movement among evangelicals. I also draw on DeArteaga in his emphasis on the role of Kenyon and Sanford as key intermediaries transmitting New Thought assumptions to pentecostal and charismatic audiences. Unlike the authors above, however, I situate these trends within the broader context of pentecostals and charismatics’ attitudes towards psychology and mental healing and specifically read New Thought as a key player in the “naturalization” and “humanization” of pentecostal healing.

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concepts directly from secular psychology. Though very different in many respects, figures within both of these branches of the pentecostal and charismatic movement stressed the importance of the human mind and speech in the healing process to unprecedented levels.

Early Pentecostals, Psychology and Mental Healing Most early pentecostal healers saw themselves as radically distinct from mental healers who operated under the banner of New Thought, Christian Science, Theosophy, and the Emmanual movement in the early twentieth century.3 A commenter in the Pentecostal Holiness Advocate did not mince words when asserting that “‘spiritism,’ ‘Christian Science,’ ‘Theosophy,’ ‘New Thought’ . . . all belong to the false prophet class of the last days, classified by the Scriptures as the teachings of ‘seducing spirits and doctrines of demons,’ that is doctrines taught directly or indirectly by demons.”4 Another writer for the Pentecostal Evangel warned that the “world has stolen a march on the church in healings. Christian Science, Emmanuelism, psychology, and all the other isms and healing cults, they have healing and are trying to make out that they are from the Lord.”5 Though at least one Assemblies of God leader allowed that “[p]erhaps most of the healing reported by those who do not believe in the atonement of Christ result from psychology or mental suggestion,” he quickly cast doubt on all purported non- Christian healings claiming that it was entirely possible that they came directly from Satan who “could easily withdraw his power thus letting nature rebuild what he had destroyed.”6 Pentecostals’ competitors could find solace in the fact that some of these authors recognized a

3 For further discussion of mental healing trends in North America, see esp. Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, & Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Robert C. Fuller, Alternative Medicine and American Religious Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Robert C. Fuller, Mesmerism and the American Cure of Souls (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982); Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966); Gillian Gill, Mary Baker Eddy (Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1998); and James C. Whorton, Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

4 T. Smart, “Not Sons of God but Children of Wrath,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 4, no. 21 (1920): 11.

5 “That Signs and Wonders May Be Done,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 581 (1925): 4.

6 Ernest S. Williams, “Questions and Answers,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 1091 (1935): 5.

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degree of efficacy in their rivals’ practices, yet it is clear that early pentecostals had no intention of building a bridge of cooperation. The first generation of pentecostals usually condemned psychologists and psychotherapists right alongside the more religious mental healers. The early pentecostal Jonathan Perkins’s 1924 account of his past interactions with a psychology professor reflected the intensity of many pentecostals’ resistance to psychology. Perkins recounted his trip to a “university city” years before where he visited both the insane asylum and the state university in town. He first went to the insane asylum where he encountered a woman who believed herself to be “Queen Victoria.” Afterward, he attended a class on religious psychology where he was “amazed and then amused to see the close physical resemblance between the professor and the inmate of the insane asylum.” To his dismay, he watched as the professor “deeply entangled [the students] in his web of unbelief, as a spider does a fly.” Though Perkins never feared that the professor “would harm the Bible . . . I did know that he was destroying faith. I could not shake off the feeling that there was more similarity than contrast between the college professor and the insane woman.” If truth be told, the professor’s “moral insanity was worse than hers, for it was of a poisoned stream flowing down into the minds of the young, withering the tender flowers of faith.” Perkins concluded his account “grateful that it took more than a bloodless and effeminate professor . . . to do away with my mother’s Bible.”7 Pentecostal criticisms of psychology tended to cluster around a handful of concerns, many of which they shared with conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists of the period.8 Most pentecostals for example associated psychology with moral relativism; they saw psychology as undermining the social fabric maintaining unity and order within society by explaining away behaviors that pentecostals categorized as sins. George H. Montgomery of the Pentecostal Holiness Church lamented the “systematic campaign at work to promote and

7 Perkins judged the professor effeminate in part due to a story the professor told indicating that he played with dolls as a child, Jonathan E. Perkins, “Higher Education and Lower Infidelity,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 575 (1924): 3.

8 For a helpful overview of evangelicals initial rejection of psychology and their growing affinities to American therapeutic culture see David Harrington Watt, A Transforming Faith: Explorations of Twentieth-Century American Evangelicalism (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991), esp. 137-54. Despite distinctive trends among pentecostals and charismatics, the overall trajectory of pentecostals and charismatics’ changing relationship with psychology and psychiatry over the course of the twentieth century corresponds with Watt’s discussion.

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encourage disobedience to parents” that had been at work in American society for “years.” “Much of the so-called child psychology,” he wrote, “contributes directly to the practice of juvenile disobedience and delinquency. The ban on punishing children for their misconduct has in many cases put the child on the throne and the parents at his feet.” In turn, “[d]isobedience to parents is lawlessness in infancy.”9 Writing for the Pentecostal Evangel, Robert McQuilken admitted that other times and places throughout history had witnessed rampant immorality, yet he worried that “in our day these things are being boldly lifted out of the class of the immoral and questionable and being raised to the place men once gave to honored and sacred things.” In particular he singled out the theories associated with “evolution, psychology, and sociology,— teaching that, in the name of science, boldly challenges every accepted standard of morality that the world has held to for ages.” According to McQuilken, these ambitious new lines of thought confirmed the words of “a modern writer” who wrote that “[n]ever before have we had to rely so completely on ourselves.”10 Because of its naturalistic explanations, many pentecostals also saw psychology as an inherently atheistic discipline that denied humanity’s need for divine assistance. As such, psychology and psychoanalysis often drew fire for participating in aspects of modern culture that pentecostals perceived as a threat to the vitality and supernatural activity characteristic of Christ’s true church on earth. A journalist writing about Aimee Semple McPherson described how she “prays for the Old Time Religion and decries the higher criticism and psychology that apparently have fastened their fungused tanacles [sic] about the modern church.”11 For McPherson, psychology functioned as one of the impotent substitutes modern believers turned to when they should have looked to Christ. “Moving pictures in the parish-house, chicken suppers, festivities, preaching of psychology, community uplift and social reform—none of these have been able to fill the empty void nor still the heart-broken cry: ‘They have taken away my Lord. Oh I want Him! I want to hear His voice!’”12 In her discussion of the biblical story where Jesus

9 G. H. Montgomery, “The Face of the Future,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 29, no. 10 (1945): 2.

10 Robert C. McQuilkin, “The Problem of Purity,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 755 (1928): 5.

11 W. R. Waggoner, “Noted Wichita Journalist Reviews Revival,” Bridal Call 6, no. 1 (1922): 17.

12 Aimee Semple McPherson, “They Have Taken Away My Lord,” Bridal Call 6, no. 4 (1922): 4. It is worth noting the way in which class issues as well as pentecostals’ ambivalent relationship with institutions of higher learning also figured prominently in adherents’ negative attitudes towards

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healed a lame man, Lilian Yeomans, a former physician, asked, “Did the multitude glorify Jesus Christ?” “Never,” she answered. “They had their own idols to whom they hastened to ascribe the praise for what had been accomplished.” According to Yeomans not much had changed in nearly two thousand years. In biblical times the idols were “Jupiter and Mercurius. Today they have different names, suggestion, mass-psychology, the sub-conscious self, (what wonders has that marvelous being not accomplished).”13 Along similar lines, in 1929 the healing evangelist Charles Price warned his listeners regarding the futility of psychology and psychoanalysis, “There is no philosophy. There is no psychology. There is no ism, there is no psycho-analysis, there is no mental concentration, there is nothing in the realm of mental physics, there is nothing in all the world can deliver a man’s soul from the guilt of sin BUT FAITH IN THE ATONING BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST.” 14 Price admitted that “mental attitude will sometimes make the outlook on life brighter,” but he nevertheless categorized psychology and psychoanalysis as “twentieth century ‘bunk’” because “it will never save a man’s soul and it will never work a miracle in a man’s body.”15 Criticisms of psychology such as Price’s often reflected pentecostals’ understanding of the nature of the human person. Many pentecostals would have agreed with proto-pentecostal John Alexander Dowie in his prioritization of the spirit over and above both the body and the soul, often associated with the human intellect, will, and emotions. “It is not in the region of psychology (the science of the soul), nor in the region of physiology (the science of animal and vegetable life) that we must look for help,” Dowie taught. Rather, “[i]t is in the region of pneumatology (the science of the spiritual nature of man) that we must look.”16 True healing

psychiatrists and psychologists. Immediately following his refutation of the power of psychology and psychoanalysis to address the human condition, for example, the pentecostal healing evangelist Charles Price added, “Some poor old washer-woman who can hardly read or write her own name often knows more about real salvation than some professors in theological seminaries,” Charles S. Price, “The Gospel According to Jonah,” Golden Grain 4, no. 4 (1929): 17.

13 Lilian B. Yeomans, “The Lame Man of Lystra,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 637 (1926): 7.

14 Price, “Gospel According to Jonah,” 17.

15 Charles S. Price, “Healing from Heaven,” Golden Grain 7, no. 6 (1932): 9.

16 John Alexander Dowie, “A Voice from Zion to God’s People in Every Land,” Leaves of Healing 3, no. 6 (1896): 83. For similar examples of this tripartite notion of human nature, body, mind, and spirit, see D. Wesley Myland, The Latter Rain Covenant and Pentecostal Power, in Three Early Pentecostal

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entailed God working through the human spirit to influence the individual; any other natural method of personal transformation—including forms of mental healing—bypassed God. Even if the various forms of mind-cure were not demonic, as many pentecostals assumed they were, to the extent that they relied on a person’s mind, to that same extent they denied humanity’s need to rely totally on God. In his opposition to this radical and exclusive emphasis on the spirit, Donald Gee, a British pentecostal whose writings reached many North American pentecostals, confirmed just how deeply the animus against mental healing was entrenched. “Psychology is an unnecessary bogey to many pentecostal people,” he wrote, “if psychic or ‘soulish’ manifestations are regarded as almost on a par with the positively demonic.” From his perspective, he found many teaching “the rubbish that every activity of the soul is ‘fleshly’ and ‘carnal’ in a wrongful sense, and therefore to be utterly condemned and swept away from among those who long for pure movings of the Holy Spirit in their midst.”17 As these comments suggest, many pentecostals believed any emphasis on psychology turned undo attention onto humanity and off of God; they saw psychology as impotent to address humanity’s deepest needs. Despite these consistent critiques, more moderate voices such as Gee’s did appear within pentecostal circles regarding the field of psychology, especially among figures who focused more on psychology as a science explaining the habits of the human mind rather than on psychoanalysis as an alternative healing system. For these individuals, psychological insights could benefit believers provided that they always tested the conclusions of psychology against scriptural principles. While the Assemblies of God minister E. N. Bell labeled as “positively

Tracts, ed. Donald W. Dayton (1910; repr., New York: Garland, 1985), esp. 12-16; and “Question Box,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 5, no. 35 (1921): 5. For an exception, see the following editorial wherein the author collapses the notion of soul and spirit, George F. Taylor, “Editorial,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 15, no. 12 (1931): 1, 8.

17 To the contrary, Gee wanted to “clear away the rubbish,” arguing instead that “our souls should be extremely active in all that pertains to divine worship,” Donald Gee, “Music and the Spirit-Filled Life,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 1150 (1936): 6. Twenty years after he made these comments Gee found himself fighting the same battles within the movement. “Truth constantly suffers from extremists,” he wrote, “and unfortunately there have been preachers who have publicly blamed almost all ailments and abnormal conditions of body or soul upon demon-powers. . . . It panders to love of the dramatic. . . . . We do well to recognise that mental illness is quite often illeness; in the usual sense of the word. Disease has attacked the brain. There need be nothing supernatural about it,” Donald Gee, “Mental Illness and Pentecostal Religion,” Pentecost, no. 39 (1957): 17.

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evil” courses taught in the name of psychology on “hypnotism, clairvoyance and spiritism,” he nevertheless concluded that there was “no harm in the Psychology taught in the schools and colleges if it is taught by a Christian in harmony with the Bible.”18 For his part, writing in the late 1920s the editor of the Pentecostal Holiness Advocate recognized that “many preachers sanctified and filled with the Spirit” stood ready to serve God in any capacity, but “do not get the results that should be expected under such circumstances.” Pentecostals who wanted their ministers to speak the words of the Spirit and only the words of the Spirit would have recoiled at his conclusion. “What is the idea in all this?” he asked. “Any successful preacher has to use a good deal of psychology, whether he has any scientific knowledge of it or not. . . . In order to win men there must be made to them the proper appeals in the proper way.”19 Clearly at least a few early pentecostals believed psychology offered valuable insights for ministers and educators seeking to advance the full-gospel message; in time, more and more pentecostals accepted this more moderate stance regarding the discipline.20 Moreover, early pentecostals’ disavowal of mental healers and psychoanalysts should not obscure the points of strong similarity between pentecostal healing and mind-cure healers. Though it remained largely for pentecostals and charismatics in the latter half the twentieth century to consistently depict the mind as central to the healing process, these later figures in fact drew on themes long present within pentecostal healing and also within the divine healing movement of the late 1800s. In particular, the insistence by divine healing advocates and early pentecostals that believers confidently expect physical healings despite the presence of countervailing symptoms

18 E. N. Bell, “Questions and Answers,” Pentecostal Evangel, no. 392-93 (1921): 10.

19 George F. Taylor, “Editorial,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 13, no. 12 (1929): 1.

20 In one of his early writings, Oral Roberts sounded a similar theme in his discussion of Sunday School teachers. “Some knowledge of the psychology of a child’s life is necessary,” he wrote. “You do not have to have a college degree, nor are you required to take a course in child psychology to understand the life of a child. This can be learned in everyday life, though special courses will help,” Oral Roberts, “Teaching Little Children,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 29, no. 34 (1946): 4. Neither Taylor nor Roberts were unique within their denomination; educational institutions associated with the Pentecostal Holiness Church offered courses on psychology to high schoolers and to individuals training for ministry both at home and abroad. See for example Nina C. Holmes, “Sketch of the Holmes Bible and Missionary Institute,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 15, no. 30 (1931): 2; and “Franklin Springs Institute,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate 6, no. 3 (1922): 10-11. The latter mentions an eleventh grade course at Franklin Springs Institute on “Elements of Psychology.”

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closely resembled mind-cure adherents’ emphasis on the power of positive thinking and affirmative prayers. Prominent evangelicals in the divine healing movement at the end of the nineteenth century instructed the faithful to disregard symptoms in order to cultivate faith for healing. Just as Christian Scientists and New Thought adherents accentuated positive possibilities in the face of negative circumstances, so practitioners of the “faith-cure” frequently taught believers to go about their daily lives as if they were not ill. Believers did not go as far as Christian Scientists in denying the reality of sickness or of evil, but they often directed sufferers to disavow apparent realities following the prayer of faith. As Carrie Judd Montgomery, a divine healer who eventually joined pentecostal ranks, wrote in The Prayer of Faith, “The great point to remember just here is that God’s word is true and we must believe it in spite of every apparent contradiction. These contradictions, if they occur, can be only seeming ones, for God is always faithful; but the devil, who is the father of lies, often deceives us into believing feelings and circumstances instead of God’s word.”21 Other pentecostals picked up on these same emphases. As one believer explained, though sick, God’s instructions were to work, and “I obeyed although all the symptoms of disease remained.” “The work I had planned that day was a washing,” the writer continued, which was “[n]ot an encouraging prospect for one who could scarcely walk through the house.” Significantly, it was not until “completing the work the symptoms disappeared. Attempting the seeming impossible opens the channel through which the supernatural current flows, and healing is the result.”22 Fannie Rowe drew on similar themes in her description of faith in the periodical published by the healing evangelist’s Aimee Semple McPherson, “Faith questions not; takes no account of circumstances or of symptoms. Faith is positive, decisive—claims healing on the

21 Carrie Judd [Montgomery], The Prayer of Faith, in The Life and Teachings of Carrie Judd Montgomery, ed. Donald W. Dayton (1880; repr., New York: Garland, 1985), 93. Simmons discusses similar areas of overlap between New Thought and the divine healing movement. As he writes, “[F]aith healers acknowledged the reality of sickness only up until the time that healing was claimed, after which they tended to see the continuation of symptoms as ‘lies of the enemy,’” Simmons, E. W. Kenyon, esp. 207-32, quotation 32. For more on Montgomery’s attitude towards faith and healing, see Heather D. Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician: Suffering and Divine Healing in American Culture, 1860-1900 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 91-94.

22 F. B., “Hints Regarding Divine Healing,” Golden Grain 3, no. 10 (1928): 28.

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promises of God and presses on until the manifestation comes in the body, ‘calling things which be not as though they were.’”23 Early pentecostals’ assumption that divine healing was a divine right purchased by Christ’s death—as much the right of the believer as was salvation—served as another important link with proponents of mind-cure. Just as mental healers depicted healing as a predictable process wherein right thinking unfailingly restored health, so pentecostal healers frequently viewed healing as a straightforward transaction wherein faith-filled prayers reliably procured healing. It was in large part due to these assumptions that early pentecostals often found fault with the sufferer and his or her lack of faith when healing failed to materialize. When illness persisted, explained the healing evangelist Maria Woodworth-Etter, “there is a lack on the part of the individual somewhere; for God’s part is complete, and when ours is, the work must be done.”24 As the historian Grant Wacker writes, “[W]here most Christians and a majority of radical evangelicals had considered prayer for healing a petition for God’s favor, pentecostals effectively considered it a causal agent in itself. God had promised to respond positively to all genuine prayers, therefore He would.”25 Pentecostals would have vehemently denied the resemblance, yet New Thought and Christian Science were hardly the only religious groups on the American scene at the turn of the twentieth century highlighting the tangible benefits that automatically accompanied an optimistic confidence in benevolent divine powers. Despite the overlap between mental healers and early pentecostalism, these similarities did not translate into an acceptance of mind cure and psychoanalysis on the part of early pentecostals as valid tools for ministering to hurting individuals. Instead, in their eyes the various forms of mental healing available to Americans in the early twentieth century represented unholy alternatives to the churches’ teachings regarding divine healing. Even in the

23 Fannie F. Rowe, “The House Top Healing,” Bridal Call 8, no. 1 (1924): 27.

24 Maria Beulah Woodworth-Etter, Life and Experience Including Sermons and Visions of Mrs. M. B. Woodworth-Etter, rev. ed. (St. Louis: Commercial Printing Company, 1904), 270.

25 Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 26. In highlighting this similarity between mental healers and early pentecostals, it is also important to acknowledge that pentecostals would have still described faith as a gift from God. As Lilian Yeomans explained, faith “is a gift and must be appropriated,” Lilian B. Yeomans, Healing from Heaven, rev. ed. (1926; repr. Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1973), 13.

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few cases when pentecostals admitted the efficacy of competitors’ practices, they usually did so to contrast these outcomes with the superior results offered via divine healing. At the heart of pentecostals’ critiques of mental healers such as Christian Scientists, practitioners of New Thought, and psychoanalysts, stood pentecostals’ conviction that these alternative healing methodologies lessened the believer’s absolute reliance on God’s power. Their resistance to anything that might undermine this reliance led them to associate mental healing with the natural or even the demonic world. Though the stress on faith by early pentecostals could plausibly be construed as a form of mental healing wherein right belief mediated an influx of divine power to battle disease, and despite other affinities between early pentecostalism and metaphysical traditions, at the end of the day pentecostals understood the prayer of faith as bypassing any natural (or demonic) intermediaries in the healing process. Faith-filled prayer provided a direct lifeline to the power of God. For later generations of pentecostals and charismatics, on the other hand, the mind was increasingly depicted as a powerful resource that played a necessary mediating role in releasing God’s power into the human body and emotions.

The Rise of Christian Psychology and New Thought Spirituality in American Culture Later pentecostals and charismatics’ elevation of the mind to a new level of prominence in the healing process represented a prioritization of themes already implicit within early pentecostal healing practices, yet the growing prominence of these tendencies can also be directly linked to the growing acceptance of Christian forms of psychology among conservative Christians, and also to the influence of New Thought, a metaphysical movement initiated in the late nineteenth century that rapidly expanded its reach among more mainstream religious groups as the twentieth century progressed. Pentecostals and charismatics were by no means the first to explore the possible interconnections between Christianity, psychology, and psychiatry.26 One of the first attempts to merge religion and clinical psychology appeared in the Emmanuel Movement that began in 1906 under the guidance of Elwood Worcester. A minister at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in

26 Technically, the term psychology refers to the science of the mind, whereas psychiatry refers to the treatment of the mind. Both psychologists and psychiatrists practice forms of psychotherapy, however, though psychiatrists’ medical training permits them to prescribe medications. As such, I use the terms interchangeably below.

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Boston, Worcester and his assistant Samuel McComb worked to provide an “orthodox alternative” that countered the widespread success of rival healing movements such as New Thought and Christian Science. The valid core at the heart of many of the new healing movements, Worcester contended, was the “wonderful healing power that has been discovered within the mind.” The mind for Worcester was not the metaphysical mind promoted by Mary Baker Eddy and others, however, but instead coincided with the naturalistic assumptions espoused by many within the burgeoning fields of psychology and psychiatry. In order to negotiate the divide between scientific naturalism and the miraculous claims of religion, Worcester insisted that the biblical miracles described in scripture, rightly interpreted, fit with the conclusions promoted by twentieth century psychology.27 The Emmanuel Movement eventually lost steam by the 1920s, yet others picked up the mantle. Richard C. Cabot, a Harvard physician who had worked with Worcester, eventually helped form the Council for Clinical Training of Theological Students in 1930 that focused on providing clinical training for ministers to help prepare them for the numerous types of suffering they would encounter. The well-known advocate for Christian forms of positive thinking Norman Vincent Peale also spearheaded efforts around mid-century to create the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry.28 By the second half of the century various evangelicals got in on the act as they overcame the traditional resistance to psychology and psychiatry within their circles. In 1965 Fuller Theological Seminary, for example, formed a graduate school of psychology. While this development reflected broader trends among many evangelicals characterized by an explicit desire to engage the broader culture and move away from the cultural isolation associated with

27 For more on the Emmanuel Movement see Taves, Fits, Trances, & Visions, 314-25, quotation 14. Also see Raymond J. Cunningham, “The Emmanuel Movement: A Variety of American Religious Experience,” American Quarterly 14, no. 1 (1962); and M. L. Bradbury, “Biodivinity: The Encounter of Religion and Medicine,” in Transforming Faith: The Sacred and Secular in Modern American History, ed. M. L. Bradbury and James Burkhart Gilbert (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 162-65.

28 For further discussion of efforts to integrate religion and psychiatry, see Bradbury, “Biodivinity: The Encounter of Religion and Medicine,” 161-82. Also see Harold G. Koenig, Michael E. McCullough, and David B. Larson, Handbook of Religion and Health (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 56-58.

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fundamentalism, changes within the field of psychology itself also played a role.29 The flood of mental health issues stemming from Americans’ participation in World War II spurred psychotherapists’ willingness to look to outside resources such as religion to help them address the needs of their patients, and the growing number of psychotherapists who saw religion as an ally in their battle against mental illness likely contributed to evangelicals’ willingness to make use of psychological findings. Freud would not have been happy.30 Indicative of the impact within pentecostal circles of the growing rapport between conservative forms of Christianity and psychotherapy, several of the mid-century pentecostal healing evangelists commented on mental health studies in their writings beginning as early as the 1940s and continuing throughout the ensuing decades. As in other areas, Oral Roberts was one of the first to appreciate the new currents of thought. “While I was studying Psychiatry in Phillips University,” he wrote in 1948, “my professor pointed out that about one-tenth of the population was either insane now or would be before their death. A great physician has prophesied that there will be twelve million mental and nervous cases resulting from World War II and the peak would come in 1956.” Of course, Roberts offered a very different solution for mental illness than did psychotherapists. What psychologists labeled “dementia praecox or schizophrenia, or a ‘split personality’” Roberts branded demon possession. Nevertheless, Roberts confirmed his appreciation of “the earnest effort of these men to help suffering humanity” even as he maintained the importance of a deliverance ministry.31 Sixteen years later, Roberts went further in his praise of psychiatry even as he sharpened his distinction between what psychiatry and Christianity had to offer suffering individuals. “Psychiatry likes to go inside the mind and find the festering sore and let the matter run out,” he taught. “It helps a person talk himself out, empty himself and face up to his negatives. It assists the person in emphasizing the

29 On evangelicals’ changing relationship with the broader culture, see Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and George M. Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987).

30 Bradbury, “Biodivinity: The Encounter of Religion and Medicine,” 161-82. For further discussion of evangelicals’ initial reticence to accept psychology and the eventual formation of evangelical counseling and training centers, see R. Marie Griffith, God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), 35-36; and Watt, Transforming Faith, esp. 137-54.

31 Oral Roberts, “The Ministry of Casting out Demons,” Healing Waters (1948): 2.

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corresponding positive so that he can look on life with a real positive strength in his mind.” Christianity, on the other hand, went “further than psychiatry. It is actually an injection of life.”32 Several other leading figures within the movement during the 1950s and 60s likewise expressed their conviction that mental illness was on the rise and flooding society with an overwhelming number of individuals in need of relief. “Men’s bodies are being assaulted by the powers of hell,” the popular pentecostal evangelist Lester Sumrall warned his readers. “The same is true of the minds of men. There has never been as many mental phobias and problems as there are right now.” “It is the minds of men for which Satan is battling the hardest today,” Sumrall concluded. “But remember,” he added, “God can heal the mind just as easily as He can heal a little finger.”33 In a related vein, pentecostal healers around mid-century began to reference the psychosomatic nature of some illnesses, as can be seen in Roberts’s claim that an individual’s emotions diminished the body’s ability to naturally heal itself.34 Gordon Lindsay observed that “almost half of the people in the prayer line are suffering not from organic diseases, but from nervous conditions, neuroses, oppression, depression, fears, complexes, etc.” Lindsay associated these problems with the “work of oppressing spirits which are sorely affecting and depressing the people of God,” yet his comments reflected his awareness of studies highlighting the role of the mind in sickness. 35 Likewise, Sumrall instructed readers that “a broken spirit will actually have a physical effect, a truth that medical science is now beginning to learn.” He cited a survey conducted in New Orleans of “gastro and intestinal diseases” wherein “74 per cent of the patients were suffering from these illnesses that were caused by fear and emotions.” In addition, “[a]uthorities at New York University say emotional stress and strain cause 76 per cent of all the

32 Oral Roberts, “Christ’s Command Is Not Merely to Heal Sickness . . . But to Heal the Sick Person,” Abundant Life 18, no. 8 (1964): 3.

33 Lester Frank Sumrall, “Conquest of the Mind,” World Harvest 4, no. 2 (1965): 4.

34 Oral Roberts, “How to Overcome Hurt Feelings,” Healing Waters 1 (1948): 8-9.

35 Gordon Lindsay, “Divine Health or Divine Healing, Which?” The Voice of Healing (1964): 12-13.

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ills of the patients received in the Out-Patient Hospital.” Sumrall’s conclusion? Physical disease frequently “begins with the soul and the spirit.”36 Donald Gee, the editor of the journal Pentecost who frequently weighed in on issues surrounding the healing evangelists, went further than most of the other pentecostals mentioned above in terms of his approval of natural mental healing methods.37 “[P]urely psychic” healing should not be condemned or despised, he wrote, though “it should be kept in the hands of those who know its dangers and well as its possibilities.” Like most other pentecostals, however, Gee was also convinced of the superiority of supernatural deliverance. “Probably the most acid test of the genuinely supernatural in healing comes through the passage of time,” he added. “A purely psychic, and therefore natural, healing experienced in a crowd will pass off when the suitable psychological conditions have ceased, or when the potency of auto-suggestion has run its course.” What was remarkable about Gee’s comments was not his prioritization of supernatural healing but rather the ease with which he affirmed the validity of psychological methods for addressing individuals’ needs.38 As a testament to just how widespread these trends became, even the flamboyant pentecostal healer A. A. Allen—a figure whose outrageous miraculous claims in his ministry magazine mimicked the types of claims made in the National Enquirer—at times indicated a nuanced appreciation of the role of the mind and psychology in the healing process. Mental illness, in fact, often appeared as a prominent theme in his writings and books. In one article he contended that “America’s number one sickness today; America’s number one disease is MADNESS—which is none other than the nervous disorders, the insanity, and the mental trouble from which millions of people today are suffering.”39 Though Allen usually attributed

36 Lester Frank Sumrall, “Emotions and Divine Healing,” World Harvest 3, no. 6 (1964): 4.

37 For further discussion of the ministry of Donald Gee, see David Edwin Harrell, All Things Are Possible: The Healing & Charismatic Revivals in Modern America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975), esp. 139-40.

38 Donald Gee, “The Value of the Supernatural,” Pentecost (1962-63): 17.

39 A. A. Allen, “The Curse of Madness,” Miracle Magazine 4, no. 5 (1959): 5. In another article printed in 1962, it is interesting to note that while Allen was quick to associate psychiatry with atheists and Communists, he nevertheless could write, “Proficient Psychoanalysts know that every vital human activity must be understood within the conditions of its own age,” A. A. Allen, “World’s Psychiatrists Brand Jesus ‘Insane’!” Miracle Magazine 8, no. 2 (1962): 4.

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insanity and mental illness to demonic activity, at times he appeared open to more naturalistic explanations as well.40 In particular, psychiatrists’ claims regarding the connections between the mind and physical suffering fascinated Allen. Drawing on a book written by a psychiatrist entitled How to Be at Peace with Your Nerves (“the greatest thing I have ever read,” Allen exulted), he wrote, “[T]he majority of people who are seeking aid of medical science and surgery actually do not need surgery nor medicine! They are not sick! Their affliction is the result of nervous tension; it is caused by worry, anxiety, disappointment!” Allen then went on to describe for his readers the nature of the placebo effect. He recounted a discussion he had with a physician who offered patients different-colored pills that contained the same ingredient so that they could benefit from the psychological impact of taking many pills. Allen concluded that “[m]any times [the pills] have no medicinal value, they only have a psychological affect on you, because you believe they are going to help you!” Excited by these findings, Allen admitted that “some of these physicians and psychiatrists know something” and concluded that “God’s children shouldn’t be disappointed, shouldn’t worry!”41 Allen went on to describe for his readers how his knowledge regarding the psychosomatic origins of illness transformed his approach to certain healings. When someone asked him to pray for high blood pressure, he told them “I am not going to do it. I am going to rebuke that foul thing that has caused your nervous tension. When that nervous tension is gone, your blood pressure is going to be normal; or, likewise, your indigestion will be gone.”42 With the appearance of charismatic renewal, psychological jargon became much more prevalent within the movement. For example, Jamie Buckingham, a prolific author read widely by pentecostals and charismatics, described dreams utilizing a classic psychological paradigm dating back to Freud: “As the conscious goes to sleep and relaxes, the subconscious—that great

40 In an advertisement for his books (several of which dealt with deliverance from demonic oppression), Allen quoted Chaplain George Christian Anderson who wrote, “Man is often a slave to demonic forces but a fruitful and worthy inquiry would be to determine what unconscious forces are demonic and what are the results of disease.” The ad included an additional assertion that “[m]ost mental illness is caused by demon oppression or possession,” yet even here it is instructive that Allen utilized the term “most” as opposed to “all,” “1 out of Every 10 Today Is Mentally or Emotionally Ill!” Miracle Magazine 3, no. 5 (1958).

41 Allen, “Curse of Madness,” 13-14.

42 Ibid.

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storehouse of suppressed, repressed material that involves the larger part of the mind—comes floating to the surface. Often it will actually break out into the open, mixing with the conscious mind in sleep, causing us to dream.” More significant, Buckingham redefined the baptism in the Holy Spirit using psychological terminology. He claimed that the baptism in the Spirit involved allowing God to clean out the subconscious, and he instructed readers to make God the “Lord of the subconscious.”43 Like Buckingham, numerous other charismatics and a growing number of pentecostals borrowed heavily from popular forms of psychology and self help in their discussion of healing. One writer for Aglow, a magazine geared towards pentecostal and charismatic women, narrated her testimony utilizing popular psychological lingo: “Unfortunately, like many parents, my parents did not understand the importance of validation. They denied me the right to my feelings when they said things like, ‘You shouldn’t get so angry’ or ‘You don’t really feel that way.’ Consequently I ignored and repressed my emotions. When I was older and dared to reveal my feelings, I would wonder, ‘Am I right to feel this way?’”44 Bob Mumford, an Assembly of God minister who eventually gained prominence within charismatic circles, indicated that “[m]ost of us exhibit emotional instability because we are caught between two basic fears. The first is the ‘fear of absorption’; that is, the fear of losing your identity. . . . The second fear is the ‘fear of isolation,’ the fear of being left all alone.” Emotional and mental instability often derived from a tendency to “bounce from one of these extremes to the other.” As part of his prescription for mental health, he counseled his readers to “be real” and avoid playing a “‘super-spiritual’ role, wearing the ‘charismatic grin.’” When asked how they are doing, too many believers say “‘Oh, fine,’ “even though we are bleeding on the floor.”45 A sampling of articles and books written during the 1970s and 80s confirmed the pervasiveness of pentecostals and charismatics’ direct participation in the American therapeutic

43 See Jamie Buckingham, “Lord of the Subconscious,” Logos Journal 39, no. 10 (1971): 48, 50; and Jamie Buckingham, “Making God Lord of the Subconscious,” Charisma 2, no. 2 (1976): 15-17, 30-33. Also see Jamie Buckingham, Risky Living: Keys to Inner Healing (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1976).

44 Pam Kono, “Validate Your Feelings,” Aglow: For the Spirit Renewed Christian Woman 20, no. 2 (1989): 14.

45 Bob Mumford, “Mental Fitness,” New Wine 11, no. 4 (1979): 26-27.

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culture. “You Can Stop Feeling Bad about Yourself,” promised one author.46 Another taught believers how to go “From Rejection to Acceptance.”47 Readers of Charisma learned “God’s Prescription for Depression,”48 while the front cover of one of the books published by the popular charismatic author Rita Bennett summed up the genre: “You Can Be . . . Emotionally Free.”49 Like conservative evangelicals more generally, pervasive denunciations of “the world” steadily gave way to the rhetoric of self-esteem and self-realization.50 Beyond pentecostals and charismatics’ appropriation of more general psychological themes and principles, it is important to highlight the specific influence within the movement of a particular brand of mental healing rooted in a metaphysical worldview, namely, New Thought. The New Thought tradition initially gained a recognizable identity during the 1890s under the leadership of Julius and Annetta Dresser and their son Horatio Dresser. Like Christian Scientists, adherents could trace their practices and teachings back to the healing methodology of Phineas Quimby, a mental healer whose patients/students included Eddy, the elder Dressers, as well as Warren Felt Evans, the first systematic theologian of the movement.51 Two New Thought assumptions in particular would find their way into pentecostal and charismatic healing practices. The first and most important revolved around New Thought practitioners’ conception of the human mind and its role in the healing process. Like other metaphysical groups, New Thought practitioners embraced a vision of the cosmos that collapsed

46 Bert Ghezzi, “You Can Stop Feeling Bad About Yourself,” Charisma 11, no. 3 (1985): 38-42.

47 Derek Prince, “From Rejection to Acceptance,” New Wine 9, no. 8 (1977): 4-9, 22.

48 John Huffman, “God’s Prescription for Depression,” Charisma 9, no. 6 (1984): 78-82.

49 Rita Bennett, Emotionally Free (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1982).

50 For Griffith’s very helpful discussion of the burgeoning therapeutic culture more generally and of charismatic women’s participation in that culture, specifically through the Woman’s Aglow Fellowship, see Griffith, God’s Daughters, esp. 33-39, 80-109.

51 For helpful discussions of New Thought spirituality that place the tradition within the broader context of American religious history, see Taves, Fits, Trances, & Visions, 213-15, 222-25; Albanese, Republic of Mind and Spirit, esp. 300-29; and Amanda Porterfield, The Transformation of American Religion: The Story of a Late-Twentieth-Century Awakening (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 196-98. For a useful diagram illustrating some of the complex sources of New Thought emphases— ranging from Swedenborgianism, to Universalism, to nineteenth century mesmerism, among others—see “The Long Roots of Metaphysics” in Catherine L. Albanese, America, Religions and Religion, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007), 192.

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any sharp distinction between supernatural and natural spheres of reality. In a further extension of these teachings, leading New Thought figures often spoke in particular of the power of the human mind to serve as a conduit of spiritual insight and energy connecting humans to the Infinite Mind and serving as a point of contact between this world and spiritual realms. Ralph Waldo Trine’s enormously popular New Thought work entitled In Tune with the Infinite provided a quintessential articulation of these themes. Trine instructed his readers to “[r]ecognize, working in and through you, the same Infinite Power that creates and governs all things in the universe.” In classic New Thought-ease, Trine highlighted the power of a person’s thoughts to tap into these spiritual resources. “Send out your thought,” he wrote, “thought is a force, and it has occult power of unknown proportions when rightly used and wisely directed,— send out your thought that the right situation or the right work will come to you at the right time, in the right way, and that you will recognize it when it comes.” Difficult situations in particular called for irrepressible optimism, “When apparent adversity comes, be not cast down by it, but make the best of it, and always look forward for better things, for conditions more prosperous.” Again and again the operation of the mind proved key for Trine: “To hold yourself in this attitude of mind is to set into operation subtle, silent, and irresistible forces that sooner or later will actualize in material form that which is today merely an idea. But ideas have occult power, and ideas, when rightly planted and rightly tended, are the seeds that actualize material conditions.”52 Though in very different ways, the Word of Faith movement and the inner healing movement among pentecostals and charismatics would both pick up on this New Thought emphasis on the power of the mind in their formulations of the healing process. Another closely related New Thought theme that would prove influential in the formation of the Word of Faith branch of pentecostalism involved believers’ stress on the power of words or confession to shape reality. As in so many areas, Warren Felt Evans’s writings guided many New Thought believers on this issue. For Evans and those who followed him within the New Thought tradition, words served as “one of the principal mediums through which mind acts upon mind.”53 Evans’s conception of the power of words fit neatly with his understanding of the

52 Ralph Waldo Trine, In Tune with the Infinite; or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty (London: G. Bell, 1905), 179-81.

53 Quoted in Albanese, Republic of Mind and Spirit, 306. New Thought adherents increasingly emphasized the rewards of right thinking and right speaking to include the acquisition of wealth and

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manner in which the spiritual and material worlds interpenetrated one another. As the historian Catherine Albanese writes, just as Evans conceived of a “spiritual body” as an intermediary that “bridged the world of pure spirit and the material realm of the body,” he also “saw a bridge between principles and facts, between causes of illness and their unpleasant effects. The bridge, as a chapter title announced, was the ‘sanative power of words.’” Such a high valuation of words in turn led New Thought practitioners to prioritize the importance of affirming prayers that focused on positive possibilities while ignoring negative circumstances and appearances, such as manifestations of illness.54 Affirming prayers, also referred to as “positive confession,” would become a central tenet in the writings of the pioneer of Word of Faith theology, E. W. Kenyon.55 Given the growing appeal of New Thought teachings as the twentieth century progressed, and considering adherents’ ability to adapt their message to a variety of religious contexts, it should come as no surprise that some pentecostals eventually engaged popular New Thought teachings. What is surprising, however, is just how early some of these ideas manifested right alongside early pentecostals’ much more frequent denunciations of all such “isms” and “cults.” One of the founding leaders of pentecostalism, Charles Parham, sounded very much like a New Thought practitioner when he described the thoughts of God as “waves of wisdom that have been let loose by the minds of the church of the past ages, until the wisdom of the ages, floating ever

material prosperity. One of the earliest New Thought practitioners to move in this direction was Emma Curtis Hopkins, see Albanese, Republic of Mind and Spirit, esp. 321. Trine’s works also illustrate this tendency perfectly. As he wrote, “Suggest prosperity to yourself. See yourself in a prosperous condition. Affirm that you will before long be in a prosperous condition. Affirm it calmly and quietly, but strongly and confidently. Believe it, believe it absolutely. Expect it,—keep it continually watered with expectation. You thus make yourself a magnet to attract the things that you desire. Don’t be afraid to suggest, to affirm these things, for by so doing you put forth an ideal which will begin to clothe itself in material form. In this way you are utilizing agents among the most subtle and powerful in the universe. If you are particularly desirous for anything that you feel it is good and right for you to have, something that will broaden your life or that will increase your usefulness to others, simply hold the thought that at the right time, in the right way, and through the right instrumentality, there will come to you or there will open up for you the way whereby you can attain what you desire,” Trine, In Tune with the Infinite, 181- 82.

54 Albanese, Republic of Mind and Spirit, 306. Trine’s “law of prosperity” detailed in footnote 53 fit this model perfectly.

55 The historical connections linking Kenyon to New Thought teachings are discussed in further detail below.

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upon the waves of ether, are at your command to draw from.” Furthermore, just as New Thought practitioners easily adopted the emerging ideas regarding the subconscious at the turn of the twentieth century, so Parham saw the subconscious as a point of contact between the divine and the human. “[L]et us know,” he wrote, “that it is possible for God to speak through the subconscious mind by His Holy Spirit’s power, until . . . it is tuned to catch the deeper thoughts of God and of the ages.”56 As Ann Taves notes regarding Parham’s comments, “Here, in an exclusivist tradition where we would least expect it, we find the appropriation of a rich mix of concepts borrowed from psychical research (the subconscious) and New Thought (mind, wisdom) to explain the means whereby the ‘spiritual man’ enters into ‘direct communication with the mind of God.’”57 Among early pentecostals, Parham’s use of New Thought terminology was unusual and very much an exceptional case. His comments nevertheless revealed the reach of New Thought within American culture at the turn of the century. Whereas Parham’s perspective proved atypical of the early movement as a whole, in time New Thought teachings made their presence felt within pentecostal and charismatic circles through their widespread impact within mainstream American. By the middle of twentieth century New Thought teachings had rapidly moved from the fringes of American religion into mainstream Protestant discourse. No one figure represented the mainstream of New Thought better than Norman Vincent Peale. Initially a Methodist minister, Peale eventually accepted a pastorate at the Reformed Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. While in New York Peale rocketed into the national spotlight due in large part to his books, including the wildly popular The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). As Peale admitted, his works reflected New Thought teachings, and in effect he mediated New Thought principles to a largely Protestant audience—the majority of whom would not have recognized (or approved of) the source of Peale’s inspiration. In a transparent reference to Trine’s widely-read book, for example, Peale indicated that “[e]very great personality I have every known . . . has been a person in tune with the Infinite. Every such person seems in harmony with nature and in contact with the Divine energy.” In a line that could have easily been lifted right out of the pages of a New Thought

56 Charles Parham, The Everlasting Gospel, in The Sermons of Charles F. Parham, ed. Donald W. Dayton (1911; repr. New York: Garland Publishing, 1985), 17.

57 Taves, Fits, Trances, & Visions, 331.

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treatise, he wrote, “By learning how to cast [obstacles] from the mind, by refusing to become mentally subservient to them, and by channeling spiritual power through your thoughts you can rise above obstacles which ordinarily might defeat you.”58 The willingness of pentecostal healing evangelists to publish articles by Peale in their periodicals served as a sure sign that the message of positive thinking was reaching pentecostal circles. As early as 1949 Oral Roberts published Peale’s article on “Christ’s Healing Power” in his ministry magazine Healing Waters. Though the article was not specifically about positive thinking, it nevertheless described healing in classic New Thought terminology. In the article Peale drew on New Thought practitioners’ vision of the world as permeated with divine energy to describe Jesus’ healing ministry. “Here was a man through whom the tides of the Infinite were flowing,” Peale wrote, “and the people were conscious of that power.” Gordon Lindsay’s Voice of Healing similarly published an article by Peale in 1961 entitled “How Faith Shapes Events” that stressed the creative possibilities that emerged when someone acted on faith in God’s provision and goodness instead of dwelling on negative circumstances.59 Only a handful of Peale’s articles made their way into pentecostal periodicals to be sure, yet their presence testified to the clear overlap between Peale’s positive message regarding mental healing and that of the faith healers. The impact of Peale and of psychology more generally on the teachings of several of the mid-century healing revivalists highlighted the success of New Thought adherents’ in making their movement’s message palatable to a broad range of individuals; it also reflected the thawing relationship between conservative Christians and the therapeutic assumptions associated with popular psychology. The most explicit appropriation of mental forms of healing among

58 Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking (1952; repr. New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1987), 32, xiv. Catherine Albanese neatly summarizes Peale’s message and its connections to New Thought. Peale “recommended a tripartite approach to any problem: affirm the desired good; visualize it; believe it. And it would come.” Albanese also noted the manner in which the “metaphysical preference for affirmative prayer—with affirmations repeated many times over—controlled these pages, and so did New Thought metaphors of God as an instreaming, activating energy that move through individuals when they called on higher power or had it mediated to them by another,” Albanese, Republic of Mind and Spirit, 445. For further discussion of Peale see Roy M. Anker, Self-Help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture: An Interpretive Guide (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 101-46.

59 Norman Vincent Peale, “Christ’s Healing Power,” Healing Waters 3, no. 1 (1949): 6; and Norman Vincent Peale, “How Faith Shapes Events,” The Voice of Healing 14, no. 4 (1961): 13.

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pentecostals and charismatics, however, remained for two very innovative forms of healing that emerged as a direct result of the rising prominence of New Thought themes, namely the Word of Faith branch of pentecostalism as well as the inner healing movement.

Word of Faith and Mental Healing One of the most significant avenues of New Thought influence on pentecostalism involved the teachings of E. W. Kenyon. A pastor and author, Kenyon never formally identified with pentecostalism, yet his writings proved pivotal in the thinking of numerous pentecostal figures. While Kenyon drew on prominent themes within the world of radical evangelicalism in the early twentieth century, he also added to this mix a healthy dose of New Thought metaphysics predicated on the power of the mind and speech to shape an individual’s world. In his own mind Kenyon sharply distinguished Christian healing from other metaphysical healers. True spiritual healing, he argued, “is not mental as Christian Science and Unity and other metaphysical teachers claim. Neither is it physical as the medical world teaches. When God heals, He heals through the spirit.” Along similar lines, Kenyon advocated a robust conception of belief as distinct from mental assent. “Mental Assent is standing outside the baker and coveting the cake in the window,” he explained. “Faith,” on the other hand, “is always now. Believing is acting on the Word.”60 Despite Kenyon’s attempts to distance his teaching from that of mental healers within the New Thought tradition, the practical guidelines for healing that he and his Word of Faith successors outlined for believers paralleled prominent themes within New Thought, especially New Thought’s focus on the power of affirming words and of positive thoughts. For example, throughout his works Kenyon instructed adherents to repeat faith-inspired statements that countered negative and painful situations in their lives. According to Kenyon Christ’s death and resurrection purchased healing and power for every believer, yet it remained up to the believer to actualize these resources by aligning their thoughts and their speech with God’s will. “In the mind of the Father, you are healed,” Kenyon wrote. “Jesus knows that He bore your diseases. How it must hurt Him to hear you talk about bearing them yourself.” Instead, believers should confidently proclaim their healing even before any physical changes manifested in the body of

60 Essek William Kenyon, Jesus the Healer (Seattle, WA: Kenyon Gospel Publishing Society, 1968), 90, 14, 66.

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the sick person. “A positive confession dominates circumstances,” Kenyon instructed, “while a vacillating confession permits circumstances to govern one. Your confession is what God says about your disease. A negative confession will make the disease stronger.” Believers could demonstrate rock-solid confidence that their positive words and thoughts would materialize precisely because Christ’s sacrifice established a new order of reality, already bought and paid for, that could only be nullified if the faithful failed to take advantage of the blessings and healings placed at their disposal.61 Kenyon did not explicitly credit New Thought as a source of some his teachings, but the considerable overlap between his theology and New Thought teachings coupled with his exposure to New Thought ideas while in Boston and specifically during his time at Emerson College suggest otherwise. While at Emerson Kenyon would have been exposed to the teachings of individuals deeply shaped by the New Thought tradition such as the school’s president Charles Wesley Emerson and Ralph Waldo Trine.62 Admittedly, as some theologians and historians argue, in emphasizing the power of positive thinking and positive confession Kenyon and other Word of Faith leaders brought to the fore themes that were already stressed to varying degrees among advocates of divine healing. The historian Dale Simmons’s biography of Kenyon, in fact, functions largely as a rebuttal of those who see Kenyon’s theology simply as an extension of New Thought positions. Instead Simmons highlights natural affinities between New Thought teachings and the faith-cure movement and he also underscores Kenyon’s consistent condemnations of New Thought throughout his lifetime. Taken as a whole, it is fair to say that Kenyon’s theology “is best placed within the Keswickian/Higher Christian Life tradition.” That said, the degree to which Kenyon highlighted the role of confession in his teachings nevertheless highlighted the significant impact of New Thought on his teachings. Simmons himself concludes that “while the pattern of publicly testifying as to one’s attainment of spiritual blessings is apparent in the Holiness movement, Kenyon’s overwhelming emphasis on the absolute necessity of making positive confession and avoiding any hint of a negative confession is more akin to the practice of New Thought.” Simmons is careful to add that it “would be going too far to conclude that New Thought was the major contributing factor in the

61 Ibid., 24.

62 Simmons, E. W. Kenyon, 4-14.

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initial development of Kenyon’s thought,” yet Kenyon’s teachings “centering on one’s confession,” he admits, “ . . . [Kenyon] stresses to a point which is only comparable to that of New Thought.” In short, despite the fact that natural affinities existed between New Thought’s emphasis on positive thoughts and radical evangelicals’ accentuation of the role of faith, and despite the fact that Simmons ultimately questions the degree of influence New Thought exerted on Kenyon, Kenyon’s writings suggest more than just an incidental resemblance.63 In terms of Kenyon’s impact on pentecostal circles, Kenyon himself remained relatively unknown. His teachings, on the other hand, eventually influenced a very broad audience as they were appropriated by several individuals who participated in the pentecostal movement. Kenyon’s emphasis on the power of the spoken word proved most influential among those explicitly associated with the Word of Faith movement led by figures such as Kenneth Hagin, Frederick K. C. Price, and Kenneth Copeland. 64 Time and time again these leaders conveyed to their followers the importance of maintaining a positive confession in the face of negative circumstances. Considered the father of the Word of Faith movement, Kenneth Hagin did more than anyone else to transmit Kenyon’s teachings regarding the power of positive confession directly to pentecostal audiences (though not exclusively to pentecostal audiences). Hagin repeatedly denied Kenyon’s influence on his teachings, yet comparisons of Hagin’s writings with Kenyon’s

63 Immediately following the quotes mentioned above, Simmons adds, “[W]hile some have concluded that Kenyon (via his attendance at Emerson College) was brought directly and decisively under the influence of New Thought, it could just as easily be argued that Kenyon’s brief stay at Emerson initiated (or reinforced) his ‘connection’ with the Higher Christian Life movement. . . . That Kenyon was familiar with the teachings of the various branches of New Thought and Christian Science is beyond question. But does familiarity necessarily imply culpability?” Ibid., 304-5, 172-73. As Simmons’s use of the term culpability suggests, in his eyes, to simply admit that Kenyon borrowed from New Thought would damage Kenyon’s theological credentials. Without taking away from the valid insights Simmons provides in his nuanced discussion of Kenyon’s relationship to New Thought and the Higher Life movements, it is fair to say that such theological concerns likely contributed to his inclination to pull back from other statements in the book, cited above, that imply a much more direct appropriation of New Thought themes by Kenyon.

64 For discussion of the Word of Faith movement see Bruce Barron, The Health and Wealth Gospel: What’s Going on Today in a Movement That Has Shaped the Faith of Millions? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1987); Harrell, All Things Are Possible, esp. 169-72, 185-86, 200-01, 234-35; Milmon F. Harrison, Righteous Riches: The Word of Faith Movement in Contemporary African American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Grant Wacker, “The Pentecostal Tradition,” in Caring and Curing, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Darrel W. Amundsen (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986), esp. 527-29.

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suggest a significant degree of plagiarism.65 Part of Hagin’s unwillingness to acknowledge his debt to Kenyon undoubtedly stemmed from a recurring theme among Word of Faith ministers regarding the newness of their teachings. Though Word of Faith ministers certainly utilized verses from the Bible to back up their claims, they also placed a premium on their ability to hear directly from God and receive new revelations and insight into the “true” meaning of scripture. When Hagin described the way he initially learned the principles of divine healing, for example, he made it very clear that his teachings derived solely from illumination provided by the Spirit as he read the Bible.66 Considering Word of Faith adherents’ commitment to “new revelation,” it is not surprising that pentecostals who participated in Word of Faith services encountered a modified conception of faith that differed in important respects from the type of faith promoted by early believers. In particular, Word of Faith leaders repeatedly depicted faith as a natural byproduct of the rightly calibrated mind. 67 Early pentecostals certainly taught believers at times to ignore their symptoms and confidently go about their daily lives as a sign of their faith, yet the saints’ admonitions for faith lacked the persistent emphasis on positive self-talk that permeated Word of Faith teachings. Early adherents typically did not zero in on the believer’s need to constantly

65 In his attack on Word of Faith theology, for example, D. R. McConnell clearly lays out significant areas of plagiarism. See McConnell, Different Gospel, esp. 6-14.

66 See Kenneth Hagin, Seven Things You Should Know About Divine Healing (Tulsa, OK: Kenneth Hagin Ministries, 1979), 32-35. Hagin’s emphasis on the Greek word “rhema”—as seen in the name of his school, the Rhema Bible Training Center—was meant to highlight the importance of direct revelations from God. “The movement attracts new members by its insistence on being ‘a new revelation’ from God that promises personal fulfillment,” the sociologist Milmon Harrison explains, “including a materially abundant life . . . . Because of its mutability and because there is no ideological or structural center, the movement and its ministries can combine elements from various realms of culture in order to attract new members by providing something they recognize as familiar but repackaged and redefined as ‘new and improved’ charismatic Christianity,” Harrison, Righteous Riches, 7-8. As Kenneth Copeland wrote on his ministry website, “We are called to reveal the mysteries, the victorious revelations of God’s Word, that have been hidden from the ages,” “About KCM” http://www.kcm.org/about/index.php?p=what_we_believe (accessed June 10, 2008)

67 As Milmon Harrison writes, “Not just verbal confessions but, movement members are taught, also their thoughts and self-talk are to be guarded, governed, and kept positive and ‘scriptural.’ Believers are encouraged to be diligent in maintaining a positive mental attitude and inner dialogue. Mental discipline, mental ‘hygiene,’ or self-censorship, should be an ongoing practice as demonstration of one’s faith. . . . As in other religions with their basis in New Thought or Mind Science, for members of the Word of Faith Movement, there is indeed power in positive thinking,” Harrison, Righteous Riches, 11.

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program his or her mind to reaffirm the truths they had learned regarding God’s promises. Instead of focusing on faith as a function of a rightly calibrated mind, faith represented an internal state of confidence that took God at his word. For example, Smith Wigglesworth, an English healing evangelist who found great success back home and in the United States, distinguished between natural faith and supernatural faith. “[A]s I saw in the presence of God, the limitations of my faith,” he wrote, “there came another faith that took the promise, a faith that believed God’s Word. . . . God gave a faith that could shake hell and anything else.”68 The healing evangelist John G. Lake quoted a member of his team who frequently told believers to “stop praying for five minutes and BELIEVE GOD, and see what will happen.” “It is perfectly amazing the things that will happen when people will believe God,” Lake concluded. 69 “[I]f we pray believing,” the Pentecostal Holiness minister F. M. Britton confirmed, “we shall have what we ask for.” 70 Word of Faith practitioners would have agreed with descriptions of faith as an unshakeable confidence in God and in his promises, but the mind and speech proved central in their teachings to a degree not seen among early believers. When a woman with a malignant growth on her face came to Hagin for healing, he instructed her to “[j]ust say, ‘According to the Word of God, I am healed. I believe this cancer is healed.’ According to the Word, it is healed. Go to bed saying it, get up saying it. Say it sweeping the floor, say it washing the dishes. Say it everytime you think of it.”71 Kenneth Hagin, Jr., followed in his father’s footsteps when he instructed readers to spend their time “taking care of your part of the contract. Set a time for your healing, a time when you state, ‘I believe that I receive now.’ Keep saying it. That’s the way to receive your healing.”72 In short, the Hagins as well as other in the Word of Faith

68 Smith Wigglesworth, Faith That Prevails (1938; repr., Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1966), 7.

69 John G. Lake, The John G. Lake Sermons on Dominion over Demons, Disease and Death, ed. Gordon Lindsay, 2nd ed. (Shreveport, LA: Christ for the Nations, 1949), 28.

70 F. M. Britton, Pentecostal Truth (Royston, GA: Pentecostal Holiness Church, 1919), 90.

71 Kenneth E. Hagin, Healing Belongs to Us (Tulsa, OK: Kenneth Hagin Ministries, n.d.), 27.

72 Kenneth Hagin Jr., Seven Hindrances to Healing (Tulsa, OK: Kenneth Hagin Ministires, 1980), 24.

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movement perpetuated Kenyon’s emphasis on the ability of faith-filled speech and thoughts to shape a believer’s reality. In one sign of the success of the Word of Faith movement, Kenyon and Hagin’s teachings made significant inroads among black pentecostals and charismatics. Frederick K. C. Price, a student of Hagin’s, is frequently credited with introducing Word of Faith emphases to largely black audiences. Price was joined by other high-profile African American ministers such as Leroy Thompson and Creflo and Taffi Dollar.73 Significantly, Word of Faith teachers helped channel prominent aspects of New Thought spirituality to other pentecostals and charismatics who did not necessarily self-identify with the movement. Word of Faith ministers’ adroit use of mass communication outlets in particular created a context in which numerous individuals could embrace components of Word of Faith emphases while remaining within their more established denominations.74 As a testament to the importance of mass communication in spreading the Word of Faith message, the Trinity Broadcasting Network headed by Paul and Jan Crouch claimed to be the largest Christian television network in the world; its programming provided a constant stream of Word of Faith teaching accessible within the United States and abroad.75 Prominent pentecostal and charismatic ministers who stood outside of the Word of Faith movement also spread Kenyon’s teachings. F. F. Bosworth, a pentecostal healer whose ministry spanned the early movement and continued during the healing revivals of the 1940s and 50s, included a chapter in his widely influential Christ the Healer entitled “Our Confession” that he directly attributed to the influence of Kenyon. “Healing is always in response to faith’s testimony,” he wrote. “Disease, like sin, is defeated by our confession of the Word. Make your lips do their duty; fill them with the Word. Make them say what God says about your sickness.

73 As some scholars have noted, the efforts of African American religious leaders with strong ties to New Thought such as Johnnie Coleman and Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II (“Reverend Ike”) likely played a significant role in preparing the way for many black Americans’ embrace of Word of Faith teachings. See Harrison, Righteous Riches, 137-41; and Stephanie Y. Mitchem, Name It and Claim It? Prosperity Preaching in the Black Church (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2007), 68-103.

74 For further discussion of Word of Faith ministers’ successful use of mass media, see Harrison, Righteous Riches, 161-62.

75 See “The TBN Story,” http://www.tbn.org/index.php/3/18.html (accessed June 10, 2008).

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Don’t allow them to say anything to the contrary.” Bosworth’s strong influence on the healing evangelists of the 40s and 50s make his connection with Kenyon all the more important.76 In a similar vein, the healing evangelist T. L. Osborn incorporated significant portions of the writings of Kenyon and Bosworth into his books. In a passage that was vintage Kenyon, Osborn wrote, “When we CONFESS HIS WORDS, then our High Priest, Jesus Christ, acts on our behalf, according to our CONFESSION OF HIS WORD, and intercedes to our Father for the benefits of the promises which we are confessing. He is the High Priest OF our confession.” According to Osborne, Christ’s death served as the believer’s Emancipation Proclamation. As such, believers should “ACT accordingly. You should SPEAK accordingly. CONFESS your FREEDOM instead of your bondage!”77 High-profile figures within the pentecostal and charismatic movement during the latter third of the twentieth century also emphasized right thought and right confession without self- identifying as Word of Faith. In fact, several of these figures found a wide audience by merging Word of Faith themes with the therapeutic language of popular psychological described earlier. In her writings on healing the widely popular teaching evangelist Joyce Meyer queried her readers, “How do you stand against sickness?” “For starters,” she explained, “plead the blood of Jesus against the sickness and over every part of your body—your immune system, your organs, your blood cells, and so on. Then speak the word over your body.” Believers, according to Meyer, should affirm, “Father, I believe it’s Your will that I be in health. I believe that by the stripes of Jesus, I am healed. Your Word is health and life to my body, and it will accomplish that which You please and purpose.” In another tell-tale example of the influence of Word of Faith emphases, Meyers continued, “Once you’ve done this, avoid going around and saying things like, ‘Man, I feel bad, I am so sick,’ or ‘I know I’m going to be sick because everybody else is getting it.’ This puts your mouth in agreement with the sickness. Instead, ask God to help

76 F. F. Bosworth, Christ the Healer, rev. ed. (1948; repr. Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1973), 148.

77 T. L. Osborn, Healing the Sick (Tulsa, OK: T.L. Osborn Evanglistic Association, 1959), 83-85. In addition to Bosworth and Osborn, other leaders whose ministries were shaped in part by Kenyon included David Nunn and Ern Baxter. See R. M. Riss, “Kenyon, Essek William,” in International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Ed M. Van der Maas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 819-20.

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you keep your mind and mouth in agreement with His Word.”78 Meyer’s responses could easily have been taken from a Word of Faith handbook given her clear stress on the power of the spoken word and of a positive mental outlook.79 In addition to her affinities with Word of Faith teachings, Meyer also frequently demonstrated a ready familiarity with the language of popular psychology. In the first chapter of her book entitled Battlefield of the Mind, she set herself up as an informal therapist of sorts. In an imagined scenario, Meyer depicted the troubled plight of a married couple, Mary and John. The reader soon discovered that Mary had “an extremely domineering father who often spanked her just because he was in a bad mood.” Her brother “could do no wrong,” however. In this atmosphere, Mary developed a full-fledged hatred that has colored her relationship with men for years, and her past experiences formed the seedbed of negative thoughts injected by Satan into the married couple’s minds.80 Similar self-help jargon rooted in popular psychology frequently appeared in Meyer’s other works. In an analogous manner, the pastor and evangelist T. D. Jakes intermixed a strong dose of Word of Faith emphases as well as popular psychology into his discussion of emotional healing. Much like Word of Faith figures, Jakes instructed his readers to “[q]uit telling yourself, ‘You’re too fat, too old, too late, or too ignorant.’ Quit feeding yourself that garbage.” According to Jakes, too often women in particular tended to “speak against their bodies, opening the door for sickness and disease.” Faith-less speech had the ability to “keep you bent over and crippled,” and the devil “would love to destroy you with your own words. Satan wants to use you to fight again you.” Instead his readers should “[s]peak life to your own body.”81

78 Joyce Meyer, “The Believer’s Attitude toward Healing,” Life in the Word 15, no. 12 (2001): 12.

79 On her website, Meyer begins to address the question of whether or not her ministry qualifies as a “Word of Faith” ministry: “Joyce Meyer Ministries believes in the Word of God. Joyce teaches that God has made promises to us in His Word and as believers, we should trust His promises (see 2 Peter 1:3, 4). However, it can be damaging when people place their faith in faith alone instead of placing their faith in God. Misappropriation of God’s promises solely for personal gain is not scripturally supported,” “Joyce Meyer Ministries: FAQ,” http://www.joycemeyer.org/AboutUs/FAQ/ (accessed December 20, 2007).

80 Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind (Tulsa, OK: Harrison House, 1995), 17-23.

81 T. D. Jakes, Woman, Thou Art Loosed!: Healing the Wounds of the Past (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2004), 126, 84, 119.

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As with Meyer, Jakes also drew on common psychological tropes in his writings. Though Jakes claimed that his method focused simply on divine intervention, describing psychotherapists as “practicing an uncertain method on people as they ramble through the closets of a troubled person’s mind,” his own works showed more than a little resemblance to popular psychology. He portrayed his popular Woman, Thou Art Loosed! as an answer for those who had been “wounded by a childhood tragedy, a sordid memory, a failed relationship, or even choices and decisions that are now sources of regret.” According to Jakes, many women “wrestle with infirmities in emotional traumas.” Such “emotional handicaps” had the potential to “create dependency on many different levels. Relationships can become crutches.” Such individuals needed to “break the habit of using other people as a narcotic to numb the dull aching of an inner void.” Instead, Christ wanted the “potential within you to be unleashed so you can become the person you were created to be.”82 While the success of the Word of Faith movement serves as a fascinating study in its own right, for the purpose of this study the ability of Word of Faith ministers to disseminate their message within American pentecostal and charismatic circles signaled a significant prioritization of the mind and speech as intermediaries connecting the believer to God’s healing power. Again, while the importance of right thoughts and right speech were by no means alien to early pentecostal adherents’ conception of healing, neither were they a central object of focus. For Word of Faith practitioners, their insistent focus on the role of the mind and speech in healing brought the supernatural into closer relationship with the natural world by defining faith so clearly as a programming of the mind as opposed to more traditional notions of faith as an internal confidence in God’s promises.

New Thought and the Origins of the Inner Healing Movement Whereas Word of Faith teachers frequently found a ready audience among individuals familiar with traditional pentecostalism, around mid-century a similar elevation of the mind in healing appeared in a very different guise when the teachings of an Episcopalian laywoman, Agnes Sanford, helped stimulate the development of ministries of inner healing that found a

82 Ibid., 7, 29, 14, 174.

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niche within the burgeoning charismatic movement.83 Once again, the turn towards mental forms of healing can be traced in large part to the influence of New Thought metaphysics. Along with Glenn Clark, an advocate for spiritual retreats known as Camps Furthest Out, Sanford mediated New Thought assumptions to individuals from a wide spectrum of denominational backgrounds, many of whom formally identified with the charismatic renewal beginning in the 1960s.84 Sanford’s interest in healing was initially spurred by the illness of her third child, John. As it happens, New Thought writers strongly influenced the Episcopalian minister who prayed for her son, and her experience eventually encouraged her to explore the works of mental healers such as Mary Baker Eddy—whom she strongly disagreed with—and the New Thought writer Emmet Fox.85 By the time Sanford embarked on her own healing ministry and began writing on healing prayer, New Thought assumptions permeated her books. In The Healing Light, for example, initially published in 1947, Sanford described God and humanity in classic New Thought fashion using the terminology of light, energy, and vibration. Humans were “made not of solid and impenetrable matter, but of energy,” she insisted. Likewise, the various chemicals that composed the human body “live by the breath of God, by the primal energy, the original force that we call God.” The “closer connection with God” established through prayer, then, allowed for an infusion of “abundant life—an increased flow of energy. The creative force that sustains us is increased within our bodies. The vibration of God’s light is so very real that even a

83 No one has done more to highlight Sanford’s influence within the charismatic movement than the theologian and historian William De Arteaga. See William L. De Arteaga, “Agnes Sanford: Apostle of Healing, and First Theologian of the Charismatic Renewal. Part I,” The Pneuma Review 9, no. 2 (2006): 6-17; and William L. De Arteaga, “Agnes Sanford: Apostle of Healing, and First Theologian of the Charismatic Renewal. Part II,” The Pneuma Review 9, no. 3 (2006): 4-17.

84 Glenn Clark first initiated his Camps Furthest Out in the 1930s. Modeled off of intensive football camps for training athletes, these summer gatherings provided a time of spiritual renewal through prayer, lecture, and Spirit-inspired creative activities associated with the arts (such as dancing and painting). Clark’s own writings represented a blend of Christian and New Thought emphases and frequently addressed the issue of healing. In time the camps became a vehicle for leaders in the charismatic renewal to spread their message. Individuals associated with the camps included such high-profile charismatics as Agnes Sanford, Derek Prince, Francis MacNutt, Ruth Carter Stapleton, and Merlin Carothers. See William L. De Arteaga, “Glenn Clark’s Camps Furthest Out: The Schoolhouse of Charismatic Renewal,” Pneuma 25, no. 2 (2003): 265-88. Also see Glenn Clark, The Soul’s Sincere Desire (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1926).

85 Agnes Sanford, Sealed Orders (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1972), esp. 95-105.

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child can feel it.”86 As with New Thought writers influenced by figures such as Emanuel Swedenborg, Sanford’s imagery of energy and vibration challenged dualistic divisions between the spiritual and the natural world. For the purpose of this study, the most significant adaptation of New Thought teachings by Sanford involved her focus on the power of the mind to effect healing. In a very literal sense, Sanford saw the mind as a crucial battleground governing the influx of divine energy into each individual. A properly calibrated mind allowed God’s healing power to flow uninhibited throughout the entire person, body and soul. The untrained mind, on the other hand, proved unaware of the healing resources at hand and unable to access the vital life-giving energies that perfected the natural world. “We must re-educate the subconscious mind,” she wrote, “replacing every thought of fear with a thought of faith, every thought of illness with a thought of health, every thought of death with a thought of life.” Such reprogramming of the mind allowed for the restoration of an individual’s physical and emotional wellbeing.87 Sanford never shied away from recognizing her indebtedness to metaphysical traditions such as New Thought. Following a description of her healing philosophy in her autobiography, she observed, “At this point some people may be thinking, ‘But isn’t this metaphysics? Isn’t this the power of positive thinking?’” Unlike Kenyon or his Word of Faith followers, Sanford did not hesitate in her answer. “Certainly!” she wrote. “And I might point out that Jesus called it faith.”88 In her practical instructions to readers, Sanford frequently turned to the New Thought practice of visualization as a basic tool for attuning the mind to divine power. At one point she recounted her instructions to a G.I. recovering from a leg wound that required a bone graft. When she initially approached the soldier suggesting that he pray for healing, he responded simply, “But I don’t know anything about God.” Undeterred, Sanford coaxed a vague admission from the soldier that he at least believed “there’s something outside of yourself.” That simple acknowledgment proved all the opening Sanford needed in order to set in motion the healing

86 Agnes Sanford, The Healing Light, rev. ed. (1947; repr. Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1972), 15.

87 Ibid., 27.

88 Sanford, Sealed Orders, 105.

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process. “Well, then, ask that Something to come into you,” she continued. Just say ‘Whoever you are or whatever you are, come into me now and help nature in my body to mend this bone, and do it quick. Thanks, I believe you’re doing it.’”89 The final crucial step in the healing process then went beyond this verbal request and required actively imagining and visualizing the healing. For the G.I. this involved making a “picture in your mind of the leg well. . . . See the bone all built in and the flesh strong and perfect around it.” When the soldier questioned the need for visualization, asking “Why do I do that?” Sanford answered simply, “Because that’s the way you make it happen. No matter what you want to make, you first have to see it in your mind.” Actualizing healing depended in large part on the sufferer’s willingness to engage his or her mind in the healing process.90 Significantly, Sanford extended her focus beyond physical healing to include emotional healing; in the process she helped open up novel approaches to healing within the pentecostal and charismatic movement that were much more accommodating to the insights of psychology than had been the case for early pentecostals. Sanford instructed readers to set aside blocks of time in order to allow the Holy Spirit to bring to remembrance any “unforgiven sins (or any uncomfortable memories, as we would probably call them).” She compared these unhealed memories to “splinters in the hand. The thing may be invisible, but as long as it is there it festers a bit. So the splinters of uncomfortable memories (unforgiven sins) fester in the subconscious and throw out into the conscious mind various symptoms of fears, nervous tensions, etc., of whose cause we are completely unaware.”91 Simply identifying these unhealed memories proved insufficient. Instead, confessing unhealed memories and receiving forgiveness opened the door for Jesus’ life to enter the individual. By connecting the healing of memories with the forgiveness of sin, Sanford placed healing at the center of the Christian message. Once again drawing on New Thought terminology to outline her understanding of the Christian worldview, Sanford explained, “God’s love was blacked out from man [prior to Christ’s death and resurrection] by the negative thought-vibration of this sinful and suffering world.” In order to transform this dire condition, Jesus in turn “lowered His thought-vibrations to the thought-

89 Sanford, Healing Light, 18-19.

90 Ibid., 19.

91 At another point she recommends a similar type of practice conducted weekly, see Ibid., 103-4, 13.

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vibrations of humanity and received unto Himself man’s thoughts of sin and sickness, pain and death.”92 For Sanford, the heart of the Christian life revolved around the healing exchange of an individual’s sinful thoughts for Christ’s thoughts. As with physical healing, according to Sanford visualization often facilitated inner healing. “In order to fill ourselves with His whole being,” she wrote, “let us think of Him, imagining His presence, seeing Him with the eyes of the mind, trying to love Him with the heart.” Once individuals had learned to identify with Christ as an ever-present reality within themselves, they in turn could learn to pray that others would also undergo a similar healing experience. “[H]aving constructed by thought and will a picture of the patient well, peaceful and happy,” Sanford explained, “we then ask Jesus Himself to go through us and abide in the one for whom we pray, resurrecting him after that likeness of all beauty that is Himself. And believing that He is doing so, we learn to see within the patient, Christ.”93 In sum, both physical and mental healing for Sanford depended on individuals’ willingness to take responsibility for their healing by attuning their minds to God’s ever- available presence within the universe. More important, Sanford was able to disseminate her ideas to a wide audience. Her teachings became popular in particular among charismatics within mainline denominations who embraced pentecostal-style spirituality beginning especially in the 1960s. One charismatic theologian, in fact, has referred to Sanford as the first theologian of the charismatic renewal.94 Just as figures such as Joyce Meyer and T. D. Jakes popularized Word of Faith themes by merging them with key aspects of American therapeutic culture associated with popular forms of psychology and self help, many of the most prominent healers in the inner healing movement drew on themes present within Sanford’s writings even as they combined them with explicitly

92 Ibid., 106.

93 Ibid., 123, 26-27.

94 “There is little doubt,” De Arteaga writes, “that in spite of the controversies she generated, Mrs. Sanford was indeed the first theologian [of] the charismatic renewal. The Healing Light, issued as a Logos International paperback, became the healing text book of the early charismatic movement. She discipled many of the leadership of the charismatic renewal, including a handsome young priest named Francis MacNutt who met her at a CFO camp and eventually passed on the core of her teaching to the charismatic movement with his vastly influential works on healing,” De Arteaga, “Agnes Sanford: Apostle of Healing, and First Theologian of the Charismatic Renewal. Part II,” 16.

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psychological concepts and themes.95 One of the most well-known charismatic proponents of inner healing influenced by Sanford’s teaching was the Roman Catholic minister Francis MacNutt who first encountered Sanford’s ministry while attending a Camp Farthest Out.96 Sanford’s teachings made sense, MacNutt wrote, “not only because Christ came to free us from the evil that burdens us, but also because it was in accord with what psychologists have discovered about the nature of man: that we are deeply affected not only by what we do, but by what happens to us through the sins of others and the evil in the world.”97 In a sign of the trajectory of Sanford’s teachings as they developed within the movement, MacNutt’s approach to inner healing lacked the New Thought verbiage used by Sanford. The role of the mind in the healing process certainly remained a crucial element of MacNutt’s appropriation of the ministry of inner healing, yet he tended to utilize the terminology of popular psychology and self-help literature more than New Thought emphases on energy, light, and vibration. Sounding themes that many Americans had grown accustomed to hearing from mainstream authors, MacNutt described humans’ deepest need as the need for love, and “if we are denied love as infants or as children, or anywhere else along the line, it may affect our lives at a later date and rob us of our peace, of our ability to love, and of our ability to trust man—or

95 For her part, Sanford herself did not hesitate to note the parallels between her methods and various psychological practices. She related, for example, the reaction of a psychiatrist who overheard a testimony related to the healing of memories. The psychiatrist, “listening in amazement, grew white as a sheet and gasped, ‘But that is depth psychology!’” Sanford’s response was telling, “Of course it is! Why not? It is the deep therapy of the Holy Spirit,” Agnes Sanford, The Healing Gifts of the Spirit (Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, 1966), 141.

96 For basic biographical information regarding MacNutt, see “Who Are Francis & Judith MacNutt?” http://www.christianhealingmin.org/whoare.htm (accessed September 14, 2008). MacNutt discusses his healing ministry as well as his excommunication from the Catholic Church (which was precipitated by his decision to marry, though he and his wife Judith eventually received a special dispensation permitting the marriage in 1993), in David Kyle Foster, “A Conversation with Francis & Judith MacNutt,” http://masteringlife.gospelcom.net/page.php?load=showint&interview_file=./interviews/Category__Misc ellaneous__Issues/005.dat (accessed September 14, 2008).

97 MacNutt also mentioned the influence of John Sanford (Agnes Sanford’s son) and Tommy Tyson, another prominent healing evangelist within charismatic circles, among others. MacNutt defined the ministry of inner healing as follows: “Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, can take the memories of our past and 1) Heal them from the wounds that still remain and affect our present lives; 2) Fill with his love all these places in us that have been healed and drained of the poison of past hurts and resentment,” Francis MacNutt, Healing (1974; repr. New York: Bantam Books, 1977), 164.

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God.”98 MacNutt’s word choice here suggested a shift towards a more professional, scientific- sounding conception of the Spirit’s work. MacNutt made it clear to the reader that he did not see psychology as sufficient in and of itself to fully heal the wounds of the past. Describing his own past efforts to minister to individuals prior to his exposure to the inner healing movement, MacNutt described how the “most I was ever able to do as a counselor was to help the person bring to the foreground of consciousness the things that were buried in the past, so that he could consciously cope with them in the present.” With the ministry of inner healing, on the other hand, he discovered that “the Lord can heal these wounds—sometimes immediately—and can bring the counseling process to its completion in a deep healing.”99 MacNutt’s understanding of psychology as a useful but ultimately insufficient ally in the healing process reappeared frequently in the writings of other inner healing practitioners. Dennis and Rita Bennett for example were high-profile leaders in the charismatic movement who frequently stressed the importance of emotional healing; in their writings they too confirmed the benefits of psychology even as they pulled back from a full affirmation of the discipline. In a clear sign of approval of psychology, at one point Rita Bennett drew a parallel between being filled with the Holy Spirit and having a grasp of basic psychological insights. “[I]f parents aren’t psychologically aware and/or Spirit-filled and Spirit-led Christians,” she wrote, “children get hurt.” Nevertheless, whereas psychologists could give “good advice,” the ministry of inner healing superseded psychology by bringing divine resources to bear on the situation.100 Along similar lines, Ruth Carter Stapleton, sister of the former president Jimmy Carter, acknowledged her debt to the field of psychology and called on Christians to accept the valuable insights provided by the discipline despite its limitations.101 “Many sincere and intelligent Christians mistrust psychology,” she wrote. “When secular psychology claims that there is no

98 Ibid., 164-65.

99 Ibid., 169.

100 Bennett, Emotionally Free, 36, 19, 51.

101 Like other influential healing figures, Stapleton participated in the Camps Furthest Out, and also spoke at the ecumenical 1977 gathering of charismatics for a conference in Kansas City that attracted approximately 50,000 individuals. For an account of her own baptism in the Holy Spirit, see Ruth Carter Stapleton, “Ruth Carter Stapleton: Exclusive Interview,” World Harvest 17, no. 5 (1979): 8-9.

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need for ‘the spiritual,’ that emotional integrity is everything, that emotional integration is man’s goal, they rebel.” Though Stapleton understood these critics’ point, she held out the possibility of another, more fruitful relationship between psychologists and Christians. She noted that “growing numbers of sincere seekers have found emotional healing through the discipline of psychology.” More importantly, however, “[t]hese people have also learned that Jesus Christ can enter the life and instill a sense of peace, love and power they have never known before which is obviously not a product of psychological therapy.” Given the fact that “both of these positions have great truth,” she envisioned an integration of the two insights under the banner of inner healing that would “bring authentic principles of psychology under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. When this happens, people are healed, new ministers of inner healing are raised up, and the entire redemptive movement increases in quantum measure.”102 In practical terms, as advocates of inner healing sought to combine psychological and spiritual healing, the model of healing that frequently emerged involved careful interrogation of the sufferer’s past coupled with heavy doses of visualization in the tradition of Sanford.103 The Episcopalian healer Leanne Payne, for example, modeled a wide variety of prayers throughout her books, yet visualization often figured prominently in her approach (at several points in her books Payne mentioned Sanford’s impact on her ministry).104 Exemplary of Payne’s approach, she described the healing of a woman who battled imagery from her sexual past whenever she

102 Ruth Carter Stapleton, The Experience of Inner Healing (Carmel, NY: Guideposts, 1976), 7-8. Despite Stapleton and the Bennetts’ defense of psychology, they both denied that they were practicing a form of psychotherapy. Part of the motivation behind this claim appeared to be an attempt to avoid charges of practicing a form of medical care without a license. See Ruth Carter Stapleton, The Gift of Inner Healing (Carmel, NY: Guideposts, 1976), 45-53. At the same time, these claims also highlighted the lay character of the movement. As Rita Bennett explained, “We’re not training people to be therapists or psychologists—we’re teaching about prayer. We’re not in competition with [professionals in these fields]. But the great thing is, this is a lay movement. You don’t have to be ordained, or be a therapist, or have a Ph.D. God can use anybody,” quoted in David Hazard, “An inside Look at Inner Healing,” Charisma 12, no. 2 (1986): 48.

103 I focus especially on visualization here as it serves as a key link illustrating the influence of New Thought within pentecostal and charismatic circles. Despite the prominence of the practice, I recognize that myriad other techniques were also used ranging from group prayers, to more standard forms of counseling, to the use of physical substances such as holy water, and even exorcisms; the ministry of inner healing can by now means be encapsulated in the practice of visualization.

104 For exemplary references to Sanford in Payne’s works, see Leanne Payne, The Broken Image: Restoring Personal Wholeness through Healing Prayer (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996), 11, 47- 48.

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made love to her husband. Payne instructed the woman to “look and see Jesus with the eyes of her heart and stretch out her opened hands to receive from Him.” As the unwanted images surfaced in the woman’s mind, Payne asked her to “reach her hand to her forehead and take each one as it comes up from her mind, and then hand it to Jesus, whose outstretched hands she visualizes.” With this process complete, the final step involved seeing “what Jesus is doing with the old pictures” as he disposed of them.105 In the same way other leaders highlighted Sanford’s significance within the inner healing movement by also stressing the role of the imagination and visualization in the healing process.106 Stapleton for example combined a form of prayer that she labeled faith-imagination therapy with more standard psychological fare, frequently utilizing the language of the “inner child” borrowed from the writings of W. H. Missildine.107 Faith-imagination therapy involved counselors and/or prayer partners who helped individuals actively recall painful experiences in their lives and then imagine Jesus transforming those past situations.108 For Stapleton, faith-

105 Ibid., 107-8.

106 In addition to Payne, direct signs of Sanford’s influence usually appeared in one form or another in many of the works published by other inner healing advocates. The Bennetts for example referred to Sanford as “that great lady who has helped so many understand healing, both physical and psychological,” adding that “[m]any leaders in the healing movement today owe their start to Agnes Sanford’s inspiration and teaching,” Bennett, Emotionally Free, 149. Stapleton briefly quoted Sanford in her The Experience of Inner Healing, calling her “one of the pioneers of the healing ministry in the major denominational churches,” Stapleton, Experience of Inner Healing, 111.

107 Stapleton, Gift of Inner Healing, 13. Also see W. Hugh Missildine, Your Inner Child of the Past (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963). Later practitioners of inner healing, however, would critique the concept of the “inner child.” Mark Pearson, a practitioner of inner healing president of the Institute for Christian Renewal and New Creation Healing Center, for example, cautioned against conceptions of an “inner child” emphasized by figures such as Stapleton and the Bennetts that posited “an innocent, pure core being” in each individual, “someone who could profitably be listened to for guidance and direction.” Pearson argued that these ideas undermined reliance on Christ and neglected the biblical doctrine of original sin. Furthermore, quoting Leanne Payne, he suggested that “it is important to realize that the way of the wounded ‘inner child’ is so often the way of the foolish child,” Mark A. Pearson, Christian Healing: A Practical and Comprehensive Guide, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books, 1995), 130- 31. (In 2005 Pearson’s book was published by Charisma House, a charismatic publisher.)

108 Stapleton, Gift of Inner Healing, 17. When counseling a young man who had trouble connecting with his father when he was young, for example, Stapleton walked the counselee through an imaginative experience of playing a baseball game with Jesus and also going fishing. Stapleton “verbally took six- year old Jody through an entire ball game, strike by strike, hits, foul balls, errors, everything. Batting time alternated between Jody and Jesus in a setting that is duplicated ten million times a spring Saturday throughout the country.” The exercise proved “exhausting for both of us.” Stapleton then moved on to

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imagination therapy offered more than just a way to reorient an individual’s mind and emotions in relation to painful memories. Rather, she viewed these sessions as creating objective experiences that reshaped a person’s past history.109 Similar patterns appeared time and time again in the ministries of other inner healing advocates as well.110 In addition to the numerous laypeople engaging in the ministry of inner healing, it is also important to note examples of formally trained psychologists within pentecostal and charismatic circles who sought to combine prayer into their practices. One of the most prominent attempts by a pentecostal or charismatic psychologist to Christianize the practice of psychology involved the efforts of the Assemblies of God minister Richard Dobbins. According to Dobbins’s ministry website, it was his wife’s battle with “severe and clinical bouts of post partum depression that left Dr. Dobbins desperate to understand the exact nature of the condition ailing his wife.” In his search for answers, Dobbins found little aid among medical doctors. When he and his wife then turned to the church for help, they likewise “found few resources to deal with the mental health issues they were facing.” Shortly thereafter Dobbins pursued his training in psychology, and in 1976 he founded Emerge Ministries in an effort to minister to individuals who could be helped by psychological insights. By the early 90s, Dobbins’s ministry sought to expand its outreach and formally partnered with a hospital in Ohio to provide Christian recreate a fishing scene when Jody was nine. “Step by step we prepared for the fishing trip,” she wrote, and off to the creek we went,” Stapleton, Gift of Inner Healing, 69.

109 As Stapleton explained, “Our subconscious memory, a mental computer, records everything. It forgets nothing. The only means we have of revising this emotional record is by the re-creative work of the Holy Spirit. And often the Spirit must redo our earliest recollections,” Stapleton, Experience of Inner Healing, 21. In her attempt to explain how this could be possible, she quoted Maxwell Maltz who argued that “[s]omething imagined vividly enough and in some detail is as influential on one’s emotions as an objective event experience.” Stapleton went beyond Maltz, however, in claiming that faith imagination “creates an objective experience. It does not approximate or simulate one,” Stapleton, Gift of Inner Healing, 37. Also see Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics: A New Way to Get More Living out of Life (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1960).

110 In language very much like Stapleton’s, Dennis and Rita Bennett spoke of the ability of Jesus to transform past memories and to create new ones where none existed; the first Rita Bennett termed “reliving the scene with Jesus,” the second she labeled “creative prayer,” Bennett, Emotionally Free, 83. Likewise the Jesuit priests Dennis and Matthew Linn frequently stressed visualization in their numerous works on inner healing, teaching their readers to revisit painful experiences and have Christ “enter the scene where you were hurt and watch him. What does he say and do to you to heal you?” Matthew Linn and Dennis Linn, Healing Life’s Hurts: Healing Memories through Five Stages of Forgiveness (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 223.

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psychiatric treatment that includes spiritual warfare, prayer and Bible reading in a hospital ward.” According to an article describing the move, Dobbins indicated that it was not “fair to the Christians” that his ministry had been “limited to outpatient care and hospitalizing patients in secular facilities that use secular program.”111 The above conversation regarding practitioners of inner healing and healers influenced by Word of Faith teachings only scratches the surface in addressing the various ways in which pentecostal and charismatic figures began to incorporate psychological theories into their healing practices. Suffice to say the increased emphasis on emotional healing represented an attempt by some pentecostals and charismatics to not only critique the weakness of secular psychology, but to also sacralize it and claim it as part of their own spiritual repertoire. Pentecostal and charismatic healers increasingly refused to acknowledge the fields of psychology and psychiatry as outside the realm of authentic Christian healing. The ministries of both Word of Faith healers and of inner healing practitioners pointed to the growing prioritization of the mind in the healing process for many pentecostals and charismatics. Both groups mediated key New Thought assumptions to pentecostal and charismatic audiences. Both groups also found great success as they combined these New Thought themes with popular psychological lingo.

Controversy Despite the widespread interest in inner healing and Christian forms of psychology, controversy quickly followed believers’ embrace of psychological methodologies, creating sharp divisions regarding the issue. Opposition to these trends within the movement drew national attention when the charismatic pastor Larry Tomczak faced a libel suit for $19.5 million brought by Thomas Harris, author of the widely popular I’m O.K.—You’re O.K. In a 1979 Tomczak repeated a widespread rumor in a service that was broadcast via radio that Harris committed suicide. Drawing on the long history of ambivalence within pentecostal and conservative evangelical circles towards psychology, Tomczak warned his audience to “beware of ‘any

111 See “Dr. Richard Dobbins” http://www.drdobbins.com/bio.php (accessed November 17, 2007); and “Christian Psychiatric Care Unit Expands,” Charisma 15, no. 12 (1990): 20. Also see Margaret M. Poloma, The Charismatic Movement: Is There a New Pentecost? (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982), 106-8; and Margaret M. Poloma, The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads: Charisma and Institutional Dilemmas (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), 228-29.

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philosophy which could undermine the Scriptures.’” “Years ago, there was a book on the market called I’m OK—You’re OK.,” he added. “People said, ‘That’s a wonderful new book—new psychology, new things to follow.’ Most people today don’t know that the author of that book committed suicide about two years ago, and yet people are still practicing some of his philosophies.” As the Charisma article detailing the situation noted, Tomczak had characterized psychiatry as an “unbiblical form of relief” in an earlier book, though “the evangelist says he does not believe that all forms of psychiatry are intrinsically evil.” “I personally am not an enemy of psychiatry,” the author quoted Tomczak as saying. “The key to psychiatry, as in anything must be Jesus Christ.”112 Tomczak’s backtracking notwithstanding, the fact remains that his initial comments would have only resonated with an audience where psychology and psychiatry were at least suspect, if not rejected out of hand.113 A number of pentecostals and charismatics distrusted attempts to integrate divine healing with psychology, and they did so for a variety of reasons. In her 1976 survey of the burgeoning inner healing movement, Sherry Andrews chronicled the numerous objections that arose to these ministries, such as their tendency to create “junior psychiatrists,” to focus on the old and not the new, and to blame the past for everything.114 In 1986 David Hazard likewise cautioned readers that “[b]eneath the surface of this growing ministry lies some potential dangers.” Hazard recounted his observations of a charismatic house meeting where a husband and wife team discussed their problems. Hazard was a bit unnerved when the group leader, “[w]ith the casual but detective air of a practiced therapist . . . leaned back in his chair and said, “Don, tell me about your relationship with your father.” Commenting on what his experience said about changes in the movement, Hazard described how in the 1970s “life-controlling sins and weaknesses were chalked up to demon interference. A prayer of deliverance would follow. Now, it seems, we say that many problems can be traced to childhood trauma, or, a few feel, even to turmoils experienced in the womb.” Though Hazard cautiously approved of ministries of inner healing, he highlighted the accusations made by detractors, such as claims that inner healing could lead

112 Dave Wimbish, “The Tomczak Ordeal,” Charisma 7, no. 1 (1981): 26, 31; and “Author Wins Judgment for Slander,” New York Times, September 10, 1983.

113 Griffith discusses conservative Christians’ wariness of psychology in Griffith, God’s Daughters, 35-36.

114 Sherry Andrews, “What’s out of Sight Is Not out of Mind,” Charisma 2, no. 2 (1976): 12-14.

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individuals to become “navel-starers,’” substituting pity parties for genuine healing. Others, he added, believed these trends represented no less than the infiltration of “Eastern mysticism and even necromancy” into the movement.115 Many of the criticisms leveled at the new form of ministry mirrored earlier pentecostal reservations regarding psychologists’ tendency to explain away sin and undermine biblical standards of morality. In fact, one of the most high-profile critics of psychology was a man with impeccable pentecostal credentials, Jimmy Swaggart. Best known by many Americans for his rapid fall from grace during the 1980s over charges of sexual indiscretion, for years Swaggart’s ministry—one of the largest Christian ministries in the world—was associated with the Assemblies of God. Swaggart consistently rejected what he called the “psychologizing of the church.” Just a few months before Swaggart found himself in unwelcome national spotlight, he railed against psychological explanations of the human condition. “Sin has suddenly become ‘a mistake,’” he lamented. “Sinners are no longer called ‘sinners,’ they’re just individuals uninformed on how ‘good’ they are.” Instead of being called to repentance, individuals instead “are told they need to seek ‘psychological rehabilitation.’” Swaggart vehemently denied that a mind could become sick. “This would be the same as saying a thought could be sick or a color could be sick,” he argued. Furthermore, when it came right down to it, not only was psychology inherently anti-Christian according Swaggart, but psychotherapy was also a “pseudoscience— defined in the dictionary as ‘a system of theories, assumptions, and methods erroneously regarded as scientific.’” As such, Christians who embraced psychology in actuality embraced a “[p]seudoscience, or pseudoscientism,” that co-opted a “scientific label to protect and promote opinions which are neither provable nor irrefutable.” In the end, Swaggart concluded “[p]ractically all the fads sweeping the church today (such as visualization, inner healing, self-

115 Hazard, “Inside Look at Inner Healing,” 44. Though many pentecostals and charismatics still resisted these newfound healing methodologies within the movement, Michael Scanlon, a Catholic priest, spoke for many fellow adherents when he admitted that superficiality and excessive emotionalism often accompanied the inner healing movement. He nevertheless concluded that “[i]nner healing should be seen as one more aid or weapon that the Lord provides for spiritual growth. It should be an ordinary part of our armor, neither overlooked nor overemphasized,” Michael Scanlan, “Inner Healing Reexamined,” Charisma 4, no. 7 (1979): 33.

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esteem, possibility thinking, dream-your-own-dream, positive mental attitude, and creative confession) are offshoots of secular psychology.”116 Bob Gass’s comments in Christ for the Nations neatly summarized the impatience many pentecostals felt with psychology, “Smith Wigglesworth [a British healer whose ministry impacted many American pentecostals] was a powerhouse for God, but he was no psychologist. He had never read ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’” According to Gass, Christian psychologists complicated what should be a very simple process. When dealing with hurts in the past, he instructed readers, “Forget those things which are behind you! You don’t need to know any more than this to be healed from yesterday. The only thing that could keep you from being delivered is if you decide it is your democratic right to hold on to your bitterness.”117 As the above comments suggest, the inner healing movement by no means found acceptance among all pentecostals and charismatics, and some of its most vociferous critique were those with strong ties to traditional pentecostalism who sought to protect the ethos of the early movement. These detractors demonstrated the durability of early pentecostals’ ambivalence towards any incorporation of psychology into pentecostal and charismatic healing. It was no accident that the majority of the leaders of the inner healing movement hailed from non-pentecostal denominations. That said, ministries of inner healing have survived these internecine quarrels and have managed to establish themselves as permanent fixtures on the map of pentecostal and charismatic healing.

Conclusion Interestingly, ministers within Word of Faith ministries stood right alongside figures such as Swaggart in protesting the influence of psychology within the movement through ministries of inner healing. Kenneth Hagin told his readers that the “concept of spiritual healing came into

116 Jimmy Swaggart, “The Psychologizing of the Church,” The Evangelist 2, no. 1 (1988): 6-10. To those who challenged Swaggart claiming that Christians throughout the centuries had utilized numerous technologies and ideas in their daily life that could not be found in the Bible, Swaggart had this response. “The Bible does not claim to be a handbook on engineering, science, etc. (Although, whatever it does say on these subjects is 100 percent accurate.) . . . . However, the Bible does claim to be a handbook on the ‘human condition,’ and it does claim to hold all the answers in this particular human area,” Jimmy Swaggart, “Pscyhotherapy,” The Evangelist 25, no. 4 (1992): 6.

117 Bob Gass, “The Healing of Memory,” Christ for the Nations 36, no. 6 (1983): 5-6.

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being when some psychologists got saved and filled with the Spirit and tried to mix psychology in with the Word.” According to Hagin, these well-meaning individuals simply misunderstood the true nature of healing. “They were born again, all right, and were really filled with the Holy Spirit,” he conceded, “but they got confused.” To the contrary, true divine healing, “God’s kind of healing—is not mental, as Christian Science, Unity, and other metaphysical teachers claim. Neither is it just physical, as the medical world teaches.” Repeating arguments identical to those preached by figures such as Kenyon and John Alexander Dowie at the turn of the twentieth century, Hagin insisted that God always healed “through your HUMAN SPIRIT.” On the other hand, when “man heals (and man can heal, whether you realize it or not), he must do it either through the mind, or through the physical senses.”118 By definition, then, any incorporation of psychology into pentecostal and charismatic healing sullied the purity of true divine healing. Hagin’s fellow Word of Faith leader Kenneth Copeland expressed a similar impatience with psychological methods. “If depression has driven you into a spiritual nose dive,” he wrote, “all you have to do to break out of it is to get your eyes off the past and onto your future—a future that’s been guaranteed by Christ Jesus through the exceedingly great and precious promises in His Word.”119 Word of Faith critiques of figures within the inner healing movement serve as an instructive illustration of the important differences between the two groups. In particular, these critiques reveal how Word of Faith figures remained much closer to the original ethos of early pentecostalism than practitioners of inner healing (not surprisingly, Word of Faith teachers often had more success attracting adherents with backgrounds in traditional pentecostal circles whereas practitioners of inner healing were more successful among charismatics outside of the pentecostal denominations); though leaders emphasized the role of the mind and of speech in the healing process, healings within the Word of Faith branch of the movement often retained the instantaneous, dramatic character of early pentecostal testimonies. Furthermore, Word of Faith healers such as Hagin described healing as a purely spiritual affair despite their evident prioritization of the mind’s role in healing. Proponents of inner healing, on the other hand,

118 Hagin’s words here are very similar to the quote by Kenyon cited in footnote 60, Kenneth Hagin, “True Spiritual Healing,” The Word of Faith 13, no. 5 (1980): 4-5.

119 Kenneth Copeland, “Leaving the Past Behind,” Believer’s Voice of Victory 16, no. 7 (1988): 14.

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offered a model of healing much further removed from the healing template established by early pentecostals, especially given their explicit appropriation of psychological terminology and their emphasis on the imagination and visualization in the healing process. At the end of the day, Word of Faith ministers’ rejection of psychological forms of healing proved ironic given their own indebtedness to New Thought and their corresponding emphasis on the role of the mind and speech in healing. The rising prioritization of the mind reflected themes that had operated just under the surface in the early movement. By stressing the power of the human mind to mediate supernatural power to an extent that earlier adherents never did, both Word of Faith and inner healing practitioners played crucial roles in elevating metaphysical conceptions of the healing process to a new level of prominence among pentecostals and charismatics. As such the trends discussed in this chapter served as one more area of innovation in pentecostal healing wherein pentecostals and charismatics “humanized” and “naturalized” healing to fit with developments in modern forms of healing without relinquishing pentecostals’ longstanding critique of thoroughly naturalistic models of the healing process.

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CHAPTER FIVE

HEALING THE WOUNDS OF THE MODERN WORLD: PENTECOSTAL HEALING IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

One hundred years after pentecostalism first emerged in the United States, the notoriety achieved by healers within the movement such as Benny Hinn, one of the most prominent healers of the 1990s and early twenty-first century, offered compelling evidence of the continued power of more traditional forms of pentecostal healing within pentecostal and charismatic circles. Hinn’s crusades featured testimony after testimony of instantaneous healings and deliverance from demonic powers, attracting thousands of individuals hungry to experience God’s healing touch. In one typical meeting, he called forward a woman who testified regarding a lump that disappeared from her chest. With a choir worshiping in the background, Hinn asked the woman to pray with him for those watching the service on television. “Jesus heal the people in their homes,” he prayed. “We command the sickness to leave. . . . We the saints of God command the very devils of hell that afflict the people of God, Come Out! Leave God’s people. Oh, people of God be made whole. Jesus Christ makes you whole.” Following this prayer, Hinn instructed the woman to return to her doctor, promising her that the physician would be transformed by her testimony.1

1 See “Benny Hinn—Miracle Healing—Tumor Disappeared,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pf-XUe_z-8 (accessed August 20, 2008). Stephen Pullum’s description of a 1997 Nashville crusade conducted by Hinn also captures the tenor of the healing evangelist’s services. With the choir singing “Alleluia” in the background, Hinn proclaimed, “Miracles are happening here. . . . You devil of disease, sin, and sickness . . . in Jesus’ name, I order you to let them go; let them go.” Shortly thereafter Hinn received “words of knowledge” from the Holy Spirit regarding healings in the audience. “He then turned to his left and announced that someone was being healed of ‘arthritis,’ ‘cancer,’ ‘bone cancer,’ ‘diabetes,’ ‘eye problems,’ ‘skin condition,’” Pullum writes. A long list of further maladies continued, including a brain tumor, a neck injury, and a bleeding ulcer. Stephen Jackson Pullum, “Foul Demons, Come Out!”: The Rhetoric of Twentieth-Century American Faith Healing (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), 134-39.

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Hinn’s ministry seemed to provide a cautionary tale regarding the impact of increasingly naturalized forms of healing within the movement. As it happens, however, even Hinn began to promote new teachings highlighting the ways in which supernatural power flowed through the material world. His ministry website advertised numerous books related to health and fitness, including books written by authors mentioned throughout this dissertation such as Don Colbert, Jordan Rubin, and Ted Broer. It also offered tips on nutrition, exercise plans, and dietary supplements, as well as links to medical non-profits such as the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association.2 Perhaps even more telling, Hinn’s personal doctor was none other than Don Colbert. In large part Colbert’s leap into the national spotlight could be traced back to a prophecy Hinn gave regarding Colbert indicating that the physician would impact millions with his message of health and healing.3 Hinn’s words were in fact prophetic. The retooled healing practices promoted by figures such as Colbert and others discussed in this dissertation fit neatly with mainstream healing trends in American culture associated with orthodox and alternative medicine, psychology, and New Thought spirituality, and provided a platform for pentecostal and charismatic healers to spread their message well beyond pentecostal and charismatic circles. Books and healing products sold by pentecostals and charismatics increasingly appeared in stores such as Wal-Mart and other big- name retailers, while figures such as Rubin and Cherry developed their own television programs broadcast on Christian networks. Pentecostals and charismatics’ appropriation of rival healing techniques illuminated believers’ ability to compromise and adapt their message to coincide with consumerist and therapeutic sensibilities, yet it also revealed their increasingly creative and transformational relationship with key aspects of modern American culture. By softening the dualism of the early movement and opening up a dialogue with metaphysical groups in the United States, pentecostals and charismatics crafted their own particular brand of spiritually infused materialism—a brand which they marketed with remarkable success.

2 See http://www.bennyhinn.org (accessed November 13, 2006).

3 See Maureen D. Eha, “He’s Got the Cure,” Charisma 29, no. 4 (2003): 42-52. The article can be accessed at http://charismamag.com/articles/index.php?id=8169 (accessed September 14, 2008).

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The Consumerization of Pentecostal Healing The changes in pentecostal and charismatic healing over the course of the twentieth century reflected believers’ growing comfort level with key aspects of American society, especially the consumer-oriented nature of the American fitness and diet industry. Put simply, pentecostals and charismatics’ willingness to combine divine healing with medical and dietary regimens made the healing process more predictable and therefore more marketable. To be sure, pentecostals evidenced an entrepreneurial spirit from the beginning. The historian Grant Wacker notes how early believers hawked everything from Christian Hero books, to Precious Promise Boxes, to “The Leak-Proof Wigglesworth Anointing Bottle.” The flamboyant pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson even attempted to sell burial plots next to her own using the advertising slogan, “Go Up with Aimee!”4 Furthermore, Jonathan Baer’s work on early pentecostal healing up through 1930 highlights the parallel between early pentecostalism’s emphasis on divine healing and an American culture increasingly drawn to a “plethora of products for enhancing bodily presentation.”5 A key distinction separating Baer and Wacker’s observations regarding early pentecostalism from later developments lay in pentecostals and charismatics’ newfound ability to explicitly commodify one of the core traits of pentecostal and charismatic identity—namely, divine healing. Pentecostals and charismatics developed their own tangible healing products and competed for the billions of dollars Americans spent each year on health and fitness. Though it can be argued that healing throughout the movement’s history reflected a consumer mentality and at least some semblance of an economic exchange—in other words, for an offer of faith adherents confidently expected to receive healing in return—never before had this economic model taken such a concrete form.6 The traditional emphasis on faith healing by no means

4 Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 138, 33.

5 Jonathan R. Baer, “Perfectly Empowered Bodies: Divine Healing in Modernizing America” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2002), 3.

6 The rising socioeconomic status of the average pentecostal since the mid-twentieth century makes the connection between more recent pentecostal/charismatic healing trends and economic models more plausible than would have been the case during the early days of the movement.

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disappeared within the movement. Increasingly, however, a healthy dose of money was needed to supplement one’s faith.7 Many of the pentecostal and charismatic healers mentioned throughout this dissertation spearheaded the commodification of healing within the movement. Reginald Cherry’s promotion of natural healing substances in conjunction with divine healing allowed him to offer an entire line of natural supplements, sold through his website www.abundantnutrition.com, that dovetailed with the insights he gleaned from scripture. Assuring his customers that “God wants you to be healthy so you can be a light to the world,” Cherry’s products ranged from $15.95 for a one-month supply of the “Digestion Support” tablets to $49.95 for a one-month supply for “Basic Nutrient Support.” (This is not to mention his supplements for “Men’s Potency Support” that sold for $39.95 for a one-month supply.)8 Jordan Rubin’s combination of biblical and scientific prescriptions also created predictable pathways to healing based on the use of natural substances. Like Cherry, Rubin parlayed these predictable pathways into his own nutritional supplement company, Garden of Life, Inc., based out of West Palm Beach, Florida. Popular supplements such as “Primal Defense,” “Virgin Coconut Oil,” and “FYI (For Your Inflammation)” fueled the rapid expansion of the business. As an indication of the success and appeal of Rubin’s company, sales in 2003 alone reached $43.2 million, and in 2004 a mainstream financial publication listed Garden of Life as the fifth-fastest growing company in the United States.9 Likewise, the incorporation of predictable, science-based remedies alongside spiritual

7 This is not to say that past pentecostal and charismatic healers have not implied (and in some cases even explicitly stated) that financial gifts will lead to healing. In fact, leaders within the Word of Faith wing of the pentecostal/charismatic movement in particular frequently emphasized the importance of “seed-faith” (which is frequently associated with monetary donations and tithing) that in turn resulted in every sort of blessing for the giver, including healing. Nevertheless, even these examples do not go quite as far as the trends I am discussing here in that they do not offer tangible healing products that are purchased for healing. For more and the concept of “seed-faith” and Oral Roberts’s role in popularizing the teaching, see David Edwin Harrell, Oral Roberts: An American Life (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 460-63.

8 “About Dr. Cherry,” http://www.drcherry.com/aboutcherry.asp (accessed December 26, 2006). Scott Billingsley briefly addresses the financial ventures of many of the charismatic figures mentioned below in Scott Billingsley, It’s a New Day: Race and Gender in the Modern Charismatic Movement (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2008), 89-90.

9 For further information regarding Rubin’s writings and products, see http://www.gardenoflifeusa.com (accessed December 26, 2006); http://www.makersdiet.com/ (accessed December 26, 2006); http://www.biblicalhealthinstitute.com (accessed February 28, 2007); and Alex

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healing allowed Don Colbert to sell not only a lot of books, but also a lot of his “Divine Health Nutritional Products.” According to his website, his company received over 3.5 million online requests for his products in less than a year and a half.10 In addition to Cherry, Rubin, and Colbert, other prominent leaders also cashed in on recent changes in pentecostal and charismatic healing, though with less concern for linking the use of their products to biblical precedents. Lee Haney, an eight-time Mr. Olympia who hosted a fitness program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, combined his message for health and wellbeing with a line of nutritional products dubbed “Lee Haney’s Nutritional Support Systems.” Sold at GNC stores around the nation, Haney’s products ranged from the more typical multivitamins to “Competitive Nitro” designed to “enhance the muscles ability to retain Nitrogen for muscle growth” and protein blends geared towards building muscle. “It has been said, ‘knowledge is power,’” he wrote on his website. “If you believe that statement, then ‘We’ve Got The Power to Empower You.’ (II Samuel 22:33).”11 Likewise, Pat Robertson, often better known for his forays into politics as opposed to his involvement in health and healing within the movement, created a diet shake that was eventually marketed by GNC, Inc.,12 while the nationally recognized charismatic pastors of the 26,000 member Without Walls International in Tampa, FL, Randy and Paula White, promoted the dietary supplement Omega XL. A

Johnson, “And God Said: Let There Be Lite,” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6680007/ (accessed February 28, 2007). Entrepreneur Magazine ranked Garden of Life number five on their list of fastest- growing companies in the United States in 2004, “2004 Hot 100,” http://www.entrepreneur.com/hot100/2004.html (accessed February 28, 2007). In part due to this success, Rubin’s products and claims have received greater scrutiny than many of the other pentecostal/charismatic healers with similar products. In 2004, the FDA ordered Rubin’s company to retract its unsubstantiated claims regarding the efficacy of its products. Again in 2006, the FTC filed a complaint and consent agreement that led Rubin’s company to pay $225,000 as a penalty for making unsupported claims regarding four specific supplements. See “Dietary Supplement Maker Garden of Life Settles FTC Charges,” Federal Trade Commission for Consumers, http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/03/gardenoflife.htm (accessed February 28, 2007).

10 For a description of the products associated with “Divine Health Nutritional Products,” see http://www.drcolbert.com (accessed March 3, 2008). The website kept a running total of the number of requests since January 2, 2007, at the bottom of the opening page.

11 “Lee Haney: TotaLee Fit,” http://www.tbn.org/index.php/2/4/p/31.html (accessed April 9, 2008). Also see http://www.leehaney.com/ (accessed April 9, 2008).

12 Bill Sizemore, “Is Anything Wrong with Pat Robertson Making a Killing? ‘Age-Defying’ Shake Stirs Questions About Business Practices and Nonprofit Status,” The Washington Post, August 26, 2005.

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combination of “marine sterols and lipid fractions,” Omega XL was billed by its producers as the “the most effective delivery system that assists in treating inflammatory disorders by inhibiting the 5-lipoxygenase pathway.” A thirty minute infomercial aired in approximately one hundred fifty markets via stations that typically carried religious programming.13 Similar product appeals were made by the charismatic televangelist James Robison who promoted vitamins on behalf of TriVita, Inc.14 Pentecostal and charismatic healers who focused more specifically on weight loss and physical appearance likewise developed various products to promote health and healing during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Besides her numerous books, for example, Stormie Omartian, a singer, dancer, and television actress who eventually embraced pentecostal-style Christianity, produced Stormie Omartian’s First Step Workout Video consisting of “an all-new, 28-minute, easy workout featuring tension releasing, toning and stretching, firming and strengthening, and non- impact exercises.”15 Merchandise produced by other pentecostals and charismatics ranged from low-calorie cookbooks to Kim Grebosky’s Nutrition and Kids Adventure “Award Winning ‘3-D Animated’ interactive CD-ROM game,” offered via the Trinity Broadcast Network, that aimed at transforming the eating habits of children.16

13 See http://www.omegaxl.com/omegaxl.htm (accessed November 13, 2006). The product cost $49.95 for a one-month supply; for each bottle sold the Whites in turn received $5.00. For more regarding the Omega XL, see Michael Sasso, “Preachers of Profit,” The Tampa Tribune, May 14, 2006.

14 See Ibid. Though TriVita’s website was not explicitly geared towards a Christian audience, it did reflect strong religious overtones. The welcome page prominently displayed a link to a customer testimonial detailing how a negative diagnosis led to a new commitment to “wellness, family, and God.” A separate page listed ten essentials to healthy living; number ten involved developing a relationship with God. See http://www.trivita.com (accessed December 26, 2006).

15 Omartian’s testimony can be found at Stormie Omartian, as told to ‘Leen Pollinger, “Breaking Down the Door,” Aglow: For the Spirit Renewed Christian Woman 20, no. 1 (1989): 6-8. Following serious bouts with depression and suicidal thoughts, Omartian embraced pentecostalism after meeting Jack Hayford, the influential pastor of a large pentecostal Foursquare church in California. Following her conversion experience, Omartian eventually put her talents to use for Christian audiences, writing various books aimed especially at evangelical women, and producing other fitness products such as the workout video mentioned above. R. Marie Griffith briefly discusses Omartian in “The Promised Land of Weight Loss,” http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=249 (accessed June 10, 2008).

16 See “Nutrition and Kids Adventure,” http://www.parable.com/tbn/item_MFPM040606001.htm (accessed May 19, 2007). The advertisement promoted the interactive CD as a means to teach “‘HEALTHY EATING’ to get your kids and family off to a healthy start.” The product allowed children to “[j]oin ‘Bear, Banana Dana, Side-Kick Leaf and the Professor’ on this animated journey through

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It is important to note how the explicit commodification of healing with the movement at times encouraged believers to downplay traditional pentecostal and charismatic emphases in order to appeal to a broader audience. Some pentecostal and charismatic weight loss gurus, for example, began to apply the language of deliverance to fat and calories while deemphasizing the role of direct conflict with evil spirits. The comments by some of the writers mentioned in Chapter 3 began to move in this direction, yet at least a few individuals in the movement since the 1990s at times appeared to totally excise the more dramatic associations between weight loss and direct spiritual warfare with Satan or actual demonic powers. Pamela Smith’s writings consistently illustrated the growing tendency among at least some pentecostals and charismatics to omit explicitly supernatural references in their discourse. For Smith, a frequent contributor to Charisma during the 1990s on matters related to nutrition and fitness who also worked with NBA athletes and with Hyatt Hotels and Resorts, deliverance equaled a release “from the dieting mind-set and embarking on a lifestyle of health.” In one typical article on diet, she pointed to studies highlighting the role of vegetables in reducing the risk of diseases and in particular cancer. She then recommended that her readers buy locally grown, colorful produce that was “as fresh as possible,” and also directed them to steam, microwave, stir-fry, or pressure cook them in order to preserve their nutritional content. The only religious reference in the column occurred in the last sentence when she encouraged readers to “read Daniel 1 for inspiration.” As with much of her writings, no references were made to demonic powers or spiritual warfare; Smith’s contributions to Charisma in fact frequently contained only a minimal amount of explicitly religious content much less explicitly pentecostal or charismatic rhetoric.17 Kara Davis, another voice calling for the faithful to transform their bodies, sounded identical themes. Like Ward, Copeland, and Smith, Davis incorporated the language of deliverance to describe weight loss. “Instead of cutting calories and restricting or eliminating those foods that contribute to poor health,” she instructed, “a food addict craves them, never associating them with bondage to illness, medications and hospitalizations.” “The solution to organic gardens, pyramids of food, into the doctor’s office and finally graduating to the secret room with all the characters waiting with cap and gown to congratulate you.”

17 Pamela Smith, “Diet Deliverance,” Charisma 18, no. 7 (1993): 88; and Pamela Smith, “Your Mom Was Right,” Charisma 19, no. 3 (1993): 120.

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any addiction,” she concluded, “is deliverance.”18 That Davis was intent on downplaying the more traditional notions of spiritual warfare within the movement became apparent in her discussion of the importance of fasting. Insisting that “[a]ny Christian who is trying to lose weight must make fasting and prayer regular practices for life,” she related the story of Jesus’ healing of a demon possessed boy recounted in the New Testament book of Mark. When Jesus’ disciples asked him why they were unable to cast the spirit out of the boy, he responded, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” In her rendition of the story, however, Davis specifically elided the demonic aspects of the biblical account. In the biblical text, the boy’s father told Jesus and his disciples that his son had “a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.” The father specifically requested that Jesus cast the demon out of the boy. Davis, on the other hand, simply indicated that that the father “knelt before Christ and asked that He heal his son.” “The man described the illness and added that Jesus’ other disciples had tried,” Davis continued, “but they were unable to heal the boy. Jesus then healed the child in the presence of His disciples.”19 Davis’s careful substitution of the language of healing in place of the more specific language of exorcism freed her to apply Jesus’ words regarding the power of fasting to weight loss and not simply to demonic possession, yet it also signaled the growing tendency among some pentecostal and charismatic writers to moderate the traditional emphasis within the movement on dramatic encounters with supernatural forces. In the process, these figures recast traditional pentecostal themes in a manner that was less likely to alienate non-pentecostal or non- charismatic readers. While many pentecostals and charismatics continued to incorporate their unique brand of overt supernaturalism into their weight-loss rhetoric as seen in Chapter 3, some figures within the movement since the 1990s frequently felt more comfortable battling metaphorical inner demons as opposed to the vivid supernatural powers their forbearers confronted.

18 Kara Davis, “Why Is the Church So Fat?” Charisma 29, no. 12 (2004): 47.

19 Kara Davis, Spiritual Secrets to Weight Loss (Lake Mary, FL: Siloam Press, 2002), 208-9. Scripture reference taken from Mark 9:14-29, NRSV, and Mark 9:29, AMP.

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Similar tendencies appeared in the writings of those pentecostals and charismatics’ trumpeting the healing powers of natural substances. When figures such as Colbert and Rubin described a world full of dangerous chemicals and touted the importance of detoxification, for example, they transposed early believers’ vision of a world contaminated by evil spirits into a naturopathic key, describing a world contaminated instead by toxins. More than just exorcism, the world was in desperate need of natural cleansing. Analogous developments accompanied pentecostals and charismatics’ acceptance of psychological models of healing. In 1986 David Hazard informed Charisma readers that ministers in the past would have “cast a ‘demon of irresponsibility’” out of a husband not fulfilling his role as a husband. “In 1986, we pray him through a series of images.”20 Hazard’s comments highlighted a growing tendency among a number of pentecostals and charismatics to substitute psychological methods of healing in place of traditional spiritual warfare.21 Changing approaches to homosexuality among some pentecostals and charismatics’ epitomized the growing influence of psychological models of healing. The majority of pentecostals and charismatics never considered abandoning the traditional Christian condemnation of homosexuality, yet a growing number of believers did begin to recommend inner healing methodologies as a means to transform homosexuals’ sexual orientation.22 To be sure, into the early twenty-first century many references continued to appear in pentecostal and charismatic literature claiming transformations of believers’ sexuality apart from anything resembling inner healing or psychological therapy. Testimonies such as these stood much closer to early models of healing in the movement; they also often appeared among individuals with

20 David Hazard, “An inside Look at Inner Healing,” Charisma 12, no. 2 (1986): 48-49.

21 Not all adherents were moving in this direction. As the writings of Peter Wagner and Frank Peretti suggest, fascination with demons was still alive and well for many adherents. In particular Wagner advocated mapping out the domains of specific types of demons over specific regions, which in turn would enhance the effectiveness of believers’ prayers, see C. Peter Wagner, Breaking Strongholds in Your City: How to Use Spiritual Mapping to Make Your Prayers More Strategic, Effective, and Targeted (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1993); C. Peter Wagner, Warfare Prayer: How to Seek God’s Power and Protection in the Battle to Build His Kingdom (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1992). Peretti’s popular novels likewise contained heavy doses of spiritual warfare, see esp. Frank E. Peretti, This Present Darkness (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1986); and Frank E. Peretti, Piercing the Darkness (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1989).

22 Notable exceptions include the National Gay Pentecostal Alliance and the Apostolic Intercessory Ministry, see http://pages.prodigy.net/evlewis51/ (accessed June 10, 2008).

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much closer ties to traditional pentecostalism and formal pentecostal denominations. “Philosophy, psychology, religious creeds and doctrines were all slippery rocks that could not be grasped,” wrote one believer who turned to David Wilkerson’s pentecostal Teen Challenge ministry for help to remove his sexual attraction to other men. “I needed a foundation. I found it in the Word of God.”23 The author’s total reliance on divine assistance to the exclusion of other methodologies mirrored the assumptions articulated by Teen Challenge’s founder. “The same Christ who cures heroin addicts also cures and delivers prostitutes, homosexuals, lesbians, and all demon-harassed souls,” Wilkerson wrote. “All social agencies combined, with their money and knowledge, cannot deliver a single soul from the bondage of sex, drugs or alcohol.”24 In contrast to the approach articulated by Wilkerson, many of the authors involved in the inner healing movement saw their newly minted ministries as possessing the types of resources needed to provide an alternative option to the increasing acceptance of homosexuality among medical professionals and the American public more generally. Instead of focusing on demon possession, one proponent of inner healing described homosexuality as the “the outworking of any number of breakdowns and dysfunctions in the early formation of individual identity. Most often these reach back to basic parent/child relationships and result in a warped or underdeveloped sense of one’s own gender, perhaps the most fundamental building block in personality development.” By extension, with these wounds in place individuals proved “unsure of their sexual identity” and instead searched for “assurance [of their sexual identity] through same-sex ‘bonding,’ expressed sexually.” Through the ministry of inner healing, however, a growing number of pentecostal and especially charismatic ministers held up the possibility of healing these wounds from the past—and by extension changing a person’s sexual orientation— through identification with Christ.25 “Too often we’ve seen pentecostal churches trying to cast out the demon of homosexuality,” explained Andy Comisky in a discussion with Charisma, “while non-charismatics promise that by believing the right thing, it will go away. [ . . ] The idea that you can be a committed Christian and still be beset by homosexual urges is very threatening

23 Roger Dean, “Homosexual Completely Delivered,” The Cross and the Switchblade 11, no. 3 (1973): 5.

24 David Wilkerson, “The 100% Cure,” The Cross and the Switchblade 11, no. 3 (1973): 3.

25 Davin Seay, “Hope for the Homosexual,” Charisma 11, no. 12 (1986): 35.

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to some people.”26 For her part, Ruth Carter Stapleton insisted that homosexuals needed “our love, plus more searching self-knowledge, plus the opportunity to meet the Christ who loves homosexuals and who died to give them life and wholeness, just as he did for the ‘less condemned, just-as-guilty, respectable’ people.”27 Though the significance of pentecostals and charismatics’ turn to inner healing to address the issue of homosexuality can be explored from a variety of angles, and despite the fact that most psychologists by the 1970s and 80s would have recoiled at pentecostals and charismatics’ condemnation of homosexuality, most importantly for this study is the way in which adherents’ changing approaches to homosexuality revealed a move away from demonic explanations of same-sex attraction in favor of a psychological model. In sum, on a variety of levels the transformation of pentecostal healing over the course of the twentieth century indicated a significant degree of accommodation by pentecostals and charismatics to modern American culture. Healers within the movement marketed divine healing in the form of various dietary supplements and products as they learned to compete for the billions of dollars Americans spent on improving their health each year. The commodification of healing in the movement in fact can be interpreted as placing a spiritual stamp of approval on American consumer culture.28 As adherents tailored their message of divine healing to accommodate trends within the wider culture and appeal to a broader audience, a growing number of healers pushed the overt supernaturalism characteristic of the early movement into the background, applying the traditional pentecostal language of spiritual warfare to weight, toxic chemicals, and a variety of psychological issues instead.

Pentecostal Healing in the late Twentieth Century as Revitalization Pentecostal and charismatic believers’ growing affinity to American consumer culture and their willingness to downplay the overt supernaturalism of the early movement suggested a

26 Quoted in Ibid.: 34-35.

27 Ruth Carter Stapleton, The Gift of Inner Healing (Carmel, NY: Guideposts, 1976), 64-72.

28 This reading of the movement coincides with Candy Gunther Brown’s observation that late- twentieth-century pentecostals and charismatics implicitly reinforced consumerism by stressing the fact that divine healing could and should occur “in the marketplace” as opposed to traditional religious contexts such as churches or tents. See Candy Gunther Brown, “From Tent Meetings and Store-Front Healing Rooms to Walmarts and the Internet: Healing Spaces in the United States, the Americas, and the World, 1906-2006,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 75 (2006): 638-39.

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significant degree of compromise and adaptation, yet a model of acculturation alone does not adequately capture the dynamics driving the transformation of believers’ healing practices by the late twentieth century, or the extent to which pentecostal and charismatic healing impacted American society and transformed the healthcare market. In particular, a model of acculturation obscures the fact that pentecostals and charismatics actively nurtured metaphysical tendencies in the movement in an attempt to create harmony between natural and supernatural forms of healing, and it hides the way in which adherents greatly broadened their impact on outsiders by embracing these changes. Whereas acculturation suggests a passive acquiescence to the norms within American society, in reality, pentecostal and charismatic healers very deliberately combined rival healing methodologies with divine healing and then used the new hybrid forms of healing as a tool for transforming and revitalizing that same society. Just as some pentecostals and charismatics employed psychological methodologies to challenge the growing acceptance of homosexuality among medical professionals and the broader public, believers’ spiritualization of other natural healing methods likewise served as a means to confront the thoroughgoing naturalism that they associated with the medical establishment. Again, this is not to deny the very real forms of adaptation and acquiescence. Adaptation and acquiescence, however, were only part of the story. In his well-known discussion of cultural changes, Anthony F. C. Wallace isolates particular dynamics that allow for rapid transformations of religious groups. He stresses the transformative energy inherent within “revitalization movements,” which are characterized by a “deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture.29 Wallace stipulates that successful revitalization movements respond to “various

29 For Wallace, the impetus for change within these groups derives from believers’ sense on some basic level that their “cultural system is unsatisfactory.” This dissatisfaction spurs adherents’ very active participation in the renovation of their religious culture, which in turn allows for the rapid reorientation of the cultural values within the community as they draw on a source of change that goes beyond the usual suspects such as “evolution, drift, diffusion, historical change, [and] acculturation.” In a direct connection to the focus on healing within this dissertation, success for Wallace hinges on the ability of these spiritual practices to reduce “stress generating situations,” Anthony F. C. Wallace, “Revitalization Movements,” American Anthropologist 58, no. 2 (1956): esp. 265, 274-75. It is important to acknowledge that the term “revitalization movement” has often been applied to dispossessed groups operating outside mainstream American Christianity, and some scholars see the term as an attempt by post-World War II social scientists to associate these groups with something other than true “religion” (despite the fact that Wallace applied his theory to both marginalized and non-marginalized traditions). Furthermore, Wallace’s focus on social stress and cultural crisis as the impetus for revitalization has led scholars such

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criticisms and affirmations by adding to, emphasizing, playing down, and eliminating selected elements of the original visions.” Significantly, the compromise cuts both ways; more important than the pragmatic adaptability of revitalization movements is the way in which this adaptability facilitates the successful transformation of the broader culture.30 As it happens, Wallace’s conception of revitalization movements illuminates key aspects of the changes within pentecostal and charismatic healing in the latter decades of the twentieth century. For a variety of reasons including the rising prestige of the medical establishment, changing class dynamics within the movement, as well as the appearance of charismatic renewal, adherents became increasingly unsatisfied with early pentecostals’ longstanding resistance to medical and other natural approaches to healing. This dissatisfaction led many believers to renegotiate their stance towards rival healers, and in particular towards metaphysical healers in the United States who frequently drew on scientific terminology to discuss their understanding of the supernatural. Instead of simply imbibing the healing practices prevalent in American society, however, pentecostals and charismatics reworked those same practices into new hybrid approaches that specifically Christianized traditional medicine, alternative medicine, and psychology. The proactive, transformative element in pentecostals and charismatics’ reconfigured approaches to healing appeared time and time again in the late twentieth century. Consider the

as Sean McCloud to stress the importance of human agency and creativity as equally important players within these traditions. While I agree with McCloud regarding the importance of finding “an alternative to the deprivation, cultural crisis, evolutionary, and biologically deterministic theories” by exploring the “complex connections between human agency, cultural constraint, material conditions, social locations, and religion,” I believe Wallace’s definition of revitalization movements as a “deliberate, organized, conscious effort . . . to construct a more satisfying culture” opens the door wide for a strong element of human agency within his theory. Regardless, following McCloud (and Wallace), my goal in this chapter is to simultaneously highlight the discontent created by pentecostals and charismatics’ changing socioeconomic status within an American culture increasingly shaped by therapeutic assumptions while also stressing adherents’ creative response to these underlying factors. See Sean McCloud, Divine Hierarchies: Class in American Religion and Religious Studies (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), esp. 75-101, quotation 101.

30 There are two different ways of conceptualizing pentecostalism as a revitalization movement, both of which work in terms of my argument here. First, the healers discussed in this dissertation can be considered a revitalization movement within pentecostal and charismatic circles that changed the culture of pentecostalism. On a much broader level, the pentecostal movement as a whole can be thought of as a revitalization movement impacting and on some level transforming the broader American society as well. When I use the term revitalization movement here I have this broader application of the term in mind.

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way in which many of the healers discussed within this dissertation were very explicit about their desire to merge supernatural healing with natural, scientifically based methodologies and renovate believers’ approach to what had been rival forms of healing. The paradigmatic figure within the movement in this regard was Oral Roberts. When Roberts described his vision for the City of Faith, his healing complex consisting of a hospital, clinic, and medical research center, he pictured a place where “some of the greatest medical scientists of the world seeking a breakthrough for cancer, and heart disease, and studying the problems of aging, and researching in other problem areas in an atmosphere that’s filled with prayer and faith.”31 All in all, Roberts envisioned a “new concept in medical science,”32 a “coming together for the first time, at least in my lifetime of the great healing systems of God [i.e. medical and divine healing].”33 William Standish Reed, Roberts’s friend and early proponent of pentecostal and charismatic doctors likewise advocated for a deliberate merger of scientific and religious healing. “Medicine and nursing,” he insisted, “must be seen as holy ministries utilizing believing prayer as their greatest therapeutic instrument of compassion.”34 The deliberate and conscious nature of prominent leaders’ efforts to transform the movement’s relationship to medical and natural forms of healing also appeared in the attempts by figures such as Rubin, Cherry, and Colbert to simultaneously appeal to both biblical and scientific sources of authority to validate their approach to healing. As detailed in Chapter 3, these authors repeatedly referenced both scientific studies and biblical precedents in an effort to establish the validity of their healing regimens. “Are you looking for a health plan that is biblically based and scientifically proven?” Rubin asked on the dust jacket of his bestselling The Maker’s Diet. “The Maker’s Diet is just that.”35 As the promotional materials for another

31 Oral Roberts, “The Master Plan God Has Given Me,” Abundant Life 31, no. 11 (1977): 7.

32 Oral Roberts, “I Believe the Cure for Cancer Has a Spiritual Origin,” Abundant Life 31, no. 1 (1977): 2.

33 Oral Roberts, “God Still Heals Today—He Is Just Using Different ‘Delivery Systems’,” Abundant Life 30, no. 1 (1976): 16.

34 William Standish Reed, “Is It Time for a New Medicine?,” Logos 9 (1979): 12-13. Also see “Christian Medical Foundation International,” http://wwmedical.com/cmf/ (accessed May 15, 2007).

35 Jordan Rubin, The Maker’s Diet (Lake Mary, FL: Siloam Press, 2004), 130.

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charismatic figure’s nutritional system proclaimed, “There is really no mystery to it.” “[E]verything Dr. Broer teaches is biblically based and nutritionally sound!”36 Similar impulses to explicitly merge secular and spiritual forms of healing animated the ministers of inner healing mentioned in Chapter 4. Ruth Carter Stapleton described the “revolutionary discovery,” initially identified by Jesus himself, that “nothing is secular, that every day, every person, every principle rooted in truth and life is sacred, therefore spiritual.” “Dedicated Christians have ‘discovered’ the corollary truth,” she continued, “that even psychology is filled with insights and concepts that are spiritual—though they are found in a ‘secular’ context.” Based on these observations, Stapleton concluded that “[t]o be led through secular psychological disciplines by the Holy Spirit is to be led into the experience of emotional healing. And this means that one is reconstructed by the Holy Spirit of God.”37 In the words Martin Lynch, a Catholic charismatic commenting on these trends for Charisma magazine, “The inner healing movement has paved the way for an authentic Christian psychology.” “We feel driven by the wind of the Holy Spirit to undo these deceptions [of secular psychology],” he continued, “replacing them with a new, sacred psychology.”38 Despite the fact that the majority of the individuals leading the inner healing movement carefully distinguished their practices from secular psychotherapy, at the end of the day, what they offered amounted to a form of psychotherapy not only condoned by God but also predicated on God’s willingness to participate in the therapeutic process. A contributor to Aglow who experienced relief from her problems when God broke “through the torture of my mind” graphically illustrated pentecostals and charismatics’ appropriation of psychological methodologies. In the midst of her ordeal, God told her, “I will be your psychiatrist.”39 Individuals within the Word of Faith branch of

36 Ted Broer developed a DVD series offered through the ministry of Rod Parsley, a popular charismatic minister. Parsley’s ministry website touted Broer’s credentials as “one of America’s leading experts on nutrition.” See “Health Beyond Limits,” https://www.breakthrough.net/HealthBeyondLimits/index.asp (accessed May 18, 2007). Bennie Hinn also offered Broer’s books via his website.

37 Ruth Carter Stapleton, The Experience of Inner Healing (Carmel, NY: Guideposts, 1976), 7-8.

38 Hazard, “Inside Look at Inner Healing,” 48.

39 Following this divine encounter, the author received revelations regarding the source of her troubles, beginning with her “warped attitude toward marriage” and her awareness that “for eighteen

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pentecostalism proved much more reticent in acknowledging their debt to secular forms of healing, but even here figures closely linked to Word of Faith such as Joyce Meyer and T.D. Jakes repeatedly incorporated popular psychological jargon into their books.40 Significantly, the end result of pentecostals and charismatics’ reconfigured healing practices was broad influence and exposure within the broader evangelical world and within American society more generally. Among evangelicals, pentecostals and charismatics were key players in the rising prominence of the use of natural healing substances in healing and in the emergence of hybrid psychological-spiritual forms of healing associated with inner healing. Regarding the latter, figures such as Leanne Payne, an Episcopal laywoman heavily involved in the inner healing movement and strongly influenced by Agnes Sanford, found an audience not simply among pentecostals and (especially) charismatics, but also within the broader evangelical world as well. Her book addressing the interconnections between Christian theology, psychology, and the healing of the emotions, Restoring the Christian Soul, for example, received Christianity Today’s “Critics’ Choice” award.41 Ruth Carter Stapleton, the Southern Baptist sister of the former President Jimmy Carter discussed in Chapter 4, likewise participated in the charismatic renewal and helped spread charismatic emphases within evangelical circles.42 While it is true that a number of evangelical ministers unaffiliated with the pentecostal- charismatic movement to varying degrees combined spiritual and psychological healing, this should not detract from the influence of pentecostals and charismatics’ unique emphases.43

years I had lived as a rebellious wife.” Bitterness over her husbands’ demand for submission proved the “cause of much of my mental and physical pain and also my falling away from God,” Phyllis Wells, “My Psychiatrist,” Aglow: For the Spirit Renewed Christian Woman, no. 35 (1978): 9.

40 See Chapter 4.

41 See Leanne Payne, Restoring the Christian Soul: Overcoming Barriers to Completion in Christ through Healing Prayer (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996).

42 Gary Ferngren, for example, includes Stapleton as an example of healing trends within evangelical and fundamentalist circles, Gary B. Ferngren, “The Evangelical-Fundamentalist Tradition,” in Caring and Curing, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Darrel W. Amundsen (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986), 501.

43 Well known evangelical psychologists include James Dobson, Frank Minirth and Paul Meier. See James C. Dobson, Dare to Discipline (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1970); Paul D. Meier, Frank B. Minirth, and Donald Ratcliff, Bruised and Broken: Understanding and Healing Psychological Problems (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992); Frank B. Minirth, Christian Psychiatry (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1977); Paul D. Meier, Frank B. Minirth, and Frank B. Wichern, Introduction to Psychology and

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Pentecostals and charismatics stood out in their continued emphasis on the possibility of dramatic transformations. As mentioned earlier, healers associated with the movement have been among the most prominent voices among conservative Christians in the United States claiming the ability to transform a person’s sexual orientation. As one former Methodist noted, he “had to be dragged ‘kicking and screaming’ into the charismatic movement.” He changed his mind, however, “when he learned of the charismatic ties of most ex-gay organizations.”44 In addition to helping spread practices associated with an overtly spiritualized psychology among evangelicals, many of the individuals within the Christian diet world who found success among evangelicals have also had pentecostal or charismatic ties. While there certainly were very successful figures along these lines who were not connected to the movement—George Malkmus and Gwen Shamblin come to mind—it is striking just how many of the prominent figures associated with these trends hailed from a pentecostal or charismatic background and published their works via charismatic presses.45 R. Marie Griffith’s work on the modern Christian diet movement among evangelicals illustrates this trend. Joan Cavanaugh, Neva Coyle, Frances Hunter, T.D. Jakes, Patricia Kreml, Lisa Bevere, Pamela Smith, Ann Thomas, and LaVita Weaver—Griffith incorporates all of these pentecostal and charismatic writers to various degrees into her work. The fact that Griffith frequently does not highlight each of these authors’ pentecostal or charismatic connections demonstrates the appeal of their message to a broader evangelical audience.46

Counseling: Christian Perspectives and Applications (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1982); and Frank B. Minirth and Paul D. Meier, Happiness Is a Choice: A Manual on the Symptoms, Causes, and Cures of Depression (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1978).

44 Ken Walker, “Houston Church Reaches Homosexuals,” Charisma 22, no. 10 (1997): 30.

45 A former Southern Baptist pastor, Malkmus is best known for his “Hallelujah Diet,” George H. Malkmus, Peter Shockey, and Stowe Shockey, The Hallelujah Diet: Experience the Optimal Health You Were Meant to Have (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, 2006). Shamblin, the well-known creator the Weigh-Down Workshop, eventually separated from the Church of Christ and along with her husband began her own denomination, Remnant Fellowship. See John W. Kennedy, “Gwen Shamblin’s New Jerusalem: Remnant Fellowship Grows, but Critics See ‘Graceless Legalism’,” Christianity Today 46, no. 13 (2002): 15-16; and Gwen Shamblin, The Weigh Down Diet (New York: Doubleday, 1997).

46 The influence is not unidirectional—these same trends can be read as an “evanglicalization” of pentecostal and charismatic spirituality considering some of the authors’ tendencies to downplay explicit pentecostal and charismatic emphases.

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Finally, pentecostals and charismatics’ willingness to transform their approach to healing and health has also led to much greater exposure outside of explicitly religious circles. Rubin’s The Maker’s Diet was a New York Times bestseller; the popularity of his book paved the way for the dissemination of his ideas via mainstream media outlets ranging from ABC’s Good Morning America to Newsweek. Colbert’s The Seven Pillars of Health was similarly a New York Times bestseller distributed in mainstream outlets such as Wal-Mart. The dietary supplements of figures such as Rubin were available through non-religious health-food distributors such as Whole Foods Market and the Vitamin Shoppe, while Lee Haney and Pat Robertson’s products were marketed through GNC, Inc. Haney gained additional visibility as the personal trainer for the comedian Steve Harvey.47 The ubiquitous presence of these charismatic and pentecostal healers on various Christian television outlets only added to their potential impact outside of the movement. Figures such as Rubin, Colbert, and Cherry frequently appeared on popular Christian television ranging from Kenneth Copeland’s Believer’s Voice of Victory to Benny Hinn’s This is Your Day! to Jim Bakker’s Jim Bakker Show. High-profile ministers such as Joyce Meyer and John Hagee similarly promoted some of these authors in their ministry magazines and periodicals. This is not to even mention the television programs hosted by these healers such as Cherry’s The Doctor and the Word and Rubin’s The Great Physician’s Rx for Health and Wellness, both shown on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. It is impossible to tell just how many non-pentecostals and non-charismatics (or non- Christians for that matter) have been influenced by these pentecostal and charismatic figures. It seems very safe to say, however, that by opening themselves up to such unprecedented changes in one of the core anchors of pentecostal and charismatic identity—divine healing—pentecostals and charismatic gained significant influence in the broader culture as they spread explicitly Christian forms of divine healing combined with dietary and psychological practices.

47 Harvey, for example, interviewed Haney as part of his morning radio show. Also see Denene Millner, “I Can Whoop Somebody’s Ass,” http://www.mensfitness.com/fitness/strength_training/225?page=1 (accessed June 10, 2008).

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Healing the Wounds of the Modern World In the end, pentecostals and charismatics’ appropriation of alternative healing methodologies illuminates trends within the movement involving much more than adherents’ approach to the healing of the body. Pentecostals and charismatics’ willingness to modify their healing practices speaks to adherents’ keen awareness of their location within a rapidly modernizing society. The push to merge divine healing and medicine, to find parallels between biblical dietary guidelines and modern research in nutrition, and to spiritualize psychology— each points to a very deliberate effort to heal perceived rifts between their faith and the expectations of the surrounding culture and to mitigate apparent conflicts between supernatural and natural forms of healing. Put differently, the changes in pentecostal healing in the latter half of the twentieth century can be read as an attempt to heal the perceived chasm between religion and science. Unwilling to discard their supernatural worldview, but also unwilling to ignore the firmly established authority of medical science especially since the 1920s, believers instead accentuated metaphysical-type assumptions within the movement that allowed them to see God’s hand acting through natural means and define medicine in their own terms. Of course, as historians note, strong affinities between pentecostal spirituality and American culture were hardly a new development within the movement. In his discussion of early pentecostals’ relationship to the broader society in the first three decades of the twentieth century, Grant Wacker explores numerous ways in which pentecostals cultivated a strong pragmatism characterized by “realism,” “practicality,” and accommodation to the “limits of everyday life” that functioned alongside their better-known primitivist impulse.48 Along similar lines, Wallace Best’s study of black religion in Chicago during the Great Migration of African Americans to the North highlights pentecostal figures such as Lucy Smith of All Nations Pentecostal Church who merged the otherworldly sensibilities prominent among southern migrants with very thisworldly sensibilities associated with technological innovations, business acumen, and social outreach.49 In his biography of the early pentecostal leader A. J. Tomlinson, R. G. Robins details the ways in which the saints shared with other Americans the “celebration

48 Wacker, Heaven Below, 13.

49 Wallace D. Best, Passionately Human, No Less Divine: Religion and Culture in Black Chicago, 1915-1952 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), esp. 147-80.

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of innovation and change; cultural optimism; the glorification of science, technology, and power; a dialectic relationship with urbanization, the blurring of regional boundaries; and a social ethic that undermined traditional assumptions about race and gender.”50 For all the affinities linking early pentecostal spirituality and modern American culture, the history of believers’ changing attitudes towards medical science illustrates the emergence of a new pattern wherein adherents very explicitly attempted to minimize the dissonance between their practices and those within the broader culture. Both early pentecostals and their successors never hesitated to draw on the testimony of physicians or other trained professionals who could testify to the reality of pentecostals’ claims. Furthermore, both early pentecostals and their successors steadfastly resisted the methodological materialism associated with the growing prestige of science and technology when it encroached on their traditional religious beliefs and practices. When the methodological materialism fueling the growing prestige of science and technology butted heads with early believers’ religious convictions, however, their religious convictions won the battle handily. As discussed in the preceding chapters, early pentecostals lambasted psychologists and psychiatrists for relativizing the causes and consequences of behaviors that believers deemed sinful, and they mocked individuals such as liberal theologians and physicians whom they believed denied the reality of God’s miraculous intervention in the world. Later leaders within the movement, on the other hand, often proved much more insistent in their search for scientific legitimacy and in their desire to heal the breach between religious and scientific worldviews, especially in the realm of healing. As Christian Smith notes, “[R]eligious actors are quite capable of reclaiming and reinvigorating lost and dormant sacred themes, traditions, and practices; of generating new religious goods while relinquishing others; and of using quintessentially modern tools to strengthen and promote their traditional worldviews and ways of life.”51 Along these very lines, most early pentecostals would have never dreamed that someone from their ranks such as Oral Roberts would not only approve of the use of medicines but actually depict divine healing as a marriage of medicine and spirituality.

50 R.G. Robins, A.J. Tomlinson: Plainfolk Modernist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 37.

51 Christian Smith, American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 100.

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Even those who approved of the use of natural substances to sustain health would have balked at the idea of promoting those natural substances under the banner of divine healing. Combining supernatural healing with “Godless” psychology and psychoanalysis would have made about as much sense to early pentecostals as offering their pulpits to unrepentant atheists. In short, the degree to which later pentecostal and charismatic adherents accepted the authority of experts associated with the fields of medicine, psychology, and alternative healing would have shocked their forbearers. In very explicit fashion prominent figures within the movement sought to resolve the tension between their commitment to supernatural intervention and their fascination with scientific and technological advances. In a culture increasingly beholden to scientific models of healing, metaphysical understandings of the close similarities between the operation of the supernatural and the natural world provided a workable medium in which pentecostal and charismatic adherents could “naturalize” their practices while simultaneously preserving and promoting an emphasis on divine healing. The newly minted forms of pentecostal healing steeped in metaphysical assumptions made key aspects of the pentecostal worldview—such as a commitment to biblical authority and a commitment to God’s active intervention in human affairs—palatable to individuals who may have otherwise been turned off by an overtly politicized form of conservative Christianity or by a more traditional presentation of the Christian faith. The transformation of pentecostal healing illustrated the convergence of pentecostal spirituality with modern American healing practices and the dramatic transition of pentecostals and their successors from a despised minority to major players in mainstream American culture. All of this is not to claim that the days of overt supernaturalism are over among pentecostals and charismatics. Hardly. The popularity of the Canadian-born evangelist Todd Bentley during a 2008 healing revival in Lakeland, FL, belied any such conclusion. Bentley claimed to be aided by the mid-century healing evangelist William Branham’s angel, and his unconventional meetings—which consistently attracted crowds upwards of 10,000 over a period of four months—featured frequent claims to dramatic, instantaneous healings, including several claims of the dead being raised.52 Despite all of the changes within pentecostal healing since the

52 See Cary McMullen, “Florida Outpouring: Internet Draws Thousands to Lakeland Revival,” The Ledger, May 18, 2008, http://www.theledger.com/article/20080518/NEWS/805180341/1004 (accessed

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early 1900s, adherents within the movement at the turn of the twenty-first century did not give up on the possibility of God’s direct and dramatic transformation of their bodies, and some still resisted naturalized healing practices. The newly minted natural and psychological forms of divine healing coexisted with but did not displace more traditional methods of healing.53 That said, the evidence accumulated in this and previous chapters suggests that many pentecostals and charismatics in the latter decades of the twentieth century openly advocated spiritualized natural and psychological methods of health and healing, and they often utilized these avenues to health in place of more traditional prayers for God’s intervention. Even at the revival meetings led by Bentley, the pastor of the local pentecostal church where the revival began was careful to affirm the value of the medical profession, explicitly citing Oral Roberts’s vision of the merger of supernatural and natural methodologies.54 Drawing on outside resources and on longstanding affinities to metaphysical forms of religion already present within early pentecostal spirituality, believers over the course of the

July 23, 2008); Cary McMullen, “Faith-Healing ‘Outpouring’ Overflows Venue,” The Ledger, April 25, 2008, http://www.theledger.com/article/20080425/NEWS/804250386 (accessed July 23, 2008); Paul Steven Ghiringhelli, “Lakeland Outpouring Reaches 50-Day Milestone,” May 22, 2008, http://www.charismamag.com/cms/news/archives/0522081.php (accessed July 23, 2008); and J. Lee Grady, “A Holy Ghost Outbreak in Florida,” April 23, 2008, http://fireinmybones.com/index.php?col=042308~A%20Holy%20Ghost%20Outbreak%20in%20Florida (accessed July 23, 2008). I should also note that the Lakeland revival has by no means received enthusiastic endorsement by all pentecostals or by the Assemblies of God leadership. See Cary McMullen, “Florida Outpouring Revival Concerns Pentecostal Leaders,” The Ledger, June 22, 2008, http://www.theledger.com/article/20080622/NEWS/806220412 (accessed July 23, 2008). Also see J. Lee Grady, “Honest Questions About the Lakeland Revival,” May 14, 2008, http://fireinmybones.com/index.php?col=051408~Honest%20Questions%20About%20the%20Lakeland %20Revival (accessed July 23, 2008). In fact, by August of 2008 Bentley abruptly halted his participation in the meetings due to marital problems and other reports of personal misconduct. Though the local pastor in Lakeland continued to hold meetings, the number of individuals attending the meetings dropped off considerably. See “From the Board of Directors,” http://www.freshfire.ca/ (accessed September 10, 2008).

53 For many scholars of religion today, religion (and culture more broadly) cannot be assumed to be a neat, unified assemblage of symbols and practices. Rather, religious phenomena reflect hybridity, ambivalence, and irony, Robert A. Orsi, “Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion,” in Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice, ed. David D. Hall (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), esp. 11. In many respects, the coexistence of traditional pentecostal and charismatic healing with modernized healing practices reflects these same types of characteristics.

54 “Florida Healing Outpouring,” July 20, 2008, http://www.god.tv/god?region=tb (accessed September 10, 2008).

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twentieth century actively and deliberately crafted a more satisfactory culture of healing that sought to bridge the perceived rift between supernatural and natural approaches to health and healing, as well as pentecostals’ perceived alienation from mainstream culture. In the process, pentecostals and charismatics openly embraced themes associated with traditional and alternative medicine, New Thought spirituality, and psychology, but they also reworked these themes, tailoring them to their own agenda. They openly embraced the modern world like never before—that is, as long it was baptized in the Holy Spirit.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Depositories

Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and Squires Library. Church of God. Cleveland, TN. Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. Assemblies of God. Springfield, MO. Holy Spirit Research Center and Library. Oral Roberts University. Tulsa, OK. International Pentecostal Holiness Church Archives. Bethany, OK. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. New York Public Library, New York, NY.

Primary Sources

I. Periodicals

Abundant Life (Tulsa, OK) Aglow: For the Spirit Renewed Christian Woman (Lynnwood, WA) America’s Healing Magazine (Tulsa, OK) Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles, CA) Believer’s Voice of Victory (Fort Worth, TX) Bridal Call (Los Angeles, CA) Charisma (Lake Mary, FL) Christ for the Nations (Dallas, TX) Christ’s Ambassadors Monthly (Springfield, MO) Church of God Evangel (Cleveland, TN) Cross and the Switchblade (Brooklyn, NY) Deeper Life (San Diego, CA) Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, MN) The Evangelist (Baton Rouge, LA) Full Gospel Business Men’s Voice (Los Angeles, CA) Golden Grain (Seattle, WA, Los Angeles, CA, and Pasadena, CA) Harvest Time (Sarasota, FL) Healing Waters (Tulsa, OK) Herald of Faith (Chicago, IL) John Hagee Ministries (San Antonio, TX) Latter Rain Evangel (Chicago, IL) Leaves of Healing (Chicago, IL) Life in the Word (Fenton, MO) Logos Journal (Plainfield, NJ) Miracle Magazine (Sierra Vista, AZ) Miracle Word (Phoenix, AZ) Mother Earth News (Topeka, KS) Newsweek (New York, NY) New Wine (Fort Lauderdale, FL)

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New York Times (New York, NY) Pentecost (Indianapolis, IN) Pentecostal Evangel (Springfield, MO), Pentecostal Holiness Advocate (Franklin Springs, GA) The Power of the Holy Ghost (Akron, OH) Praise (Houston, TX) St. Petersburg Times (St. Petersburg, FL) Spirit Led Woman (Lake Mary, FL) Triumphs of Faith (Buffalo, NY, and Oakland, CA) Victory (San Diego, CA) The Voice of Deliverance (Dallas, TX) Voice of Healing (Shreveport, LA, and Dallas, TX) Weekly Evangel (St. Louis, MO) Whole Truth (Memphis, TN) Word and Witness (Malvern, AR) Word of Faith (Tulsa, OK) World Harvest (South Bend, IN) World-wide Revival (Dallas, TX)

II. Selected Articles and Books

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Joseph Williams earned his MA in the History of Christianity at Wheaton College, Illinois, in 2002. In 2008 he completed a PhD in American Religious History at Florida State University. He currently lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife, Karen, and daughter, Elise.

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