The Rise Of The Evangelical Healing Movement In Nineteenth Century America

Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars

Click to get our FREE MOBILE APP and stay connected

THE RISE OF THE EVANGELICAL HEALING MOVEMENT IN NINETEENTH CENTURY by Donald Dayton AMERICA One of the most powerful and fascinating themes of modern popular is the doctrine of “divine healing.” Through as Kathryn Kuhlman and Oral Roberts – the work and the 700 and PTL Clubs of Pat healing has a novelty of this concern to a on through B. B. Warfield has Evangelicalism such healing evangelists more recently especially through Robertson burst its apparent Pentecostal broader Evangelicalism. modem Evangelicalism nurtured the theology of Old Princeton obscured Evangelicalism so unnatural often assumed. and Jim Bakker – the search for miraculous and Charismatic confines to penetrate The apparent for the last couple of generations extruded the extent to which an earlier 19th century pre-Pentecostal but reveals the extent to which Pentecostalism was not an evolution out of the Fundamentalist experience as is Discovering series), Donald W. Dayton (Ph.D., University of Chicago Divinity School), is Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Northern Baptist Seminary, Lombard, Illinois. He is author of an Evangelical Heritage, editor of “Studies in Evangelicalism” (monograph and frequent contributor to a wide variety of journals. 1 has been strangely neglected world. David Harrell “healing revival” only to its Pentecostal the century influence of the “enigmatic” Yet this “evangelical healing movement” in 19th century America both within and without the Evangelical has traced the roots of the post-World Harvard dissertation by Edith another generation, but her reading her concern to assert the “Reformed he terms “the father of healing revivalism” in America.1 Waldvogel2 pushes of the material is distorted “Holiness” roots of Pentecostalism.3 back another generation done so would have called into question costalism over against the work of H. Vinson Synan emphasizing Waldvogel to the mid-nineteenth see, much more to the point is an essay by Raymond entitled “From Holiness to Healing: the Faith Cure in America, 1892.”4 My own interest in this question of the work of Waldvogel and Cunningham the last half-dozen years for the “Theological I believe that I can now set these preliminary and more fully explain the theological War II roots while noticing the turn of John Alexander Dowie, whom A recent the story back by Evangelical origins” of Pente- the should have pushed century, but to have her basic thesis. As we shall Cunningham 1872- had proceeded independently as a part of a search over Roots of Pentecostalism.” efforts in a broader context issues at stake in the emergence of the 19th century “Evangelical healing movement.” I would like to sketch that case briefly here. A fuller treatment, will be found in my University of parallel sertation.5 themes, including the tracing of Chicago dis- . 1 David Edwin Harrell, Jr., All Things Are Possible: The Historical Charismatic Pursuits in Modern America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975). gelical Origins 1971), especially chapter 2Edith Lydia Waldvogel, “The ‘Overcoming Life’: A Study in the Reformed Evan- of Pentecostalism” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 4 on “An Evangelical Theology of Healing.” 3H. Vinson Synan, The Holiness Pentecostal Movement in the United States (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971). tation, “Ministry 4Church History 43 (December, 19?4), 499-513, based in part on his earlier disser- of Healing: the Origins of the Psychotherapeutic Role of the American Churches” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, John Hopkins University, 1965). progress 1981). 5Donald W. Dayton, “Theological Roots of Pentecostalism” (Ph.D. dissertation in at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, completion projected for – 2- 2 ‘ Debates no doubt continue cate Morton Kelsey in perhaps ment of the question,l recent treat- by an emphasis about the present validity of such healing movements will for some time. They cannot be resolved here. But to set the context for what will follow, I will notice that healing advo- the most comprehensive argues, relying to great extent on the work of Evelyn Frost,2 that the early church was characterized on divine healing that was variously related to the positive valuation of the body reflected in the doctrine of the “resurrection a “realistic” doctrine of the atonement over the evil forces that impinge on human life, and a model of redemp- tion that stressed the “therapeutic” appropriated through themes faded into the background Church as “miracles” the sacraments. into the sacrament of the body,” that stressed Christ’s “victory” effects of grace, especially as According to Kelsey, such in the wake of the Constantinian to signs of exemplary of the sick” was transformed Kelsey, concerned ih part to of “healing” were relegated sainthood and the tradition of “anointing of “extreme unction.” restore certain Platonic themes in modern Jungian dress, places special on the rise of Aristotelian closed to divine intervention outside the “natural order of events.” emphasis The Protestant polemic against tendency. and modern world-views more Catholic “superstition” and con- to this in the nor do St. James’s words apply to the present centuated cern to pare back the number of sacraments contributed It did not help Luther that a crucial text appeared book of James. Luther’s basic attitude is reflected in his comment that “Christ did not make anointing with oil a sacrament, day.”3 This position was even more ac- in the Reformed tradition and may be traced from Calvin, who spoke of healing as a “temporary gift,”4 through Puritanism to its (New York: Harper lmorton T. Kelsey, Healing and Christianity in Ancient Thought and Modern Times & Row, 1977). 2Evelyn Frost, Christian Healing (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1940). Warefield, Counterfeit including Kelsey, suggest as 3In a letter to the Elector of Brandenburg, December 4,1579, quoted by Benjamin B. Miracles (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,1918), p. 306. Some, that Luther’s views changed toward the end of his life, especially evidenced in an incident with Melancthon that was much cited in later controversies. Cf. also Bengt R. Hoffman, Luther and the Mystics (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House. 1976). 4lnstitutes of Christian Religion, Book IV, Chapter XIX, section 19. – 3- 3 of a gift of healing of specifically the Apostolic sively to the Apostolic Age.”l Yet this Reformed epitome in B.B. Warfield, who denied the existence in the early church, arguing that “it was the characterizing peculiarity Church, and it belonged therefore exclu- that relegated the gift of “dispensationalism” healing to the apostolic age did not totally rule Protestantism. A series of currents in the 18th and 19th centuries conspired force to break this stranglehold. Perhaps with a cumulative the most important and realism” and pastoral tinuation of miracles through prayer earliest of these currents was classical Pietism where a certain “biblical orientation combined with a belief in the con- produced commenting been “given These themes, up with greater nurtured but a restrained doctrine of “healing” by the 19th century es- Blumhardt. We know Blum- and faith.2 This is clear in the comment of Johann Albrecht Bengel on the key texts in his Gnomon of the New Testament, In on James 5, Bengel suggests that the “gift of healing” has by God with this intent, that it might always remain in the Church, as a specimen of the other gifts: just as the portion of Manna laid up in the Ark was a proof of the ancient miracle.” muted in early Pietism, were to break force in latter day Pietism, pecially in the work of Johann Christoph hardt today largely through the work of Karl Barth who was deeply motto “Jesus is Victor” that came into in the celebrated incident of the “exorcism” of Gottliebin had begun to argue theologically and therefore “the forgiveness of sins and healing to one another.”3 Blumhardt had founded in Bad Boll a retreat center for those seeking spiritual and physical help. A similar ministry emerged in Switzerland of Dorothea Trudel influenced by Blumhardt’s prominence Dittus. Blumhardt cause of sickness” stand in an inner relationship under the leadership Zurich.4 1Counterfeit Miracles, pp. 5-6. that “sin is the By the mid-l9th century at Mannedorf on Lake 2See Endre Zsindely, Krankheit und Hedung im altern Pietismus (Zurich und Stuttgart: Zwingli Verlag, 1962). report 30n Blumhardt and these events, see William G. Bodamer, “‘The Life and Work of Johann Christoph Blumhardt: (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, 1966). Blumhardt, of the “possession” event has been translated as Blumhardt’s Battle: A with Conflict Satan, translated by Frank S. Boshold (New York: Thomas E. Lowe, 1970). 40n Trudel see Answers to Prayer: Or Dorothea Trudel (Boston: Henry Hoyt, n.d.). – 4- 4 Kelsey perhaps But before settling in the 19th century we need to glance at the 18th century figure of John Wesley, if only because his followers would be- come so numerous on this continent that 19th century America would become for many an “Age of Methodism.”l Morton too easily claims Wesley for a lineage of advocates of divine healing. ambivalent about the presence gifts” in the church. He wished to see restored of the Holy Spirit, and the ethical transformation was to become a channel of themes that would push in the direction He was in fact profoundly natural natural operations” “fruits,” of the new healing doctrines. often uncultivated, He was deeply influenced Kelsey suggests “therapeutic” extent of Wesley’s commitment of “Christian Perfection” “realized eschatology” of “super- the “super- but to “gifts” he preferred of the believer.2 Yet Wesley of healing, the Pietist exegete’s affirma- More significant was Wesley’s a over sin in this life. The Wesley’s concern for health and even certain experiences appear regularly in his Journal and other writings. by Pietism and his widely distributed Ex- planatory Notes on the New Testament are little more than an abridge- ment of Bengel’s Gnomon and preserve tion of a continuing gift of healing. turn to the first four centuries of the church for a norm of Christian life. In so doing, Wesley tended to affirm some of those themes that were tied to early doctrines of healing, especially model of grace and a “victory” to these themes is seen in his doctrine which may from one angle be seen as a sort of that brings into this life blessings of salvation that other Christian traditions reserve for life beyond the grave. When this theme is taken seriously in Wesley, the question will always push forward about the limit of this overcoming this life. As we shall see this perfectionist that provision in the atonement of Christ. in the emergence obtained of doctrine century of sin and its consequences in push played a crucial role for healing in this life is 1This characterization, first suggested by Philip Schaff and others in the nineteenth has been more recently argued by C. C. Goen, “The ‘Methodist Age’ in American Church History,” Religion in Life 34 (1964-65), 562-72 and Winthrop Hudson, “The Methodist Age in America,” Methodist History 12 (April, 1974), 3-15. M, 2See especially Wesley’s response “to Dr. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester,” abided November 26, 1962, in John Telford (editor), The Letters of the Reverend John Wesley, A. Vol. IV (London: Epworth Press,1931) and “A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,” Part V, Section 28. – 5- 5 But before tracing that development, themes that also had some rootage we turn to other emerging in Pietism. In early nineteenth emerging sect of “Plymouth attention. Combining the orphanage Hermann Francke Johannes Evangelista student at the Pietist century England the work of George Muller, an early member of the Brethren,” Eschewing dependence exaggerated) reporting faith.” Reports of Muller’s was attracting international work of Halle Pietist August “faith work” principles of of Berlinl (born in Prussia, that would make him famous. (and cation,” and confidence was no special “gift all Christians.2 And in America Evangelist cate “prevailing” or “effectual” his detractors scrutable and the developing Gossner (1777-1858) center of Halle, converted in 1825) founded in 1835 in Bristol, England, the orphanage on wealthy contributors and demeaning of success, he vowed to work “by prayer and work emphasized answers to prayer. Muller himself advocated in “expecting the blessing,” insisting that his of faith” but the common experience a definite object,” “pray Finney was convinced Among Finney’s miraculous and direct “importunity in suppli- available to thrust to advo- appeared to So with prayer, always obtains the object. ” Charles Finney was beginning prayer. Finney’s to take the mystery out of religion and to make the in- will of God subject to human manipulation. Finney insisted that in order to “prevail in prayer,” one must “pray for in faith,” and “expect to obtain the blessing.” that such “faith illustrations was Jesuit Francis Xavier, who so fer- vently prayed for a sick man that he recovered. He was so convinced prayer was due to human failure (not really “praying that Paul had not really “prayed to be relieved of his “thorn in the flesh” – or even that Jesus had not really prayed in the Garden that he would not die, only that he not that unanswered in faith”) that he concluded die before the cross!3 in faith” 1 See Arthur T. Pierson, Forward Movements of the Last Half Century (New York and Lonuon: Fran£ and ” Wagllatls, 1905), especially chapter VIII on “The Growth ot Faithwork.” study 1975). 2The 19th Century literature on Muller is vast, dating from 1837. The most recent is by Roger Steer, George Muller: Delighted in God (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, the various editions 3 See lectures IV on “Prevailing Prayer” and V on “The Prayer of Faith”: in any of of Finney’s widely read Lectures on Revivals of Religion. – 6- 6 The final factor contributing “Christian Perfection.” cades of the 19th century holiness, Christian perfection, in Wesleyanism first expressed themselves “promotion of holiness.” concern for themes of optimism, these currents institutions as The Guide “Tuesday Meeting” for the the broader re- to the rise of the healing movement of 19th century America was the rise of interest in the doctrine of The years following the second and third de- saw a mounting and entire sanctification. Rooted largely given a boost by cultural in such Methodist to Christian Perfection and Phoebe Palmer’s But they soon permeated vivalism of the period sweeping especially evangelist Charles G. Finney and the “Oberlin Perfectionists” into the “Holiness Orbit.” currents built and broke into a variety by such diverse leaders as Baptist Congregationalist represented terian W. E. Boardman, Hannah Whitall Smith, Episcopalian themes permeated to the variety of post-Civil the “American Holiness other British, European With these developments, These of denominational contexts A. B. Earle, Presby- T. C. Upham, Quaker Charles Cullis and others. These life” movements, especially Camp as well as variations.1 in Boston who did “more than the revival of 1857-58 and in its wake contributed War “deeper Movement” focused in the National Meeting Association and the British Keswick Conventions, and American the stage has been set for Charles Cullis, an Episcopalian homeopathic physician any other man to bring healing by faith to the attention of the church Cullis entered a new phase in his life when the death of his wife launched him on a spiritual quest for “a better heart and a better channel for my earnings.” in the last century.”2 personal appropriation of biblical In part this was a struggle about promises, and Cullis resolved the and promise in the Bible as them.” II Thessalonians sanctification” and his appropriation search for a “better heart.”3 issue with a vow “to take every precept my own, just as if my name, Charles Cullis, was written in every one of 2:13 raised for Cullis the question of his “entire of that blessing resolved his lThese developments are perhaps best surveyed by Melvin E. Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century. “Studies in Evangelicalism, No. 1” (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1980). Witness, 1897), p. the Labours of Dr. Cullis 2R. Kelso Carter, “Faith Healing” Reviewed (Boston and Chicago: the Christian 109. More generally on Cullis see W. H. Daniels, Dr. Cullis and His Work (Boston Willard Tract Repository, 1885) and W. F. Boardman, Faith.Wnrk: or in Boston (Londc?: W. Isbister and Co., 1874). 3Boardman, Faith-Work, pp. 22-23. – 7- 7 Two years later his search for a “better channel for my earnings” found fulfillment in a “home for indigent and incurable committed to the faith principles the century, program, a deaconess church, several city rescue missions, this new work had grown into an extensive school, homes for spinal and cancer suffused throughout “Holiness Movement” Refreshing founded in 1869 sought Negro College in Virginia, and other activities. These institutions with a quest for “personal himself became a major figure in the emerging following the Civil War. His journal conferences. meeting.” leaders of the Holiness Faith Cures, published the doctrine consumptives” of George Muller. By the end of publishing cases, a a program of foreign missions, a were holiness” and Cullis interdenominational Times of “to present Jesus as a full and of Holiness became a major publisher of A. B. Earle, Cullis’ movement toward as well as the alleviations text in James 5:14-15 prompted tians” about instances of answers perfect Savior,” a goal fulfilled in part by regular reporting Cullis himself dealt with seekers in his regular “Tuesday His Willard Tract Repository Holiness literature in the 1870s and 1880s. His Faith Training College, announced in 1876, listed among its faculty besides Cullis himself such Movement as W. E. Boardman, Daniel Steele, and William McDonald. in 1879, recounts of “faith healing.” For “several years my mind had been exercised before God as to whether it was not His will that the Work of Faith in which He had placed me, should extend to the cure of disease, of the miseries of the afflicted.”l The key him to enquire among “earnest Chris- announcing to prayer for the healing of the a book about Dorothea Trudel edition body. In the midst of these struggles fell into his hands. He immediately put out his own expanded of the book and in 1873 made his own pilgrimage to Mannedorf before the same year in his annual report “the call of the Lord which had come to him to use his faith in praying for the healing of the sick,”2 and including therewith testimonies his ministry. This work expanded (Mass), Old Orchard of those healed under rapidly and was advocated by Cullis more broadly in a series of conventions in such centers as Farmingham (Maine), and finally at Intervale shire), where new buildings had to be constructed (New Hamp- to handle the crowds. Willard Tract Repository, 1879), p. 1 Charles Cullis, Faith Cures; or, Answers to Prayer in the Healing of the Sick (Boston: 13. 2W. H. Daniels, Dr. Cullis and His Work, p. 339. -8- 8 followed him in advocating emerged. The byterian W. E. Boardman, role in spreading Holiness doctrines The work of Cullis had wide impact. The Evangelical figures who the “faith cure” reveal even more clearly the “Holiness” context from which the healing doctrines “faith cure” was in many ways a radicalized Holiness theology. Pres- whose Higher Christian Life played a major of 1857-58 and whose book Faith-Work Cullis, described the evolution following words: beyond Methodism in the Revival published the work of Charles of his spiritual experience in the the More than thirty years ago, ten years after my conversion, Lord Jesus graciously revealed Himself to me as always with me, my Saviour from my sins, and brought me to accept Him and rest in Him each moment for present deliverance in perfect peace, as truly as He before had revealed me and brought pardoning me to accept and constant keeping Himself to Him, as my sin-bearing and Saviour. The new light that then opened upon my soul was marvelous … and one of the things that came to me with great force and sweetness was this office work of our gracious Lord as the Healer-1 The point is sharpened Robert to the passage added by a Dry of Board- in a footnote McKilliam, a surgeon who had read the manuscript man’s book, “?’he Lord that Healeth Thee. ” He notes an interesting his child. First, as the sin-bearing in His ever-abiding presence order of manifestations of Himself by the Lord to and pardoning Saviour. Next sin of sin, and like of those who as the Deliverer from present in its power, and as the keeper of the heart in perfect peace; and lastly, as the Deliverer from all the from all the heritage of sinful flesh – consequences disease, etc. Something this, I believe, will always be found in the experience are going on to prove the fulness of God in Christ.2 led Boardman to conclude faith” is itself part and parcel of the gospel.”3 But while for Cullis the This experience that “healing through pp. Repository, 1881). 1 W.E. Boardman, “The Hand that Healeth Thee” (London: Morgan and Scott, 1881), 10-11. Also published in the USA as The Great Physician (Boston: Willard Tract 2Ibid., p. 11. 31bid., p. 47. -9- – 9 crucial biblical text had been James 5:14-15 for Boardman it was Psalm 103, where a Hebrew parallelism seemed to provide warrant for this extension of gospel provisions. Verses 2 and 3 of Psalm 103 read Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all his benefits, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all they diseases (KYV) Though he finally settled in England, Boardman maintained contact with Cullis and other healers of the American Movement, many of whom he invited to an 1884 London “International Conference on Divine Healing and True Holiness.” Shortly before that Boardman and Char- lotte C. Murray had established with Mrs. Michael Baxter a healing home named “Bethsan” that eventually required a 600 seat hall to serve the Wednesday afternoon meetings for holiness and healing.1 Mrs. Baxter was the wife of the editor of the influential Christian Herald and author of a number of articles in that journal later collected as Divine Healing. It was to Bethshan that the influential South African Keswick teacher Andrew Murray came when he lost his voice. His experience with Boardman led him to adopt the doctrines of Divine Healing, the English title of his book on the subject that was also published in French and Dutch.2 Healing and holiness were even more closely connected in the work of Episcopalian Carrie Judd Montgomery who, though healed through the influence of a Mrs. Edward Mix, turned quickly to Dr. Cullis and soon became a part of the close network of his followers, developing a close relationship especially with A. B. Simpson, to whom we shall turn in a moment. As Carrie F. Judd, she founded in Buffalo a “Faith Rest Cottage” in 1882 and authored the 1880 The Prayer of Faith, which, in addition to being issued under her own imprint was published also by Revell in this country and The Christian Herald in England, as well as being translated into at least four European languages. After marriage to George Montgomery she moved to San Francisco and then to Oakland to found the “Home of Peace” before being swept into Pentecostalism in the wake of the Azusa Street Revival. . l On Boardman’s work, see Mary M. Boardman, Life and Labors of the Rev. W E. Boardman (New York: D. Appleton, 1887). 20n Murray and healing, cf. chapter XV of J. Du Plessis, The Life of Andrew Murray of South Africa (London: Marshall Brothers, 1919) or more recently chapters 17 and 18 of Leona Choy, Andrew Murray: Apostle of Abiding Love (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1978). 10 10 Her paper, The Triumphs of Faith, “A Monthly Journal Devoted to Faith-Healing and to the Promotion closer identification with the Methodist Movement. miniscent Her opening editorial, of the “altar theology” of Christian Holiness,” reveals a wing of the American Holiness later republished as a tract, is re- of Phoebe Palmer. and God’s healing by the “Great Our part is simply to reckon our prayers as answered, part is to make faith’s reckoning real This is by no means a ques- tion of feeling faith, but of acting faith… what is true of this precious spiritual healing is likewise true of physical Christ bore our sickness as well as our sins, and if we may reckon ourselves l Physician.” from the other, free from the one, why not These columns ments of the analogy of spiritual titled “Gospel also carried one of the most systematic develop- and physical healing in a series en- in the Healing of Body and of the Presbyterian an important plicit the doctrine that provision Atonement. tion equally for deliverance Parallelisms: Illustrated Soul” by a Rev. R. L. Stanton, a former President of Miami University (Ohio) and a moderator of the General Assembly Church. Mrs. Judd later issued the series in book form and it became defense of “healing through faith” that made more ex- for healing was made in Christ’s of Christ lays a founda- Stanton argued that the atonement from sin and for deliverance from disease; that complete provision nas been made for both.2 Exegeticajiy appealed to the same Hebrew Boardman’s by Matthew parallelism Stanton that lay at the root of was designed to provide for.”3 thought, but this time as found in Isaiah 57:3-5 and quoted (8:16, 17), to argue that “the healing of the sick was one of the blessings which Christ’s atonement better known today among the followers of Cullis was A. B. Simpson, who as pastor of New York’s Thirteenth Probably terian Church became convinced healing” under the ministry of Cullis at the Old Orchard Street Presby- in 1881 of the validity of “divine meetings. Study of My Life (Oakland, lCarrie F. Judd, “Faith’s Reckonings,” Triumphs of Faith I (January, 1881), pp. 2-3. On the work of Mrs. Montgomery see her autobiography, “Under His Wings ‘b. the CA: Office of Triumphs of Faith, 1936). (Buffalo: 2R. L. Stanton, Gospel Parallelisms: Illustrated in the Healing of Body and Soul Office of Triumphs of Faith, 1884), p. 13. 3Ibid., p. 152. 11 11 Simpson would a few years later at Boardman’s convention in London describe three great epocbal experiences in his life: Some twenty-seven years ago, I floundered for ten months in the waters of despondency, and I got out of them just by believing in Jesus as my Saviour. About twelve years ago I got into another deep experience of conviction, and I got out of that by believing in Jesus as my Sanctifier. After years of teaching from and waiting on Him, the Lord Jesus Christ showed me four years ago that it was His blessed will to be my complete Saviour for body as well as soul.1 Simpson also opened in 1884 the Berachah Home (“House of Bless- ing”) and started a “Friday Meeting” that later crowded the auditorium of New York’s Gospel Tabernacle. Through these activities and other work at such places as Old Orchard, Simpson became second only to Charles Cullis as a leader of the growing “faith cure” movement. Simpson’s work resulted in the Christian and Missionary Alliance and the centrality of healing to the Gospel is asserted in their motto of four-fold gospel: Jesus as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. Simpson differed little from the figures we have been noticing except that he was probably more Christocentric in his treatment and perhaps more radical. He clearly taught a doctrine of healing in the atonement: Redemption finds its center in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there we must look for the fundamental principle of Divine Healing, which rests on the atoning Sacrifice. This necessarily follows from the first principle we have stated. If sickness be the result of the Fall, it must be included in the atonement of Christ which reaches as “far as the curse is found.”2 ‘ Simpson’s radicalism may be seen in his rejection of “means”-the use of doctors and medicine-in favor of “Divine Healing”: lA. E. Thompson, The Life of A. B. Simpson (New York: Christian Alliance Publishing Co., 1920), p. 64. 2A. B. Simpson, The Gospel of Healing (Rev. ed; New York: Christian Alliance Pub. Co.,1915), p. 34. Cf. The Lord for the Body (New York: Christian Alliance Pub. Co.,1925), p. 29. The latter book expands his 1903 The Discovery of Divine Healing. – 12- 12 man’s ways, and there re- If that be God’s way of healing, then other methods must be must be some risk in deliberately pudiating the former for the latter … for the trusting and obedient more excellent way which His Word I child of God there is the has clearly presented….1 sharing the same ethos was Baptist A close colleague of Simpson’s Adoniram Judson Gordon College and his advocacy Boston’s Clarendon Gordon, known today primarily for his founding of of pre-millenialism. Pastor of of Street Church, A. J. Gordon worked out his teach- ings on healing in dialogue with the emerging “Christian Science” Mary Baker Eddy, but he clearly shared most features of the Holiness ethos. Though I am unsure of the exact provence knew the work of Cullis in Boston Ministry of Healing breathes very much the spirit and sources of Cullis’ ing, Gordon thought. Gordon starts the chapter foundation the Holiness doctrines clearly paralleled of his views of heal- and his book, The on the testimony of the Scripture but he as the “two-fold” work with the statement that “In the atonement of Christ there seems to be laid for faith in bodily healing.”2 Gordon carefully avoided of “eradication” and “second blessing,” “sanctified” and “healing” of the Spirit whose benefits may be at least partially received now in saw “Two streams of our Lord, a stream of healing and a stream the one for the recovery of the soul”3 and insisted this life. Gordon personal ministry regeneration; the recovery whole dispensation Let me mention the themes associate especially of the Spirit. of blessings started from the of of the body and the other for that both were valid for the all but also of Charles Cullis is on the Promises,” yet one more figure who radically epitomizes I have been developing. Capt. R. Kelso Carter, a close of A. B. Simpson known today primarily as author of the gospel song “Standing though few today recognize that as having emerged from the healing ethos. Variously a Methodist and a Presbyterian ciated with the Christian and Missionary 1Simpson, The Gospel of Healing, p. 70. closely asso- Alliance, Carter was a mathe- ZA.J. Gordon, The Ministry of Healing : Miracles of Cure in AU Ages (Boston: H. Gannett, 1882), p. 16. On Gordon’s Teaching see chapter II of Ernest B. Gordon, Adoniram Judson Gordon: A Biography (New York: Revell, 1896). 3Ibid., p. 43. 13 13 most public and prominent convenors popular defense as well as one of the One of the Carter authored an early matician, novelist, sheep rancher and physician, of the “faith cure” teachers. of the first healing conventions, entitled The Atonement for Sin and Sickness; A Full Salvation for Soul and Body (1884). He was also chosen to represent in an 1887 public debate in the pages of the the “affirmative” side Century magazine. Carter was perhaps the least subtle of the advocates thus more clearly indicates the Holiness His book argues in the first chapter “pardon “cleansing “bodily healing, as provided various Wesleyan of the matter is the Atonement application to unrighteousness, for all past sins, and in the second chapter from all inbred sin” before developing for in the Atonement.” writers to affirm that “only in the Wesleyan ment has provided keeping power against his body beneath Carter’s own experience of healing and roots of the healing doctrines. the basis in the Atonement for the basis for the a biblical basis for Carter cites view believed to be instantaneous in its This Holiness salvation.”3 or inward depravity.”l doctrine becomes the explicit paradigm for healing because “the Atone- for the body all that it has provided for the soul.”2 Thus “he who finds in Jesus the perfect cleansing of the soul and the all sin, can be equally consistant in placing the same wonderful followed this pattern: I began to believe that my Divine Master himself my sins, but also bore my bodily sickness, might through simple faith, be free from the latter, just as well as from the former.4 It is a remarkable baptism, large number), not only took upon and that I a distinct spiritual fact, that no one has been known to seek the healing power for the body, without receiving and further, that everyone known to the writer (a very who has been entirely healed in body, is or has become a believer in and professor 5 soul. of entire sanctification of for lRobert Kelso Carter, The Atonement for Sin and Sickness; or, A Full Salvation Soul and Body (Boston: Willard Tract Repository, 1884), pp. 12-13. 2Ibid., p. 17. 3Ibid., p. 38. 4Ibid., p. 1. 51bid., p. 38. – 14- 14 evangelical atonement, widespread roots of these currents. the pervasiveness of doctrines. The reception sharply resisted their influence, superintendent them. In this way Torrey, to which the dominant revivalist essentially a radicalization in the of Christ parallel to But in view of we are of their was much more attracted to illustrates the extent reception Although such Metho- developments for a while President thrust of classical We could go on to sketch in more detail the influence of these teachers of a doctrine of divine healing grounded but we have done enough to indicate the presence of a rather and inter-connected network in the late 19th century. We have as well perhaps overly belabored our point about the Holiness It cannot be doubted that the basic source of the 19th century healing doctrines is to be found in a radicaliza- tion of Holiness doctrine that began to find in the atonement the basis for an instantaneous deliverance from sickness the instantaneous deliverance from the sin principle. this doctrine in the late 19th century, pushed to wonder about its decline. Several reasons may be observed. In the first place we must not overstate the acceptance was clearly mixed. D. L. Moody, for example, though his successor R. A. Torrey, of Moody Bible Institute as at other points, tradition stood at the turn of the century but a hair’s breadth from Pentecostalism. Holiness was also mixed even though, as we have argued, healing doctrines were of that tradition. dist figures as Daniel Steele and William McDonald were early as- sociated with the work of Cullis, they had reservations about such later as the doctrine of healing of Syracuse University, Wesleyanism by a distinction between the “grace of faith and the gifts of faith.” He was inclined to regard the modern eager desire for the gifts of the Spirit instead of the graces of the Spirit comprised “the greatest thing in the world,” progress, which has been aptly styled, as a sign not of real spiritual the divine life.1 And the National Holiness Association sident John Inskip permitted Cullis ing, the NHA banned both healing . in the atonement. Steele, maintained the essential . in that charity (I Cor. xiii), but rather of decline in likewise. Though its first pre- to publish an account of his heal- and premillenial doctrines from its national meetings. But this policy was itself a sign of the increasing p. ldaniel Steele, Ralf-Hours with St Paul (Boston: McDonald and Gill Co., 1894), 250. , 15 15 force behind both teachings. In the regional associations and in the more radical wings of the movement both teachings became dominant and in some cases normative. It was, of course, this more radical wing that had most affinity with Pentecostalism. Secondly, there was among the advocates of divine healing a tend- ency over time to retreat from more radical earlier positions. This may be seen most clearly again in that most sensitive of barometers, R. Kelso Carter. By the end of the century he was openly publishing retractions of some points. On March 1, 1887, the very day his Century Magazine essay was published, Carter was struck with an “attack of brain prostration.” For three years he struggled with his health, until finally convinced by a doctor to try a little medicine that allowed him to return to his work. The spiritual success of his ensuing meetings con- vinced him that the use of “means” was not spiritually debilitating. He gained a “delightful sense of freedom” in learning that “it did not follow that he was a transgressor because he was a sufferer.” He did not deny healing altogether and continued to practice anointing the sick with oil, but he began to qualify the total perfectionism of “healing in the atonement” doctrine. , That the Atonement of Christ covers sickness and disease as well as sin, is but to say that the effects are necessarily embraced in the root cause. There was and could be no error there. But to claim that all the results of that Atonement are NOW open to the living Christian is a grave mistake … we may error, and have errored, in endeavoring to appropriate at the present time some of the final fruits of that sacrifice.l . Other advocates failed to be entirely convincing because they con- tinued to suffer ill health-such as the serious problem of Cullis. Simpson and the “Christian Alliance” were forced to moderate their stand in the face of “the failure of the holiest missionaries to with- stand the African fever purely by faith.” The Holiness rootage of healing doctrines was also a hindrance in gaining wider acceptance in some circles. Once articulated, how- ever, it was discovered that healing doctrines did not necessarily depend on their Holiness rootage. The process of extracting the doc- trines from Holiness thought may be clearly seen in the work of John 1R. Kelso Carter, “Faith Healircg” Reviewed After Ttventy Years (Boston and Chicago: The Christian Witness Co., 1897), p. 167. 16 16 Alexander Divine Healing Association. of the American Dowie, who led in 1890 in the founding Floor debate over the constitution cen- tered on whether the association should advocate divine healing alone of salvation like the Christian The explicit references Dowie’s Holiness even as he attempted to one delegate’s or a fuller platform National Holiness Association. tutions indicates implicitly rectly acknowledged platform. In response salvation,” Dowie replied Alliance and the to these insti- roots, which he indi- to narrow the association’s call for advocacy of “full Amen … we have always taught that you can’t get healing with- get entire sanctification without wants to limit testimony to a undertake to promote a new out salvation, and you can’t salvation and healing. Nobody ridiculous extent, but I cannot church organization. Association, and no more.1 I can help you to form a Divine Healing to move away from ground- and to- and the “signs and won- begin But Dowie’s roots did not succeed treme views and flamboyant further alienated the Evangelicals. impulse by a broader tendency the whole Holiness part due to the work of Benjamin of Holiness doctrines, Perfectionism. This report also reveals Dowie’s tendency ing the healing doctrines in Holiness themes of redemption ward more “Pentecostal” motifs of “power” ders” that follow and evidence the bestowed of the Spirit. And of course it is often through Dowie that Pentecostalism traces the roots of its healing doctrines and it is with him that many scholars to tell the story of the rise of “divine healing.” extraction of healing doctrines from their Holiness in gaining for him wider acceptance. style gained him a notoriety This tendency His ex- that only was given added world to repudiate for more classical there were both theological spread tendency. in the Evangelical constellation of themes. This was no doubt in B. Warfield’s attacks on the varieties collected in two volumes of polemics At any rate, as Evangelicalism century there was a distinct tendency (and especially Reformed) theology. and sociological Surely one of the greatest against moved into the twentieth to abandon Holiness teachings No doubt reasons for this wide- ironies and most fasci- 1 See the appendix containing a “Full Report of the First General Convention of the Divine Healing Association” to John Alexander Dowie and Mrs. Dowie, Our Second Year’s Harvest (Chicago: International Divine Healing Association, 1891), pp. 174-5. 17 17 nating developments tent to which the institutions Baptist A. J. Gordon fectionist, Presbyterian traditions Theology. A. J. Gordon’s healing object of attack in B.B. Warfield’s in the evolution of Fundamentalism is the ex- founded came to be dominated by populist, perfectionist, by the elitist, anti-per- associated with the Old Princeton doctrines were, after all, a major blast entitled Counterfeit Miracles. in the broader Evangelical with But the final blow to healing doctrines world was no doubt due to the rise of Pentecostalism itself. The early decades of the 20th century saw a real scramble to avoid identification This was especially true among the Holiness folk. were working to put Holiness themes behind groups were trying to avoid any association The result was a radical purging of Pentecostal-like that left to later generations of roots and provence. And in the process a major movement of divine healing was largely buried, only to be reasserted later through the influence of the Charismatics, with Pentecostalism. Just as the Evangelicals them, the Holiness Pentecostalism. terminology and practices impression the Pentecostals once repudiated. – 18- a distorted great-grand generations children of 18