The Assemblies of God Tradition

The Assemblies of God Tradition Religious Beliefs and Healthcare Decisions By Edith L. Blumhofer he Assemblies of God is a Pentecostal denomina- Ttion that includes some 12,000 congregations nationwide. It claims well over one million members and counts nearly two and a half million worshipers in its churches in any given week. Founded in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1914, its headquarters since 1918 have been in Springfield, Missouri.1 Contents As Pentecostals, Assemblies of God members trace The Individual and the 6 their history to a revival that began in Kansas in Patient-Caregiver Relationship 1901 and flowered in Los Angeles between 1906 and 1908. Marked by a conviction that the end of the Family, Sexuality, and Procreation 7 world was upon them, participants in this revival Genetics 8 believed they were part of an end-times restoration Organ and Tissue Transplantation 9 of the power of New Testament Christianity, complete with the signs and wonders that had followed Christ Mental Health 9 and the apostles. Many accepted the name “Apostolic Death and Dying 10 Faith Movement” and claimed that the New Testament gifts of the Spirit were restored among Special Concerns 11 them. They spoke in tongues, interpreted tongues, prophesied, exercised gifts of healing, and reveled in intense religious experiences, but their greatest passion was evangelism. Since they thought Christ was about to return, they felt they had an urgent call to save the world.2 The burst of spiritual energy that animated thousands of ordinary men and women in this turn- of-the-century revival ultimately shaped a handful of new denominations as well as many less structured Part of the “Religious Traditions and Healthcare Decisions” handbook series published by the Park Ridge Center Edith L. Blumhofer is Professor of History and Director of the for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College. THE PARK RIDGE CENTER associations, but its first result was a confusing imminent physical return of Christ to “rapture” array of options—and abuses. A radical empha- the church. sis on faith beckoned some to set out, with no visible means of support, to evangelize the world; a stress on spiritual gifts led to the use of DIVINE HEALING tongues and their interpretation to obtain divine guidance on whom to marry or where to live; Belief in divine healing characterized early enthusiasm for the power of the Spirit con- Pentecostals, who regarded it as integral to the vinced some that formal education inevitably gospel. The Assemblies of God was strongly quenched the Spirit. To respond to such ten- influenced by an array of people who had dencies and to provide a degree of order while embraced the notion of divine healing under the preserving congregational autonomy and uncompromising teaching of a fiery turn-of-the- “freedom” in the Spirit, several hundred century preacher named John Alexander Dowie. Pentecostals—most, but not all, white—heeded A Scotsman by birth and education, Dowie the summons to a “general council” for began his career in Australia, then migrated to Pentecostals. There they organized the the United States in the 1880s and settled in Assemblies of God. They knew they needed sta- Chicago during the 1890s. He organized the bility, but they prized independence from “dead Christian Catholic Church in 1895 and attracted denominations” so fiercely that they called their such a large following that in 1901 he unveiled new association a “fellowship” rather than a plans for a utopian community called Zion City. church or a denomination, and they did not Located twenty-five miles north of Chicago on bother to articulate a statement of faith. Lake Michigan, Dowie’s Zion became home to That statement came two years later, when some 6,000 of his followers. Dowie’s efforts a “revelation” about the Trinity disrupted revolved around healing. He prayed for the American Pentecostalism and permanently frac- sick; bullied the medical profession; and sternly tured relationships among emerging clusters of denounced all medicines, pork products, tobac- churches. In the throes of a mass exodus by co, and alcohol. No medicine could be pur- those who rejected orthodox views on the Trinity chased in Zion; no one could smoke within its and accepted rebaptism to manifest their new boundaries; no physician could practice. Dowie opinion, the Assemblies of God in 1916 crafted refused to pray for anyone who did not manifest a Statement of Fundamental Truths. This docu- faith by discarding medicine. He welcomed the ment met the needs of the moment with a long ill to large homes he called faith homes. There section on the doctrinal issues at stake in the (without their medicines) they received instruc- current controversy, though it did not offer tion in divine healing, ate a healthful diet, and statements on the full range of Christian doc- were buoyed by the earnest prayers of Dowie trine. That came only in the 1960s, as the and his associates. The communal aspect of Assemblies of God assumed an ever larger role Zion City life disintegrated in 1907 amid eco- in the post-World-War II evangelical community. nomic woes and allegations of improprieties on Despite its omissions, the 1916 Statement of Dowie’s part. This disintegration coincided with Fundamental Truths included clear language the appearance in Chicago of the first on the four points that are often regarded as Pentecostal evangelists, who easily attracted the denomination’s four cardinal doctrines: some of Dowie’s staunchest adherents, men and humankind’s need for salvation by faith in women accustomed to stating their beliefs in no Christ; divine healing as “in the atonement”; uncertain terms and then acting upon them. holiness—or sanctification—as God’s call for Some of these followers had been tarred and believers; and the premillennial and always feathered in American towns when they pro- 2 THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD TRADITION: RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND HEALTHCARE DECISIONS claimed Dowie’s gospel of physical healing. members—thrilled to the They brought their no-nonsense message of miracles and preaching of Oral Roberts, Jack faith for healing—and their adamant rejection of Coe, A. A. Allen, and Kathryn Kuhlman. The medicine and doctors—into the Assemblies of concentrated and sustained efforts of healing God.3 evangelists after World War II led some to dub The insistence that healing was “in the atone- an interrelated cluster of ministries a salvation- ment” meant that Pentecostals believed Christ’s healing revival.7 This heritage of fervent prayer death had purchased physical healing as well as for miracles, of dependence on prayer as the spiritual redemption. They quoted familiar preferred source of healing, and of nagging guilt words from Isaiah 53: “By his stripes we are about lack of faith or the presence of hidden sin healed.” They took healing “by faith” just as when prayer does not bring a miracle, are part they appropriated the forgiveness of sins, and of the contemporary legacy of many members of then they acted upon their conviction. They the Assemblies of God. A constituency attuned accounted for those whom their prayers did not to seeing and feeling direct evidences of the heal by explaining that either sin or lack of faith supernatural nurtures a preference for miracles precluded healing. Early Pentecostals thought even as its leaders wrestle with modern com- that the whole community of believers had plexities in the light of a heritage that often responsibility to pray for the sick, while pastors prefers to discount historical development and and church leaders had a special responsibility— attempt a restoration of apostolic Christianity. following the instructions in James 5—to anoint Dowie was not the only source of a radical the sick with oil and offer prayer for healing. rejection of medicines and doctors. Another But actual healing was up to the believer, who sizable part of the first Assemblies of God con- was responsible to appropriate it by faith, unhin- stituency came from a split in the Christian dered by known sin or unbelief.4 Missionary Alliance whose leader, A. B. Early Pentecostal publications record many Simpson, staunchly supported the message of testimonies to physical healing in response to healing in the atonement. Simpson did not the prayers of local communities of believers. absolutely condemn medicines, but he urged his But they also indicate that Pentecostals acted on followers to relinquish doctors in favor of prayer their belief that some people possessed special as a better way. He taught “divine health,” “gifts of healing” by seeking out such people which held that the gospel “quickened the mor- and requesting their prayers. Some with these tal body” as well as saved the soul, and argued “gifts” offered prayer cloths for those who could that its physical advantages stood available to not attend services, but any evangelist who was the well and the sick. Other Assemblies of perceived to exercise gifts of healing could God adherents had been part of the Holiness count on a steady stream of health seekers solic- Movement, which often embraced the same iting his or her special prayers. Prayer was message of divine healing. The consensus in sometimes accompanied by the laying on of the first generation might be stated something hands and anointing with oil. Throughout the like this: When one was taken ill, the proper twentieth century, a changing group of highly response was searching the heart to determine public figures have claimed these gifts, and that no sin stood in the way of one’s prayers. hopeful believers have flocked from one to the Believing prayer on the part of the individual other in search of healing.5 Evangelist Aimee and a supportive community followed, often Semple McPherson was famous in the 1920s for including anointing with oil by one’s pastor or the “stretcher days” she included in her large another religious leader.

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