Part 3: Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity 209
P a r t 3 Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity T he principle of analogy once used to argue against all ancient miracles (either the occurrence of some sorts of extranormal phenomena or their supernatural causation) now undermines that very argument. In Hume's day, many Protestant theologians distinguished sharply between biblical and postbiblical miracles as part of their anti-Catholic polemic. Their polemic played into the Humean argument against ancient miracles based on the lack of many comparable modern claims.
Many theologians in turn accommodated this nonmiraculous approach, further emphasizing the lack of postbiblical miracles and eventually often renouncing miracles altogether.
Today, however, abundant claims of miracles, particularly from the Majority World, challenge Hume's skepticism about the existence of many credible eyewitnesses. Hume demanded "a sufficient number" of witnesses of unquestioned integrity and intelligence who would have much to lose by testifying falsely.1 In today's academic climate, many who testify to miracles have much to lose even by testifying truly; but I shall first respond to Hume's quantitative demand. In contrast to the environment assumed by Hume, today hundreds of millions of people claim to have witnessed miracles. Moreover, eyewitnesses claim what they believe are miracles even in the West, and this has been the case through most of history, even
1. Hume's requirements are summarized similarly also in Breggen, "Scale," 450.
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when Hume framed his argument within the theological framework of academic circles often reticent to acknowledge miraculous claims. Some of these eyewitness claims involve even the healing of blindness, the raising of the dead, and nature miracles. I will treat some of these subjects in turn in subsequent chapters: claims from the Majority World (chs. 7–9); Western history (ch. 10); the modern West
(ch. 11); and some specifically dramatic claims like those involving blindness, death, or nature (ch. 12).
Virtually no one would suggest that all claims reflect clearly authentic miracles
(see discussion in ch. 13). Nevertheless, such claims, however we interpret them, clearly exist on an eyewitness level and hence need not be excluded from firstand second-generation testimony in the Gospels and Acts. Statistics suggest the vast numbers of claims; my primary interest in chapters 7–12 is to illustrate some of the variety of sorts of cases involved in them. While the primary point of these chapters is not the interpretation of events, some of these reports may have a bearing on that question. At the least, given the vast number and variety of claims, one can no longer simply take for granted that uniform human experience a priori excludes extranormal events for which many observers would find a specifically theistic interpretation particularly persuasive (see discussion in chs. 13–15).
Majority World Perspectives There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time, attesting facts performed in such a public manner and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable. —David Hume1
It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous peoples.
. . . It is strange, a judicious reader is apt to say, upon the perusal of these wonderful historians, that such prodigious events never happen in our days. But it is nothing strange, I hope, that men should lie in all ages. —David Hume2
Medical anthropology, like all anthropological study, could help the exegete to adopt a transcultural stance. —John Pilch3 P lausibility structures—what intuitively strikes us as rational—are culturally determined. Hume's claim does not make sense for all cultures. While antisupernaturalism remains a powerful traditional ideological force in Western culture, many cultures exist with worldviews that do not readily accommodate nonsupernaturalism,4 and not necessarily because they lack appreciation for science or empirical inquiry. In this chapter, I will introduce some Majority World perspectives; I will explore more concrete examples from there in the following two chapters. Suffice it to note here
1. Hume, Miracles, 34; idem, "Miracles," 34.
2. Hume, Miracles, 37, 38; idem, "Miracles," 36.
3. Pilch, Healing, 35.
4. On the wide diversity of worldviews available in the world, of which metaphysical naturalism is only one, see, e.g., Nash, "Conceptual Systems," 119.
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that, as we shall observe soon in greater detail, hundreds of millions of people in the world claim to have witnessed supernatural healings. Their plausibility structures, and in general those of the cultures where many of them live, differ from the plausibility structures of those who begin with Humean presuppositions.
Scholars sometimes have opined that miracle reports like those in the Gospels and Acts must depend on later legend or a writer's imagination.5 This premise, however, rests on culturally and intellectually narrow assumptions that read much of the world's experiences through the nonexperiences of much of our Western academic culture.6 Many other cultures (as well as much of Western culture, including academic Western culture, historically) have worked from different assumptions, and the labels traditionally employed to denigrate those assumptions by modernity no longer sound charitable in a postmodern, and particularly a multicultural, world.7 Thus some scholars today are arguing that comparisons with shamans and analogous figures in the first century8 would be more helpful in understanding
Jesus's miracles than are the anachronistic modernist readings of modern skeptics.9
In this chapter, I introduce some Majority World perspectives, and in the following two chapters, I survey some miracle claims in the Majority World. Afterward
I will explore such claims in the premodern West and continuing popular culture in the West. (Admittedly, these divisions of both the world and eras are arbitrary, but I attempt to address the West somewhat separately because it has been the source and primary advocate of skepticism toward miracle claims.) The claim that no one in the modern world believes in miracles (a claim once seriously offered by some scholars as an answer to the question of miracles, as I have noted) is now too evidently irresponsible to be seriously entertained.
5. Cf. Dibelius, Studies in Acts, 24, regarding as characteristic of "legend" "a miracle related in naïve style" (cf. 17–18, 20); also the sort of approach noted in Achtemeier, Miracle Tradition, 136–37; Jaki,
Miracles and Physics, 75.
6. Polybius opined that "as nothing written by mere students of books is written with experience or vividness, their works are of no practical utility to readers" (12.25g.2, LCL).
7. While demurring from much of postmodern thought, Evans, "Judgment," 201–2, emphasizes the value of this approach and its consequences for evaluating miracles. Young and Goulet, "Introduction,"
9, contend that not reality but experience of reality appears multidimensional.
8. Shamans in the technical sense may belong mostly to hunter-gatherer societies (Krippner, "Medicine,"
193), but healers (the primary point in the usual comparison) are more pervasive. Harner, Way of Shaman,
42, believes that peoples in diverse societies independently developed similar mind-body techniques because they found they worked.
9. See Craffert, "Healer" (though still naturalistic); cf. Berends, "African Healing Practices," 285–
86; Borg, Conflict, 73, 230–31, 305, 373; Malina and Pilch, Acts, 211–13; idem, Letters, 366–68; Pilch,
"Usefulness," 100 (Jesus as a folk healer); Aarde, "Rabbits"; McClenon, Events, 90–93; also Eve, Miracles,
354 (following Kleinman, Healers, 71–82, 139–40, 366), though noting differences. Not all these approaches are supernaturalist, but all prefer comparisons with living religious options to hypothetical reconstructions of redactional layers in putative legends behind our texts. Some compare prophetic healers in what they view as analogous colonial settings (cf. in detail Davies, "Prophet/Healer"; idem, Healer; though cf. some criticisms of Davies's approach to Jesus's call at Jordan in Strijdom, "Hallucinating"). Though recognizing theological differences between the two, Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 24, note that Pentecostalism
"resonates culturally" where shamanism is practiced and observe functional analogies between them (cf.
Cox, "Miracles," 90, 91; Kim "Pentecostalism," 32).
Majority World Perspectives
Multicultural Miracle Claims and Ethnocentric Prejudices If even a handful of miracle claims prove more probable than not, Hume's argument fails, removing the initial default setting against miracles. Without a special burden of proof against miracle claims, they can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by normal laws of evidence like any other claims. To reject all eyewitness claims in support of miracles (when we would accept in court eyewitness claims of similar quality for other events) simply presupposes against miracles from the start, rigging the debate so as to exclude in advance any supportive testimony as reflecting misunderstanding or deception. At present, however, the primary issue is whether witnesses can claim firsthand knowledge of what they believe are miracles, and here the evidence is overwhelming from the outset.
Even if outside the experience of most Western scholars, today's world is full of firsthand claims to have witnessed miracles, and there is no reason to suppose that the ancient world was any different. Western scholars may readily dispute the explanations for such phenomena, which may vary from one claim to another, but when some scholars deny that such phenomena ever belong to the eyewitness level of historical sources, they are not reckoning with the social reality of a sizable proportion of the world's population. Indeed, millions of intelligent but culturally different people will be compelled by what they believe to be their own experience or that of others close to them to dismiss such scholarship as an experientially narrow cultural imperialism. In the face of far less information about other cultures than is available today, in fact, Hume and the thinkers he followed unashamedly assumed cultural superiority over supernaturalist cultures (a matter treated further below).
Thus historical Jesus scholars Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, although reluctant to attribute extranormal phenomena to purely supernatural causes,10 point out that the plausibility principle of analogy used in historiography "obliges us to recognize the possibility of healings and exorcisms. For in many cultures there is an abundance of well-documented analogies to them—and even in the 'underground' of our culture, although that may be officially denied."11 Thus many scholars today
10. Theissen and Merz, Guide, 310–13. They suggest (312) that perhaps there is a "supernatural" element within nature itself, a charisma present in many people and capable of being used benevolently or malevolently, "religious" explanations being socially determined (cf. Ashe, Miracles, 26–27). Other hypotheses may ultimately prove more viable, but Theissen and Merz at the least recognize the reality of the phenomena.
11. Theissen and Merz, Guide, 310; cf. also Price, Son of Man, 20–21. Theissen and Merz employ the same analogy principle to discount nature miracles (310), which they think were written in light of the resurrection (301–4; but then, so is everything in the Gospels). Yet, as I note elsewhere, there are also many modern reports of nature miracles (again, whatever their explanation), though far fewer than healing and exorcism claims (e.g., Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, History, 223–24; Sanneh, West
African Christianity, 181–83; Kinnear, Tide, 92–96; Khai, "Pentecostalism," 268; Dayhoff, "Barros";
Daniel, "Labour," 157; Hellestad, "Prayer," 16–17; Yung, "Integrity," 174; McGee, "Regions Beyond,"
70; idem, "Miracles," 253; Bush and Pegues, Move, 54–55, 59, 64, 192; Koch, Revival, 143–44; Numbere,
Vision, 206–7; Lindsay, Lake, 48–49; Harris, Acts Today, 66–67, 80; Emmanuel Itapson, interview, April
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observe that the principle of analogy, historically used against the reliability of eyewitness miracle reports in the wake of the radical Enlightenment, now favors their probability.12 Some thinkers in other disciplines have also drawn on modern miracle accounts in discussing issues related to ancient miracles.13 Many miracle reports today resemble those in the Gospels, and it is today's accounts that we can most easily verify and falsify by consulting witnesses.14
A Multicultural Approach Social scientists have noted that, despite a variety of interpretations, "people from all cultures relate stories of spontaneous, miraculous cures," based on experiences that they have had.15 This observation has some relevance for how we approach biblical narratives involving healings. As Justo González remarks in his commentary on Acts, the frequent denial of narratives' historicity because of their miracle reports employs a questionable epistemological criterion. Bultmann denied that modern people who use scientific inventions can believe in miracles,16 yet "what
Bultmann declares to be impossible is not just possible, but even frequent." Miracles are, González points out, affirmed in most Latino churches, despite the influence of the mechanistic worldview from much Western thought.17 Cuban Lutheran bishop
Ismael Laborde Figueras notes that it is hard to find Latin American Christians who do not believe in miracles.18 Noted Latina theologian Loida Martell-Otero likewise emphasizes prayers for healing in the Latina community,19 and notes that Latinas' experience helps shape their way of reading Scripture.20
29, 2008; Ayo Adewuya, phone interview, Dec. 14, 2009; Paul Mokake, interview, June 3, 2006; Donna
Arukua, interview, Jan. 29, 2009).
12. Besides some listed above, note here also, e.g., Wink, "Write," 6; deSilva, "Meaning," 16–17. This observation was already offered by Alfred Russel Wallace, cooriginator with Darwin of the theory of natural selection, in 1896 (Mullin, Miracles, 185–86; on Wallace, cf. also Vidler, Revolution, 120); and G. K. Chesterton in 1914 (from a Christian perspective; Mullin, Miracles, 219).
13. Nichols, "Miracles," 705. On a popular level, Cranston, Miracle, 277, appeals to miracles at Lourdes to confirm the plausibility of biblical miracles.
14. Laurentin, Miracles, 93.
15. McClenon, Events, 131 (citing for further information Hufford, "Folk Healers"; idem, "Folk
Medicine"; idem, "Epistemologies"; McClenon, "Experiential Foundations").
16. Cf. Bultmann, "Mythology," 4.
17. González, Acts, 84–85. Although González is speaking more broadly, some estimate that 28 percent of all Latino Christians in the United States identify with Pentecostal or (esp. among Catholics) charismatic movements (Espinosa, "Contributions," 124); naturally these believers would be included among those agreeing with González's statement. Some suggest that common characteristics of Pentecostalism readily fit Hispanic and Latino culture (cf. Alexander, Signs, 133–34). At the least, the Latin American worldview is more accepting of the supernatural, not being "over-rationalized" (Alvarez, "South," 141–42, 144, though referring esp. to Pentecostals).
18. Ismael Laborde Figueras (interviews, Aug. 7, 8, 2010).
19. For Latina prayer for healing and other matters, see Martell-Otero, "Satos," 16–17, 32–33; idem,
"Liberating News," 384–87, considering this dependence on God in a context of resistance against oppressive structures that cannot be trusted.
20. Martell-Otero, "Satos," 31–32, protesting the dominant culture's frequent view of Hispanic/Latina faith as superstitious also on 16. She cites Brueggemann, Astonishment, 39, 42, regarding academia's loss of
Majority World Perspectives
Some Asian theologians have likewise complained that the approach of Bultmann's school is irrelevant to Asian realities. Asian worldviews, Methodist bishop
Hwa Yung notes, affirm miracles, angels, and hostile spirits.21 Indeed, pace Bultmann's rhetoric, most religious Westerners also fail to see any contradiction between miracles and the use of modern science22—including a number of scientists.23
"Modern" worldviews are too diverse to fit any one paradigm,24 and despite his cultural assumption that his argument is true, Bultmann never provides a reason for it.25 Cross-cultural studies suggest that socialization rather than exposure to science accounts for most of the skepticism in some circles.26
Whereas fewer than 18 percent of Christians in 1900 lived outside Europe and North America, today more than 60 percent do, and an estimated 70 percent will by 2025.27 As the center of world Christianity has shifted to the Global South, the dominant Christian perspectives in the world have shifted with it.28 Although far from being the only groups involved in this shift, charismatic and Pentecostal forms ability to hear sympathetically awesome experiences among the marginalized. For distinctions between global Pentecostals and fundamentalism, see, e.g., Cox, "Miracles," 92–93; Spittler, "Review."
21. Yung, Quest, 7; on the Global South more generally, see others, e.g., McGowan, Authenticity,
22–23 (citing Walls, Movement; Jenkins, Next Christendom). Yung notes that this perspective may seem strange to Westerners but it fits most non-Western cultures ("Integrity," 173). Elsewhere he suggests that openness to the miraculous is so characteristic of global Christianity today that antisupernatural Western
Christianity, which once marginalized non-Western Christian supernaturalism, appears to be "the real aberration" ("Reformation").
22. See, e.g., Davis, "Actions," 173–75; Erlandson, "Miracles" (esp. 427–28); Sider, "Historian," 309;
Robinson, "Challenge," 323; Loos, Miracles, 75–76; Alvin Plantinga's criticism in Clark, Philosophers, 69.
Research shows that beliefs about healing are complex and are much more correlated with charismatic practice than with education and other factors (Village, "Dimensions," studying 404 Anglicans). Perhaps halfway between Bultmann and his detractors, Welbourn, "Exorcism," 596, thinks spiritual healing and exorcism are impossible for technological peoples but make sense in some other cultures.
23. See Jaki, Miracles and Physics, 14–15, citing (on 15) such figures as Volta, Ohm, Ampère, Faraday, and many others; Polkinghorne, Physics, 108–9, cites Faraday, Maxwell, and Lord Kelvin.
24. Carlston, "Question," 99.
25. See, e.g., Davis, "Actions," 173–75; cf. Jaki, Miracles and Physics, 13–14. Bultmann's confidence without argument contrasts with many ordinary Christians who argue for miracles by citing examples to which they or others are eyewitnesses—an argument that some intellectuals simply dismiss without genuine consideration or self-critical examination of their own assumptions. Does not such dismissiveness risk elitism?
26. One therapist notes how experiencing the supernatural challenged the skeptical approach of his training (Malarkey, Boy, 135, 149–50). Still, in general, studies of undergraduates show that scientific training does "not reduce the frequency of anomalous reports," in contrast to beliefs in circles of elite scientists (McClenon, Events, 35). Likewise, in cultures like Ghana there is no inverse proportionality between scientific knowledge and paranormal beliefs (ibid., 22). The academy is an elite subculture, and cultural factors (at least sometimes related to academic politics) help shape its creeds.
27. Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 121, noting also that by 2050 "only about one-fifth of the world's
Christians will be white." The shift of Christianity especially to the Global South is now too widely documented and regularly noted (e.g., Escobar, Tides, 84–85; Rah, Next Evangelicalism, 13; Barnum,
Silent, 284–86) to require much comment, but it is also reshaping Christianity in the West, in part through migration and population shifts (see, e.g., Rah, Next Evangelicalism, 13–14, 74).
28. Laing, "Face," 165. The label "Global South" is not very precise geographically; in employing the title, I am deferring to a current usage.
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of Christianity have been in the forefront of the recent expansion of Christianity, reportedly growing six times over in the three decades from 1970 to 2000.29 Not surprisingly, readings of Scripture in the Global South often contrast starkly with modern Western critics' readings.30 These readings from other social locations often shock Westerners not only because others believe the early Christian miracle narratives to be plausible but also because these readers often take these narratives as a model for their ministries.
Thus Western scholar of global Christianity Philip Jenkins notes that in general
Christianity in the Global South is quite interested in "the immediate workings of the supernatural, through prophecy, visions, ecstatic utterances, and healing."31
Such an approach, closer to the early Christian worldview than modern Western culture is, appeals to many traditional non-Western cultures.32 Hwa Yung, the above-mentioned bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia, notes that the charismatic, Pentecostal character of Majority World churches reflects not so much direct influence by Pentecostals or charismatics as simply the worldview of the majority of humanity. They have simply never embraced the Western, mechanistic, naturalistic Enlightenment worldview that rejects the supernatural.33
Referring to the analogous issue of hostile suprahuman forces, noted scholar of African religion John S. Mbiti complains that most Western scholars "expose their own ignorance, false ideas, exaggerated prejudices and a derogatory attitude" that fail to take seriously genuine experiences pervasive in Africa.34 African psychologist
29. Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 121; on Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity, including Catholic charismatics, leading Christian expansion today, see also Noll, Shape, 115 (citing Martin, Tongues; idem,
Pentecostalism).
30. See Van der Watt, "Relevance," especially here 237–42, though helpfully warning of the danger of ignoring original contexts (243).
31. Jenkins, Next Christendom, 107, who also complains that Westerners too often contest the legitimacy of such perspectives (on 121 offering the specific example of John Spong's ethnocentric complaints about African Anglican bishops' "superstitious" and "Pentecostal" "extremism"). Admittedly, this observation is a generalization, since many in the West also report such experiences (see ch. 11, below; Kang, "World," 38).
32. See, e.g., Pocock, Van Rheenen, and McConnell, Face, 136–37; cf. Keener, "Spirit," 170. For Pentecostal relevance to indigenous healing traditions as well as offering a connection to the Gospels and Acts, see also, e.g., Porterfield, Healing, 126; Yong, "Independent Pentecostalism," 401. Cultural receptivity to spiritual realities does not necessarily lead to embracing the same spirits as before. Lehmann, Struggle,
145, compares Latin American Pentecostal healings with earlier possession cults, but underlines significant differences (the former demonizing the latter's spirits, and Pentecostals having followers whereas possession cults have clients). Scholars argue that in Africa as well, Pentecostals have demonized the old spirits and have grown at the expense of the older "Spirit churches" that accommodated them (Dijk, "Technologies," 221; for an example, see Kalu, "Mission," 13–14); the fast-growing charismatic churches are often displacing both traditional mission churches and independent churches (Mwaura, "Integrity," 198). Turaki, "Missiology,"
281, also notes that they are often evangelizing "nominal second generation Christians."
33. Yung, "Integrity," 173. In Yung, Quest, 238–39, he cites indigenous charismatic influences in Asia, such as Sadhu Sundar Singh, John Sung, and various revival movements, in addition to Western influences.
For another illustration: in Poewe, "Rethinking," 248, traditional East Asian culture influenced a traditional
Christian observer to become a proto-charismatic (before the spread of the charismatic movement).
34. Mbiti, Religions, 253; cf. Uzukwu, "Address," 9; Wyk, "Witchcraft," 1204. Another African scholar notes that miracle workers, both Christian and non-Christian, are an authentic part of African culture
(Ukachukwu Manus, "Miracle-Workers"). Another writer with experience in Africa suggests that African
Majority World Perspectives
Regina Eya warns that all claims to extranormal healing are dismissed by many Western scholars, the credible along with the spurious, because of the inappropriate application of traditional Western scientific paradigms to matters for which they were not designed.35 Danny McCain, a Western professor who has spent more than two decades teaching in Nigeria, notes that "nearly all African Christians and most African theologians," regardless of their views on other critical issues, reject Western antisupernaturalism. He acknowledges the existence of some false claims, but complains that "it is arrogant and unprofessional for Western scholars to outright reject the miraculous, totally ignoring the testimonies of thousands of people," based simply on their own lack of such experience.36
In addition to differing in their paradigms involving paranormal phenomena, many other cultures are in general more holistic, expecting spiritual beliefs to impinge on physical needs in ways that Western culture has often found uncomfortable.37 For example, the concern of religion for health in traditional African thought38 is likely a factor in the growth of African Independent Churches (AICs), most of which include a heavy focus on healing.39 Newer Pentecostal and charismatic culture offers better foundations for understanding biblical texts addressing such issues (Roschke,
"Healing"). An expert in African Christianity notes the prominence of spiritual power in African exegesis
(LeMarquand, "Readings," 496–97, citing as examples Abogunrin, Corinthians, 126, 131–32; Imasogie,
Guidelines, 66; Ndubuisi, Charisma; Udoette, "Charismata"). For an example of one traditional African supernatural worldview, see, e.g., Kraft, Worldview, 263–65.
35. Eya, "Healing," 51–52 (then research fellow in the psychology department of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; currently part of the psychology department at Enugu State University of Science and Technology). She does note that some Western works have shown greater openness to alternative paradigms (citing, e.g., Leshan, Medium).
36. Danny McCain, personal correspondence, June 1, 2009. McCain teaches at the University of Jos,
Plateau State, Nigeria, and is the founder of the International Institute for Christian Studies. More generally,
Ramachandra, Myths, 154–55, complains that the elite subculture of Western intellectuals often ignore popular global Christianity and other faiths.
37. See, e.g., Allen, "Whole Person Healing," 130–31 (resisting Western acculturation that suppresses traditional African interests); Welbourn, "Exorcism," 595 (African allowance of both medical and spiritual treatment); Pobee, "Health," 59–60; Bührmann, "Religion and Healing"; Dube, "Search," 135; Jules-Rosette,
"Healers," 128; Omenyo, "Healing," 235–38; Downing, Death, 62 (biomedical without spiritual healing being reductionist and specifically Western); Joubert, "Perspective," 126–27 (on the connectedness of the material and spiritual worlds, following Yusufu Turaki); Oduyoye, "Value," 116 (on African recognition that life is not purely materialistic); Githieya, "Church," 240 (on the holistic emphasis of one AIC); Burgess,
Revolution, 223; Pope-Levison and Levison, Contexts, 109; Lake, Healer, 117 (traditional Native American healing); Oblau, "Healing," 324; Griffiths and Cheetham, "Priests" (esp. 297, 302–3); Ma, "Encounter,"
130 (regarding Korea); Clapano, "Perspective," 116 (from Missionary Sisters of the Assumption in the Philippines, though perhaps mixing practices from varied religious backgrounds as well); Maggay, "Issues,"
34; Tarango, "Physician"; Shishima, "Wholistic Nature"; González, Tribe, 94; Byaruhanga-Akiiki and Kealotswe, Healing, 100, 108, 128; Krippner, "Medicine," 194; cf. McCormick and Gerlitz, "Nature"; on this claim for Pentecostal worship, cf. Johns, "Healing," 48–49; for Catholic worship (in a different form),
Power, "Response," 101–2; Pentecostal holism in Droogers, "Normalization."
38. See, e.g., Pobee, "Health," 58–59; among traditional Yoruba, see Ajibade, "Hearthstones," 195–99,
211; for holism in traditional Zulu culture, see Moodley, Shembe, 56–57.
39. See Daneel, Zionism, 13, 34; Pobee, "Health," 57; Byaruhanga-Akiiki and Kealotswe, Healing,
47–60; Kyomo, "Healing," 151; Parrinder, Religion, 115–26; Grundmann, "Healing," 27 (citing among examples West African Aladura churches and South African Zionist churches); Oshun, "Practices," 242 (on
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churches are also filling the same niche, sometimes at the expense of older AICs.40
Because African culture has always connected healing with religion, African Christian movements that appropriated the biblical connection of healing with religion have grown, often challenging churchgoers in more Western churches who were secretly consulting diviners and traditional practitioners.41 Many newer churches have grown in Africa at the expense of more traditional ones, especially where the latter have refused to engage local cultures' reigning cosmologies.42 In some areas, older mainline churches under indigenous leadership have likewise emphasized healing in a manner relevant to their African context.43 Western observers may appraise such developments positively or negatively,44 but what is minimally clear is that Africans from various belief systems are engaging issues that Westerners
Aladura); for the healing emphasis among the Aladura, cf. also Dairo, "Healing," 10 (among the Yoruba);
Brown, "Worshipping" (in Liberia); Sanneh, West African Christianity, 180, 184–205 passim, 239–40;
Ayegboyin, "Heal"; elsewhere, Parrinder, "Learning," 328 (healing and other emphases fit the traditional
African context); Ojebode and Moronkola, "Healing Ministry," 41–42; Becken, "Healing Communities,"
230; Amadi, "Healing"; Mwaura, "Response" (raising some concerns on 67–68); Zvanaka, "Churches,"
74 (healing as contextualization in the Zion Apostolic Church); Le Roux, "Le Roux," 63. Many of these churches adapt and address traditional cosmology and healing approaches (see Oosthuizen, "Healing,"
75–80, 89–90; Owuor et al., "Reinventing"); many observers therefore believe that they serve a useful social function (Oosthuizen, "Healing," 89; Wessels, "Practices," 108; Gumede, "Healers"). For one healing movement (mixing Christian and non-Christian elements) in Asia, see, e.g., Ma, "Santuala" (esp. 68); idem, "Mission," 30; Yong, "Independent Pentecostalism," 395–97. Omenyo, "Healing," 233–34, argues that many of these churches formed because mission-founded churches at that time disallowed spiritual gifts and other spiritual issues; to the extent that this explanation is accurate, the process would appear analogous to the foundation stories of many early Pentecostal denominations in the West. AICs claimed some 95 million adherents in 1995 (Shaw, Awakening, 56).
40. Some have argued that newer Pentecostal churches are growing at the expense of traditional independent churches (Gifford, "Developments," 525–27; cf. Walls, Movement, 92–93, on growing indigenous charismatic churches; Shaw, Awakening, 166, on Ghana; Burgess, Revolution, 4); Pentecostals have tended to be culturally flexible and ready to incorporate African cultural elements (Hanciles, Beyond
Christendom, 36, 359; idem, "Conversion," 174; Martin, "Expansion," 290; cf. Stanley, "Christianity," 82).
Zionist (as opposed to Ethiopian) AICs emphasize charismatic gifts (Spear and Kimambo, "Prophecy,"
229); despite classifications based on worship forms, however, some southern African AICs betray more historical influence from earlier traditional churches than from Pentecostalism (Daneel, "Churches,"
186–90). For the growth in Mozambique, along with the healing emphasis, see Schuetze, "Role," 36–37.
41. Walls, Movement, 117. These churches often borrow forms from traditional religions but tend to be their harshest opponents (Walls, Movement, 99).
42. Ranger, "Dilemma," 364–65, viewing the newer approaches as a better solution to the problem of syncretism. Peltzer, "Faith Healing," 399–400, notes that Zionists and Apostolics take over traditional healers' roles, combined with Christianity. The Aladura church reflects many traditional Yoruba beliefs about spirits and witches (e.g., Babalola, "Impact"), which it confronts through prayer (Ray, "Aladura
Christianity," 281–87). Dickson, Theology, 95–96, suggests that the mainline churches' early neglect of healing, in contrast to the interests of healing churches, reflected "European-oriented traditions." Mainline churches' failure to address spirits can encourage believers to look elsewhere for help, sometimes in ways considered syncretistic (so, e.g., Jackson Mutie Munyao, an Africa Inland Church pastor in Kenya, cited in Wagner, "World," 91; in India, cf. Hiebert, "Excluded Middle," 39). The same pattern obtained earlier in the West, some turning to Christian Science (Wilson, Power, 16).
43. Rasolondraibe, "Ministry" (noting traditional African cultural expectations on 344–47).
44. Though genuine health benefits are welcome, religious competition can also breed outlandish claims and false advertising. See, e.g., "Church's ad with crutches banned in South Africa," http://news
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often ignore. At least some aspects of their interest in physical health are more in keeping with biblical cosmologies than much traditional Western Christian minimizing of the body is.45
Regardless of how we interpret miracle reports and other supernatural claims, their frequency in various sectors of today's world indicates that large numbers of intelligent, sincere people believe that such cures are occurring today, including through their own prayers. This is true even in the modern West; how much more likely would this be the case in a generally less skeptical culture like the world of the first Christians? There is no intrinsically historical reason to think that the Gospel writers had to invent such miraculous claims, or that Luke had to invent them even in the eyewitness "we" material in Acts (Acts 16:18; 20:10; 28:4–6,
8–9; cf. 21:4, 11, 19).46 Nor is there any reason to insist that the reports must have originated in a reporter's deception or imagination.
Cross-Cultural Readings Various trends now challenge traditional readings. Consistent with the rise of global awareness and the increase in voices from the Majority World,47 postmodernity rejects the privileging of Western cultural assumptions.48 As an example of the trend toward cultural openness, medical anthropology now rejects
"medicocentrism," the ethnocentric view that only current Western views of .yahoo.com/s/ap/20100721/ap_on_re_af/af_south_africa_church, accessed July 21, 2010. Reasonably, the church was being asked to supply evidence for its claims.
45. As often noted, e.g., Pope-Levison and Levison, Contexts, 109–10, 167 (on Jesus). Biblical anthropology valued healing because it valued the whole person as opposed to Western dualistic denigration of the body (see Blessing, "Healing," 188–92).
46. Bauer cited the presence of miracles against the genuineness of eyewitness claims in the narratives
(as noted in Campbell, We Passages, 9), purely on the philosophic assumption that miracles are implausible.
On the "we" narratives, see the excursus in Keener, Acts, at Acts 16:10 and the sources cited there.
47. To some extent, these voices are still often filtered through Western academia, that is, those who work through the Western system and gain a voice there are often required to speak its language and work by its rules to gain a hearing in Western academia, as is also the case for various minority perspective voices in the West. I am not implying that academia should have no boundaries (contrast the current glut of information on the Internet, largely undistinguished by any critical grid) but lamenting that some boundaries simply reinforce the hegemony of the dominant culture.
48. Noting the cultural shift and valuing culturally diverse voices is not a blanket endorsement of all ideas frequently associated with postmodernity, which other cultural shifts will in any case likewise presumably supersede. Though language may be incomplete, as deconstructionists emphasize, it is normally adequate (note Chomsky, Syntactic Structures; cf. relevance theory, e.g., in Green and Sim, Relevance
Theory). Likewise, historical evidence may fall short of scientific precision without historians needing to relinquish the possibility of making some claims about historical events. For concerns, see, e.g., Espiritu,
"Ethnohermeneutics," 272–73; for one discussion of the postmodern emphasis on difference and a postpostmodern response underlining human solidarity, see Min, Solidarity, 47–64 and 65–88, respectively; on postmodern theology, see, e.g., Vanhoozer, Postmodern Theology. Apart from specifically postmodern assumptions, other domains have long valued multicultural approaches (e.g., Taylor, Missiology). Welcoming diverse cultural perspectives also need not require agreeing with every point (e.g., the views of some that most illnesses are caused by evil spirits, noted in Cho, "Healing," 123–24; see further documentation concerning cultures holding this view in my appendix B).
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sickness and healing are authentic and that disputes the many claims to cures outside Western views.49 Medical anthropology is a burgeoning field that has generated vast scholarship.50 It also offers promise for biblical scholars; medical anthropology, John Pilch argues, "could help the exegete to adopt a transcultural stance"51 when addressing healing claims in the nt. "Illnesses" are often culturally defined,52 and varying cultural constructs of illness and wellness can actually influence health.53 Some disciplines other than biblical studies have been more quick to appropriate the benefits of medical anthropology. Indeed, some physicians now partner with some spiritual healers due to the observed effectiveness of some of the latter, regardless of views of the causes.54 Other cultural traditions often surprise unexposed Westerners; when, for example, some Western students pressed a guest speaker from the Kenyan Maasai culture whether he genuinely believed in traditional Maasai healing practices, he laughed and retorted, "It worked."55
Another example uncomfortable for some traditional Western assumptions, although relegated in this book mostly to appendix E, involves vision reports.
Cross-cultural anthropological studies suggest that people in a variety of cultures experience visions or other altered states of consciousness and that vision reports in Acts or Revelation therefore would appear plausible to much of the world's
49. See Pilch, "Sickness," 183; idem, "Disease," 135; cf. Barnes, "Introduction," 6–7; Crawford, "Healing,"
31–32; for the influence of Eastern healing practices in Western medicine (here psychotherapy), see, e.g.,
Gerber, "Psychotherapy." Tensions between diverse cultural medical approaches can create ethical and legal problems, especially when one is empirically more effective (see, e.g., "Making Room").
50. See Barnes, "Introduction," 3, and note the bibliography in Barnes and Talamantez, Religion and Healing, 353–78, just on religious traditions and healing (also Barnes, "World Religions," 346–52). For examples of various cultural healing traditions, see, e.g., the essays in Van Alphen and Aris, Medicine
(summarized in, e.g., Stadtner, "Review").
51. Pilch, Healing, 35 (cf. also 14). For medical anthropology in general, see Pilch, Healing, 19–36; for application to Jesus research, see idem, "Anthropology"; for various applications of anthropology more generally to nt healing accounts, see Neyrey, "Miracles."
52. See, e.g., Pilch, Dictionary, 72; Eve, Healer, 52–53 and others (many following esp. Kleinman,
Healers, 71–82 and passim). Most parasites and illnesses known today existed (Avalos, "Health Care,"
760–61) but were understood differently.
53. Pilch, "Usefulness," 102–3. We may not believe in being moonstruck or struck by the evil eye, but anthropologists recognize these as "folk-conceptualized disorders" (Pilch, Healing, 19; cf. idem, "Disease,"
136, 139); illnesses also affected status and marginality from social power (cf., e.g., Pilch, Dictionary,
77; idem, "Disease," 138). On cultural systems approaching disease differently, see, e.g., Grundmann,
"Healing," 33. For an example of an attempt to read a biblical healing text according to ancient rather than modern medical conceptions, see Keener, "Fever"; cf. also the ancient contextual approach in von
Bendemann, "Arzt."
54. Remus, Healer, 114–15 (noting recent medical research, esp. Harpur, Touch). In many places, the number of doctors is so inadequate that health care must involve traditional practitioners (Abioye,
"Faith," 3); on the inadequacy of available modern health care contributing to dependence on traditional medicine and practices such as those in the Aladura movement, see, e.g., Ayegboyin, "Heal," 233–34.
Because members of some independent churches seek health care only from church leaders or with their permission (Kgwatalala, Villiers, and Lubbe, "Behaviours," 276–80), those interested in health care must collaborate with them (281–82).
55. Mitchem, "Healing," 224.
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population.56 As noted above, there has also been a shift away from antisupernaturalism itself, so that even the interpretation of such claims, as well as the existence of the phenomena themselves, is more open to discussion than in the past.
Culture affects how we read ancient miracle claims. Some modern critics have complained that early Christianity spread through claiming signs and wonders, playing on the fears of superstitious people. (Some others, by contrast, affirm that they offered culturally relevant therapies.57) Yet most Christians in the Majority
World, less shaped by the modern Western tradition of the radical Enlightenment, find stories of miraculous phenomena far less objectionable than do their Western counterparts.58 These other cultures offer a check on traditional Western assumptions; as Lamin Sanneh, professor of missions and history at Yale Divinity School, points out, it is here that Western culture "can encounter . . . the gospel as it is being embraced by societies that had not been shaped by the Enlightenment," and are thus closer to the milieu of earliest Christianity.59 Encounters with non-Western societies have increasingly challenged the hegemony of many assumptions that the Enlightenment treated as universals.60 Thus even various Western scholars are increasingly challenging the hegemony of the traditional Western approach of demythologizing, in light of the very different hermeneutical approach of African readers.61
As I shall elaborate further below, many of these voices, in fact, can recount reports (including at times their own eyewitness testimony) of phenomena, both associated with Christianity and not associated with it, that seem difficult to explain, if taken at face value, without recourse to the activity of suprahuman entities. Regardless of the explanations given, hundreds of millions of people around the world sincerely believe that suprahuman forces are at work or that miraculous healings occur. Indeed, those who deny such forces (however
56. Pilch, Visions, passim; see also comments regarding possession states in appendix B and visions and dreams in appendix E. Pilch notes (158–59) that such phenomena have continued despite attempts of the Enlightenment to discredit the earlier experiences throughout history.
57. Critics sometimes address the Christian exorcists in late antiquity who, like other practitioners of their era, responded to the pervasive sense of demonization in that period. Others regard such activity as a form of culturally sensitive adaptation to local psychological needs (cf. observations concerning the continuity and discontinuity in Frankfurter, Religion in Egypt, 273–77; on this period, see also Lewis,
Life, 98; for anthropological assessments of the therapeutic aspects of exorcisms, see my appendix B). In either case, these claims are far more pervasive than the few samples offered in the Gospels and Acts. On the success of wonders in converting pagans after Rome's fall, see Ward, "Monks," 133.
58. Jenkins, Next Christendom, 122–31; cf. also Mullin, History, 279 (cf. 281); Mchami, "Possession," 17
(on spirits); Richards, "Factors," 95–96; Evans, "Judgment," 201–2; Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 67–73, 82–83
(also noting, on 71–73, the shift among, and citing, "many western ethnographers" and anthropologists who have grown increasingly respectful toward other cultures' approaches to the supernatural); on a less technical level, cf. also Venter, Healing, 46–49, 54; the practical expansion of miracles among African Bible readers who had not been warned against this approach by missionaries, in Gardner, "Miracles," 1929.
59. Sanneh, Whose Religion, 26.
60. See Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 67, 375–76.
61. Kahl, "Überlegungen." Gaiser, Healing, 10, supports bringing into conversation the insights of various cultures, including those in Africa, for a contemporary theology of healing.
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defined) are clearly a minority of the world's population.62 Whether one likes it or not, it is neither charitable nor plausible to simply dismiss the existence of such sincere claims, however one chooses to explain them. By analogy, it is plausible that many ancient claimants also sincerely believed that they reported such phenomena accurately, rather than that they were inventing them for the purposes of propaganda.
Ethnocentric Objections to Miracles The danger of reading biblical narratives solely through the grid of modern
Western assumptions is not a merely theoretical one. Traditional Western academic approaches to other cultures have often proved ethnocentric,63 including through derogatory Western assumptions about "religion."64 If research is guilty of ethnocentric assumptions when addressing cultures contemporary to us, we run an even greater risk of compounding that ethnocentrism with anachronism as we study ancient cultures.
Moreover, what is true about ethnocentric approaches to religion in general is also true of ethnocentric approaches to miracles in particular. I noted in chapters
5–6 that David Hume's arguments against miracles have been the dominant influence in the nineteenthand twentieth-century academic dismissal of miracles. I also noted that one of Hume's arguments against miracles was that in his day most reports stemmed from "ignorant and barbarous nations."65 Hume's attribution, however, could appear to hold true only insofar as one tautologically defined all supernaturalist cultures as "barbarous," and excluded literary and other sophistication from consideration when defining "ignorant."66 By what sort of definition,
62. If one goes beyond those who claim to have experienced or witnessed such phenomena to those who believe that they sometimes occur, the numbers are exorbitant. As I will elaborate further below,
Pentecostal and charismatic Christians alone (only a portion of those who believe in such phenomena) may constitute as many as half a billion people, though this may be a high estimate; for discussion of the figures, see Anderson, Pentecostalism, 11. With probably the majority of Christians, Muslims, and various other groups added, it is clear that antisupernaturalists are a minority of the world's population (cf. also
Beit-Hallahmi, "Signs," 161, despite his own apparent disdain for supernaturalism; on the supernatural worldview of much of Islam, see, e.g., Kraft, Worldview, 279–80; Parshall, Bridges). This observation does not make antisupernaturalism wrong (antisupernaturalist critics are right to point out that supernaturalism is appealing; e.g., Frank, Persuasion, 222–23), but it does make it arrogant to simply dismiss all other worldviews by merely claiming that one's assumptions are self-evidently correct.
63. See, e.g., the critique in MacGaffey, "Epistemological Ethnocentrism" (cf. also idem, "Ideology");
Vansina, "Knowledge" (passim, but esp. 39–40); Chrétien, "Exchange," 77.
64. MacGaffey, "Epistemological Ethnocentrism," 43–45. See Hultkrantz, Healing, 163–64, on earlier anthropological dismissals of Native American supernaturalism as primitive and irrational.
65. Hume, Miracles, 37 (cf. 37–40); idem, "Miracles," 36; frequently noted by others, e.g., Meier,
"Signs," 760; the association of religious healing with "primitive" superstition still persists in some circles at a popular level (see, e.g., the observation in Mitchem, "Healing," 222). Hume's language here resembles the early deist Toland (see Burns, Debate, 75; McGrew, "Argument," 653).
66. Cf. Swinburne, Miracles, 17; Larmer, Water, 106; Beckwith, Argument, 53. Colwell, "Miracles and History," 12, asks on what basis Hume forms this opinion, since he presents no historical evidence to substantiate it. Colwell cites our own culture as a counterexample to Hume's claim. Others observe
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for example, could one dismiss the ancient civilizations of India and China as "ignorant"?67
As one of Hume's modern critics complains, Hume offers no reason why "ignorant and barbarous" Jews would have failed to distinguish "between a corpse and a dinner guest" (in the case of Jesus's resurrection) more than "the wise and civilized
Gentiles of Athens or Rome" that Hume would have more happily owned as his forebears.68 Other scholars have treated Hume's anti-Jewish prejudices.69 Or, as Polkinghorne warns, people today might not separate "civilization" and "barbarism" so neatly as in the heyday of the Enlightenment; "it might be that other cultures provide, through their different practice and different kinds of openness, regimes more conducive than ours to certain types of experience."70
Hume's Explicit Ethnocentrism That Hume not only exalts his own culture but also neglects to evaluate critically the influence of its recent history in suppressing such phenomena reinforces the impression that his perspective was ethnocentric. But we need not settle for speculations regarding his ethnocentrism, since his work provides much more explicit evidence of it. Scholars today point to a note in his essay "Of National
Characters," which involved "the inferiority of the darker-skinned peoples."71 Here are some of Hume's words:72
I am apt to suspect the Negroes and in general all of the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any that Hume also readily dismissed claims from his own era (the Jansenists), further demonstrating the ad hominem character of his claim (Beckwith, Argument, 53).
67. Although African societies less often presented a united front, note also powerful African civilizations treated in, e.g., Usry and Keener, Religion, 27–41; Sanneh, West African Christianity, 16;
Oliver and Fage, History, 1–2; Du Bois, World, 148–75, 211–12; Oliver, "Riddle"; Atmore, Stacey, and Forman, Kingdoms. For one critical survey of the alarming European colonial denigration of African cultures, see Niang, Faith, 73–79. Native American peoples, such as Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans, also had complex and powerful civilizations.
68. Johnson, Hume, 80; cf. Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 132. For that matter, did Jerusalem's elite not have reason to wish to expose the movement's hoaxes or hysteria, if that were possible (Colwell,
"Miracles and History," 11)?
69. That Hume considered the Jewish people "barbarous and ignorant," still more so in antiquity, is clear enough (see, e.g., the language of Kugel, Bible, 34; in our essay, cf. Hume, Miracles, 55; more clearly,
History of Religion, 50–51, on their intolerance). If he did so because they believed in miracles, however, this is a circular argument (Collins, God of Miracles, 150) and also strangely neglects the polytheistic marvels of popular Greek and Roman belief and practice. Some early critics of Hume, by contrast, warned that Greeks (esp. among philosophers) had enough skeptics to make Christian claims difficult (W. Weston in 1746 in Burns, Debate, 117), but this is doubtful on a popular level.
70. Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, 56. I respond to the ethnocentric element in Hume's argument more fully in Keener, "Reassessment."
71. Fosl, "Hume," 174.
72. Hume, Works, 3:252 (from his "Of National Characters," as cited in Taliaferro and Hendrickson,
"Racism," 429; also see Ten, "Racism," 101).
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individual eminent either in action or speculation. No indigenous manufacturers amongst them, no arts, no sciences.
By contrast, he maintains, the least sophisticated of white peoples "have all still something eminent about them," and this difference from other peoples has been assigned by nature. He goes on:
Not to mention our colonies, there are Negro slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity, tho' low people without education will start up amongst us [whites], and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica indeed they talk of one Negro as a man of parts and learning, but 'tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.73
Borrowing language from Hume's essay on miracles, Taliaferro and Hendrickson interpret his dismissal of "exceptions" like the Jamaican man based on Hume's
"view of the regular, uniform, exceptionless character of nature," a nature that Hume has clearly misunderstood.74
The Jamaican whom Hume compares with a parrot simulating speech was Francis Williams, a Cambridge graduate whose poetry in Latin was well known.75
Nor would Williams have been the only renowned example who publicly disconfirmed Hume's prejudice. For example, New England African-American poet Phillis
Wheatley recited some of her poetry in London during Hume's day.76 Yet as we saw in chapter 5, Hume interpreted individual claims in light of what he believed to be patterns in nature rather than allowing individual cases to readjust his views of nature. His interest was neither in the specific social context that limited the achievements of many slaves77 nor in the specific theological context that invited miracles more in some settings than in others.
Hume's prestige assigned his opinions a public weight far heavier than they merited, even on issues like miracles and race that were outside his expertise. Hume's influence in bolstering racist sentiments proved substantial; thus, for example,
73. Hume, Works, 3:252 (from "Of National Characters," as cited in Taliaferro and Hendrickson,
"Racism," 429). The differentiation of races by nature has an ancient heritage; cf., e.g., Aristotle Pol. 1.1.4,
1252b; 1.2.18, 1255a; 3.9.3, 1285a.
74. Taliaferro and Hendrickson, "Racism," 429 (noting on 433 that, whether the issue was race or miracles, Hume's approach was to decide what was uniform and then to "explain away all ostensible counter-examples"). Hume's failure to take account of clear examples available to him reveals inconsistency with his own proclaimed empirical method.
75. Ibid., 431.
76. Ibid. Similarly, Thomas Jefferson's racism should have been challenged more fully, for example, by a book on black achievements sent him by Henri Grégoire (433) or his own acquaintance with Benjamin
Banneker. Though George Whitefield, unlike Wesley, accepted slavery, his appreciation for African
Americans earned the praise of Phillis Wheatley (Noll, History, 109).
77. A context emphasized by James Beattie in his eighteenth-century assault on Hume's racism (as quoted in Taliaferro and Hendrickson, "Racism," 439–40).
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philosopher Immanuel Kant declared that blacks had inferior mental capacities and "by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling." He explicitly cites Hume's challenge, noted above, to find any of "the hundreds of thousands of blacks," even among those who have been freed, who became intellectually great.78 "The blacks are very vain," he concluded, "but in the Negro's way, and so talkative that they must be driven apart from each other with thrashings."79
Lest we suppose that Hume's misinformed approach lacked further practical consequences beyond the world of ideas, his words proved useful for the arguments of pro-slavery authors, who cited his authority on the question regularly.80 Writers who opposed racism were forced to respond to Hume, as in the 1770 essay of James
Beattie or the 1784 essay of James Ramsay that proved of crucial importance in the British abolition movement.81 Unlike Hume, who had little genuine experience with slaves, James Ramsay spent nineteen years on a Caribbean island with thousands of slaves and therefore offers a wider range of experience than the more publicly honored Hume.82 That Hume's opinion carried more weight in many circles is tragic. Hume was a child of his day,83 but his argument against trusting testimony for miracles based on its presence among "ignorant and barbarous nations" should never again be admitted; its origins are inseparable from his ethnocentrism.
Majority World Voices84 The Gospels' and Acts' claims of signs and consequent public responsiveness (notwithstanding their complementary reports of skeptical resistance to such signs) seem much less novelistic in those parts of the world where such claims and attendant church growth occur today. If the early Christian accounts of dramatic signs make these works seem foreign and foreboding to segments of modern Western
78. Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, as quoted at length in ibid., 432; noted also in Ten, "Racism," 101.
79. Kant, as quoted in Taliaferro and Hendrickson, "Racism," 432–33. Such expressions of white supremacy flourished in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (often noted, e.g., Herrick, Mythologies,
106–8, 146–47, 160–61, 176–79), even in anthropology (see Renfrew and Bahn, Archaeology, 371; cf.
Trigger, "Nubian," 27), finally discredited only when the Third Reich implemented them forcibly.
80. Fosl, "Hume," 173–74; also Taliaferro and Hendrickson, "Racism," 432, naming several works from 1773–74 alone, including one three-volume work.
81. Taliaferro and Hendrickson, "Racism," 432. They note (440–41) that Beattie uses the same approach to argue against Hume's position on miracles. While even John Locke critiqued Bishop William Fleetwood's
1701 evidentialist Essay on Miracles in Two Discourses as excessive (Burns, Debate, 66–68, 97), we might note that Fleetwood was clear-thinking enough to be one of the first British voices to attack slaveholding
(in the years following 1710; Klein, "Anglicanism," 172–73).
82. Ten, "Racism," 103.
83. Indeed, Protestant theologians of the era had grown increasingly condescending toward miracle advocates; the well-educated theologians often associated them with the danger of destabilizing religious
"enthusiasm" (Daston, "Facts," 118, 121) and ignorance (ibid., 121).
84. I advanced some of the material in this book, and especially in this chapter, in Keener, "Readings"; some of this material appears in revised form in Keener, "Comparisons."
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academia,85 they are nevertheless welcome in many of the dynamic churches of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, which believe that they share their experiences.
The majority of Catholics, Pentecostals, Anglicans, and members of most other groups of Christians now live in the Global South, that is, in the Majority World;86 by 2050, perhaps only 20 percent of Christians in the world will be white.87 Thus, in contrast to the period when many of plausibility structures for modern critical nt scholarship were defined, Two-Thirds World Christians are now the majority, and expectation of healings is common among many of their churches.88 "Signs and wonders" are among the most prominent factors drawing people to faith in Christ in the Majority World today,89 with healings and exorcisms proving particularly effective.90 Dramatic miracle reports tend to cluster in different regions at different times, sometimes during periods that some scholars call "revival" (using a historic Western paradigm); as a general rule, however, we may say that these claims are far more common in many regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America today than in the West.
Learning from Other Cultures In a recent volume on global Pentecostal healing for Oxford University Press, religion scholar Candy Gunther Brown notes the massive number of healing claims and warns against a dismissive approach to them.91 "The tendency of many observers to dismiss divine healing claims as trivial or preposterous without investigating them has the unfortunate effect of increasing the suffering of those who have already suffered from illness, pain, and, in many instances, social and economic marginalization."92 Fraud and credulity do appear, she notes, but these problems do not characterize most practitioners. At the outset, therefore, we need to respect the specific cultural contexts in which such narratives are embedded, as well as the personal significance they have for those who experienced them.93
85. As Wink, "Write," 4, notes was once his feeling toward Acts.
86. Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 121–22.
87. Ibid., 121 (following Philip Jenkins).
88. For the expectation, see, e.g., Larbi, "Healing." Western Christians have also long observed that miracles are more common outside Western culture (Blue, Authority, 60); thus "Miracles of healing and deliverances from demonic possession are far more numerous on the mission fields of earth than at home"
(William Christie in Fant, Miracles, 108, mostly providing testimonies from Christian and Missionary
Alliance [C&MA] circles).
89. Yung, "Integrity," 173–75.
90. Ibid., 174. For the correlation of church growth with healing campaigns, see already McGavran,
"Healing and Growth," in 1979 (cited in more recent format in McGee, Miracles, 174).
91. While insisting on greater nuancing and thicker description, she notes that many of the best scholars summarize that "healing testimonials claiming recovery from every condition from headaches to cancers are too numerous to count, and that healing is in many instances cited as the primary motivator for religious conversion and church affiliation" (Brown, "Introduction," 13).
92. Ibid., 6.
93. Ibid. Cf. Duffin, Miracles, 183, answering pragmatically "rather than appealing to an abstract philosophical definition": "these events were miracles for the people involved."
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Scholars are increasingly taking into account global religious experiences. When
Ramsay MacMullen compares with Christian claims in the Roman Empire the healings of Simon Kimbangu (1889–1951) from 1921 in the Belgian Congo, he warns against extrapolating from anthropological parallels. Nevertheless, he believes that Kimbangu's "story might alert us to points in the evidence from antiquity which deserve special attention."94 Kimbangu's followers affirmed that he "raised the dead, caused the paralyzed to stand upright, gave sight to the blind, cleansed lepers, and healed all the sick in the name of the Lord Jesus."95 Not unlike
Jesus, he also ran afoul of the colonial elite who were anxious about the political potential of prophetic movements.96 Elements of Kimbangu's ministry also reflect a pattern from the indigenous Christian Antonian movement in the Kingdom of Kongo two centuries earlier.97
Rapidly expanding movements like Kimbangu's98 (although the movement's current form differs from its original impetus)99 and William Wadé Harris's healing ministry in West Africa (1913–15)100 can be helpful in expanding the conceptual
94. MacMullen, Christianizing, 7; cf. also the comparisons with Kimbangu (and their limitations) noted in Flusser, "Love," 154; Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 155–57.
95. Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, History, 260, quoting an early document of the Kimbanguist
Church.
96. See, e.g., McClenon, "Miracles," 188. Kimbangu also drew ecclesiastical disdain, including from the British Baptists with whom he had been a catechist; they lost membership, in contrast to other groups, including American Baptists, who opposed him less (Orr, Awakenings, 159). Kimbangu can be understood in the context of earlier Congolese visionaries, such as the Catholic woman Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita
(1684–1706), who healed the sick but was burned at the stake after denouncing corruption in the church
(see McClenon, "Miracles," 185–86). For Jesus's conflict with the authorities, see sources in Keener,
Historical Jesus, 283–329, 549–79; and various sources cited there (including, e.g., Segal, "Revolutionary,"
211–12); for various political readings of Jesus, see, e.g., Borg, Jesus, 273–74; Hendricks, Politics; Herzog,
Jesus; Horsley, "Death," 405–8.
97. Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 103.
98. See further Brockman, "Kimbangu"; Martin, Kimbangu; Etienne, "Diangienda"; Rabey, "Prophet";
Jenkins, Next Christendom, 49–50; Cox, Fire, 252–53; Yates, Expansion, 173; Ndofunsu, "Prayer"; Gray,
"Christianity," 157–58; Coquery-Vidrovitch, "French Africa," 359; Jewsiewicki, "Belgian Africa," 482;
Gondola, "Kimbangu"; Davies and Conway, Christianity, 117–18; specifically on healings drawing attention in AICs, including Kimbanguism, see De Wet, "Signs," 99–100. Kimbangu also influenced
Daniel Ndoundou, a leader in the 1947 revival in Congo-Brazzaville (see Keener, "Ndoundou").
99. For some of Kimbangu's followers divinizing him, see Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 70, 78–79.
Kimbangu's rapid imprisonment by colonial authorities prevented his further influence on his own movement; compare problems contrary to Luther's approach even during Luther's comparatively short period in the Wartburg (Bainton, Stand, 203–5). While early reports of healings provide an analogy, the lengthy development of current views in Kimbanguism differs starkly from the setting of the formation of the earliest Gospel tradition (see, e.g., Keener, Historical Jesus, 153).
100. Cited by MacMullen, Christianizing, 23–24; others also often view him as analogous to Kimbangu
(e.g., Muzorewa, Origins, 128). Various "pentecostal" phenomena characterized his ministry (McGee,
"Regions Beyond," 91; "healing and miracles" in Hanciles, "Conversion," 170). Harris is widely remembered and discussed; see Shank, "Prophet"; idem, Prophet Harris; Haliburton, Harris; Walker, "Harrist Church"; idem, Revolution; Bartels, Roots, 174–78; Isichei, "Soul of Fire"; Sanneh, West African Christianity, 123–25;
Bediako, Christianity in Africa, 91–93, 103–4, 204; Walls, Movement, 87–88, 98–99; Anderson, "Signs,"
202; Southon, Methodism, 144–45; Barrington-Ward, "Spirit Possession," 467; Gray, "Christianity," 157;
Coquery-Vidrovitch, "French Africa," 358–59; Orr, Awakenings, 162; Wimber, Power Evangelism, 177–78;
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parameters of Western readers unaccustomed to thinking in terms of such phenomena. Like Kimbangu, Harris was detained by hostile colonial authorities, but his ministry had swelled the ranks of Christians.101 With his form of Christianity ready to confront traditional religion's power claims on their own terms, some estimate that more than 100,000 people were baptized in eighteen months.102 One might analogously compare Prophet Garrick Sokari Braide, who healed the sick and caused rain to fall in the name of Israel's God, until the colonial authorities arrested him in 1916 for cutting into their liquor profits in West Africa.103 Braide and others led indigenous African movements largely independent of Western missionaries, who typically shared their sending cultures' skepticism about their claims.104
Others have compared the documented curing successes of the "'mad monk'
Rasputin," which affected the course of Russian history and thus cannot be omitted from historical inquiry.105 Still others have compared Don Pedrito Jaramillo, a Mexican folk saint active from 1881 until 1907, who achieved more fame than did other healers of his era.106 I wish to follow the lead of MacMullen and these other scholars in exploring comparative examples.107 At the same time, I also
Wagner, "World," 97–98; Jenkins, Next Christendom, 48–49; Robeck, Mission, 272; Yates, Expansion,
170; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 20, 31, 36–38; Mullin, History, 275; MacCulloch, Christianity, 887–88.
101. Pirouet, Christianity, 160. Some Christians in the West did celebrate the work of Harris (Noll,
Shape, 138).
102. Hanciles, "Conversion," 170; cf. Shaw, Kingdom, 247; Bartels, Roots, 175. More conservatively,
Sanneh, West African Christianity, 123, notes that estimates "vary between 60,000 and 100,000." In Ghana and the Ivory Coast, Methodists (a background of Harris himself) in particular profited (123–25).
103. Sanneh, West African Christianity, 181–83; Yates, Expansion, 170, 172; Hanciles, "Conversion,"
169; Burgess, Revolution, 67; Brockman, "Braide"; Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, History, 223–26;
Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 31, 36, 38–39; Amadi, "Healing," 367–68. Cf. prophetic figures in South
Africa (e.g., nineteenth-century Xhosa Christian figures in Saayman, "Prophecy," 6–10); other examples in the endnotes of ch. 9. According to some, Braide may have unfortunately ended more like Dowie than
Harris (Shaw, Kingdom, 249–50).
104. Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 31, suggests that such indigenous African prophetic movements provided the strongest precursors for the character of contemporary African "Pentecostalism." For the influence of Ethiopianism on Braide and others, see Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 305; idem, "Conversion,"
169. For African prophetic movements reclaiming Christianity from the missionaries by emphasizing its charismatic dimension, and for these prophetic movements' sometimes anticolonial character, see
Spear, "History," 8, 16.
105. McClymond, Stranger, 83 (following De Jong, Rasputin, 136–42, and noting that the Russian court physician confirmed that when Rasputin would pray, the bleeding of the czar's hemophiliac son would stop). Noting his prominence in history is not to equate him with Kimbangu; many viewed the mystic
Rasputin as unscrupulous and contributing to his royal benefactors' decline (cf., e.g., Vidler, Revolution,
229). More positive were some Russian ascetic monks known for healing gifts (ibid., 229–30).
106. Eve, Miracles, 357–59 (following Romano, "Folk-Healing"; see also Eve, Healer, 58–62), arguing that he achieved this status especially by claiming divine authorization, offering unique cures, and (fitting cultural expectations for such healers) renouncing self. Eve, Miracles, 360, 379, compares aspects of Jesus's ministry. On the popularity of Don Pedrito Jaramillo and other Mexican healers, see also Espinosa,
"Borderland Religion," 132.
107. Although MacMullen's primary focus is a period subsequent to Acts and a fortiori the Gospels, others also have regarded his portrayal of popular Christian expansion as appropriate in this sense to
Majority World Perspectives
want to cast the net a bit more widely in view of the long history of claims of such phenomena throughout the past and their pervasiveness today.108
Other scholars have noted how quickly Western commentators have tended to pass over signs claims in Acts or the nt more generally, often in embarrassment.109
Anthropologists reading the nt, however, are not always so reticent.110 One critic of this embarrassed silence in Western nt scholarship has compared literature about shamans from around the world,111 into which he fits what he considers analogous accounts like the call and ministry of Oral Roberts.112 Although there are some vast differences among some of the objects of his comparison, they do serve to highlight the contrast between beliefs about suprahuman enablement in most of the world with skepticism about such beliefs in Western academia. Global experience challenges the traditional Western prejudice against extranormal claims and often the supernatural interpretation of them.113 I will develop this contrast further below.
Historian Mark Noll observes that Western Christians working in the Majority World "consistently report that most Christian experience reflects a much stronger supernatural awareness than is characteristic of even charismatic and Pentecostal circles in the West."114 Indeed, despite conventional prejudices, various Western practitioners have learned from Majority World practices.115 Thus, a number of Westerners who began successfully praying for others to be healed first learned the practice in the Majority World, quite often in regions where many lacked access
Acts (Alexander, Context, 203–4). Others have compared modern African models of witchcraft with ot examples (Dapila, "Role").
108. Later I will cite even samples of a doctor's evidence for extranormal healings that make ancient accounts more plausible (see esp. Gardner, "Miracles").
109. Ashton, Religion, 174–75, 177, noting that MacMullen differs from most nt scholars here; Van
Brenk, "Wagner," 253.
110. Field, "Possession," 10, has compared her observations of West African apostolic "Holy Spirit" sects with Acts. Sung-Gun Kim ("Pentecostalism," 32) argues that "from the perspective of church history, it is true that Pentecostal Christianity within Latin America, Africa and Asia resembles the primitive Christian
Church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Similarities are the urban character of their congregations, exorcism, healings, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and so forth."
111. Ashton, Religion, 32–40, including in his discussion also the sixth-century ascetic Theodore of Sykeon (34–36). For shaman analogies, cf. also, e.g., Klutz, Exorcism Stories, 196–97; Craffert, "Healer"; discussion in Porterfield, "Shamanism," 163; for the perspective that shamanistic healing is a cross-cultural phenomenon (at its most basic level), see Winkelman and Carr, "Approach," 171; also Winkelman,
"Shamanism" (offering evolutionary explanations); cf. almost universal supernaturalism more generally in Legrand, "Miracle." For other comparisons (and esp. contrasts) of shamans with ancient Mediterranean seers, see Brown, Israel and Greece, 81–117.
112. Ashton, Religion, 36–37. The definition of shaman in Walsh, Shamanism, 15–16, is broad enough to include many Christian ministers; Frank, Persuasion, 60, treats them as analogous. More controversially,
Leek, Story, 46, 160–66, treats Kathryn Kuhlman alongside various psychic and occult healers and mind sciences.
113. With Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 67–73; Evans, "Judgment," 201–2.
114. Noll, Shape, 34.
115. Cf. Robeck, "Charismatic Movements," 150; examples in Poewe, "Nature," 3. Cross-cultural influences should not surprise us; for example, even in the mid-nineteenth century, claims of miracle cures in Europe helped influence Christian ideas in the United States (see Curtis, "Character").
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to adequate medical technology.116 (Though I focus here on Christian healers, other Westerners have also learned from what they interpreted as suprahuman phenomena in the Majority World.117) Thus, for example, one anthropologist recounts the experience of a fellow anthropologist named Jacob Loewen, who was doing Bible translation among the Choco people in Panama.118 The wife of his host, Aureliano, was dying from what was obviously pneumonia; Loewen sent to a nearby town for relevant medicine, only to discover that none was available. While Loewen had translated the promise of healing in Jas 5:14–15, he knew that he did not have faith to pray. Nevertheless, reading this passage, the local believers prayed with him for her healing, and she rallied slightly. By the next morning, however, she was dying again, so the local believers anointed her with oil, without inviting Loewen, and this time she rose from the bed completely well, returning immediately to her household labors.
When Aureliano declared happily that God's Spirit had chased away the fever spirits, Loewen noted that they had not invited him and his Western colleague to pray this time. Aureliano apologized but noted, "It doesn't work when you and David are in the circle. You and David don't really believe." The writer remarks that he knew few Christians more consistent than Loewen, yet even Loewen found
"himself unable to transcend the secular assumptions and understandings of his particular birth society."119
More positively, one Christian anthropologist, learning from Majority World Christians, began to overcome his traditional "rationalism" and to pray for the sick, with some attendant healings.120 A leading missiologist, researching reports
116. Puxley, "Experience," 164–65, referring to India (for his prayers for others there, 167–71). Today the vast majority of Indian Pentecostals accept medical treatment alongside prayer (Bergunder, Movement,
167–70), a major reason being that it is now available to them (170). Cf. a doctor's testimony of a miracle in a setting in Pakistan, where facilities were inadequate for medical treatment (Gardner, Healing Miracles,
60–63). At the same time, the influence has sometimes gone the other way, such as Francis MacNutt's contributions to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Nigeria in 1975 (Ikeobi, "Healing," 59; Kalu,
African Pentecostalism, 93; idem, "Mission," 17; Csordas, Language, 32) and its spread from originally U.S. origins (Csordas, "Global Perspective," 332–33). But cf. also E. Milingo, former archbishop of Lusaka,
Zambia, 1973–83 (Haar and Ellis, "Possession"; Haar and Platvoet, "Bezetenheid," 177–91; Csordas,
Language, 33–35; idem, "Global Perspective," 345; Lagerwerf, Witchcraft, 3, 70–71; questioning charges of syncretism, see, e.g., Hinchliff, "Africa," 484); the Catholic charismatic movement is now truly a global phenomenon (cf., e.g., Csordas, "Global Perspective"; in Nigeria, Ajayi, "Sacrament," 55; in the Philippines,
Wostyn, "Catholic Charismatics"; in Haiti, Rey, "Catholic Pentecostalism"; for a more popular reading of its recent history, see, e.g., Darling, Restoration, 363–89). Through Csordas's work, anthropologist
Edith Turner (Healers, 69–75, esp. 70) became convinced that Catholic charismatics are a legitimate spiritual movement worthy of study, like others she has studied. In some places, traditional African elements have created tension with church officials (Sivalon and Comoro, "Mouvement," regarding a Marian movement in Tanzania).
117. E.g., Turner, Experiencing Ritual, 160.
118. Wilson, "Seeing," 202–4 (citing Loewen's account from 1974).
119. Wilson, "Seeing," 204. Cf. what an anthropologist learned in Prather, Miracles, 64–66.
120. Kraft, "Worldviews" (recounting his own story); cf. idem, Power, 4–6; Ball, "Professors," 109–12;
Kraft, "Years," 115–17; note similarly missionary and missiologist Peter Wagner (Wagner, "Dynamics," 113, involving Bolivia). Wagner has journeyed from anti-Pentecostalism to embrace of an apostolic movement
Majority World Perspectives
of causes of church growth in countries around the world, was forced to relinquish his previous skepticism and acknowledge that God was performing many healings today.121 It was testimonies about miracles from Majority World students at Fuller
Theological Seminary's School of World Mission that helped make the school's John Wimber, later a Western Third Wave leader, open to charismatic phenomena.122
A disabled minister in Malawi, unable to walk, asked prayer for healing from British Anglican Michael Green (at the time of his writing, senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford). Reluctant but unable to avoid the challenge, Green prayed for him, and "the man got up and started dancing around, just as the Lystra cripple is recorded as doing."123 The parallel to Acts is not coincidental; missionaries in various contexts continue to look to Acts for a model of miraculous ministry and power encounters.124
Widespread Pentecostal Claims in the Majority World Movements affirming continuing miracles are by no means limited to the nowflourishing Pentecostal and charismatic churches, nor are claims offered in this book by any means limited to Pentecostals or to those who share their theological predilections. Nevertheless, these movements emphasize healing consistently and virtually unanimously,125 so I will survey their claims first. that exceeds the comfort of even many traditional Pentecostals (cf. survey in Taylor, "Wagner"). Some writers argue that Kraft, Wagner, and others have gone too far in their spiritual warfare paradigms (overemphasizing spiritual mapping, etc.; see, e.g., Priest, Campbell, and Mullen, "Syncretism"; cf. Hiebert, Reflections,
200; Moreau, "Broadening," 127, 129–33; idem, "Perspective"; Lowe, Spirits; Liu, "Evaluation"; Tan-Chow,
Theology, 87; for a response from Kraft, see Kraft, "Animism"; for a balanced statement, see "Warfare Report"; no one, however, is critiquing simply informed prayer, as in, e.g., Johnstone, "Intercession"). I do share some serious concerns about the exegesis underlying some currently popular spiritual warfare paradigms
(cf. Keener, "Warfare"), but unless I misunderstand the debate, neither side of the argument affects the particular issue I address in this book. Neither the critics nor the advocates are antisupernaturalists, and I think that most of them do not deny that supernatural healings occur.
121. McGavran, "Seeing," 66–67 (noting that some initially resist the evidence because of concern for reputation). He does warn (68) that healing is not the only method God uses for church growth.
122. Wimber, Power Evangelism, xix; see further discussion of Wimber in ch. 11. Fuller ended up offering a signs and wonders course for a time (see Hubbard, "Hazarding"; Gibbs, "Wimber," 150–54;
Wagner, "Introduction"); the seminary was not officially endorsing its views but did affirm the propriety of inquiry into such topics, especially given their presence in the nt (as noted in Smedes, Ministry).
123. Green, Thirty Years, 104 (referring to Acts 14:8–10; cf. Acts 3:7–8). For other disabled persons initially unable to walk yet healed and then jumping as in Acts 3, see Dunkerley, Healing Evangelism, 18;
Clark, Impartation, 143.
124. E.g., Pettis, "Fourth Pentecost," 252–53; Green, Thirty Years, 9–10. I suspect that I could have multiplied the accounts in this book many times over by sending a survey to hundreds of missionaries and/or ministers in particular parts of the world, though not all would have had time to respond.
Nevertheless, the book probably contains sufficient accounts to make its point without reading like a dissertation.
125. For Pentecostalism's relevance to Majority World needs for healing and deliverance, see Anderson,
"Structure," 237; for the role of healing in Pentecostal missiology, see, e.g., Hodges, Indigenous Church,
50–51; York, Missions, 155. Its theology is hardly monolithic, but by definition Pentecostal and charismatic beliefs are incompatible with antisupernaturalism.
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My interest in them is not new to scholarship. Pentecostals and charismatics are an object of current interest in the social sciences,126 and anthropologists studying healing claims among various cultures have become increasingly willing to include Christian charismatics among the objects of their study.127 Harvard theologian Harvey Cox notes that whereas observers once attributed Pentecostal cures to "mere trickery, self-deception, mass hypnosis, or evidence of the placebo effect" (which could account for some cures), most now approach Pentecostalism's contribution to cures more positively.128
Many observers have noted how Pentecostal and charismatic movements emphasizing power encounters have been in the forefront of Christian growth in many parts of the world.129 Partly due to inadequate medical resources in much of the world, healing experiences are fueling much of this Pentecostal conversion growth.130
As I shall observe more fully in chapter 8, the conversions swelling this growth often involve a costly change in lifelong religious affiliation, and hence would be undertaken only on the basis of a firm new conviction that something seriously out of the ordinary happened. Not only Pentecostals in the Majority World but also many Western Pentecostal observers report an enormous number of healing incidents taking place in the Majority World.131
126. E.g., Csordas, Language; Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism; Corten and Marshall-Fratani,
Pentecostalism; Maxwell, African Gifts; Anderson, Bergunder, Droogers, and Laan, Studying. Pente costalism is also a flourishing research area in the discipline of modern religious history (e.g., Wacker,
Heaven Below; Blumhofer, Sister; Kalu, African Pentecostalism).
127. E.g., Turner, Healers, 69–74, 105–7, 123, 128.
128. Cox, "Foreword," xviii, emphasizing the increasing welcome of alternative approaches within the medical establishment.
129. Besides other sources cited here, see, e.g., Otis, Giants, 244. Pentecostalism has tended to adapt readily to address the supernatural interests of traditional Majority World societies (e.g.,
Martin, "Christianity," 79; Richards, "Factors," 94–96), and the pursuit of experiences like healings and tongues augment Pentecostal numerical growth (Hong, "Mission," 301). Its initial rapid expansion in the early twentieth century was not entirely de novo, as it absorbed "much of the southern holiness movement" (Synan, "Churches," 111), but conversion growth has been phenomenal nonetheless. Kidd,
Awakening, 323, suggests that the current divide between global Pentecostalism and many noncharismatic evangelicals echoes the divide that existed between moderate and radical evangelicals already in the 1700s.
130. Ma and Anderson, "Renewalists," 100; for emphasis on healing as possibly the primary cause
"for its growth in the developing world," see also Anderson, Pentecostalism, 30.
131. I cite here popular works, which are far more abundant than scholarly studies surveying popular approaches to this subject, as primary witnesses to what Pentecostals believe, as in studies of popular religion or in modern church historiography. See, e.g., "Doctor Healed" (healing from leukemia); Hosack,
"Church" (from a now-discontinued Assemblies of God missions magazine); Salvato, "Presence"; Johnson,
"Work"; Klaus, "Miracle"; Redpath, "Change" (also reported in Harris, Acts Today, 92–93); "Carried but Walked." Although means of verification are frequently more limited, some Western charismatics have offered startling claims that make the Gospels and Acts appear quite conservative (e.g., those gathered in Rutz, Megashift, 3–14, 21–34, 79–80, 88–92, 98, 104–9; in 25–26 Rutz mentions "hundreds of thousands" of healings in one Reinhard Bonnke crusade in Lagos in 2000; in Synan, Voices, 26, those healed in Bonnke's meetings are "too numerous to count"). Christian Broadcasting Network has extensive archives, and their personnel in other countries offer reports of healings (cf. comments in Harrell, Portrait, 118–19;
Robertson, Miracles, 145).
Majority World Perspectives
Addressing the future of global Christianity, Moonjang Lee notes, "The growing churches in the non-Western world are mostly Pentecostal-Charismatic, as seen in the Pentecostal movements in Latin America, Independent Churches in Africa, and Charismatic movements in Asia." Observing that Christianity is losing its traditional Western forms, Lee warns that it will need to fully recover its early charismatic character to survive and flourish.132 Estimates of global figures for even these charismatic and Pentecostal Christians alone are in the hundreds of millions, projected by many as approaching or exceeding even half a billion.133
Although the wider definition of these labels would surprise some believers so classified, according to high estimates, as of the year 2000 there were 126 million
Pentecostal/charismatic Christians in Africa, 134.9 million in Asia, and 141.4 million in Latin America (with 79.6 million in North America), whereas there were almost none a century earlier.134 The newest figures estimate some 614 million Pentecostals, charismatics, and neocharismatics for 2010 (out of roughly two billion church members, or 1.5 billion church attenders, in the world), with an estimate of nearly 800 million for 2025.135 These estimates make the charismatic branch of Christendom, which unanimously endorses healing, second in size only to Roman Catholicism, with which it overlaps and which also embraces supernatural beliefs.
Because of fluid definitions, some of these estimates technically may be overly optimistic, or at least include an assortment of groups that would not all endorse one another's orthodoxy.136 Nevertheless, even if one adopted a figure of three hundred million (considerably lower than any recent estimates I have found), the numbers are enormous; if one speaks of groups that affirm prayer for miraculous
132. Lee, "Future," 105.
133. Defining "charismatic" broadly, David Barrett estimated more than 600 million by 2000, or nearly
30 percent of world Christianity ("Statistics," 813), though he estimated downward closer to 2000 (roughly
524 million in idem, "Renewal," 388; cf. 460 million in Synan, Tradition, ix, 281, for 1995; 530 million in idem, "Streams," 372, for 1999); Sanneh estimates almost 590 million for 2005 (and a projected nearly
800 million by 2025; Disciples, 275); in 1994, Harvey Cox already accepted an estimate of 410 million
(Cox, Fire, xv) and a few years later suggested that "Pentecostals" could "equal Catholics in number by"
2030 (idem, "Miracles," 88); cf. the breakdown of figures in Synan, Grow, 5–11 (though note the many inactive "postcharismatics"). The figure of "two billion" (attributed to "some estimates" in Mullin, History,
272) is plainly impossible.
134. Noll, Shape, 22, cites these figures (as "best estimates," 23) from Barrett, Encyclopedia.
135. Johnson, Barrett and Crossing, "Christianity 2010," 36. The comparable figures for evangelicals more traditionally defined are about 263 million for 2010 and 348 million for 2025 (ibid.). Charismatics broadly defined thus compose roughly 28 percent of global church membership (estimated as closer to 31 percent by 2025), and perhaps closer to 40 percent of regular church attenders (closer to 45 percent by 2025). Pentecostals proper account for an estimated 94,383,000; charismatics for 206,579,000; and Third Wave adherents for 313,048,000 (Johnson and Ross, Atlas, 102).
136. For a nuanced and cautious discussion of the figures, see Anderson, Pentecostalism, 11; even the lowest estimates, however, attest remarkable growth (Davies and Conway, Christianity, 76). The highest statistics normally include indigenous independent churches (see, e.g., Burgess, Revolution, 5–6), such as Legios (an independent Catholic church with both charismatic identity and the Latin mass; see Schwartz,
"Global History"). For the diversity of movements that most social scientists classify as Pentecostals, see, e.g., Droogers, "Globalisation," 46–48, 57–59; cf. Anderson, "Varieties"; Bergunder, "Turn," 52–56.
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healing, the numbers would be far higher. Pentecostal and charismatic Christians have multiplied by more than 600 percent in three decades and by some estimates constituted 27.4 percent of world Christianity by 2006.137 By this estimate, they may compose roughly one-twelfth of the world's population.138 Sociologist Peter
Berger contends that Pentecostalism, presumably in the broad sense, "accounts for something like 80 percent of its [evangelical Protestantism's] worldwide growth."139
He even regards this form of Christianity as one of the most significant forces of "cultural globalization,"140 though the movement's local adaptability should nuance this verdict.141
Emphasizing Pentecostalism's growth in the Global South, where it is especially flourishing and culturally relevant,142 historian Robert Bruce Mullin
137. Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 121, citing Barrett, Johnson, and Crossing, "Missiometrics
2006." By mid-2006, these movements had grown more than eight times since 1970 (Barrett, Johnson, and Crossing, "Missiometrics 2006," 28), and were expected to reach nearly eight hundred million, an elevenfold increase, by 2025 (ibid.) These projections may require adjustment; these authors estimate
588,502,000 by mid-2005 (idem, "Missiometrics 2005," 29), thus a 7,594,000 increase by 2006;
602,792,000 by mid-2007 (idem, "Missiometrics 2007," 32), with a 6,696,000 annual increase; but 601,682,000 for 2008 (idem, "Missiometrics 2008"), thus an adjustment of 1,110,000 lower (though
1970 figures also appear nearly four million lower). By 2007 Pentecostals broadly defined may have represented 29 percent of world church attenders (Barrett, Johnson, and Crossing, "Missiometrics
2007," 32); Cox, "Foreword," xxi, similarly ranks them at a quarter of global Christendom. Tomkins,
History, 245, notes figures between one-sixth and a quarter of global Christendom, but notes that even such figures underestimate, since Catholic figures count all baptized infants, whereas Pentecostals
"tend to count only active members" (though I suspect that some "Pentecostal" figures may include many postcharismatics).
138. Satyavrata, "Globalization," 3.
139. Berger, "Faces," 425. Cf. Tomkins, History, 220: "the fastest-growing form of Christianity ever."
140. Berger, "Faces," 425 (the fourth of four forces of globalization that he mentions), cited also in Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 53 (as 8). Of all the forces of globalization, Berger contends, evangelicalism, again especially in its Pentecostal form, "is clearly the most dynamic" ("Faces," 425). Droogers,
"Globalisation," 59, connects the spread of Pentecostalism with globalization as traditional Protestants and Catholics spread with colonialism; cf. also other essays in Corten and Marshall-Fratani, Pentecostalism.
Overemphasizing such connections risks neglecting factors like spiritual dynamics and contextualization, but Pentecostalism is both global and polycentric (see Freston, "Transnationalisation," 196–97). On Pentecostalism's globalization, see also Dempster, Klaus, and Petersen, Globalization of Pentecostalism;
Satyavrata, "Globalization."
141. See Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 36, 53–55. Berger himself recognizes its indigenization ("Faces,"
425).
142. For Pentecostalism in the Majority World, see, e.g., Yong, Spirit Poured, 33–80 (in Africa and the African Diaspora, see ibid., 59–80; in Asia, 45–58; in Latin America, 33–45); Anderson, Pentecostalism, passim, including on Brazil (72–73); Congo (111); Kenya (112, 113); West Africa (116); the United
States (117); Indonesia (130); Jenkins, Next Christendom, 122–31; various essays in Dempster, Klaus, and Petersen, Globalization of Pentecostalism, including the section overview, Klaus, "Global Culture";
Robeck, "Charismatic Movements," 150–54. For its growth in much of Asia, see, e.g., Ma, "Challenges,"
195–96; idem, "Theology"; Yung, "Pentecostalism"; Anderson, "Face"; in Latin America, e.g., Petersen,
"Latin American Pentecostalism"; in Africa, e.g., Maxwell, African Gifts, 6–7. For the rapid expansion of Pentecostal missionaries from the Majority World, see, e.g., Pate, "Missions," 244–46; for one favorable perspective on the movement's growth, see Wagner, "Perspective," 266–68.
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observes that already by the end of the twentieth century there were "more Pentecostals worldwide" than mainline Protestants.143 While miracle claims also proliferate far beyond Pentecostal and charismatic circles, especially in the Majority World, Pentecostals and charismatics alone would offer sufficient numbers of miracle claims to illustrate the pervasiveness of the claims that some modern scholars have doubted that eyewitnesses would make. (A large proportion of mainline Christians in the Majority World fit the broad Western definition of charismatic.144) Most of these Christians are economically poor, and they are thus not yet as widely represented among academicians as their numbers might otherwise suggest, but they do offer a significant voice within world Christianity. Popular sentiments cannot define scientific or historical plausibility,145 but charity toward others' worldviews can invite us to at least reevaluate the primacy of old philosophic assumptions that we have often simply taken for granted without consideration.
These Christians do not represent a single theological approach to the miraculous, but the vast majority of them do affirm miraculous phenomena. As in past revival movements (and other kinds of movements), extremes occur; for example, a number unfortunately tend toward imbalanced prosperity teaching.146 Yet the 143. Mullin, History, 211 (cf. 276); cf. similarly Noll, Shape, 32. Sweeney, Story, 153, calls "HolinessPentecostalism" (encompassing also charismatics) "perhaps the fastest-growing movement that the church has ever seen." They constitute a significant proportion of world Christianity (see figures in Noll, Shape,
22, citing Barrett, Encyclopedia).
144. Noll, Shape, 34 (claiming "almost all" but admitting "some hyperbole").
145. At the same time, it is elitist for scholars to consider only the views of scholars as those that "count" when our ideas on this particular topic are largely inherited, rather than argued, no less than the views of popular religion are. Both groups cite arguments, but few members of either group have critically explored the reasons for their views.
146. Some Western commentators have noted with very understandable concern the proliferation of "health and wealth" teaching in Africa (e.g., Phiri and Maxwell, "Riches"), though we should keep in mind that definitions of "prosperity" employed in an African context are fluid (some focus simply on necessary provision—see Alexander, Signs, 65–66; Smith, Thinking, 43n70; cf. Gifford, "Healing," 251–52; see also the nuanced indigenous understanding in Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 255–63; Byaruhanga-Akiiki and Kealotswe, Healing, 100–102; the contextual motivational factor noted in Gifford, "Miracles," 24;
Born, "Churches," 128; a balanced African approach to the issues in Ndyabahika, "Attitude"; AsamoahGyadu, "Leadership," 152–54; Folarin, "State," 89–90; similar counsel from Danny McCain, personal correspondence, Sept. 21, 22, 27, 2010; most of it then posted at http://conversation.lausanne.org/en
/conversations/detail/10942; accessed Oct. 2, 2010); Asian observations in Ma, "Theology," 66, 70–72
(cited by Brown, "Introduction," 11); for complexity and local variation, see Brown, "Introduction," 17–18; for African-Americans, Harrison, Riches. Definitions matter; I have observed even some "prosperity" churches that really focus on economic empowerment for the poor—but also others that simply exploit their followers (and even more frequently biblical texts) to prosper the teachers. For exploitation, cf.
Newell, "Witchcraft," 477–84; for a mixture of Western and African influences in prosperity teachings, see Gifford, "Developments," 516; idem, "Healing," 256–57, 262–63; cf. idem, Pentecostalism. Elsewhere in the world, cf. studies in, e.g., Bowler, "Bodies"; Coleman, "Wealth"; Sánchez Walsh, "Santidad"; teachings analogous to Word of Faith doctrine (which I believe misunderstands and misapplies biblical texts) among many African migrants in Germany in Währisch-Oblau, "Healing in Migrant Churches," 68–69.
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strong majority of particular examples I have cited do not,147 and many others are much more socially engaged.148
The Pew Forum conducted a ten-country survey of Pentecostals and charismatics and in October 2006 issued a 231-page report. I summarize the following information from the executive summary of that report to offer a basic sense of the percentages of Pentecostal and charismatic Christians who claim to have experienced or witnessed healings.149 Some of the figures below do not seem to correspond with one another closely, but they may function as rough estimates, which is sufficient to establish my point. While it is certain that many claims would
147. For problems with this overemphasis in Nigerian Pentecostalism (and for some of its Pentecostal critics there), see Burgess, Revolution, 238–41; for non-prosperity Pentecostals, see, e.g., Numbere, Vision,
236, 280, 433–34, 469–77, 487; Olaiya, "Praying," 103; cf. Csordas, "Global Perspective," 339, viewing the Nigerian charismatic emphasis on restitution as antimaterialistic. For most Brazilian Pentecostals not being prosperity-oriented, except the IURD, see Shaw, Awakening, 145; for the disappointments created by faulty prosperity teaching, see Gómez, Mission, 155. Historically, prosperity teaching was not part of early Pentecostalism (and remained rare before Oral Roberts), though the ideas are rooted in some streams of nineteenth-century U.S. evangelicalism (Synan, "Streams," 358; cf. Barron, Gospel, 62–63;
McGee, Miracles, 47–48; on Roberts and other influences, Hedges, "Prosperity Theology"; also on the secular side, cf. atheist Andrew Carnegie's The Gospel of Wealth); see Coleman, Globalisation, 41. From its Holiness background, Pentecostalism valued austerity before its more recent emphasis on prosperity, the pursuit of which African culture traditionally linked with witchcraft (Stabell, "Modernity," 469). After Roberts's emphasis, prosperity teaching spread, e.g., to the Brazilian IURD movement (Greenfield, Spirits,
142; cf. Oro and Semán, "Pentecostalism," 183). Although most major Pentecostal denominations like the Assemblies of God today (along with the vast majority of their scholars and teachers) officially reject the teaching that sufficient faith always cures, more than a third of adherents in Assemblies churches accept it, even in the United States (Poloma, Assemblies, 62), although these earlier figures may have declined after the televangelist scandals. For critiques of prosperity theology from charismatic biblical scholars, see, e.g.,
Fee, "Disease"; Witherington, Money; from charismatic theologians, e.g., Alexander, Signs, 61–78; Farah,
Pinnacle; I have heard similar criticisms from Mikael Stenhammar, who was trained within the movement
(personal correspondence, Oct. 4, 2010; http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/resources/detail/10240, noting also damage in Africa); and even the teacher usually credited with founding the modern "faith movement" has criticized some of its current extremes (Hagin, Midas Touch, esp. 131–204). The link between healing and prosperity does not appear "until well into the twentieth century" (Curtis, Faith,
206). Any concerns about theologies construed as promoting selfish acquisition of wealth are appropriate
(whether through "faith" or other means), so I pause here to note the denominational and theological diversity of the following examples, the strong majority of which are not associated with that perspective.
148. Cf. discussion of other more socially engaged streams of Pentecostalism in Miller and Yamamori,
Pentecostalism; Shaull, "Reconstruction," 132–33, 150–59, 174–78, 194, 207, esp. 211–12; Petersen, Might, passim; Abraham, "Spirit," 88, 97, 100–102; César, "Life," 25, 31; Hong, "Mission," 300; Hollenweger,
"Azusa Street," 7–8; Westmeier, Pentecostalism, 84–85, 88; Baker, Enough, passim; Kamsteeg, Pentecostalism,
229–48 (a minority in tension with traditional Pentecostals); Mariz, "Pentecostalism" (on social effects rather than goal); Campos M., "Power" (on the potential); cf. also Cox, "Miracles," 95; helpfully and more prescriptively, Elizondo, "Response"; some in Pentecostal AICs in Mwaura, "Spirituality," 131–32. Work for structural justice is not incompatible with personal transformation and healing, which can contribute to it; biblically based liberation paradigms and charismatic experience can be mutually supportive.
149. "Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals," Pew Forum Survey (2006), at http:// pewforum.org/surveys/pentecostal (accessed Jan. 4, 2009). This survey came to my attention through Menzies, "Paradigm," 217n30, who notes his informal estimate that most Chinese Christians would also claim to have witnessed healings; statistics below indicate that if anything the percentages are higher in China than in the Christian populations of most countries included in the survey. The U.S. figures reflect a significant increase over a poll three decades earlier (Llewellyn, "Events," 241).
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not pass others' scrutiny, one should not simply assume that this would always be the case. Those who are ready to dismiss all miracle claims should keep in mind that they are dismissing hundreds of millions of miracle claims—usually without having examined any of them.
Moreover, while the survey summary provides only the proportion of Protestants who are "renewalist" (Pentecostal or charismatic), renewal movements also exist among Catholics and Orthodox, who, unlike Protestants, lack a theological tradition claiming that miracles ceased.150 By broad definitions, in fact, the largest contingent of "renewalists" today are Latin-rite Catholics, with 133,130,000 adherents.151 (In one U.S. study, 86 percent of charismatics involved with Catholic charismatic healing services claim to have experienced divine healing,152 although figures in some other studies are lower.153) Figures below thus come nowhere close to summarizing all of the people who believe they have experienced or witnessed supernatural phenomena, even within Christendom.
Country and Estimated Population* % of the population that claims to be Pentecostal, charismatic, and the total (Pentecostals + charismatics)†
% of Protestants who are Pentecostal or charismatic (counted exclusively), and those who are neither‡
% of Pentecostals, charismatics, and other Christians who claim to have "witnessed divine healings"
62% of Pentecostals;§ 46% of charismatics; 28% of other Christians|| United States:
305,199,101 5% Pentecostal; 18% charismatic; 23% total 10% Pentecostal; 18% charismatic; 72% neither Latin America Brazil:
197,577,861 15% Pentecostal; 34% charismatic; 49% total 77% of Pentecostals; 31% of charismatics; 32% of other Christians Chile:
16,454,143 9% Pentecostal; 21% charismatic; 30% total 72% Pentecostal; 6% charismatic; 22% neither 77% of Pentecostals; 37% of charismatics; 24% of other Christians Guatemala:
13,002,206 20% Pentecostal; 40% charismatic; 60% total 59% Pentecostal; 19% charismatic; 22% neither 79% of Pentecostals; 63% of charismatics; 47% of other Christians Africa Kenya:
37,953,840 33% Pentecostal; 23% charismatic; 56% total 58% Pentecostal; 27% charismatic; 15% neither 50% Pentecostal; 23% charismatic; 27% neither 87% of Pentecostals; 78% of charismatics; 47% of other Christians 150. As Sabourin, Miracles, 151, notes, most of the nt scholars denying continuing miracles have traditionally been Protestant.
151. Johnson and Ross, Atlas, 102 (noting that this composes 22.7 percent of Catholics).
152. Csordas, Self, 31. In DeGrandis, Miracles, 97–98, more than 93 percent of (157) respondents claimed to have witnessed physical healings (including blindness, brain damage, many cases of cancer, diabetes, etc.), although witnesses may have been more apt to respond than those who had not witnessed such healings.
153. Rogge, "Relationship," 376–77, notes that 70 to 75 percent of the Catholic charismatics he surveyed were involved in prayer groups with the ministry of healing, and that (377) "three out of four of these testify that healing has actually taken place following prayer in their groups." Another survey
(377n6) suggested that "only 37% had witnessed physical healing," but this would probably be higher in charismatic communities. The higher figure in Csordas, Self, 31, are respondents to a questionnaire.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Nigeria:
146,255,312 18% Pentecostal; 8% charismatic; 26% total 48% Pentecostal; 12% charismatic; 40% neither 79% of Pentecostals; 75% of other Christians South Africa:
48,782,756 10% Pentecostal; 24% charismatic; 34% total 73% of Pentecostals; 47% of charismatics; 32% of other Christians Asia India (parts):
1,157,276,932 1% Pentecostal; 4% charismatic; 5% total 14% Pentecostal; 29% charismatic; 57% neither Figures not calculated 74% of Pentecostals; 61% of charismatics; 55% of other Christians Philippines:
96,061,680 4% Pentecostal; 40% charismatic;# 44% total 72% of Pentecostals; 44% of charismatics; 30% of other Christians South Korea:
48,379,392 2% Pentecostal; 9% charismatic; 11% total 37% Pentecostal; 30% charismatic; 33% neither 9% Pentecostal; 29% charismatic; 63% neither 56% of Pentecostals; 61% of charismatics; 20% of other Christians *Population estimates from GeoHive, http://www.geohive.com/default1.aspx (accessed Jan. 4, 2009).
†Defining Pentecostal by membership in Pentecostal denominations and "charismatics" as those who describe themselves as such, who call themselves "pentecostal" but do not belong to Pentecostal denominations, or who "speak in tongues at least several times a year."
‡The executive summary includes the figures for Protestants, but, as I have noted, many Catholics are also charismatic. The survey counted African Independent Churches as Protestants, which may have influenced some African figures.
§This figure corresponds quite closely to figures from a survey of 1,275 adherents of Assemblies of God churches, where 61 percent affirmed certainty that they had been miraculously healed and 12 percent were uncertain (Poloma, Assemblies, 60).
||In another survey, 84 percent of all people in the United States believe in miracles, and nearly half (48 percent) claimed to have witnessed at least one (Woodward, "Miracles," cited in Kub, "Miracles," 1275).
#The higher proportion of charismatics in this column than in the Protestant column undoubtedly includes large numbers of Catholic charismatics.
For these countries alone, and for Pentecostals and charismatics in these countries alone, the estimated total of people claiming to have "witnessed divine healings" comes out to somewhere around 202,141,082, that is, about two hundred million. Among Pentecostals, an average of 73.6 percent claim to have witnessed or experienced divine healing, and among charismatics the proportion is 52 percent; given estimates of possibly half a billion Pentecostals and charismatics worldwide, we might be looking at claims of closer to three hundred million among them alone.154 My estimates extrapolate on the assumption that numbers and percentages above are roughly accurate; in fact, all such figures are merely estimates, but they give us the best current ballpark figure to work from. Even if for some reason we later estimated only one-third of these figures (a much greater margin of error than seems likely), the numbers are already enormous even before we add (below) the noncharismatic claims.
Lest I be misunderstood, I must emphasize that in noting the prevalence of healing claims, I am not offering a blanket endorsement of all the beliefs on all issues that command majorities among these groups (elsewhere in the same survey), including beliefs about healings. I am also not suggesting that all claims of cures are authentic; still less am I suggesting that none of the claims could have alternative
154. Alexander, Signs, 17, using the same survey, extrapolates to "about 390 million people who claim to have been healed or to have seen a miracle with their own eyes." One single ministry that has tracked phone requests for prayer that they have received reports receiving more than a million testimonies of healings (Robertson, Miracles, 145).
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explanations,155 though from my research I suspect that the majority of those who claim to have witnessed some miracles could specify some fairly substantive claims.156
My point here is simply to invite attention to what this survey indicates about the vast numbers of people worldwide who claim to have witnessed supernaturally effected healings. The examples that I offer in the following chapters may make this observation more concrete, but my examples obviously pale before the statistics.
Such Claims Not Limited to Pentecostals What may be more interesting in this survey, however, is the category of "other
Christians," with somewhere around 39 percent in these countries claiming to have
"witnessed divine healings." That is, more than one-third of Christians worldwide who do not identify themselves as Pentecostal or charismatic claim to have "witnessed divine healings." Presumably many of these claimants believe that they have witnessed more than a single case. Note that these are not simply people who say that they believe that supernatural healing occurs; these are people who say that they believe that they have witnessed or experienced it.157
Of course many of these claims would not withstand critical scrutiny, and presumably an even higher percentage would fail to persuade others predisposed not to believe. But those who would simply reject all healing claims today because
Hume argued that such claims are too rare to be believable should keep in mind that they are dismissing, almost without argument, the claimed experiences of at least a few hundred million people. (Even if one were to err extremely on the side of modesty, one could easily speak boldly of "tens of millions" of claims.)
155. Some leaders may fabricate or exaggerate miracle claims to promote their ministries; other believers may enthusiastically and in a well-meaning way circulate stories uncritically to promote their movements. At the same time, my interviews suggest to me that the proportion of those who believe that they have seen miracles in their lives or those of people directly known to them (i.e., not just claims of persons they do not know in public meetings) is fairly high and that many of these cures involve serious health issues (esp. in poorer countries).
156. Still, even such a vast number by itself invites attention; cf. B., "Challenge," 267, who contends that Alcoholics Anonymous never could have grown to two million members unless it has "produced success."
157. That is, one cannot simply dismiss the value of the claims by saying that many people believe in space aliens (more respectably called extraterrestrial intelligence). Those who claim to have seen aliens or even
UFOs are far fewer (cf. Prather, Miracles, 47). Although researchers estimated 3.7 million alien abductees from one survey, the number of actual claims is probably much lower, though plausibly "many thousands"
(Appelle, Lynn, and Newman, "Experiences," 255–56, esp. 256), whereas more than 80 million Christians alone claim to have witnessed healings in the same country. Alien abduction experiences fit altered state of consciousness experience, and much of the "evidence" derives from memories recalled through hypnosis, which can create or adapt "memories" (Walsh, Shamanism, 169; for comparison with shamans and their spirit guides in ASCs, see Mack, Abduction, 8, an often baffling work cited in Herrick, Mythologies, 187).
Perhaps 22 percent of the U.S. population believes that space aliens have visited earth (Appelle, Lynn, and Newman, "Experiences," 258), but even if most of this group also were among those believing in divine miracles (which is questionable; paranormal beliefs seem less common among the religiously committed
[McClenon, Events, 21; cf. Greeley, Sociology, 15]), perhaps half the U.S. population (some 150 million people) would remain as believing in miracles who did not believe in space aliens. Lumping all unusual claims together (e.g., UFO experiences with typical religious experiences) is uncritical (see rightly Kwan,
"Argument," 548; on the cultural evolution of beliefs about extraterrestrials, see Herrick, Mythologies, 42–73).
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In contrast to starting assumptions on which Hume built his case, it is no longer feasible to consider such claims rare.
As noted above, the greatest concentration of these claims is in Africa, Asia, and Latin America rather than in the West, though in chapter 11 I shall note abundant examples from the West as well. Non-Pentecostal Western Christian workers active in such areas often report dramatic phenomena similar to those reported by Pentecostals.158 Worldview is probably one important factor in generating more faith recoveries in many non-Western regions;159 for example, nearly a decade ago one of my students, a sincere Baptist pastor from India, complained that Americans he prayed for were rarely healed, but almost everyone he prayed for in north India was healed.160
Accurate or inaccurate, reports of prophetism, dreams, visions, and healings (sometimes of incurable, terminal illnesses) on a massive scale characterize many areas where Christianity is expanding rapidly and with intense religious fervor among non-Christian populations.161 Although some162 Westerners historically used cultural dominance from colonial cultures or (especially in Latin America) force to spread Christianization, many indigenous evangelists today instead embrace the missiological model they encounter in Acts and believe that they are following
Paul's model.163 One Western charismatic missiologist argues that whereas some 158. E.g., in reports of the Jesus Film Project, such as a spontaneous healing of a woman in Botswana, blind for twenty-seven years, when she overheard Jesus healing a blind beggar in the film (Dec. 2, 1997, report); the healing of a paralytic in Madagascar (May 17, 1999); or the instant healing of a "deathly ill" man in a restricted access location (Jan. 15, 2010). When I gave a lecture for some Jesus Film workers in Yaounde,
Cameroon, in 2001, some told me that many miracles were taking place; I was startled when some other workers who did not see as many miracles expressed concern about whether their own ministry was normal.
159. See, e.g., Kraft, "Worldviews"; Wimber, Power Evangelism, 66–90; cf. Kraft, Power, 37–49 (esp.
39–40, comparing Western Christendom's "Enlightenment" approach with practicing deism, at least on this point). Evangelistic context (that is, healings functioning as signs of the gospel) seems relevant as well.
Need may be another factor (cf. Petersen, Might, 98–99; for the massive need in the Majority World, see, e.g., Vries, "Situation"; Grange, "Globalization"); where medical treatment is widely available, believers are naturally more apt to simply trust God's activity through these means. Thus a physician attests a miracle in rural Pakistan, in a case where inadequate medical means were available (Gardner, Healing Miracles, 60–63).
160. I noted Pastor Israel briefly earlier in Keener, Gift, 61. Despite my strong reticence to imagine it, he was convinced that even if I came to his city and prayed for the sick, the same sort of healings would occur.
161. Moreland, Triangle, 166–67, cites sources regarding a dramatic growth of evangelical (in the etymological, not the recent Western "political" sense) Christianity around the world (possibly even a 1,000 percent increase in three decades), up to 70 percent of it "intimately connected to signs and wonders," citing examples in China and elsewhere. He offers some specific examples (167–71).
162. For Western missions' frequent earlier link to colonialism, see Hanciles, Beyond Christendom,
163–66; but colonial authorities also often worked to suppress missionaries (e.g., the British East India
Company suppressing William Carey's early work); in Africa, see, e.g., Turaki, "Legacy"; Isichei, History, 233;
Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 104, 170; Usry and Keener, Religion, 26. In fact, free church missionaries (e.g., in British colonies, those not aligned with the Anglican church) were usually not closely tied to colonialism
(Bebbington, Dominance, 113–14); for further challenges to traditional historical assumptions linking missions with colonialism, see Mullin, History, 214–15, 225 (e.g., noting early indigenous missionaries); some of the qualifications in Noll, Shape, 174.
163. See, e.g., the numerous reports in Christian History 79 (2003), including Isichei, "Soul of Fire";
Rabey, "Prophet." Christianity spread most quickly through indigenous evangelism once the constraints of colonial rule were discarded; see, e.g., Jenkins, Next Christendom, 55–56.
Majority World Perspectives
Asian Christians appreciated Western missionaries bringing teaching about God, many Asian missionaries are now demonstrating God's power through miracles.164
Another writer recounts that missionaries to one region in Africa who merely left behind Gospels returned to find a flourishing church with nt-like miracles happening daily, "because there had been no missionaries to teach that such things were not to be taken literally."165 Indigenous readings of Scripture often noticed patterns there "that the missionaries did not want [local believers] to see."166
Although the most visible growth has occurred in the last three decades,167 already in 1981, at one large U.S. seminary with students from many nations, Christiaan De Wet of South Africa wrote a thesis on signs involved in church growth around the world. He surveyed more than 350 theses representing most of the world and interviewed countless missionaries. He complained, "My research has turned up so much material on signs and wonders that are happening and churches that are growing, that it is impossible to use all of it."168 He noted that miracle claims help drive Christian growth in many parts of the world.
Limitations in My Approach Before turning to specific examples, I must articulate some limitations in my approach (limitations that I shall reiterate at some points where needed). I do so at some length because readers from various perspectives will bring various sorts of concerns. Among my limitations, first, I am addressing only in passing non-Christian supernatural claims, which are also fairly numerous, especially at the popular level.
Second, at this point my primary interest will be in listing a range of supernatural claims, not in arguing that these claims must reflect supernatural causation. Nevertheless, I will leave a number of these claims open to that explanation. Later in the book I will argue that at least some very likely do involve supernatural causation, but I lack the means to evaluate all the claims adequately, and do not believe that that is the only possible or even the best explanation for a number of the reports I note. Some might prefer that I cite only the best-attested testimonies, rather than
164. Wagner, Acts, 438. Although reticent to overemphasize them, Hiebert, "Power Encounter," 56, recognizes the value of such demonstrations, including healing, in reaching supernaturalist non-Christians such as folk Muslims; others (Musk, "Popular Islam," 214–15; Parshall, "Lessons," 255–56) have underlined the importance of this approach even more emphatically. Fernando, "God," 193, notes that from their context Western evangelicals have sometimes emphasized the rational to the exclusion of God's power.
165. Gardner, "Miracles," 1929, quoting Finlay, Columba.
166. Noll, Shape, 24.
167. With, e.g., Moreland, Triangle, 166–67.
168. De Wet, "Signs," 92. On healings and church growth more generally, see Kwon, "Foundations,"
187–90 (based on positive responses from all 562 healing claimants among 604 respondents to his survey).
For signs and wonders as a major factor in Majority World evangelism, see also Yung, "Integrity," 173–75.
Wagner, "Wonders," 875, notes that signs often bring growth in areas with supernaturalist worldviews.
Hausfeld, "Understanding," 74–75, notes (following J. D. Woodberry) that it is a major catalyst for members of another religious tradition deciding to follow Jesus.
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a range of claims that merely include these. Nevertheless, because I have noted that the numbers of claims are abundant today, it is important to provide a range of samples reflecting the kinds of testimonies that people offer.
Third, I have not necessarily collected the strongest cases—just those that were available to me. I have screened out some of the least relevant cases and highlighted some of the more relevant ones among the sample available to me, but I have also tried to preserve samples of the entire range of sorts of claims offered today (samples of what some of the "hundreds of millions" of claims may involve). Fourth, I provide examples, not theological explanations for them. I want to invite those who might differ with the theological perspectives of the claimants to nevertheless consider the plausibility of the claims about their experiences.
Studies of Extraordinary Claims in Non-Christian Movements While I focus on Christian movements, with greater attention to those most often considered mainstream, as I have noted, we must also observe that claims about extranormal experiences are not by any means restricted to Christian movements.169
Most non-Western worldviews accept a variety of suprahuman phenomena.170 John Pilch suggests that 90 percent of the world today accepts both "ordinary reality and non-ordinary reality," the latter including God and spirits.171 A comparative study more complete than mine would thus also examine the massive number of modern non-Christian supernatural activity claims and beliefs around the world,172 includ169. Cardeña, Lynn, and Krippner, "Experiences," 17–18, note that associations between "anomalous healing experiences" and health improvements would invite reevaluation of some traditional academic assumptions.
170. E.g., Wright, Process, 74–114, esp. 85–88, 95–98; Turner, Experiencing Ritual, passim. For example, spirit experience is a normal part of life among the Iñupiat people of northern Alaska (Turner, Hands, 224).
171. Pilch, Visions, 17; cf. Walsh, Shamanism, 179. Indeed, complementary use of spiritual therapies is fairly common even in more secular regions (Molassiotis et al., "Medicine"; among immigrants, Moodley and Sutherland, "Healers").
172. E.g., Peters, Healing in Nepal, 51–53, 61, 63, 65–68 (though cf. the shaman's selective reservations in 73–74); West, Sorcery, 90 (and cf. 42; healing claims); Foster, "Etiologies," 778–79; Castro, "Practices" (e.g.,
374); Filson, "Analysis," 77; Narayanan, "Shanti"; Winkelman and Carr, "Approach"; Arai, "Spirituality";
Hobart, Performance (esp. regarding spirit mediums and sorcerers; summary in Bhatti, "Review"); Connor and Samuel, Healing Powers (review in Anderson, "Review"); Arakelova, "Practices"; Crawford, "Healing,"
34–35; Finkler, "Religion," 51 (and sources cited there); Umeh, Dibia, 203–27; Turner, Experiencing Ritual, passim; idem, Healers, 39–50 (Africa), 60–69 (Hindu healing), 76–82, 93–96 (Native American healing),
96–100 (a rabbi in Morocco), 142–46 (Sufism); Accoroni, "Healing Practices," 5–11 (on a Senegalese
Muslim mystic); Evans-Pritchard, Religion, 308; Eliade, Shamanism, 215–58, 300–308, 326–32; Uyanga,
"Characteristics"; Firth, "Foreword," xiii–xiv (supposing its efficacy to involve reassurance and esp. help for the mentally ill); Beals, Culture, 241 (as cited in Burnett, Clash, 57); Wright, Process, 85–88, 95–98;
Chin, "Practices," 4–17; Allison and Malony, "Surgery" (evaluating the phenomenon from a Western scientific perspective); Mercado, "Power"; Forsberg, "Medicine"; Droege, Faith Factor, 85–87; Grundmann,
"Healing," 27 (noting Umbanda, voodoo, "spirit-healers in the Philippines," "miracle working gurus in India," and "most of the 400 plus 'new religions' in Japan"); Bergunder, "Miracle Healing," 295 (gurus);
Katz, "Healing" (note laying on hands to draw out sickness on 214); Singh, "Prophet," 106 (recovery after sacrifice to a spirit), 108 (after a call experience); cf. Adeyemi, "Healing Systems," 143–44; Sax,
Weinhold, and Schweitzer, "Healing"; Ashe, Miracles, 26–27 (attributing such phenomena to anything
Majority World Perspectives
ing in North America.173 This is not even to mention the more naturalistic claims of traditional herbalists (noted in ch. 13).
Some other nt scholars have rightly pointed out that some utterly paranormal events occur that cannot be attributed to the Christian God. Thus Eduard
Schweizer notes, There was an Indian in Zürich some decades ago who had a dagger driven through his heart, a feat that he had demonstrated before in other places. My colleagues in the medical faculty controlled and x-rayed everything. There was not the slightest doubt that a miracle had happened; he should have been dead, but he did not follow suit and remained alive. The experiment was even repeated afterwards. Yet we did not believe in that man and he did not want to lead us to believe in his god.174
If this report is accurate, many Christians in a number of cultures might explain such an occurrence in superhuman but not divine terms, based on biblical precedents
(cf., e.g., Exod 7:12; Acts 13:6–10);175 others might prefer various different explana- "Other," not necessarily deities); Ritchie, Spirit, 24–25, 66 (though noting lack of success). For some other cultural traditions (the elements of which are not all supernatural or in some cases even strictly
"religious" in Western terms), see, e.g., Vargas-O'Bryan, "Balance"; Mosher and Jacobs, "Seminar," 270–71;
Pui-lan, "Spirituality"; Rosny, Healers; for the kinds of ailments treated by African traditional healers, see Byaruhanga-Akiiki and Kealotswe, Healing, 154–60; Accoroni, "Healing Practices," 4; McClenon,
Events, 87–88 (a Thai shamanic healer), 89–90 (a Japanese man cured through meditation, who became a shaman). From a purely medical standpoint, relaxation and meditation techniques may help humans regardless of religious particularities (Benson, Healing, 212–16); most of us (in the majority of religions) would, however, argue that there is more to religion than this. In Christianity's twin faith, cf. the Jewish healing movement (Winston, Faith, 109–19).
173. See, e.g., Turner, "Religious Healing"; Barnes, "Chinese Healing"; Desai, "Health"; Hermansen,
"Healing"; Jacobs, "Rituals"; Numrich, "Medicine"; Xiong, "Shamanism"; Krippner, Friedman, and Johnson,
"Spirituality," 135–37; Talamantez, "Teaching"; Hernández-Ávila, "Dance Tradition"; idem, "Ometeotl
Moyocoyatzin"; Hultkrantz, Healing; Medina, "Religion" (including some Christian as well as earlier traditional elements); Raboteau, Slave Religion, 14–15, 80–86, 275–88; Wilmore, Religion, 18–27; Mitchem,
Folk Healing, 15–24 (for continuing influences today, 141–62; for some overlap with Christian healers,
129–37); Chireau, Magic; idem, "Natural"; Payne-Jackson, "Illness" (again including mixed elements);
Bowler, "Bodies," 91–93 (noting overlap but emphasizing competition); Fauset, Gods, 55 (Father Divine; cf. also Bowler, "Bodies," 84–85); Harris, "Healing in Wicca"; Klassen, "Healing" (also including some
Christian perspectives among others); Wakefield, Miracle, passim. Cf. earlier positive academic responses to New Thought and "mind cure" (e.g., James, Varieties, 94–126, based on a naturalistic dualism rather than divine power); spiritualism in Britain (esp. 1850–1910) in Barrow, "Spiritualism."
174. Schweizer, Parable, 44. While I do not question Schweizer's integrity or careful scholarship,
I am shocked that doctors would have allowed anyone to drive a dagger into someone's heart during an experiment, even if he were willing, as this appears to violate traditional medical ethics. I do not, however, have access to the larger context that might have made sense of such a claim, so allow Schweizer the benefit of the doubt that something like this occurred. Charpak and Broch, Debunked, 28–29, note a mechanical means to disguise one's pulse for purposes of deception, but this sort of technique would not have fooled the doctors.
175. Though most Christians would also deny that the sphere of God's love and activity is limited to Christians, probably most would also regard the above feat as exhibitionistic rather than as a demonstration of divine love.
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tions. The minimal point on which there should be agreement here, however, is that extranormal events do occur in reality and not merely in fiction.
Examples could be multiplied, and are not limited to large "world religions."
Anthropologists, in fact, have traditionally tended to focus more attention on traditional societies, and hence have tended to provide more examples from traditional religions than from the sources on which this book focuses (despite many more recent exceptions).176 A professor of social anthropology in Berlin observes that hospitals recognized the efficacy of masabe spirit healers.177 A journalist reports the complete and paranormal curing of burns through experimental, metaphysical "energy techniques."178 A pair of academic researchers report a gradual healing of a young woman after a dramatic revelation by a Native American shaman179 and that many patients of Brazilian Spiritist surgeons feel no pain despite the lack of anesthesia.180
They very cautiously note one study in which "80% of asthma patients treated by psychic healers reported some degree of improvement," though also another study in which only 11 percent of those so treated were acknowledged as improved by their physicians (as opposed to 61 percent self-reporting improvement).181
Although Brazilian Spiritist healers usually accept modern concepts like germs, medicine, and the like,182 and some patients die despite extensive treatments,183 the healers sometimes operate with no anesthesia. Thus one researcher observed a saw cut into a wound, with blood spurting up, and then the wound being sutured, while the patient remained conscious and without obvious pain.184 Although at least some fraud has been demonstrated among Filipino psychic healers,185 some nonfraudulent cases might exist;186 here, too, healers "operate" without anesthesia or pain,187 with patients
176. In some anthropological circles it has been common to focus on traditional healers to the neglect of parallel phenomena among Western Christians (note the observations of Wilson, "Seeing," 207). It should also be noted that while people sometimes recover after traditional treatments, some treatments have no effect, including in traditional religions (Wilson, "Seeing," 205–6).
177. Luig, "Worlds," 132–33, noting the opposition of Christian leaders and competing spirit mediums.
178. Wakefield, Miracle, 77.
179. Krippner and Achterberg, "Experiences," 353–54.
180. Ibid., 362. They cite also Christian examples on 363, 369, 379.
181. Ibid., 379, and the studies cited there. They warn about "the lack of a control group in both studies."
182. Greenfield, Spirits, 75 (noting that the spirit doctors must address spirit illnesses lest they remain at reincarnation).
183. Ibid., 71.
184. Ibid., 51–52. Their shared demeanor suggests to Greenfield that they, no less than the medium, had entered a sort of trance state. I am grateful to John Pilch for bringing Greenfield to my attention.
185. Allison and Malony, "Surgery," 56–57, 60. Frank, Persuasion, 44–45, notes that some shamans practiced more fraud in healing than others. Cf. some ancient doctors in Toner, Culture, 40.
186. Licauco, "Psychic Healing," 96 (although Licauco began skeptically, 94).
187. Ibid., 96, noting a case where bleeding stopped and the wound healed quickly; more dramatically, his own eyeball being removed and his molar being extracted in five seconds without anesthesia. He notes
(94–95) that items removed after incisions have been analyzed, and they sometimes include human tissues
(sometimes of the appropriate blood type) but sometimes animal tissues. He admits, however (97–98), that no testing occurred under "controlled conditions," which are difficult to achieve. Substances removed include "hair, glass, . . . egg or sea shells"; in one case where hospitals discovered no organic problem, a healer diagnosed witchcraft "and removed a dead cockroach" (95).
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conscious and not hypnotized.188 Both before and in the course of collecting eyewitness claims of extranormal healings associated with Christian movements, I have also come across other eyewitness accounts of extranormal phenomena associated with various movements such as Santeria and some traditional African religions.189
Paul Eddy of Bethel University brought to my attention some further anthropological sources noting field experiences with paranormal healing and the like.190
These studies do not employ the traditional nomenclature of theology or biblical studies, but neither do they fit easily within conventional Western academic frameworks that reject all approaches except impersonal, materialistic ones. Several of the sources are from anthropologist Edith Turner, known also for her earlier fieldwork in Africa with her husband, Victor Turner.191 Author of a number of works and lecturer in anthropology at the University of Virginia, Turner is editor of the journal Anthropology and Humanism.
In two works, Turner notes her ethnographic research among indigenous healers from the Iñupiat people in northern Alaska.192 There she witnessed, experienced, and even learned how to become an agent of healings.193 While the treatments were often therapeutic, not all were dramatic. In one of her more notable examples, as she watched, the swelling in a three-year-old's knee subsided as the healer massaged it.194 In another case, she saw finger swelling disappear as the traditional healer drew out the "bad spirit";195 on another occasion, a woman who seemed to be
188. Ibid., 94.
189. E.g., a report about Santeria from my colleague Bonnie Ortiz (interview, Jan. 10, 2009), who is not a practitioner; reports in Alamino, Footsteps, 36; a possible linkage in Leonel Camejo Tazé (interview,
Aug. 11, 2010); and elsewhere; I, my wife's family, and other Christian observers have had unexpected encounters with paranormal phenomena in traditional African religions. Cf. Christian claims in Indonesia about traditional religions, e.g., in Tari, Wind, 67, 107.
190. Paul Eddy, personal correspondence, Oct. 26, 2009. Paul generously shared these sources and comments about them; I have merely expanded my discussion somewhat after reading the sources he noted. Paul noted (personal correspondence, Oct. 25, 2009) that he learned of a number of these sources, as well as numerous others, through his correspondence with Edith Turner. I have added some other interesting sources that I found cited often in the sources he recommended.
191. Victor Turner had been influenced by an Anglican priest teaching him about historic mysticism
(Christian, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist), and an experience of a bright light visiting him when, he learned afterward, the priest had died (Turner, "Advances," 35–36). Edith Turner is a communicant Catholic, though demurring from her church's teaching that Christianity has exclusive truth (idem, "Actuality," 2).
192. Turner, "Actuality" (in a journal published by the American Anthropological Association); idem,
Hands; idem, Healers, 83–89.
193. She said that she was learning to do healings by viewing illness as a "spirit substance" beyond mere physical germs observable under a microscope (idem, Hands, 227–28; cf. idem, "Actuality," 5).
194. Idem, Hands, 136. This is perhaps her most "empirical" case in that book (in idem, "Field," 9, she speaks of trance yielding "frequent non-empirical cures"); elsewhere Turner helped a woman's backache with such a "spiritual" massage (Hands, 87–88). She warns that while herbs and massage are part of the treatments, there is also a more clearly spiritual component ("Actuality," 3).
195. Turner, "Actuality," 3. Turner describes the traditional Iñupiaq healers as following a "postmissionary version of Christianity" (ibid.), but the particular techniques here seem more characteristic of practitioners in traditional religion than of most of the examples cited later in the book and probably reflect some pre-Christian patterns. For both Christian and pre-Christian elements, synthesized together, see ibid.,
4 (some pre-Christian elements have disappeared, such as drums and shamans; vicarious extraction of bad
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dying was revived and thus was able to endure a successful operation.196 Using the same techniques, Turner herself drew out the severe headaches of two other women,197 and a healer diagnosed and massaged away Turner's abdominal pain.198
She observed forty-six cures in all and received reports of 105 others, the vast majority successful.199 She also reports being cured of sickness, including vomiting, as another social scientist touched her for healing during a professional meeting.200
In another work, Turner has collected various experiences of healings.201 Finally, in a journal published by the American Anthropological Association, she notes developments in the area of anthropological research dealing with shamanism.
These involve "spirit" experiences or "spirit energy," again based on anthropologists' fieldwork. She documents clearly that the increase in recognition of this area in recent decades has been exponential.202 She even cites at length one anthropologist who became a spiritual healer.203 While some evidence has been collected suggesting paranormal healings, however, some other scholars observe that the scale and replicability are so far inadequate to command "mainstream scientific spirits is a primary element of traditional practice, along with probably less controversial use of massage and herbs). These healers pray and "always ascribe their ability to God" (ibid., 5; idem, Healers, 86, 88).
196. Turner, "Actuality," 5.
197. Ibid., 4. I myself have had experiences of praying concisely for persons with long-lasting headaches and their headaches instantly disappearing, much to their astonishment; I have not chosen to recount them in this book because of the abundance of more dramatic claims available.
198. Ibid. (noting a relationship between the pain and her stress).
199. Ibid., 3, noting that 54 percent of the cases involved injuries; 23 percent digestive problems; that various cases involved pneumonia, broken bones, and so forth. Lake, Healer, 116, notes a wide range of problems cured in his practice, most cured "temporarily, partially, or completely."
200. Turner, Healers, 26–27. Several years ago, at a meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Emmanuel
Itapson and I prayed by the exhibit hall for an African professor who, on account of sickness from his potentially fatal illness, was going to have to cancel reading his paper the next day; later I learned that Emmanuel had attended his paper, which had gone well. He reported that he had recovered when we prayed, and in subsequent correspondence I learned that he had remained well, with no recurrence of the disease. I have not included this, like many other incidents, in this book because the professor had also received medical treatment and I was unable to secure all the information that might be relevant for consideration in this book.
201. Turner, Healers. In Iñupiat practice, the healer feels the sickness with one's hands and draws this bad spirit substance out thereby (idem, Hands, 71, 74–75); she finds this closer to the Zambian practice she witnessed than "to Christian laying on of hands" or Brazilian Spiritists waving their hand over the afflicted part (Hands, 137), though she recognizes Pentecostals' spirit experience as genuine (ibid., 224; cf. 9 for a "true Christian," as an informant described her, who witnessed dangerous spirit substance and prayed successfully against it). Outside Jewish and Christian tradition, laying on hands for healing appears in ancient Egypt (1550 b.c.e.); among Indonesian Muslims, Soviet folk healers, and Brazilian Spiritists
(Krippner, "Medicine," 198–99). In early Judaism, see 1Qap Genar XX, 22, 29 (Fitzmyer, Apocryphon, 65,
67; Flusser, "Laying on of Hands"; Driver, Scrolls, 461); cf. lxx 2 Kgs 5:11; in Jesus's ministry, e.g., Mark
5:23; 8:23 (Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 240n35; see Keener, Acts, at Acts 6:6).
202. Turner, "Advances," especially 45–51, with the chronological annotated bibliography on 56–
61. Ritual healing narratives that she cites include (on 48–49) Willis et al., Spirits, 94–96; (on 50) an anthropologist's own role as a shamanic healer (of hepatitis) in Earle, "Borders." Already in 1975, Greeley,
Sociology, 9, observed that some of his "social science colleagues . . . have had paranormal experiences."
203. Turner, Healers, 117–23, citing Willis et al., Spirits; and other sources. He claimed that his gift was effective 85 percent of the time, on a range of afflictions including "arthritis, sinusitis, eczema, asthma, hypertension, migraine," various pains and the like (Willis, as quoted in Turner, Healers, 119).
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attention."204 The catch-22 of such studies is that what is always replicable will be explained by natural processes, whereas genuine activity by intelligent personal entities, whether superhuman or not, would not be so predictable.
In one recent journal article, a Cambridge anthropologist attests that she experienced healing through alleged "spirit helpers" during a shamanic ritual among the Makushi, an indigenous people in Guyana.205 She had injured her leg the day before, but the shaman not only mysteriously told her the circumstances in which she had injured it but also about her severe back injury some years earlier that no one should have known about.206 The shaman and others sought to drive out the bad spirit from her leg, and when they finished and inquired if she felt better, "I could only respond with a simple, stupefied, 'Yes.'"207 Whether or not this was a genuinely organic cure, it effectively reduced pain and persuaded the participants.208 In one study, six of ten psoriasis patients treated by a Cree healer improved significantly (one recovering fully).209
One collection of new essays by Western-trained anthropologists focused on their experiences that were extraordinary by Western standards (though often normal for local persons).210 The interpretive grids of the experiencers range from adopting native interpretations (Turner) to explaining the experiences in purely neurological terms.211 When anthropologists suspend their own worldview to learn from indigenous informants, they "consistently report extraordinary experiences that are consistent with the ones described by the people they 'study.'"212 These experiences also provide bonding with the host culture.213 Thus some note their experiences of unusually autonomous images214 and vivid dreams.215 "Native informants" often feel that observers' refusal to participate forgoes experience,216 and conditions of maximal participation have given anthropologists "dreams and visions that reflect their absorption of the 204. McClenon, Healing, 67 (citing as giving some evidence, Benor, "Survey").
205. Scherberger, "Shaman," 59–64.
206. Ibid., 60.
207. Ibid., 62.
208. Ibid., 66, defends her participation on the grounds that one can learn people's customs only by sympathetic engagement, not detached analysis.
209. A study cited in Goulet and Young, "Issues," 326–27; they note that dermatological treatments had not helped, but emotion can constitute a factor in psoriasis; they also note (327) that the healer insisted that results were usually better in an indigenous context.
210. Young and Goulet, "Introduction," 7. As Young, "Visitors," 167, notes, anthropologists record as data when local people claim visions, but normally do not report when they themselves experience these events in the same setting.
211. Young and Goulet, "Introduction," 10.
212. Goulet, "Dreams," 33.
213. E.g., Guédon, "Ways," 56–57.
214. Goulet, "Dreams," especially 31. In meditation, see, e.g., Laughlin, "Energy," 109–10.
215. Guédon, "Ways," 53–54. An anthropologist might even participate while a local figure successfully reclaimed a hurting child, putatively injured by hostile spirits, by the healer calling on Jesus
(ibid., 55–56).
216. Goulet and Young, "Issues," 313.
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local realities."217 Worldview boundaries also may shift; in a work published by the University of Chicago, one anthropologist narrates his journey into Songhay shamanism, including his eventual fear that in warding off one sorcery attack he had diverted the death meant for him onto some innocent victims.218
Another article notes some forty "anomalous experiences," including healings, apparitions, and the like, reported by sixteen anthropologists, all highly educated persons from and trained in the West. Their reports display significant consistency despite the great variation in cultures and independence of the reports;219 independent evaluators of the material drew identical conclusions.220 They compared with the anthropologists especially one study of "1446 anomalous experience narratives" collected in rural North Carolina from 1988 to 1996.221 Whereas both anthropologists and others reported comparable anomalous experiences, the level of skepticism in anthropologists' reports of their own experiences (38 percent) was considerably higher than that in the other samples (7 percent).222 Nevertheless, the experiences transformed the belief structures of some anthropologists as well as others.223 Some anthropologists rationalized their experiences to reduce cognitive dissonance with their worldview;224 others accepted some elements of the experience as paranormal while questioning indigenous explanations;225 still others, who had multiple paranormal experiences, changed their worldviews and embraced explanations closer to the indigenous worldviews.226
217. Ibid., 313–14. They reckon (315) these experiences useful as data if they reflect absorption in the local worldview.
218. Stoller and Olkes, Shadow, 225–27 (fearing other victims of his practice in 117–19). When he rose to confront the thumping and roaring heard by no one else, it vanished (132–33); locals interpreted this as a bad spirit sent to scare him away (135). He practiced divination and recited incantations but resisted going so far that he could never publish his findings (229); yet Stoller's fever and diarrhea (225–26) could have purely natural causes, and he seems to describe here his sharing of the indigenous perspective. He may view some of the indigenous perspective as metaphor (229).
219. McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences," 46–48, citing for common features from a variety of cultures also McClenon, "Analysis"; idem, Events; idem, Healing; idem, "Shamanic Healing"; for the lack of close ties with cultural variables, see idem, "Shamanic Healing"; Fox, "Structure." The journal in which McClenon and Nooney's article appears is published by the American Anthropological Association. See also McClenon, "Miracles," 190–93.
220. See McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences," 50.
221. Ibid., 49 (noting that 71.2 percent of respondents were African-American).
222. Ibid., 54.
223. Ibid. Immersion in another culture sometimes transforms core beliefs (ibid., citing McCall, "Peace,"
56; on others' belief transformations through paranormal experiences, see, e.g., McClenon, Events, 229).
224. McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences," 55, offering as examples Grindal, "Heart," 75; Goulet,
"Ways of Knowing," 132; Young, "Visitors," 171–72 (see further the compromise solution in Young,
"Visitors," 178).
225. McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences," 56, offering as examples Desjardlais, Body, 23; Salamone,
"Bori," 18 (though Salamone seems to me fairly open to indigenous interpretations). Cf. perhaps Emmons,
Ghosts, 197 (losing some objectivity during fieldwork but regaining more later), 249–55 (remaining epistemically open to various possible explanations, but particularly parapsychological ones); Swarz,
"Changed," 211–35 (adapting and reinterpreting in terms of "energy," a Native American practice).
226. McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences," 56–57, offering as examples Edith Turner (whom I cite above and in appendix B); Favret-Saada, Witchcraft, 125–27. In fact, while Favret-Saada subscribed to the
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Other anthropologists have been reluctant to publish their experiences because of professional suspicion of any data that challenge traditional paradigms.227 This problem, too, has received some discussion; for example, the argument that anthropologists do experiential fieldwork and thus should not fear to publish some of that experience as well as acceptable objective data extracted from it.228 Since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, Western intellectuals have played down the value of visions, dreams, and the like, so that anthropologists have traditionally explored not the phenomena themselves but whatever putative factors may have caused such claims.229 Some anthropologists now complain, however, that this approach fails to treat informants seriously, reflecting the historic complicity of anthropology in Western imperialism.230 The shift toward experiential rather than rationalist approaches concerning extraordinary experiences is yielding a much greater sensitivity to indigenous perspectives and genuine experiences today.231
In my opinion, some of these sorts of examples, as well as a number of the ones that I focus on in this book, could be used to challenge Western Enlightenment skepticism about extranormal events (however, again, one chooses to explain them in terms of causes). I have already suggested in chapter 6 that, against Hume, the appearance of apparently supernatural claims in some differing religions need not in itself invalidate any of the claims. Lest I stray further outside my areas of training and ready access to sources, however, I believe that the material that I have included should be sufficient to flesh out the basic analogy that I am making. I have noted that others have collected reports from various religious cultures; the sources most available to me facilitate me offering Christian sources in greater abundance. Many of the non-Christian claims are also less analogous to those in the Gospels and Acts (though also less potentially derivative). Like anthropologists above, I will cite some people's reports of their experiences, although my focus (in contrast to that of most anthropologists above) will be on Christian sources.
Limitations of Reports Having noted that tens of millions of Christians in the Majority World claim to have witnessed miracles, I will turn in the next two chapters to a comparatively small witchcraft belief during observation (Witchcraft, 133, 175), she later suggests a less witch-related solution involving hostile familial relationships (135–36; cf. 122). The differing options also appear in Young and Goulet, "Introduction," 8.
227. McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences," 50, noting fear of "stigmatization" (citing Salamone,
"Bori," 15). See similarly Young and Goulet, "Introduction," 8; Wilson, "Seeing," 206.
228. See Tedlock, "Observation," 71–73, 76–78. For examples of ethnographies including personal elements, see Tedlock, "Observation," 73–76 (besides those using pseudonyms, e.g., 72); for open observations about participation in more recent literature, see 78–80; and especially "native" ethnographic perspectives on 80–82. Goulet and Young, "Issues," 305–10, treat the experiential approach to anthropology
(cf. 303–4) as an empirical method; for experience allowing deeper ingress into a culture, see Stoller and Olkes, Shadow, 228–29.
229. Young and Goulet, "Introduction," 9.
230. Ibid., 10.
231. Ibid.
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number of specific examples. Even should volumes of such claims be collected by researchers (which would not be difficult), the collection would not prove that any given claims to miracles in the past were authentic (we have evidence and other reasons to affirm that many claims, in fact, have been inauthentic). What such research would contribute, however, is an empirical challenge to the assumption that such phenomena cannot be sincerely reported by eyewitnesses.232
As noted in the introduction, my primary purpose is to attest that eyewitness claims to healings are widespread; nevertheless, I hope that the survey contributes to my secondary purpose as well. I hope that the number and geographic range of claims presented here will give pause to those who think that by challenging the authenticity of a few miracle claims they can readily dismiss all of them. I also hope to show that the Humean assumption that miracle reports are isolated and quite rare is open to serious challenge and should no longer be regarded as tenable.
I must also remind the reader here and reiterate occasionally hereafter that by including a range of claims in chapters 8–12 I am not endorsing all of them or granting all of them equal weight. Anthropologists and sociologists report a range of claims to illustrate popular belief; the issue of evidential weight becomes important only when we return to questions of causation more explicitly later in the book. When we do so, how much evidential value one attaches to a given claim will depend on the nature of the burden of proof one demands, reflecting one's presuppositions about divine activity in the world. Even by open yet cautious standards, many reported recoveries bear too little evidential value for me to cite as evidence, since most illnesses for which people need healing are also known to vanish on occasion without prayer, though I cite a number of such cases to illustrate the breadth of claims that are often accepted on supernaturalist assumptions.233 In many cases, medical evidence cannot render a conclusive verdict, since with many illnesses, remissions do sometimes occur without documented prayer.
Further, many charlatans around the world have taken advantage of the success of others' sincere claims with self-aggrandizing fakery or quackery, though it is illegitimate to generalize from such cases to indict all claims.234 I have tried to screen
232. Modernist antisupernaturalists can question the interpretation of such reports but even in this case do not attempt to demonstrate the claim that genuine miracles do not happen. I am raising here not so much an objection as an observation, since it is impossible to inductively prove a negative. But as noted earlier, the traditional antisupernaturalist deductive assumptions no longer fit many of our contemporary worldviews, including in the physical sciences.
233. Thus, e.g., I have been present on a number of occasions when headaches vanished immediately after prayer. While this result was beneficial to the recipient, I cannot cite it as strong evidence to someone inclined to attribute many headaches to psychosomatic causes and thus the cure to the placebo effect. The Gospels and Acts also select more dramatic examples than these for their narratives.
234. One is forced to dismiss the sincerity (a matter beyond disagreeing with their interpretation) of all such claimants only if one's philosophic presuppositions require this. But such certainty of one's own presuppositions as to dismiss without investigation the sincerity of such a large number of other people's purported testimony may lack self-critique to the point of hubris. Such a priori dismissal functions more effectively in polemic than in dialogue. Most admit that miracle claims are usually at least subjectively real to individual interpreters (Brownell, "Experience," 226).
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out claims that were obviously fabricated (e.g., another researcher who shared cases with me discovered two to be fraudulent), without passing judgment in the larger number of cases where I lacked grounds (other than philosophic assumptions) to assert that a testimony must be false. When I have offered judgments that some reports are likely authentic or inauthentic (perhaps based on my training as a biblical critic), I have offered opinions based on where I think evidence points, but often the evidence at my disposal is quite limited, and inevitably my judgments will sometimes be wrong. Nevertheless, I believe that in many cases there remains fairly compelling evidence one way or the other.
Rumor tends to shape and exaggerate stories,235 so it is desirable to come as close to eyewitness accounts or other firsthand sources as possible.236 The nature of narrativization and testimony is such that successful cures are remembered disproportionately.237 Some such cures involve ailments that sometimes go away naturally; while one cannot rule out special divine action in such cases, neither can one prove it. Other cures, such as the instant, visible disappearance of cataracts, are not known to occur naturally. In illustrating the range of testimony, I include samples of both sorts of cures.
I could not personally investigate all these reports with interviews and certainly not with medical examinations; I am not qualified to conduct the latter. Still, as I will note later, I have a closer association with some of the sources, and I have good reason to trust the veracity of a number of the informants, in particular those whom I know well.238 Some reports are highly statistically improbable by chance given the sample size involved. I include a larger number of such illustrations than some might prefer partly to preclude the argument that anomalies are rare enough that chance readily accounts for all of them. Nevertheless, it may account for some of them, and no sample size would be large enough to persuade everyone.
Some reports that I will note appear in works by anthropologists and physicians; a larger number derive more generally from persons who claim to be eyewitnesses or who claim to report the claims of eyewitnesses. Some sources summarize claims made by healed persons spontaneously at healing meetings, without citing
235. Bremback and Howell, Persuasion, 188–89. Even firsthand reports (from people with dramatic personality types wanting to be involved) immediately after alleged events may be fictitious (as in Tacitus
Hist. 1.34; my wife notes this phenomenon of some false reports during war, when she was a refugee), but true eyewitnesses who were actually present will maintain their testimony more forcefully, even in the absence of rumor, momentary excitement, and peer support, and long after the initial report (so, contrasting with the fictitious cases just noted, most of Tacitus's or my wife's sources).
236. Cf. Emmons, Ghosts, 266n1: "It is easier to remember one's own experience accurately than someone else's report." Already in the fourth century, Augustine lamented the inattention of many who experienced miracles to documenting them (City of God 22.8).
237. Hume is among those who raise the question of memory (Miracles, 27). It is a limiting factor, though not an absolute one (otherwise most historiography would become impossible, not to mention some examinations I have assigned to my students).
238. As Alexander, Signs, 17, puts it (in the context of Pentecostal miracle claims), "Eyewitness testimony from someone you know is the next best thing to seeing it yourself." On the value of interviews for research
(in this case, in psychology), see Pekala and Cardeña, "Issues," 62.
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subsequent medical confirmation (sometimes in regions where medical consultation was not available in any case); others, by contrast, are of persons whose immediate recoveries after prayer are medically attested and long-standing. At times I am limited to published accounts. In some other cases I have interviewed persons, questioning details I would not otherwise have had available; I have hoped by such means to offset the potential biases of sources derived from public meetings. (In cases where fraud does exist, some large ministries have more funds to produce it convincingly than one would expect with typical individuals—although false accounts in exceptionally large ministries would normally seem to require the collusion of greater numbers of people.
One cannot avoid noting claims involving public meetings, especially in establishing beliefs about healing, but these sorts of claims, while particularly abundant, are among the most difficult to follow up, and on average spontaneous public claims would tend to be less reliable (hence easier to debunk) than individual claims after healings. A large proportion of on-the-spot healing testimonies in public meetings, at least in the West, involve matters that are not immediately visible to onlookers,239 although I am convinced that critics too readily dismiss many of the more substantial claims such as a number of cases of blindness or deafness. One investigator asked healers to provide their best cases for evaluation,240 but such ministers are rarely doctors themselves and can offer only the most dramatic cures claimed by those willing to provide them. Even healing ministers of the highest personal integrity could not be certain that all claims in their meetings would be regarded as such by examining physicians; some deceptive or self-deceived attention seekers may pass the tests meant to screen them out (see further discussion in ch. 13).241 In such cases, follow-up reports are valuable for evidence to be weighed more fully, though most who testify in public meetings do not remain available for follow-up. Because many ailments might feel better temporarily, many believe themselves cured in public meetings but no long-term change results.242 For this reason, I believe that 239. A complaint of Randi, Faith Healers, 269, 287, regarding evidence. Even regarding more serious cures, one earlier critic aptly pointed out, "Crutches only . . . are hung on the walls of the 'miraculous' grottoes, never a wooden leg" (Wright, Miracle, 167, summarizing the argument of Anatole France). Some claims of miracles of such magnitude do exist, but they are so unusual that we normally tend not to believe them (perhaps in those cases defeating their purpose).
240. May, "Miracles," 147.
241. On attention seekers, see, e.g., Bishop, Healing, 64; Prather, Miracles, 90; cf. also mere attention seekers that Charles Wesley discerned in his meetings (White, Spirit, 62–63); for self-deception, see the case in May, "Miracles," 145. Bishop, Healing, 72–73, apparently objects to Kuhlman's agents screening who would come onstage, but this very process was apparently meant to screen out those who were not genuinely cured (including those who wrongly thought they were). In large gatherings, others also have used ushers to verify claims and screen out "those with spurious claims or looking only for attention"
(Daniel, "Labour," 160, on his own meetings; Währisch-Oblau, "Healing in Migrant Churches," 70, on African charismatic churches). Dr. W. L. Jacob, a psychiatrist, noted that some apparent healings were mere "histrionics," but that this does not detract from genuine healings (Jacob, "Introduction," xiv).
242. Cf. Prather, Miracles, 90. Hiebert, Reflections, 245, notes that most who claim healings at meetings return to their doctors a week or two later. His source (Pattison, Lapins, and Doerr, "Faith Healing") is
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interviews with those who claim to have been healed in the past may be more useful than those who claim to be healed on the spot in public meetings.
Although I cite some reports from public meetings, I seek to balance them with other kinds of reports. Some observers suggest that most individuals who experience healing probably do so in less public settings than healing crusades or Marian shrines, receiving prayer in local churches or Bible studies.243 For example, of U.S. Pentecostals claiming that they have experienced long-term healings, more than one-third (35.5 percent) attribute the healing to private prayer244 and nearly a third (29.8 percent) to "prayer with friends or family members."245 While slightly more than half (51.3 percent) received prayer during a worship service, less than a quarter (24.9 percent) attributed their healing claims to "prayer during a special service by a healing evangelist."246 The official magazine of the Assemblies of God, though long including healing testimonies, "does not feature healing evangelists."247
I thus seek to provide a range of sources.
In cases of interviews, where I could ask questions, I believed nearly all my interviewees to be sincere (though I did not believe that all of their cures necessarily demanded supernatural explanations). I borrow here the remark of Father
René Laurentin, a French journalist and theologian, regarding the interviews that he undertook: "I have reported in good faith testimonies told in good faith, told in the honest, artless manner one does not find with the calculating witness."248
Or I could borrow the sentiment of medical historian Jacalyn Duffin regarding most Catholic healing dossiers of recent centuries: "I believe in the goodwill and honesty of these witnesses, be they educated or illiterate, religious or atheist."249
These interviewer impressions do not guarantee the authenticity of every case (compare examples of fraud noted above), but on the whole we are dealing with sincere claimants, in some cases claimants whom I know fairly well. limited in its scope and not free of bias, but the point remains: the cures that count evidentially must outlast the emotion of the moment.
243. With McKenzie, "Miracles," 82. Kay, Networks, 205, suggests that the percentage of those healed through prayer in local congregations is probably no lower than in larger crusades, at least in the West.
Testimonies of individuals include many claiming conversion through direct encounters with Christ, despite ensuing persecution. For some other examples, see, e.g., the summary report in Clark, Impartation,
212.
244. Poloma, Assemblies, 60 (the study included 1,275 Assemblies of God adherents). Again, Kay,
Networks, 205, suggests that the percentage of those healed through prayer in local congregations is probably no lower than in larger crusades, at least in the West.
245. Poloma, Assemblies, 61.
246. Ibid.
247. Ibid., 57, noting the historic schism between the more institutionalized denomination and prominent charismatic evangelists.
248. Laurentin, Miracles, 89. He does allow for the sort of variations always encountered "in independent testimonies and perhaps an occasional embroidering of enthusiasm." Though a respected scholar, Laurentin has been criticized especially for his later work on Medjugorje (see Laurentin, Medjugorje).
249. Duffin, Miracles, 183; Prather, Miracles, 47. One need not always agree with the interpretation; while I am personally skeptical of psychic claims, for example, I acknowledge Einstein's confidence in Upton Sinclair's "good faith and dependability" about his psychic experiences (Herrick, Mythologies, 116).
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Needless to say, some of the healing reports seem to me better documented and with a greater claim to academic authenticity than others.250 While at times these distinctions will surface, however, and at other times I have simply screened out some reports, my primary purpose with most claims at this point is to illustrate widespread belief. I believe that many cases support the possibility of supernatural involvement, but without medical examination (and often without even interviews) my ability to evaluate a number of the reports more critically is limited. In most cases where I am aware of serious controversy I seek to maintain neutrality at least at present, pending further investigation, unless I believe the evidence inclines sufficiently strongly in one direction for me to render a clearer verdict.
I reiterate that theology is not the point of the book and that mentioning these claims does not serve as a blanket endorsement of any claimant's theology; the claimants in fact represent a range of theological positions. There is some unity: to my knowledge, no circles claim that miracles happen every time that one prays or seeks them, a point perhaps relevant for evaluating the evidence as a whole.
But to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding concerning my own perspective, I affirm that in places where medical technology is available people should make grateful use of it (and I do so myself on a regular basis); for many illnesses, medical resources offer consistent cures and are, in the theology of many, including myself, a gift from God.
Nevertheless, as I explain elsewhere in this book, it is a logical fallacy to rule out the extranormal authenticity of all miracle claims based on any of these above points. Despite the above caveats, many of the following phenomena I cannot explain on naturalistic terms; I believe that some readers who, unlike me, reject the possibility of all nonnaturalistic explanations will likewise have difficulty explaining some of them.251
Admittedly, explanations, whether philosophic, psychological, or theological, are not the primary issue in this or the immediately following chapters; I will turn to my suggestions (and often arguments) regarding explanations in chapters 13–15.
What is most critical from the standpoint of nt studies, or at least the historical aspect of it, is to note that such phenomena are widely claimed by firsthand sources and thus that it is not necessary, whatever the proposed explanations at this point, to deny the possibility of firsthand claims for such phenomena in the first century.
After reporting Majority World and Western claims, however, I will also consider
250. Merely being in print cannot guarantee a claim's veracity, although it grants readers readier access to it (often helpfully, since I have abbreviated most of the accounts, many down to summary statements).
251. I am not implying that all claims to answered prayer must be construed naturalistically unless no naturalistic explanation (or even plausible naturalistic explanation) is available; many claims of divine action in the Bible in fact suggest divine activity through natural agency, albeit at a supernatural level (e.g.,
Exod 14:21; Num 11:31; 2 Chr 36:22–23); I merely note that those that are more readily explained on supernatural than natural grounds offer stronger positive evidence for the thesis that supernatural factors are sometimes at work. (Even 2 Kgs 3:17, 20, may involve dry wadi beds flooded with rainwater from the mountains [Gordon, Near East, 204; Konkel, Kings, 395–96] or perhaps underground sources [cf.
Glueck, Side, 14–15].)
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proposed explanations for the claims, even though these explanations do not belong to the most narrowly historical aspect of my inquiry.
Even if only a fraction of the following reports from various regions were to prove genuine, they would testify that belief that the Christian God miraculously heals is widespread and that this belief often helps propel the peaceful growth of Christian movements. That such phenomena did the same in the first century is therefore not implausible. Relevant for my later return to the book's secondary thesis, if some kinds of these reports proved genuine, especially the dramatic sort collected in chapter 12, probably most observers would also regard them as significant evidence for supernatural causation.
The Use of Examples Before turning to examples in following chapters, I must explain the way that I use examples in the argument of this book, since examples are not always used in ways that make the point for which people offer them. Whereas one cannot inductively prove a negative (hence Hume could not inductively demonstrate that miracles do not happen), one can make inductive arguments for positive claims.
Individual examples in isolation do not establish new scientific laws, and those arguing for genuine miracles would not argue for laws here in any case, since they argue for a personal deity, and personal agents are not predictable the way that basic-level physics is. Having said that, examples can readily refute misinformed claims that people do not experience many highly unusual recoveries that they attribute to prayer. In particularly extraordinary cases (or an accumulation of mildly extraordinary ones), they may also shift the probability toward supernatural explanations, if one's starting assumptions do not rule out such explanations.
Though millions of claims are made252 and a minority are being addressed more thoroughly in missiological literature,253 it is unfortunate for academic purposes that most collections of available claims today, as throughout most of history, remain popular (i.e., nonacademic),254 anecdotal, or limited in scope.255 While
252. Extrapolating from the numbers of churches that make such claims and the percentage of people who offer them in surveys noted earlier, "hundreds of millions" seems a more accurate estimate. How many claims are difficult to explain naturalistically is much harder to estimate.
253. E.g., Wagner, Acts, 475–76, summarizes by category many extraordinary miracles that he or the ministers he works with can attest firsthand, in Argentina and Brazil (cf. also 202). He acknowledges that his records reveal that though many claim complete healing, many others do not (Wagner, Acts, 126–27,
213–14). Cf. also summaries in Jackson, Quest, 54–56.
254. E.g., the eyewitness observations in the multivolume diaries of T. L. Osborn (available in several
Pentecostal research libraries), passim; Stewart, Only Believe, passim; reports from Chinese Christians
(cf. Feaver, "Delegation," 34, in Wagner, Acts, 312). By observing that such sources are nonacademic I am not denigrating their value; they are closer to the events than most academicians are and are the best sources for academic study of popular religion. I am simply observing the difficulty of satisfying academic expectations in such cases.
255. Lamenting the lack of solid documentation, see, e.g., Lucas, Healing, 197 (in the "consensus statement" in appendix 1, pp. 193–201). One wider academic collection that is taking note of a number of miracle claims in Africa (where relevant to the subjects) is the Dictionary of African Christian Biography
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these limitations are a drawback for academic purposes, mentioning them is not intended as a criticism of those offering the accounts. Most of those involved in the healings are not academicians and understandably are not primarily interested in documentation for posterity.256 Likewise, most who work within the traditional
Western academic paradigm in some disciplines would face severe pressure from their academic peers for professionally documenting healing claims in any way that seemed to grant them credence. Because peer-reviewed scientific journals rarely publish nonreplicable events, anomalies like miracles are virtually excluded from documentation except for individual cases.257
Firsthand data in such research would necessarily constitute case studies, which by their nature are "anecdotal" until compiled and compared.258 Nevertheless, various disciplines make significant use of case studies.259 Like most historiography, anthropology depends on testimony; as one anthropologist notes, "The more reliable the witness the better, the greater number of witnesses the better. Nevertheless, judgments concerning 'truth' rely always upon the experience of another."260 Since the events being studied are by definition extranormal rather than in the usual course of events, they appear particularly amenable to a case-study approach of individual claims.261 Moreover, popular accounts are the sorts of primary sources most useful to church historians and scholars analyzing popular religion, hence can provide useful analogies for early Christianity here.
(e.g., Keener, "Ndoundou"; Akinwumi, "Idahosa"; Dayhoff, "Marais"; Menberu, "Mekonnen Negera";
Negash, "Demelash"; Millard, "Duma"; Odili, "Osaele" [citing in further detail, idem, "Agents"]; further examples above).
256. A point also noted by Moreland, Triangle, 185. As Christiaan de Wet noted to me in correspondence
(March 25, 2008), large numbers of miracles are being reported in Africa today, but few are "verified and recorded" to Western satisfaction "because of the nature and context of the miracles." In the cases I will mention later, where I was a witness (and not yet considering writing on the subject), I myself did not think to obtain medical documentation, did not know how to obtain it, and might well not have been granted access to it. In some cases, no doctor had been consulted, and in others it seemed too intrusive for me to ask or to press persons who were busy to go to the trouble of obtaining it after I had asked.
257. See Llewellyn, "Events," 253. Ellens, "Conclusion," 301–2, argues for changing this by collecting anecdotal reports and then (303) evaluating the samples together.
258. Cf. this observation by Southall, "Possession," 232, on anthropological studies of spirit possession.
Wink, "Stories," 212, complains that "materialists" dismiss as "anecdotal" all supramaterial healing claims
"however well documented."
259. See Pekala and Cardeña, "Issues," 63 (noting also their value in studying anomalous experiences);
Krippner and Achterberg, "Experiences," 383 (noting the use of interviews and case studies regarding anomalous healing, though desiring fuller controls); cf. even a study using a hundred examples from newspaper clippings in research on sudden death from emotive traumas (Engel, "Death," reported in Benson, Healing, 42).
260. Straight, Miracles, 6; for personal experience as a form of evidence in sociology, see Wuthnow,
"Teaching," 187. Smith, Thinking, 48–85, compares the "affective, narrative epistemology" of charismatics with that of postmodernists (see esp. 51, 59), both respecting particularities rather than cultural hegemony
(55–57). "Narrative knowledge" functions affectively as well as cognitively (65).
261. Cf. similarly Ashe, Miracles, 165, 178–79; McClenon, Events, xi. For the study of popular beliefs about the supernatural, what is most important is what is sociologically real for those reporting their experiences
(ibid., xi, 3, 6; cf. Duffin, Miracles, 183). A "chief medical expert" for the Vatican has emphasized that miracles are exceptional and particular, hence cannot be resolved by statistics (noted in Duffin, Miracles, 187).
Majority World Perspectives
Demands for specifically medical documentation help control unwarranted and often dangerous claims (what we would call "practicing medicine without a license"). Nevertheless, such demands also stem partly from professional specialization, and nineteenth-century competition between various forms of alternative medicine in a period in which what is now conventional medicine was striving to be recognized as the only scientific form of treatment.262 Thus, for example, mainstream medicine once struggled with financial competitors such as medical botany and homeopathy,263 although some historians warn that in that period orthodox medicine's "remedies were no better than the homeopaths'."264 Today some of the alternatives have improved and become respectable therapies that can be employed in complementary ways for treating particular sorts of disorders;265 some, like osteopathic medicine, are now part of conventional medicine. Ideally, we would demand medical evidence for the effectiveness of any kind of recovery, and larger controlled studies protect against the dangers of merely anecdotal evidence. In a case like supernatural healing claims, however, where genuinely extraordinary cures cannot be predicted in advance because (if explained theistically) they involve an intelligent agent rather than purely natural processes, case studies seem better adapted to the nature of the claim.266
Diverse Christian Supernatural Claims Individual healing reports are probably more often analogous to nt accounts than mass healing claims in public healing meetings and especially reports of cures at shrines. Nevertheless, I include at least some samples from all of these kinds of sources, since these are the range that presents itself today. The further boundaries of my primary examples, however, invite special comment.
Readers from some vantage points might prefer me to draw from a narrower range of sources; others might prefer a wider range of sources. To prevent the book from burgeoning beyond its present size, I have limited the scope of my research largely to claims in movements closely related to Christianity (apart from endnotes in the earlier section of this chapter suggesting some sources concerning other religious movements that researchers can pursue). For the main point of the book, namely, that eyewitnesses claim such phenomena in religious contexts,
I would not need to limit the sources to Christian ones. Having decided on that limitation, which some scholars will already consider arbitrary, I will not limit my
262. On medical professionalization in the nineteenth century, see, e.g., Williams, "Healing," 273; relevant to the matters at hand, see also Mullin, Miracles, 103–4, 246–47. Specialization and professionalization have obvious benefits but also can restrict the bounds of evidence considered (Kuhn, Structure, 64).
263. Pickstone, "Systems," 175–89.
264. Ibid., 185.
265. The use of diet and nutrition is of course highly valuable and has come quite a long way from the period when graham crackers were considered the ideal food (once used as health food at Oberlin College).
266. Medicine also uses case studies, and when patients report symptoms, doctors use these subjective reports to determine what tests to run. But medicine has access to a larger and more consistent pool of studies and norms, whereas supernatural healing claims by their nature involve abnormal and sporadic events.
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material further by seeking to arbitrate competing claims of what is "Christian."
I include examples from various Christian movements, including not only many in the mainstream of Catholic, Protestant, or Pentecostal Christianity but also a much smaller minority of others that have often been regarded as extreme by the mainstream.267
Publications on miracles do vary in the religious range of their samples, but as chapter 10 will illustrate, many have rejected miracle claims in competitors' religious contexts for theological reasons. I thus pause to address here any readers who may disapprove of the theological diversity of contexts in which cures are attested.
Protestants may not endorse the theology of Marian shrines, and Catholics may not endorse that of evangelical evangelists; both may charge some new religious movements with syncretism; those skeptical of miracles more generally will question causal relationships between documented extranormal cures and specifically religious contexts. For the point of this book, the issue is cures in theologically or religiously pregnant contexts rather than more particular theological claims. For the sake of space I have often omitted elements in the larger theological contexts of claims that claimants would consider important, for example, (often) Christ's compassion, the agents' suffering for their faith in or ministry for Christ, and so forth. I do so not because I devalue these theological contexts or discussions about them but to maintain focus on the book's key agendas.
In including examples that some readers would regard as more controversial, I am not minimizing the value of some scholars undertaking theological critiques or of dialogue between different movements in other contexts. It is simply not the purpose of this academic study to draw such distinctions. For those interested in the question of competing theological approaches, however, while a theist need not attribute all extranormal claims to God (e.g., most theists in the world today acknowledge other spirits subordinate to God), she also could affirm that God might sometimes meet those with genuine faith even where other theological details (e.g., dependence on a holy site, prosperity teaching, saints' relics, or even a fraudulent evangelist) might differ from what she believes ideal or even appropriate. To acknowledge this limitation is not to endorse a particular theology or to reject the value of theological knowledge.268 I am not seeking to resolve such theological issues here but to explain my decision to remain focused on the question at hand.
The claims I include related to Christianity reflect a range of theological positions, including views regarding healing. That range might not have surprised some early Christians, who did distinguish ministries of healing from ministries of teaching (1 Cor 12:28–29), not presuming that all who served in the former ministries
267. I have not included older movements like Christian Science or other mind sciences, whose healing claims others have addressed at length in other works.
268. If God would act only where faith and knowledge were perfect, we should not expect divine action.
As a scholar I value knowledge; as a Christian I also value faith, which can occur in a context of limited knowledge. Readers are, of course, free to demur on any of my judgments here.
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must also serve in the latter. From controversial methods and questionable exegesis to outright charlatans, there have been enough concerns to make many a scholar, including many a committed Christian scholar, cringe.269 Nevertheless, it is a logical fallacy to dismiss evidence for all genuine extranormal recoveries based on some claims not proving genuine, and it seems disingenuous to dismiss evidence because some claimants do not share the evaluators' theological positions. Many would view healings as vindicating God's mercy toward the afflicted rather than an intermediary's theological acumen.
I note examples of eyewitness claims to events that the eyewitnesses consider supernaturally caused without implying full analogy with all of those that appear in the Gospels and Acts, or with one another. I do not argue that every detail reported in the Gospels, Acts, or subsequent history must have clear parallels today before we can treat it as plausible; my argument is much more general, simply seeking to challenge antisupernaturalism's traditional analogy argument.
Some modern examples from which I draw differ in some significant respects from examples in Acts. Thus, for instance, Jesus and his followers in the Gospels and Acts are not associated with particular healing shrines (a Christian mode that presumably arose later, in competition with non-Christian shrines like those of Asclepius). Likewise, while some of the examples I give in following chapters come from those known for focusing on miracles (because they circulate the most reports), miracles were not the primary focus or "specialty" of Jesus and his first movement, although they were probably what most interested some outsiders.
Evangelical Church of West Africa pastor Gideon Achi articulates a perspective consistent with the nt witness. He notes that he has witnessed some miracles himself, but that "God uses miracles to authenticate his message, not just to promote whoever is performing the miracles."270 While his perspective probably reflects the dominant approach in Christian movements, some groups do use miracle claims to promote their own ministries. Nevertheless, only a small minority of my examples could fairly be accused of coming from groups that appear to use miracles in this way. To reduce distractions, I focus especially on the mainstream of Catholic,
Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostal, and Third Wave movements. Miracle claims do not occur in equal proportions among all these groups, and the numbers of my examples unfortunately do not reflect the proportions in which they occur in some of these groups: for the most part, my sampling simply reflects the sources
269. I have noted that I do not find any proposed biblical arguments for hard cessationism remotely plausible. Extreme charismatics and false claims, however, have sometimes tempted me toward cessationism and certainly helped me understand its appeal. Nevertheless, I know other kinds of charismatics, and (as I will note later) have some firsthand "charismatic" experiences myself. Even among sound charismatics, however, the best of human agents remains fallible.
270. Gideon Achi, interview, May 25, 2009 (now a PhD student at Asbury). He warns against focusing on miracles more than on Jesus. Cf. also others, e.g., Yancey, "Miracle Worker"; Nigerian Pentecostal pastor
Okwudili Ononugbo (in Burgess, Revolution, 301); Okonkwo, "Sustaining," 75 (emphasizing integrity above signs). More than a century ago, Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 200: healing miracles are to further the gospel; "Miracles are the signs and not the substance of Christianity."
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most readily available to me.271 The sampling should, however, be more than adequate for our purposes.
One Theological Caveat Because I am now turning to postbiblical examples of healing claims, and some of my Western readers may find many of the healing claims in this book astonishing for a particular sort of theological reason, I digress at this point also to address an objection that may arise for some of them (although not for myself, and certainly not for antisupernaturalists). This objection involves the doctrine, held by a minority of conservative Protestants, known as "cessationism," the belief that extraordinary supernatural manifestations through individuals have ceased. Later
I will treat the rise of a form of Protestant cessationism in the West that accommodated Enlightenment antisupernaturalism, allowing God's (visible) activity exclusively (or at least almost exclusively) through natural means.272 I must digress here, however, to observe that modern cessationism is not all of one kind.273
Many modern cessationists do not exclude God's supernatural activity in the present but simply argue that it does not occur to the same degree or in the same form as in the nt (in which case "cessationist" might not be the best term for it, but I defer to the preferred usage of some of the view's advocates). This position would not need to exclude from consideration, even with regard to the question of supernatural causation, most examples offered later in this book. It would not regard them as normative, but the issue of normativity is not important for establishing the main points of this book: that eyewitnesses can claim to have seen healings and that some healings may involve supernatural causation.
From an apparent diminution in the magnitude of miracles in many parts of the world today a historian working from analogy could argue that nt miracles were exaggerated. A moderate cessationist (again, not my approach) could counter that if any of Jesus's miracles (or other miracles in his name) are granted as genuine
271. E.g., Catholics, Pentecostal Methodists, and Pentecostals all far outnumber Baptists in Chile, but my primary sources for Chile happen to be Baptist. Funded interviewers doing a more thorough study in Chile would thus have found far more healing claims by going to these other groups.
272. See, e.g., Mullin, Miracles, 30. This position eventually mostly collapsed (Mullin, Miracles, 265–66) under the weight of its philosophic inconsistency (see Ruthven, Cessation, 64–71 [esp. 70]; Mullin,
Miracles, 265–66). Thus by the late twentieth century even many conservative evangelical leaders publicly affirmed continuing gifts of healings (e.g., Harold Lindsell, as cited in Synan, Tradition, 273; Billy Graham in Graham, Spirit, 162).
273. See, e.g., moderate cessationism in many essays in Sawyer and Wallace, Afraid; also in Saucy,
"View"; and some other sources noted above. Following the same line of thought as in Conyers Middleton
(Warfield, Miracles, 28–31; Young, "Miracles in History," 106), Benjamin Warfield's harder cessationism rejected all miracles past the apostolic period (Barnes, "Miracles," 228–29), but on criteria that would have refuted biblical miracles as well (Barnes, "Miracles," 229–30; Brown, Miracles, vi, 198–202). Some
(e.g., Pearl, "Miracles," 492) contend that miracles were needed early on to justify theism but no longer remain necessary (an approach criticized, e.g., in Otte, "Schlesinger," 96); this approach seems especially vulnerable to challenge in missiological settings. Some detractors of modern miracles have even associated them, including those associated with committed Christians, with Satan (cf. Whitcomb, "Miracles").
Majority World Perspectives
miracles, then God acted in Jesus's ministry and confirmed his distinctive claims; these claims in turn allow us to set Jesus apart. This approach, if taken, would not weaken my argument from analogy even for genuinely supernatural miracles in the Gospels and Acts, since the point is not the quantity or degree but the existence of genuine miracles. As I noted in chapter 5, a single genuine miracle would be sufficient to refute Hume's claim against miracles from experience, and I will suggest later in the book that we have far more than a single case (though I do not argue that all the claims I narrate in following chapters need be understood in those terms).
For most Christians, especially in the West, this idea of a change in the character of the miraculous could fit our experience. If Jesus healed everyone who came to him, as some hold,274 matters are different today (and indeed, not only in the West). If healing was normally instant in the nt (at least in cases where we are informed, apart from Mark 8:24–25), many or most recoveries attributed to divine help today differ from those in the nt era (though I will cite some claims of instant healings today as well). Yet I believe that it is difficult to find a solid nt rationale for the change (the texts cited for this perspective rely heavily on theological inference, sometimes, as in the case of 1 Cor 13:8–12, apparently in the direct face of what the text says),275 unless it would be that God lavishes miracles more freely in particular points in salvation history than in others (a perspective many noncessationists would share). While in historic Christian teaching Jesus is unique, the same cannot be said for signs workers like Stephen in Acts (or among some biblical figures preceding Jesus).
My purpose in this book is not to offer a theological or biblical response to cessationism, which I have offered in other works (primarily responding there to "hard" rather than moderate cessationism).276 But I respond here briefly with respect to the matter at hand: if God lavishes miracles more freely at some particularly significant points in salvation history (a reasonable observation from Scripture), one still cannot conclude from the nt that no such significant points
274. The view that many readers hold concerning Matt 4:24; 8:16; Acts 5:16; but others might cite against this understanding Luke 14:13; Acts 3:2 (or at least allow for exceptions); cf. also Luke 4:26–27.
275. On that text, see, e.g., Carson, Spirit, 66–72; Fee, Presence, 204–14; Schatzmann, Charismata, 77–79.
276. My agenda in this book is not to challenge cessationism, or I would dedicate space to making an argument against it, but I have offered some comments that could be used that way elsewhere (including
Keener, Acts, and in various earlier works such as Keener, Matthew, 312–13, 316–17; on a popular level,
Keener, Gift, 89–112, to which I refer the interested reader for my own views). I regard full-scale (hard) cessationism as so difficult to defend biblically as to require little response on that level, yet understandable both in the context of its historical origins and, today, in reaction against the claims of some common
"charismatic" extremes. For the cessationist approach in general, see, e.g., Robertson, Word; Gaffin,
Perspectives; idem, "View"; Jeffries, "Healing"; MacArthur, Chaos; Derickson, "Cessation"; MacLeod,
"Surprised"; for noncessationist responses besides my own, see, e.g., Fee, Gospel, 75–77; idem, Paul,
Spirit, and People, passim; Turner, Gifts, 286–302; Ruthven, Cessation; Grudem, Theology, 355–75; Deere,
Power of Spirit; Elbert, "Themes"; Morphew, Breakthrough, 169–82; Snyder, Renewal, 140–41 (and idem,
Problem, 130–31; "Gifts," 332–34); Green, Holy Spirit; Shogren, "Prophecy"; Gardner, Healing Miracles,
130–54. For a more moderate, modern cessationism, see Sawyer and Wallace, Afraid; for multiple views, see Grudem, Gifts.
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would continue to occur.277 Although miracles appear particularly dramatic in Jesus's ministry, these echo (as we have noted) signs narrated in earlier significant eras, such as those of Moses, Elijah, and Elisha, and are in turn echoed in ministries in Acts (not, incidentally, limited to the Twelve plus Paul, as some suggest; see
Acts 6:8; 8:6). They are not limited to a single phase in biblical history but appear at various significant points; the time of Elijah and Elisha was a case of a biblical revival to reverse, at least temporarily, national apostasy. They are not, then, limited to Jesus's ministry or to the events of "salvation" as most narrowly construed; they apply also to the expansion of God's message. The evangelization of previously unevangelized people groups, where we encounter many miracle reports today, seems analogous to the kinds of settings we have in Acts.278
The apparently consistent nt perspective is that Christians live in an eschatologically significant time, what nt theologians often describe as the "already/ not yet" of the kingdom.279 Early Christians did not expect that era to last for centuries, but the point is that they defined the period between Christ's first and second comings as eschatological, a period in which many of God's promises were being fulfilled. One could also argue that when God stirs the hearts of believers to live in this reality, that is also a significant time when God may act in dramatic ways. I can empathize with even a fairly conservative cessationist perspective on a level of some of my experience and as an understandable reaction against some widespread charismatic abuses, but I do not believe that this is the solution most compatible with the theology that we find in the nt.
I believe that such theology should lead us to expect and weigh more heavily continuity rather than discontinuity. In the case of some moderate cessationists, the difference might be one of degree.
In any case, while hard cessationists might find some reports in this book as shocking as full-scale antisupernaturalists would, I believe that even in the West moderate cessationists probably constitute the majority of cessationists today. I would thus invite those committed to this theological perspective to join noncessationist theists, including myself, in recognizing the better-founded among modern miracle claims (normally those supported by trustworthy witnesses) as a legitimate argument in support of the plausibility of biblical miracle claims.
277. They are not limited to particular periods even in Scripture; see one thorough survey in Deere, Power of Spirit, 253–66. Yet it does appear that signs as signs flourish especially in circumstances of extending the message.
278. Already noted by Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 194–95 (citing also Theodore Christlieb). I believe that some modern cessationists would concede this point, but many noncessationists who hold the same perspective would consider the label "cessationist" a misnomer for this position.
279. E.g., Mark 4:31–32; Matt 13:33//Luke 13:21; Rom 8:22; 12:2; Gal 1:4; 1 Tim 4:1 (in context);
2 Tim 3:1 (in context); Heb 1:2; Jas 5:3; 1 Pet 1:20; 2 Pet 3:3; Jude 18; Rev 12:5–6; specifically with regard to the Spirit, Acts 2:17; Rom 8:23; 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Eph 1:13–14; Heb 6:4–5. For discussion of the already/not yet character of the kingdom, see, e.g., Stein, Method and Message, 60–79; Ladd, Theology,
70–80; Witherington, End, 51–74; Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:10, 289–506; Stanton, "Message and Miracles,"
57–61; Thielman, Theology, 176.
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Conclusion What the radical Enlightenment excluded as implausible based on the principle of analogy, much of today's world can accept on the same principle of analogy.
Hundreds of millions of people worldwide claim to have experienced or witnessed what they believe are miracles. Eyewitness claims to dramatic recoveries appear in a wide variety of cultures, among Christians often successfully emulating models of healings found in the Gospels and Acts. Granted, such healings do not occur on every occasion and are fairly unpredictable in their occurrence; yet they seem to appear with special frequency in cultures and circles that welcome them. Radical
Enlightenment antisupernaturalism is far from the majority view in the world and thus henceforth ought to argue rather than presuppose its case.
I have merely introduced Majority World perspectives in this chapter. In the following two chapters, I turn to a number of concrete examples.
Examples from Asia Western theology invariably asks the question: Are miracles possible? This of course addresses the Enlightenment problem of a closed universe. In much of Asia that is a non-question because the miraculous is assumed and fairly regularly experienced.
—Hwa Yung1 From the perspective of church history, it is true that Pentecostal Christianity within Latin America, Africa and Asia resembles the primitive Christian Church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Similarities are the urban character of their congregations, exorcism, healings, . . . and so forth. —Sung-Gun Kim2
All Christian churches in China practice some form of healing, including Three-Self churches. In fact, according to some surveys, 90% of new believers cite healing as a reason for their conversion. This is especially true in the countryside where medical facilities are often inadequate or non-existent. —Edmond Tang3
In Gujarat and Maharashtra, many tangible miracles have happened such as the healing of the deaf and dumb and incurable diseases which strengthened the ministry in its initial stage.—Abraham Pothen4 I n the previous chapter, I introduced and surveyed some Majority World perspectives. In this chapter and the next I offer some concrete examples of these perspectives. I begin with Asia in this chapter; in the next chapter, I turn more briefly to Africa (my wife's continent) and Latin America. I have devoted more space to Asia because, with nearly half the world's population, it supplies many examples, and more written sources were available to me in English from that continent.
1. Yung, Quest, 230; cf. 15 (rejecting antisupernaturalist elements in Western theology). Then principal of Malaysia Theological Seminary in Kuala Lumpur, he became (as noted in the previous chapter) bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia.
2. Kim, "Pentecostalism," 32.
3. Tang, "Healers," 481.
4. Pothen, "Missions," 189.
Examples from Asia
In the postmodern West, as in much of the world, we often reason by telling stories; and in this case, there is no shortage of stories, though some are more sincere and compelling than others. I noted in the last chapter that hundreds of millions of people claim to have witnessed miraculous healings. What I offer in these two chapters now is merely an embarrassingly small sample of what is available regarding these claims. Scholars beginning their careers in relevant disciplines could easily spend the rest of their lives collecting healing claims. I reiterate that the evidential value of the following testimonies regarding genuine supernatural activity varies, but all illustrate the point that eyewitnesses can claim healings and that the experiences behind these claims are widespread. One could undoubtedly document even larger numbers of people who are not healed, but since that observation is not a matter of controversy, at least not among the vast majority of this book's audience, it does not require much special documentation.
Although not by any means the cause of all church growth, it is widely documented that reported miraculous healings have abetted church growth in much of Asia.5 My reasons for mentioning church growth or conversions with respect to healings here and elsewhere in the book is to point out that those who witness or are close to those who witness such reports take them quite seriously. Often these are people reared in entirely different religious traditions, for whom changing their faith tradition is socially costly, sometimes even leading to ostracism or persecution. Nevertheless, they act as if they fully regard the cures as qualitatively or quantitatively strongly different from the sorts of recoveries to which they are accustomed.
These cures are reported also in regions not covered in my examples below; for example, many healings in the nation of Mongolia have reportedly contributed to church growth there.6 My focus, however, will be on areas where I have greater documentation. After treating the Philippines at some length, because I have many sources from there, I will survey examples in Southeast Asia, South Asia (especially
5. Yung, "Integrity," 173–75. De Wet, "Signs," treats Asia on 108–23, including (in addition to the samples I have noted) Malaysia (115), South Korea (115–17), and China (117–19); for the frequency of healings in Asian Christianity, see also Ma, "Encounter," 131, 132, 134–38. For sources (mostly in De
Wet), see Daniel, "Signs and Wonders," 103–7; idem, "Dynamics and Strategy," 105–8; Stock, "People
Movements," 288; Musk, "Strategy," 114; Thomas, "Growth," 195; Nelson, "Study," 49–51; Skivington,
"Strategy," 126–27; Shinde, "Assemblies," 179 (cf. idem, "Animism," 261–62); Hminga, "Life," 254–255;
Cornelius, "Growth," 16–18 (South India); Cunville, "Evangelization," 153–59; Zechariah, "Strategy,"
273–76; Longkumer, "Study," 29–85; George, "Growth," 30–69; Montgomery, "Fire," 148–81; Spruth,
"Mission," 433–34; more recently, see Clark, Impartation, 166, 172; for narratives in Indonesia (employing pseudonyms), see Knapstad, "Power," 79–92.
6. Bush and Pegues, Move, 62–63. (Bush, one of these authors, is a leader in global Protestantism and missiology; see, e.g., Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 194.) For example, a man very sick with congested lungs was healed fully after prayer, as X-rays revealed, and became a Christian (Bush and Pegues, Move, 63); cf. a raising in Seibert, Church, 135–36. Vincentian priest Augustine Mundackatt, from South India, reports witnessing healings of paralysis in Mongolia (McGee, Miracles, 201). (This Mongolia differs from Inner
Mongolia, an autonomous region in China noted below.) John Koehler, a long-term friend who now works in Mongolia, notes that he is not seeing such miracles or growth now but that miracles are widely known to have occurred a few years earlier, producing explosive church growth (interview, May 22, 2009).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
in India), Indonesia, South Korea, the Pacific, and then, at length, China. Afterward
I will turn to a well-known example from early twentieth-century China, Shangchieh Song (John Sung), an indigenous Chinese church leader often respected today by both the Three-Self and house churches.
Limitations of My Examples Before proceeding, I must again note some limitations in my treatment (supplementing my comments regarding other sorts of limitations in ch. 7). Although I have tried to offer geographic diversity in this chapter and the next one, I explore four countries at greater length and with more direct interviews than most others: two in Asia, one of them currently the world's most populous country; the third a very small country in Africa; and the fourth a fairly small country in Latin
America. The example of Chinese Christianity presents itself forcefully because of the size of that nation and the many published reports about the perspectives of Chinese Christians regarding healing. The other three examples are selected more randomly: I simply had opportunity to travel to the Philippines, Congo, and Cuba, but was not able at the time to travel to Brazil and Mozambique, where I had also hoped to collect information.
My explorations in this and the immediately following chapters are merely samples, given the limited range of data I have immediately available.7 I am not medically qualified to evaluate the claims that I have found,8 though in some cases medical evaluations accompanied the claims, or doctors have offered feedback on the reports available to me. Nor have I followed up all the available written reports with personal interviews, though I did conduct perhaps a hundred interviews and have personal correspondence from well over a hundred other persons. Nor for that matter have I surveyed even a notable fraction of the massive number of claims being made, including of those potentially available to me. I offer these explorations with the expectation that other scholars with fuller resources, expertise, and interest in the relevant specialized research will develop them more fully.9 That is, I offer concrete examples for my claim that many eyewitnesses affirm that they
7. Not to mention my limited training in this kind of research; in nt studies, for example, we do not ordinarily try to interview eyewitnesses. Unfortunately, many of the works in nt scholarship to which I have looked for further models or data, while often helpful, provided even fewer sources than I have offered here.
8. The opinion of Lilian Yeomans, a medical doctor and early twentieth-century advocate of divine healing, is relevant here. She rightly points out that some testimonies, where one cannot ascertain objectively that the person was truly sick, "are quite valueless from a scientific standpoint" (Yeomans, Healing, 9).
9. Because I am working outside my immediate area of historical expertise in the following chapters, for initial leads on published sources I am indebted to Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland of Talbot
School of Theology of Biola University; missiologist Warren Newberry and historian Gary McGee, of the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary; and, from a different approach, historian Candy Gunther
Brown of Indiana University, who is publishing sociological and historical studies on healing figures and movements.
Examples from Asia
have seen miracles; only later in the book will I seek to cull some of those that I believe provide stronger evidential value for supernatural causation.
I also acknowledge regretfully that my examples do not span the full range of churches where miracles are being reported. Thus, for example, my sources for some countries are disproportionately Baptist or Methodist, for some periods disproportionately Anglican, and the like. Not least, though I have included a number of examples from the Catholic Church and some other large bodies, I have failed to represent them in a way proportionate to their size, especially with respect to some continents (Catholics may be better represented in ch. 11, regarding the West, and material specifically dedicated to Lourdes in ch. 14). I obtained even fewer accounts from the Eastern Orthodox churches. This deficiency reflects the nature of the sources I had available in my connections (often because of where I teach and the eyewitnesses therefore most available to me), and I recognize that many other stories would be available had I been able to cast the net more widely.
Likewise, I regret not being able to treat more widely some particular regions that are reporting many miracles, due to my geographic and linguistic limitations (for example, much of Latin America is underrepresented, considering the number of claims offered there). In some cases I sought many more sources to redress the imbalance, but potential correspondents, busy with their own work, proved unable to facilitate my quest. Nevertheless, I am confident that the examples cited in this work should prove sufficient to illustrate the book's point.
Because the book's primary thesis is that eyewitnesses claim miracles, I seek to illustrate that point at greater length. A number of the cases below will not contribute as strongly to my secondary argument that divine causation may stand behind some miracle claims. I will extract some of the following cases more useful for that argument in a later chapter (ch. 15; one may also note ch. 12, where I gather more specific claims to have witnessed blindness healed and the dead raised). A number of stories that I recount, such as gradual recoveries that are known to occur spontaneously in other settings, do not require a specifically supernatural explanation.
Some other accounts, by contrast, like the resuscitation during prayer of a person dead for two or three hours, seem less credible without one. Still others do not make full sense to me, but I recount them as they were related to me. All illustrate that eyewitnesses offer healing claims, whatever their explanation.
Despite diversity of some other elements, most of those whom I interviewed struck me as deeply sincere; some people wept as they shared from their hearts how grateful they felt that God had helped them. As for theology, most whom I queried on the point responded that they believe that God is sovereign and do not expect healing on every occasion. None stood a chance of profiting financially from their story, yet they sacrificed their time and, for many individuals particularly in one cultural setting, had to overcome some cultural barriers to talk openly with me about these matters. Whereas some healing ministries might have self-serving reasons to exaggerate, and I have only their published reports, interviews with more random eyewitnesses afforded me little impression of such motives.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
The Philippines The Philippines offer abundant miracle claims, of which I narrate a sample here.
One Western researcher in the Philippines interviewed people who were prayed for to see if any of them felt better and was astonished to learn "that 83% of them actually reported that they had experienced some dramatic healing from God in their bodies." The complaints healed in their reports "ranged from cancer to tuberculosis, ulcers, heart trouble, tonsillitis, wounds and punctures and a dislocated shoulder."10
Dr. Julie Ma, a Korean missiologist at the Oxford Center for Mission Studies, notes that Pentecostal Christians in northern Luzon in the Philippines, where she previously worked, experience healings as in the book of Acts.11 Others also note that experiencing or learning of healings has been a major cause of Pentecostal church growth in the Philippines.12 Most converts among the Kankana-eys in the northern Philippines, Ma reports, "have come to Christ through the experience of miraculous healing."13 She points out that healings are a regular phenomenon in charismatic and Pentecostal churches and home meetings in the Philippines.14
Ma goes on to illustrate her claims with a number of more specific examples.
One of these is a church elder whom she knew who had medically incurable cancer; the pastor regularly visited and prayed for him until he was healed, greatly affecting those who knew him.15 The pastor of Cathedral of Praise notes that during a church service his wife was fully healed from tuberculosis in both lungs; another member recounts that during a crusade his dying wife, who had a toxic goiter, was healed.16 A sympathetic popular writer who observed healing meetings in the Philippines reports how a doctor attending one of the meetings confirmed that one of his own deaf patients had just been healed.17 A close friend of mine from 10. De Wet, "Signs," 119–21, citing Montgomery, "Fire," 148, 177 (also in Devadason, "Missionary
Societies," 188–89). Even a single individual's healing led to churches being planted, with hundreds of converts (Montgomery, "Fire," 177). For other claims of healed tuberculosis in the Philippines, see, e.g.,
Domingo Pasamonte (a bishop in the Church of God World Mission, Philippines), transcription of Rose
Engcoy's March 2, 2005, interview; Angela Salazar Aragona, transcription of Rose Engcoy's April 14, 2002, interview. Jenkins, New Faces, 114, cites a new convert in the Philippines who prayed for a neighbor's dying baby. According to his source, the baby was healed, so others then asked for prayer and most were healed; by about a decade and a half later, everyone in this village had turned to the healing God.
11. Ma, "Manifestations."
12. Maggay, "Issues," 34, noting "at least 80% of converts" in the Foursquare movement. Evangelism is a major purpose of healing ministry in the Philippines (Suico, "Pentecostalism," 356).
13. Ma, "Encounter," 136; cf. also Cole, "Model," 263.
14. Ma, "Encounter," 135–36.
15. Ibid., 135.
16. Ibid., 136; cf. idem, Mission, 65–66. Idem, Mission, 66, further recounts how a young girl, bedridden, blind and often unconscious from a brain tumor, experienced progressive recovery, first being able to stand and walk, then regaining her vision.
17. Doug Wead in Stewart, Only Believe, 146. Don Stewart notes that he has observed many miraculous healings in his meetings and received numerous letters from those so healed (personal correspondence,
Aug. 10, 2005).
Examples from Asia
college also reports to me witnessing numerous instant and obvious healings in the Philippines.18
Ma tells of events surrounding the beginning of the Christian movement among the Kankana-eys through Elva Vanderbout, a single woman missionary in the 1940s and 1950s. (Ma's dissertation involves the history of this movement.19) Vanderbout helped the needy get medical help where possible20 but also prayed for the sick. Ma notes the account of "an old man who had such a critical spinal problem that he could only crawl on his hands and knees like an animal." In 1958, the man's friends carried him to a revival meeting conducted by Vanderbout; at the close of the service, he was "instantly healed and he stood up and walked away," testifying of God's works.21
Among the many persons healed of deafness and muteness was a young woman deaf and mute for twelve years,22 and on another occasion "an old man who had been deaf in both ears since he was a young man was instantly healed."23 Instant healing through prayer also came to a twenty-eight-year-old who had been deaf and mute all his life and was instantly healed.24 People were healed of blindness25 and tuberculosis,26 and "one famous woman in the city [Baguio] was healed of a very large goiter," which shrank when people prayed and was entirely gone by the next morning.27
Other sources reveal that healing claims contributed to churches' growth elsewhere in the Philippines as well. In 1951, Rev. Manuel Gonzales was very weak and appeared close to death; people prayed for hours for his restoration. He suddenly began to stir and soon jumped out of the bed, fully recovered; the funeral was canceled, word spread, and he eventually became a more prominent Christian leader.28 In July 1954, a man unable to walk proved able to walk immediately after prayer; the healing of a blind man drew widespread attention in and around his barrio; and other reported healings drew many people into churches.29
18. Bruce Kinabrew informed me that when he and his children prayed for people in the Philippines, they personally witnessed visible miracles like the healing of those unable to walk and the blind, and the instant disappearance of a goiter, though with absolutely no way to predict who would be healed and who would not (personal correspondence, June 24, 2008; Feb. 10, 2011).
19. Ma, "Encounter," 136–37; the dissertation is Ma, "Ministry" (the testimonies are from 89–90).
She also treats Vanderbout in "Planting," 332, and (in revised form) "Church Planting," 219–20, in the context of power encounter and at length in "Vanderbout" (for power encounter, esp. 136).
20. E.g., Ma, "Vanderbout," 133. I also learned about this aspect of Elva Vanderbout's ministry from Sharon Lapisac, who was cared for by her. When Sharon was born in the mountains in Bakun Benguet in 1956, the folk tradition was that when the mother dies in childbirth, the baby should be buried with her (the less healthy of twins would also be abandoned). After lying in the coffin three days, Sharon was taken by a pastor to the orphanage in Baguio (Sharon Lapisac, interview, Jan. 31, 2009; on the orphanage, see also Ma, "Vanderbout," 132–34, 139; noting also the danger to twin boys and their rescue [134]).
21. Ma, "Encounter," 136–37; idem, Mission, 62–63.
22. Ma, "Vanderbout," 130 (among "deaf-mutes" healed "by the scores"); idem, Mission, 63–64.
23. Ma, "Encounter," 137; idem, "Vanderbout," 132; idem, Mission, 64.
24. Ma, "Vanderbout," 130.
25. Ibid.; idem, "Encounter," 137.
26. Ma, "Vanderbout," 130.
27. Ibid.; idem, Mission, 64. For a summary of many other healings, see idem, "Vanderbout," 131–32.
28. Benavidez, "Church of God," 259.
29. Lumahan, "Fact and Figures," 41. He notes that in 1954 "reports of healings" were very common (19).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
One seminarian in the Philippines, Ryan Hortizuela, told me that he saw his uncle pray for a girl of about nine, who could not speak or walk. After they had prayed for a few minutes in Jesus's name, he attested, the girl suddenly jumped
"up and began to talk."30 Dwight Palmquist, a Western missionary and pastor in Cebu City, shared with me a number of testimonies, such as the restoration of speech and facial movement in a stroke victim immediately after prayer (which is normally unexpected),31 and the instant disappearance of a small but visible goiter on a woman's neck during prayer. He also prayed for a twenty-two-yearold person with epilepsy who had been suffering seizures for most of his life; six years later he learned that the man had suffered no seizures from the day that the prayer had been offered.32
Another seminarian I interviewed, Chester Allan Tesoro from Mindanao, was visiting a pastor friend in Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat, in 2005.33 Many miracles had been taking place there, he noted, and he saw a blind woman visibly healed and a dead baby raised (I recount these reports in greater detail in ch. 12). On another occasion elsewhere, Chester and others were inviting people in the community to send children to a vacation Bible school, when a woman asked for prayer for her son, who was about thirty. Chester readily agreed, but when he heard the son's story, he wished that he had not consented, because this case seemed to require of him exceptional faith. The son had been sick and in great pain for months; the family kept the bedridden son just outside the bathroom so they could carry him there when necessary. Chester was the associate pastor, so his pastor asked him to lead the prayer.
Although he prayed, he secretly feared that the son would die, so he left as quickly as possible. The next day, however, the mother found him and insisted that he come to their home. Once he got there, she pointed to a man fixing their roof and pressed,
"Do you recognize that guy?" Chester asked if this was the brother of the young man he had prayed for. The mother declared that this was her son for whom Chester had prayed the previous day. Initially unable to believe it, Chester went and checked the room where the son had been lying, as the healed man smiled at him. Now healed, the young man immediately went back to his former line of work.34
Dom Bustria, a rural pastor who is now sixty-one years old, told me that he had epilepsy from 1964 until November 24, 1988, often with seizures once a week; in 30. Ryan Hortizuela, interview, Jan. 24, 2009. He also provided me a photo of the now very happy, healed girl, with corresponding caption, in an article on his uncle's ministry. The girl remained well.
31. Dr. Nicole Matthews (personal correspondence, April 1, 2009) explained to me that minor strokes typically "resolve within 24 hours," but "residual deficits beyond a few days are less likely to reverse." Any progress is normally "gradual and with intense physical activity."
32. Dwight Palmquist, personal correspondence, Feb. 2, 2009, with a Feb. 8 response to my follow-up question regarding the person with epilepsy. Dwight was the person praying for the stroke victim, who also could now open his right hand for the first time in six months. Dwight reports the healing of the goiter based on the eyewitness testimony of his coworkers.
33. Chester Allan Tesoro, interview, Jan. 30, 2009; he named the pastor for my notes, but because I did not have a way to secure the pastor's permission to use his name, I omit that here.
34. Ibid.; this last incident happened in Malandag, Malungon, in the province of Sarangi.
Examples from Asia
his despair he developed various addictions, particularly to alcohol. On November
24, 1988, at the naval base on Diego Garcia, he accepted Christ at a "party" that turned out to be a Christian fellowship meeting. From that day forward, he never had another epileptic attack, nor did he have any desire for his previous addictions.
That has lasted more than two decades. He began sharing Christ in villages and finally left his well-paying work to become a pastor.35 Medically, a long-term case of serious epilepsy usually cannot be "permanently cured, even with continuing medication."36
At age thirty-three, Len Mina was having trouble breathing and would faint if she even tried to walk to the door; she learned that she had congenital heart disease.
The doctor warned that she would likely die within a year if not operated on, so her husband, Wilfred, determined to sell the house to pay for the operation. To the physician's dismay, Len insisted that her husband not sell the house and that she would simply pray. For three months, she continued to take the four kinds of medicines prescribed for her, but her breathing was just getting worse, so she stopped the medicine and trusted God alone. She got better and has not needed medicine for the past twenty years. Witnessing her recovery, her husband became a believer; he now leads a Bible school.37 They told me that they have since seen other healings in response to their ministry and prayers.38
Eleanor Sebiano, a pastor who works among the poor in the mountains, had numerous testimonies but shared with me only a sample. She told me of how a serious lump on a potentially dangerous part of her body disappeared immediately after a dramatic experience during prayer.39 She also shared her most recent experience, less than a week before our interview. She was working with a guest evangelist who prayed for a woman with a lump on her neck roughly a couple inches in diameter. As the evangelist touched it, Eleanor witnessed the lump disappear.40 At different times and in different locations, two people she knew were electrocuted on a high-tension wire. Eleanor and others had to find funding to help
35. Dom Bustria, interview, Jan. 29, 2009, who, like some others, wept as he recounted what God had done in his life.
36. Heron, Channels, 132, after recounting the healing of someone with epilepsy on 131–32 (for another long-term healing of epilepsy after fourteen years of seizures, see DeGrandis, Miracles, 94, 100; a longterm healing in Schiappacasse, Heals, 20–21; see also ibid., 54–55; another in Brooks, Moments, 233). By contrast, May, "Healings," 154, contends that roughly 30 percent of cases of epilepsy "will disappear after a few years" (perhaps not addressing so much long-term cases). Attributing to coincidence a disappearance on the day of conversion could seem strained, however.
37. Len Mina and Wilfred Mina, interview, Jan. 24, 2009.
38. Wilfred Mina notes that they often see healings in their rural evangelism ministry in northern
Luzon, Philippines. They gave the example of a woman dying of terminal breast cancer, whose doctor had given up on her, for whom they prayed in 1995 or 1996. In 2008, they saw the woman again, who told them that she was healed when they prayed for her (Len Mina and Wilfred Mina, interview, Jan. 24, 2009).
39. Eleanor Sebiano (interview, Jan. 29, 2009; personal correspondence, Feb. 8, 2009); since her sister died of cancer, this was a serious concern.
40. Eleanor Sebiano, interview, Jan. 29, 2009 (this lump disappeared Jan. 24, 2009; she identified the guest evangelist as Ken Krivolavech). She also mentioned the healing of breast lumps on a woman the night before our interview (Jan. 28).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
one, a boy, to get medical treatment. The other, however, was instantly healed at a church meeting. After she told me about that healing, she wanted to know if I wanted to meet that man, and I assured her that I did.41
Two days later, she introduced me to David Dominong, the man who had been electrocuted.42 David, a welder, showed me the ghastly scars on his arms and torso, indicating the severity of his electrocution. After his electrocution in October 2002, he had been hospitalized one month and ten days, with thirdto fourth-degree burns, and the doctor told him that it might be three to five years before he would be able to walk. After he left the hospital, no longer able to afford the fees, he remained home in a wheelchair. Although he was considering amputation, his sister convinced him to attend an evangelistic crusade at a community hall; this occurred in December of the same year. At about 11 p.m., some men carried him from the car in which he had been brought and took him to the stage. After the preacher prayed for him, the preacher told him to walk. David had no assurance that this would be possible, but after walking about twenty meters with no crutch, he was astonished to realize that he could in fact now walk. The people there knew him, and they gathered around him to discern whether this experience was genuine.
The next day, various people, including some who had not been healed at the crusade, visited his home to see if he was still whole. They found him walking outside his house. He embraced the Christian faith of his wife and sister, and "from then on, I attended church every Sunday," he told me, "because I have proved that God is a miracle-working God." Relatives from distant mountains came to visit and see him, because they had already witnessed his suffering in the hospital and mourned for him; consequently, two more of his sisters were converted. He has remained whole; yet he also emphasizes the wholeness of his heart, because, he says, he now loves God and has forgiven his enemies who once exploited him.43
Historical archives at Asia Pacific Research Center in Baguio, Philippines, provide abundant earlier testimonies, a few of which I mention here. One eyewitness source lists among miracle claims the instant disappearance of a goiter during prayer,44 an experience I have also heard and read about from other sources.45
Another notes, among various healings, three boys from one family, all of whom were deaf and mute, healed together after prayer in Bacolod City.46 An eyewitness participant claimed the instant healing during prayer of a doctor from a cancer that was expected to kill him in two months; the doctor then joined in the crusades.47
41. Eleanor Sebiano, interview, Jan. 29, 2009.
42. David Dominong, interview, Jan. 31, 2009, with Eleanor Sebiano interpreting at points, though he was also speaking to me in English much of the time.
43. Ibid.
44. Gervacio Tovera, July 6, 2001 (interviewed by Rose Engcoy).
45. E.g., Ma, Mission, 65–66; Stewart, Only Believe, 143–44, 153; Bruce Kinabrew, personal correspondence, June 24, 2008; Dwight Palmquist, personal correspondence, Feb. 2, 2009.
46. Angela Salazar Aragona, April 14, 2002 (among other healings she notes were those of some paralytics).
47. Paul Klahr, transcription, April 2006.
Examples from Asia
Doctors gave up hope for a boy and told the parents to call for a priest instead; after the minister prayed, the boy started breathing and asking for food. He went on to become an important worker in their ministry.48 Others described public healings of deafness, such as a deaf seventeen-year-old who was then able to begin forming sounds, and a man completely deaf since World War II who now could hear everything and converse.49 Another source describes the immediate disappearance of a growth on an older man's back; the growth, just larger than a U.S. quarter "and about one inch high," shrank and disappeared.50
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia also provides reports of healings. Most of the residents of a village in Thailand became Christians after a chronically ill boy was instantly healed.51 The healing of a child in Laos reportedly brought a village to believe in Yesu (Jesus), of whom one villager had heard, as a powerful "spirit" before any outsiders brought teaching about Jesus.52 Churches in Vietnam often have been growing through signs and healings.53
Others note that healings also occur in urban churches in Singapore and Malaysia.54 These healings have occurred, among other places and in other circles, in the Anglican Church in Singapore. Some traditional Anglicans were suspicious when the charismatic movement came to Singapore in the early 1970s, partly due to unhealthy experiences in the past.55 Nevertheless, that movement caught on, with attendant spiritual gifts including healings.56 In 1972, Bishop Chiu Ban It,
Singapore's first indigenous Anglican bishop, experienced a dramatic encounter with God through this movement57 and unexpectedly found himself gifted in praying for healing.58 The Reverend Dr. Michael Green, now adviser in evangelism to the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, notes what he witnessed firsthand there in 1973. As the bishop prayed, Green
48. Marcelo Arangote, transcription, April 23, 2003. Cf. the healing of acute appendicitis reported in Roque Cagas, transcription, April 11, 2002.
49. Sobrepeña, "Miracles," 8, 14. I infer that deaf persons were being healed also in Aragona (April
14, 2002).
50. Guevara, "Campaign," 13 (noting that the man, crying, accepted the Lord).
51. Bush and Pegues, Move, 63–64. For some earlier healings in Thailand, see Hosack, "Arrival," 113.
52. Stearns, Vision, 87.
53. Joshua, "Pentecostalism in Vietnam," 307; earlier, Prather, Miracles, 203.
54. Ma, "Encounter," 137. Cf. the earlier revival among the Kelabits in Sarawak (East Malaysia) in 1873, accompanied by healings, exorcisms, and vocal spiritual gifts (idem, "Mission," 31–32).
55. Green, Asian Tigers, 5–6. This book is of interest not only to Anglicans; though difficult to obtain in the United States, it was brought to my attention by U.S. Presbyterian minister Jim DiRaddo, who gave me one of his copies.
56. Ibid., 6. For the spread of charismatic Christianity (in both Protestant and Catholic forms) in Singapore and Malaysia, see Martin, "Expansion," 286–87.
57. Green, Asian Tigers, 7–8.
58. Ibid., 8.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
saw "physical healings of an incontrovertible nature—I think of a man throwing away his crutches, and another whose hearing was restored."59 The healing services became the catalyst for a new commitment to evangelism, with signs and wonders accompanying the evangelism,60 and healings also continued as part of church life.61
Such factors eventually contributed to the young Anglican Province of South East
Asia being "one of the fastest growing parts of the Anglican Communion."62
John Savarimuthu, the Indian bishop of the Anglican Church in largely Muslim West Malaysia, initially delayed a medically necessary, triple-bypass heart operation due to his heavy ministry schedule. His condition deteriorated, however, and the operation was finally scheduled. The night before the scheduled operation, he committed his condition to God and suddenly felt heat in his chest. The next day, testing confirmed that he had been healed, and after this experience many others were healed through his prayers. He even conducted a healing mission in Kuala
Lumpur's stadium, with government permission.63
An Anglican convert from a non-Christian background, Soh Chye Ann faced significant opposition from his family. His sister, however, was dying, and neither hospitals nor temples proved able to help her. The family finally asked if the Christians could help; they prayed fervently, "and a miraculous, complete and instantaneous healing took place" in front of the family, who immediately became Christians. Singapore's Anglican Church sent Chye Ann and his wife as missionaries to South Africa, where they worked successfully for ethnic and social reconciliation in Durban. He is now the Asia director for the Anglican Church
Mission Society in London.64
A researcher in Myanmar found numerous firsthand reports of miracles contributing to church growth.65 These include reports of many sorts of healings
(including cancer, tonsillitis, blindness, and deafness)66 and miraculous protection that led to the conversion of many of the assailants.67 (Incidentally, reports of extraordinary protection, while not the subject of this book, abound elsewhere.68)
59. Ibid. Later, in the bishop's house, Bishop Chiu prayed for Michael Green to receive the gift of tongues, which began to happen to Green in the middle of the night. Thus began Green's own "charismatic experience" in that sense.
60. Ibid., 9, quoting participant observer Canon James Wong (apparently from Wong, Singapore).
61. Ibid., 56, 90, 104, 110.
62. Ibid., 1. Bishop Chiu sought to keep the local charismatic movement in biblical bounds and also welcomed the Lambeth Conference resolution that affirmed healing the sick (11).
63. Ibid., 97–98. Green adds his personal observations from having witnessed this bishop's ministry firsthand, including some who received prayer testifying of having been healed somehow.
64. Ibid., 100, noting that Chye Ann is his personal friend.
65. Khai, "Pentecostalism," 268–70. For summaries of earlier healings, see idem, Cross, 93–94, 136,
148; Kham, "Story," 220; for Pentecostalism in Myanmar more generally, see Khai's article, "Overview"; cf. also idem, "Legacy."
66. Idem, "Pentecostalism," 268.
67. Ibid., 269; on divine protection, see also idem, Cross, 143.
68. These include, e.g., Numbere, Vision, 83 (a car stalling when the driver tried to run over the preacher),
97 (a cocked gun refusing to fire), 111 (massive numbers of army ants burrowing beneath the evangelists' mats, sparing their lives, while swarming on top of everything else), 225 (a boat miraculously and abruptly
Examples from Asia
One village priest near death was healed and converted;69 one woman paralyzed for twenty years was dramatically healed.70 One Baptist, Lang Do Khup, challenged by the village priest about the powerlessness of Christians to heal in contrast to the traditional spirits, began to pray for the gift of healing. He prayed for a lame girl, to no avail, but once home felt moved to return and pray again. As he did so, she "stood up and walked with no help."71 Such reports do not begin in this region only in the twentieth century; in the nineteenth century, a local Karen believer reported that his apparently dying son, who was roughly fifteen but had never been able to walk, was healed and walking after prayer. He said he had confidence to pray because in a previous generation he had often seen healings when a missionary prayed.72
I asked one of my Baptist students from Myanmar, Thang Sum, if he had any firsthand stories of healings from Myanmar. He briefly recounted to me his brother's recovery and subsequently provided me some additional information,73 as well as facilitated my conversation with his brother, Suan Sian Tung Nung.74 About two months after birth in Kalaymyo town, Nung began running a constant fever of 101 to 105º F; as it continued, doctors tried their best to treat him but finally reluctantly advised the mother to just entrust the child to God. Possibly the largest hospital in the capital could have helped him, but the family lacked the money to thrusting forward to evade an oncoming vessel), 328–30 (on the road), 345–46 (fire); Ising, Blumhardt,
266 (among armed assailants); Anderson, Pelendo, 78–79 (at least two guns failing to fire when used against Pelendo); Ran, "Experiences," 4–6 (various experiences); Eshleman, Jesus, 113 (a bus in Myanmar hurtling off a cliff and rolling repeatedly, sparing the ministry team from injury), 114 (robbers in Thailand), 151
(other hostility); Otis, Giants, 245 (an Ethiopian evangelist, ordered by guards to insert his finger into a live socket, cried out Jesus's name as he did so, and the power instantly went out throughout the district);
Ten Boom, Hiding Place, 66–67, 110–12, 154, 191–92; idem, Tramp, 15–16, 19, 21; Kure, "Light," 177,
184; Taylor, Secret, 142; Crandall, Raising, 28–29 (minefields), 42–43 (stoning); Bredesen, Miracle, 65–70,
75–77; Huyssen, Saw, 55, 100–101 (an airplane about to crash); Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 59–63 (the apparently miraculous survival of one soldier, now a psychologist and minister); Koch, Revival, 146 (in Indonesia, protection from soldiers); idem, Zulus, 263–70; Carothers, Prison, 63–67 (war settings); Finlay,
"Miracles," 449 (a Catholic chaplain's claim during World War I); Marszalek, Miracles, 12–13 (during a glass explosion), 36–38 (on the road), 239 (an accident in Kenya); Alamino, Footsteps, 44 (two hands seen as a car was kept from crashing); mailing, Filadelfia Bible College, India, Oct. 18, 2009; also often earlier
(e.g., accounts in Goforth, Goforth, 140–42, 157–58, 207). Naturally, only those so protected live to report such protection, but some accounts (such as power going out through the district, even if blackouts were common there) seem extraordinary nonetheless. Particularly remarkable are contemporary accounts of Harriet Tubman, the "Moses of her people," who led three hundred slaves to freedom during numerous nocturnal trips and also led Union reconnaissance missions in Confederate territory, without losing even one person (see, e.g., Sterling, Sisters, 259–60; cf. Num 31:49).
69. Khai, "Pentecostalism," 269.
70. Ibid., 270 (Khup Dim in Suangpi village). Long-term paralysis is typically irreversible (Dr. Nicole
Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009).
71. Khai, "Pentecostalism," 270.
72. Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 198–99.
73. Thang Sum, personal correspondence, Sept. 5 and 11, 2009, and also the written response to my inquiry through him from the Reverend Dr. Simon P. K. En, principal of the Myanmar Institute of Theology in Yangon, who provided many of the specific details here.
74. Phone interview, Sept. 9, 2009.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
go there, and Nung was too weak from not eating to survive the trip. At the time, the doctors where he was lacked adequate medicines and could not even be certain what was causing the fever. Nung kept vomiting, and others also acknowledged that, barring a miracle, Nung would die. The mother refused to give up.
Funerals are family obligations in Myanmar, and the family had to travel to Tedim for the funeral of the mother's brother or it would effectively break ties with the mother's family. They could only pray; as they began climbing the mountain, Nung suddenly went from crying to laughing, and his temperature remained normal during their entire week in Tedim. This was the beginning of his unexpected recovery, and all the family members praised God for helping them. His grandfather added
"Sian" to Nung's name to praise God. Nung is now about twenty-nine and has a degree in music from Samford University.
Another of my former students, John Coats, is a Christian worker in Cambodia along with his wife, Debbie, supported by Baptist and Mennonite churches. He notes that he could convey a number of miracle reports to me but chose a recent occasion that they had learned about. Villagers thought one widow in her fifties was insane; she would shake, sometimes she could not recognize her mother, and often she would lie flat on the ground. She was also deaf. Some local Christians, however, led her to faith in Christ, and as she was confessing her sins "she said it suddenly felt like something ejected from her ears, and from that moment on, she has been able to hear normally." John and Debbie did not know her before this incident, but the people in her village and nearby villages attest that she was deaf, and Debbie spoke with the woman and confirmed that she is no longer deaf. She also discovered no trace of the other symptoms.75
South Asia Healings have been a major factor in the growth of the Christian movement in India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.
India Indian popular culture, in contrast to modern Western academic culture, looks for supernatural help with sicknesses and spirits.76 Thus, not surprisingly, sources often report healings also through faith in Christ in India,77 leading to many con75. John Coats, personal correspondence, Oct. 23, 2009; follow-up correspondence, Oct. 24, 25. He knows some other miracle accounts more directly, but they were less dramatic than this one (Nov. 6, 2009).
76. Hiebert, "Excluded Middle," 36–39. Thus healers have risen like Sardar Birsa (Dube, "Formations,"
77; Singh, "Prophet," 108), who believed himself commissioned by his people's supreme deity (Singh,
"Prophet," 107) and had some influence from Christianity (114).
77. See, e.g., Yohannan, Revolution, 21. A significant proportion of Christians in South India, which has a larger historic church than North India, is Pentecostal (Bergunder, "Healing," 103, focusing on Tamil
Nadu and estimating at least 20 percent; also idem, "Miracle Healing," 287; others praise Bergunder's research, e.g., Frykenberg, Christianity in India, 466–67). Note also healing claims at shrines for a deceased
Examples from Asia
verts78 and the planting of many churches.79 Two sociologists of religion studying such phenomena observe that "in India, in particular, healing was viewed as commonplace among the Christians we interviewed."80 In one study conducted in 1981, a tenth of non-Christians in Madras "had experienced an important cure through prayer to Jesus" and more than twice that number knew about such cures.81
One of my institution's doctoral students just over a decade ago, Pastor Suppogu
Israel from the Telegu Baptist Church, noted that nearly everyone he prayed for in North India was healed. Before coming to our seminary, his church had grown from six members to about six hundred in just over a year through such healings.82
Healing and exorcism offer the primary appeal of Pentecostalism there,83 and statistics show that the majority of new converts to Pentecostalism in South India come in response to healings and exorcisms.84 Reported healings usually follow a brief prayer, often simply, "In the name of Jesus, be healed!"85 One new pastor with no members prayed for a woman with cancer, on whom doctors had apparently given up; "within a few days, when she began to recover," people began attending his new church, which grew and became very successful.86 Another new pastor with no members just felt impressed to lay hands on a visitor and pray; the man left, saying nothing. The man, however, had felt heat and found himself healed of a nervous breakdown that had incapacitated him for more than four years; the next day the doctor cleared the man to work, and that Sunday thirty-five people attended the church, which eventually became a prominent church in Madras.87
Healings are by no means limited to Pentecostals, however. For example, some Presbyterian healing meetings led to hundreds of healings and thousands of conversions.88 The Evangelical Church of India in Tamil Nadu grew from several hundred to fifteen thousand in sixteen years, the growth driven partly through firsthand
Syrian Orthodox saint (Dempsey, "Lessons," 154–60, a pre-Christian saint) and a Roman Catholic figure
(167–73), though some of these shrines are controversial with church hierarchies.
78. Bergunder, Movement, 163–65. Examples abound (e.g., Braun, Way, 249).
79. Bergunder, "Healing," 109–11. Cf. considerations in Devadason, "Band," 111.
80. Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 152. Churches emphasizing healing and exorcism compose
"a large proportion" of South India's Christian population (Martin, "Expansion," 288).
81. Bergunder, Movement, 233. Many non-Christians come to churches only for healings and do not remain (idem, "Miracle Healing," 298; cf. John 6:26), but the conversion of some in spite of social obstacles is significant.
82. Noted briefly earlier in Keener, Gift, 61; from discussion with him on Nov. 2, 1997; also some further discussion on May 6, 1998 (when I read some of his reports), and other dates.
83. Bergunder, Movement, 146–47; idem, "Miracle Healing," 297. On Pentecostalism in India more generally, see Burgess, "Pentecostalism in India" (including discussion of Catholic charismatics, 94–95).
Desperate people try multiple solutions for health, whatever can help (Bergunder, Movement, 162). Some come only for healing and, in the absence of follow-up, eventually leave (165).
84. Bergunder, Movement, 232–33.
85. Idem, "Healing," 103. On prayers for healing being simple, see Bergunder, "Miracle Healing," 292.
86. Bergunder, "Miracle Healing," 297–98.
87. Ibid., 298.
88. McGavran, "Healing," 72–73.
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experiences of healings and exorcisms.89 Catholic charismatic healing meetings lasting a full day draw five to ten thousand people, including many non-Christians; an estimated 60 percent come with need for healing.90
I offer just a few concrete examples of claimed healings. It is said that church growth among the Nishi tribals began when an important official's son died. Neither medicine nor sacrifices had helped the boy, but a pharmacist had suggested prayer to Jesus, the Christian God. The official laid his hand on his boy's head and promised to worship this Christian God if he would heal his son; the child's eyes opened, and he recovered, resulting in hundreds of conversions in this region.91 When the son of a woman named Lakshmi was apparently dying of hepatitis, she took him to a Christian woman, who prayed; the child was healed, and Lakshmi became a believer.92 (This was not the only report of cured hepatitis I encountered in Asia.93) In North India, some visiting Christians prayed for a baby who was not expected to live through the night; when they checked in the morning, they noted, the baby had completely recovered.94 A boy close to death recovered gradually over the few days following prayer.95 After a dying woman was completely healed, the entire family decided to follow Christ.96 Others report healings from hernia or microstenosis of the heart.97
Many were healed in South India in the 1950s through the evangelistic healing campaigns of a Christian but formerly Hindu woman named Sesharatnam. When she came to his town, an academically trained eyewitness observed that while she was not a good speaker, her healing ministry proved highly effective. "She used to pray for the sick and demon-possessed by laying on her hands throughout the night since they came in thousands. Many were healed."98 More recently, Thomas
89. Ibid., 74–75, noting on 74 that in 1983 they expected to plant a new church every week.
90. Csordas, "Global Perspective," 334.
91. De Wet, "Signs," 110–11, following Cunville, "Evangelization," 156–57. Far from being anomalous, mass people movements have often characterized the spread of Christianity (Neill, History of Missions, 31,
235, 257, 364, 405, 446, 479–81; Kraft, Christianity in Culture, 365, 371; Hanciles, Beyond Christendom,
87–89; Noll, Shape, 34–35; for examples, see, e.g., Khai, Cross, 130–31; Devadason, "Missionary Societies,"
224–30 [esp. 228; cf. 22–23]; Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 276; among the Nagas, Philip, "Growth," 162–64;
Longkumer, "Study"; among Karens, Say, "History"; for some other rapidly growing religious movements, cf., e.g., Hesselgrave, Movements).
92. Bush and Pegues, Move, 53.
93. In addition to the case of Huang in Wesley, Stories, 5–7. Eveline Susanto Lewis told me of a friend who was healed of hepatitis B so thoroughly that testing showed that she was not even a carrier
(interview, Jan. 23, 2009); Chester Allan Tesoro in the Philippines tells of his own healing from severe hepatitis (interview, Jan. 30, 2009): over the course of months, his skin was yellow, his urine reddish, his sleep was disturbed by pain. One night he surrendered to Christ and received prayer; the next day, he went to a checkup to see if the medicine was having any effect, and the technologist could not find any trace of hepatitis in his blood. "Are you sure you had it?" she asked.
94. Bush and Pegues, Move, 55–56. They note the report that an Indian evangelist who was stabbed could forgo hospitalization "because Jesus healed him" (60).
95. Ibid., 47–49 (though gradual, the healing was well documented by witnesses).
96. Yohannan, Revolution, 122.
97. Bergunder, Movement, 152 (on accounts from 1964 and 1968, respectively).
98. Devadason, "Missionary Societies," 189, who himself witnessed the occurrences, also noting that "demons were cast out. Even the demons who confessed that they were Hindu gods were cast out
Examples from Asia
Mathews of Kerala (now deceased) and his coworkers in the Filadelfia movement have seen significant church growth in Rajasthan in North India through healings and other signs.99 Likewise, one worker in North India notes that many began to be converted after training and healings began to accompany the preaching.100
Another minister reported to me that healings regularly occur when he and his coworkers evangelize.101 Other healings reportedly led to many conversions in Madras;102 in one church with sixty-five members there, nearly two-thirds claimed to have been converted through being healed.103 Scholars today sometimes note that no ecumenical evangelistic resource has ever proliferated before on the scale of the Jesus Film;104 in India itself, more than four hundred thousand villages have reportedly been exposed to the film in fifty-one different languages.105 Jesus Film workers often report miracles; for example, when one mother refused to come to the showing because her daughter had been suffering on the ground for days from dysentery, the worker prayed for the daughter. The child was instantly healed, and thirty friends and relatives accompanied her to the film that night, most of them becoming believers.106
Though I have not been able to confirm the long-range status of the claim, one interesting source claims the partial healing of deafness in India. It claims that Jenifer was born completely deaf, with total sensorineural hearing loss in both ears; she could not hear even at 130 dB (the maximum intensity tested); she was able to get slight hearing with a hearing aid. In 2002, however, her mother was praying daily that she would be healed at an upcoming meeting, and on the fourth day she was suddenly able to hear for the first time in her life, at the age of five. Audiograms confirm a minimum threshold of 50 to 70 decibels, which remains a moderate to severe hearing impairment but is a remarkable change from her original condition in Jesus's name." De Wet, "Signs," 89, also notes Devadason's report. Devadason, "Missionary Societies,"
190, cites another Hindu convert associated with healings, Subba Rao in Andhra, but with some concern for his theological direction.
99. E.g., Thollander, Mathews, 84, 87–90; cf. other signs in 3, 125, 128–30; beyond Rajasthan, see
Pothen, "Missions," 189–90; testimonies of public healings in the movement's periodical Cross and Crown, e.g., 36 (2, July 2007): 6, 21; 37 (5, May 2008): 9; cf. 37 (1, Sept. 2007): 4, 19; a circular letter for the Filadelfia Bible Institute sent to me by Finny Philip, June 19, 2009. The revival movement grew 3,000 percent in one two-year period (Pothen, "Missions," 187); rapid growth appears elsewhere as well (note examples in Keener, "Plausibility"). I know personally Thomas Mathews's son-in-law, Finny Philip, an Indian nt scholar who affirms the veracity of Thollander's book (personal correspondence, Aug. 14, 2008).
100. Francis, "Conflict," 157 (depicting the author's ministry and offering an example on 158).
101. Vasanth Edward (e.g., during ministry in February to early March 2006; again in this period in 2007; again in April 2007, including blindness and deafness cured). I learned of him through his American in-law who is also a nt professor (Dr. Jeff Hubing). Again, my contacts represent but a tiny sampling of the claims being offered.
102. Sargunam, "Churches," 194, cited in De Wet, and in Devadason, "Missionary Societies," 189.
103. Devadason, "Missionary Societies," 189.
104. Noll, Shape, 86. The sponsors claim that nearly six billion have seen it (87), a figure that I presume counts some repeat viewers multiple times.
105. Ibid., 87.
106. Eshleman, Jesus, 128–29.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
of profound deafness. The night of that prayer is said to have been the first night that she had been able to hear anything without a hearing aid.107
Even in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, indigenous Indian revival movements included claims of supernatural phenomena. (These movements often challenged the control of Western missionaries, who proved more skeptical of supernatural claims.108) For example, traditional Christians in the West expressed amazement at the array of phenomena, such as visions and prayer for the sick, in the revival among traditional Christians in India in the 1850s.109 Much of the emphasis on healings and exorcisms in India is thus indigenous, sometimes arising from reading Scripture in an Indian context in contrast to the Enlightenment perspectives of many Western missionaries.110
Such phenomena also resurfaced in the revival in India at the beginning of the twentieth century, associated with Pandita Ramabai, who is more often remembered for her advocacy of women's rights in India.111 Early twentieth-century supernatural claims also surround the famous Christian mystic and evangelist
Sadhu Sundar Singh, though even some of his friends, notably those from the West, thought that his deprivations sometimes blurred the distinction between his objective experiences and his trance imagination regarding them.112 Among 107. Case study from WCDN website, including the audiograms and certification from the doctor
(Oct. 15, 2002), her parents, and others (http://www.wcdn.org/wcdn_eng/case/case_content
.asp?id=23&page=4; accessed May 6, 2009). The mother and others were praying, in addition to the visiting evangelist, who is controversial in parts of Asia. My letter to the parents requesting confirmation
(May 15, 2009) has not received reply, but linguistic and other factors may be involved.
108. McGee, "Revivals in India" (esp. on 1860–ca. 1881 and 1905–7); idem, Miracles, 35–36; Satyavrata,
"Perspectives," 205 (on 1860); Ma, "Mission," 24. Later, Sadhu Sundar Singh affirmed the value of the West sending missionaries to India—for the sake of a connection to keep alive some spiritual sense in the West, which was too materialistic (Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 157–58).
109. McGee, "Radical Strategy," 72 (noting Lang, History; and Dibb, "Revival"); see also McGee,
"Regions Beyond," 83–84; idem, "Radical Strategy," 72 (noting also prophecies and tongues); for an indigenous Tamil Christian outpouring in 1860, see Satyavrata, "Perspectives," 205.
110. Bergunder, Movement, 125–26 (referring esp. to issues surrounding demons).
111. E.g., Burgess, "Pandita Ramabai," 194–95; for her association with Pentecostals, see also "Life of Ramabai" (esp. 16); Jones, "Fire," 212–14. Those at Azusa Street reported the phenomena in India
(Apostolic Faith 1 [3, Nov. 1906]: 1, cited in Alexander, Healing, 79; Anderson, "Signs," 201; cf. also McGee,
People of Spirit, 74; Bartleman, Azusa Street, 35; Blumhofer, "Restoration," 152). Ramabai associated with the new Pentecostal movement but never accepted tongues as a necessary sign of baptism in the Spirit
(Burgess, "Evidence," 33–34; McGee, "Hermeneutics," 107–8; Hudson, "Strange Words," 67; Burgess,
"Pandita Ramabai," 195; cf. briefly Frykenberg, "Introduction," 22; Hyatt, Years, 169–71). Many others have written on Ramabai, e.g., Arles, "Study"; idem, "Appraisal"; Frykenberg, Christianity in India, 382–410.
112. Lynch-Watson, Robe, 69–70; Andrews, Singh, 115, 128; Davey, Robe, 77; critics like O. Pfister were even harsher (Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 204, 227; Lynch-Watson, Robe, 139). Variations in his accounts especially involve omissions in some, which are not troubling (Lynch-Watson, Robe, 85–86), especially if he had some human benefactors whom he needed to keep secret for their safety's sake with respect to his escape stories. The stranger experiences seem to come toward the end, after his extended fast, when his private, spiritual experience of reality may have sometimes differed from common experience (as sometimes accompanies extreme deprivation, societal alienation, and so forth). Some of his reports about the Tibetan Maharishi seem particularly curious (Lynch-Watson, Robe, 67–70, 93–94; Andrews, Singh,
121–22), although, given his apparently sincere attempts to take other witnesses there (Lynch-Watson,
Examples from Asia
secure information about him was an event in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he prayed for a twelve-year-old, who was expected to require months for recovery, if he might recover at all; instead, the boy recovered fully within three days after the prayer.113 Concerned about the notoriety this healing generated for himself, however, Singh thereafter shied away from praying for the sick.114 Such reports are not limited to well-known individuals, however. Many healings were occurring in India in 1914.115 A publication of the London Missionary Society in the early 1920s reported that a poor woman of low caste was converted through a vision of Jesus "and soon found that she was able to heal the sick," and she used this gift abundantly in evangelizing.116
I met Jacob Beera many years ago at High Mill Church of the Resurrection (Canton, Ohio), a church that helps support Jacob's children's homes and health ministries in India. Jacob kindly sent me reports of a few healings that had occurred in recent years.117 In one recent account of an earlier cure, a Christian woman introduced herself to him, noting that he had prayed for her twenty-five years earlier, when she had been a Hindu. At the time she had been suffering severe angina from a serious heart problem. To her surprise, the angina and heart problems never returned after he prayed; she had eventually become a Christian and only now had opportunity to inform him.118 I include more of Jacob's
Robe, 91–92, 111, 113–15), it seems reasonably probable that he met a hermit in Tibet whom he respected spiritually (Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 90–91; Lynch-Watson, Robe, 70). Conversely, he revealed great wisdom in challenging denominational (e.g., Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 159–60) and caste (Appasamy,
Sundar Singh, 111) distinctions. In view of his unquestionable lifestyle, his integrity and deep devotion are not normally questioned today (see, e.g., Moore, "Introduction"; Andrews, Singh).
113. Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 107–8 (citing the eyewitness); Lynch-Watson, Robe, 106 (cf. 102–3);
Streeter and Appasamy, Message, 32–33 (in this source reporting that the child was dying and had been given up on by doctors). The boy, from a Christian household, was named Williams (Davey, Robe, 74, where the healing sounds more rapid). An eyewitness also described how a leopard submitted to Singh
(Andrews, Singh, 125–27). Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 108, contends that healing also occurred on some other occasions (noting also a healing of insanity on 109–10).
114. Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 108–9 (regretfully); Lynch-Watson, Robe, 108; Streeter and Appasamy,
Message, 32–33; cf. Andrews, Singh, 123. One reason seems to have been the impossibly large crowds that would be drawn (Davey, Robe, 74), a danger he could have learned from reading the Gospels (cf., e.g.,
Mark 1:37, 45; 2:2; 3:7–10; 5:31; 6:31) as well as from his own context. His prayer ministry for the sick in Sri Lanka deeply impacted Christian practice there (Anderson, Pentecostalism, 128).
115. George, "Beginnings," 235. Early Pentecostals also claimed healings in Indian villages in this period (McGee, Miracles, 136).
116. "Healings in India," citing "The Miracle Worker" in The Chronicle (published by LMS), which indicates that the healings were known to be genuine. She worked in connection with Baptists there. The London Missionary Society was founded in 1795, shortly after that of the English Baptists (1792; Neill,
History of Missions, 252). A similar account in greater detail, probably about the same person, appears in "Healeth: in India," where the Sunday School Times is quoted with reference to a Telegu woman named
Rangamma, and citing a Mr. Stanton from the American Baptist mission. On a much larger scale of evangelism, Indian Protestants grew by an average of twelve thousand every month from 1921 to 1931, increasing their numbers by 41 percent (Shaw, Awakening, 73).
117. Jacob Beera, personal correspondence, Nov. 2, 2009, enclosing reports from Hope Ministries for August and November 2006.
118. "A Miracle Shared After Twenty-five Years," Hope Ministries Update, Aug. 2006, 2.
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accounts in chapter 12, where I discuss healing claims regarding blindness and inability to walk.
Dr. Ivan Satyavrata, leader of the Assemblies of God church and ministries (a hospital, schools, and the like) in Kolkata, holds a PhD from the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and has been visiting professor at the Assemblies of God
Seminary in the United States. When I asked if he had accounts from his church or immediate circle, he secured several (with access to more), which those who were cured provided me in their own words. These provide further samples of the range of claims involved when people speak of experiencing healings.
For example, in 1992 Nivedita Ghosh received surgery and radiation treatment for brain cancer in its final stages, destroying her salivary glands and ability to talk and eat. Nevertheless, doctors concluded that she would not survive beyond five months, nor would she ever be able to speak. When Nivedita was nearly unconscious, a Christian prayed; to the family's astonishment, Nivedita's fever broke and she was able to speak. The family got rid of their deity statues and talismans and became
Christians; over the following months Nivedita became able to swallow, within six to eight months becoming normal. The neurosurgeon wanted to test her and could not even find scars where he had operated.119 Similarly, Lydia Singh was diagnosed with advanced uterine cancer and given at most a month to live. She recovered after concerted prayer and seven months later, when fully recovered, the astonished doctors noted that she was cancer-free, a verdict confirmed in subsequent tests.120
In 1977 Prabhakar David's arms grew so blistered and resistant to treatment that doctors planned to amputate them. Though Prabhakar was barely conscious, that Sunday night Ajit Tiwari, a deacon at the church, prayed over him. Prabhakar awoke much better in the morning, and the following morning the pain, fever, blisters, and pus were completely gone, without leaving so much as a scar.121 Although not a healing account per se, Prabhakar also recounts the experience of his daughter
Priyanka Rachael David. In 1985, when she was four, she fell from the window about one hundred feet to the road below. When they found her they rushed her to the hospital, but she kept insisting that she felt someone holding and protecting her just before the landing. To everyone's amazement, she did not even have a scratch.122
Interviews with Some Indian Ministers I spoke at length with Raju Mathew, a church leader in Maharashtra who lives sacrificially for his people and gives every evidence of sincerity; a friend of mine
119. Nivedita Ghosh, shared with me Oct. 13, 2010.
120. Lydia Singh, shared with me Oct. 13, 2010.
121. Prabhakar David, shared with me Oct. 13, 2010. Originally from Karnataka, today he directs operations for the Assembly of God Church Mission in Kolkata.
122. Prabhakar David, shared with me Oct. 13, 2010 for Priyanka. These circles do not make faith antithetical to medical treatment. Thus in 2009, a biopsy revealed that a progressive growth forcing Senthil
Kumar's left eye from its position stemmed from a cancerous tumor. Senthil reports that the identified tumor was not of a kind amenable to usual chemotherapy or radiation, but after radiation treatment cancer was absent from his body (Senthil Kumar, shared with me Oct. 29, 2010).
Examples from Asia
who joined him for the interview with me has spent much time with him in India.123 Pastor Mathew, who readily acknowledges that God is sovereign and that not everyone is healed, offered a sample of healings he has witnessed. Two accounts involved sicknesses of his own, twelve years apart. In the first case, he was very sick in Mumbai (formerly called Bombay) in 1988 and was finally carried to a medical school as a patient. After what he recalls were nearly seventy-five tests over many weeks, the doctors could not diagnose what was wrong with him and therefore could not treat him (except that one night he received an aspirin). Every day two or three people in his ward would die; sometimes he would hear their respirator stop at night. He was, he says, "an invalid," unable to walk and throwing up when he would eat; he expected to die soon. When his young son came to visit him on May 6 (the son's birthday), Pastor Mathew cried to think of dying and leaving this beloved son behind.
Soon after this, however, an evangelist visited him and prayed for him. Pastor Mathew says that he wept as he felt God's presence, and he felt God's power surge through his body. He found himself healed, though weak. The doctors made him remain in the hospital another week, but because they still offered no diagnoses or treatments, he finally walked home. More recently, in 2000, he was sick for a time, unable to walk, and he felt that he would die. When one Pastor Vijayan prayed for him, however, he was instantly healed; within a week he left for London.124
He also told a story from 1989 or 1990 of their neighbor Sanda, who had been sick for fifteen years and could not walk. One night Pastor Mathew returned exhausted from church after 11 p.m., and his wife said that Sanda might die the next day. Medical doctors had been unable to help her, so she had sought traditional doctors, who also could not help, and now she appeared like "skin and bones."
Feeling fatigued, he asked his wife to invite Sanda to come; his wife replied that Sanda was not physically able to come. Finally, Sanda's husband carried her there and placed her on Pastor Mathew's sofa. The husband asked if they needed coconut or incense, traditional religious paraphernalia in that culture; Pastor Mathew replied no, "rebuked the evil spirit," and told her husband to carry her home. The next morning, Sanda walked to his home and said she had slept soundly for the 123. The person I know is Matthew Lacy, who was present for the interview and also supplied a few experiences of his own when he was visiting Pastor Mathew in India. In March 2007, Matthew prayed for a boy who was hot with fever, asking the Spirit to come; though they were in a closed room with a temperature, he thought, over 100º F, they both felt a wind sweep through the room, at which point the people applauded. He touched the boy's head, and the fever was gone. He reports from January or February 2008 a partial healing of a woman with a stroke and two failed kidneys, previously unable to sit up but after prayer able to sit up regularly. The people among whom they ministered lacked medical help, so they offered them what they could, namely, prayer (interview, Aug. 29, 2008).
124. Raju Mathew, interview, Aug. 29, 2008. That one would fall sick frequently is not surprising given the available health conditions he described to me. But he also reported the healing of a woman for whom he prayed at a church in Washington, D.C., two weeks before our conversation (noting that he received confirmation afterward). Among the stories he recounted was one told him by his parents and others, how his father, a Christian in Kerala, had been bitten by a rabid dog; his father was visibly and instantly healed but he reported that the other twenty-eight people bitten by the dog all contracted rabies and died.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
first time in fifteen years; now she wanted prayer to continue the healing. Pastor
Mathew was willing to pray, but only if she would first remove the many charms she was wearing. In faith, never expecting to use them again, she tore off the charms, charging that they had failed to help her all this time. She was healed; within a year she was baptized, and Pastor Mathew specified for me the church that she still attends.125
I also spoke with Dr. Alex Abraham, a neurologist now leading a church planting ministry called Operation Agape.126 He reported that miracles are common in India and that 80 to 85 percent of new churches in India are planted especially through healings and the like.127 In our brief time together, he randomly offered several examples that came to his mind. Among them, one Sikh woman was in terrible pain, and the ultrasound showed that she was bleeding from severe fibroid tumors. Both the doctors and her family insisted that she have surgery, but she was terrified and, despite the pain, refused to go. As she confided the situation to her Brahmin neighbor, the neighbor disclosed that she was a believer in Jesus and offered to pray for her. After the prayer, the Sikh woman's pain left, and she returned home, announcing happily that Jesus had healed her. Thinking that she was just seeking to avoid surgery, her husband did not believe her but finally proposed that she have another ultrasound to settle the matter. She was afraid, but the ultrasound showed that these large tumors had vanished. The social price of conversion is very high, but the family was so convinced that a miracle had occurred that they all became followers of Jesus, and the son became a pastor in the same movement to which Alex belongs.
Alex also told me about Mohan Philip, now a coworker in his ministry. Mohan was a wealthy businessman but an atheist. He had a major heart attack at the age of thirty-nine, and when he was forty-seven, an angiogram showed 95 percent blockage, with three major arteries obstructed. Surgery was thus scheduled. The day before the anticipated operation, Mohan's fourteen-year-old daughter, a believer, prophesied that God had healed him and that the surgery would not happen. Although he hated to disappoint her, he did not believe her and went to the hospital in Hyderabad the next morning. After the family had waited five hours for the operation, however, the doctors apologized and postponed the operation; although this was an excellent hospital, the surgery theater had a highly unusual, severe leak.
125. Raju Mathew, interview, Aug. 29, 2008. In earlier times, too, healing could lead to faith; e.g., in Hickson, Bridegroom, 393, a dramatic healing led to conversion. Pastor Mathew also noted that in Kerala in 1973, his family had helped Chellamma, an orphan girl with a poor mother but no father, and she was to be married the next day. But she had become so sick with a high fever (a condition sometimes fatal there) that she could not get up, and there was no possibility of her marriage the next day. Pastor Mathew's father prayed for her; she was healed, and Pastor Mathew attended her successful wedding the next day.
She remains alive today.
126. Alex Abraham, interview, Oct. 29, 2009. He was offering yet another example when our time ran out.
127. He spoke of "power encounters," including healings and confronting spirit possession; see appendix
B for a discussion of the latter.
Examples from Asia
Initially upset, Mohan remembered his daughter's prophecy. His pain was gone, whereas before he could not walk even five feet without suffering angina. His sister, a physician in Boston, arranged for him to be seen at a hospital there, where the physician, examining the old angiogram, insisted on surgery. Despite the cost, however, Mohan now insisted on another angiogram, after which he had to wait for days while some top cardiologists discussed his unusual case. Nearly all the blocks in the previous angiogram had disappeared; with less than 50 percent blockage, he no longer needed surgery. Although surgery was canceled at the time, he did have a bypass operation six years later, since which time he has remained asymptomatic.
But the experience so radically transformed him that he donated fifteen million rupees to church work and left his business for ministry.
Alex also told about Kuldeep Singh, who had intractable epilepsy for many years. One day his seizures were particularly severe, and he was unconscious for a few hours. Because Pastor Jarnail Singh was known for the sick being healed when he prayed for them, Kuldeep was taken to him. From the time of that prayer,
Kuldeep had no more treatment and no more seizures, although he had experienced these regularly before; this was fourteen or fifteen years ago. Thoroughly convinced that he had been healed, Kuldeep became a believer in Jesus and a pastor. Knowing that Alex's specialist training was as a neurologist, I asked him what he made of this testimony. He noted that with a case of epilepsy this severe, with continual seizures, their abrupt, complete, and permanent stop thereafter is very unusual.
Sri Lanka and Nepal What is true of India also seems to be the case elsewhere in South Asia.128 When
Christopher Daniel began praying for sick people in his country of Sri Lanka, it is reported that a disabled child walked, a blind child saw, and a deaf child heard.129
In response to the signs, his healing campaigns eventually drew "crowds of 10 to 20 thousand people."130 In his dissertation, Daniel cites an observer's report about his ministry on one occasion, reporting the healing of a man widely known
128. While I focus here on particular countries, others could also be included. Thus one Western writer offers his eyewitness testimony concerning another Westerner being "restored to health from the point of death" in Sialkot, Pakistan, in 1961 (Young, "Miracles in History," 117), and other reports involve healings of Pakistanis in Pakistan (a secondhand account in ibid., 117–18; a report in Gardner,
"Miracles," 1930; idem, Healing Miracles, 60–63). Young, "Miracles in History," 119, recounts that his son
John, studying social anthropology, witnessed "miracles of healing taking place in answer to the prayers of tribal Christians" in a Hindu tribal village in Pakistan (citing his statement).
129. Daniel, "Signs and Wonders," 105 (cited in De Wet, "Signs," 114). Daniel describes his introduction to charismatic spiritual experience in Daniel, "Dynamics and Strategy," 106–7.
130. Daniel, "Signs and Wonders," 105–6 (cited in De Wet, "Signs," 114–15). When a Muslim boy in Sri Lanka who was deaf and mute was healed during prayer, the people gave glory to Isa Nabbi (the Prophet Jesus) (De Wet, "Signs," 89, following Chandy, "Discipling"). Stirrat, "Shrines," 389, notes Catholic healing shrines (but on 387 Stirrat notes the influence of Sinhalese Buddhism on Sinhalese Catholic healing forms, substituting saints for deities).
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to be blind; a person mute from birth, who could now imitate sounds; and two paralyzed persons.131
In other reports from Sri Lanka, doctors concluded that Nadaraj, a Hindu man, had incurable blood cancer, and he asked Pastor D. F. Rodrigo to pray for him. After being healed, Nadaraj became a believer and an elder in the church.132 Declining in health, suffering during any activity, and diagnosed with a hole in his heart, a Buddhist asked Pastor Premadasa Ginigaloda to pray for healing. Subsequent tests revealed a healthy heart, to the amazement of the cardiologists.133
A friend in Sri Lanka tells me of a pastor he knows who was converted from a non-Christian background through being healed. For two years, Wimalasiri's right foot suffered swelling, and doctors, medicine men, and even a chief exorcist were unable to provide relief. He therefore scoffed when one evening some Christians prayed for his foot, though he felt something strange in his foot at that moment.
The next morning he awoke to discover his foot completely healed. Despite initial resistance, he became a Christian after about three more months and eventually established a church, now quite large, in an area that previously had very few
Christians.134
Observers report that healings often lead to conversions in Nepal;135 one knowledgeable source claims that "there must be thousands who have come to the Lord through healing."136 When in passing I asked one Nepali Christian with whom I have corresponded for a few years, Udaya Sharma, if he has witnessed any, he noted that he has. One particular example that he offered was someone suffering with a kidney problem for more than five years but healed during a prayer offered by Udaya and others on December 15, 2005. The person no longer needed dialysis, he reported that his doctors had certified that he no longer had the kidney problem, and many in the village consequently became Christians.137 Dr. Rex Gardner reports a case in Nepal where an expatriate carpenter ruptured his spleen in an isolated area and the necessary medical treatment was unavailable; when the group prayed, however, the man rapidly began to recover, and continued to work in Nepal.138
After many years, Nepali Hindu Mina KC had not had children, but she learned in a gospel tract about the story of Abraham and Sarah. She became a Christian
131. Daniel, "Labour," 160.
132. From Church of God testimonies sent to me by COG Director of World Mission Douglas LeRoy, personal correspondence, Nov. 9, 2009.
133. From Church of God testimonies sent to me by Douglas LeRoy, personal correspondence, Nov.
9, 2009.
134. Ajith Fernando, personal correspondence, March 8, 2009; with follow-up correspondence,
March 12, 2009.
135. Stephen, "Church," 58.
136. Barclay, "Church in Nepal," 193, quoting Betty Young, archivist of United Mission to Nepal
(email to Barclay, March 1, 2004).
137. Udaya Sharma, personal correspondence, March 29 and 31, 2009 (specifying the name of the person and the village; also alluding to healings of blind and deaf persons). Udaya regularly and primarily works to provide people access to medical help but refers here to direct, divine healing.
138. Gardner, "Miracles," 1931.
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and had a son, and over the next few decades she began planting churches, even during civil war. She shared with me several accounts from her ministry. One young woman paralyzed from birth was healed; so was a leper, bringing the leper and his family to Christ. Persons with addictions and mental illness were restored; the simultaneous healing of three mutes brought a village to Christ.139
Indonesia Many people have reported on miracle claims from the revival on West Timor, in Indonesia, several decades ago.140 A key element of this revival was its indigeneity and appropriateness for its Indonesian context.141 In its beginning, Johannes
Ratuwalu, reportedly immature in his faith but responding to a vision, prayed for healings from October to December 1964, with many people being healed.142
Healings and other dramatic phenomena characterized the following revival as a whole (1965–69),143 often with a very high percentage of those prayed for healed.144
139. Mina KC (interview on my behalf by John Lathrop, provided to me on March 3, 2010).
140. E.g., De Wet, "Signs," 121–23; Wimber, Power Evangelism, 181–84; Koch, Revival, passim (adding several subsequent reports from someone he knew in Zulus, 109–11; others also cite Koch, e.g.,
Young, "Miracles in History," 117). This revival was popularized in the West especially through Tari,
Wind (healings in, e.g., 54, 99–100; Breeze, 89, 127); those uncomfortable with Tari for theological or other reasons will find Indonesian miracle accounts from a non-Pentecostal perspective in Koch, and the massive influx of converts is difficult to deny (Anderson, Pentecostalism, 130–31). Tari was Reformed
(Wind, 22, 65, 117) and a local eyewitness of and participant in the heart of the revival (Breeze, 6); his
American wife observed that participants in the revival shared information with him as a mentor not shared with outsiders (Tari, "Preface," 10). De Wet cites also Brougham, "Training," 16–17; Yoder,
"Church," 47; for its significance, see Wiyono, "Timor Revival." George Peters, working from a cessationist theological framework, played down the physical signs in the revival yet acknowledged its deep spiritual benefits (Revival, 86–87, cited in Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 282–83; on Peters's cessationist assumptions, see Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 287–88; on church growth during the revival, see Wiyono, "Timor
Revival," 290, 291). Koch, Gifts, 98–99, complains that Peters, who denied Koch's claims of miracles in the revival, spent only 5 percent of the time in Indonesia that Koch did, arrived only in 1970, after the revival had mostly died down, avoided the chief places of the revival, and slanderously denied Koch's eyewitness claims without evidence. For citations of even secular sources mentioning the revival, see
York, "Indigenous Missionaries," 243.
141. See York, "Indigenous Missionaries." On indigeneity and other social factors in church growth there, see, e.g., Willis, Revival, passim.
142. Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 278 (following, e.g., Brougham, "Work," 155; Koch, Revival, 122–24; cf. idem, Gifts, 100).
143. E.g., Wiyono, "Pentecostalism in Indonesia," 314; for an example, see Koch, Revival, 210. Koch,
Gifts, 108, complains that educated Western critics, visiting the revival to explain away its genuine miracles to the simple believers who had been experiencing them, helped precipitate the revival's end.
144. While Koch does not expect healing in many parts of the world, he notes that often all those prayed for by the Indonesian teams were healed, but sometimes only 90 percent, at least initially (Koch,
Revival, 151). He recounts the ministry of one team (Team 47) in which all fifty persons who came for prayer were healed, including three persons mute from birth (Koch, Revival, 146). Koch does not write from what Westerners would consider a charismatic bias; he himself views figures such as Oral Roberts extremely negatively (as mediumistic in Bondage, 54–55; he criticizes Billy Graham's support of Roberts in 52–54) and appears generally negative toward tongues (Strife). While allowing for genuine tongues
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Although the numbers may be exaggerated,145 some have estimated that thirty thousand healings through prayer took place in this period.146 One Western researcher reported a number of blind people healed through one person's prayers in a short span of time,147 the healing of the deaf,148 and so forth. He notes many eyewitness accounts of water being turned to wine,149 and after emphasizing that he would not have believed it himself five years earlier,150 sheepishly notes that he himself witnessed its occurrence while there.151 One Western missionary couple trained to believe that miracles do not happen today witnessed so many genuine occurrences that they admitted that they had to rethink their theology.152
Similar phenomena occurred in a revival among Indonesian Christians in the 1860s.153 The Nias revival of 1916 to 1922 also experienced supernatural phenomena, including miracles, revelations, and the like.154 The Nias church thus grew from five hundred to one hundred thirty-five thousand in forty years (i.e.,
270 times over),155 with claims of miracle workers, prophets and prophetesses, tongues, visions, and dreams. One cautious writer notes, "There were stories of healings and resuscitations of people who [were] supposed to have died. People supposedly walked on water."156 Stories of early miraculous protection also appear; thus adversaries of Ludwig Nommensen in Sumatra found poison ineffective in harming him.157
(e.g., Gifts, 35–36) and not being cessationist (39, 116), his approach is mostly negative (40–53; also
121–22, critiquing female involvement).
145. Cf. some Indonesian church leaders' concerns about exaggeration (while affirming the many genuine occurrences) in Crawford, Miracles, 135.
146. Koch, Revival, 265, contrasting what he claimed was a single instance of tongues (a gift with which Koch is much less comfortable; for his anticharismatic position, see the summary and sources in Collins, Exorcism, 126, 129); Koch, Zulus, 88; Tari, Wind, 86. It is doubtful that tongues was as rare as Koch thinks (Tari, Wind, 123–24, viewed it as pervasive in his circles), but his claim does underline the indigeneity of the revival among the Presbyterians and others and the lack of direct influence on them from Pentecostals, whom he considered extreme.
147. Koch, Revival, 140–41 (cited in De Wet, "Signs," 121–23).
148. Koch, Revival, 138 (cited in Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 288).
149. Koch, Revival, 147 (noting the entire church's testimony), 208–17.
150. Ibid., 211–12 (inviting readers at the time to travel to witness the events for themselves).
151. Ibid., 212–17 (again, cited by De Wet); on a popular level, see Tari, Wind, 78–84; Wilkerson,
Beyond, 79–80.
152. Wagner, "World," 87, 90 (regarding David and Eva Brougham).
153. McGee, "Radical Strategy," 73 (citing Johannes Warneck and Theodore Christlieb); idem,
Miracles, 50. On various Pentecostal-like revivals in Indonesia independent of Western Pentecostals, see
Ma, "Mission," 25.
154. Wiyono, "Pentecostalism in Indonesia," 313. Orr, Awakenings, 118, notes that Indonesian evangelicals tripled already between 1905 and 1915; in Orr, "Call," 423–24, he notes other factors in church growth in parts of Indonesia in the 1930s and 1960s.
155. Dermawan, "Study," 262 (on to three hundred thousand by 1985, after forty-five more years).
156. Ibid., 256 (citing Peters, Indonesian Revival, 48, who sounds skeptical on the last point).
157. McGee, "Regions Beyond," 70; idem, Miracles, 50 (citing Warneck, Christ, 175–82; Lehmann,
Study, 105–40); Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 196–97 (citing Mark 16:18). For more recent Indonesian
Christian claims of protection from poison, see Tari, Wind, 42–43.
Examples from Asia
Although these reports involve a variety of church movements (especially Reformed Christians) and are by no means limited to Pentecostals, researchers report that experiences of healings, dreams, and so forth are a major factor currently driving Pentecostalism's growth in Indonesia.158 The author of one study points out that Pentecostals have prayed for the sick since they entered Indonesia in 1921159 and offers some contemporary examples of supernatural claims there.160 In one city where authorities tried to shut down the Christian meetings, "the nominal Muslims who had seen the miracles petitioned to have the meetings continued," which they temporarily were.161 Missionaries entering Bali from ca. 1919 or shortly thereafter immediately invited the sick; among the healings reported was a complete healing of a leper once he was anointed with oil.162 When a Balinese prince dreamed that a white foreigner could heal this prince's severely ill daughter, he invited a missionary to do so; the girl was immediately healed when the missionary prayed.163
Miraculous healings appeared in Surabaya164 and elsewhere.165
This signs-and-wonders approach to evangelism is common in Indonesian Pentecostalism, and signs are common in conversions to Christianity there more generally; it is said that "a majority of testimonies in Indonesia" that involve conversion from a non-Christian background also "involve some kind of miracle (i.e., healing, deliverance, dream, etc.)"166 The author of another study on converts to Christianity in Indonesia noted that of his twenty-seven interviews, miracles or supernatural experiences factored in the conversion process of twenty-two of them.167 Some were converted through visions or recurring dreams.168 One
Indonesian found no spiritual power for answered prayer in traditional religious options, but, finding it in a somewhat eccentric charismatic church, converted to Christianity.169 After the showing of the Jesus Film in the village of Pamongan
158. Robinson, "Growth," 340–41; Williams, "Answer," 114–16; cf. Wiyono, "Pentecostalism in Indonesia," 319.
159. Filson, "Study," 134.
160. Ibid., 150–51, 154.
161. Ibid., 154.
162. Anonymous, "History in Indonesia," 136–37. Boehr, Medicine, 56, recounts the widespread response to the healing of a leper in India; cf. also healing of leprosy in Ten Boom, Tramp, 125–26; Mina
KC (interview by John Lathrop, provided to me on March 3, 2010); Miller, Miracle of Healing, 50–53
(two cases); Koch, Zulus, 71–72; Marszalek, Miracles, 3.
163. Anonymous, "History in Indonesia," 137.
164. Ibid., 138.
165. Ibid., 139.
166. Ibid., 147.
167. Knapstad, "Power," 78, noting that most of those with these experiences in his sample were in Pentecostal and charismatic churches.
168. Ibid., 82, 83, 87–88.
169. Ibid., 79–81. That church grew from zero to seventy thousand in ten years (ibid., 139, citing
Robinson, "Power," 58); Knapstad tries to explain the eccentricities (Knapstad, "Power," 141–42) in terms of contextualization (143–45; others might argue that God works on behalf of Christ's honor despite human error). Wiyono, "Pentecostalism in Indonesia," 318, remarks on this movement's growth, and on 319 includes its emphasis on miracles as a contributing factor.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
in central Java, some became Christians at great risk to themselves, and miracles, including healings, have followed believers' prayers and often led to conversions.170
Eddy Swieson, member of a Chinese family in Indonesia, was present when his grandmother, after three days in a coma and deemed hopeless by a doctor, lay dying. Though her husband was devout in his religion and angry with Christians, he allowed a pastor to pray for her. As the family watched, she opened her eyes, asked for a glass of milk, and talked about a figure in white who had appeared to her. She recovered quickly, and her husband became a committed Christian.171
Eveline Susanto Lewis, raised in a nonmonotheistic family in Indonesia, also shared with me her experience of conversion through healing. She was injured in a road accident as a fourteen-year-old girl some thirty years ago but did not know that she might have internal as well as external injuries. Two nights later she woke up vomiting blood, which she kept doing at roughly five-minute intervals. It was the weekend, and no hospital was available at the time. Her brother was a Christian and prayed for her in a separate room while she also prayed to Jesus; finally he felt that the prayer had been answered and returned to her room, where she had stopped coughing up blood.
She never coughed it up again; when she went to the hospital later the doctor said that her experience sounded like it could have been caused by injury to an internal organ. Nevertheless, he found nothing wrong with her, including in the X-rays. She was convinced that Jesus healed her, and she became a committed Christian.172
South Korea Emphasis on divine healing pervades mainline Korean Protestantism, which, in keeping with indigenous Korean culture and in competition with shamans and Buddhist monks, rejected the cessationism of the earlier Western missionaries.173
170. Eshleman, Jesus, 120–21 (see also picture 29 between 124–25).
171. Swieson, Angels, 41–43. Eddy's father also was converted on his apparent deathbed, recovering quickly and living ten more years after Dr. Timothy Dzao, a minister from Hong Kong, prayed for him
(65–66).
172. Eveline Susanto Lewis, interview, Jan. 23, 2009.
173. See Kim, "Healing," esp. 268; see also Kim, "Pentecostalism," 32 (on 27–31, noting some affinities between Pentecostalism and earlier Korean shamanism but recognizing on 30 that not all agree); Cox,
"Miracles," 90–91; Mullins, "Empire," 91–94; Mullin, History, 273; Grayson, "Elements," 53 (comparing healing and shamanism), 54–55 (comparing a Buddhist mountain god granting material blessings); Noll,
Shape, 64–65 (following O, "Volksglaube," esp. 201, 212). Many features associated with shamanism may reflect merely contextualization (Yung, Quest, 209; Kim, "Healing," 281–82; more generally, Brown, "Introduction,"
10–11), are too general to suggest borrowing (Kim, "Healing," 279–81; for differences, see also Kim, "Spirit,"
92) as opposed to at most appeal, or apply only to extreme sects (Lee, Movement, 112–14). Some deployed the comparison with shamanism as a polemical charge even against Kim Ik-tu (Kim, "Healing," 282). Knapstad,
"Power," 143, rightly argues that most features compared with shamanism also appear in Scripture and/or are
Pentecostal practices not limited to Korea, which could suggest that a "shaman" critique would be ethnocentric
(cf. also Lee, Movement, 113); Gifford, "Provenance," 63, notes that some supposedly Korean shamanistic features in some circles derive instead from U.S. prosperity teaching. But whereas some shamanic comparisons
(such as calling through a vision, Cho, "Healing," 110, 113; all-night prayer meetings [cf. Luke 6:12] and
Examples from Asia
Thus, healings and other gifts characterized the ministry of Methodist evangelist
Yong Do Lee in 1928.174 After visits to a local temple did not help her, Gui-Im Park was healed following concerted prayer by her younger, Pentecostal sisters, and her long-term, painful abdominal lump vanished.175 After this experience she became a prominent Pentecostal church planter (1948–62).176
This emphasis is indigenously Korean and is more than a century old. It emerged among Korean Presbyterians, despite the views of most of the Western Presbyterian missionaries of that era,177 and even converted a number of the missionaries to their position.178 Kil Sun Ju, a leader in the Korean revival of 1907 and later a martyr during foreign occupation, challenged the Western missionaries' belief that miracles had ceased. He felt his views confirmed when Presbyterian preacher Ik
Doo Kim (Kim Ik-tu) ministered among villages with healing and other signs.179
Ik Doo Kim was Korean Protestantism's most popular preacher, and some have claimed as many as ten thousand reported healed during his ministry.180 Cures reported included the healing of "blindness, paralysis, and hemophilia," with the mute speaking and paralyzed walking in his meetings.181 The commission designed to evaluate the miracle claims astonished the missionaries by confirming that genuine miracles had occurred.182 In 1923, therefore, "the Korean Presbyterian
Church officially abandoned the doctrine" that miracles had ceased, widely held at the time among North American Presbyterians.183
It is thus not surprising that emphasis on healing facilitates evangelism in many
Korean churches today, and not just those associated with Pentecostalism.184 In one desire for prosperity or healing, 128) are too general to demonstrate genetic connections, the sometimes extreme demonology (ibid., 123–24) and the practice of anchal-kido (in which "beating the afflicted part of the body" accompanies prayer, 127, 131–32, 136) probably do reveal such influence.
174. McGee, "Regions Beyond," 88. See also Choi, Rise (e.g., 100) on the Korean Holiness Church.
175. Kim, "Prominent Woman," 204–5 (esp. 205).
176. Ibid., 208–14.
177. Kim, "Healing," 268, noting that the missionaries, while cessationist, encouraged indigenous leadership.
178. Despite detractors, some of the missionaries, respecting the Korean church, did affirm or even begin to participate in the practice (Kim, "Healing," 268–69). Most missionaries, even when trained to doubt the existence of spirits, came to believe in them through their experience in Korea (270–71). Believers included "Horace G. Underwood, the first official Presbyterian missionary to Korea," who prayed and fasted for three days beside a dying person; the person recovered, bringing the family to Christ (271–72).
Korean believers nearly always led the prayers for healing, but on occasion missionaries (such as Annie
Laurie Baird) participated (272).
179. Shaw, Awakening, 44–45. Some question Kil's eschatology (see Kim, "Apocalypse").
180. Kim, "Healing," 273 (though recognizing the figure's source as potentially exaggerated). Kim
Ik-tu ministered even in the Korean diaspora of Russia and Manchuria (ibid.).
181. Ibid., 274.
182. Shaw, Awakening, 45; cf. further Lee, Movement, 41–47, 111, 113, 134. On the influential Korean revival of 1907, which influenced multiple denominations and eventually added nearly three hundred thousand converts, see Lee, "Korean Pentecost"; idem, "Movement," 510–11; Yi, Movement; Lee, "Church Growth,"
50–56; Anderson, "Signs," 201 (citing Lee, "Distinctives"; Lee, "Development"); Shaw, Awakening, 32–53.
183. Kim, "Healing," 274; cf. also McGee, Miracles, 184, 300n86.
184. See Kim, "Influence" (here, e.g., 30–31); Kang, "Resources," 279. Kim's research involved various urban Korean churches (Kim, "Influence," 21).
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study of healings, 562 of the 604 Christian respondents claimed to have experienced healings, all with positive spiritual and church benefits.185 The study's author includes a small number of case studies (based on respondents' claims), in which a girl dying from kidney trouble was healed;186 a woman dying of liver disease was healed after ten minutes of prayer;187 and another woman was healed of tuberculosis.188
Prayer for needy neighbors, often with reports of miraculous answers, constitutes a primary means of church growth in the world's largest church, an Assemblies of God congregation in Seoul, South Korea.189 Perspectives on this ministry vary somewhat even among Asian Pentecostals,190 but it is the interest in healing that concerns us here. The noted theologian Jürgen Moltmann, in a theological conference at this church, voiced his critical appreciation for the pastor, David
Yonggi Cho (Paul Cho Yong-gi), and this pastor's theological reflection.191 In his autobiography, Moltmann notes that he was suffering again from asthma when he visited Pastor Cho; Cho "took my hand and prayed; and when I flew home, the asthma was in abeyance and remained so for some weeks. I do not want to make a miraculous healing out of this, but it was certainly unusual."192 One book from South Korea lists numerous healings following prayer and (usually) fasting: diabetes;193 tuberculosis;194 paralysis;195 a boy dying from severe kidney failure, now healed;196 a continuously bleeding head injury, healed after three days of 185. Kwon, "Foundations," 187. Because three thousand surveys were sent and those not experiencing healing may have been less likely to respond, the actual proportion is very likely lower than 93 percent; but the numbers are still noteworthy by Western standards. Wagner, "Genesis," 39–41, reports the healing or at least the reduction of glaucoma in a Korean doctoral student.
186. Kwon, "Foundations," 227–28 (on M. K. Yoon).
187. Ibid., 229–30 (on J. H. Song, noting that the healing converted twenty-three of her relatives).
188. Ibid., 231–32 (J. J. Kim).
189. Dunkerley, Healing Evangelism, 21–22 (on Yoido Full Gospel Church); for the claim of healings through fasting, see, e.g., Park, "Spirituality," 51, 59. The church is well known for its size, which was estimated at more than seven hundred thousand members by the year 2000 (Synan, "Revivals," 331; Noll,
"Evangelical," 19) and is larger than the attendance in many significant U.S. denominations as a whole
(Noll, Shape, 20); for academic studies of this church from several Asian Christian perspectives (but none antagonistic), see, e.g., the articles in AJPS 7 (1, Jan. 2004); Lee, Movement, 92–117; more extensively,
Ma, Menzies, and Bae, Cho.
190. See again, Ma, Menzies, and Bae, Cho; critical appreciation in Yung, Quest, 205–13.
191. Moltmann, "Blessing," passim (esp. 147–49). Pytches, Come, 103–4, recounts the instant healing of a woman in a wheelchair, initially to Pastor Cho's surprise.
192. Moltmann, Broad Place, 351 (Moltmann probably employing more Western definitions of what counts as miraculous). I first learned of this incident from Mark Shaw, Awakening, 47; personal correspondence, July 23, 2010. On a smaller and perhaps less sympathetic scale, exuberant Brazilian
Pentecostals assaulted the cold of a non-Pentecostal researcher, who nevertheless appreciated "the therapeutic value" of their spiritual attention (Chesnut, "Exorcising," 173). Cho himself reports that he experienced healing from tuberculosis after a vision (McGee, Miracles, 219).
193. Choi, Korean Miracles, 24–25, 97–99. The author and David Yonggi Cho began a tent church together (Kim, "Foreword").
194. Choi, Korean Miracles, 47–48.
195. Ibid., 83; also full healing of a partially paralyzed arm and leg (paralyzed for five months) after ten days of fasting (99).
196. Ibid., 83–86.
Examples from Asia
prayer (with the wound disappearing);197 and so forth. One woman sold all her property trying to get medical help for painful mouth sores but was completely cured after just several days of fasting.198
One young Korean woman, Kumsook Cho, shared with me the healing of a fellow student she had known for three years; this student from her class had been partly deaf from childhood, wore a hearing aid, and was expected by the doctor never to improve. When a minister known for ministry in healing was preaching, this student found herself healed and never again needed the hearing aid.199 During the same meetings, the minister said that God wished to demonstrate something and that he was restoring someone's teeth. The youth pastor had seen a dentist regularly for his problematic teeth, though the expense was difficult; now he suddenly found and showed gold fillings in five or six of them, a situation known to my informant and others in the church.200 (Accounts of supernaturally filled teeth have made me uncomfortable, but that may be partly because I have a good dentist.)
Another seminarian, Jun Kim, told me of his injury in 2004 when he fell from roughly the equivalent of the roof of a two-story building.201 His face was paralyzed from a head injury; he could not open one eye or control his facial movement but decided against surgery for his head injury. Another patient in the same hospital room had the same symptoms, which the surgery had failed to alleviate, and was shocked that Jun Kim would refuse the surgery. Jun prayed and committed himself to the Lord, whether God would heal him or not; the next morning, he was able to begin to move his face. Seeing the changed condition of Jun Kim's face, the doctor remarked that this was amazing; he could go home and just keep exercising his face, which is now fully well. Jun Kim's hospital roommate was astonished that Jun
Kim left the hospital before he did. Not all of the above recoveries are incapable of being explained on natural grounds, but some of them would be very difficult to explain in that way; the point for now is that eyewitnesses can claim direct experiences of healing, as in the Gospels and Acts.
The Pacific In one report from the Solomon Islands, a father and mother moved by watching
Jesus raise a girl from the dead in the Jesus Film prayed for their dying five-yearold daughter. Although the doctors had said that her condition was terminal, she
197. Ibid., 96.
198. Ibid., 103–4.
199. Kumsook Cho, interview, Jan. 24, 2009. Partial improvement of hearing in South Korea appears in the case cited in JWCDN 1 (1, 2009): 24–26 (from a 112-dB threshold to a 78-dB threshold in the left ear, and a shift from 120 to 92 dB in the right), though this could be medically explicable if the hearing loss was recent (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, May 28, 2009), and one should allow for a small margin of error in the audiograms.
200. Kumsook Cho, interview, Jan. 24, 2009.
201. Jun Kim, interview, Jan. 24, 2009.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
awoke completely well in the morning. The doctors could not medically explain her healing.202 Among healings reported during an earlier revival in the Solomon
Islands that began in 1970 was a dying man "in the final stages of tuberculosis," who, after his instant healing, returned to his work.203
Healing of the sick constituted a contributing factor for the growth of the Assemblies of God in Samoa.204 I received some more direct testimonies from Fiji, some of illnesses that are known to recover at times naturally, and others of illnesses that are not. Two seminarians from Fiji shared with me some encounters that they attributed to divine healing. One night after Flint Hicks finished preaching in Fiji, he invited people forward who needed prayer. Nevertheless, he was surprised when one young woman, about age sixteen, began yelling, along with Flint's colleagues who had prayed for her. She had been deaf in both ears, but now she could suddenly hear.205
On another occasion, a desperate woman requested prayer. Her kidneys were failing, and her eyes and skin were discolored; the doctors had sent her home, saying that they could not help her. Flint and a Christian woman prayed for her, and his colleague told the woman, "The Lord has healed you." The woman went to the doctor and discovered that her condition was worse, so she challenged Flint about his friend's prophecy. He felt sure in his heart that God was going to do this miracle, however, and encouraged her accordingly. Two weeks later, her eyes and skin were normal, and her next checkup showed fully functional kidneys. She became one of the first members of the new Hindi-speaking church that he started on February 8, 1998. She stayed well and married a younger man.206
Flint's daughter, hospitalized with meningitis, was expected to die or become barely functional; praying and fasting, Flint felt confidence that God would heal her.
When the family took her home, the doctor cautioned that she would not eat well or move her body; yet she immediately began eating, and she is now strong at age five, with no ill effects. The specialists are amazed, Flint says, that it is the same child.207
Josiah Mataika from Fiji noted that when his aunt gave birth, the baby was blind and expected to live only a few days; his grandmother, a pastor, led the family to 202. Eshleman, Jesus, 105–6.
203. Koch, Gifts, 22 (noting healings generally), 23 (for this testimony). Koch notes that the healing is well attested and that the clinic had discharged the man as incurable.
204. See Pagaialii, "Assemblies," 40–41, 45 (I am grateful to William Alcabedos, of the Asia Pacific
Theological Seminary library, for helping me with this reference). On the appeal of Pentecostalism and spiritual gifts to youth in the Pacific, cf. also Davidson, "Pacific," 147, 150.
205. Flint Hicks, interview, Jan. 29, 2009.
206. Ibid. Like many others, Flint emphasized that he does not expect the same thing to happen in every case; he is simply recounting that this was how he felt God led them in this case. He also shared with me the testimony of a woman dying from AIDS (whose weight dropped from 92 to 39 kg after her diagnosis in Sept. 2004); after being bedridden for eighteen months, she found a man she had seen in a vision and asked him to pray. From that time forward she has remained healthy (as of Nov. 14, 2008, when the written testimony he shared with me is dated). Flint said that he had heard that tests now showed no HIV, and the testimony is well known around Fiji. Unfortunately, the recovery date was within the past two years, and I currently lack means to verify the account independently.
207. Flint Hicks, interview, Jan. 29, 2009. People often survive meningitis, but babies are at greater risk (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009).
Examples from Asia
pray and fast in hopes that God might intervene. The child's eyes were healed, and she is now in third grade.208 Josiah also told me of a time when he asked a family that he was visiting for the church if they needed prayer for anything. When they brought out a baby with something like scabies on its face, he was nervous but decided to anoint it; lacking oil, he used Fiji water. The next week when they visited, he discovered that the baby was completely well, and the family, attributing the results to his prayers, asked him to pray over all their Fiji water. He had to explain that the healing had nothing to do with the water.209
Donna Arukua from Papua New Guinea also shared with me her testimony. In November 1997, she became very ill; her typhoid fever was apparently not properly diagnosed until it was almost too late, when friends took her to the emergency room of the nearest mission hospital. The hospital gave her medicines, but because no one could stay with her at the hospital, she was sent back to the Bible school.
Between the medicines and the typhoid, she says, she could barely hear or think and could not move her hands or legs. As soon as a prophet named Kindiwa prayed for her, however, she could hear and begin to think clearly, and movement started to return. After her full recovery she joined the prophet in healing ministry, where, she told me, she witnessed many healings.210
On a Tuesday evening in April 2007, Matthew Dawson, a Youth With a Mission leader from New Zealand, was hospitalized in Australia, delirious and with excruciating pain; eight hours later, doctors confirmed that he had meningitis.211 After Matthew had been in the emergency room for nearly forty-eight hours, the doctor ordered him moved to a different room, warning that it might be weeks or even months before he would be well enough to leave. As he was being moved, however, on Thursday evening at 6:15 p.m., his body suddenly felt warm. Although doses of morphine over the past forty-two hours had not significantly alleviated his pain, the pain now instantly vanished. He felt well, and within minutes, he fell asleep; when he awoke at 1 p.m. the next day, he insisted that he was fine. Tests then revealed that there was nothing wrong with him physically. The doctor who examined him was shocked but confirmed that he was well and released him that afternoon. Soon after this experience, he called his father and learned that "the moment of my healing was exactly at the end of a meeting that my father had called together to pray for my healing."212
208. Josiah Mataika, interview, Jan. 29, 2009.
209. Ibid.
210. One recent example that she gave me was that on Dec. 26, 2008, she prayed for a very sick nonChristian man with a heart problem in a hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia; he was discharged on Dec. 28
(Donna Arukua, interview, Jan. 23, 2009).
211. Culturally, most of New Zealand and Australia could also be in my chapter on the West; I have counted New Zealand in the Pacific islands, however, for geographic reasons. Australia and New Zealand, like South Africa and some other locations, are among the distinctive parts of the world able to lay claim to more than one category.
212. Matthew Dawson, personal correspondence, March 29; April 3 and 4, 2009. Matthew's father, John
Dawson, mentioned in his testimony, is president of YWAM and founder of the International Reconciliation
Commission and originally brought this case to my attention (correspondence, May 18, 2007).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Healings and China I focus here at greater length on a particular Asian country because much has been written about healing claims there and because the nation by itself, like
India, accounts for a significant proportion of the world's population. Marvelous anomalies that Western observers would call paranormal or miraculous have been part of Chinese culture since antiquity,213 so Christian claims of supernatural events there are much more consistent with the traditional culture there than with Western antisupernaturalism.214 Of course, biblical narratives themselves could challenge Western assumptions. A formerly cessationist Presbyterian missionary in the nineteenth century reported that as Chinese Christians read the nt for themselves, they began implementing biblical teachings on healings, changing his own views in the process.215
Many observers note the emphasis on and many testimonies of healing and exorcism in the Chinese church, and examples of such claims could be multiplied.216
Although more overt in the house churches, this emphasis also appears in ThreeSelf churches.217 A researcher working exclusively with the official Protestant
213. McClenon, Events, 155–60; for concerns with health and spirits in traditional Daoism, see Oblau,
"Healing," 315–16. For skepticism in medieval China, see 160–63. Some might suggest that opposition to supernatural claims in some parts of Chinese society reflects not indigenous Chinese tradition, which had supernatural elements, but some Western Enlightenment ideas, whether mediated through traditional
Western versions of Marxism or through some Western missionaries.
214. An important difference from many traditional practitioners there is that Christians do not charge fees (Oblau, "Healing," 316; also elsewhere, e.g., Espinosa, "Healing in Borderlands," 132).
215. Cited in Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 197–98.
216. E.g., Oblau, "Christianity in China," 421; idem, "Healing"; Jenkins, New Faces, 114; Menzies,
"Sending," 100; Wesley, Church, 42 (for testimonies in China Gospel Fellowship), 53 (house churches in general); Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 87 (noting one claimed "eyewitness to many miraculous healings"),
101, 104; Feaver, "Delegation," 34 ("Wherever we go, signs and wonders follow our sisters and brothers"); also popular-level books, e.g., summaries of many claimed healings in Yun, Heavenly Man, 49, 71, 75, 105,
138, 193, with specific examples in 32 (hemophilia), 50 (after a vision), 139, 193, 208, 247, 259, 300–301
(other miracle claims in 15, 25–26, 189; a non-healing on 137; for one positive evaluation of this work, see Ross, "Review"; for earlier stories about this man, see Danyun, Lilies, 23–88); earlier, Jones, Wonders,
61–63, 71, 97, 101, 127, 135, 136–37, 137, 138–39 (on 137 also noting mountain women going out in pairs to preach and heal the sick; note, e.g., 99, conversion after healing from being bedridden twelve years, though the details are not specified; 107, the story of the dying girl healed in front of gathered people and a goiter healed; 118, the healing of a man nearly dead); Osborn, Christ, 94. Tang, "Healers," 481, notes that corporate prayer for the sick (and less often, gifted leaders laying hands on the sick) are central and a part of the church's witness.
217. Tang, "Healers," 481. Hunter and Chan, Protestantism, 151–52, note that the government expects
Three-Self pastors to downplay healing; while they may pray for it, they normally do not openly claim success (cf. Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, xx). Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 140, agrees that Three-Self pastors pray for the sick, along with counseling and other traditional pastoral duties. Oblau, "Healing,"
321, observes that official church pastors working among the people engage the topic of divine healing but that theologians and officials more often avoid it, despite its contextual relevance. I have included whatever healing reports that have come to me, not pretending competence regarding church distinctions in China, which is outside my cultural and academic expertise; I cite more reports from housechurch circles because more are readily available, but most accounts from either group of churches are not available for me to verify or falsify directly. Yao, "Dynamics," 27, warns against exaggerating belief
Examples from Asia
churches noted that claims of supernatural healings characterized all the churches she studied.218 In China, praying with the sick involves among other things an element of social support, in that no one suffers in isolation.219 Any Christians, not simply some specially gifted ones designated for that purpose, will visit them and take their illness seriously enough to pray regularly with them until they recover.220
Earlier reports from some members of the official China Christian Council suggested that roughly "half of the new conversions of the last twenty years have been caused by faith healing experiences" of the convert or someone close to them.221 Speaking more broadly of Christians in China in general, one researcher cites less conservative estimates; "according to some surveys, 90% of new believers cite healing as a reason for their conversion."222 Whatever the exact figures, the experience is clearly widespread. Such testimonies are so common that it is said that even a number of government officials recognize that many people become
Christians in response to claims of prayers resulting in healings.223 A well-known
Western reporter notes that healings have propelled the growth of many churches.224
He contends that "it is difficult to investigate the phenomenon of Christianity in differences between the TSPM (Three-Self) and house-church movements (and on 31–32 criticizes
Aikman's overpolitical reading of the house churches).
218. Währisch-Oblau, "Healthy," 87. Oblau, "Healing," 308, notes that Christianity appealed to intellectuals for its social utility (fitting a Confucian perspective), but that healing was its primary grassroots appeal; on 308, 311, he notes that it pervades both recognized and unofficial Protestantism, mainline as well as more explicitly charismatic. In a public statement of their position, the Chinese house churches reject cessationism, affirming continuing miracles (Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 300) and claiming that freedom to practice healing and exorcism is one reason that they currently remain independent (304).
219. On no one suffering in isolation, see Währisch-Oblau, "Healthy," 88; Oblau, "Healing," 314.
220. On all Christians participating rather than designated healers, such as exist in Korea and the Philippines, see Währisch-Oblau, "Healthy," 88–90; for lay visitation and its wholesome impact, see also
Oblau, "Healing," 312, 314, 325.
221. Währisch-Oblau, "Healthy," 92–93. On healing functioning as a means of compassionate evangelism, in the absence of the ability to help with medical treatments, see 92–95. Reports also exist from earlier twentieth-century China, e.g., the concise Lutheran report, perhaps muted for Western sensitivities (as missions reports often are): "Mr. Tao, who was healed from sickness through prayer and became a believer a year ago" (Bly, "Glimpses," 10).
222. Tang, "Healers," 481, noting that "this is especially true in the countryside," where medical treatment is less available. Oblau, "Healing," 313, cites the figure of at least half but adds, "According to many local Chinese Christians and my own random observations, this figure may be as high as 80–90 percent"; cf. also Brown, "Introduction," 14. As one factor in growth, see Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, xv; as "one of the most significant factors" in growth, see Wagner, "Genesis," 47, citing David Wang, director of Asian Outreach in Hong Kong; as "the single most important factor," see Oblau, "Healing," 325. For other strategies for church growth there, see Lim, "Challenges," 197–202. One academic informant in my circle of friends told me of a close friend who does healing ministry in various provinces, with the paralyzed walking, the deaf hearing, and cancer being cured (anonymous informant, interview, Jan. 30, 2009).
223. Lambert, Millions, 112, 117. On 112–13, he adds, "The phenomenon is so widespread, that even allowing for exaggeration and syncretism," it is clear that many extraordinary recoveries are occurring. His earlier work for Hodder & Stoughton also notes that many were converted through healings and exorcisms
(Resurrection, 89, 114); he observed that Chinese Christians do not doubt healings or miracles (287).
Lambert was a diplomat in China when Mao died and did significant research on the church there (1–9;
Resurrection revises his 1990 thesis for Oxford Polytechnic).
224. E.g., Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 85, 273–74.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
China today without hearing stories of miraculous healings," pointing out that the tellers are often those who were healed.225
Examples In one report the recovery of a boy nearly dead from drowning, after more than twenty-four hours of prayer, led to the spread of Christianity in an area.226 In 1989,
Zhao Guifang, nearly bedridden, was healed of a chronic illness (diagnosed as inoperable uterine cancer and appendicitis) during a vision; as a result, Christianity spread and a church grew to five hundred.227 A university administrator who was close to death from her sickness was healed after some Christian friends prayed for her, and she became a committed follower of Christ.228 One observer notes that a close friend of his, whom he calls Mr. Huang, had an advanced case of hepatitis, swelling his body; he was yellow and near death, and "the doctors offered little or no hope of his survival." As it turned out, he recovered within a few weeks after prayer, to the doctors' surprise, though four others had entered the hospital "with similar symptoms" after he did, and all had died.229
In the 1980s, David Wang, Chinese director of Asian Outreach, recounted a report he heard in 1981 from a woman doctor exiled to Inner Mongolia because of her testimony. Because the local official's wife was miraculously healed in answer to the doctor's prayer (as well as converted), the official allowed the Christians considerable freedom, and the doctor's congregation had grown to twelve hundred.
Many continued to be healed and delivered from harmful spirits there.230 Stanley
Mooneyham, who was president of World Vision International from 1969 to 1982, also recounted a report from a girl he interviewed, who informed him that 80 percent of her village had been converted in response to a miraculous healing.231
A foreign interviewer reports various accounts in China. One interviewee claims,
"In 1992 . . . I could hardly walk, and I was in terrible pain. . . . My younger brother is a Christian. He just prayed for me once, and the leg didn't hurt any more. . . .
Soon afterwards, I could get up and walk again."232 Christians have such a reputation for healing that non-Christians, particularly in the countryside, "often seek
225. Ibid., 76, noting that the healings seem to have flourished especially in the 1970s and early 1980s,
"during and just after the Cultural Revolution." Claims of healings and visions appear elsewhere in the work (e.g., 83).
226. Oblau, "Christianity in China," 414; idem, "Healing," 324.
227. Zhaoming, "Chinese Denominations," 450–51 (also specifying the locality).
228. Wesley, Stories, 37, recounting the testimony as the healed woman ("Sister Yang") told it to him;
"Wesley" (a pen name) is a scholar whose integrity I and others who know him trust.
229. Ibid., 5–7.
230. Wagner, "World," 82–84.
231. Ibid., 85–86. Mooneyham has also pastored Baptist and Presbyterian churches, worked as a special assistant to Billy Graham, and was in 1964 the interim executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals. Earlier, J. Herbert Kane also noted that hundreds of believers associated with China Inland
Mission in Anhui were converted through healings and other answers to prayer (Kane, Growth, 106, cited in McGee, Miracles, 190, 302).
232. Währisch-Oblau, "Healthy," 89.
Examples from Asia
out Christians" to pray for them when they cannot afford medical help or when medical help has proved inefficacious for them.233 Thus, in one taped interview, an atheist whose daughter had heart disease became a believer and invited Christians to pray. "After ten days," he said, "she could leave the hospital because she was much better."234 Another taped interview involves a woman who could not be helped by doctors, who claims that she thus decided to become a Christian and was healed.235
The interviewer notes that many traveling evangelists report healing experiences, and she has heard these reports from those approved by the government church.236
One Western researcher on Chinese Christianity recounts a number of stories.237
In Taixing, in October 1989, doctors discovered that Zhao Su'e, age twenty-one, had serious cancer, and they estimated that she had six months to live, with only a 1 percent chance of long-term survival. A Christian prayed for her, and over the next few months she recovered and was found to be completely healthy; as a result, the church in Taixing grew from a handful of believers to five or six thousand by 1994.238 Chen Guifang was "bed-ridden for eight years," fed through a tube because she was "unable to eat"; the day after her conversion, she asked for food for the first time in years, and "after a month she recovered completely," leading to the starting of a new church.239
Likewise, the researcher claims that Chen Heying "had throat cancer for three years and no doctor dared operate on her"; after having been healed, she now sings daily.240 In 1985, Liu Qinglin prayed for a man who had not recovered from tuberculosis in the hospital. Within a few weeks, the man recovered, as did his relative. Others then sought prayer, and many people in the region became believers, mainly through being healed. By 1989, there were close to three thousand baptized
Christians in the region, but Liu Qinglin was arrested, and rumors circulated that he may have died in prison.241
One could survey many works reporting claims (some of them noted in previous endnotes); I add here just one more example, a work originating in Hong Kong in 1991. The book contains numerous healing claims;242 while I lack direct means
233. Ibid., 93.
234. Ibid.; cited also in Oblau, "Healing," 314.
235. Währisch-Oblau, "Healthy," 93; cited also in Oblau, "Healing," 314.
236. Währisch-Oblau, "Healthy," 94. She provides other testimonies of healings from her taped interviews on 97.
237. Lambert, Millions, writes from an expressly Christian perspective, though he seems very quick to dissociate his reports from Pentecostalism and charismatics.
238. Ibid., 113–14 (citing Bridge, August 1994, and noting that she remains active in the church).
239. Lambert, Millions, 114–15. He also notes that one healing of broken bones (over the course of three weeks) led many to Christ (115–16).
240. Ibid., 114.
241. Ibid., 117–18.
242. See, e.g., Danyun, Lilies, 90, 132–33, 217 (apparently incurable before the healing), 322 (summaries about many), 326–27 (terminal liver cancer, healed during prayer, including the immediate departure of pain), 328, 329 (summary), 330 (tuberculosis; another bedfast woman; blindness), 332 (summary), 345
(leukemia, deafness, and others), 350–51 (multiple healings during baptism). In another, after a doctor
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
to verify them, the accounts illustrate the frequency of belief in divine healing.
In one report, a nearly dead prisoner was discarded among bodies, all of them victims of plague. In his unconscious state, he saw a vision of an angel and awoke healed; the report says that his recovery so stunned the doctor that the latter was converted.243 In another, a non-Christian woman so far gone that a doctor ordered her taken to where cadavers were kept regained consciousness enough to cry out to Jesus, of whom she knew only a little. Soon she recovered fully, with her healing influencing surrounding villages.244 Learning her testimony, a forsaken old man suffering for years from bleeding, open sores asked the woman, now apparently a new Christian, to pray for him. He was completely healed within two days, and others began to ask Jesus to heal them.245 According to this source, X-rays showed another man's two broken ribs, but without obtaining medical treatment he went to another district to recuperate; two days later, after prayer, a new X-ray showed that the ribs were no longer broken or showed signs of a break.246 A village chief who made life difficult for Christians entreated them for prayer when his son became very sick and the doctor could not help; he was converted and his son healed.247 The healing of a person with a medically hopeless brain tumor brought many conversions.248
Answering More Skeptical Perspectives Some of the healing reports above involve conditions that can remit naturally; others are more dramatic. Some people, however, would question any reports that cannot be explained in terms of natural phenomena. Two China researchers who work from the premise that supernatural healings do not occur249 complain about superstitious healing claims rife in rural districts.250 They do note that healing had given up on a dying child and departed, "a young believer" prayed and the child was healed, ultimately contributing to the conversion of much of the village (298). A man who had suffered for seventeen years was suddenly healed as he heard preaching (322). I reserve some claims for ch. 12.
243. Ibid., 11–12 (on Miao Zizhong).
244. Ibid., 304.
245. Ibid., 305.
246. Ibid., 325–26.
247. Ibid., 331.
248. Ibid., 347–48.
249. Hunter and Chan, Protestantism, 146–48, are clear about this premise, noting (148) that one should not accept as authentic claims of spiritual healing because "there is no verifiable evidence of physiological illness cured by these means" (which seems to me to risk assuming what one hopes to prove). Chan's position may be less severe than Hunter's or may have changed in the face of further evidence; Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, 42–48, seems appreciative of healing testimonies.
250. Hunter and Chan, Protestantism, 150, noting that such views are still more pervasive in rural areas, where traditional spiritual healing practices are likewise rife. They emphasize (152–53) that charismatic activity fits the traditional religious culture of China (on the emphasis on healing there, cf. Barnes, "History,"
100). In fact, it fits most traditional cultures, which are not shaped by the radical Enlightenment. Christianity competes successfully in the countryside because it delivers healings also sought by folk religion there
(Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, 42). Yet even Lambert, Millions, 111–12, dismisses the value of many miracle claims from the countryside as syncretistic folk religion (though apparently accepting others,
Examples from Asia
claims are abundant251 and that they heard several healing claims in a house church in Shanghai.252 But they emphasize that the nephew of one of their informants noted that the women there "loved repeating such stories, which according to him were just gossip, always unverifiable."253 Working from an antisupernaturalist framework, the authors do not count as gossip itself the nephew's testimony that he regards his aunt's stories as gossip, and they seem to use this verdict to discredit all healing testimonies.
Yet however one chooses to explain them, many stories from China cannot be simply gossip; they derive from persons directly affected by them. A young man recounted that as a boy, he was given up by the doctor for dead, but when his father desperately cried out to God and dedicated the boy to his service, the boy quickly recovered.254 A Three-Self pastor reported that he found in his church believers praying over a girl that the local doctor had just pronounced dead; the desperate mother had brought her to the church. The girl recovered.255 (For more reports of raisings from China, see ch. 12.) When an imprisoned believer prayed for a prostitute in the prison, the latter was healed and quickly accepted Christ.256
A farmer with a tumor on his leg solicited for prayer a retired physics professor ordained in the state-approved church movement. Doctors had said that only an operation could remove the tumor, yet this operation would cost more than a year's wages for the farmer. Despite the former scientist's skepticism about divine healing, he prayed for the man with sincere compassion; a few weeks later, when he visited the farmer's village again, the man ran up to him and showed him that the tumor was almost gone.257
Indeed, the coauthor of the above-mentioned skeptical study served as coauthor for another book published seven years later, less critical of miracle reports.
117; on chi gong in traditional China, see Turner, Healers, 34–36); Oblau, "Healing," 318, notes this attitude among urban intellectuals, but also that some of them have healing testimonies. While I have no reason to doubt that many cases could represent syncretism, some examples might represent instead contextualization, just as Joseph and Daniel became dream interpreters especially in Gentile settings (Gen
40:12–22; 41:9–32; Dan 2:16–45). For the complexity of the relationship between rural Christianity and Daoism, see Oblau, "Healing," 316. Whereas many urbanites are converted through intellectual inquiry, more are converted in rural areas through healings (Leung, "Conversion," 106), but perhaps 80 percent of Christians live in rural areas (ibid., 105).
251. Hunter and Chan, Protestantism, 145–52. They cite with skepticism the letter of an elderly house church leader in Henan that when he laid hands on a man with a large tumor, it disappeared (155).
252. Ibid., 150. With what might appear scarcely concealed class and modernist assumptions, they complain (151) that many elderly people in Shanghai who seek healing at temples or churches "are illiterate or semi-illiterate and still strongly influenced by traditional beliefs," grasping "any opportunity to comfort themselves, even if in illusion."
253. Ibid., 150.
254. Wesley, Stories, 84–85, reporting the young man's own testimony.
255. Lambert, Millions, 109, who interviewed the pastor directly, as well as noting where the story was later published in Hong Kong. Following TSPM expectations, the pastor did not allow the mother to testify publicly at the church. Note also the account in Oblau, "Healing," 319.
256. Wesley, Stories, 133; idem, Church, 47, reporting the formerly imprisoned believer's testimony.
257. Oblau, "Healing," 318.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
The authors note that most Chinese rural Christians "can provide testimonies of healing and other miracles."258 This book recounts numerous healing testimonies from a single Chinese village in southern Fujian Province,259 suggesting that such samples could be multiplied hundreds or thousands of times over. While nonsupernatural explanations are sufficient to explain some of these claims, they are clearly not gossip, but reflect people's understanding of their positive experiences.
In the 1980s, Wu Shining fell sick and eventually became unable to get out of bed. After she repented of her materialistic pursuits, she found herself healed and began evangelizing the area effectively.260 She tells of one family where an accident had made the father unable to walk and a stomach sickness lasting seven years had rendered the son virtually unable to eat, medical interventions proving ineffective.261 Shortly after conversion, the father could walk again; within a year after the believers prayed for them, the boy had regained full health.262 After observing these recoveries, she recounted, many neighbors in the village became Christians and received healings. Zhen Qingfei, unable "to walk for several years," received healing a few weeks after his conversion.263 Wei Dongbei was paralyzed in his legs but after conversion could walk using a crutch.264 As Heng Xin's oxen were dying from poison, he urgently called a Christian to pray, and the oxen were immediately healed.265 Wu Shining explains that she could give many more testimonies even from this village but stops with such samples because she could neither write them all out nor would the reader expend time to read them all.266
The book recounts other healing claims from interviews as well. One elderly pastor of a fifteen-hundred-member church noted how in 1961 she prayed on 258. Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, 42.
259. Ibid., 43.
260. Ibid.
261. Ibid., 44.
262. Ibid., 45.
263. Ibid., 46.
264. Ibid.
265. Ibid. For poor rural farmers, healings of animals are significant. For example, on Jan. 27, 2009, I heard in the Philippines of the healing of a pig; for the apparent raising from death of a poor family's goat in the early twentieth-century United States, see Stewart, Only Believe, 154; cf. healing of a dog in Godwin,
Strategy, 14; healing (the stopping of bleeding and instant healing of a wound) of a donkey (transporting the minister) in Colombia (Ronald Ballenger, among reports sent to me by Douglas LeRoy, Nov. 9,
2009); the instant healing of a mule that had been dying, which then got up and went out to eat (Jones,
Wonders, 120); the healing of a mule in Duffin, Miracles, 18; the healing of Wesley's horse (and Wesley himself simultaneously; Telford, Wesley, 196); a horse in Bede (Young, "Miracles in History," 114, on Bede
H.E.G.A. 3.9); a special case in Llewellyn, "Events," 256–57; for what it is worth (if anything), when I had been a Christian less than one year and was doing personal evangelism, an apparently dead butterfly in a hearer's hand instantly revived when I prayed for it in response to my hearer's challenge; also animals in the heterodox ministry of A. H. Dallimore (Guy, "Miracles," 458). Healing of animals appears in traditional
Appalachian faith healing reports (Wigginton, Foxfire Book, 347, 352, 364, 368). One secondhand report even claims that someone with the gift stopped bleeding in freshly killed beef (Wigginton, Foxfire Book,
349), although this report seems too difficult to explain in terms of biblical paradigms (i.e., it seems to exhibit human power rather than alleviate a need).
266. Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, 48.
Examples from Asia
numerous occasions for a bedridden woman, who finally "began to get up and walk."267 She does not pray for people's healing now; she prays for their spiritual condition, and many of them are healed after she prays.268 Another elderly pastor in Shangdong Province recounted that when she was a girl, she was facing amputation of her ulcerated left leg. Desperate, she knelt and asked Jesus for mercy, whereupon she was healed fully.269 Another elderly woman had a vision on her deathbed that she would be granted another year of life; she recovered and then died a year later.270 Chen Shaoying was a new believer. When several people she prayed for in the Qingyuan Prefecture in 1991 were healed, "word spread that Chen's God was a powerful deity able to perform miracles," and Christianity spread in the region, with Madam Chen as one of the leaders.271
Visiting Some Chinese Pastors In 2007, while briefly visiting one location in Asia before lecturing elsewhere,
I had an unplanned opportunity to ask questions from a number of Chinese pastors I met there. Although I was given to understand that these pastors were not "charismatics" or Pentecostals,272 when I spontaneously asked if any of them had firsthand accounts of healings, I had time to write down only a sample of the accounts that they had available.273 One account, independently reported to me
267. Ibid., 10.
268. Ibid., 11 (cf. also 12).
269. Ibid., 37.
270. Ibid., 59–60. Such reports are not unheard of elsewhere; one article tells the story of a minister in North Wales who had been apparently dying when one prayed for fifteen more years for his life (alluding to Isa 38:1–9); the preacher died, as he expected, at the end of the fifteen years ("Fifteen Years," on Thomas
Charles). A similar case, praying with the same allusion, involves English Baptist Benjamin Keach, who survived from 1689 to 1704 (Crosby, History, 4:307–9, referred to me by New Orleans Baptist Theological
Seminary professor Lloyd Harsch). Cf. also H. C. Morrison in Kinghorn, Story, 98.
271. Ibid., 70.
272. I do not know the affiliations of the pastors I met, apart from being told they were not charismatic, but apparently most Chinese "noncharismatics" emphasize healing no less than "charismatics" do
(see Wesley, Church, 47–48, on the noncharismatic Word of Life Church; healings associated with that movement are also noted in Xin, "Dynamics," 177). Most of the Chinese church is charismatic by Western standards (see Oblau, "Healing," 311); Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 81–82, contends that the majority of house churches became "charismatic" theologically from the late 1980s. Part of the apparent discrepancy in estimates of charismatics may depend on the definition of "charismatic," since most allow but do not require glossolalia (see the statement of the house churches on 300, though it is, perhaps diplomatically, capable of different interpretations), but the proportion is significant (273–74).
273. For reasons of safety and especially discretion, and out of respect for both government policies
(still sometimes ambiguous on a local level at the time of writing) and these pastors, I record no names, as I promised them. Some more published researchers have likewise omitted specific cases "due to political considerations" (McClenon, Events, 80, though such precautions may be less important today). In most of these cases, I include here only a short account of the stories, which they recounted at greater length and with the utmost sincerity. Regarding sincerity, for example, when I asked one informant about the spiritual source to which she would attribute some inexplicable phenomena she had seen and reported, she frankly admitted that she did not know, though she offered her best guess. Most but not all the informants were university educated. Theologically, the two I asked emphatically rejected having any "gifts" of healings; several emphasized that God is sovereign over whether healings occur and that God performs them for God's glory.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
by two individuals present,274 involved a prominent atheist family. The elderly mother was diagnosed in three hospitals as having inoperable, terminal, and rapidly spreading brain stem cancer; walking soon became impossible in this state. Within a month after prayer, however, the tumor had shrunk from two centimeters to the size of a grain of rice, and she soon began walking and carrying on normally, to the astonishment of her physicians. The entire family are now believers, and the elderly mother has testified widely of her recovery.
Another pastor reported a non-Christian family carrying a half-paralyzed, nonChristian member to a church for prayer in 1980 in Shandong Province. They prayed for her, and instantly she got up to walk, spurring rapid church growth. It was reported that an estimated hundred mutes began speaking in the church over the next decade, as the church grew to roughly two thousand.275 In another case, a fifty-eight-year-old woman in a village in 1995 was dying of an incurable disease; she had not eaten or drunk for three days. Because her younger brother was a Christian, Christians gathered to pray, and the whole village came to watch. The villagers promised to believe if she was healed. The believers prayed for half an hour; she started to drink, and the next day she had fully recovered. Most of the village became Christians.276
An elderly woman pastor, with a year of medical training, lamented to me her small faith in seeing only seven or eight dramatic healings, plus many less dramatic ones, over the years.277 When I asked her if she had ever witnessed healings of eyes or ears, she immediately told me the story of a non-Christian elderly woman about ten years earlier, who had not been able to open one of her eyes for twenty-seven or maybe twenty-eight years due to a nerve problem. As soon as this pastor laid hands on her, the eye opened. The healed woman immediately became a Christian and remains one today.
This belief in God's sovereignty in healings may not be universal in China (Währisch-Oblau, "Healthy,"
94–95), but even the narrator in Danyun, Lilies, 94–95 (despite having narrated some highly unusual claims on 91–93), acknowledges that God does not always choose to heal and did not in this case (again through a different narrator in ibid., 218; God's sovereignty in Oblau, "Healing," 311). In these accounts where God did not heal, doctors had already given up, but believers were nevertheless held responsible for the deaths (in Danyun, Lilies, 94–95, 218–22). After Mao's death, healing remained illegal if one were prevented from seeking medical treatment (Lambert, Resurrection, 69), an approach found in some cults (134). Not distinguishing cults from others, many non-Christians viewed all healing and exorcism as superstitious (60).
274. One from the healed woman's city, another a relative of the woman, from a distant city. They supplied different but compatible details, despite the spontaneity of my request and lack of any time for them to coordinate accounts. I deliberately leave some unnecessary details ambiguous; I should also add that neither myself, my volunteer translator on the occasion, nor most of my informants were using or knew precise medical terminology.
275. My informant had not seen all these cures himself but was familiar with some of them, otherwise depending on reports from the church.
276. My brother tells me of an oral report of a village conversion through an older woman's healing in China, given to him by the woman's granddaughter studying in the United States, who was not herself a Christian. Given the size of China, and the timing involved in his report (probably earlier than 1995), these are undoubtedly distinct occasions.
277. She did note that people in her church are regularly healed of high blood pressure and heart problems
(she was not counting these among the dramatic ones), but she insists that she lays hands on people only when she gets special inspiration to do so. She disclaimed having any "gifts of healings."
Examples from Asia
Another woman from a particular urban area told me of her classmate, who after eight or ten years of marriage remained childless. The doctor discovered that the classmate had two uteruses, one with a defective tube to the ovaries, and the other apparently without a tube. Although doctors repaired the defective tube for the first uterus, no pregnancy resulted. My informant prayed for her persistently, and her classmate did become pregnant—in the apparently unconnected uterus! My informant said that because this uterus was also unconnected to the normal birth canal, the surprised doctor had to remove the baby surgically, but the daughter is healthy.278 The same informant told me about the mother of another classmate of hers with a heart problem that would be too expensive to treat medically. About six months before our conversation, they prayed together with the mother, who quickly recovered. About one week after the prayer, the doctor was astonished during another test to discover that the mother was in fact healed.279
Because in many local areas persons lacked adequate medical care, in some localities, an observer reports, "Faith healing has . . . replaced medical care."280 Although many believers' theology sometimes unfortunately appears to make inadequate room for those who are not healed,281 in practical implementation the Christians seem to provide intensified social support.282 The healings occur especially among the poor, who trust
God, the observer notes, when the system cannot help them.283 Against a traditionally fatalistic culture, the new hope motivates them not to resign themselves to fate.284
One Example in 1930s China Experiences of healings and miracles not only spur growth in the Chinese
Christian movement today; they did so also in indigenous Chinese churches in the early twentieth century.285 Although examples of healing claims from various
278. My informant supplied various other details about the woman, her long-term and intimate friend; it is difficult for me to communicate in writing the utmost sincerity with which she shared. She was eager for me to get this story out to the world, because she believed that it would help challenge skepticism that God could do miracles, including in cases like the virgin birth (though no one claims that the healed woman was a virgin). She was disappointed that her friend, once granted the miracle, did not publicize it much for God's glory.
279. When I asked various questions of detail, the answers to which my informant did not know, she pulled out her cell phone and called her classmate, who supplied her far more details than we needed.
280. Währisch-Oblau, "Healthy," 94. She compares African immigrants in Germany who had little access to adequate health care and limited trust in Western medicine (95).
281. See the example in ibid., 94–95, who nevertheless notes the tremendous support and esteem the paraplegic received relative to others in her situation outside the church; also noted in Oblau, "Healing," 323.
The problem of insensitivity to the disabled is not unique to China (see discussion in Black, "Preaching"; idem, Homiletic), and some renewalist theologians are now addressing disabilities in helpful ways (see
Yong, "Disability").
282. Währisch-Oblau, "Healthy," 94 (cf. also remarks on social support on 89).
283. Ibid., 97.
284. Ibid.
285. Zhaoming, "Chinese Denominations," 440; cf. also the Shandong (Shantung) revival of the 1930s (Oblau, "Healing," 309; Bays, "Revival," 173; McGee, Miracles, 191); cf. comments in Stanley,
"Christianity," 78. An antimissionary, indigenous Pentecostalism emerged already by 1919 (Bays, "Revival,"
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
parts of the world could be multiplied, I have chosen to focus here on a particular historic example. The following example depends on what is widely agreed to be the personal diary of the evangelist who was the eyewitness to most of the claims it offers.286 At the very least it reflects an openness to the early Christian evangelism paradigm in a manner foreign to traditional modern Western approaches.
In the 1930s, Dr. Shang-chieh Song, or Dr. John Sung, from Fujian Province in southeast China, engaged in the sort of apostolic evangelism portrayed in Acts.287
He was not Pentecostal (and sometimes faced opposition from Pentecostals for not insisting on speaking in tongues),288 nor was he influenced by Western models; some Western missionaries in fact opposed him,289 and he opposed Chinese dependence on them.290
169–70, 173–74; Shaw, Awakening, 186). For a specific example of an earlier healing account, one Rev.
Zhang Zhentang of Yulin had tuberculosis in the 1920s; after the doctors declared his case hopeless, he prayed for three months and was healed (Lambert, Millions, 112). A young man was healed from tuberculosis and lived to 101 (Fant, Miracles, 116, from Dr. Thomas Moseley); the same source reports another young man who was dying of tuberculosis ("a young Confucian scholar named Keo Loh Tien"), who recovered well enough to continue preaching Christ to age sixty-five, despite his infirmity (ibid.,
115–16). Miao Zizhong was healed of a fatal disease, incurable by the hospital, when he turned to Christ in 1948 (Danyun, Lilies, 8–9). In the early twentieth century, a Holiness missionary who spent more than four decades in China reported that many people in China became believers after witnessing successful exorcisms (McGee, "Strategy in Mission," 91); Dr. Henry Frost also recounted healings there (Miller,
Miracle of Healing, 86–87).
286. Many of these stem from the day in question, although other parts of the diary, especially the summary of his earlier years, may be later summaries of earlier events. Other sources from this period also report John Sung's activity.
287. Sung is one of the better-known, early Asian revivalists associated with healings. See, e.g.,
Solomon, "Healing," 362; also Yung, "Power," 81 (naming also from India Sadhu Sundar Singh and Baht
Singh; from China Pastor Hsi; and from Indonesia Petrus Octavianus); Young, "Miracles in History,"
116; Koch, Revival, 43–64 (on healings, 59); cf. Osborn, Christ, 82–87 (China's "greatest evangelist" at the time); more recently, Bays, "Revival," 173 ("probably the single most powerful figure in Chinese revivalism in the mid-1930s"); Robert, "Introduction," 15 (perhaps "the greatest Chinese revivalist of the twentieth century"); Wu, "Yu," 98 ("China's George Whitefield"). He is usually regarded as one of the leading early figures of indigenous Chinese Christianity (Tan, "Work," 98; Leung, "Conversion,"
89, 106; Oblau, "Healing," 309; Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 43). His strategic discipling through small groups remained important even in Indonesia (Brougham, "Training," 141); outside China, in fact, he influenced Indonesia (Koch, Revival, 54–57, 60–62), the Chinese-Filipino church in the Philippines
(Shao, "Heritage," 96), and in 1935–40 the Chinese churches of Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore
(Anderson, Pentecostalism, 129).
288. From an incidental mention, we do learn that he prayed in tongues (Sung, Diaries, 29). Nevertheless, he insisted that the real evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit was power to witness (32; cf. 212); he insisted that the priority be holiness and love rather than spiritual gifts and tongues (163–64); and he felt that overemphasis on spiritual gifts at the expense of fruit produces error (114). He emphasized the role of faith (112, 115) but also God's sovereignty (131) and hearing God's voice (e.g., 118–19). Uldine Utley's ministry in J. R. Straton's Baptist church affected him deeply (McGee, Miracles, 191, 303).
289. For some conflict (leading in this case to a Western missionary's conversion experience), see, e.g.,
Sung, Diaries, 146. Hunter and Chan, Protestantism, 147, note that some "missionaries attributed some of John Sung's 'cures'" to emotionalism in the meetings.
290. For his insistence on Chinese independence from Western control and finances, see, e.g., Sung,
Diaries, 54, 56, 183. He did appreciate the minority of Western missionaries who sacrificially adopted the Chinese way of life (118, 154) but criticized those who valued Western comforts (24).
Examples from Asia
His diary reports numerous healings taking place, especially through his own ministry.291 Maladies that he believed were cured include leprosy,292 blindness,293 paralysis and inability to walk,294 muteness,295 deafness,296 deformed spine,297 pneumonia,298 and tuberculosis,299 as well as the curing of some persons with multiple conditions.300
Most cures were immediately evident,301 but some were gradual, such as the healing of leprosy over the course of two days302 or the gradual healing of paralysis.303 Nearly all, he averred, were permanent, but a few were temporary.304 Sometimes when he laid hands on people, what they felt resembled a bolt of electricity surging through them.305 Such testimonies generated skepticism even among Christians,306 but there was no shortage of people claiming to have been healed and to have witnessed healings. One Westerner reportedly investigated and directly discovered more than a hundred healing testimonies.307
291. E.g., from 1901 to 1920, see ibid., 2, 4; in 1934, see 23, 40–41, 43–44; in 1935, see 48–49, 52,
61; for 1936, see 74, 76, 87, 91, 93–94, 99; for 1937, see 104, 106, 111; for 1938, 145; for 1939, 152 (in Malaysia), 161. He notes some kinds of healings more than others; exorcisms are comparatively few (e.g.,
23, 30, 34), and resuscitation stories tend to be secondhand (45, 59) or only for an hour (43). Some non-healing miracles are also reported, such as a "healed" bus engine (142) and the holding back of rain
(143, 158, 161).
292. Ibid., 27, 52, 111 (the leper showing his now-clean skin, April 15, 1937), 155 (after prayer by proxy, a method also employed on 117), 162 (multiple cases). Cf. also the healing of eczema (125) and a growth on the head (133); a skin disease on the nose, instantly healed and still healed forty-eight years later (as of 1985; the report on 150–51).
293. Ibid., 28, 36, 56 (a seven-year-old blind girl), 111 (multiple cases), 116 (multiple cases), 153 (a girl in Singapore), 158 (multiple cases), 161 (four cases).
294. Ibid., 32 (mostly), 44, 48 (a child who had been unable to walk for six years), 56 (many cases), 91,
111 (multiple cases), 121 (someone besides Sung testifying that many left their crutches behind), 134 (a six-year-old boy), 135 (another's testimony of a disabled beggar who crawled on his hands, now healed and eventually able to secure a good job), 140, 162 (multiple cases). In most cases, a person unable to walk was immediately able to walk. On 109, a partly dead, malodorous foot was instantly healed, leaving only a scar.
295. Ibid., 29 (after healing, the formerly mute person became a preacher), 40, 48, 56, 93, 125, 153 (a child in Singapore), 155 (multiple cases), 161 (four cases). At least some of these mutes may have also been deaf without that being mentioned in every instance.
296. Ibid., 40 (after six years of deafness), 91, 109 (three cases), 111 (multiple cases), 116 (multiple cases), 155 (multiple cases), 161 (two cases).
297. Ibid., 109, 111 (a hunchback).
298. Ibid., 134 (another's testimony about healing).
299. Ibid., 137, 138. During Sung's era, Watchman Nee recovered gradually from tuberculosis through rest, diet, and trusting Christ's atonement for triumph over sickness (Kinnear, Tide, 117–20); Dora Yu also believed her recovery from heart problems was miraculous (Wu, "Yu," 95).
300. Sung, Diaries, 43 (blind and unable to walk), 58 (a deaf and mute person), 110 (mute and unable to walk), 137 (another's testimony of healing from malaria and tuberculosis).
301. E.g., a large goiter instantly healed (ibid., 58).
302. Ibid., 52.
303. Ibid., 108.
304. E.g., one healing of inability to walk (ibid., 93); one healing of blindness lasting only two days (108).
305. Ibid., 62.
306. Some changed, e.g., the preacher who changed his mind after his daughter's healing (ibid., 108), and another after he saw some members of his congregation healed (115).
307. Ibid., 94. Likewise, not only Sung's diary (120) but also a local witness testified of the many healings on one occasion (121; note the editor's comments).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Sung's story is not triumphalistic, nor does it ignore contrary data. He acknowledged that some were not healed308 or were only partly healed,309 and he was often quite sick himself.310 For several years he went ahead with preaching even in great pain,311 but the last three years of his life were spent suffering and eventually dying from an agonizing disease.312 He did not lose faith at this time, but even as in his earlier suffering,313 he believed that he understood God's purpose in it.314
Conclusion In chapter 7, I noted that from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, hundreds of millions of people claim to have witnessed or experienced miraculous healings. While believers would praise God for all these claims, they are of varying evidential weight regarding direct divine action, some appearing more substantial than others. In this chapter, I have sought to illustrate the broader fact of eyewitness healing claims with specific examples from a number of regions in Asia. In the next chapter, I turn to examples from Africa and Latin America. In chapter 12, I will revisit these continents, as well as the West, with accounts of cures of blindness and paralysis, as well as of raisings from the dead.
308. Ibid., 51, 52, 58, 100, 131, 165. He did believe that most were healed; e.g., of the 234 he prayed for on April 6, 1937, 170 to 180 "testified later of being healed" (110); of 774 prayed for on the morning of April 14, 576 testified of healing in the afternoon (111); of 1,583 people prayed for on Aug. 25, "most" were healed (120).
309. Ibid., 117 (a woman's hands but not feet healed; nevertheless, she was happy), 158 (a mentally challenged boy made more manageable).
310. Ibid., 8, 55–56, 70, 73, 74, 79, 82, 100, 128, 187, 188. He used medicine (146, 223), received surgery (157, 174, 188–89, 221, 223), and felt stronger in better weather (152).
311. Ibid., 156, 158, 164–66. His bloody exertions for the sake of preaching (e.g., 128) resemble those of Whitefield (on his health problems, see, e.g., Stout, Dramatist, 249–50), though especially in the region of the body that afflicted Livingstone (e.g., Livingstone, Last Journals, 397–98).
312. Sung, Diaries, 190–91, 221–25. He lived from 1901 to 1944 (his wife died in 1980; p. 226).
313. Ibid., 159, 170; cf. Sister Sheng's lesson on 180. He was no "prosperity" preacher. Cf. his theology of suffering as a prerequisite and conduit for effective ministry (160–61, 191); his expectation of poverty for a true servant of God (192) and simplicity in churches (47); coming purification through suffering for China's churches (197); holiness included giving up movies (33, 52) and small talk (164).
314. Ibid., 189, 215–16. Although the editor of Kings offers no explanation, Elisha also died of sickness
(2 Kgs 13:14, 20).
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean By God's grace I have seen God healing all kinds of diseases and sicknesses by his power: malaria, pains and aches, cancer, depression, bones; and the dead brought back to life. —Leo Bawa1 The dominant [Anglo] society snickers and considers us superstitious jíbaros (peasants) when we speak of demons, or of Satan. They consider us naïve and too literal when we believe in the biblical narratives of miracle and healing. But when U.S.
Hispanics/Latinas read Scripture, it is not with a fundamentalist agenda. We read
Scripture believing in God's promises of salvation and hope. —Loida Martell-Otero2
I n chapters 8 and 9, I survey sample Majority World claims of healings. In chapter 8, I focused on Asia, the continent that holds the largest proportion of the world's population; here I treat Africa and Latin America. The texture of some of my sources varies from some locations to others (for example, more published sources were available to me for Asia), but that the claims are widespread in many cultures is evident. I reserve further examples of some of the most dramatic claims
(regarding cures such as healing blindness or raising the dead) for chapter 12.
As noted in the previous chapter, I must emphasize that what I include here is only the barest possible sample, often made barer by my very limited resources.
The texture of my sources for Africa also differs from that of some other regions due to the particularly oral character of local African historiography.3 I have drawn
1. Leo Bawa, personal correspondence, Aug. 10, 2009.
2. Martell-Otero, "Satos," 31–32 (protesting the dominant culture's frequent view of Hispanic/Latina faith as superstitious also on 16). She cites Brueggemann, Astonishment, 39, 42, regarding academia's loss of ability to hear sympathetically awesome experiences among the marginalized. For strong distinctions between global Pentecostals and fundamentalism, see, e.g., Cox, "Miracles," 92–93; Spittler, "Review."
3. See Burgess, Revolution, 21, noting the value of the ethnographic approach there.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
examples from particular countries where sources or contacts made information available to me; I believe that these constitute a representative sample and that such information could be multiplied many times over.
Thus, for example, I have elaborated at length on reports from Congo-Brazzaville because I had immediate access to this information. As a very small country, CongoBrazzaville (not to be confused with its massive neighbor, Congo-Kinshasa), is particularly valuable for two different kinds of reasons. First, I or my immediate family know most of the people I interviewed there and could therefore validate their long-term integrity. Second, if mainline Protestants (most of my interviewees) in that small country can offer many eyewitness healing claims, one might infer even larger numbers in many larger countries of the Global South with large and active
Christian populations. This less well-known nation can thus function as a sample
(one hopes somehow representative) for the many countries I could not personally survey. Likewise, Cuba is a fairly small country (though with some eleven million residents, it has more than seven million more residents than Congo-Brazzaville).
Nevertheless, so many testimonies came my way during my brief trip there that I quit mentioning my book project.
Examples in Africa In a paper presented at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in New Orleans in 2009, I suggested that Majority World readings of miracles could provide Western readers a more sympathetic model for reading biblical miracle narratives than our recent heritage has encouraged. In this context, I mentioned briefly some examples that I had collected for this book. After I had finished, during the discussion period,
Dr. J. Ayodeji Adewuya, a Pauline scholar who is now a professor in the United States, stood and publicly offered reasons for his Nigerian perspective. I knew Ayo from conversations at previous years of these biblical studies conferences, but we had not had occasion to discuss his nonacademic personal experiences until this conference. Ayo offered his eyewitness account of a nature miracle and then narrated how his newborn son, pronounced dead at birth by a midwife on January 1,
1981, was raised after twenty minutes of prayer. The son, none the worse for the experience, grew up and has completed his master of science degree. I suspect that I was not the only listener in the room intrigued by these accounts.4
Ghanaian urologist Ken Aboah notes that when medical resources have been inadequate, he has often seen patients who were nearly dead miraculously survive through prayer.5 Scotland-trained pediatrician Samuel Anankra, of the ThirtySeven Military Hospital in Accra and for several years president of the Pediatrics
Society, tells of his four-year-old's debilitating illness and the family's prayers for 4. Nov. 22, 2009; the paper was Keener, "Readings," and Ayo confirmed his report for me in a phone interview (Dec. 14, 2009). Ayo's academic works include 1–2 Corinthians, Transformed, and Holiness.
5. Mensah, "Basis," 177.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
her. Starting with fifteen days of fever and paralysis of the lower limbs, her illness persisted for months; X-rays revealed physiological changes in the lower limbs.
Finally, after five months, she suddenly became better in a single day, a cure he ascribes to God answering prayer.6
Even when trained in Western culture, Africans draw on a repertoire of experience and cultural interpretation that differs starkly from our inherited Western assumptions.7 Supernatural phenomena are compatible with most African worldviews,8 and reports of miraculous healings are frequent in Africa,9 especially where normal medical resources are difficult to come by.10 Healings and other miracles are important in the growth of religious movements in Africa, including most kinds of churches that are growing.11 Earlier Western missionaries tended to neglect or repudiate supernatural elements of special interest to Africans, like
6. Ibid., 179, also reporting a Scottish boy hit by a car and left "in a persistent vegetative state." Anankra prayed daily for him and after some time found him "sitting up playing video games," able to see, "talk, and walk"; the parents were so touched they became Christians. "In my heart I knew that medically we did virtually nothing for this boy."
7. Thus one philosopher notes highly educated Ugandan and Nigerian priests he knows who are
"unshakably convinced that miracles, magic and spiritual warfare are manifestly real aspects of daily life, of which they themselves have had direct and incontrovertible experience on a number of occasions"
(Hart, Delusions, 102, preferring their experience over our assertions).
8. See, e.g., Abogunrin, "Search"; Mbiti, Religions, 253–57; for the ancestors and healing, see
Moodley, Shembe, 44–45. Many African indigenous Christian movements "expected to experience miracles in everyday life" (Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 98). For the relevance of miraculous power in Africa, see also Gräbe, "Discovery." Early in the Qua Iboe Mission in Nigeria, "a spontaneous outburst of glossolalia" occurred without any "Pentecostal influence . . . within hundreds of miles"
(Orr, Awakenings, 160).
9. De Wet's sources for Africa include Olson, "Growth," 229–30; Ross, "Search," 146–47, 216–17
(Ross addresses S. Central Zaire, now in Congo DRC); Oosthuizen, Penetration, 309–23; Riddle, "Growth,"
38–42; McGavran, "Faith-Healing," 376–77; see also some claims in Stinton, Jesus of Africa, 65–71; in one
African Catholic church, see Jenkins, New Faces, 118–19. Unfortunately, many people seek out the most
"powerful" pastors who can accomplish cures (as in traditional shamanism), leading to competition and exaggerated claims in those circles (see Währisch-Oblau, "Healing in Migrant Churches," 72); I have tried to focus on cases where a genuine change in health is reported.
10. For inadequate access to health care increasing the appeal of supernatural healing, see, e.g., Folarin,
"State," 84; Brown, "Introduction," 7; Oblau, "Healing," 315. One missionary doctor notes that, often lacking adequate medical resources, he was forced to pray, in which setting he "was then surprised by some unexpected outcomes" (Lees and Fiddes, "Healed," 24). Dr. David Zaritzky told me (July 24, 2009) that he prayed for people for two hours in Tanzania recently and all but one was healed.
11. See, e.g., Burgess, Revolution, 182–83, on early Igbo charismatics; the proportion of renewalists in the African population is perhaps three times higher than the average globally (Johnson and Ross, Atlas,
103). Nevertheless, the pattern applies to older churches, Pentecostal churches, and indigenous churches ranging from those more compatible with older churches (while contextualizing for African interests) to those including larger mixtures of elements from traditional African religions. For examples, see (esp. for the twentieth century), e.g., Akinwumi, "Babalola"; idem, "Idahosa" (on Idahosa, see also Kalu, "Mission,"
14–15); Brockman, "Kimbangu"; Dayhoff, "Marais" (a hand paralyzed for nine years healed through prayer in 1949); Etienne, "Diangienda"; Fuller, "Tsado"; Hexham, "Shembe"; Keener, "Ndoundou";
Larbi, "Anim"; Lygunda li-M, "Pelendo"; Manana, "Kitonga"; idem, "Ndaruhutse"; Menberu, "Mekonnen
Negera"; Millard, "Duma"; Moodley, Shembe, 74–77; Nsenga, "Fuisa"; Odili, "Osaele"; idem, "Agents";
Akinwumi, "Orimolade" (not suggesting that all the oral traditions are authentic); idem, "Oschoffa";
Brockman, "Kivuli"; Buys and Nambala, "Hambuindja"; idem, "Kanambunga."
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
witchcraft and healing.12 Yet these central concerns of the African worldview emerged in indigenous African Christian movements.13 Today they continue as major emphases to varying degrees among various indigenous African Christian movements,14 a heterogeneous category spanning a wide range theologically.15
Independent churches offer numerous healing claims16 (and as noted earlier, such claims are a common reason for joining them), but they are widespread beyond such circles. Because healing and health are important to life, and African tradition expects religion to provide these benefits, the concern is neglected to churches'
12. Among exceptions were the early Basel missionaries to southern Ghana, whose belief in religious healing was consistent with local Akan tradition; this shifted in the final years of the nineteenth century
(Mohr, "Medicine").
13. Cf. the indigenous Pentecostal-like movement in Nigeria in 1927 (Burgess, Revolution, vi) and the prophetic movements of Harris, Braide, and Kimbangu cited in ch. 7. Some missionaries, however, like Nazarene missionary Everette Howard in the Cape Verde Islands, did teach divine healing, and many healings were reported in their circle of African believers (Miller, Miracle of Healing, 51–52, 80).
14. See, e.g., Oosthuizen, Healer-Prophet, 16–18 (on AICs), 120–21; Daneel, Zionism, 21 (most
Zionists join through faith healing); Ellingsen, Roots, 2:259–60; Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 129 (on the continuity of healing's centrality in earlier African culture and African Christianity), 357, 360–62, 364
(on the supernatural and healing as a normal African interest); Molobi, "Knowledge," 90; Akogyeram,
"Ministry," 149; Shaw, Awakening, 60; Burgess, Revolution, 160; cf. Brinkman, Non-Western Jesus, 234–35.
15. Mainline and Pentecostal Christians would regard as syncretistic a number of these churches (see
Gilliland, "Churches," as cited in Adeney, Kingdom, 288), which include, e.g., diviners and sacrifice to ancestors (Oosthuizen, Healer-Prophet, 25–26) and notably movements granting a messianic role to their leaders (Moodley, Shembe, 65–66; cf. Shaw, Kingdom, 246–47) or promoting possession by various spirits
(see Behrend, "Power"). Nevertheless, others are more in line with traditional Christian approaches (see the summary in Oosthuizen, Healer-Prophet, xix; Moodley, Shembe, 65; Molobi, "Churches," 70–71; arguing for legitimate contextualization, Nussbaum, "AICs," esp. 102–8). Daneel, "Churches," 182, argues that only a few of the "Spirit type" southern African AICs (with their healings and tongues) have messianic leaders.
Biblical models suggest much flexibility for cultural contextualization (more than usually assumed today) while condemning spiritual mixing (missiologists debate the precise boundaries). Syncretism is common in African Christian and Muslim homes (Dasuekwo, "Charms"; "Islam and Christianity," 170, 174, 180–82; cf. West, Sorcery, 40; for Islam specifically, Adeniyi, "Interaction," 60; for some Pentecostal Christians, Ayuk,
"Transformation," 200; for some traditional denominational black southern African Christians more than black charismatics there, see data in Joubert, "Perspective," 131–33), though Christians in various cultures differ with respect to what practices are actually syncretistic (Noll, Shape, 25, noting that such charges can readily be laid against Western Christians; cf. Brown, "Awakenings," 373, emphasizing contextualization).
For example, Western Christians often turn a blind eye to their own syncretic accommodation of deism, what African Christians could regard as coming close to following "the outward form of piety but denying its power" (2 Tim 3:5; cf. also the danger of syncretism with materialism in Matt 6:24//Luke 16:13; perhaps
Col 3:5). African syncretism often results from the lack of Christian teaching addressing spirits (so, e.g.,
Jackson Mutie Munyao, an Africa Inland Church pastor in Kenya, cited in Wagner, "World," 91; in India, cf. Hiebert, "Excluded Middle," 39). Similarly, cultural androcentrism has also exacerbated problems with sexual exploitation (Chitando, "Prophetesses," 6).
16. E.g., associated with Isaiah Shembe (e.g., Becken, "Healing Communities," 234–35, 238, based on his interviews; Moodley, Shembe, xi, 20–21, 123–24, 137). Like Kimbangu, Shembe was deified by some later followers (see Mzizi, "Images"; Moodley, Shembe, 96, 98, 136–37); some argue that he never accepted this claim for himself (Isichei, History, 316–17; cf. Pirouet, Christianity, 161), though not all agree (cf. sources in Moodley, Shembe, xi). His son taught that all believers can pray for healing (Becken,
"Healing Communities," 236). His grandson Vimbeni is also credited with healings (Moodley, Shembe,
138, 173–74). The movement is a new faith (Mzizi, "Images"), no longer discernibly Christian by any historic definition (see esp. Moodley, Shembe, 130–37, 140–43, 160–61, 177–88, 211).
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
peril.17 Some scholars regard the emphasis on healing and exorcism as an important contribution of African Christians to the global church.18 Certainly healing is a central human concern and one prominent in Christian Scripture.
Examples among growing Christian movements19 include some evangelists with extraordinary cure rates and prophets with extraordinary accuracy on unexpected details. In sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, 56 percent of Christians claim to have witnessed or experienced divine healing.20 Among earlier figures who were Pentecostal, one student touched by the Kenyan revival, Margaret Wangari, prayed for a dying grandmother, who was instantly healed; Wangari went on to found an indigenous Pentecostal church in central Kenya.21
Healing in Mainline Churches Not limited to independent or Pentecostal movements, the emphasis also appears in many traditional mainline churches;22 as one observer notes, the "ethos of some mainline churches today" resembles that "of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches."23 One well-known and often-researched case is the mainline churches in Ghana.24 For example, the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, recognizing the healing gift of catechist J. J. Manteaw in the late 1940s, appointed him a lay chaplain in their
17. Manala and Theron, "Need" (esp. 172–77). Olaiya, "Praying," 101, observes that traditional Western missionaries offered "civilization" without alternatives to the supernatural benefits offered by traditional religions.
18. See Taylor, "Future," 647.
19. Healing also functions as a means of evangelizing fellow Africans and occasionally others in African immigrant churches in Europe (Währisch-Oblau, "Healing in Migrant Churches," 69–75); for significant church growth among African Pentecostal and other immigrant churches in the United States, see Hanciles,
Beyond Christendom, 294, 297–98. Other health-related factors also can generate people movements, such as the failure of traditional religious methods to check the smallpox epidemics of 1873 and 1912 at Onitsha (Ekechi, "Medical Factor," 294; cf. a family's conversion due to the failure of juju to prevent child mortality in Numbere, Vision, 39).
20. "Islam and Christianity," 30, 211 (significantly higher than among practitioners of other religions there). A high proportion believe in miracles, especially in West (followed by parts of East and Central)
Africa (ibid., 176).
21. Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 96.
22. Charismatic influences have affected mainline churches in much of Africa; see, e.g., Maluleke and Nadar, "Pentecostalisation," 1; in Nigeria, Kalu, "Afraid"; in Kenya, Parsitau, "Pentecostalisation."
23. Parsitau, "Pentecostalisation," 92 (speaking of how it is "sweeping across mainline Christianity" and "knows no denominational barrier"); Burgess, Revolution, 304–8. Pentecostalism may be viewed as the most prominent face today of wider indigenous Christian emphases (Gruchy and Chirongoma, "Elements,"
301). Asamoah-Gyadu, "Hearing," 142–43, notes that its experiential focus makes "Pentecostalism" the new ecumenism (i.e., transdenominational form of unity) in African Christianity. The definitions are fluid (classical Pentecostalism was more mission-centered than personal need-centered; Watt, "Dangers,"
385–86), but clearly most African Christian practice is not cessationist.
24. See, e.g., Omenyo, Pentecost; idem, "Healing"; cf. Gifford, "Developments," 524–25; more generally on the charismatic movement in mainline churches there, Atieno, Movement; Omenyo, "Charismatization."
Charismatic renewal helps Ghanaian Catholics to address traditional African issues through their faith
(Rakoczy, "Renewal"). The number of neo-Pentecostals has grown more, but the traditional mainline churches are holding steady or growing (Shaw, Awakening, 166). Many Pentecostal churches in Ghana, such as the rapidly growing, indigenous Church of Pentecost, emphasize healing (Hanciles, Beyond Christendom,
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
hospital. "It is believed that he instantly healed a number of people who had been declared terminally ill," and the church, encouraging the gift, subsequently ordained him (in 1959) and others known for this gift.25 In the 1970s the Methodist Church
Ghana approved of the traveling healing ministry of Samuel B. Essamuah, who had earlier been presiding bishop of the denomination.26 Today Ghanaian Methodists and Presbyterians sponsor healing crusades;27 a 2001 Methodist official report on a crusade in the capital recounted the deaf hearing and a leg instantly growing four inches in public sight, enabling the person to walk and jump.28
This pattern began early; Methodists experienced revival with healings starting in 1918.29 A significant early healing occurred that year when John Cheke and David Mandisodza commanded a disabled girl to rise in the name of Jesus. The girl, who had not been helped by the witch doctors, was healed and jumped up shouting, "Jesus Christ has healed me. I am no longer a cripple. Haleluya, Haleluya!" Revival spread.30 The East African Revival, originating in the late 1920s and flowering more fully in the following four decades, was accompanied with healings, visions, tongues, and conflicts with hostile spirits;31 this revival affected most of the churches.32
One may also compare an earlier generation's reports about Isaac Pelendo in central Africa; he was associated with the (non-Pentecostal) evangelical church.33
Pelendo was also known to pray for the sick, and many were healed on the day that he prayed for them,34 including those who had been dying.35 (As we shall note in 351). Gifford, Pentecostalism, 81, argues that Ghana's Pentecostal churches emphasize economic success more than healing; Omenyo, "Healing," 243, suggests the opposite.
25. Omenyo, "Healing," 242–43 (quotation from 242).
26. Ibid., 243.
27. Ibid. Some Muslims seek healing through Presbyterians (idem, "Renewal," 149).
28. Omenyo, "Healing," 244. The Methodist Church Ghana has ordained many evangelists with healing gifts, some ministering to tens of thousands of persons in a year (244–45).
29. Ranger, "Dilemma," 352–53.
30. Ibid., 353. One major impetus for Ghanaian Methodist growth in the 1920s came through Sampson Oppong, preaching after a prophetic dream (Walls, Movement, 88; see more fully Southon,
Methodism, 149–52 [with the name Samson Opon]; cf. briefly Alleyne, Gold Coast, 78–79; Orr, Awak enings, 162).
31. Noll, Shape, 186.
32. Ibid., 181; Reinhardt, "Movements," 270. For one discussion of this revival in the larger context of other revivals in the preceding decades (esp. Ugandan revivals in 1893 and 1906), see Griffiths, "Fruit,"
234–42.
33. In popular works in English, see, e.g., Anderson, Pelendo (written while both Pelendo and many eyewitnesses remained alive, and including on p. 5 the endorsement of the Evangelical Free Church of America's missions secretary, who also knew Pelendo; more academic, Lygunda li-M, "Pelendo"); others often mention him (e.g., Adewuya, 1–2 Corinthians, 22). Episcopal Bishop Yeremaya of the Sudan was viewed as a prophet because of a correct prediction (Simeon, "Datiro"). Of course, many leaders have far less successful "records" or integrity, and disagreements as to how far to press healing claims raise disputes in Africa as well as elsewhere (cf., e.g., Stinton, Jesus of Africa, 77).
34. Anderson, Pelendo, 131. When he could not stop to pray for one child right away, they wrapped the child in his blanket, and he recovered (133).
35. Ibid., 69–70, 99–100 (though recognizing that not all would be healed), 119–20, 120–22, 124–25,
129–30. Pelendo himself was raised from his deathbed after a vision and regained strength (112–14).
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
ch. 12, Pelendo also claimed to have raised someone apparently already dead.) But while interest in healing existed for some time among Africans in the older churches, sensitivity to African needs has highlighted it in the past half century.36
Among others, Lutherans have a long-standing tradition of healing ministry in Madagascar.37 Mainline churches there have healing services with prayer and exorcism,38 with cures reported for sorcery-associated sicknesses but also others beyond the treatment of Western medicine.39 Among the cures reported are brain tumors, "leukemia, stroke, and advanced mental illness"; while not all are cured,
Malagasy Christians believed in healing.40 Most Presbyterians in Malawi also associate prayer with healing.41 Mennonite missionaries in Burkina Faso observe that most believers in their churches, as elsewhere in Africa, "had come to faith through healing and liberation from evil spirits."42 In Nigeria, by 1969, not only were many being converted through the evangelical Scripture Union but also hospital visitations often resulted in reports of healings.43 While Pentecostal churches circulate many of the healing claims, then, such testimonies are widespread among various movements, some of whose reports appear below.
Various Sample Claims from East and Central Africa Some other sample healing claims in Africa include a child in a Kenyan village, nearly dead but instantly healed after prayer;44 tens of thousands trusting in Jesus in response to the healing of a girl in Jesus's name;45 or the daughter of Swiss church planter Jacques Vernaud, permanently healed of leukemia through prayer at the age of three in Brazzaville, Congo. (I know both Jacques Vernaud and the 36. See Omenyo, "Healing," 238–40, emphasizing on 240 the rejection of the Western radical
Enlightenment paradigm.
37. Rasolondraibe, "Ministry," 347–50. Issues vary geographically; while many Lutherans in Tanzania pray for the sick, many have been attracted instead to non-Lutheran charismatic meetings (Vähäkangas,
"Responses," 163–64; cf. Lugazia, "Movements"); some Lutherans there have welcomed charismatic gifts while others have responded negatively (Mchami, "Gifts," 170–71, urging the welcoming approach).
38. Rasolondraibe, "Ministry," 349.
39. Ibid., 350.
40. Ibid. (particularly emphatic about Lutherans).
41. Ross, "Preaching," 15 (73 percent for Presbyterian pastors; 79 percent for members); percentages are lower for Roman Catholics (30 percent for pastors; 37 percent for members). On Pentecostalism in Malawi, see, e.g., Englund, "Quest" (addressing one issue).
42. Entz, "Encounter," 136. By far the largest Protestant group in Burkina Faso is the Assemblies of God (Laurent, "Transnationalisation," 256), where healings and exorcisms are also claimed (268).
43. Kalu, "Mission," 12–13; Burgess, Revolution, 150, 152. Although Nigerian charismatic origins are not limited to Scripture Union (ibid., 95), the revival in SU heavily shaped early Nigerian charismatics
(ibid., 82, 101–2, 137, 144–45, 148–50, 157–59). In general, while Presbyterians initially opposed the charismatic movement in Nigeria, the massive Anglican church welcomed it (Kalu, "Mission," 17); but the early situation was in many cases more complex (Burgess, Revolution, 93, 98, 185–87). Young, "Miracles in History," 117, cites a Westerner who was in Nigeria in 1966–67 as noting no fewer than six raisings reported at one location.
44. Wimber, Power Evangelism, 18 (noting that his student documented the report).
45. Stearns, Vision, 172, noting Kenya Muslims believing in Jesus's power after her healing in a mosque in Jesus's name.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
daughter in question, with whom I attended college, and she remains alive and well today.46) Africa Inland Church pastor Jackson Mutie Munyao had been taught that miracles do not happen today, but when a dying member of the congregation,
Mutemi Mwinzi, was immediately healed after prayer in 1963, the church began praying for the sick and grew as a result.47
Various testimonies come from Uganda.48 For example, Pastor Solomon Mukonjo reports various healings, including that of his associate pastor who was healed of, among other problems, visual impairment and no longer needs glasses; and another case claiming healing from asthma.49 Pastor Esther Gumikiriza prayed for a member of her church, Halima Namakula, who had "suffered severe bleeding for two years," rendering conception impossible. The "bleeding stopped instantly," and she soon had another child.50
Healings are often reported in Uganda's massive Anglican Church. Onesimus Asiimwe, chaplain to the Anglican archbishop of Uganda, shared with me some accounts of healings in his ministry.51 One includes the disappearance of a cyst from an American song leader's vocal cords after he prayed for her, with obviously positive results for her ministry.52 A mutual friend of ours, Anna Gulick, told me that she planned to receive prayer from him for healing of her sight. Anna, in her nineties, had been virtually completely blind in her right eye for a number of years and had suffered irreversible macular degeneration there. After Onesimus prayed, she had a strange sensation in that eye, and some measure of vision returned to it. While the restoration is only partial as of the time of this writing, the doctor acknowledged that there was no medical explanation for the tested, physical changes in her eye.53
46. Pastor Vernaud was friends with my Congolese father-in-law, who knew of his ministry in healing, and I attended college and was friends with this daughter, Liliane, before I met my future wife or her family;
Jacques Vernaud, now in Kinshasa, also confirmed this account for me in personal correspondence (Aug.
29, 2005), and I talked with father and daughter in person in Kinshasa (July 23, 2008). The daughter had not received medical treatment in Europe because from a purely medical standpoint her survival seemed hopeless.
47. Wagner, "World," 92–93.
48. Cf. the boy whose bleeding stopped after prayer, though the bullet still had to be removed surgically
(Eshleman, Jesus, 86–87). Kassimir, "Politics," 261–62, also notes popular Catholic healing and exorcism addressing witchcraft in Uganda (though the church leadership in Africa is sometimes uncomfortable with this approach; see Spear and Kimambo, "Revival," 245–46).
49. Sample Church of God testimonies sent to me by Douglas LeRoy, director of World Mission for Church of God (personal correspondence, Nov. 9, 2009).
50. Among testimonies sent to me by Douglas LeRoy (personal correspondence, Nov. 9, 2009).
51. Onesimus Asiimwe, interview, Oct. 13, 2008, e.g., noting the restoration of Henry Mugsha, though this included medical intervention. Onesimus also shared sample stories of healings of infertility (esp. a couple for whom he prayed in 1996) and his own instant healing of stomach ulcers at his conversion on Jan.
8, 1988, which ulcers never returned. He has also shared other healing testimonies subsequently, including from his ministry to people in the United States (e.g., in correspondence on April 4, 2009; May 2, 2009).
52. Onesimus Asiimwe, personal correspondence, May 2, 2009 (copying the correspondence he received after the song leader's doctor noted that the cyst was gone); May 27, 2009.
53. Anna Gulick, personal correspondence (April 19, 23, 24, 25, 2010; June 10, 11, 12; July 31; Sept.
4, 9, 2010). She provided documentation from her doctors; the inexplicable changes were noted, in
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
Likewise, Anglican bishop Nathan Kyamanywa, whose diocese includes more than four hundred thousand persons, notes that in his earlier days his life was changed radically when a visiting evangelist felt led to pray for someone with a long-term, medically incurable problem in the right leg. A man whose leg was swollen, with a smelly septic wound oozing pus, came forward hesitantly. As the evangelist, Nathan, and the other priests prayed for him, the man felt warmth and his pain stopped; within a week the swelling was gone. Until the man's death more than eight years later the illness never recurred.54 Bishop Nathan himself experienced a heart attack in early 2009. After detailed tests at the main hospital in the capital, the doctor noted that he was surprised that Bishop Nathan had survived his heart attack. The doctors in Kampala provided the best treatment that they could but insisted that he needed further treatment outside Uganda.
Despite its medical urgency, his visa to the United Kingdom was delayed; Anna Gulick informed me that during this time Bishop Nathan sounded very weak, even weaker than she had during her own earlier heart attacks. Thousands of people were praying not only for his visa but also for his heart, and some felt very certain that God was going to give him a new heart. When he was finally able to travel to London, testing showed that his heart was completely healthy, with no evidence that he had had a heart attack to begin with.55
Reports of various cures abound in various denominations elsewhere in east and central Africa. From 1972 to 1975, Edmond John, younger brother of Tanzania's
Anglican archbishop, had a remarkable healing ministry, leading to many conversions, including those of many Muslims.56 A Southern Baptist missionary was astonished by the immediate and full recovery of two dying Tanzanians for whom he prayed, multiplying receptivity to the evangelism crusade then underway.57 After a Western psychiatrist prayed for a man in Madagascar completely crippled with clear, "severe, advanced ankylosing spondylitis," the man was ultimately restored and even dancing.58 A Rwandan woman unable to speak for a year was suddenly different ways, both by her eye doctor (a macular degeneration specialist; July 6, 2010; April 15, 2011) and her optometrist (June 10, 2010), and warranted a new prescription that included her previously blind eye (Aug. 26, 2010; documentation from her optometrist dated March 10, 2008; Aug. 26, 2010). By our correspondence of Aug. 28, 31; Sept. 3, 2010, she was able to read (laboriously) with her previously blind eye, with improvements progressing (Oct. 30, 2010; Jan. 11; April 15; May 25; June 11, 2011).
54. Bishop Nathan Kyamanywa, personal correspondence, Nov. 15, 27, 2010; first brought to my attention through Anna Gulick, Oct. 11, 2010.
55. Bishop Nathan Kyamanywa, personal correspondence, Sept. 2, 2009; Anna Gulick, personal correspondence, Aug. 23, 2009; cf. Aug. 24–25. I have omitted many details for the sake of space.
56. McGavran, "Healing," 73. For healings in a popular Catholic movement in Tanzania (albeit without the church hierarchy's approval), see discussions in Comoro and Sivalon, "Ministry," 282, 286–87;
Wilkins, "Mary and Demons."
57. Knapp, Thunder, 189–91. This Southern Baptist publication notes other healings as well (e.g.,
188–92). Many others, who were not healed, proved models of dedication (199–200). For prayer for the sick and exorcism in many Protestant lay fellowships in Tanzania, see Mlahagwa, "Contending," 304.
58. Wilson, "Miracle Events," 272–73. He cannot confirm exactly when the full healing occurred, but knows that the man remained well two years later. He also knows that this disease cannot be cured without medical intervention and that no such intervention occurred (ibid., 278).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
and completely healed in a Pentecostal revival meeting, now able to pray loudly without pain.59 Bishop John Mumba in the Central African Republic reported a number of healings there, among them a dying child restored to health and the healing of a foot condition so that the planned surgery was canceled.60
In Ethiopia, 83 percent of believers surveyed in a Lutheran (Mekane Yesus) church attributed their conversions to healings and exorcisms.61 Mennonite churches in Ethiopia (Meserete Kristos) also report experiencing many miracles.62 During a period of persecution, Genet Lulseged Kumsa, a Mekane Yesus believer who had been beaten so badly that she could not walk, came for prayer to a Meserete Kristos church. Daniel Mekonnen prayed, and Genet felt such an electrical surge course through her that she announced that all the pain was gone.63 Among healings reported at such times were "cancer, paralysis, blindness, asthma."64 Although healing was most common among believers, many nonbelievers were also healed; MKC evangelist Daniel Mekonnen explained the latter as love healings rather than faith healings—God healing by love rather than believer's faith. Thus on one occasion an atheist attended with a severely painful leg; when the evangelist announced that God wanted to heal a painful leg, the atheist was shocked, was healed, and became a believer.65 The church became known through many healings.66 In the early days of ministry in Wollega, people who saw healings and exorcisms discarded charms; many continue to be healed at the Mennonite church there.67 Many were healed through individuals from various movements, like Regassa Feysa; these included a paralytic, a schizophrenic boy, those believed possessed by spirits, and others.68
Although remaining quite active in ministry both in Ethiopia and in the United States, Pastor Daniel Mekonnen kindly spoke with me about his forty years of ministry, about which I had read samples. After preaching, he prays for the sick; those reported healed include persons who were blind or deaf or unable to walk, those with cancer, and so forth. In most cases, healings are visible; when they are not, he tells healed persons that they must get confirmation from the doctor before they are allowed to give their public testimony. His ministry in Ethiopia is now collecting for a book testimonies written by many of those who have been healed, to be published in Amharic and subsequently in English.69
59. Among reports sent to me by Douglas LeRoy, Nov. 9, 2009.
60. Among reports sent to me by Douglas LeRoy, Nov. 9, 2009.
61. McGavran, "Healing," 75.
62. They are expected, as are power encounters (Hege, Prayers, 244). That many miracles occur there is also the observation of Sharon Kraybill (personal conversation, May 26, 2009; Nov. 10, 2009); Sharon was a Western Mennonite missionary there.
63. Hege, Prayers, 179.
64. Ibid., 170.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid., 199.
67. Ibid., 227–28.
68. E.g., Menberu, "Regassa Feysa"; idem, "Mekonnen Negera."
69. Daniel Mekonnen, phone interview, Dec. 10, 2009. The testimonies will provide medical documentation where possible but, as he noted, this is often not possible in Ethiopia, even (for example)
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
Ethiopian evangelist Gebru Woldu has ministered in perhaps fifty countries and offers numerous accounts of healings and other miracles.70 For example, he notes that he prayed for a woman with a gangrenous leg that no medicine could cure; when he met her the next week, he learned that it healed the day he prayed for her.71
Evangelist Woldu testifies that, even if he witnessed the healing himself, to screen out potential problems (such as cultists and those who would come to discredit them), his ministry allows public testimonies only from reliable persons whose healings could be confirmed by relatives and physicians. After sharing a meal and varied conversation, I pulled out some paper and began asking Gebru questions about his experiences. He began by affirming that he merely prays, and that it is
God who either heals or does not heal people.
He then shared with me stories of instantaneous healings of blindness and other ailments, some of which are recounted later in this book. He illustrated the points extensively with other individual cases, including a Western doctor instantly healed of a dislocated shoulder and a Western lawyer instantly and completely cured of a hip bone problem. He recounted that people who had tested HIV-positive and were already sick were healed; he said that new tests (on which he always insisted before they could testify) revealed a negative status, including two persons he identified in the West.72 A child with liver cancer in a pediatrics hospital in Brisbane, Australia, was dying for lack of a transplant, but a week after prayer arrived at church well. Most often he has witnessed the instant disappearance of goiters and the healing of back problems (some of the latter having prevented walking).73
I could continue to summarize reports from various locations but here wish to recount some claims in somewhat greater detail. When in the summer of 2006 I asked my students in Kenya if any of them had witnessed a dramatic healing, one,
Bernard Luvutse, told me of his younger sister when they were children. Paralyzed in her legs, she was dragging herself on the ground for more than a year. Hearing for a blind person. Pastor Mekonnen also referred me to Mennonite missionaries who would know about events of the revival in Ethiopia from 1978 to 1981.
70. E.g., a baby in the wrong position before birth, which would have required medical intervention, who shifted into the right position (Woldu, Gifts, 157); this also happened to my wife in Congo in 1997
(her journal, Aug. 29–Sept. 1, 1997: notified that the baby was in the wrong position, she felt the position shifting after prayer, and the next day ultrasound confirmed the shift; others report prenatal healings, e.g., Schiappacasse, Heals, 27–28, 54). Doctors in a Japanese hospital were reportedly surprised when a woman's toxemia was healed through his ministry (142). For summaries, see, e.g., 141, 157. He has also kindly corresponded with me (including Jan. 28, 2010). Although he has left where the documentation was kept, he noted that his ministry counted publicly only those many cases verified by physicians (personal correspondence, Feb. 5, 2010).
71. Woldu, Gifts, 140.
72. One of these instances, in Melbourne, was so astonishing that a particular reporter from a local news station came to interview the person, but apparently lost interest once the man testified that Jesus had healed him.
73. Interview, May 20, 2010; personal correspondence, Feb. 5, 2010. Although I had not warned him of any of my questions in advance, he provided full descriptions of whatever I asked him, and I have condensed these interesting accounts into summaries here. I have experienced Gebru as a very humble, self-effacing, caring, and sincere person.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
about an evangelist who was going to pray for the sick, the mother put the girl on her back and walked a great distance, crossing even a difficult river. Because they had prayed before, the discouraged father had no hope that the outcome would be different this time. Nevertheless, during the week after the prayer, the girl began to recover fully, and now, after thirty years, she continues to walk well.74
Bruce Collins is a leader in an international, interdenominational renewal group called New Wine, originally based in the Anglican Church. He told me of a young orphan in Ekwanda, Meseno District, western Kenya, where his group cares for some orphans. The boy was perhaps 90 percent blind, needing to be led around and unable to see even fingers held up in front of his face. After about ten minutes of prayer, he could count all ten fingers even ten meters away; after ten more minutes, he could see them thirty meters away. (That is better than my eyesight without glasses, by the way.) Bruce witnessed the healing himself, and when he returned that evening he nearly wept as he saw the boy playing football for the first time.75
Lidetu Kefenie, a doctoral student at our university and a professor in Ethiopia, noted that he had witnessed healings associated with prayer (such as a healed limp), including one in his own family. For two years, his wife's back pain steadily grew worse until it became difficult for her to move, especially at night. One night, when the pain was unbearable, he prayed a simple prayer and the pain vanished instantly; she sat up and showed that she was better. He was astonished and advised that they would see if it was still better in the morning. Not only the next morning but in the months that followed before he shared his report with me, the back trouble was gone.76
Likewise, my close and trusted friend Melesse Woldetsadik not only described to me but also provided me with recent clips from the ministry of a friend and coworker of his, Pastor Dawit Molalegn of Faith Baptist Church, Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia. In one of these clips, an older woman who had apparently been carried to the service made her way forward slowly on crutches, in obvious pain. After a brief prayer, she began walking unaided, quickly gaining confidence and apparently lacking any pain. This was no momentary burst of emotion; the clip includes a couple of minutes of her continued walking and praising God. She testified that she had been injured in a car accident on October 19, 2005, a couple years earlier when she came to town to visit her children, and that she had now been healed.77
Another of the clips involved a girl who had been healed of a severe heart disorder and was now testifying about the healing. She wept as she shared how
74. Bernard Luvutse, personal correspondence, Aug. 17, 2006. Cf. the knee healing in Kenya reported in Marszalek, Miracles, 158.
75. Bruce Collins, phone interview, April 11, 2009. He also noted that the child remains healthy; though hundreds of the orphans are HIV-positive, including this one, at the time of our interview only one had died since January 2005.
76. Lidetu Alemu Kefenie, interview, Sept. 30, 2010; personal correspondence, Oct. 1, 2010.
77. Pastor Dawit Molalegn, Atsheber DVD 2 (the fifth track). Melesse, a graduate of Columbia
Biblical Seminary, noted that supernatural phenomena also occurred when he was present but pointed me to these clips so that I could see examples myself.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
she had seen other children running and playing, yet she was unable to do so. She wondered why God did not hear her prayers, but her mother assured her that it would happen eventually. She could not run, lacked an appetite to eat, and could not even hold a cup because her hands were weak; she said she was receiving twelve injections a day. Normally the only available medical cure for her heart condition, insofar as one may understand it based on her limited description, would be a transplant or surgery, which she presumably could not afford.78 She received prayer on March 6, 2007, and went to her scheduled checkup three days later. Astonished at what they discovered, the doctors declared her now healthy and stopped all medication. Since then she had been able to eat, run, and play normally and had returned to school.79
Friends of Melesse's brother Tadesse, also my trusted friend, gave him permission to share with me their story of healing when Pastor Dawit prayed, and they provided medical documentation. The fertility doctor explained that Tariku
Kebede Woldeyes and his wife, Adanech Negash Tesema, who had moved to the United States, would not be able to have a pregnancy, and the medical condition is clearly documented in the material that they sent me.80 Pastor Dawit prayed for them, noted their specific physical problem, and declared that within a year, the wife would become pregnant. After the wife became pregnant, they returned to the fertility doctor and nurse, who confirmed that this was beyond normal natural expectations.81 Yabsira Kebede Tariku was born October 19, 2009, at about 1:20 p.m., in WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina.82
Various Sample Claims from West and Southern Africa Joshua Obeng of Kumasi, Ghana, shared with me two stories from his family.
The first involves his sister Eunice, who was given two weeks to live when she was eight and Joshua was ten. Their mother held her and prayed for her for about a week, after which Eunice vomited and then felt all right. About two weeks before I spoke with Joshua, Eunice married a university professor in the United Kingdom. The second account depends especially on the recollections of Joshua's mother, which Joshua acquired from her. When Joshua was two, he bumped into the stove, and a 78. I owe this parenthetical evaluation to Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009.
79. Pastor Dawit Molalegn, Atsheber DVD 2 (the eighth track).
80. Tadesse Woldetsadik, with information and medical documentation from Tariku Kebede Woldeyes and Adanech Negash Tesema, personal correspondence, Sept. 28, 2009; follow-up correspondence, Oct.
1, 2009; Oct. 17, 2009 (twice). The medical reports from 2006 and 2007 document 99 percent abnormal spermatozoa, with 0 percent rapid progressive motility; the 2009 pregnancy is thoroughly documented.
Although they are Ethiopian, they were married in Yemen, and the events described here took place mostly in the United States (also the source of the medical documentation).
81. They wrote out their conversation during the interview with the doctor (the nurse who had worked with them serving as interpreter); a copy of this transcript is among the twelve pages of material they provided me.
82. Tadesse Woldetsadik, personal correspondence, Oct. 30, 2009, with a copy of the child's birth certificate; follow-up correspondence, Nov. 1, 2009. "Yabsira" is Amharic for "the father's work," i.e., in this case, "the work that God has done."
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
pot of boiling water spilled on him, burning his scalp and scalding him over most of his body. He hit the ground so hard that it affected his brain so that he could not speak. Most medical help available in Kumasi at that time was not adequate, and where he lay on the bedsheets his skin would stick to them.
Two Ghanaian doctors and a British doctor concluded that even if Joshua recovered, he would be so abnormal that he would never walk properly, would shake, and would talk dysfunctionally. His mother refused to accept this and prayed for him day and night, yet at the end of the week he remained in the same condition.
At this time, feeling that God spoke to her in a dream, she checked Joshua out of the hospital, though the doctors insisted that it would kill him. Medically, they would have been right had she been wrong in this case; burns this severe create a tremendous risk of infection and dehydration.83 Two days later, he began talking, and within about two months his body began healing. He showed me one spot where a scar remains, but his head shows no signs of the injury, and he has no impairments.84
Larger evangelism crusades have also provided a context for some healing reports. Missiologists report that during the evangelism crusades of Jacques Giraud in Côte d'Ivoire in March 1973, disabled people discarded crutches and blind people claimed sight. Giraud had not witnessed many healings before this time but found that in this setting, as he preached Christ, supernatural things happened. Various denominations welcomed his ministry around the country, and some government officials were healed (for example, one whose leg had been paralyzed). As a result, even government officials organized more meetings, and entire villages were converted. The emphasis was evangelism; the vast majority of those healed were Muslims or belonged to traditional tribal religions.85 Reportedly, fifteen thousand people were healed during these ten months.86 One could cite many individual examples from evangelistic crusades in the same decade.87
When Bishop Darlington Johnson was growing up in a Presbyterian family in Liberia, a car accident claimed the life of his aunt and left his two older sisters in 83. Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009.
84. Joshua Obeng, interview, Jan. 28, 2009; Joshua told me of a book that his mother wrote detailing the incidents with both himself and his sister. For the healing of other severe burns, see, e.g., Chevreau, Turnings,
143–44. The case elsewhere of the cure of seriously burned, eight-month-old Jaewoo Lee (receiving prayer on Jan. 28, 2006) over the course of some three weeks (http://www.wcdn.org/wcdn_eng/case
/case_content.asp?id=46&page=2; accessed May 6, 2009) is intriguing but could be understood as part of a natural healing process (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, May 28, 2009).
85. Wagner, "World," 98–100 (following the report of C&MA missionary there, Don Young); De Wet,
"Signs," 93–94 (following McGavran, "Healing and Evangelization," 294–96); Devadason, "Missionary
Societies," 187–88; Wimber, Power Evangelism, 178–80. On these sorts of healings, see further ch. 12.
Pentecostal church growth in Côte d'Ivoire was greater in the 1990s (Newell, "Witchcraft," 468), with as much as 11 percent of the nation specifically affiliated with charismatic churches by the end of the decade
(Newell, "Witchcraft," 490n1; figures are lower in Johnstone and Mandryk, Operation World, 209; also
Mandryk, Operation World, 285).
86. Wagner, "World," 100.
87. Such as Stewart, Only Believe, 149–50 (from which I have cited only an individual account below).
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
a coma for weeks. When Darlington's mother prayed, she experienced what she took to be God's audible voice, and the sisters' miraculous recovery helped shape
Darlington's subsequent emphasis on prayer.88
Likewise, healing reports are frequent in southern Africa. A noncharismatic European researcher reported on many healings in connection with a revival among the Zulu people of South Africa in the 1970s.89 Among others, these included a number of cases where deafness and muteness were cured,90 people being healed who had been dying,91 and some claims regarding blindness and paralysis to be surveyed in chapter 12. De Wet conducted interviews with members of the Apostolic Faith Mission in South Africa, noting again that the blind saw and the lame walked; healing campaigns produced church growth.92 Already in the midtwentieth century, many miracles were attributed to (among others) the Zulu evangelist William Duma, including raising a girl from the dead.93 Richard Ngidi, a Zulu layman, felt burdened for the needs in his region and after forty days of prayer and fasting reported that he began to see miracles; he and his colleagues now plant churches in conjunction with healing campaigns.94 Many Hindus in South Africa have become Baptists as a result of healings, such as the instant healing of a mute girl after prayer.95 My friend Rodney Ragwan shared with me that many people were healed when prayed for by his grandfather Kisten Ragwan, an Indian Baptist tailor in South Africa. In one case a Hindu who had suffered for eight months severe stomach problems, cured neither by doctors nor traditional healers, was instantly healed when Kisten prayed for him. The man was so convinced that he became a Christian.96
The most massive response numerically has been to the healing campaigns of Reinhard Bonnke, a German minister based in (but not limited to) South Africa.97
88. Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 329.
89. Koch, Zulus, passim, e.g., 71–85, 90–105, 140; often these occurred in connection with repentance or conversion, e.g., 97, 140, 175–76, 177–78, 178–79, 203, 290. Reflecting a common approach in its era, at a number of points the ethnic perspective of the book is objectionable (though elsewhere sympathetic); while supporting cross-ethnic ministry that took place and human equality in Christ, it is largely apolitical.
90. Koch, Zulus, 80–84 (four cases, three of them siblings on 81–82); muteness in 146–48, 196.
91. Ibid., 72, 197; cf. 80.
92. De Wet, "Signs," 94–95. Johan Engelbrecht in Wagner, "World," 104, notes that the first person for whose healing he prayed was "a chronic stutterer"; completely healed, the man became a well-known evangelist. Note the extensive ministry of Assemblies of God Zulu evangelist Nicholas Bhengu, e.g., in Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 126–39, esp. 129, 131. Bhengu and others would start preaching in an unevangelized area, and as people would be healed the community would open to the gospel (Bhengu, "South
Africa," cited in McGee, Miracles, 219, 316). Bhengu influenced many (Poewe, "Nature," 6).
93. Deere, Power of Spirit, 123–24 (citing Garnett, Duma, 40ff.). For the context of one Zulu spiritual leader's recovery and healing activity in the early twentieth century, see Draper, "Land."
94. Johan Engelbrecht in Wagner, "World," 101–2.
95. Knapp, Thunder, 191–92.
96. Rodney Ragwan, interview, Dec. 17, 2009, based on his deliberate inquiry from his father,
Raymond Ragwan, on my behalf on Dec. 16.
97. De Wet, "Signs," 95–98; Johan Engelbrecht in Wagner, "World," 102–3; Heron, Channels,
113; Cutrer, "Miracle." Synan, Voices, 26, notes that today Bonnke's crusades draw tens of millions
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
One of Bonnke's videos includes testimony from persons who were cured and from those who knew them both before and after their healings. In most cases, Bonnke told people in the crowds to lay hands on themselves; he attributes the healings to Jesus rather than to himself. Many of his cases on this video involve Nigeria. Daniel
Attah, for example, had been deaf and mute for years after an accident but was overwhelmed with light during prayer for healing and suddenly was able to speak.98
Another account involves Matthew Kolawole, whose migraines grew worse until he was blinded, suffering this affliction for about a year until his instant and permanent healing during prayer for healing on June 19, 2000.99 Bernard Ozor claims to have been healed after about ten years of severe pain, after an injury sustained by carrying an excessively heavy load.100 Bonnke's associate, Daniel Kolenda, reports that in one recent crusade with reportedly 280,000 in attendance, he prayed for three children, all blind, and all three received their sight instantly. The next day,
Kolenda's team verified all the details in the family's village.101
Although my direct experience is admittedly extremely limited, I lack reason to doubt that Bonnke's ministry offers only reports that they believe to be true.
This is not least because I trust the judgment of some others, including my friend
Dr. Michael Brown, a Hebrew Bible scholar (and commentator on Jeremiah for the revised Expositor's Bible Commentary), who is very close to Daniel Kolenda;
Kolenda works closely with Bonnke in his crusades. I also trust Daniel Kolenda, with whom I have also corresponded a number of times; he has offered as much help as possible and invited me to visit the meetings in person (unfortunately not yet in my travel budget). Likewise, Professor William Wilson was part of a group that invited Bonnke to a meeting in the United States, where he claims that he also witnessed blind people seeing and lame people walking.102 It is impossible for evangelists in large crusades to confirm all claims individually, so noting the existence of claims does not rule out the possibility that some individual claims might not withstand scrutiny even if the leaders work with full integrity. Nevertheless, I have no reason to doubt that they are recounting events that they have witnessed and that they have done their best to confirm a number of cases.
("3.4 million decision cards" in a single week). Josiah Mataika of Fiji shared with me his eyewitness experience of healings at one of these crusades (interview, Jan. 29, 2009). Critics charge that "disabled people returned the next day to find the crutches they had so readily abandoned" (May, "Miracles,"
151, citing a media report), but it is not clear whether they followed up positive cases. May, "Miracles,"
152, did find significant exaggerations in one claim that he investigated, but the original source of the exaggerations is not clear.
98. Miracle Investigation, track 1, providing copious details.
99. Miracle Investigation (again providing other witnesses and details).
100. Ibid. (presenting supporting testimony from his brother).
101. An update from Bonnke's ministry regarding the Nsukka/Nigeria crusade on Oct. 9, 2008, including photos, forwarded to me on Nov. 15, 2008, with further details from my friend Dr. Michael Brown, who notes that he knows Kolenda quite well.
102. Wilson, "Miracle Events," 277. Wilson depends on the claimants' behavior and testimonies, but it strains credibility to suppose that Bonnke planted all these people in another country, in a meeting organized not by himself but by Wilson's group.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
Examples in Nigeria Healings are commonly reported in Nigeria in a range of church settings.103 These are common in evangelistic contexts; to take just one prominent ministry in the south as an example, Geoffrey Numbere has witnessed many healings.104 My close friend Danny McCain, founder of the International Institute for Christian Studies and a lecturer at the University of Jos in Nigeria, knows this minister well and introduced his story to me.105 Early in Numbere's ministry he laid hands on a man who was dying in bed and prayed for him. The man immediately rose from his bed, fully well, generating significant attention for Numbere's Christian message in this area.106 Soon after this incident he visited a dying woman who could have been saved medically only through a heart transplant. Unfortunately the transplant was not available, and she could not have afforded it anyway; meanwhile, her legs were swollen and her breathing labored. Numbere prayed, and in a matter of seconds she sat up, fully recovered. She checked herself out of the hospital and went home, with many coming to visit her and learning of God's power.107
Numbere reports numerous examples from his subsequent ministry as well. A midwife continuously bleeding since an operation on her womb was dying, and when he prayed for her, she was healed and lived for fifteen more years, without this problem returning.108 A boy who was born deaf was instantly healed at age fifteen.109
Others began being healed instantly as even the team members' shadows touched them.110 Henderson Jumbo's fractured spine was healed even without special prayer, during worship; documentation supports his claim.111 The former chief judge of 103. With, e.g., Dr. Danny McCain, personal correspondence, June 1, 2009; Dr. Gary Maxey, personal correspondence, May 26, 2009. Note Igbo experience in Chinwokwu, "Localizing," 18–19.
104. Numbere, Vision, passim. The book recounts (e.g., 65, 130–32, 167, 210, 443–44) and summarizes
(e.g., 61, 63, 99, 130–31, 134, 185, 192, 210, 213, 233, 414) many other miracles associated with his ministry. See especially the summary of healing services on 415–16 (noting on 416 that many are reported in more detail in their magazine): "Broken bones have been mended, paralytics, epileptics, the blind, the deaf, the lame and many others have been healed; including those with heart and liver diseases. One of the latter cases was a medical doctor." On other occasions, Numbere made use of more natural means of health restoration when available (230, 293, 345). The book's author, Numbere's wife, is a medical doctor as well as a pastor.
105. Danny McCain (personal correspondence, July 11, 2009), noting that he is "a very good friend and a very credible witness." Having lived and worked with Danny for three summers in Nigeria, I have full confidence in his integrity and judgment; he is well respected by both Christians (of all denominations) and Muslims in Nigeria.
106. Numbere, Vision, 61.
107. Ibid., 62–63. In these early cases, Numbere had visions and healings but did not speak in tongues until some years later (120–21).
108. Ibid., 122–23.
109. Ibid., 213. He was also healed of the inability to speak.
110. Ibid. (including hernia with swelling; a case of gonorrhea for many years; restoration of menstruation).
111. Ibid., 415. Because the relationship with Jumbo has continued, Apostle Numbere's wife, Nonyem, a medical doctor, was able to provide me with more information, especially Jumbo's own testimony of the immediate healing, in Jumbo, "Healed" (including photographs of him in traction and then a body cast before the healing, and his well state since that time; with personal correspondence, Jan. 6, 13, 2010).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Rivers State, Justice Koripamo D. Ungbuku, "was healed of a shaking palsy of the right hand," although he had previously suffered this affliction for three years.112
Likewise during one of Apostle Numbere's crusades, in January 1981, a medical student's ulcerated arm, about to be amputated the next day, was healed, to his own initial astonishment;113 in this case I was able to confirm the story with one of the eyewitnesses, Tonye Briggs, his fellow medical student at the time and now a medical doctor located in Texas.114 Tonye noted that the wound had been about 10 to 15 centimeters (more than four inches) wide and very deep; because it continually oozed fluids, the bandage had to be changed every night. The wound closed up overnight after prayer, and nothing but a small black spot remained on the site. The entire campus saw it and was shaken, and Tonye witnessed the event himself.115
Tonye noted that many miracles followed, some of which he witnessed directly. He knew one man who was unable to chew properly since two of his teeth had been removed, but during the crusade, he discovered two new teeth, even matching his other teeth in color. (The man went on to medical school himself and now pastors a large church in Trinidad.) One of Tonye's own patients when he was a junior doctor at the hospital (something like residency here) had such a serious condition that the gynecologist, Dr. Membre, had to perform a bilateral tubal ligation, removing the tubes. The woman prayed during Apostle Numbere's monthly healing meetings there, and three months later Tonye was present when
Dr. Membre found her pregnant. Having removed the tubes himself, he could only concede, "Your God is great." After the child's birth, a hysterosalpingogram, a sort of X-ray using dyes, confirmed that the woman indeed had two healthy tubes;
Tonye witnessed this test himself, and the woman had other children afterward.116
Other churches, such as the rapidly growing, indigenous Redeemed Christian Church of God, retain healing as a core emphasis and offer a variety of healing testimonies.117 Healing also remains an emphasis in the massive Deeper Life Bible
112. Numbere, Vision, 415.
113. Ibid., 246–47. The student's name was Martins Okokowre (Ikokobe), healed Jan. 11, 1981, and the doctors he worked with recognized it as undeniable; though Dr. Tonye Briggs tells me that one simply called it a "spontaneous healing," the medical students knew it was a miracle (phone interview, Dec. 16, 2009).
114. Dr. Tonye Briggs, phone interviews, Dec. 14, 16, 2009. He directs a mission called Doctors on Missions, U.S.A., which brings medical help to people in areas with less access to it.
115. Dr. Tonye Briggs, phone interview, Dec. 16, 2009.
116. Dr. Tonye Briggs, phone interview, Dec. 16, 2009; he also noted a similar healing, a woman's pregnancy after her hysterectomy, of which he knew during this time but did not witness directly. I have chosen to recount the case where he was an eyewitness. Concern for infertility runs high among African women and is naturally a central object of ministry in AICs (e.g., Zimbabwean prophetesses in Chitando,
"Prophetesses," 7); it was also an emphasis of a Catholic charismatic woman in Nigeria (Csordas, "Global
Perspective," 341), though she fell from favor with the establishment (341–42); and in other African
Protestant testimonies (e.g., Koch, Zulus, 84–85; Baker, Miracles, 152; Jeanne Mabiala, interview, July 29,
2008; Onesimus Asiimwe, interview, Oct. 13, 2008).
117. Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 354, 355; cf. the introduction to Adeboye with Mfon, "Preparing,"
204. Some examples of testimonies appear in Our God Reigns, the program book for the Redeemed Christian
Church of God's Holy Ghost Congress, Dec. 14–19, 2009 (pp. 35–38), shared with me by Pastor James
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
Church.118 Likewise, healings of young people opened doors for Emmanuel Okorie's ministry in both Nigeria and the United States.119 From a different source, some may find interesting one memorable if highly unusual story. In this account, a Nigerian Muslim insisted to an evangelist that God showed him that God would heal his deaf wife if the evangelist would spit in her ear (perhaps evoking Mark 7:33;
John 9:6; or some traditional African practices).120 Initially unwilling but finally acquiescing to the hefty supplicant's demands, the evangelist spit in her ear. She was healed (the evangelist attributing this entirely to God responding to her and her husband's faith), and the Muslim became a well-known Christian preacher.121
My colleague in Hebrew Bible, Emmanuel Itapson, from the Evangelical Church of West Africa, shared with me the recovery of his sister Ladi Anana, whom I knew and respected from my visits to Nigeria. She had a growth in her abdomen that grew to a significant size, causing painful pressure, and doctors took X-rays. Much prayer was being offered for her, and when she went for surgery they noticed that they could not feel the growth. Although the situation was highly irregular, they decided to check her again; they found nothing, and her pain and pressure had instantly disappeared. The money for surgery was even refunded.122 This is not the first extraordinary experience in Emmanuel's immediate family; I will recount a nature miracle in chapter 12 and mention another case of health against the odds in chapter 14, and there are other incidents regarding his father, Ladi, and others that I am not recounting. Some readers might dismiss one extraordinary occurrence as simply an anomaly, but when such experiences happen more often in the same circle, one might wish to look for some common factors.
From my own circle of acquaintances, I contacted also my friend Leo Bawa, former director of research at Capro (a prominent Nigerian missions movement), currently a PhD student at Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, because I knew from past discussion that he would have stories from his own ministry. In his response,123 he pointed out that all "life in Africa is a miracle," and Africans have to depend on miracles regularly. He works with widows, orphans, the elderly, and Fadele; see further http://www.rccg.org. Others have commented even on the movement's expansion in the West (e.g., Adeboye, "Running"); it has branches in 110 nations (Shaw, Awakening, 162, 172), and is estimated to be planting five to ten churches a day (Wagner, "Introduction: Africa," 14); for its growth, see also Clarke, "Wine," 151.
118. Shaw, Kingdom, 261–62.
119. Burgess, Revolution, 183.
120. In African traditional religion, see Evans-Pritchard, Religion, 308; for a reported healing through saliva in Simon Kimbangu's ministry, see, e.g., Rabey, "Prophet," 32. There are also ancient Mediterranean examples, with the case of Vespasian being most noted (Tacitus Hist. 4.81; Suetonius Vesp. 7.2–3); cf. ancient folk cures in Pliny Nat. 28.7.35–37; 28.22.76; in ancient Egyptian magic, see Ritner, Mechanics,
73–92; perhaps relevant in this case, cf. Ritner, Mechanics, 92, on a similar practice in Islam.
121. Stewart, Only Believe, 149–50 (himself the evangelist and eyewitness). He recounts this story because it is unusual, not because it was the only healing noted on that occasion.
122. Emmanuel Itapson, phone interview, Dec. 17, 2009. The incident was known both to the doctors directly involved and to those among Emmanuel's relatives.
123. This section is based on Leo Bawa, personal correspondence, Aug. 10, 2009.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
other impoverished people who cannot afford hospitals. While advocating hospitals and medicine where available, he notes that many people lack such resources, so God's power to heal is the "better alternative to millions of people in this part of the world." Though noting that he was not able to collect as many firsthand accounts for me as he wished, due to communication difficulties, he supplied nine pages, from which I take the following examples. Leo notes that these are only samples and summarizes, "By God's grace I have seen God healing all kinds of diseases and sicknesses by his power: malaria, pains and aches, cancer, depression, bones; and the dead brought back to life."
Road accidents are common in Nigeria, and he mentioned two examples of these. One believer he had mentored, Boniface, was driving on Rukuba Road in Jos in July 2002 when in an accident his car somersaulted and crashed into rocks below in the river.124 He remained unconscious for months, and the doctors expected him to need medical care for the rest of his life in the unlikely event that he recovered; yet after several believers prayed for him, he recovered quickly and fully, so that today one would not even know that he had suffered an accident. Elijah
Amah had a motorcycle accident in July 2008 and was run over by a pickup truck.
Many people believed that he was dead, and doctors again felt that if he survived he would need medical attention all his life. When Leo and a friend laid hands on him, they felt peace that he would recover; he recovered quickly and, as in the case of Boniface, no one today would know that he had an accident. In both cases, the doctors believed that the recoveries involved miracles, and relatives and neighbors were so amazed at the recoveries that some became believers.
He reports numerous incidents of women who after years of being unable to bear children now were able to bear.125 Among other unexpected acts of grace, he experienced divine help during earlier research travels (travels that we sometimes discussed some years ago). "For example," he noted, "among some tribes in Adamawa and Taraba State, I had instances where no interpreter was available and the Lord gave me understanding and ability to speak the people's languages, a feat I never performed before or since after that incident." (Other accounts of this phenomenon exist, though many of these are secondhand.126) In chapter 12, I will recount Leo's eyewitness experience of the raising of a boy believed to be dead.
124. I have been on this road (in the summers of 1998–2000) and, though not yet knowing Boniface's story, as a Westerner sometimes contemplated the dangers if one were to have an accident over the river.
Unremoved wreckage on the riverside by some roads' bridges offered travelers somber enough warnings.
125. Although I do not elaborate these because they are of less interest to many Western readers, they address concerns that are central in African society (reported elsewhere, e.g., Anderson, Pelendo, 122–25).
126. I have direct accounts in which others recognized the languages from Dr. Derek Morphew (Nov.
12, 2007); Pastor David Workman (April 30, 2008); Dr. Médine Moussounga Keener (Aug. 12, 2009, secondhand about Pastor Daniel Ndoundou); my student Leah Macinskas-Le (April 25, 2010, regarding her Jewish mother becoming a believer in Jesus because she understood the Hebrew prayer of an uneducated pastor's prayer in tongues); Del Tarr, personal correspondence, Sept. 30, 2010 (noting three cases he has witnessed, including a recent one involving Korean; cf. also Oct. 5, 6, 2010). In written sources, see Tarr, Foolishness, 401–3 (about ten cases, some with considerable supporting evidence, especially cases where Tarr, a linguist, was one of the eyewitnesses); Prather, Miracles, 166–71 (an eyewitness
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
My student Benjamin Ahanonu shared with me accounts of various healings and other dramatic events.127 On one occasion here in the United States, during a period when we were discussing miracles in the Acts class he was taking with me, he was called to pray for a friend's wife. X-rays showed that her neck had been fractured when someone rear-ended their vehicle. His friend shared with me the details, which I summarize here: she was transported to another hospital with better facilities while they prayed; at this hospital the new X-rays contradicted the first ones, showing that nothing was wrong. The doctor at the second hospital, though conceding that he was unsure what to make of it, concluded that perhaps account); Mansfield, Pentecost, 50 (a French major, Mansfield listened as a friend, praying in tongues, prayed in French with perfect pronunciation, and Mansfield discovered afterward that the friend did not even know that he had been praying in French); Warner, Evangelist, 256–57 (on 267n13 noting the interview source insisting that the speaker, who knew no Romanian, spoke it for twenty-five minutes);
Burton, "Villages," 8 (when central African believers received tongues, "we heard perfect English and beautiful French by natives who had never heard" them, as well as "South African Dutch and German");
Simpson, "Utterance" (a Chinese Christian reported unknowingly praying in Japanese, thereby softening and converting a previously hostile Japanese officer in North China); Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 271
(a Jewish bystander confirmed an utterance as perfect Hebrew, according to Dennis Balcombe); Koch,
Gifts, 36; Tari, Wind, 26–27 (he personally knew that the English speaker on 26 did not know English; see also 124; Breeze, 172); Jones, Wonders, 66 (if I understand correctly); Stibbe, Prophetic Evangelism,
75; Olson, Bruchko, 152; Gardner, Healing Miracles, 38, 97, 142–43; Bennett, Morning, 107–8; Robertson,
Miracles, 10–11 (citing supporting evidence); Bredesen, Miracle, 139–44 (four cases); most extensively, about twenty-five cases in Harris, Acts Today, 108–30 (on 7 he refers to his earlier book with seventy-five cases); less certainly, Yeomans, Healing, 119 (understood "a little" by the author); see also WoodworthEtter, Miracles, 110; McGee, People of Spirit, 24, 46–47, 57, 61, 64, 75; idem, Miracles, 112; Robeck,
Mission, 268–69; Lindsay, Lake, 25, 27; Blumhofer, "Portrait," 96, 99; Sherrill, Tongues, 19, 20, 42–43,
45, 90–91, 93, 94, 95, 96–97, 99–100; Synan, Voices, 60, 76–77, 84, 101–2; some possibly relevant examples in McGee, "Radical Strategy," 78–79, 84–85; idem, "Shortcut" (some after minimal acquaintance with a language, citing, e.g., "Tarry"; "Gift of Tongues"; Goforth, Goforth, 87–88; Wagner, Wave, 102–4; see also McGee, "Strategy in Mission," 78–79; idem, Miracles, 64; for this phenomenon, see also Rutz,
Megashift, 38, 90–91; Synan, Voices, 147; perhaps the facility in Cherokee reported in Kidd, Awakening,
226). Analogously, cf. claims of learning how to read by inspiration, in Rutz, Megashift, 88–89; cf. Rumph,
Signs, 124–28, though after exposure to words; Koch, Zulus, 201–3 (for the Bible); Bredesen, Miracle,
92–93 (also used by Sherrill; with other academic issues, 90–97, esp. 90–92); DeGrandis, Miracles, 40;
Adeboye with Mfon, "Preparing," 207; Marszalek, Miracles, 156 (in Kenya); cf. Anderson, Pelendo, 37–40.
For a reported case of independent yet identical "interpretations" of tongues in two different languages, see Pullinger, Dragon, 69–70 (the second interpreter did not know the first's language); for reports of hearing in another language, see Young, "Miracles in History," 119; Anna Gulick, interview, March 11,
2011. Some tested incidents are better explained differently (Hilborn, "Glossolalia," 115–16; Wacker,
Heaven Below, 47–48); Hudson, "Strange Words," 61, suggests that most accounts are based on snippets here and there recognized by hearers, which could be random, or the sorts of sounds speakers could have heard before and unconsciously verbalized. These explanations cover some claimed incidents of supposed language recognition (likely including some cited above) but do not seem to cover the kind of linguistic fluency Leo's report (or some other extended verbal reports I received) envisions. For treatment of reported xenolalia and spirit languages in some traditional religions, as well as anthropological and sociological approaches to some Christian glossolalia, see, e.g., comment on Acts 2:4 in Keener, Acts.
127. His most recent example involved his sister Charity, a nurse. She prayed for her friend Robin
Flores, who had a spot on her left arm for about six months that her doctor believed was cancerous; about three days after the prayer, it disappeared without treatment (Charity Ahanonu, phone interview, May 19,
2010; Robin Flores, phone interview, May 23, 2010). There had not yet been verification by means of a biopsy before the cure, however. Confirmed, biopsied cancer vanished in, e.g., Prather, Miracles, 200–201.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
the apparent fracture on the first X-ray was a nerve that looked like a fracture. Benjamin's friend then explained, with Benjamin as a witness, what they had prayed, and the doctor accepted that explanation. She was then discharged immediately.128
Examples in Mozambique Reports of extraordinary recoveries also characterize the ministry of Rolland and Heidi Baker, especially in their work with thousands of orphans in Mozambique.129
Unless one works from controlling presuppositions that miracles cannot occur, most would consider the Bakers credible sources: Heidi Baker holds a PhD in systematic theology from King's College, University of London; they work with doctors;130 and they openly and sympathetically acknowledge the many who are not healed.131 Nevertheless, they also offer eyewitness accounts and summaries of miraculous healings in connection with their ministry in Mozambique, including healings of deafness,132 AIDS,133 epilepsy,134 tumors,135 tuberculosis,136 and a boy
128. Chibuzo Oparanyawu (personal correspondence, Dec. 18, 2009; Feb. 22, 2010; June 7, 2010;
Sept. 1, 2010); reconfirmation from Benjamin, Sept. 4, 2010.
129. For healings, see, e.g., Baker, Miracles, 108, 137, 152 (infertility), 170, 172, 180 (one apparently dying); also reported in Clark, Impartation, 107–22, 173–77, 190–93, 218–20. For healings outside
Mozambique, see, e.g., Baker, Enough, 25 (dyslexia), 32 (in Indonesia and Hong Kong), 48 (pneumonia).
Many were restored from cholera in Baker, Enough, 144 (cf. also a healing in 168); Clark, Impartation,
191–92. Others note the rapid growth of Pentecostal and charismatic churches in Mozambique (Schuetze,
"Role," 36–37). For academic study of their ministry, see Kantel, "Revival" (as cited in Brown, "Awakenings,"
367n15); some other recent studies note them at least in passing (e.g., McGee, Miracles, 306n13).
130. Baker, Enough, 56, 58, 61, 90, 97, 148–49, 172; cf. idem, Miracles, 80–81; Chevreau, Turnings,
182, 214.
131. Baker, Enough, 37, 41, 61, 65, 148–49, 163–64, 179–80, and especially 169, 171–72; also idem,
Miracles, 43, 58, 86, 93–94, 115, 135, 137, 149, 163, 165; cf. Chevreau, Turnings, 55, 211–12. Working among the poor, they do not promulgate what North Americans would define as a prosperity gospel
(Baker, Enough, 30–31, 42, 52, 70–71, 81, 156; idem, Miracles, 58, 86–89, 131; Brown, "Awakenings," 354).
132. Baker, Enough, 157 (a girl deaf from birth), 169, 173; idem, Miracles, 7–8 (two examples), 39
(two examples), 43, 78 (often, including examples), 108, 114 (many), 163 (two examples), 172 (twelve mentioned, plus many others), 180, 183, 192–93 (all); Chevreau, Turnings, 142. For the healings of persons both deaf and blind, see 145, 174, 182. Elsewhere in Africa, see, e.g., Numbere, Vision, 210; Crandall,
Raising, 152; claims of multiple cases in "Our God Reigns," 35; Marszalek, Miracles, 160.
133. Baker, Enough, 160 (verified by the negative test afterward). Most cases of AIDS in Africa are not supernaturally healed (see, e.g., Numbere, Vision, 270–71), and churches have responded in various ways spiritually (cf., e.g., Adogame, "Walk") as well as in practical ways of running orphanages and caring for the sick. Most traditional practitioners do not claim to be able to heal AIDS (Bond, "Ancestors," 154), though Binsbergen, "Witchcraft," 225–26, cites a prophet-healer who promised this briefly before his own demise. A number of the claims I have received from various sources do not distinguish HIV and AIDS, so I am not always certain which claim they are making; a person can recover from the latter (normally with treatment) without the former status changing (Dr. Tahira Adelekan, phone interview, April 24,
2009), and sometimes the latter is renewed after remission (Eaton, "AIDS," 319). Presumably my sources' references to tests, however, normally refer to HIV infection.
134. Baker, Enough, 63.
135. Baker, Miracles, 57: "a tumor the size of a fist instantly disappeared."
136. Baker, Enough, 56. Cf. Chevreau, Turnings, 181–82, where apparently a tubercular cyst ruptured, which could have led to the victim bleeding or choking to death that night; instead, after a time of prayer, he was restored.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
who had been essentially "brain-dead for months."137 Heidi notes the first time when she "saw totally blind eyes, white from cataracts, change color and become normal and healthy."138 Kathy Evans, who works with the Bakers' ministry, remarked to me offhand that she had visited them with a team of students recently and witnessed a middle-aged man born deaf healed when Kathy and students prayed for the person.139
In the course of my correspondence with Rolland Baker, he encouraged me that the most meaningful approach for me to learn about the miracles would be for me to come to Mozambique and witness them for myself.140 Due to my circumstances at the time, I could not make that journey or many others that would have been helpful, but other visitors have reported seeing such incidents. A young filmmaker teaching at the time at Judson University videotaped Heidi and some orphans praying for a non-Christian woman known in her village to be deaf. This person's recovery of hearing, along with the healing of another person on the same trip, provides one of the more dramatic scenes in the film.141 One of my students,
Amanda Hammill Kaminski, who had met Heidi Baker through YWAM, told me that her roommate had spent some time working with Heidi Baker and during that time witnessed numerous conspicuously visible miracles.142
When I was asking another contact, Shelley Hollis, about healings she had witnessed, she mentioned her experiences in Mozambique about a year and a half before our conversation.143 Before she raised the subject, I had not been aware that she had spent any time in Mozambique, but she independently confirmed reports about the ministry of the Bakers and their Mozambican colleagues. She said that when she was present, in one village without any Christians, Heidi asked a crowd of about a thousand if anyone was sick. A deaf and mute girl of about eight or nine came forward, and Heidi prayed; the girl began to hear first and then gradually began to try to imitate sounds whispered in her ear. Immediately, Shelley noted, the reaction swept through the crowd like a wave from front to back, from whispering to ululation and finally jumping up and down. Shelley witnessed a deaf boy about the same age healed the same night, and the next day a church was started.
Shortly after this, Shelley was preaching in another village there with no Christians. A commotion started in the back while she was preaching, but she continued
137. Baker, Enough, 65.
138. Ibid., 76 (noting other such incidents in 171–72, 173). Most research recommends that surgery is the only option for cataracts (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009).
139. Kathy Evans, personal correspondence, Nov. 10, 2008 (two emails that day, the first commenting also on the healed person's astonishment).
140. E.g., personal correspondence, April 26, 2008. What he invited me to come see for myself (the healing of the deaf in non-Christian villages when they prayed for them) others independently confirmed for me having seen; when Shelley Hollis (noted below) began sharing her testimony, she did not yet even know that I knew of the Bakers.
141. The DVD is called Finger of God.
142. Amanda told me this during my spring 2008 Matthew course at Palmer. We have not been able to reach her former roommate.
143. Shelley Hollis, phone interview, Jan. 10, 2009.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
preaching until she discovered that in the back, a teenage girl had started to hear for the first time. The girl's mother brought her forward and began to testify that her daughter had begun to hear. While they were testifying, the blind right eye of a woman to Shelley's left was suddenly healed. Shelley announced that God was healing people and instructed them to bring the sick. In response, they brought a paralyzed woman on a mat.144 The woman then got up and began to dance! None of these people, Shelley emphasized, were yet Christians, although before the night was over some five hundred people committed themselves to become followers of Christ, and a church was started the next day. Presumably the locals who knew those who were cured believed that something dramatic had happened. The probability of an alternative explanation seems abysmally low: Would a village, though already committed to a particular religion, fake all these healings and then contribute so many members to a permanent new church, just to fool some visiting Christians?
More recently, a research team has discovered surprising medical confirmation of claims of healings of blindness and deafness taking place there.145 In view of such evidence, I believe that the sorts of claims surrounding the Bakers' ministry should appear credible to those who do not presuppose that such events cannot happen.146
Congolese Evangelists These examples are a small number among tens of thousands147 who have claimed to be healed, sometimes through the many healing crusades and other activities of evangelists known for healing gifts, but other times in less public settings.148 I take a significant number of my African healing accounts, however, from a small
African country of about three or four million, the Republic of Congo. (This nation should not be confused with the larger Democratic Republic of Congo, which is not only much larger but also proportionately has much larger Pentecostal and charismatic movements.) I have chosen accounts from this small country because it is my wife's country, and I have therefore had more opportunity to speak with numerous eyewitnesses and some secondhand witnesses there. Because the country has a small population (roughly the size of Philadelphia), and because almost all my samples come from the mainline Protestant church (Église Évangélique
144. Long-term paralysis is typically irreversible; deafness may be cured, but normally through surgical intervention (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009).
145. They measured auditory and visual function before and after prayer for healing of hearing and vision impairments and found that audiometric and visual acuity measurements of improved function corresponded closely with self-reported improvements in function subsequent to prayer (Brown, Mory,
Williams, and McClymond, "Effects"; briefly, Brown, "Awakenings," 363–64). Such a report may generate critics, but I am confident that the reporters (two of whom I know) are reliable; if one does not presuppose that such healings cannot happen there is no reason to doubt their claims. The circumstances resemble those depicted in the Gospels and especially Acts.
146. That detractors could be found in Mozambique is likely, given religious and other variations there; but detractors cannot erase the hard evidence of people who have been and remain cured.
147. As McGee, "Strategies," 206, notes, "The sheer quantity of testimonies alone bears serious assessment."
148. E.g., Wimber, Power Evangelism, 178–80; in Kenya, Clark, Impartation, 169.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
du Congo) rather than Pentecostal, independent, or Catholic charismatic circles there,149 and because a majority of those I interviewed were lay workers rather than church leaders, my random sampling obviously represents merely a tiny cross section of the sorts of miracle claims occurring in Africa.150 That is, I believe that it representatively illustrates on a microcosmic level what is clearly a much more pervasive phenomenon documented throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa. Not all these accounts are naturally inexplicable; for my informants, healing remains
God's work, whether it involves a headache disappearing or someone being raised from the dead.
My wife, Dr. Médine Moussounga Keener, has told me some of the reports about the ministry of Pastor Daniel Ndoundou (1911–86), who had a reputation for miracle working and even resuscitations from death. She has collected material about him,151 but her father knew him personally much better than she did. (I would also note that neither my wife nor her parents belonged to distinct charismatic circles in the usual Western sense; they were traditional Congolese
Protestants.152) To take one early example from Pastor Ndoundou's ministry, Milandou Simone's legs were paralyzed; when Pastor Ndoundou prayed for her in 1948, she was healed.153 My wife's mother, Antoinette Malombé,154 recounted various stories about Pastor Ndoundou,155 for example, the story of a miracle in 149. Those circles are large there, with Catholics being dominant and 23.2 percent of the Central
African population being renewalists (Johnson and Ross, Atlas, 103, higher even than East and West
Africa, though lower than southern Africa). The EEC itself has been open to spiritual gifts, including healings, since a "spiritual revival" in 1947 (Dorier-Apprill, "Networks," 296).
150. Although, as the stories themselves will make clear, few of these cases occurred in a setting where medical documentation would be available, Dr. Joseph Harvey shared with me (July 25, 2008, in Brazzaville) that in his medical practice there he has also seen recoveries after prayer there that he believed had no medical explanation. For example, he and his wife, Rebecca, recounted the story of Marie-Rose Nyiragwiza, a Rwandan survivor settled in Congo, who was unexpectedly restored from the brink of death in April 2003 and now works in the hospital. A man who came to visit Dr. Harvey during our conversation offered a testimony as well, which Dr. Harvey said he could verify. The same day, Dr.
Harvey recommended I consult a U.S. missionary to Congo, Gary Dickinson, who had recovered from the sort of liver ailment from which, Dr. Harvey indicated, a person does not simply recover. I already knew Gary (we had attended college together) but did not know his story, which he shared with me soon afterward (personal correspondence, Aug. 5, 2008; also a circular letter, March 2010). He was diagnosed in 1991 with severe liver disease and given four to twelve years to live without a transplant. He continued on medication, but in 1999 he was so ill that he lost almost sixty pounds in three weeks and was often sleeping twenty hours a day; in 2000 he turned yellow. But he says he has been improving since God touched him in 2002, without a change in the medicine, and is now working normal hours (mostly in this tropical country) and remains in good health.
151. In published form, see Keener, "Ndoundou."
152. Other sources have told me that the charismatic movement did affect both the Catholic and Protestant churches there, but my wife and her parents did not belong to distinctly charismatic churches, nor have they prayed in tongues.
153. Keener, "Ndoundou," citing Église Évangélique, Ngouédi, 27.
154. She remained married to Médine's father, Jacques Moussounga, until his recent death; following their custom at the time (also fairly common in the West today), however, they retained their different surnames.
155. All recounted to me July 13, 2008.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
which a woman whose uterus had been removed had a baby.156 He also prophesied various things to my father-in-law, Jacques Moussounga, that came to pass.157
My mother-in-law also recounted a story she heard from another African Christian prophet, Malonga, about an event that took place in the mid-1980s. One day
Malonga had announced that a disabled boy, who was about six years old, would be healed on a certain day of that week. Afterward he began to worry that he should not have promised this healing so confidently. While Christians gathered that day to pray, others gathered from curiosity or to mock them. The Christians kept praying and singing, but nothing was happening. After the mother carried the child aside to the bush to defecate, however, she unexpectedly discovered the child healed and brought him back to the meeting happily. When people saw the child standing on his own, they stood and began to applaud; but Malonga said that he fell on his face and thanked God that his expectation had not failed.
My wife's family knew Evangelist Ngoma Moïse personally.158 They heard from him a story about his oldest son, then a teenager named Joël; when he was very sick, they took him to the hospital at Kingoyi near the border of the larger Congo. The father was spending the night in the hospital when he dreamed about a particular trail and someone instructing him about the leaves of a small tree there. When he awoke, he carried his son outside and came across the very trail he had seen in the dream. He followed it until he saw the small tree, then put his son down and began to massage him with the leaves of this tree, squeezing out their juice. The son was suddenly healed and stood up, and in the morning they left the hospital, to the doctors' surprise.159 We were later able to confirm the basic account briefly from Ngoma Moïse.160
Papa Jacques's Experiences But such claims are not limited to traveling evangelists, nor do they all simply rehearse another person's testimony. Although a railroad official rather than a traveling evangelist, my wife's father, Jacques Moussounga, also from Congo, offered
156. Medically impossible, of course (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009), hence presupposing a miracle (I would assume that it would entail the creation of something like a new uterus). Such reports also occurred in the West in early Pentecostalism (in Edmonton, Alberta, see
Cadwalder, "Healings").
157. Antoinette Malombé, interview, July 13, 2008.
158. The story was recounted to me July 13, 2008, about an incident in Loulombo, but the account narrated an event that took place more than thirty years earlier.
159. I recognize that the use of herbal remedies reflects traditional African practice (cf. ByaruhangaAkiiki and Kealotswe, Healing, 61–78, and sources noted earlier), but hesitant Western Christian readers might consider that God could contextualize for various cultures' healing traditions, just as Western
Christians often pray for God to work through medicine. Although they are not pervasive, we do have biblical accounts of God working through poultices (Isa 38:21) and obedience to strange commands like washing in a particular river (2 Kgs 5:10–14). That culture and local history affect how people seek healing is clear enough; cf. the distinctive forms used in Argentina (Marostica, "Learning").
160. Later Ngomo Moïse visited my wife's family, and I was told that he was pleased to learn that I would be using some of his stories; we confirmed the basic story in a brief phone interview (May 14, 2009).
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
simple prayers in faith for healing.161 My wife once profited from this as a young girl, when she was instantly healed of severe fever.162 Likewise, Henriette Mabiala, then Henriette Makita, told me that when she was sick as a girl, too weak to stand,
Papa Jacques (as my father-in-law was known) prayed for her very simply. When he finished praying, he took her by the hand and helped her to stand. Suddenly she felt better and had no fever, nor did the sickness return.163
Papa Jacques also shared with me in writing some specific healing testimonies close to him, including one about himself. From 1960 to 1981, he suffered from frequent mouth abscesses; sometimes the sores on his tongue made eating and speaking too painful. Although he was treated three times, the treatments failed to cure him. The third time, in 1980, he was hospitalized, unable to speak or eat for a week; nevertheless, afterward he still had a burst of abscesses monthly. Despite the pain, he quit praying for healing and quit asking for others to pray for it. The next year, he was transferred to a different city; there he joined a prayer group but never mentioned his ailment. One night Suzanne Makounou, who hosted the group, dreamed that he was having terrible pain from mouth abscesses. She had known nothing about them, so afterward she asked him why he had not requested prayer. She prayed simply, "God, why did you show me his sickness? If it was so that he would be delivered, heal him." About a month and a half later, he noticed that he had not experienced the abscesses since her prayer. He never suffered with the mouth sores again.164
On another occasion, when his youngest daughter, Gracia, was seven months old, she was sick with cerebral meningitis, and they took her to A. Sisse Hospital.
But the next day, Barthélémy Boubanga, a hospital administrator, sent word that Gracia had only twenty-four hours left to live.165 That night, Papa Jacques and Antoinette Malombé (locally known as Mme Jacques) remained all night in the hospital, praying; Mme Jacques pressed some milk into a small spoon and put it in her daughter's mouth. When Mme Jacques felt that the child would really die, she went into the bathroom and cried and asked God to give the child back; never161. Some of his story appears in Keener, "Moussounga," which includes some of the stories here;
Médine also wrote about him in "Special Men," 9–14.
162. My source for my wife's healing is my wife, undated here because she has recounted it to me multiple times, from before our marriage until now. She recounts the story also in Keener, "Special Men,"
12. Her brother Emmanuel had a similar healing experience (correspondence, July 2, 2011).
163. Interview, July 24, 2008, in Brazzaville. She and her husband also supplied other testimonies.
164. Shared with me in writing Sept. 8, 2005. Cf. also the healing of a malignant oral ulcer, which is rarely cured medically, in Heron, Channels, 128–29.
165. Meningitis need not always be fatal, but infants are less likely to survive and normally need emergency care and antibiotics (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009). Given the hospital's warnings and the doctor's reaction, her survival had not been considered likely. A doctor whose son was dying of meningitis in a Western hospital, in a case where, like this one, other doctors expected the baby's death, considered his survival and gradual recovery without impairment miraculous (Woodard,
Faith, 30–35). For a story of another baby not expected to survive the night, and healed of various severe problems, see DeGrandis, Miracles, 128; the cure of another baby dying of meningitis, Salmon, Heals,
87–88; the recovery of Gisángel Curvelo Jiménez (treated under Cuba).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
theless, she felt despair. When the French doctor and the nurse (a nun) entered the room in the morning, the doctor asked tentatively whether the child was still alive; they were surprised to see that she was. The doctor asked to what God they prayed, and when he learned that they prayed to Jesus,166 he commented, "You pray to a true God." Gracia recovered only gradually, remaining in the hospital for more than a month, though soon afterward she recovered fully. At the time of my writing this account, Gracia is thirty-five years old and healthy.167 She was present when I interviewed her mother about this recovery, to confirm and supplement her parents' account based on what she had been told as a child.168
Mama Jeanne and Others Outside this family, I spoke also with Jeanne Mabiala (no relation to Henriette, above). Mama Jeanne was not famous; we knew her because she was close friends with the family. That is, she appears here not as someone whose sort of ministry is unique (we knew some others who had similar ministries) but as one of the people in our immediate circle with this sort of ministry. Whenever we approached her home, we found her praying for the many people who were coming to her, some having experienced what they believed were miracles in connection with her prayers.169
Mama Jeanne is a deacon in a mainline Protestant church in Brazzaville and exuded obvious concern for people's needs and joyful confidence that God would meet them. She told me of a midwife whose fibroids were so serious that her uterus was removed when she and her husband were in France. After they returned to Congo, the family of her husband, a colonel, procured a younger woman for him to ensure that he would have children, much to the wife's dismay. This situation continued for four years, during which time the younger, second wife failed to conceive.
Finally, in 1992, the midwife dreamed that a voice instructed her to go to a particular church in Poto-Poto. When she went there and requested prayer, Mama
Jeanne says that God told her and someone else to just pray for this midwife for the next three months. Toward the beginning of the third month, the midwife felt a pain in her stomach; those praying for her believed that it was a child, but 166. Technically, Papa Jacques said, "I am a Protestant." It was explained to me that in that cultural setting at that time this was understood to mean that he prayed to Jesus.
167. Jacques Moussounga's account is dated Sept. 8, 2005; I have added details from the separate telling of the account by Antoinette Malombé, offered July 12, 2008, with Gracia's age then confirmed by herself. While each telling included some separate details, neither disagreed on the substance of what they did include (more than three decades after the event).
168. Gracia Moussounga, interview, July 12, 2008.
169. Interview, July 29, 2008, in Brazzaville. Mama Jeanne sees no tension between medical and divine healing; she appreciates positive training she received from the World Health Organization before the war, noting that it helped her in delivering babies during the war. Doctors have believed and wanted the effective local herbal remedies that she felt led to prescribe, and my brother-in-law, who has a PhD in chemistry and a master's degree in pharmacology, has examined some of them from a pharmaceutical standpoint and would research them further if he could get research funding. In this book, I have used only some of her stories; others included a child progressively healed of heart and brain damage in 2006 and a woman (who was leaving as we arrived) healed in 2005 of epilepsy.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
the midwife was not convinced. She knew that it was impossible! Nevertheless, this woman, in her late forties, gave birth to twins, and later gave birth to another set of twins. The second wife left angrily, but the midwife joined Mama Jeanne's church and remained there until the war. I recognize that this account is medically impossible;170 but then, when healings are medically possible (like many that I have noted above), we Westerners tend not to call them miracles.
One husband was living promiscuously, and in 1986, both members of the couple tested positive for HIV. The wife was crying that she was going to die.
Mama Jeanne entered a twenty-day period of prayer for them, and at the end she told them that God had removed their sickness but that they must not go outside the marriage again. A new test showed no trace of HIV, but they were retested afterward when visiting France to be certain.171 Again there was no trace of the virus, and they have remained in good health, except for the husband's mild diabetes.
My wife and brother-in-law, present during the interview, both know the man, though I was permitted to use this story only after omitting all identifying details.
On another occasion, during a prayer meeting in Dolisie, a panicked mother brought her daughter in on her back. The daughter, about nineteen years old, was convulsing, with white spittle coming out as if she were dying. She was healed and walked out of the church under her own power; the impressed mother became a member of the prayer group. My brother-in-law, Emmanuel Moussounga, was with us during the interview with Mama Jeanne and attested that he was present on the occasion described, and that he not only saw the young woman recovered, but sees her whenever he visits the city of Dolisie.172 I will include a further, more dramatic eyewitness account from Mme Jacques and more stories from Mama Jeanne in chapter 12.173
I also talked with other ministers, such as Pastor Jean Mouko,174 who was a friend of my father-in-law and is well known to my wife. When I asked if he had any healing stories, he protested that it would be hard for him to decide which to recount, because he had so many. Given the brief time available, he spoke quickly, offering whichever accounts first came to his mind. In one of his accounts, he noted that during Pentecost season 2007 in Mvouti, he was told during a service that someone outside was close to death. The person who brought the sick man had no real hope that he
170. Dr. Nicole Matthews (personal correspondence, April 1, 2009) noted that without a uterus "it is physically impossible to carry a baby (let alone twins) to term and have a live birth." The account, then, apparently presupposes the restoration of the uterus.
171. The HIV virus "can go undetected for years or even decades" but is less likely to disappear after being present (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009).
172. My brother-in-law, Emmanuel Moussounga, holds a PhD from France, like my wife; his PhD is in chemistry, and he has a master's degree in pharmacology as well. He thus knows and affirms the best in the Western medical healing tradition, but he also affirms complementary spiritual realities. He also recounted other cures involving supernatural elements (July 25, 2008).
173. After hearing the stories, I joked that some U.S. readers would want to travel to Congo to have
Mama Jeanne pray for them. She and her nephew began laughing and pointing to an old picture of Jesus on the wall. "It's just Jesus!" Mama Jeanne insisted. That is, they attributed the common factor in the healings not to themselves but to Jesus, who presumably acts the same elsewhere.
174. The interview was on July 31, 2008, in Brazzaville.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
would live. As Pastor Mouko prayed in Jesus's name, he felt the power of the Spirit.
Loudly, he shouted, "Lord, Lord, Lord, show your will!" Suddenly the man lying there opened his eyes and started wondering where he was. Pastor Mouko ordered,
"Give him some water; he's weak." After the man drank water, he stood up and said,
"Who brought me here?" When they told him what had happened, the man began to praise God. Pastor Mouko also told of a healing in a village during war in 1997.
They brought him a woman who had not been able to defecate for two weeks; she was extremely sick and crying, "I'm going to die soon." This was indeed a potentially serious situation, especially if it continued.175 After they prayed, he felt that they needed to give her a liter (just over a quart) of water. Immediately after drinking it, she needed to eliminate her wastes, which he estimated took about ten minutes.
Papa Albert Bissouessoue, a deacon at my brother-in-law's church, told of miracles he had seen in his ministry, especially when he had worked as a teacher in the north of the country, in Owondo and Etoumbi, in 1985 through 1987.176 "Because I feared
Jesus Christ from my youth," he explained, "God gave me some spiritual gifts—healings and miracles" in various parts of the country, but especially when he was in that less evangelized area.177 Women over fifty conceived, he noted;178 on one occasion, someone who died some time earlier was brought to him and healed179 (I elaborate on this and other accounts in ch. 12). Accounts could be multiplied;180 I have supplied accounts randomly from some of the people known to my family whom I was able to see when visiting Congo. Many of these accounts could be explained without appeal to anything supernatural; I am reserving the most dramatic examples, some of which are very difficult to explain on purely naturalistic terms, for chapter 12.
Examples in Latin America and the Caribbean Some standard reference works on global Christianity indicate the pervasiveness of healing claims, ranging from Catholic to Pentecostal, in Latin America.181 Because
175. Dr. Nicole Matthews (personal correspondence, April 1, 2009), explained to me, "Bowel obstruction is a surgical emergency and people typically die without surgery" (the seriousness confirmed again in personal correspondence, April 14, 2009).
176. I interviewed him on July 29, 2008, in Brazzaville. He was happy to give the testimonies but insisted that I not misunderstand the point: "It's God who worked the miracles," he explained, "not us."
177. Personal correspondence, Dec. 17, 2009.
178. Interview, July 29, 2008. Women over fifty can conceive, but only rarely spontaneously (usually fertility drugs are involved; Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009).
179. Interview, July 29, 2008; I presume that the written version, which I employ in ch. 12, refers to the same incident.
180. The president of the denomination, with whom we met on July 21, 2008, intimated that he also had some accounts, and we knew other ministers there who had accounts, but we did not have time to meet with them. Thus I emphasize again that the accounts I have included are merely samples.
181. See Rivera-Pagán, "Transformation," 193–95. On the importance of testimonies to Latin American
Pentecostalism, see Chaván de Matriuk, "Growth" (e.g., 218–22); among mainline North American
Hispanic and Latino Protestants, Pedraja, "Testimonios."
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
my access to sources is fairly limited (partly for linguistic reasons), a majority of the cases that I cite in this section will be from evangelical, Pentecostal, and Baptist circles, but reports of miracles cannot in any way be limited to these examples.
Nor are reports of healings new. Already a generation ago healing campaigns were catalyzing evangelical church growth in Latin America.182
Indeed, this new paradigm already appeared in the mixed but especially Latino Pentecostal healing meetings of Mexican-born minister Francisco Olazábal
(1886–1937) roughly a century ago.183 Tens of thousands, and in one crusade reportedly more than one hundred thousand, attended his meetings.184 Claims were not limited to such well-known figures. In the early twentieth century, a preacher noted that many healings were occurring, among them a man's inability to walk properly.185 Such testimonies readily crossed borders;186 when the sister of Nava
Ocampo, from Mexico, was reported healed from cancer in Arizona in 1919, a number of Mexican Protestants there joined Nava's movement.187
I will sample a few of the Latin American claims here.
Researchers have offered many reports on signs and church growth in Latin America,188 and again it should be noted that I offer only the barest summary below. For example, prayer for healing is said to have united previously fractured evangelicalism in Argentina.189 Evangelism meetings featuring healing in Buenos
Aires, attended by an estimated nearly two million people in 1954, offered a "major
182. Read, Monterroso, and Johnson, Growth, 323; on signs and church growth in Latin America, see further De Wet, "Signs," 100–108: Argentina, 101–3; Ecuador, 104–5; Chile, 105–6; Brazil, 106–7;
Dominican Republic, 107–8.
183. See Espinosa, "Olazábal"; discussion also in idem, "Borderland Religion"; idem, "Healing in Borderlands"; idem, "Revivals," 238; De Leon, Pentecostals, 23–30 (among other major figures);
Sánchez Walsh, Identity, 25–31; Deiros and Wilson, "Pentecostalism," 302–3; Ramirez, "Faiths," 94,
99–102, 165. For the Latino contribution to Azusa Street, see Espinosa, "Contributions"; cf. Ramirez,
"Faiths," 76, 81–83. Vast numbers of healings were claimed (Espinosa, "Healing in Borderlands," 139,
141; for some specific reports where the information would have been securely known to him, see 135, his wife; 136, a deaf person from a known family; 140). His emphasis, however, was on evangelism and he claimed that God was the healer (139). His Latino-led movement sent out vast numbers of missionaries throughout the Spanish-speaking world (142, emphasizing the movement's indigenous character).
184. See Espinosa, "Healing in Borderlands," 137.
185. Ruesga, "Healings."
186. This is even more the case today, given the massive migration (both legal and illegal, both permanent and temporary) at the border of these countries today (see Durand and Massey, Miracles, 2).
187. Ramirez, "Faiths," 90–91.
188. De Wet's sources for Latin America include McGavran, "Healing and Evangelization," 289–99;
Enns, "Profiles," 103–17; Platt, "Hope," 61–65; Nyberg, "Field," 81–85; Bennett, "Multiplication," 85–87;
Weld, "Impasse," 100–117; Larson, "Migration," 304–14; Alsop, "Analysis," 27–28; Aspinal, "Church," 31–
35; Mast, "Training," 61–63; Reed, "Componential Analysis," 21–22, 49–52, 136–37; Wiebe, "Persistence of Spiritism," 122–42; Baird, "Analytical History," 60, 134–36. For Mexico, see Gaxiola, "Serpent," 99–101;
Bennett, "Tinder," 176–77; cf. Aulie, "Movement," 128–85. In Mexico, Pentecostals, Catholic charismatics, spiritists, and traditional indigenous healers compete, encouraging distinctive qualities in their respective approaches to cures (Garma Navarro, "Socialization," on Pentecostals).
189. Marostica, "Learning"; cf. Devadason, "Missionary Societies," 188.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
breakthrough" for Argentinian Protestants,190 but prejudice remained among many groups. When Argentinian Protestant evangelist Carlos Annacondia began leading healing crusades, however, he insisted on evangelical unity.191 His approach now pervades Argentinian Protestantism.192 Healing is "now far and away the primary tool for evangelizing and church growth" in Argentina.193 When urban migrants in one Argentinian church were interviewed, 37.7 percent of them claimed that healings had led to their accepting the gospel message; among the conditions they reported healed were blindness, cancer, deafness, heart disease, paralysis, and tuberculosis.194
Various Cases from South America Protestants now compose roughly one-eighth of Latin America's population, a preponderance of them from groups emphasizing healing.195 Though Pentecostalism's growth in Latin America has been phenomenal,196 healing is by no means limited to it; thus, for example, one Methodist ministry in Bolivia experienced phenomenal growth (including 160 of 170 families in a village) because their preaching was accompanied by healings.197 Likewise, among Roman Catholics,
Father Ralph Rogawski, O.P., and Sister Helen Raycraft, O.P., "estimate that about 80 percent of the sick who ask for prayers in the poorest barrios are healed,"198 and newspapers reported widely on the healings occurring in conjunction with Julio
Cesar Ruibal's evangelistic preaching.199 In another setting, one boy "was suffering from very severe burns and sores," but after prayer for him in Mass, he was completely healed and found playing with the other children.200 Another boy with 190. McGee, "Strategy in Mission," 89–90 (on Tommy Hicks); cf. Marostica, "Learning," 209; the contemporary report in "Argentina Campaign."
191. Marostica, "Learning," 210–12, 224. Some appear to have borrowed Annacondia's methods contextualized for an Argentine setting (such as deliverance for those who have been involved with the occult; cf. 215–17) without sufficient consideration of their own, different contexts.
192. Ibid., 217–19.
193. Ibid., 207.
194. De Wet, "Signs," 103–4, following Larson, "Migration," 312. Cf., e.g., the healing testimony from Colombia in Brusco, Reformation, 62.
195. Escobar, Tides, 88–89 (noting Pentecostals, Nazarenes, and others).
196. Many writers comment on the rapid growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America (e.g., Alvarez,
"South," 148; González, Guide, 94; Escobar, "Scenario," 40–41; Taylor, "Future," 642; Deiros and Wilson,
"Pentecostalism," 308; Pirouet, Christianity, 120; Balling, Story, 284; Freston, "Contours," 221–22; Dyrness,
Theology, 83). It may represent perhaps roughly 10 percent of the population (or as many as two-thirds of Protestants), but some have estimated that fully active, as opposed to more nominal, Catholics represent less than 20 percent (Davies and Conway, Christianity, 76–77; cf. 10 percent in Edwards, Christianity,
521; cf. Protestantism's growth from 1 to 10 percent of Latin America, with Pentecostalism dominating, from 1930 to 1960, in Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 109). For academic essays on Latin American
Pentecostalism, see, e.g., Cleary and Stewart-Gambino, Pentecostals; D'Epinay, "Conquest"; Gill, "Veil";
Rivera-Pagán, "Transformation"; see also discussion in Martin, Tongues.
197. McGavran, "Healing," 73–74.
198. MacNutt, Healing, 26–27.
199. Ibid., 27.
200. McKenna, Miracles, 59–60, praising the simple faith of these impoverished believers.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
a facial deformity was healed during the same Mass.201 I have not even included here the more traditional shrines where pilgrims leave votive tablets to convey their gratitude for miracles or favors (finding work, legal solutions, resolutions with in-laws, protection from injury, and so forth).202
Nevertheless, Pentecostals, who are said to compose a majority of Latin American Protestants in many countries and overall, provide many stories.203 This is partly because healing appears to be the most characteristic spiritual gift in Latin
American Pentecostalism,204 and one of the most common factors in persons joining Pentecostal churches in Latin America is experiencing healing after prayer.205
Pentecostalism as it appears most commonly in Latin America is also usually strongly adapted to local culture.206 Various books by Pentecostal and charismatic ministers in Latin America report miracles taking place.207 My examples below come from a variety of different denominations (my sources sometimes varying
201. Ibid., 60, the author noting that she, and not the Latin American believers present, was the one shocked.
202. See, e.g., Durand and Massey, Miracles, 45–66; see a breakdown of some categories on 71.
203. Many also argue that Pentecostals roughly rival Roman Catholics in church attendance in Latin
America, since only about one-tenth of the population attends each regularly (Edwards, Christianity,
521). Catholics, of course, still far outnumber Protestants in terms of total membership in Latin America.
While a number of Pentecostal converts were formerly nominal Catholics, Catholics have their own stories, e.g., the California Pentecostal who became a Catholic evangelist (in DeGrandis, Miracles, 47), the Protestant seminarian healed when a Jesuit prayed (ibid., 17), and the Protestant converted after miraculous healing from a leg injury (Duffin, Miracles, 45). Catholicism has also grown in Latin America
(Shaw, Awakening, 141n16).
204. E.g., Kwon, "Foundations," 188.
205. Chiquete, "Healing," 480–81; cf. Kamsteeg, "Message"; idem, "Healing"; idem, Pentecostalism,
4; Sánchez Walsh, Identity, 29, 41, 43; McGavran, "Seeing," 67. Chiquete notes ("Healing," 481) that many of those who are not healed also join these churches because of their care and concern for their wholeness. Cf. Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 52, on physical illness being the most common cause of affiliating with Pentecostals in Brazil.
206. Pentecostalism is well adapted to many aspects of Latin American culture (see Chaván de
Matviuk, "Growth," 211–12); note also Freston, "Contours," who even contends (249) that the Pentecostal movement, virtually newborn and thus flexible when it arrived in Latin America, is more contextualized in some respects than "both Catholicism and historical Protestantism"; similarly, for a narrower geographic setting, Ramirez, "Faiths," 266–68, 394–96, 420. While some Latin American
Pentecostalism has North American ties, it is mostly indigenous (Tombs, "Church," 312; cf. Wilson,
"Revival"; Espinosa, "Healing in Borderlands," 142). Cox, "Miracles," 93, notes the view that from a sociological (as opposed to theological) standpoint, Latin American Pentecostalism has more affinities with folk Catholicism than traditional evangelical Protestantism; Rivera-Pagán, "Transformation,"
193–94, compares miracles in folk Catholicism, arguing (194, 196) that it is now radically democratized and popularized; Sánchez Walsh, "Santidad," 161, compares Latino usage of neocharismatic Word of Faith confessions with "Catholic liturgical prayers"; Tennent, Christianity, 176–77, notes connections between Pentecostal and Catholic spirituality. Escobar, Tides, 100, suggests that Latin American
Protestantism in general is "closer to the Pietists and revivalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than to the sixteenth century reformers." He further notes (89–91) that Pentecostalism has often been misrepresented by those lacking direct acquaintance with it. Its emphasis on healing and deliverance are part of its appeal (Davies and Conway, Christianity, 77).
207. E.g., Freidzon, Spirit, 91–98; Silvoso, Perish, 133. For an outside perspective on Freidzon's ministry in Argentina, see Marostica, "Learning," 219–24.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
by country) but with a higher proportion of specifically Pentecostal examples than
I have provided for some other continents.
Many desperately poor people in Brazil lack adequate health care208 and are attracted to Pentecostalism through its emphasis on healing;209 86.4 percent of Brazilian Pentecostals in one study claimed that they had experienced divine healing.210 They compete with Spiritists for the attention of those needing treatment.211
While misdiagnosis, the placebo effect, and occasionally religious deception may be factors in some cases,212 literally "millions of Pentecostals" in Brazil believe that God heals, so that the Western researcher discussing the data acknowledges that their belief in healing is at least a subjective reality that has effects.213 Thus in Brazil one interviewee recounted that a chronic liver disease had been increasingly destroying his health over a period of four years, but then Jesus appeared to him and healed him.214 A dying person in the same country was healed from advanced terminal cancer and a coma following a simple prayer.215 Another source reports that when two workers in Brazil prayed for a boy who had "a softball-sized hernia protruding from his abdomen," it vanished in front of them, and he was healed.216 After doctors sent Sylvia, a television news anchor with cancer of the 208. For the health care crisis in Brazil, see Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 54–56; idem, "Exorcising,"
169–70.
209. Chesnut, "Exorcising," 182; on divine healings in Brazil, cf. also Brown, "Awakenings"; as a major cause of Pentecostal growth there, McGavran, "Seeing," 67. Healings occurred from the start of Pentecostalism there in 1910 (Shaw, Awakening, 138); for Pentecostalism's massive growth there (e.g., the Assemblies of God reported more than half a million new members in 1993), see, e.g., César, "Babel," 25; for its global connections today, see, e.g., Oro and Semán, "Pentecostalism"; Freston, "Transnationalisation."
For the history of Brazilian Pentecostalism, see, e.g., Shaw, Awakening, 135–57; briefly Deiros and Wilson,
"Pentecostalism," 311–13; one Pentecostal movement there came in response to a prophecy about a certain
"Para" given to Swedish immigrants to the United States (see McGee, "Regions Beyond," 93; idem, Miracles,
166–67; Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 75–84; Deiros and Wilson, "Pentecostalism," 312; Shaw, Awakening,
138). For Catholic charismatics there, see Csordas, "Global Perspective," 336–38.
210. See Chesnut, "Exorcising," 175–76 (though noting on 176 that only 11.4 percent, mostly pastors and particular women, claimed to have been used in others' healing; followed also by Brown, "Awakenings,"
361). In Pew Forum's wider but less exploratory "Spirit and Power," the percentage is 77 percent.
211. Greenfield, Spirits, 141, 145–47, 202.
212. While some spiritual fakery occurs (most often noted with respect to some IURD, Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus, circles), "medical malpractice, misdiagnosis, and a general disregard for the health of the poor, more than fraud, account for a significant amount of what Pentecostals present as faith healing"
(Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 86, not addressing but also not ruling out supernatural factors; idem,
"Exorcising," 180). For one sociological study of healing discourse in the IURD, see Corten, "Obéissance."
213. Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 87 (allowing for the placebo effect); he offers examples of claims
(81–82, 86–88).
214. Ibid., 81–82. For a wife healed in conjunction with a husband's vision, see 87–88. Much of the liver can be restored within three to four weeks; the testimony could be understood as an extraordinary expediting of that process (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009).
215. Johnson, "Work."
216. Moreland, Triangle, 169. A different story from Brazil, the partial healing of Davi Silva from Down syndrome, is suspect despite potentially relevant physical features of his face and palms, because Silva has admitted to falsifying elements in testimonies but has not yet clarified which ones (http://casadedavi
.wordpress.com/davisilva/#ingles; accessed Jan. 1, 2011; cf. personal correspondence with Candy Gunther
Brown, May 22, 26, 28, 2009; Jan. 1, 2011).
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
thorax, home to die, she attended a healing conference. She was coughing up blood and weighed just eighty pounds. Nevertheless, she believed herself healed after an hour of prayer at the conference; no longer showing signs of the cancer, she quickly regained weight and resumed her broadcasting role. As of two years later, she remained well.217 Such claims are not limited to Pentecostals; I am told that a Baptist church in Brazil, for example, reports many dramatic healings and has grown more than forty times over in less than a decade.218
Likewise, the pervasive emphasis on healing among Colombian Pentecostals meets important social needs among the desperately poor for whom health and hope are sometimes in short supply.219 One scholar observes, "Every single believer in this study spoke of some miraculous event they had experienced," and "occurrences such as a healing, resurrection, spiritual encounters," and so forth, with "divine healing" being most common, were the primary factors in conversion.220
In Colombia, Rose at age twenty-one suffered from a terrible skin infection that inflamed her face, with sores oozing "blood and pus"; she covered her face when outside. The night that she accepted Christ, she slept well for the first time in three months and awoke to see "clearly. My face was not inflamed," and after her grandmother expressed amazement, she looked in the mirror herself to discover that she had been completely healed.221 In the same country, a woman named Olga recounted that her daughter had been dying, and doctors had given up hope. A pastor in the barrio prayed, and the next day the child began recovering, ultimately recovering fully.222 Another person in Colombia was healed of a blood condition.223
Catholics in Colombia also testify to experiences with charismatic healing, such as the cure of a skin condition and other ailments.224
Suriname is a multicultural nation in South America whose national language is Dutch. When I met with Dr. Douglass Norwood in 2006, he recounted his eyewitness experience with an aged skeptic instantly healed of a lifelong paralysis, without human intervention, during his preaching in Nickerie, Suriname, in 217. Brown, "Awakenings," 351–52. North American minister Randy Clark led the team that prayed for her; "Sylvia" is a pseudonym (365n1).
218. Randy Clark, personal correspondence, April 1, 2011.
219. See Bomann, Faith in Barrios; cf. idem, "Salve," 190: "a pivotal strategy for coping"; also 203. For the traditional association of Pentecostals with the poor and marginalized in Latin America, see Escobar,
"Scenario," 40, 42; idem, Tides, 79–81, 134; Bonk, "Engaging," 53; on Pentecostal roots and the poor generally, Hollenweger, "Elites," 201–3. Prosperity teaching came not with the original Pentecostals but with the neocharismatics (Escobar, Tides, 81; Corten and Marshall-Fratani, "Introduction," 5).
220. Bomann, Faith in Barrios, 62; cf. idem, "Salve," 190, 194; for specific instances, see 194–99, 201–2.
221. Bomann, Faith in Barrios, 62–63 (Rosa was recounting her healing thirty years later). Presumably the same story is recounted in idem, "Salve," 201–2 (where Bomann gives her the name Mariela).
222. Bomann, Faith in Barrios, 63. Although the quantity of such testimonies has increased, healing claims in Colombia are not new (cf., e.g., the Nov. 12, 1969, claim of healing from acute sinusitis in an interview in Palmer, "Growth," 62).
223. Redpath, "Change"; also reported in Harris, Acts Today, 92–93. Involving a transformation of the blood, this healing cannot be explained in terms of current medical knowledge.
224. See MacNutt, Healing, 233–39.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
November 1994. The skeptic had no faith or psychological factors contributing to the healing; he had never been a Christian and was defying the Christians at the moment he was healed. Nevertheless, he recognized that it was the name of Christ that healed him and he became a Christian immediately after his unexpected healing. This event contributed to sudden and massive church growth in a region that previously had few Christians.225
Healing is often reported among indigenous peoples as well. Thus, for example, the healing of a priest is reported to have led to wide receptivity in a Mayan village.226 Jesus Film workers report that they prayed for a non-Christian village chief in the Amazon basin who had been gasping in agony for hours and would clearly soon be dead. Suddenly, he leaped from the bed, went dancing around his home joyfully, and started shouting to his elders.227 In another case,
Atabacdora, a Motilone Indian from Colombia, broke his neck in a fall and was ordered to lie still for three months. As a hunter, he found it difficult to lie still even for a week. His friend Bobarishora, who like Atabacdora was fairly new to the Christian faith, insisted on praying for him. He and their friend Bruce
Olson anointed him and prayed a simple prayer, then left. When they learned that Atabacdora was up and about, they hurried to reprove him, convinced that his neck would never heal with such behavior. Since Atabacdora had no pain, however, they persuaded the doctor to take another X-ray. The doctor was astonished, because there was now not even a sign of the slightest fracture; he could only describe it as "some kind of miracle." To Bobarishora, it was no different from the healing of a headache; to North American Bruce Olson, who knew more about Western medicine, the healing of this broken neck was naturally more astounding.228
Other reports are frequent. One researcher reports a Latin American mother's claim that doctors had once given up her daughter's eyesight for lost, but it has improved so much since her conversion that she no longer even needs glasses.229
Another notes one's conversion after "his mother was cured of a brain infection."230
Another informant claims that in his thirty years of ministry "he has 'seen numerous healings and resurrections.'"231 Byron Klaus, a U.S. seminary president whom I know personally, prayed for a four-year-old girl in Caracas, Venezuela, with a deadly
"immune deficiency similar to HIV"; so convinced was the widowed mother that the child had been healed that she took her for another blood test. In contrast to previous tests, the child's immune system was now normal (he sent me the 225. Interview, June 6, 2006; also in Norwood, "Colloquium," 24–26. He immediately offered the names of eyewitnesses when I inquired.
226. Clark, Impartation, 126.
227. Jesus Film Project mailing, Oct. 30, 2009, p. 1.
228. Olson, Bruchko, 148–51. Olson also testifies about his own remarkable recovery (122–23).
229. Lehmann, Struggle, 197.
230. Sánchez Walsh, Identity, 43.
231. Ibid., 44.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
improved test results); she is now sixteen.232 Other sample claims include partial healing of hearing in Peru,233 or (in Central America) the healing of ten years of infertility in Belize,234 and so forth. Some of these accounts are believable from a naturalistic perspective because they are known to happen naturally; others would be classified by most observers as extraordinary.
Accounts from Cuba A friend of mine has worked closely with Carlos Alamino, a Baptist pastor in Cuba. This pastor offers many testimonies of dramatic healings in the setting of evangelism or prayer, some of which I include in chapter 12.235 Courtesy of the hospitality of the churches and government in Cuba, I was able to teach some gatherings of pastors there during this book's editing. At that time, a number of church leaders freely shared with me their accounts of healings; even my reliable translator, David Gomero Borges, reticently shared some accounts from his earlier work as a Baptist layman and then minister.236
For example, Mirtha Venero Boza, a Baptist, has been a Christian for six years and reports that she has seen many miracles in her evangelistic crusades. She chose to share with me especially a story close to her, however. The hand of her baby granddaughter was severely burned by a hot iron; it was swollen and skin was peeling off. Within less than half an hour of prayer, and without medical intervention, the baby's hand was restored completely, as if it had never been burned.
Because Mirtha is a medical doctor, who would recognize the severity of burns, her observations appear especially striking.237
Likewise, Lutheran pastor Ismael Laborde Figueras, bishop of Iglesia Evangélica Unida en Cuba Sínodo Luterano, shared with me that he experienced a liver tumor
232. Byron Klaus, personal correspondence, July 6, 2009. He provided copies of the original faxes of the new blood tests sent to him from Venezuela (sent to me July 10, 2009; the tests are dated in 1998, from Aug. 10 and 17; Sept. 9; Oct. 15 and 22). For some earlier claims of healings in Venezuela, including a paralyzed leg, muteness, and deafness, see Ollson, "Healings."
233. A case study from the WCDN website including the original, signed audiogram reports (http:// www.wcdn.org/wcdn_eng/case/case_content.asp?id=38&page=3; accessed May 6, 2009). If we allow a margin of error in the audiograms of 10 points (the hearing threshold moved only from 75 to 59 dB), however, some might construe the significance as less certain; duration of hearing loss is also a factor.
Cf. also possible partial recovery of sight in Honduras, a case study from the WCDN website noting that only partial documentation was available (her condition after prayer and the mother's testimony about her previous state; the hospital no longer had her records because they were too old; http://www.wcdn
.org/wcdn_eng/case/case_content.asp?id=22&page=4; accessed May 6, 2009).
234. Rance, "Child."
235. See Alamino, Footsteps, passim. In addition to accounts in the book, he reports the instant healing of a person's condition of kidney failure (in a sermon at First Baptist Church, Everett, Washington, Feb.
1, 2009; cf. also Brian Stewart [personal correspondence, June 7, 2010]).
236. David Gomero Borges, interview, Aug. 12, 2010. These included two instant recoveries (one case of fever and pain, in 1990), and one the full recovery of a baby whom doctors said would certainly die, barring a "miracle." The baby's mother, a professor, was not a believer but acknowledged that recovery as a "miracle."
237. Mirtha Venero Boza, interview, Aug. 6, 2010.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
in early 1995, coinciding with a period of severe anger toward another church leader.
Many people were praying for him, and he devoted himself to praying and fasting, with no medical treatment. Coinciding with his forgiving the man, new films a year later revealed that the tumor was gone. He has shared this account widely, and others who walked through these events with him were able to verify them.238
In 1998, Yamilka Hernández Guzmán was working as the psychologist for the oncology hospital in Santiago. This was when doctors informed her that her uterus was misformed, too far out of place in two areas and barely larger than a child's; it was therefore impossible for her to have children. Pastor Laborde prayed for her to be able to conceive, and two months later she was pregnant. The doctors could not believe that she was pregnant when she missed her first period, but after she missed her second one they checked her. Her healthy daughter was present during our interview, enjoying hearing again the story of her conception.239
Eusbarina Acosta Estévez, now a church planter in the Christian Assemblies, recounted her experience in 1988. Her heart was in such poor condition that she could walk only three steps; additionally, she had been hospitalized three months due to kidney problems. Her extremities were swollen and she had been urinating blood. Although she had been invoking other spirits, a cousin pointed her to Christ. When ministers prayed for her she fell to the ground and in the next few minutes was dramatically converted; simultaneously, she was immediately and completely healed.240
Raúl Regueiro Sanchéz told me that when he was a young and very immature Christian, Eusbarina took him around the neighborhood where she was evangelizing and had him pray for the sick. To his astonishment, a woman with a flow of blood was immediately healed, as was a woman with chronic headaches. Although he did not continue to experience the same sorts of events when he was on his own, this seminal experience later stood him in good stead as a mature Christian.
His wife had been bleeding for a month after contracting hemorrhagic dengue fever. When he laid hands on her and prayed, she was instantly healed.241 He also reported the healing of a person's skin cancer in less than a week after the prayer, the difference being visible; the witness to whom he referred me confirmed the report.242
Pentecostal minister Rhode Gonzàlez Zorrilla is the former president of the Cuban Council of Churches and a published expert on Cuban Pentecostalism.
She recounted that when she was doing studies in Costa Rica in 1993, she fell into 238. Ismael Laborde Figueras, interview, Aug. 7, 2010 (also briefly his wife, the same day).
239. Yamilka Hernández Guzmán, interview, Aug. 8, 2010. I did not have to go far to find this account;
Yamilka was the only other person present with us for a long time in the office with Pastor Laborde on the second day that I interviewed him.
240. Eusbarina Acosta Estévez, interview, Aug. 7, 2010. Before we finished, Eusbarina also shared a healing of a different, more recent chronic problem. This healing had occurred just three days earlier, when we first met, in connection with a recent vision.
241. Raúl Regueiro Sanchéz, interview, Aug. 7, 2010; afterward I consulted Eusbarina again, who confirmed the account.
242. Raúl Regueiro Sanchéz, interview, Aug. 7, 2010; Juan Carlos Riestra Matos, interview, Aug. 7, 2010.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
a drainage ditch when exiting a bus, all her weight landing hard on her right foot.
Immediately she discovered that her metatarsal bones, instead of lying flat, were visibly pressing up against the skin, and her foot quickly began to swell. Because she had no insurance, she could not go to the hospital and get a cast, so she persuaded a friend to drop her off at where she was staying. She took a painkiller, but the pain remained unbearable, and she cried out to God that she had no one to help her but him. Somehow she fell asleep, but when she awoke, her foot was completely normal, and she has never had any problems with it subsequently. Although she had prayed, she was so astonished that she checked with her friend to confirm that the foot had been as badly hurt as she remembered, and her friend confirmed this.243
Alternán Claro Pupo, executive secretary of the Christian Pentecostal Church of Cuba, reported that his adolescent back problems sometimes nearly paralyzed him. At the age of sixteen his doctor indicated that he had a slipped disk; though he was not allowed to do any athletic activities, he refused surgery. The next year the doctor found a heart problem as well, causing chest pains and shortness of breath. By the time he was twenty, however, he had become a Christian and he began praying for healing. One night he spent several hours in prayer and was convinced that God healed him. For more than a quarter century after that day, he lacked any further symptoms. Immediately after the healing he served two years in the army with all its exercises.244
Leonel Camejo Tazé recounted that about two years ago, after four months of continuous headaches, an MRI located the problem in his brain, and medicine was prescribed. Soon after this, however, he was converted, and a month later he believed that God had healed him. He discontinued the medicine; he testifies that the headaches stopped instantly that night and never returned.245
Dorka R. Rojas Cruz, rector of the Elim Bible Institute, interviewed for me several people she knows who were healed in her church in Las Tunas.246 In 1956 doctors found that the condition of Felipe Rojas Rojas, after forty-three days of fever and being too weak even to sit, was beyond hope. They sent him home to die, warning that he probably had just five or six days left to live. Dying and desperate, he begged his mother to invite two women known for prayer, María Machín and Gisela; on the way to his home, the women felt that he would be healed, and without even praying directly simply informed Felipe's mother that God would
243. Rhode Gonzàlez Zorrilla, interview, Aug. 11, 2010. She notes that doctors recently X-rayed her extremities due to arthritis in her hands; her foot remains completely well. She has published articles on Cuban Pentecostalism with the Center of Sociological and Religious Research of Cuba's National
Academy of Sciences.
244. Alternán Claro Pupo, interviews, Aug. 3, 6, 2010. Alternán noted that twenty-seven years later, he still lacks symptoms of these conditions. While he was well when we met, however, he did have one heart attack about seven months before our meeting (at least twenty-six years after his cure). He was active when we met and no back problems were evident.
245. Leonel Camejo Tazé, interview, Aug. 11, 2010.
246. Dorka R. Rojas Cruz, personal correspondence, Sept. 1, 2010 (with some details clarified and confirmed Oct. 29, 2010). She provided not only names but addresses for many who were healed.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
raise him up. A few seconds later, before they could even leave the house, he got up healed, and he quickly became a Christian. He is now seventy-three years old, and happens to be Dorka's father.
Likewise, multiple doctors had confirmed the colon cancer of Rosa Torres Salas nine years earlier. After prayer, her pain and bleeding stopped; the doctors realized that she had been healed when they went to do surgery.247 After three severe heart attacks, doctors warned Aurelia Rodriguez Pérez that she might live anywhere from six hours to six difficult months. After extended prayer, new electrocardiograms showed no sign that she had even experienced heart attacks, and she lived on for three more decades.248 She eventually died of old age; she was the mother of Dorka's mother.249
Dorka also interviewed Marciano Jimenez Castro, executive treasurer of the ICPC (Christian Pentecostal Church of Cuba), for cases he knew directly.250 Doctors diagnosed him as suffering from chronic diabetes mellitus. One day, laid up at home sick, he heard a radio preacher praying for the sick. He was healed and later went into ministry. He also recounted that when his grandson Gisángel Curvelo
Jiménez was three, in January 1999, doctors determined that the boy was dying from meningoencephalitis. On Gisángel's third day in the hospital, doctors warned that he would die that afternoon. After Marciano, then a pastor, prayed with him at midday, the child began to improve; by night the boy was feeling well and playing with a ball. Doctors predicted that he would be blind and disabled both mentally and physically. Instead he is now a healthy fourteen-year-old musician in the church.
Dorka provided further historical cases from a research thesis involving their church in Imías, Guantánamo. For example, América Oñate Brabet was sent home to die; when people prayed, she was healed. Erculina was instantly cured of uterine cancer as they prayed. Miriam Díaz Brabet, who lives in front of the church, reported how her eighteen-month-old son Arquímedes would convulse fifty times a day; he was healed within three days of prayer, and is now twenty.251
Various Other Latin American and Caribbean Examples Many examples are possible from Mexico and from Mexicans on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border; I offer several samples. The first person who an eyewitness reported healed in the early Pentecostal revival at Azusa Street was a Mexican believer, in this case of something like clubfoot.252 In 1924 a Mexican woman named
247. Dorka interviewed her directly and provided further details (personal correspondence, Sept. 1;
Oct. 5, 12, 2010). Those who prayed for her are also closely known to Dorka: Marciano Jiménez Castro, noted below, and Noemí Eunice Rojas Cruz, Dorka's sister.
248. Dorka R. Rojas Cruz, personal correspondence, Sept. 1, 2010.
249. Ibid., Oct. 29, 2010.
250. She interviewed him on Sept. 26, 2010; I have the information in personal correspondence,
Oct. 12, 17, 2010.
251. Dorka R. Rojas Cruz, Oct. 12, 17, 2010, citing Quintero Pérez, "Folleto."
252. Espinosa, "Borderland Religion," 130. Espinosa cites other Mexican-Americans who testified to witnessing healings at Azusa Street (in one case, of the recounter's father) on 131.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
María Rivera Atkinson was diagnosed with cancer in her mid-forties, according to her account; after she found herself cured through the prayers of two Pentecostal women, she became Pentecostal and eventually started the Church of God in Mexico.253 One theology professor from the United States recounts healings that he had witnessed in Mexico years earlier as a college student, including blindness, deafness, and muteness.254 A dentist prayed for a child with impetigo, who was visibly healed within fifteen minutes.255 A Mexican believer trained by a Swedish missionary tried to attract a crowd by street preaching and found little evangelistic success in this method. It occurred to him to go to the pharmacy and ask people coming out if they would like to meet someone who could heal them. He would go home with them, pray for the sick person in the name of Jesus, and people were healed. Through this method he was able to start a church. The missionary admitted that he would not have thought of this method, but it worked.256
When I asked Eduardo Lara Reyes, one of my Baptist students from Mexico, if he had any stories, he introduced me to his wife, Nimsi Arcila Leal. She noted that several tests in 2003 revealed that she had pre-cancer at the highest level in her cervix, a diagnosis repeatedly confirmed by internal camera and a biopsy, and confirmed by another doctor. The tests also showed that the medicine applied externally was not having any effect (there was no radiation or chemotherapy), so the doctor went in to remove the precancerous tissue. Nimsi and her family had been praying. When the removed tissue was examined, no precancerous tissue was there; the doctor apologized and said that maybe the surgery had not been needed after all. No medicine was necessary, and subsequent checkups revealed that the problem never recurred.257 Even cancers that have not spread are known to remit, but for Eduardo and Nimsi, this occurrence fits a pattern of answers to important but humanly difficult prayers.
Included in this larger pattern was a testimony that Nimsi's father, Wilbert Arcila Gonzalez, provided concerning her mother, Febe A. Leal Piña.258 In 1985, she fell sick with recurrent fever that was originally misdiagnosed as typhoid; a range of doctors failed to discover what was causing her debilitating sickness, but eventually the IMSS Hospital259 offered the probable diagnosis of lupus erythematosus, warning that this disease was irreversible. No medicine availed, and each day before work, Wilbert had to carry his wife to the bathroom, because she was
253. Avalos, Health Care, 1. Avalos points out that she suffered ill health the rest of her life despite the cure; nevertheless, we may note that she lived almost four more decades, to well over eighty years old
(1879–1963), despite the diagnosis in 1924. Atkinson brought the movement she pioneered into the Church of God movement (McGee, Miracles, 169).
254. Alexander, Signs, 86 (the mute girl was healed when prayed for in her home).
255. Llewellyn, "Events," 250, recounting a friend's experience.
256. McGavran, "Seeing," 68.
257. Eduardo Lara Reyes and Nimsi Arcila Leal, interview, Sept. 17, 2009.
258. Wilbert Arcila Gonzalez (personal correspondence, as translated for me by Eduardo Lara Reyes,
Nov. 30, 2009).
259. The Mexican Social Security Institute Hospital.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
unable to walk. Because treatment was not helping, they stopped, though she had pain medicine available. She refused to complain about her pain, but eventually it hurt too much even for the sheets to touch her legs. One night, she prayed that she would not take any medicine and that she depended on God to either heal her or take her home, because the suffering was too great. The following morning, she suddenly realized that her pain had disappeared, along with the bumps on her legs. She praised God joyfully, and the sickness never returned.
Their friend Yazmin Hommer also provided me her testimony.260 Shortly after returning from West Africa, she fell sick in 1998 with a high fever (40° C/104° F) and pneumonia, and then she fell into a coma for forty days. She was experiencing severe cerebral malaria, and her organs were beginning to fail. The doctors did not offer a high likelihood of her survival. After significant intercessory prayer from many believers, however, she began recovering. The planned tracheotomy proved unnecessary. While the doctors had expected three months in the intermediate care unit with some returns to the intensive care unit, instead she was discharged from the hospital a week later. Her doctor was shocked and regarded her recovery as astonishing.261 Yazmin has provided me much of the copious medical documentation that attended her situation.262
Others have documented such claims much more widely. A parasite was destroying the liver of a third-grader in Costa Rica named Sara Rodríguez; when she finally went for testing, X-rays revealed that a third of the liver had been destroyed. Realizing that nothing more could be done for her medically, the doctor sent her home to die. Christians began praying for Sara, however, and she became convinced that God would heal her. "Within days," the interviewer notes, "the child improved. Her mother returned with Sara for further medical examinations and X-rays. The X-rays, in contrast to those taken earlier, clearly indicated that Sara's liver was completely normal." She remained well and continued in school.263 Another person in Costa Rica was healed of advanced, untreated lung cancer.264 When DeLonn Rance "was twelve in Guatemala City, a car door crushed the fingers on my right hand." Before his father could get him to medical treatment, local Bible school students prayed and his hand "was instantly healed."265
260. Yazmin Hommer, personal correspondence, Oct. 26–27, 2009. Eduardo and Nimsi referred me to her in personal conversation and in correspondence (Oct. 23, 2009).
261. Yazmin Hommer, personal correspondence, Nov. 20, 2009.
262. Sent to me Dec. 1, 2009, with further correspondence.
263. Petersen, Might, 100–101 (based on his interviews with the mother and her pastor, Sept. 25,
1990, and further knowledge from 1992). For the phenomenal growth of Pentecostalism in Costa Rica, cf. Bastian, "Pentecostalism," esp. 167.
264. Klaus, "Miracle." Byron notes that the healing was confirmed by X-rays and that the boy has remained well (personal correspondence, July 7, 2009).
265. Personal correspondence, Sept. 27, 2010. He also shared the 1992 healing of his daughter's abscesses, surprising the doctor who had planned to operate (Sept. 27, 28, 2010, with the testimony on their website, http://delonnandvalerierance.com; accessed Sept. 27 and 28, 2010).
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
I earlier cited Loida Martell-Otero, one of my colleagues in theology. She shared with me several accounts of cures in the context of prayer, of which I recount one here.266 (Because Loida was trained as a veterinarian before becoming a theologian, her accounts are more medically informed than most others.) A woman from the Dominican Republic came to the United States for treatment of keratitis sicca, a condition in which the cornea dries out, potentially leading ultimately to ulceration of the eye and blindness; doctors planned to surgically route a salivary duct to the eye. While in the United States, she visited the Spanish Baptist Church of Soundview, pastored by Loida's father, Rafael Martell; Loida was then the associate pastor.
When Loida's father called for prayer, the woman started to make her way forward down the long aisle and then began shouting and crying before anyone could even pray for her. Tears were streaming down her eyes, and the surgery was canceled.
One early twentieth-century evangelist in Puerto Rico claims that in their annual conference, "many who had been ill for years and had been given up by the doctors were perfectly healed in answer to prayer."267 Bonnie Ortiz, a Latina
Pentecostal and trusted colleague at my seminary, tells me that she was present when a Puerto Rican evangelist told a close friend of hers that two of this friend's teeth had just been miraculously filled. Bonnie witnessed the shock on her friend's face and examined the teeth, finding two of them filled—although the friend was convinced that she had never had any teeth filled by natural means.268 Personally,
I would prefer not to have to include reports like this one. But while many readers may wonder about the value of filling teeth, we might wonder less if we had less access to dentists or to resources with which to pay them.
Healing claims in Puerto Rico are by no means limited to Pentecostals. For example, returning again to my Baptist colleague Loida Martell-Otero, a close relative of hers in Puerto Rico had visible skin tumors diagnosed by tests as malignant.
The family kept praying for her, and the tumors began to disappear as new tests indicated no cancer; many years later, the woman remains well.269
More pervasively, Puerto Rican Baptist minister Marilú Dones de Reyes has exercised a ministry of praying for the sick.270 Among the healings reported are a medical doctor with histoplasmosis, whose lungs had been able to receive only 51
266. Discussion, Feb. 23, 2010; interview, April 22, 2010; follow-up correspondence, April 23, 2010.
Her other accounts include those of close family members and recoveries that are medically unusual.
267. Otero, "Convention." During a major healing revival in Puerto Rico in 1950, massive numbers of healings of blindness, deafness, inability to walk and other serious problems were reported (Miller, Miracle of Healing, 42–43, often supplying names).
268. Interview, Jan. 10, 2009; the evangelist was Jiye Avila. Obviously, enamel does not reform naturally and teeth do not fill naturally without dental intervention (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence,
April 1, 2009). Schiappacasse, Heals, 59, reports that a dentist, finding a patient's teeth miraculously filled before their appointment, initially assumed (as one would) that she had gone to another dentist.
269. Interview, April 22, 2010.
270. Gutierrez, Mujer de Milagros, 78–79. My colleague Dr. Mayra Picos-Lee located and interpreted for me the relevant material in this book (personal correspondence, Sept. 30, 2009). Histoplasmosis is a disease involving fungus in the lungs.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
percent of the needed oxygen; he was healed after prayer at Marilú's church.271 In another case, Don Ramon Rivera Adorno was sick in the hospital for seventy-four days, at which point doctors warned him that he would probably live for at most another week. Although the doctors refused to allow him to leave the hospital, he signed release forms and went away healed, explaining to them that God had healed him.272 Marilú both asks God freely and recognizes that God does not always heal, citing Dan 3:17–18;273 she herself welcomed surgery for a different disease.274
On the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, a twenty-one-month-old boy named Adé Lewis had his left index finger partly amputated in an accident in May 1986. The nail was ripped out, and the tip and part of the bone were severed. To the mother's horror, no accessible medical facilities had the requisite resources to sew it back on. Father Ralph DiOrio, a figure in the Catholic healing ministry, prayed and urged them to give glory to God. The mother testified that not only the nail but also the rest of the finger grew back quickly until it was almost as long as his right index finger.275 People from the African and Caribbean diaspora also offer reports of healing experiences in Western settings like the United Kingdom.276
Dr. Horace Russell, former president of the United Theological College of the West Indies and for many years one of my senior colleagues at Palmer Theological
Seminary,277 shared with me some of his experiences. He noted that experiences that believers would construe as miracles are common in Jamaica, where he began his ministry; they are less common in the West, where God has provided gifts like medical technology, but occur especially where people have nothing else to depend on. He noted that they are nevertheless not limited only to believers.
An agnostic professor at the University of the West Indies in Kingston was dying of cancer; though she did not believe, she allowed him to pray for her. The next day, she recovered and has remained well, though she has chosen to remain an agnostic.278
Ecuador As I have noted, healing reports are in no wise limited to Pentecostals and charismatics (or Protestants).279 Nevertheless, in this section I will devote extensive
271. Gutierrez, Mujer de Milagros, 78–79.
272. Ibid., 79.
273. Ibid.
274. Ibid., 95–97.
275. DiOrio, Signs, 130–35. In contrast to other forms of regrowth, a bone would not grow back like this naturally without medical intervention (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009).
276. See, e.g., Michel, Telling, 64; cf. Schaefer, "Miracles."
277. He is also known for his work on the Baptist World Alliance Commission on Baptist Heritage and Identity and his scholarship on the history of Jamaican Baptists in mission.
278. Horace Russell, interview, July 2, 2009.
279. Catholic miracle claims are not limited to charismatic circles; unlike some Protestants, who reacted against what they considered Catholic excesses, Catholic and Orthodox theology never adopted a cessationist stance (e.g., Mullin, Miracles, 133; Kselman, Miracles, 197).
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
space to some examples from Joseph Castleberry's Columbia University dissertation. It treats the development of one Pentecostal denomination (the Assemblies of God) in Ecuador and includes surveys and interviews of large numbers of church leaders and members there.280 Early mass meetings surrounding the founding of the church in Guayaquil, Ecuador, yielded numerous healing claims;281 one of these involved Marco Palomeque. People had called him El Manco ("the onehanded") because his right arm was known to be paralyzed; after his healing, he joined the movement and eventually became the first Ecuadorian superintendent of the Ecuadorian Assemblies of God.282
During an evangelism campaign in Quito in 1972, "a blind girl and a deaf child were healed," leading to rapid church growth and many other reports of healings.283
An eyewitness and church leader provided more extensive reports for the evangelistic campaign of 1982. He reported that though the evangelist did not pray for the sick, people began being healed unexpectedly. A number of people with arthritis, previously unable to raise their arms, were healed. Then people's teeth started being filled, some disabled persons could walk, and cancer and blindness were healed.284 One of the converts at this time was a professor of educational research at Quito's Central University of Ecuador, Dr. Luis Flores. Although he had been an atheist, Flores experienced the permanent healing of a number of chronic conditions, including "deviation of the fifth lumbar vertebra, chronic pharyngitis," allergies "and a duodenal ulcer." He joined the movement and became a pastor in 1985, a position in which he has continued.285
A physician there reports that she prays for her patients and has often seen them healed. She also reports that at one point she felt something like fire burning inside her and was convinced that some healing was about to occur; then, she claims, God filled the molars of her little son and nephew.286 Of the church members surveyed, 22 percent "reported that a healing was instrumental in their decision to convert," and this factor was more common among men.287 More generally, 90 percent of all who responded reported that they had experienced
280. Castleberry, "Impact." The dissertation uses both documents and interviews with eyewitnesses, usually including those whose healing testimonies I have cited. I have known the dissertation's author for more than twenty years; he is now president of Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington.
281. Ibid., 106 (citing, e.g., Walker, Siembra).
282. Castleberry, "Impact," 106.
283. Ibid., 108 (citing Walker, Siembra).
284. Castleberry, "Impact," 112, citing Benjamin LaFon, who reiterated that even the interdenominational campaign's most enthusiastic supporters had not expected this. The sorts of afflictions mentioned here do not normally simply disappear without medical intervention (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009, on the filling of teeth and healing of cancer).
285. Castleberry, "Impact," 112–13 (the conditions are elaborated on 113n20), quoting communication from Dr. Flores (Nov. 24, 1998).
286. Castleberry, "Impact," 143.
287. Ibid., 151. The proportion of university graduates was also slightly higher, but given the relatively small sample size the difference was probably not statistically significant. For the entire section on "Conversion Due to Healing or a Miracle," see 151–52.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
miraculous healings;288 the list of conditions reportedly healed included, among others:289
• A bowel occlusion • Cancer • Delirium • Facial paralysis • Gallbladder stones • Heart and lung problems • Hemorrhaging during pregnancy • Infertility • Knee problems • Near-fatal aplastic anemia • Paralysis due to stroke • Suicidal tendencies • Tooth cavities • Uterine problems A number of professionals reported healings or divinely blessed treatments. Thus
"a male university professor of sociology testified of divine protection when a bus ran over his leg and divine healing in his subsequent speedy recovery. . . . Several of those who reported healings were medical professionals. A dentist testified that she witnessed the immediate healing of her own injured finger, in which the swelling was instantly reversed."290 Although the recent history of the Assemblies of God in Ecuador is distinctive for this denomination in Latin America in some respects, the frequency of claims to have experienced and witnessed divine healing seem more pervasive.
Chile Carlos and Mayra Bonilla, Baptist missionaries in Chile, noted that they had numerous stories but shared with me a recent recovery of someone close to them
288. Ibid., 166.
289. I am using the exact words in Castleberry, "Impact," 166, but rearranging them in list form and omitting some examples. One example I omit is ovarian cysts, which can resolve naturally (by painful but survivable bursting; Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009), though the same may be said of some of the examples I have retained (e.g., the vague "knee problems"). The bowel obstruction, however, is serious and potentially fatal if prolonged (Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence,
April 14, 2009). While minor strokes usually resolve within twenty-four hours, damage remaining after a few days is less likely to reverse, and progress usually is gradual and requires "intense physical therapy"
(Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009).
290. Castleberry, "Impact," 167–68. An obstetrician also attributed her mother's gradual improvement after stroke to divine healing (168).
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
in Chile. On Friday, April 27, 2007, Baptist minister Margarita Campos fell very sick. She shivered and vomited throughout the weekend and on Monday went into convulsions. She fell into a coma and was diagnosed with advanced meningitis. The doctor warned that she would never come out of the coma and that if she lived, she would be bedridden for the rest of her life. Noting the severe brain damage (according to the Bonillas, 50 percent of her brain was damaged and dark on the scans), five or six doctors conferred and agreed that if she survived, she would be a vegetable.
After an extended period of the church's prayers, Margarita started to move, eat, and speak. A month and a half later, she was asked to write something, and she wrote, "I am well because of my Lord." Her doctors, happy for her, responded,
"You must have good connections up there, because you were supposed to be dead." She showed further improvement at every checkup. She began walking to church again, and some aspects of her health appeared even stronger than before she fell sick.291 Their former colleagues Stephen and Sheila Heneise shared with me more recently that her doctors continue to express astonishment; now she is again preaching, singing, and doing things with the part of the brain that was supposedly destroyed. They have a photo of her lifting a baby high for a baby dedication.292 Subsequently Mayra confirmed this report; Margarita has resumed duties as lead pastor at New Redeemer Baptist Church and "is back at her 'normal'
. . . state" before the meningitis, apart from still recovering some of her physical strength.293 In contrast to earlier scans showing more than half her brain damaged, current tests show only scars, with the brain fully functional.294
Steve and Sheila shared with me some additional accounts of healings that they witnessed in Chile. They had other accounts available but narrowed their examples to several samples.295 One account involves Ruth Nuñez, who in 1998 became a student in Santiago's Baptist Theological Institute. She had birth defects; most problematic for her studies was her ability to hear only partially and in only one ear, but she also had difficulty walking. That summer a speaker from the Youth Department of the Baptist Churches of the Chilean Mission invited hearers needing healing to come forward for prayer, but Ruth balked. The next day she confessed to Sheila Heneise that she feared that God would heal her only if she accepted the call to ministry, with which she was struggling. That evening, however, she did commit herself to ministry.
Steve and Sheila describe what happened next: "Rising early the next morning, she went into the woods to pray and consider her decision. As she was praying and meditating she began to notice sounds around her in the woods—a rabbit rustling
291. Carlos Bonilla and Mayra Giovanetti Bonilla, interview, Sept. 13, 2008.
292. Sheila Heneise, interview, April 5, 2009.
293. Mayra Giovanetti Bonilla, personal correspondence, twice on July 9, 2009.
294. Ibid.
295. They noted that when they listed experiences they could share with me they "quickly filled a page.
Of these many" they chose three (personal correspondence, Aug. 20, 2008).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
in the grass; a bee buzzing overhead. She had never before heard these sounds.
Her hearing was healed." The Heneises have kept in touch with Ruth since that time. In January 2000, a Baptist pastor, "noticing her limp, asked her if he could pray for her. In a private place he began to pray and within minutes God healed
Ruth's hip and lengthened her short leg so that she could walk normally."296 Her healings have remained permanent.297
They also note a healing that occurred during evening services at the Baptist convention in 1998. Sheila noted that people were being healed there regularly; on this occasion one person for whom they prayed was a woman named Dominga, who had serious head pain. Dominga was facing an operation because an injury had apparently caused a blood clot that was pressuring the brain. She was healed completely that night, removing the need for surgery.298 In another, more recent case Sheila prayed with a woman who needed to have an operation on her throat. Their immediate prayer was for her emotional healing; as she forgave, she was instantly released from deep-seated anger. Within the week her doctor found her physically healed as well and canceled the operation. The next year the family started a new church in another town.299
Steve and Sheila note an account from December 2002 in Pisagua, a small coastal town in northern Chile. The bus driver for the Baptist evangelism meetings there,
Jorge, was a recent convert through the influence of his wife, Patricia, who had been healed from breast cancer during prayer in front of him. Jorge had enthusiastically invited a woman with uterine cancer for prayer, assuring her that God would heal her also. Steve Heneise was one of the ministers praying; Pastor Bernabe Amigo led the prayer and afterward asked her "if she had felt anything." She said that she felt heat in her abdomen. A month later, Pastor Job Isla returned to Pisagua, and the young woman shared with him that further medical tests found no cancer.300
Finally, they shared a story from a new church in San Carlos planted by New Hope Baptist Church in Chillan Viejo in 2002. A recent convert, an older woman, asked for prayer for her dying husband, Manuel, "his body ravaged by a lifetime of dissolute living." He had been sent home from the hospital to die, since nothing further could be done for him. Though he was close to death, he was able to understand enough of their message to invite Christ to forgive him and save him,
296. Steve Heneise and Sheila Heneise, personal correspondence, Aug. 21, 2008. They add, "For the past five years Ruth Nuñez has been pastor of the Baptist Church in Diego de Almagro, Chile." Leg lengthening has often been faked in public meetings, but fakery would not produce permanent healing of an organically impaired gait.
297. Steve Heneise and Sheila Heneise, personal correspondence, Aug. 22, 2008, noting that "she has had other health issues, but her hearing and hip/leg healings were permanent."
298. Sheila Heneise (interview, April 5, 2009), who was present during the prayer and to whom Dominga later corroborated this account. On another occasion that year, they prayed along with Margarita for a woman who had suffered years of chronic back pain, sometimes fainting and sometimes needing injections in the hospital. After this time of prayer, she never had any more trouble (Sheila Heneise, interview, April
5, 2009).
299. Sheila Heneise, interview, April 5, 2009.
300. Steve Heneise and Sheila Heneise, correspondence, Aug. 21, 2008.
Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
and Steve Heneise prayed with him. The next week, Pastor Carlos called Steve and mentioned "old Manuel." Steve asked when the funeral would be. "You won't believe this," the pastor responded, "but he walked to church last evening to give his testimony about how God had raised him from his deathbed!"301 Manuel did eventually die within a year,302 but the immediate turnaround that extended his life impacted the community, where he was "very well known."303 As a result,
"today the New Hope Baptist Church of San Carlos is several times larger than its mother church in Chillan Viejo."304
One should keep in mind that these examples are fairly random ones; they appear here simply because I have had contact with the Bonillas and the Heneises.
Baptists are only a small proportion of Christians in Chile, where the majority of people are Catholic and the largest Protestant denomination is easily the Pentecostal Methodist Church.305 Ninety-eight percent of Chilean Pentecostal pastors reported that God had used them in healing, even though only 57 percent had
"spoken in the 'tongue of angels.'"306 Even from among the Baptists, I include only a small number of testimonies from two families I know. In other circles, an Anglican priest testifies that he prayed, without much faith, for a baby that had been sent home from the hospital to die. Three days later he learned from the mother that the baby had been completely healed.307
Thus a researcher could likely fill a book with healing claims based on interviews in that country alone. For example, healings of deafness, inability to walk, and other afflictions are reported in interdenominational evangelical meetings more than half a century ago.308 These examples should, however, suffice to make the point that the belief that God heals remains common in Latin America, and that eyewitness testimony is often cited in support of this belief. I have drawn my
Latin American examples especially from the Protestant minority there because I have more sources there, but Catholics, in contrast to some Protestants, have
301. Ibid.
302. Idem, Aug. 22, 2008.
303. Idem, Aug. 20, 2008.
304. Idem, Aug. 21, 2008.
305. On one Catholic account from 1990 in Chile, see Duffin, Miracles, 155, and her source. On the history of the Pentecostal Methodist Church, from which I also have a healing testimony (Claudia Palma, interview, April 19, 2011), see, e.g., the surveys in Anderson, Pentecostalism, 239–41; McGee, "Regions
Beyond," 92–93; Deiros and Wilson, "Pentecostalism," 310–11; Synan, Grow, 45–47; Escobar, Tides, 79.
Since 1967 this movement has been associated with the Pentecostal Holiness Church in North America
(Synan, "Churches," 113). My statistics are estimates, but in rough terms Pentecostal Methodists have outnumbered Baptists more than fifteen to one; all Pentecostals have outnumbered Baptists roughly forty to one; and Catholics have outnumbered them more than one hundred fifty to one (Mandryk, Operation
World, 210–11).
306. Chesnut, "Exorcising," 175.
307. Pytches, Come, 121–22. Pytches, whose firsthand account it is, was then or later bishop of Chile,
Bolivia, and Peru.
308. See Doleshal, "Healings." Wagner, "Genesis," 43, notes that even when he was a cessationist, he was impressed with Chilean Pentecostal growth, adding that he "witnessed healings," prophecies, and other phenomena that had not been part of his experience or belief system.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
never taught that miracles ceased and could therefore provide more numerous claims than I had available.
Conclusion In chapter 7, I noted that from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, many tens of millions of people claim to have witnessed miraculous healings. Beyond that larger observation, I have tried to illustrate that point in these two chapters (chs. 8 and 9) with some more concrete examples of various kinds. In circles that accept the reality of supernatural phenomena, these healing claims include both the sorts of recoveries that most Westerners would explain naturalistically (from headaches to even some deathbed recoveries) and those recoveries that cannot easily be so explained (such as immediate healings of long-term blindness and deafness or the instant and visible disappearance of goiters). I will offer more of the latter sort of examples in chapter 12.
What I can say without any concern of contradiction is that eyewitnesses can and do claim to have seen or experienced healings, some of them dramatic. In view of this observation, there is no reason to suppose that such claims in the first century must represent legendary accretions from a later generation; they could as easily reflect the substance of eyewitness reports from those who experienced
Jesus's or his followers' ministries. I defer fuller discussion of the question of supernatural causation for chapters 13–15 (esp. ch. 15) but turn now to healing claims in the West.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History A miracle that happened at Milan while I was there, when a blind man had his sight restored, succeeded in becoming more widely known because Milan is an important city. . . . In contrast with this, there are surely only a very few at Carthage who know about the healing of Innocentius, sometime counsellor of the vice-prefecture. But I was present as an eyewitness. —Augustine of Hippo1
I have been concerned that such accounts should be published because I saw that signs of divine power like those of older days were frequently occurring in modern times too. . . . It is not yet two years since the shrine we have been speaking of was established at Hippo and, to my certain knowledge, many miracles have occurred there which are not recorded in the published documents; and nearly seventy of these documents have been produced, at the time of writing. —Augustine of Hippo2
C laims of supernatural activity are not simply the domain of the modern nonWestern world. They appeared frequently in early Christian sources that the West traditionally counted in its cultural heritage, in church history, including but not limited to the West, from early to current times.3 Egypt, Carthage, Syria, and other early Christian spheres of influence in Africa and Asia were not Western, geographically or culturally, but the entire church draws on such sources as part
1. Augustine City of God 22.8 (trans. Bettenson, 1034, 1035).
2. Ibid. (trans. Bettenson, 1043).
3. I regret not having located fuller resources that could have illustrated the case far more thoroughly than can my collection of data here, at some points dependent on a painfully limited number of sources, in a way that is not the case where working from my own discipline. I am grateful for resources (cited below) on whom I could confidently draw, such as Porterfield, Curtis, Opp, Mullin, Baer, Kidd, Alexander,
Hardesty, and Kydd, among many others.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
of its general Christian heritage.4 Even in Hume's day, his assurance that uniform human experience was against miracles required him to simply dismiss abundant claims without prior investigation. As we shall see, Hume was able to do so by drawing on an earlier Christian tradition that did just that, framed in a reactionary, polemical context. Nevertheless, in this historical chapter I have given greater attention to reports more recent than Hume because more records remain available, because many of these reports are more fully documented, and because these examples more immediately inform the contemporary context.
Some examples are from eras more difficult to reconstruct, with the sorts of stories sufficiently distant from the events reported in the Gospels and Acts for us to treat them more cursorily. I am convinced that a number of the cases reported in history may well illustrate their reporters' unhealthy credulity (see especially appendix C and the distinction between hagiography and more dependable historiography), but in numerous other cases genuine, unusual recoveries appear sufficiently attested at a stage close to eyewitnesses. Relevant for our later discussion, it also appears to me that in some of these cases a supernatural explanation, if not a priori ruled out, seems more plausible than a nonsupernatural one. For now, however, the more important point is that while legend can create and augment stories about miracles, they can also stem from the level of eyewitnesses.
Perspectives from the Premodern World The church has a long supernaturalist tradition. I start by noting such views in history, because these approaches remained at home with supernaturalist readings of the accounts in the Gospels and Acts, not unlike those readings in much of the Majority World today.5 W. D. Davies and Dale Allison, for example, cite various eyewitness claims through history and today and contend that such claims cannot be dismissed as merely "antique naïveté."6 While the areas treated are not by 4. By standards of the Roman Empire, Hellenistic culture that prevailed in the dominant Christian regions was Eastern; western North Africa included both Latin and Berber influences; Christianity was an Asian faith (cf. Keener, "Asia"). Lines of demarcation here are arbitrary; I am using them as a means of dividing the material and showing that antisupernaturalism is not even a dominant feature of traditional Christianity, hence of much of historic Western culture outside the modern academy, while treating most of Christian history, Western or not, in a single chapter.
5. Given the ambiguity and in some cases the falsehood of postbiblical revelatory or healing claims, some cessationist defenders of biblical miracles have found it simpler (by virtue of eliminating all ambiguity) to distinguish biblical miracle claims from subsequent ones, preserving the former but dismissing the latter. But I believe that the claims in subsequent history and today are too pervasive and sometimes too compelling to attribute them all to fabrication or imagination. More difficult for this position, appealing as it is for the reasons noted, it requires a great deal of hermeneutical ingenuity to make biblical texts support it. Indeed, it perhaps challenges some of the nt theology of miracles, and that while arguing for the Bible and against ambiguity.
6. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:62–65.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
any means all strictly Western, a large proportion of them inform the heritage of Western Christendom and hence of Western culture prior to Hume's era.7
The Gospels' claims about signs and public response hardly seemed novelistic to most Christian readers in history, including most believers on a popular level after the Enlightenment.8 In contrast to my work in sources from the Gospels' own period, my area of expertise, I depend here mostly on secondary sources; yet I trust that the examples will prove sufficient to make the minimal point that I am arguing. Most of these healing claims come from popular and anecdotal sources, since until recently scientific studies have not been as interested in such claims.
They do, however, illustrate popular beliefs, and historians typically use popular reports to document beliefs.
Most Christian reading communities in history accepted miracle reports in the Gospels and Acts as authentic indications of divine activity, and many sincere eyewitnesses claimed to see such activity. Later in the book, I will look briefly at some proposed explanations, both natural and supernatural. My primary point here, however, from the perspective of historical analysis,9 remains that many of those people reporting such phenomena directly experienced them and interpreted them in supernaturalist terms. Without yet trying to explain either kind of claim, it is fair to doubt that there is any logical reason to a priori assume that the Gospel writers must have either fabricated their miracle stories or depended on sources that must have done so.
The Patristic Era Christians were widely associated with claims of healings and exorcisms in antiquity. Not only early Christians but also rabbinic sources associated some
Christian contemporaries with healing miracles.10 Secondand third-century 7. A larger proportion of the sources most readily available for my reports in history are from regions that the West today considers related to its religious and intellectual heritage; nevertheless, similar reports also appear historically in medieval Ethiopia and elsewhere. For comments on the arbitrariness of traditional cultural boundaries, see, e.g., the discussion in Usry and Keener, Black Religion, 41–44.
8. Successive centuries of Christians continued to report miracles (see, e.g., Irvin and Sunquist,
History, 145–47; McGee, "Strategy," 50–52; idem, "Miracles and Mission," 146–48; through history,
Gardner, Healing Miracles, 67–92); for some views through history, see Muzur and Skrobonja, "Healings"
(summarized in Kub, "Miracles," 1273). Early Christian art featured Jesus's miracles prominently (Frend,
Rise, 416), suggesting the same interest attested in the literary sources.
9. Opp, Lord for Body, 4–5, notes that most historical approaches to faith healing (whether by its supporters, such as A. B. Simpson; from a Jungian perspective, Morton Kelsey; or, more nuanced, Ronald
Kydd; or its detractors, such as G. B. Cutten or Keith Thomas) are essentialist, presenting the phenomenon as the same over time. While such approaches have weaknesses in their particulars and do differ among themselves, they can nevertheless illustrate the basic thesis here: namely, that an antisupernaturalist approach is not the only, and indeed not the dominant, reading of healing in Christian history.
10. Christians healed in the name of Yeshu (tos. Hul. 2:22–23; see also Urbach, Sages, 1:116; Herford,
Christianity, 103–11; Klausner, Jesus, 40; Pritz, Nazarene Christianity, 96–97), though the rabbis often associated their powers with magic or fakery (e.g., p. A.Z. 2:2, §3; Urbach, Sages, 1:115–16; Herford,
Christianity, 115–17; Lachs, Commentary, 178; cf. Deut 13:1–5). In some apocryphal stories, holy rabbis destroyed miracle-working Christians with greater magic (see Herford, Christianity, 112–15).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Christian apologists depict not only apostolic leaders but also ordinary Christians as miracle workers.11 Before the 300s, exorcisms proved to be a major factor in the spread of Christianity;12 in the 300s, exorcisms and miracles are the most explicit cause of conversion to Christianity mentioned in early Christian sources.13
Christians themselves appealed to exorcisms and miracles for evidential value in public discourse. Thus Origen, arguing against Celsus and addressing pagans, claimed that Christians were still expelling evil spirits and performing cures and that he had witnessed some of these incidents.14 Similarly, Athanasius in the 350s portrays the Egyptian hermit Anthony as confronting skeptics by challenging them either to cure these demoniacs with their ideas and idols or to just observe Christ's power healing them; then, Athanasius declared, Anthony himself cured them.15
Far from being merely incredulous about a distant and unverifiable past,16 various church fathers noted that miracles and healings continued in their own day.17 In ad11. See discussion in Kelhoffer, "Miracle Workers."
12. MacMullen, Christianizing, 40–41, 60–61. Cf. also Brown, Late Antiquity, 55, as cited in Jenkins,
Next Christendom; "Miracles, Miracle-Workers," 54. Christianity initially spread fastest in urban areas, which would have been most susceptible to epidemics (cf. Avalos, Health Care, 4); miracle reports also spread faster (for understandable reasons) in more densely populated areas (see, e.g., Lawal, "Psychology," 135).
13. MacMullen, Christianizing, 61–62; Frend, Rise, 566–67 (also emphasizing the prevalent fear of demons in this period); idem, "Place of Miracles" (on 11 noting Sozomen's explanation that his family was converted in his grandfather's day through a successful exorcism). Without denying the prevalence of healings and exorcisms, Hart, Delusions, 153–55, challenges MacMullen's approach as one-sided (viewing him as hostile on 147–58); but while other means of persuasion existed, our best inferences from extant sources suggest that this approach was the most popular. On the patristic church's ministry in healings and exorcisms, and growth thereby, cf. also Burgess, "Proclaiming"; Cho, "Foundation," 31–35; more popularly, MacNutt, Crime, 82–88; Baxter, Healing, 29–48. Even in Justin Dial. 35.8, signs perform an authenticating function. Culture apparently influenced to a degree the form taken by such signs (as also more recently; see, e.g., Love, Stewart, 5, as cited by McGee, "Miracles and Mission"). Miracle reports grew from the mid-third century, in conjunction with saint-veneration ("Miracles, Miracle-Workers," 54; cf. analogous pagan hero veneration in the same period).
14. Cels. 1.46, 67, in Kelsey, Healing, 136; further on Origen, see Woolley, Exorcism, 20–23 (citing Cels.
1.22; 4.33; 7.4, 67; Hom. Jos. 24; in Matt. comm. ser. 110). Kelsey notes (Healing, 137–38) that "Origen once commented that there were many instances he could set down from his own experience, but he saw no point in giving nonbelievers another chance to ridicule Christians for imagining things like healing"
(Cels. 1.46).
15. Life of St. Anthony 80, in MacMullen, Christianizing, 112. The work may imitate a Pythagorean model
(Judge, Athens, 223), though to some modern ears Anthony sounds schizophrenic (Toner, Culture, 54).
On illness and healing in Athanasius, see Barrett-Lennard, Healing, 167–96 (for possession and exorcism in Athanasius, see 197–225); cf. briefly Darling, Healing, 42–53 (for Jerome, 54–66).
16. The modern theological argument that excludes all postbiblical miracles while accepting biblical ones (often for anti-Catholic reasons) rests on theological a prioris and philosophic inconsistency (see
Ruthven, Cessation, 83–92; cf. 35–40, 64–71; cf. Jaki, Miracles and Physics, 38).
17. Woolley, Exorcism, 13–25 (here esp. 13); Young, "Miracles in History," 106–8 (emphasizing on 106–7 that they reported miracles despite their tendency to play them down); Kelsey, Healing, 149; see evidence arranged topically in Frost, Healing, 61–110 (with translations of ante-Nicene texts, mostly relevant to healing, in 71–110). For references to continuing healings and exorcisms in the Fathers' day, they (and esp. Kelsey) cite Quadratus Apol. frg.; Justin 2 Apol. 6; Dial. 30.3; 39; 76.6; 85.2; Theophilus
Autol. 1.13; 2.8; Tertullian Scap. 4; Test. 3; Spect. 26, 29; Apol. 23, 27; An. 57; Tatian To the Greeks 17–18,
20. Kelsey, Healing, 135–99, addresses claims of healing in the early Fathers through Gregory; on related matters, see Kydd, Gifts. More briefly, De Wet, "Signs," 62–70, addresses sources in the period 100–400
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
dition to Origen, just noted, Cyprian noted that Christians were sometimes cured by baptism;18 Tertullian named prominent pagans who had been cured from evil spirits and became grateful to Christians.19 Irenaeus gives the fullest list of signs, almost the same range as in the Gospels and Acts, noting that such signs were converting pagans.20 Cyprian complained that the church's worldliness had sapped its spiritual power in his day,21 but elsewhere he too affirmed continuing healings.22 Reports continued among church fathers like Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus,23 Gregory of Nyssa,24 John Chrysostom,25 and also among the desert monks.26 Irenaeus and Athanasius used claims of healings and exorcisms apologetically to defend the orthodox as God's movement.27 Likewise, Athanasius invites skeptics to come witness the efficacy of exorcism for themselves.28 Strange as it appears to many readers today, though, church fathers like Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Augustine believed that the healing often was mediated through relics.29 c.e.; also Woodward, Miracles, 146–56; Wimber, Power Evangelism, 157–65; bibliography in Ruthven,
Cessation, 18–19; cf. more generally Porterfield, Healing, 43–65.
18. Woolley, Exorcism, 29–30, cites Cyprian Ep. 69.15, but at least in my edition this is 75.15.
19. Tertullian Scap. 4, in Kelsey, Healing, 136–37; further on exorcism in Tertullian, see Woolley,
Exorcism, 20–21 (citing Idol. 11; Ux. 2.5; Cor. 11; de Spectac. 26; Praescr. 41). Woolley, Exorcism, 21, and Kelsey, Healing, 150, note that Acts of S. Eugenia 10–11 tells how Eugenia would cast out demons; Minucius
Felix Oct. 27 also notes Christians casting out demons.
20. Kelsey, Healing, 150–51 (citing Irenaeus Haer. 2.6.2; 2.10.4; 2.31.2; 2.32.4–5; 3.5.2); cf. also
Woolley, Exorcism, 14–15; much more fully, Barrett-Lennard, Healing, 89–135 (on possession and exorcism in Irenaeus, see 137–65). The Apostolic Constitutions includes prayers that presbyters be filled both with healing and teaching gifts (8.16; Dawson, Healing, 147).
21. Kelsey, Healing, 151, citing Cyprian Laps. 6–7. By Cyprian's time, exorcism had shifted from a charism to being part of an order (Woolley, Exorcism, 27).
22. Kelsey, Healing, 151 (citing On the Vanity of Idols 7; Ep. 75.12–13, 15–16), also citing on continuing healings, Hippolytus Scholia on Daniel 10.16; Dionysius of Alexandria Ep. 12, To the Alexandrians 4;
Clement of Alexandria Quis div. 34; Origen Cels. 1.6, 25, 46–47, 67; 2.8, 33; 3.24, 28, 36; 7.35, 67; 8.58.
23. Woolley, Exorcism, 45; Kelsey, Healing, 167–71. See also Gregory Thaumaturgos in Basil On the Spirit (cited by McGee, Miracles, 5).
24. Kelsey, Healing, 171–75.
25. Ibid., 175–77. A number of healing reports historically came through sacraments (Dawson, Healing,
146–59; in recent times, Kerin, Touch, 8; White, Adventure, 73–78; Oursler, Power, 125 [Episcopal]; MacNutt,
Healing, 163–64; Neal, Power, 33–34), and through bishops and elders visiting the sick to anoint them and pray for them (147). Chrysostom mostly relegated gifts to the past (Woolley, Exorcism, 54). For anointing in the patristic era, see Rogge, "Relationship," 179–227; for its different meaning later, see Rogge, "Relationship,"
228–42 (in the Carolingian era), 242–66 (the scholastic era); and for the revised rite (e.g., Vatican II), see 333–70.
26. Woolley, Exorcism, 45–47 (note stories of Pachomius and Hilarion, though these are not eyewitness claims); Kelsey, Healing, 163–67 (including, on 166–67, Athanasius's Life of St. Antony); Lietzmann,
History, 4:160–62 (emphasizing hagiography); cf. Frend, Rise, 575; Ellingsen, Roots, 1:96. For mid-fourth century Egyptian monks, see also Porterfield, Healing, 48.
27. See Barrett-Lennard, Healing, 329. Apologetic use of miracles won important converts such as Arnobius (Lietzmann, History, 3:174).
28. Woolley, Exorcism, 47 (citing Athanasius Inc. 48.3). Lietzmann, History, 4:135–36, complains about Athanasius's miracle stories; in 3:136, he suspects Athanasius's interpretation of Arius's death as judgment, remarking that "the more critical reader" will judge him as poisoned.
29. MacMullen, Second Church, 65, 90, 108. Exorcism was expected at tombs with martyrs' relics
(ibid., 29, citing Chrysostom Jul. 2 [PG 31.489A]); Ambrose was an eyewitness of healing through relics
(ibid., 90, citing Ambrose Ep. 22.1ff.).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Reports remain abundant in the early fourth century and are not limited to the church fathers.30 Personal fourth-century letters that have survived from Christians in Egypt testify that Christians were seeking healing from God through the prayers of trusted holy men.31 Other probably fourth-century sources likewise indicate that a ministry of healing continued in other parts of the church, although this activity may have become a clerical rather than a lay prerogative.32 We have no way to verify these reports today, but they do illustrate continuing belief in miracles and in many cases firstor secondhand claims of having witnessed them.
On a popular level, most people in ancient Egypt approached their sicknesses primarily in terms of symptoms or demonic causes. Coptic texts regarding Christian cures there thus address a range of symptoms, usually those issues that doctors had not been able to treat: demon possession; migraines; breast inflammation; pains in various parts of the body; hemorrhoids; and also "nine instances of crippled persons, lame and infirm, fractures, dislocations, one case of gout, skin diseases
. . . one case of fever, and a snakebite."33 Most of these recoveries are believable even from a purely naturalistic perspective, since people naturally recover from many health problems, though some recoveries, such as those of persons unable to walk, appear at least potentially more dramatic.
The North African theologian Augustine at one point sounded like he thought that miracles had ceased, but he later retracted that view, or at least the way that he had articulated it. True, he now granted, not everyone today speaks in tongues when hands are laid on at baptism, nor are the sick always healed.34 Yet he notes that even when he had written his apparent denial he knew of a blind man healed in front of many witnesses by approaching martyrs' bodies when he was in Milan, and countless other miracles.35 In City of God 22.8, Augustine notes that they had
30. Kelsey, Healing, 152, cites among church leaders Lactantius Epit. 51; Inst. 2.16; 5.22; Arnobius
Against the Heathen 1.48ff.; Victorinus of Petau On the Creation of the World. Some of these references or citations close to them also appear in Woolley, Exorcism, 28–29.
31. See Barrett-Lennard, Healing, 44–86.
32. See the probably fourth-century Sacramentary of Sarapion (Barrett-Lennard, Healing, 277–323, with summary on 322–23).
33. Godron, "Healings," 1212–13.
34. On the widespread early Christian expectation of gifts, including prophecy and tongues, during baptism and other initiation rites, see McDonnell and Montague, Initiation, 314 (summarizing information detailed throughout the work, regarding Tertullian, Hilary, Cyril, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, John
Chrysostom, Severus, and others).
35. Augustine City of God 22.8 ("before all those witnesses," trans. Bettenson, 1034); Kelsey, Healing,
185 (citing Retract. 1.13.7, in Migne, Patrologiae Latinae 32, cols. 604–5; Util. cred. 16.34; Conf. 9.7.16;
Larmer, "Manuscript," cites Retract. 1.12.7; 1.13.5); Brown, Miracles, 8 (noting the "discomfort" this caused Warfield); Houston, Miracles, 9; Darling, Healing, 67–82; Dearmer, Body and Soul, 237–38
(citing Ambrose of Milan). He attributes many of these miracles to the relics of St. Stephen (Bentley,
Relics, 66; Woodward, Miracles, 162), though we have reason to doubt whether those relics actually had historical connection to Stephen ("discovered" through a dream, Bentley, Relics, 34–35); the bones of supposed martyrs through which a blind man was healed in Milan may have been actually from Paleolithic burials (Frend, Rise, 623; though cf. the alleged "incorruption" in Augustine Conf. 9.7), so that faith rather than the relics themselves is probably the main cause. Already in Scripture unusual
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
established a depository of documents recording miracles in Hippo only two years earlier, and already they had more than seventy published documents. He further knew of many miracles not recorded among these. Moreover, another shrine in the area, having kept records longer, had a much larger collection.36 Previously more skeptical, through experience he had grown to affirm continuing healings.37
Augustine's many examples of miracles of which he was certain include dramatic cases like healing of long-term paralytics; he freely cites eyewitnesses. Sometimes he expresses his annoyance when someone healed had not yet publicly given testimony to what God had done, because they were acting as if the healing were only for their private edification and not also for God's glory. He recounts a less dramatic recovery of his own that he regards as miraculous. He reports his own suffering for several days from tooth pain so severe (perhaps due to an abscess, in the days before root canals) that eventually he could not speak. No sooner had his friends prayed for him than it vanished (Conf. 9.4.12).38
He elaborates at special length on a case involving one of his friends, citing also another close friend who, along with Augustine, was a witness of the event. A former official named Innocent was suffering from a long-term painful anal abscess that a previous surgery and ointments had failed to correct. As anesthesia was not available in those days, patients suffering painful surgeries sometimes went into shock and died, and Innocent was terrified at the prospect of another surgery. Augustine and others prayed for him, but Augustine found himself unable to concentrate on prayer, distracted by Innocent's wailing to God. If the Lord did not respond to such desperate cries as Innocent's, Augustine wondered, what sort of prayers might move him? The next morning Augustine and the others returned for Innocent's surgery.
The doctors removed the bandages and then began searching for the abscess that they had repeatedly observed—only to discover completely healthy tissue.39 means of healing appear (cf. 2 Kgs 13:21; Acts 19:11–12); Gaiser, Healing, 166, connects relics with Mark 6:56 and Acts 19:11–12.
36. Regularly noted, e.g., Kelsey, Healing, 185; Ruthven, Cessation, 30; cf. Gardner, Healing Miracles,
136; Dearmer, Body and Soul, 239 (but wrongly listing the reference); Martin, Healing, 28–29; Kirby,
"Recovery," 112; MacMullen, Second Church, 65; for a translation, see Bettenson and Knowles, City of God, 1043. In 22.8 he also claims to have been an eyewitness to many of these supernatural healings.
Warfield, Miracles, 43, seems to imply that apologetic needs motivated Augustine's later interest in miracle shrines; we would have to regard Augustine as wholly disingenuous, however, if he fabricates his eyewitness testimony on this basis.
37. Kelsey, Healing, 186–88; Gardner, Healing Miracles, 135–37; noted earlier in Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 174–76. Cf. Daston, "Facts," 96. Warfield, who thought Augustine otherwise trustworthy, condemned Augustine's belief in miracles as reflecting his era (Herum, "Theology," 9, cites Warfield,
Miracles, 77–78), not considering whether Warfield's skepticism might similarly reflect his own era. For Augustine's theology of the miraculous, see especially Herum, "Theology"; he surveys scholars who stress
Augustine's possible pragmatic reasons for supporting miracle claims (15–19) as well as those more apt to emphasize Augustine's belief in the events he reports (19–24); for a list of many passages regarding miracles and spirits in Augustine, see 85–94.
38. Brought to my attention in Herum, "Theology," 26.
39. Augustine City of God 22.8. This story about Innocent is elaborated more fully in Larmer,
"Manuscript."
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Reports appear also in the Asian churches east of the Roman Empire. According to a report attributed to a written second-century source, the first bishop of Arbil in Mesopotamia was converted through witnessing a Syrian evangelist raising someone from the dead in 99 c.e.40 Although the relevant sources lack the hagiography of medieval accounts, a healing and possible nature miracle also appear.41
The Medieval Period42 Healing reports continued, though their typical character shifted further from what we find in our earliest Christian sources.43 Healings were said to follow
Martin of Tours,44 the early fourth-century Northumbrian saints,45 Benedict,46 and others. Undoubtedly, many of these reports are shrouded in hagiography, but one modern doctor accepts many of them because he can cite as parallels to such reports analogous accounts of recoveries in answer to prayer today.47 Though miracles were often associated with the intercession of deceased saints,48 some of these miracles were recorded by contemporary witnesses. Thus, for example, at a festival of St. Martin in November 579, both a disabled man and a blind man were healed.49 Some living healers were more obscure; Gregory of Tours speaks
40. Young, "Miracles in History," 110, citing Mashiha-Zakha, Chronicle of Arbil, 2–3.
41. Young, "Miracles in History," 110–11, citing Mashiha-Zakha, Chronicle of Arbil, 32–33; and (for the possible nature miracle) The Life of Mar Aba.
42. Academic treatments of medieval learning are much more positive than the dominant popular stereotypes today (see discussion in Hart, Delusions, 33–35).
43. On medieval miracle reports, see, e.g., Ward, Miracles; Woodward, Miracles, 156–71; Platelle,
"Miracle" (on Sigal, L'homme); Martin, "Resisting," 51–52; for the late Middle Ages, see, e.g., Goodich,
Miracles.
44. See Woolley, Exorcism, 48; Kelsey, Healing, 189–91; Gardner, Healing Miracles, 67–72; briefly
Frend, Rise, 709; Rapp, "Saints," 553.
45. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 72–78; see especially idem, "Miracles" (the revised version of his presidential address to the Newcastle and Northern Counties Medical Society, Oct. 1982). His focus is Celtic
Christianity there, which continued to flourish even after 664. Anglo-Saxon miracle accounts focus on "the promise of salvation conveyed by" divine miracles (Fadda, "Miraculous," 65).
46. In Gregory the Great's Dial. 2, on which see, e.g., Cavadini, "Note." Gregory recounts supernatural stories even in gardens (e.g., the demon on the lettuce in Dial. 1.4.7; see Müller, "Power," 47–48).
47. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 71–72, 74, 76–77. Gardner's paper on the topic in the British Medical
Journal captured some attention (Bridge, Signs, 163–64).
48. Originally associated with martyrs' relics, miracles came to be associated at times even with deceased bishops whose social rank had garnered their position (MacMullen, Second Church, 100). Despite efforts of Augustine and others, many felt more comfortable seeking divine help through the cults of saints than directly from the Triune God (ibid., 106). The concerns of the uneducated for articulate prayers (cf. Duffin,
Miracles, 148) may have encouraged dependence on other intercessors.
49. See Van Dam, Saints, 70, citing Gregory of Tours Hist. 5.47 and other sources. Van Dam reports
Gregory's appeal to cures, including, perhaps not too impressively for most modern readers, Gregory's own sore throat (81). For Martin's posthumous cult, see Van Dam, Saints, 13–28, 68–70, 81; for primarily posthumous miracles, see Van Dam, Saints, 50–151 passim; the translation of Gregory of Tours's Miracles of the Bishop St. Martin in Van Dam, Saints, 199–303; for Fortunatus Miracles of St. Hilary, see Van Dam,
Saints, 155–61; for Gregory of Tours Suffering and Miracles of the Martyr St. Julian, see Van Dam, Saints,
162–95; Suffering of the Martyr St. Julian, 196–98. Regarding his relics, promoted by Gregory, see Bentley,
Relics, 57–58 (French revolutionaries destroyed the relics in 1793; 59).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
of an ascetic rural Christian healer. This healer roughly applied consecrated oil to a fevered young man, whom the fever had made deaf and mute, and the young man was healed.50 The fifth-century Syrian bishop Philoxenus believed that God still granted the charism of healing to some ascetics;51 healings and exorcisms are also associated with Symeon the Stylite, an ascetic Syrian monk.52
Nevertheless, late antiquity witnessed a general transition away from emphasis on current miracles by living intercessors, especially on the official level.53 This diminution of reports perhaps not surprisingly also coincided geographically with regions where new evangelism was less emphasized.54 Signs claims do appear most commonly in history in the context of groundbreaking evangelism;55 this pattern has persisted through history, for example, in the cases of earlier Christian missionaries like Augustine of Canterbury;56 Columba, missionary to Scotland;57
50. Porterfield, Healing, 67–69 (citing Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, ca. 592 c.e.). For a proposed source for a healing miracle by Eugenius in Gregory, see Cain, "Miracles."
51. McDonnell and Montague, Initiation, 289.
52. Rapp, "Saints," 555. For suggestions about Simeon's ironic inversion of the new ascetic ideal, see
Blowers, "Interpreting," 623.
53. Kelsey, Healing, 191–217. Gregory the Great's interest differed here from many others (Müller,
"Power," 49), but Dal Santo, "Gregory," argues that he was defending the cult of the saints. Emphasizing the beginning of the fifth century as a major transition and suggesting that the emphasis on the divine presence in the sacrament largely displaced the emphasis on exorcism, see Woolley, Exorcism, 54–68
(noting, e.g., the transition from the exorcist to the bishop, 63). See also Gardner, "Miracles," 1932 (noting from Bede H.E.G.A. 1.31 that Gregory the Great seems not to have encouraged events such as the missionary Augustine's healing of a blind girl). But prayer was still made using oil (following Jas 5:14–15); see Woolley, Exorcism, 63–64. On views that gifts dominated in earlier times, see, e.g., Theodoret of Cyr Comm. 1 Cor. 240 (Bray, Corinthians, 117). Some argue that medieval physicians were not even allowed to dissect humans to learn anatomy (Kelsey, Healing, 211), but this is a myth invented by Andrew
Dickson White (see Park, "Dissection"). On the decline in the medieval period (of the gift through living intercessors), see also MacNutt, Crime, 117–37; somewhat earlier, Frost, Healing, 180–83, 235; also the further decline during the Reformation (MacNutt, Crime, 139–44) and especially the Enlightenment and Christian cessationism (145–52; see further Ruthven, Cessation). The decline was not always viewed as an ideal state, some speaking wistfully of the past (see Theodoret of Cyr Comm. 1 Cor. 240, in Bray,
Corinthians, 117; Chrysostom Hom. Cor. 36.7, in Bray, Corinthians, 146); some interpreters, such as Bengel and Christlieb, viewed periods of decline as merely "temporary" for "periods of dulled faith"
(Dod, "Healer," 173; McGee, Miracles, 42).
54. Medieval Europe saw itself as evangelized (Ward, "Monks," 134). Associating signs with evangelism,
Severus of Antioch Catena on Acts 10.44 (Martin, Acts, 140) averred that signs were no longer necessary, the gospel having been widely spread.
55. Ammonius Catena on Acts 28.9 (Martin, Acts, 314) notes that "miracles are mostly performed among and for unbelievers" (cf. Bede Comm. Acts 28.8; Martin, Acts, 314). Such an approach today would expect signs to predominate in less evangelized regions. Sociologically, signs and wonders tend to characterize a revivalist movement's initial phase but decline as the institutionalization necessary for functioning denominations progresses (see Tomlinson, "Magic Methodists," 389, 398), though oversimplified contrasts between charismatic and institutional reflect a misappropriation of Max Weber
(see Kee, Miracle, 52–54).
56. Young, "Miracles in History," 115, citing in Bede H.E.G.A. 1.31 a letter of 601 from Pope Gregory the Great to Augustine, warning him not to be proud of evangelistic success due to miracles, since they do not accompany all believers (cf. also Gardner, "Miracles," 1932).
57. See Latourette, History of Christianity, 344; Tucker, Jerusalem, 41. Some scholars use modern miracles to challenge skepticism about all miracles attributed to Columba (Finlay, Columba, 173; followed also by
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Willibrord, missionary to the Frisians and Denmark;58 Boniface, missionary to Germany;59 in the early twentieth century;60 more recently;61 and even in some relatively neglected nineteenth-century missions reports.62 While the early medieval
West was not fully schooled in Christian faith, many treated it as Christianized.63
The emphasis generally shifted from healings and concern to improve health toward exalting affliction "as a discipline from the hand of God."64
Even so, reports of healings continued to occur65 and remained prominent in the medieval Western church.66 For example, Tainard, an oblate in northern
France, experienced a debilitating paralysis in 1085 but is said to have recovered abruptly after a vision in 1088.67 Around 1100, Bernard of Clairvaux (1091–1153)
Gardner, "Miracles," 1929). Finlay does, however, recognize the elaborations of hagiography (Columba,
171–72, 184–85; cf. also Wilson, "Miracles," 23–24).
58. Kelsey, Healing, 230.
59. Ibid. Among those lesser known in the West, Georgia's conversion is attributed to a foreign slave girl who prayed for the healing of the nation's queen mother (McGee, Miracles, 5–6, following Lang,
Lives, 13–19).
60. See, e.g., Warner, Evangelist, 161. A minister present at Hickson's 1921 meetings in China reported that many more nonbelievers than Christians were healed, just as reported earlier in India, perhaps because non-Christians came "in simple, childlike faith that they will be healed" (Hickson, Heal, 76). Out of an estimated ten thousand at one meeting in South Africa where 70 percent were not Christians, phenomenal cures were reported: thirty-six "cases of blindness alone being cured . . . and that two of the blind people who were cured had been born blind" (Hickson, Heal, 141).
61. E.g., Pullinger, Dragon, 123, 142; Osborn, Healing, 282–83, 286, 306.
62. See McGee, "Miracles and Mission," passim (e.g., 146, noting Mason, Ko Thah Byu, 160). See, e.g.,
Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 196–97, citing reports for the Native Americans of Greenland (for the early eighteenth century; see also Garnett, Mountains, 120–21, cited by McGee, Miracles, 9) and local believers in southern Africa in a report of 1866, and the supernatural protection of a missionary in a report of 1873; also Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 198–99, for healings in Burma (now Myanmar). An apparently dying missionary in India was immediately healed after prayer in 1879 (199–200).
63. Ward, "Monks," 134.
64. Ludwig, Order Restored, 140, attributing this shift away from a holistic perspective to the Platonic and Gnostic emphasis on the soul (from Augustine's era and later).
65. Kelsey, Healing, 225–30. Gregory the Great says he was himself healed (ibid., 228) and believed that such signs would continue until the rise of the antichrist (Bredero, Christendom, 69). Venerable Bede reports "a number of eyewitness accounts of healings by John of Beverly, who was Bishop of York" in the late seventh century (Kelsey, Healing, 229; see further Young, "Miracles in History," 114, noting witnesses in Bede H.E.G.A. 5.3 and that John was "an older contemporary" apparently having "a gift of healing"; details and nuanced presentation in McCready, Miracles, 40–43). Bede's works reflect a tension between doubting that miracles continue in his own day at a biblical level and his reports of such (see McCready,
Miracles, esp. 230–31); McFadden, "Elements," 443–50, argues that Bede and his sources were more concerned with community faith than with verifiability of details (with McCready, Miracles, 199–202, 214).
Gardner, "Miracles," however, argues that many of Bede's miracle accounts are in fact historically plausible in light of subsequent, medically documented analogies. In some locations Bede reports no miracles, and miracles are missing in these locations also in other sources from the era (Gardner, "Miracles," 1932).
While some of Bede's accounts may be legends and others natural events, Young, "Miracles in History,"
113–14, contends that at minimum some seem reliable healing reports.
66. See Porterfield, Healing, 67–91; cf. Cho, "Foundation," 35–37. Narrations often involved the church's monastic emphasis; see, e.g., vindication stories about nuns (see Pilsworth, "Miracles") and claims of monastic miracles (1040–1140; Loud, "Miracles").
67. Karnofsky, "Vision," 15–16 (on a work composed three years after the event).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
reportedly placed a boy's withered hand on a dead saint's hand and the boy's hand was healed.68 Bernard wrote about Malachy (1094–1148), whom he knew and whose coworkers he consulted, recounting twelve healings attributed to him.69
Traditions have often attributed miracles to St. Francis (1182–1226),70 such as the immediate cure of a leper's flesh.71 Sometimes descriptions of the conditions healed are detailed enough to allow tentative diagnoses by modern specialists.72
Some of the reports diverge from mainstream Christian views today, although modern parallels for many kinds of claims could be cited. In the medieval period, exorcism and belief in demonic ailments proliferated as local European cultures exposed Christians to more specific traditional deities.73 Hagiography elaborated many medieval accounts freely (see appendix C); moreover, even firstand secondhand reports are naturally filtered through the ideology of the reporters, though they may well retain the substance of the events.74 Many healings were attributed to relics, by which uneducated Christians felt able to connect with past eras of God's working;75 medieval Christians often associated healing also with sacraments like penance and the eucharist,76 and with particular shrines.77 (Although these
68. De Wet, "Signs," 73. Others later attributed miracles to Bernard himself (e.g., Darling, Healing,
137–44). A contemporary source reports the recovery of King Henry II after prayer in September 1170
(see Mason, "Rocamadour," 39).
69. Darling, Healing, 144–48.
70. Often recalled by writers on miracles on various levels today; see, e.g., Young, "Miracles in History,"
115; Synan, Voices, 61; Cho, "Foundation," 36–37; Darling, Healing, 149–55.
71. Jörgensen, Francis, 253, recounting a story in the Fioretti, ch. 25. We cannot be sure with whom the story originated. Given Francis's reputation for humility, it is not surprising that such events are not the interest of his own writings (on these writings, see Jörgensen, Francis, 278–91). But while Francis is not likely the direct source for such a story, it is not beyond possibility that it would have been preserved, if based on authentic tradition, by some of the Brothers who had, according to the account, been caring for the leper.
72. Thus the neurological approach in Moog and Karenberg, "Francis."
73. Porterfield, Healing, 85–87. On exorcism in antiquity and in various cultures today, see appendixes
A and B.
74. Cf. comments in Midelfort, "Possession," 118–19, on exorcistic dialogues of the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, some medieval accounts reduced earlier miracle reports (Crostini, "Miracles," esp. 86–87); moreover, from the time of Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), witnesses had to swear under oath (Bolton, "Signs," 165). McGee, "Miracles," 252, notes the mix between fanciful stories and likely historical ones.
75. Porterfield, Healing, 69–70; Kydd, Healing, 117–29; Woodward, Miracles, 160–62; Dearmer,
Body and Soul, 256–73; Gardner, Healing Miracles, 78–81. Such claims were not limited to Christianity; cf. the head of Muhammad's grandson Husayn (Sindawi, "Head"). Some tales emphasized the efficacy of devotion to Mary even above penance (Price, "Marian Miracles," though noting that their original audience probably understood the stories as edifying fiction). "Miracles" such as the temporary incorruption of a corpse could be explained naturalistically along the same lines as the twenty-five-hundred-year-old "bog man" discovered in 1984 (Bentley, Relics, 65), provided similar conditions obtained.
76. See Porterfield, Healing, 81–83, 87–88, respectively; earlier, cf. possibly 1 Cor 11:28–30; Jas 5:16.
77. Woodward, Miracles, 163–65, with special focus on Cuthbert (163–64). The Roman Catholic
Church today allows natural causes to explain incorruption (Woodward, Miracles, 163; a sort of natural mummification, Duffin, Miracles, 100–102), though the incorruption of Cuthbert's body when checked more than three centuries after his death (163–64) seems unusual. For medieval claims of posthumous miracles surrounding Cuthbert's cult, see Crumplin, "Cuthbert." Reports of stigmata are also more common in medieval sources (see, e.g., Purkis, "Stigmata"); note also miraculous crucifixes, such as the one that spoke to Francis (see Jansen, "Crucifixes," esp. 203; on speaking statues in pre-Christian Mediterranean antiquity,
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
practices were widespread then, many of them are not limited to the medieval period.78) Critics uncomfortable with power in the relics themselves, including many modern readers,79 might nevertheless allow that they sometimes served as a contact point for supplicants' faith in God.80
The Eastern churches also continued to report healings, for example, in Constantinople81 and Ethiopia.82 Thomas of Marga, a ninth-century Eastern writer, recounts the activity of four missionaries active in Asia in the prior generation.
While explicitly noting that he lacked miracle reports for three of them, he notes healings and some exorcisms reported concerning one, Elijah, who was evangelizing Moqan.83 More educated and holistic than the West, Eastern Christendom continued to embrace medical as well as miraculous healing.84 Monks were sometimes involved in medical work despite the limitations of medicine in their era;85 asceticism sometimes gained them a reputation as specially empowered healers.86
In the East, icons were often used as agents of healing.87 see my 92n55); and the flowing of blood from a tomb (Piroyansky, "Bloody Miracles," on a figure of the early fourteenth century; cf. a similar blood miracle in earlier Jewish sources in b. Git. 57b; p. Taan. 4:5, §14;
Pesiq. Rab Kah. 15:7; Lam. Rab. 2:2, §4; 4:13, §16; Eccl. Rab. 3:16, §1; 10:4, §1; cf. Urbach, Sages, 1:559; human blood appearing at a Catholic mass in Brownell, "Experience," 221–22). Krippner and Kirkwood,
"Bleeding," recognize the attested phenomenon of stigmata, explaining it psychogenically. Church authorities often tolerated popular syncretism with pre-Christian shrines in Europe and (later) Latin America, viewing it as superstition but at least "Catholic superstition" (Kassimir, "Politics," 257). Some argue that even some medieval Jews may have visited Christian shrines for healing (Shoham-Steiner, "Healing").
78. E.g., for contemporary healing through sacraments, which may mediate Christ's presence or constitute a point of contact for faith (depending on one's theology), see, e.g., Duffin, Miracles, 61 (blindness in 1915); DeGrandis, Healing (for some accounts, see, e.g., 138–43); idem, Miracles, 131–32; Heron,
Channels, 20–34; McKenna, Miracles, 59–61; discussion in Maddocks, Ministry, 113–16; cf. claims of healing at the Lord's Supper even in nonsacramental Pentecostal circles (e.g., Glover, "Healings," 15;
Harris, Acts Today, 7). For relics, see Duffin, Miracles, 156–60.
79. E.g., Saucy, "View," 116; but cf. Deere, Power of Spirit, 74. Cf. Warfield, Miracles, 94–96, on miracle cures by relic milk of the Virgin Mary, and 96–97 on the liquefaction of blood.
80. Second Kings 13:21 seems to presuppose power still in the bones of Elisha, and other passages may imply power through contact, as in Luke 8:46; Acts 5:15; 19:12. Cf. also Gaiser, Healing, 166. The question of faith in God aside, there do remain serious questions of how many of the purported relics actually belonged to the saints to whom they were attributed.
81. Some figures of the Eastern church are less cited in the West, e.g., Athanasios I of Constantinople; for healings attributed to him (even posthumously), see Oration on the Translation of the Relics of Our
Holy Father Athanasios, Patriarch of Constantinople passim, e.g., 31–34 (Talbot, Healing in Byzantium, e.g.,
83–85). For ritual healing practices of the early Orthodox Church, see Harakas, "Sacrament"; for healing forms in the East involving anointing the sick, see also Woolley, Exorcism, 69–76. Eastern Christendom has traditionally approached Jesus's miracles in the context of Orthodox theology (see Hargreaves, "Miracles").
82. E.g., the thirteenth-century Ethiopian hermit Gäbrä-Seyon (Michael, "Gäbrä-Seyon"); also the Ethiopian saint Abba Estifanos (1380–ca. 1450; Menberu, "Estifanos"). I discuss Takla Hâymânôt at greater length in appendix C.
83. Young, "Miracles in History," 112. Thomas wrote the Book of Governors ca. 840, concerning the patriarchate of Timothy I (780–823).
84. Porterfield, Healing, 75–77; cf. Constantelos, "Physician-Priests"; Crisafulli and Nesbitt, Miracles,
44–45.
85. Porterfield, Healing, 79–80.
86. Ibid., 80.
87. Ibid., 77–79.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
Over the course of several centuries, people believed that the touch of the divinely appointed English and French monarchs could produce healing.88 Many of the cures that are described as occurring through the royal touch were probably simply natural recoveries, and apparently a number of the rulers themselves doubted this power. Nevertheless, at least some extraordinary cures are reported, including a cure of blindness after three days, where the supplicant desperately invoked Jesus.89 At this remove it is difficult to evaluate these stories, except to say that many supplicants undoubtedly believed in the divine efficacy of the royal blessing, at least some were depending on God to work through it, and, according to some contemporary reports, a number of supplicants notably recovered.90
The Reformers' Reaction Some medieval practices pervasive by the time of the Protestant Reformation, such as traffic in inauthentic relics91 for pecuniary motives,92 are rejected by virtually all churches today. Medieval relics of various sorts93 include a piece of the bread from which Jesus fed the five thousand;94 competing sites' claims to hold Jesus's robe;95 the (strangely multiplying) remains of the "true cross";96 its somehow multiplying nails;97 the crown of thorns;98 multiple versions of the holy lance that pierced Jesus's side;99 his holy tears;100 some of his hair;101 some of the 88. See Gusmer, Healing, 86–90 (citing sources from the 1500s through the 1800s); Schwarz, Healing,
110–14 (following nineteenthand early twentieth-century academic sources cited in 201n1).
89. Schwarz, Healing, 112; cf. Dod, "Healer," 175; on the doubtful cases, see also Bishop, Healing,
46. Many report one king's prayer that God would grant both health and better sense (e.g., Charpak and Broch, Debunked, 131).
90. E.g., Gusmer, Healing, 89, cites a royal physician from the reign of King Charles II.
91. Cf. briefly Heinze, Reform, 38. Cologne houses the relics of Queen Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins (Bentley, Relics, 15–17), plus the crowned skeletons of the three magi (17–19); the former can only be described as bizarre (cf. 21), and the bones were probably supplemented in the twelfth century by skeletons from a cemetery (82). Angels supposedly relocated the virgin mother's Nazareth birthplace to Italy in 1296 (137). The Christian cult of martyrs' relics (esp. from the third century forward) resembled pagan cults of mythical heroes' relics (40–41, 43); Christians sometimes discovered the bodies based on dreams (34), like pagan parallels (41).
92. Relics generated wealth for localities that controlled them (ibid., 89–116).
93. St. Thomas's bones have long been claimed in India—and Chios (ibid., 19–20). The cathedral in Naples has kept for more than four centuries two vials of dark fluid supposed to be the seventeen-hundredyear-old blood of the martyr St. Januarius (ibid., 23), which miraculously liquefies periodically, providing the petitioning Naples with omens regarding its prosperity (ibid., 24–25; it does seem to liquefy, whatever the cause, 26). (Warfield, Miracles, 96–97, complained about such liquefaction.)
94. In one twelfth-century abbey (Bentley, Relics, 26).
95. The basilica of Saint-Denis held a robe thought to be Jesus's for twelve hundred years (ibid.,
116, noting that scientific tests in 1982 do allow that it could date to the first century; French terrorists kidnapped the robe), though fortuitously the alternate robe in Trier boasts more popular support (126).
96. See ibid., 118–22.
97. Ibid., 122–24.
98. Ibid., 124–26.
99. Ibid., 129–31.
100. Ibid., 134–36.
101. Ibid., 134.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Savior's mopped-up blood;102 still more splendid, one of Jesus's baby teeth;103 his newborn umbilical cord;104 and last but not least, eight sites' claims to possess the holy prepuce left over from his circumcision.105
Reacting against such abuses, Luther joined other critics in his day106 and earlier107 who denounced relics: "One man claims to possess a feather from the wings of the angel Gabriel, and the Bishop of Mainz has a flame from Moses's burning bush.
And how does it come to pass that eighteen apostles are buried in Germany when Christ chose only twelve?"108 His opposition to relics influenced his approach to supernatural claims more generally. Luther did not oppose all revelations in principle (especially in visions and dreams), but severely tested all such claims in view of his antipathy to the proliferation of medieval revelations purporting to stem not from Christ but from Mary, the saints, and the deceased.109 Despite his reaction to relics, in his later years his pastoral interests seem to have opened him up to healings.110
Luther's emphases in his pastoral teaching vary according to the issues that he is addressing. Thus on the one hand he viewed miracles, once necessary to attest the apostolic church in the beginning, as no longer necessary, and he held that most miracle claims associated with monks contradicted Scripture and thus should be rejected.111 On the other hand, he averred that any Christian can work miracles
102. Ibid., 131–33.
103. Ibid., 133–34.
104. Ibid., 134.
105. Ibid., 138–42. In 1872, some women were kissing the reliquary (141), but the Vatican opposes such doubtful relics (clear by Aug. 3, 1900; ibid.).
106. Woodward, Miracles, 171–72, addresses the Reformation rejection of relics and posthumous miracles of saints and the consequent rejection of postbiblical miracles more generally.
107. Note, e.g., the twelfth-century Benedictine abbot Guibert of Nogent (Bentley, Relics, 174–75; others on 176); early fourteenth-century French surgeon Henri de Mondeville (McCleery, "Curing,"
201–2). Without rejecting relics altogether, many sought to limit their abuses, including at the Fourth
Lateran Council (Bolton, "Signs," 158).
108. Bentley, Relics, 177.
109. Föller, "Luther on Miracles," 337–39, 347–48. He avoided revelations himself because of the difficulty of discernment (ibid., 339, noting a similar tendency in Augustine) and insisted on testing every claim by Scripture (338, 340–41, 347–48). Luther's emphasis usually ended up identifying the current gift of prophecy with Scripture interpretation (347–48), an approach not unlike ancient rabbis, who also viewed themselves as normative interpreters as against less text-based challengers (Greenspahn,
"Prophecy"; Keener, Spirit, 12–13, 20–23 and sources cited there; cf. also Tg. Jon. on 1 Sam 19:23–24;
2 Kgs 6:1; 9:1, 4). Special revelations involved personal issues, whereas necessary eternal issues were covered in Scripture (Föller, "Luther on Miracles," 340); new revelations could not conflict with canonical revelation and should be attested with signs (341–42). Luther reacted partly against the subjective charismatic revelations of some Anabaptists (348; cf. revelation claims in Williams, Radical Reformation,
49, 164, 177, 189, 199, 263, 692, 759), at least some of which revelations are universally agreed, including by Anabaptists and those who share their orientation, to have been spurious (cf. more generally 1 Cor
14:29; 1 Thess 5:20–21).
110. Kelsey, Healing, 233, noting a man healed in Christ's name through following the instructions of Jas 5:14–15.
111. Föller, "Luther on Miracles," 342–44. Luther regarded saving faith as normative, and miracle faith as secondary (335–37).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
where needed, "especially in a missionary situation";112 God will still do miracles
"whenever they are required."113 In practice, he thought them unnecessary in his time, but acknowledged that extraordinary times might require them.114 On one hand, he regarded sickness and suffering as normal and a means of grace.115 On the other, he notes miraculous healings of himself, his wife, and Melanchthon in answer to prayer; Melanchthon returned from apparent death following Luther's own prayer.116 A year before he died, Luther taught on prayer for the sick, both privately and in churches, following Jas 5:14–15. In a letter he noted "prayer for healing by the laying on of hands" occurring in Wittenberg.117
One could reject much of the medieval abuse of relics yet believe that God had often intervened on supplicants' misinformed level; Calvin rejected the cult of the saints,118 yet it is said that he "believed that prayers to St. Genevieve had saved his life when he was stricken with fever."119 Believing that apostolic miracles had ceased did not make him doubt that God could still answer prayer for healing.120
Before the influence of the radical Enlightenment, many Protestants did continue to affirm and experience miraculous healings (e.g., in the first generation of Scots
Reformers;121 note also Friends and early Baptists).122 Some have also cited healing claims for reforming groups before Luther, such as the Waldensians and Hussites.123
112. Ibid., 342. Cf. also 344: in extraordinary times, "without exception each Christian would have the power to perform miracles."
113. Ibid., 344. Some interpreters, like Bengel and Christlieb, viewed periods of decline as merely
"temporary" for "periods of dulled faith" (Dod, "Healer," 173).
114. Föller, "Luther on Miracles," 344.
115. Ibid., 345.
116. Ibid., 346; Kidd, "Healing," 149; Kirby, "Recovery," 113; Dod, "Healer," 174; on a popular level,
Baxter, Healing, 76–77; Miller, Miracle of Healing, 40, 57–58; Oursler, Power, 45. Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 177–79, reports multiple stories involving Luther and healing.
117. Föller, "Luther on Miracles," 346; cf. Kelsey, Healing, 233; despite Luther's view of James!
118. For Calvin's ridicule of relics, see Bentley, Relics, 169–74. Calvin recognized that the Catholic
Church had supernatural miracles, but he attributed these to Satan, in contrast to biblical miracles (Brown,
Miracles, 15). For the cessationism of Calvin and Bucer, see, e.g., Gusmer, Healing, 71–73; for Calvin's bibliocentric theological approach, see further Jensen, "Calvin." Some noncessationist Protestants today continue to attribute at least some or many medieval miracles to Satan (e.g., Baxter, Healing, 61, 64), while allowing for genuine (albeit later embellished) healings through Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Francis, and others (68–69). They are particularly sympathetic with healings among groups they see as protoProtestants such as the Waldensians (70–71).
119. Porterfield, Healing, 97–98.
120. Pink, Healing, 25, citing Calvin and Jas 5:15.
121. For the first generation of Scots Reformers, see Gardner, Healing Miracles, 81–89; Gordon,
"Ministry of Healing," 163–66.
122. Norman, "Healing"; Kelsey, Healing, 234–35; also Buskirk, Healing, 72. Early Pentecostals were happy to point out this element of the earlier Baptist heritage ("Healings among Baptists"). George Fox's
Book of Miracles, apparently compiled about two years before his death, recounts "over one hundred and fifty Quaker miracles, mostly healings, many performed by George Fox himself" (Moore, "Quakerism,"
335). Such cures were controversial, because opponents associated them, as Jesus's adversaries had his, with witchcraft (336–37); later Quaker intellectuals soon played down the importance of miracles, without denying them as many other Protestants did (340–41).
123. Norman, "Healing"; Young, "Miracles in History," 115–16.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
When reading the Reformers' reaction against most miracle claims, we should take into account their context; often they were reacting against relics or against Catholic apologetic.124 Miracle claims were particularly popular shortly before the Reformation; more than 12,500 miracle stories from Bavaria, from 1350 to 1520, remain extant, and most of these stem from the three decades immediately before the Reformation.125 Luther and especially Bucer blamed Catholic miracles on the devil,126 and later Protestants carried this reproach even further.127 The Reformers' antisupernaturalism, never adopted by Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox
Christians, served their immediate polemical situation against Catholic apologetic use of miracle claims.128 Early Protestants sought to discredit medieval miracles, for the most part wholesale; while critical inquiry might have proved more helpful, the reaction against miracles associated with the traditional Roman church was predominantly polemical.129
Today, in a very different sort of environment,130 the majority of Christian scholars, Protestant as well as Catholic, recognize as tenuous putative biblical grounds for assuming that God stopped healing people at the close of the first century.131 For some to deny the possibility of current miracles based on particular Reformation traditions (rather than "always reforming" based on Scripture) would place some of Luther's heirs in a hermeneutically and epistemically ironic position—though not a novel one—of making tradition normative for interpreting Scripture.132
124. Harrell, "Divine Healing," 215, notes that Reformation Protestants still believed in prayer for healing in principle but were reacting against the medieval Catholic use of relics.
125. Soergel, "Legends," 21.
126. Ibid., 22; for Calvin, see Brown, Miracles, 15.
127. Soergel, "Legends," 22–29. The sixteenthand seventeenth-century emphasis on demonic causes
(Daston, "Facts," 98) served well the purposes of sectarian polemic (101) but also undoubtedly fed into the witch hysteria that led to thousands of killings (mentioned in appendix B). Witchcraft and demonic concerns led to first demonic and then more naturalistic explanations (106–7).
128. E.g., Harrison, "Miracles," 500–501; Daston, "Facts," 114; for the same purpose for sixteenthand seventeenth-century Anglican cessationism, see Walsham, "Miracles," 279, 283.
129. See, e.g., Parish, "Histories"; Mullin, "Bushnell," 460–61; Lovelace, Dynamics, 269.
130. Indeed, the polemical situation would be if anything reversed in Latin America, where, as I noted in ch. 9, miracle claims have been fueling Protestant growth. Some might see a threat from extreme charismatic claims from circles weak on teaching, but would not an ideal response be to try to serve those circles with teaching while working to discern which sorts of claims tend to be authentic?
131. For Protestant noncessationist arguments, see, e.g., Green, Holy Spirit; Snyder, Renewal, 140–41;
Grudem, Theology, 355–75; Turner, Gifts, 286–302; Ruthven, Cessation; Fee, Paul, Spirit and People, passim; fuller comment in the note in ch. 7. But even most cessationists today would not deny that God can still heal.
132. Those who feel compelled by their churches' tradition to follow the Reformers' anti-Catholic cessationism with respect to miracles rarely observe today the same compulsion with respect to their general hesitancy toward missions, then a primarily Catholic practice (cf. Neill, History of Missions, 220–23;
Tucker, Jerusalem, 67–68; Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 94; qualified in Sweeney, Story, 80–82, 86; cf. also academic Protestant antipathy to missions when Pietist missions began flourishing, in Syrdal, End, 11), and would surely never repeat the persecution of Anabaptists. An approach solely from Scripture might have distinguished flourishing miracles associated with deceased saints from answered prayers to God (or even allowed that God sometimes simply showed compassion on misinformed Christian supplicants), but it is probably difficult for most of us to appreciate the intensity of the polemical situation in which European Christians of this period found themselves.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
During and after the early Reformation period, Roman Catholics continued to claim healings. The letters of Francis Xavier (1506–52) reveal firsthand details of several miraculous healings.133 Less dramatically, in the sixteenth century Teresa of Avila (1515–82) suffered long-term paralysis and was apparently dying but gradually recovered and regained full strength; her contemporaries regarded this restoration as miraculous.134 Healings also continued to be claimed at various shrines.135
In response to the Reformers' and others' criticisms, Catholics were also undertaking reforms. They maintained more continuity with medieval spirituality than Protestants did but now approached it more critically than previously.136
Thus, for example, some observe that while far fewer miracle claims were certified in late seventeenth-century France than earlier, those that survived scrutiny have stronger historical documentation than the vast majority of other events from this period.137
Perspectives from the Earlier Modern West Although I have been arguing so far concerning perspectives of the non-Western world (i.e., the majority of the world) and the premodern world (i.e., most of the world's history to date), I should observe that a significant subculture even in the modern West138 has always dissented from antisupernaturalistic assumptions and thus has emphasized extranormal phenomena and interpreted them with reference to theological or other spiritual causes.139
Polemic against Miracles Developing the magisterial Reformers' reaction against abuses, some Protestants eventually selectively adopted the dogmatic antisupernaturalism of the 133. Kelsey, Healing, 233 (also noting accounts of Catherine of Siena and others; on her, see also
Hebert, Raised, 95, 105–7; Darling, Healing, 156–65).
134. Recounted in Matthews and Clark, Faith Factor, 60–61. Miracles are reported of others, e.g., St.
Maria Maddalena (see Morrison, "Miracles").
135. See, e.g., the mid-seventeenth-century "Jesus Oak" in the forest near Brussels (Harline, "Miracles").
136. Porterfield, Healing, 106–7; cf. 180. The Council of Trent assigned investigating miracle claims to bishops, to provide more control to "the deviations of popular religion" (Daston, "Facts," 121). The bishop of Châlons prohibited further veneration of Jesus's holy umbilical cord in 1707 (Bentley, Relics, 180). For more than eight hundred years a site preserved Jesus's supposed sweat cloth, brought back from the Holy
Land by crusaders, and popes declared indulgences for those who prayed before it; in 1934, the writing on it was shown to invoke Allah and to date to the period 1094 to 1101 (ibid., 225–26). Nevertheless, plaques still commemorated the relic's help (227).
137. Viguerie, "Miracle," 316, as cited in Daston, "Facts," 121–22.
138. Many of my examples below are not restricted to the West (such as Hickson's global activities), but most originate in the West.
139. See especially Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 74–78, and the numerous sources they cite; besides many examples below, see also Shaub, "Analysis," 118–19.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
radical Enlightenment (addressed in chs. 5 and 6). It proved convenient for them to embrace thoroughgoing naturalism in the present era, in order to reject the miracle claims of "papists" and "enthusiasts" while excepting those recounted in Scripture.140 Belief that miracles had ceased offered a way to accommodate belief in biblical miracles with a current "orderly and rational universe,"141 though it could never ultimately satisfy a uniformitarianism that demanded the same hegemony of natural law in the past.142 This cessationist concession to deism was an internally inconsistent position philosophically.143 Ironically, opposition to current miracles was one point at which early modern fundamentalism and modernism found common cause, often employing the same arguments, except that cessationists excluded (often comparable) biblical miracles from the critique.144
This cessationist position inevitably made defense of biblical miracles difficult, since a number of subsequent miracle claims had similar attestation and were of similar kind as those in Scripture.145 The exception for biblical miracles was necessarily essentially fideistic, since the grounds on which biblical miracles were granted should have allowed some subsequent historical claims that critics had simply rejected wholesale. Indeed, such a historically arbitrary division, playing by different rules from normal historiography, had facilitated Hume's opposition to all miracles, since he could count on his audience to dismiss strong modern examples adduced against his case. As Protestants and Catholics dismissed miracles, no matter how well attested, that violated their theological constraints,146 skeptics about miracles altogether, like Voltaire and Hume, felt no compulsion to recognize
140. For Enlightenment influence shaping thoroughgoing cessationism, see Ruthven, Cessation, 35–40,
71; cf. MacNutt, Crime, 145–52. Though acknowledging a Creator and eternal punishments (Brown,
Thought, 281), Thomas Paine's version of deism included antisupernaturalism (Noll, History, 166).
141. Mullin, Miracles, 30 (see more fully 9–30), on the settled compromise by the early nineteenth century. For this Protestant cessationism among sixteenthand seventeenth-century English clergy, see
Walsham, "Miracles," 273–78; for its appeal to Enlightenment sensitivities, see 278.
142. See, e.g., Mullin, Miracles, 33. If deists granted God's role as Creator yet denied his physical activity in creation outside of expected natural patterns, one might call them post-creation cessationists in a sense.
143. For its philosophic incoherence, see Ruthven, Cessation, 64–71 (esp. 70, on selective naturalism);
Mullin, Miracles, 265–66 (also noting its general collapse); Tennent, Christianity, 178. Cf. the critique by John Henry Newman (noted in Brown, Miracles, 138).
144. See Curtis, Faith, 202–3; cf. Mullin, Miracles, 210–13.
145. Lawton, Miracles, 68 (offering church fathers' testimonies as examples); Barnes, "Miracles," 229–
30; Mullin, "Bushnell," 462 (noting that eighteenth-century deists happily exploited this observation); cf. Hume's exploitation of the Protestant cessationist argument already for his case against miracles in Hume, Miracles, 38. Kant, among others, regarded the temporal distinction among miracle claims as inappropriate (Nuyen, "Kant on Miracles," 311). Even today, May, "Miracles," 147, denies the plausibility of natural spontaneous remission in the healing of someone deaf and mute in the Gospels yet claims it in a more concretely documented case today (150–51); he denies psychological elements in Jesus's cures of blindness or skin diseases, yet some attribute these to psychological factors when the claims are modern (on 154 May suggests that in one case of sixteen years' blindness cured, the woman may have simply been "depressed" previously).
146. Daston, "Facts," 119. In the early seventeenth century, theologians used miracle claims to defend doctrine; because of sectarian polemic against others' miracles, by the late seventeenth century association with proper doctrine was necessary to certify miracles as valid (ibid., 120).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
the evidence for any of them.147 Conyers Middleton, for example, in his famous anti-Catholic work, dismissed all postbiblical evidence for miracles, rejecting the accuracy of the church fathers as well as more recent eyewitness testimonies. He prudently avoided discussion of nt miracles.148
John Wesley, however, correctly warned that Middleton's critique, refusing all evidence, could be turned against the biblical record no less easily.149 Thoroughgoing cessationism's assumed contrast between biblical and postbiblical miracle claims, each requiring "distinctly different rules of evidence and probability," could not easily survive external academic critique, and the collapse of such a division invited one of two responses: a denial of biblical miracles or the possibility of postbiblical ones.150
Protestant Healing Reports in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Consistency in handling biblical and postbiblical miracles was where most of the philosophic ground regarding miracles was shifting by the late nineteenth century, but even earlier cessationism had not stifled all supernatural claims.151
(As I have noted, many modern cessationists refer only to the cessation of healing gifts through gifted individuals and do not claim that God has stopped healing miraculously, often in answer to prayer.) Whereas postbiblical miracles might be disallowed, Calvinists allowed for special providence as well as general providence, the former potentially accommodating miracles under another title.152
147. Ibid., 119–20. Because a Catholic archbishop condemned tremendously well-attested miracles for supporting Jansenism, Hume felt justified in rejecting such claims even while acknowledging the superior evidence for them (evidence he felt better confirmed than that in the Gospels; 122).
148. Brown, Miracles, 64–71; cf. idem, Thought, 212–13; Fogelin, Defense, 1. Warfield, Miracles, 28–31, praises Middleton.
149. Brown, Miracles, 72.
150. Mullin, Miracles, 30; Lawton, Miracles, 58. By the early twentieth century, various writers allowed that miracles declined in character after the subapostolic age while affirming that there was no a priori reason to deny them happening in any age (Maclean, "Miracles," 42; Bernard, "Miracle," 395–96; cf.
Wright, "Miracles," 191, arguing that some claims after the subapostolic era "are far too well attested to be scornfully and summarily dismissed").
151. Warfield's influential defense of full cessationism (Miracles; cf. idem, "Kikuyu") provided a major bridge between earlier cessationism and that of twentieth-century fundamentalists, but countervailing trends now existed. For earlier Protestant miracle claims, see the discussion above; for seventeenth-century possession accounts, see, e.g., Midelfort, "Reactions."
152. Woodward, Miracles, 371; Kidd, "Healing," 150, 157; Walsham, "Miracles," 284–86; Lehmann,
"Miracles," 328; McGee, Miracles, 9; cf. Deconinck-Brossard, "Acts of God," 360. Even the Westminster
Confession of Faith, addressing the conceptions of natural laws in vogue at the time, notes that "God in his ordinary providence maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure" (5.3, cited in Sharp, "Miracles," 2). To argue that miracles continue, albeit on a lesser level than in the Gospels and Acts, or that they continue primarily in mission settings, seems much more modest than historic cessationism. Still, in Mullin, Miracles, passim, e.g., 14–17, 23, 35–36, "special providences" seem to typically involve God working through naturalistic means acceptable to an Enlightenment milieu to achieve the same effects. (Today, cf., e.g., Pullum, "Believe," 146–52, emphasizing [151–52] that "providence cannot be proven factually"; this approach removes divine action from the sphere of falsifiability.) Many called these "wonders" (as God or spirits manipulating nature) rather than "miracles" (as violations of nature; Freeman, "Famous Miracle," 311–12).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
By drawing on arguments of the deists, David Hume gained a hearing in the wake of what may have remained the most skeptical period excepting that of his modern academic heirs. Miracle accounts became more abundant in the late seventeenth century, however, reacting partly against the deist approach.153 Seventeenth-century
Protestants "published books on the wonders God had produced on behalf of his persecuted people";154 their eighteenth-century apologists distinguished miracles
God accomplished through nature's laws from Catholicism's claims that were against nature.155 When not writing in a polemical context, Protestant clergy were often happy to recount healings that occurred through other clergy;156 they also sometimes freely called their special providences "miracles,"157 including in the case of an apparently actual event in the life of Protestant martyrologist John Foxe.158
In the seventeenth century, Presbyterian Richard Baxter claims his own healing from a sizable tumor, as well as knowledge of others' healings.159 Scottish Covenanters report many miracles.160 In 1644, a young woman unable to walk unaided suddenly found herself cured as a preacher was speaking about "the miraculous power of Jesus's name."161 One of the best documented cases for a person through whose prayers many were healed is the previously obscure Valentine Greatrakes
(1628–83). Starting in 1661, he began curing various disorders, including deafness and paralysis. He became so effective that thousands flocked to him, with hundreds of claimed cures in London alone. Some cures took weeks to complete, and his own wife remained skeptical; moreover, Greatrakes himself did not understand how the healings were occurring. A contemporary eyewitness viewed the cures as psychological, regarding Greatrakes as sincere but uneducated.162 The witness nonetheless admitted witnessing "deafness cured by his touch," "running sores . . . dried up," "cancerous knots in the breast dissolved," and so forth.163 The results astonished even a number of skeptics, many of whom were themselves cured.
Invited to demonstrate healings before the king's court, however, he accepted quickly—and failed there. Shaken, he spent the rest of his life in obscurity.164
153. Walsham, "Miracles," 304–5.
154. Woodward, Miracles, 371 (citing Hall, Worlds).
155. Woodward, Miracles, 371. Nature miracles for judgment (what U.S. insurance companies still call
"acts of God") seem to have been particularly popular (see Walsham, "Miracles," 289; for divine explanations for catastrophes in early modern Germany, see, e.g., Lehmann, "Miracles," 332; for miraculous escapes of some within such catastrophes, see ibid., esp. 327).
156. Freeman, "Famous Miracle," 308.
157. Ibid., 311–12, 318–19 (noting this terminology among Puritan commentators).
158. Ibid., passim. Simeon Foxe may have attempted to tone down the earlier versions (cf. 315).
159. Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 181–83; Baxter, Healing, 86–88; Gardner, Healing Miracles, 89–90; briefly, Dod, "Healer," 174; Miller, Miracle of Healing, 78–79.
160. See, e.g., the survey in Baxter, Healing, 78–86; briefly, Dod, "Healer," 174.
161. Baxter, Healing, 89, citing Johann Albrecht Bengel.
162. Cited in Henson, Notes, 67–72 (esp. 69, noting that many were not healed or relapsed).
163. Cited in Henson, Notes, 68–69. Like the witness, educated Bishop Henson treats such cures as psychological.
164. Rose, Faith Healing, 41–42; Robertson, "Epidauros to Lourdes," 187–88; Major, Faiths, 164–69.
Worcester honored Greatrakes for his many cures, which he offered without charge (Henson, Notes, 73).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
The Enlightenment exercised a much greater impact on intellectual approaches to religion in the eighteenth century, but on a popular level healing reports continued. For example, in 1707 Anglican Josiah Woodward noted that French Huguenot refugees, who emigrated to England in the 1690s, claimed a number of miracles, including that of Mary Maillard in 1693. Her left leg had been weak from birth, but as she heard the account of the healing of a disabled man in Mark 2:1–12 being read, "'she thought she heard a Voice saying, "Thou art healed,"'" whereupon she found herself cured. While conceding that such events remained rare in his time, Woodward also noted other healings, "including one as recent as 1705 near
Leicester."165 These accounts were well known; thus, Cotton Mather, recounting Huguenot miracles, in 1696 speculated that miracles, once restrained because of Catholic "Apostasy," might now be being renewed in a new "age of miracles."166
I have treated elsewhere some miracles attributed to the Jansenists (an Augustinian Catholic sect later suppressed), including at their monastery and at the grave of one of their leaders. Jansenist claims continued long after the first reported cures. In January 1727, Agathe Leenders-Strouthandel, age forty-five, was cured of afflictions she had suffered for twelve years in Amsterdam, with attestation from "170 witnesses, including several doctors and many non-Catholics."167 In March
1727, a three-year-old child, blind since suffering smallpox, received sight.168 In early July 1727, "Anne Augier, paralyzed for twenty-two years, suddenly" found herself cured at the tomb of a Jansenist priest, in front of "dozens of spectators"; but by this time Jansenism was in ecclesiastical disfavor, and the authorities refused to consider the miracle claim.169 In May 1728, Jeanne Stapart was cured of eleven years' blindness in her left eye, as well as paralysis, on the same site, and her appeal met the same fate.170
Finally, cures began to occur at the tomb of François de Pâris. A widow whose arm had been paralyzed for twenty years, hoping that God would heal her, found
Though mistrusted by many academic apologists (Daston, "Facts," 120), he was rediscovered by late nineteenth-century healing advocates (Mullin, Miracles, 284n30). Elsewhere, tradition ascribes miracles also to the Spanish priest San José Oriol (b. 1650; Oktavec, Prayers, 210n25). Miracles were attributed to Jesuit missionary to Brazil José de Anchieta (1534–97); Catholic apologists later used these accounts to embarrass Protestants over their own lack of miracle claims (McGee, Miracles, 8).
165. Kidd, "Healing," 162. On Maillard, see also Walsham, "Miracles," 303, who notes (303–4) that this account inspired "copy-cat cases among Baptists and Anglicans" (citing primary sources). Also in the eighteenth century, Father Johann Josef Gassner reported many healings (Major, Faiths, 172–80).
Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 238, also knew of accounts of healings among French Protestants
(citing Godet).
166. Kidd, "Healing," 162; for some eighteenth-century radical evangelicals who continued to expect a restoration of miracles, see 170. Deists naturally found these miracle claims incompatible with their beliefs (e.g., Burns, Debate, 74). Though Jonathan Edwards allowed that trances "and even instant healings" could be the Spirit's work (Kidd, "Healing," 164), he disavowed any necessary expectation of their revival in the last days (165).
167. Kreiser, Miracles, 79.
168. Ibid., 78–79.
169. Ibid., 79–80. For prayers at tombs, e.g., Duffin, Miracles, 153–55; Cunningham, Holiness, 155.
170. Kreiser, Miracles, 80.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
herself cured at the deacon's interment.171 The subsequent commission ordered by Cardinal Noailles provided thorough dossiers with depositions from scores of witnesses, attesting various cures such as a severely ulcerated leg, decades-old afflictions, and near-paralysis of half the body.172 Ecclesiastical politics, however, soon intervened and suppressed the cult.173 In November 1730, sympathizer Anne
Lefranc, for almost three decades blind in one eye and partly paralyzed, found herself cured within a few days of her prayer to God;174 authorities, though, made counterclaims, charging that her cure was gradual and producing testimony that she had never been blind.175 In this polemical situation, civil discourse naturally degenerated and Jansenist sympathizers produced increasingly weak or unsubstantiated claims, as well as convulsions.176 Referring to the earlier miracles, however,
John Wesley (in both 1750 and 1762) regarded the evidence of genuine Jansenist healings as compelling, undeniable "without invalidating all human testimony."177
Anabaptists, Quakers, and Pietists all claimed healings.178 English Baptists cited a dramatic deathbed recovery from this period.179 Eighteenth-century Moravians also reported miraculous healings;180 instantaneous miracle cures are especially reported in 1731, several years into the famous revival at Herrnhut. Count Nicolaus
Ludwig Zinzendorf accepted such experiences but insisted that they be treated no differently than other gifts occurring among the Moravians.181
Another healer, an unlearned woman of about sixty-five or seventy named Bridget Bostock, was said to have a healing ministry to the sick in 1748 through 1749; she took no fees, fasted, used "fasting" saliva182 or red liquor to anoint, and briefly prayed. A number of cures were reported, and sometimes she apparently prayed for as many as six hundred supplicants in a day, from all social classes.183
171. Ibid., 91.
172. Ibid., 94–95.
173. Ibid., 95–139, 160–71. Respectful attempts to secure official certification of the miracles led to further repression for explicitly political reasons (131–35).
174. Ibid., 122–23.
175. Ibid., 128.
176. Cf. ibid., 149–60; for the convulsions, 173–78 (for Jansenist theologian detractors, see 178–79).
The first convulsions apparently occurred in one being cured of epilepsy (173–74), but eventually some imitated this behavior, believing it a prerequisite for a cure (211–12), though others believed that their convulsions were genuinely involuntary (212). The authorities condemned the thousands of pilgrims based on select physicians' interrogations of the few convulsionaries detained in the Bastille (212–13), meanwhile virtually ignoring the prior miracle claims (213–14).
177. Ibid., 398 (noting Wesley's anti-Catholic use of the claims, in contrast to the Jansenists themselves, who were French Catholics).
178. Anderson, Pentecostalism, 30.
179. See Crosby, History, 4:307–9 (referred to me by New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary professor Lloyd Harsch).
180. So, e.g., Baxter, Healing, 77–78. These included healings through prayer of what were believed incurable cancers and tuberculosis (Miller, Miracle of Healing, 40).
181. Snyder, Signs, 133.
182. "Fasting saliva" is a quite ancient folk cure (see Pliny Nat. 28.7.35–37; 28.22.76).
183. Rack, "Healing," 140–41; Rose, Faith Healing, 43–44.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
Nevertheless, many who were not healed or who recovered only temporarily were apparently disillusioned, in contrast to those who testified of recovery.184
Claims of supernatural phenomena accompanied the First Great Awakening in Britain's American colonies.185 In the 1740s, evangelical leaders were emphasizing the Spirit's activity, and a few even allowed for instant physical healings.186 Although earlier Reformed thinkers, including Puritans, had largely embraced forms of cessationism, some ideas began to shift during the later phase of the Great Awakening. Recognized events like the healing of Mercy Wheeler from her disabled state caused some critics of present miracles to rethink their views.187 Bedridden since
1726,188 she was instantly healed on May 25, 1743.189 She trembled, shook, and could speak only what hearers regarded as gibberish as she felt God's presence.
The shaking began with her hands but finally racked her whole body, until when it passed she felt the first strength she had experienced in many years.190 Feeling then a compulsion to act, she got up and walked sixteen feet, crying out, "Bless the Lord Jesus, who has healed me!" to the amazement of all present.191 The preacher attempted to calm her, but she walked around the room a few more times, and over the next five months she kept walking farther and farther.192 Other healings in the revival included those reported by Presbyterian pastor John Moorhead,193 and a number of evangelical ministers from this era noted their own remarkable recoveries.194 Jonathan Edwards observed that a season of mental and physical health accompanied the revival, with a significant decline in depression and sickness.195
Others allowed that such events occurred but hesitated to call them miracles lest Protestants stray into the "superstitions" of Catholics.196 Puritan theologians
184. Rack, "Healing," 141–42.
185. See MacNutt, Crime, 171–76.
186. Kidd, "Healing," 149.
187. Ibid.
188. Ibid., 152 (noting her own 1733 publication of that fact, and that she had recovered her ability to speak by 1733, which she attributed to God's grace). In 1726, she lost much of her vision, and she drooled, unable to eat solid food (155). By 1734 she could talk, see, "and sit up in bed," but still could not walk (155). By 1743 she could move a little with crutches, but had not walked unaided for sixteen years (idem, Awakening, 162).
189. Idem, "Healing," 153. Kidd notes her rising confidence in the days before the healing that God would do something (155). Evangelical Connecticut pastor Benjamin Lord publicized this healing, which he found valuable for promoting the revival (153); without calling it a miracle explicitly (153, 157), he compared it with the healings in the Gospels and Acts (155), a comparison that drew criticism (161, 163).
The Gospels had spurred the faith of Wheeler before her healing (156).
190. Ibid., 156; idem, Awakening, 163.
191. Kidd, "Healing," 157; idem, Awakening, 163.
192. Kidd, "Healing," 157; idem, Awakening, 163. Benjamin Lord reported in 1752 that she continued to walk, though she remained constitutionally weak ("Healing," 169), and in 1771 "reported that Wheeler continued with the 'free Use of her Limbs as ever'" (170).
193. Kidd, "Healing," 151.
194. Ibid., 159.
195. Ibid., 160.
196. Ibid., 149. For the anti-Catholic concern, see also 151, 164 (noting here that "anti-Catholicism served as an essential component of British Protestant identity"); cf. Daston, "Facts," 118.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
typically described such events as special providences, though the line between these providences and miracles was often thin.197 Following Jas 5:14–15, contemporary Protestants regularly prayed for people's healing, but they expected recovery "through providential means," not an instant miracle.198 (This approach may comport with the perspectives even of some later cessationists like Benjamin
Warfield.199) Mercy Wheeler's recovery seemed harder to accommodate within this framework, however, because, despite her progressive regaining of strength, it was viewed as instantaneous rather than as a gradual recovery.200
Critics of the Great Awakening rejected its bodily "enthusiasm," so that one critic in 1744 denounced the healing of Mercy Wheeler as mere enthusiasm and Catholic-like superstition.201 In response, the Boston Gazette noted that her healing was "'well known and attested,'" and cited the 1693 healing of Mary Maillard noted above.202 The critic then conceded that the cure was genuine, but protested the application of the biblical label "miracle,"203 despite the obvious similarity to biblical accounts of paralytics' healings (e.g., Mark 2:10–12; Acts 9:33–34). As historian Thomas Kidd observes, "Cessationism was so deeply rooted that evangelicals struggled with how not to call such astonishing experiences miracles."204
Although particularly famous, Mercy Wheeler's case was not isolated. On July 24, 1769, after Mary Read had been bedridden for three years, she heard a voice that seemed audible, repeating three times that she should rise and walk, and suddenly she found herself well.205 On July 10, 1794, Mary Spaulding, sick for many years,
197. Kidd, "Healing," 150, 157. Not at all genuine antisupernaturalists, Puritans believed that nothing was by accident and that God was active in the details of daily life (McKim, "View," 233) and in history
(237). This approach was similar to Calvin's "providence" as God's governance of all (215).
198. Kidd, "Healing," 157; this was true even of Benjamin Lord in his view of Mercy Wheeler's healing, though some more radical evangelicals viewed it as a miracle pure and simple (170). To borrow the language
I employed in ch. 5, they expected God to work through nature, rather than in apparent violation of it; that is, the primary difference between Protestants and Hume was the question of biblical miracles. Prayers regarding health were common fare (see the abundant evidence in ibid., 158).
199. Warfield, Miracles, 191, affirms as universal Christian belief that God heals in answer to prayer but denies that this should be reckoned miraculous. Viewed in one sense, he may be accepting healing while rejecting signs, a special category of healing and other divine acts. In a sense, he could thus allow divine activity so long as it did not appear to violate the mechanistic view of nature held by the Enlightenment, hence challenge too directly a prevailing intellectual ethos of his era; but empirically, a number of healing claims, both biblical and postbiblical, cannot fit what most meant by this classification.
200. Kidd, "Healing," 150, 157. That she was able to make her way on crutches at times before the healing did reflect a previous, long-term, gradual reduction of a much worse paralysis earlier (155). After this healing, she walked progressively longer distances over the next few months, but her ankle bones, once "loose and weak" from inactivity, were now strong (157; cf. Acts 3:7).
201. Ibid., 161; idem, Awakening, 163. Critics of the Great Awakening also criticized its claims by comparing accounts of Huguenot healings (including of kidney stones, an infected boil, and so forth), which they also rejected (idem, "Healing," 162–63).
202. Kidd, "Healing," 162.
203. Ibid., 163.
204. Ibid., 164. Many considered miracles' only purpose to be confirming the gospel (initially) rather than considering their benefit (as miracles) to those who were suffering (165).
205. Ibid., 168.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
felt an overwhelming impression that as Jesus healed the woman with the flow of blood, she too would be healed. Praising God, "I immediately arose from my bed of sickness," she testified, and "felt free from all my infirmities."206 Also in the 1700s, Hannah Coleman of New Jersey, disabled after a fall from a horse, one day felt touched by God and ran around the house, carrying her bed, moving furniture, and praising God.207 Not all who hoped for healing, however, experienced it.208
John Wesley, who, unlike some theologians of his era, spent more time on the front lines of evangelism than in academic circles, challenged some cessationist views of his contemporaries.209 His journal reports many healing miracles, often in response to his own prayers.210 On one occasion, for example, a man apparently dead returned to life when Wesley prayed for him.211 Wesley's brother Charles was raised from a debilitating attack of pleurisy and apparently unconsciousness when a woman moved by a dream declared, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth arise and believe, and thou shalt be healed of all thy infirmities."212 A doctor denounced the emotion in Wesley's meetings until one of his own patients, convulsed by emotion, emerged completely cured.213 One of his Methodist preachers, John Valton, cited both healings and rainfall that occurred in response to prayer.214 Three different early Wesleyan sources recount the recent healing of Ann Brookes's blind eye after she prayed for healing and dreamed that Christ touched it.215 Wesley expected
206. Ibid., 168–69 (quotation from 169).
207. Reported by Baptist minister Morgan Edwards in Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 236–38.
208. See the tragic account of minister Charles Jeffery Smith from the 1760s (Kidd, "Healing," 167).
209. See Lawton, Miracles, 60–61; Mullin, "Bushnell," 462. He attributed the dearth of "extraordinary gifts of the Spirit" in his day especially to "the fallen state of the church," expecting that renewal would ideally restore such manifestations (Snyder, Signs, 216). Some Ghanaian Methodists hail him as a model for charismatic renewal in modern Methodism (Omenyo, "Healing," 241).
210. Kelsey, Healing, 235; Miller, Miracle of Healing, 40–41; Rack, "Healing," 146, 149–50; cf. Mullin,
Miracles, 89. Borrowing language from Acts 14:3; Luke 17:5; and Mark 16:17, Wesley prayed and was instantly healed from his pain and fever, remaining well for weeks ( Journal, 2:455, for May 10, 1741; cf. the presence of the Lord's power to heal on June 7 [p. 461], alluding to Luke 5:17, if Wesley intends it literally). He was quite sick on Sept. 16, 1756 ( Journal, 4:187); on Sept. 22, he realized that he should pray for healing, and instantly felt better (187–88); on Oct. 3, the sickness returned, and when he prayed he "found immediate relief, so that I needed no further medicines." He often trusted God to heal the sicknesses that his travels sometimes incurred (Tomkins, Wesley, 98), though on other occasions he had to suffer through it (98–99). Wesley's early movement included exorcisms as well as "dreams and visions for guidance or warning" (Rack, "Healing," 145; cf. more extensively Webster, "Salvation"), so that one could view earliest
"methodism as a kind of preview of pentecostalism" (Rack, "Healing," 138); cf. similarly Noll, Shape, 46.
211. Kidd, "Healing," 159. See Wesley, Journal, 56 (Dec. 25, 1742). Tomkins, Wesley, 106, notes that Wesley "seems to have interpreted" the experience "as raising the dead or at least the dangerously ill," and that he challenges detractors to disprove this.
212. Tomkins, Wesley, 60.
213. Ibid., 72. Wesley did, however, struggle with some extremists who seceded from his movement, exhibiting emotion and at least one case of healing (162–63).
214. Rack, "Healing," 146 (citing diary entries from 1788). Valton also claimed spiritually illuminating dreams (see Webster, "Salvation," 382–83). Accounts of healings, exorcisms, and visions proved even more characteristic of a movement that helped spawn the Primitive Methodists (Tomlinson, "Magic
Methodists," 393–94), but extremes vitiated the former movement (394–97).
215. Rack, "Healing," 147. Cf. also early Methodist healing in Baer, "Bodies," 34–37, 43–47.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
signs of the Spirit regularly in his meetings, though these were often anguished outcries or falling to the ground under the Spirit's conviction.216
Lourdes and Roman Catholic Healing in the Nineteenth Century Over the past four centuries, the Roman Catholic Church has reported more than fourteen hundred miracles, often with considerable testimony and medical documentation, associated with saints and other figures.217 Here I focus on a few examples. In the United States, Catholics noted the restoration of Ann Mattingly in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 1824. Suffering for seven years "from an 'ulcerated back' and a 'tumor' the size of a pigeon's egg" and now considered unable to be helped medically, she recovered within hours after receiving the sacrament. Thirtyfive affidavits affirmed the genuineness of her sickness and recovery.218 Catholics also continued to emphasize recoveries at holy sites. Thus a Catholic bishop in 1805 recounted the recent cure of Winefrid White, who had been unable to walk and suffered great pain, pronounced incurable by her doctors. When she bathed in the pool at Saint Winefrid's well, she was healed and continued to maintain the authenticity of the healing eighteen years later on her deathbed.219
In late nineteenth-century sources, fifteen people claimed to have simultaneously witnessed an apparition of three saints in Knock, Ireland, at 8 p.m. on August 21,
1879, during the Irish famine of 1879. This appearance was followed by a number of healings.220 These included a young woman's ear disease and the disabled state of two or three people who abandoned their crutches.221 Reports of cures continued thereafter. When two anthropologists visited Knock in 1971–72, a man there told them of how he had been completely and instantly healed, able to walk unaided and touch the ground, after twelve years in bed from an injury.222
Alfred Besette, who became Brother André, was from near Montreal and had a gift of healing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.223 By 1908, the crowds were so large that provisions had to be made for some of the pilgrims.224
An associate for fifteen years remarked that he witnessed miracles virtually every week: "Often a paralytic would be cured, or one blind, or someone who had to be brought here on a stretcher." Like some other healers we have noted (e.g., John
216. White, Spirit, 181 (though note White's cautions on 126–28); Tomkins, Wesley, 72–74 (on 73 comparing phenomena related to the "Toronto blessing" of 1994 and suggesting various factors).
217. See Duffin, Miracles, 7.
218. Mullin, Miracles, 117. Catholic missionaries working to "reevangelize" nineteenth-century Catholic immigrants to the United States reported large numbers of healings; see Dolan, Catholic Revivalism, 146, as cited in McGee, Miracles, 9.
219. Champ, "Holywell," 160. The cult of Winefrid had spread throughout Canterbury's province by the fourteenth century (154).
220. Turner, Healers, 108–10.
221. Ibid., 110–11.
222. Ibid., 111–12.
223. Oursler, Power, 78–81.
224. Ibid., 81.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
Sung), Brother André himself was not immune to affliction. In his nineties, Brother
André suffered considerable pain and noted that he could not cure himself.225 The Medical Bureau established there considered many cases exaggerated or psychosomatic, but for others they lacked naturalistic explanations.226
In greater numbers, numerous healings began to be reported at Lourdes, starting in 1858,227 at a grotto that had apparently earlier been associated with mysterious phenomena.228 France's central government initially opposed events at Lourdes as charlatanism, but the local people of this impoverished mountain region resisted government control.229 Locals claimed that such enemies of the Lady of the Grotto were incurring judgments such as paralysis or nightmares, claims that the officials countered were unfounded rumors.230 Catholics had never adopted the cessationism of some Reformers, yet the French church leaders, like their secular counterparts, proved initially hesitant about the claims at Lourdes.231
Even some local commentators, ready to believe reports of local peasants, discovered some of these reports to be inaccurate or, as in the case of supposed holy "dove" prints in the rocks, merely a matter of wishful imagination.232 Moreover, the visionary
Bernadette Soubirous herself apparently denied that she was a miracle worker, despite popular claims that quickly surrounded her.233 Likewise, in contrast to the outside world, locals apparently did not exalt Bernadette so much as the grotto.234 Other local visionaries in addition to Bernadette multiplied, but while they were initially respected
225. Ibid. (comparing Bernadette). Cf. Gen 11:30; 20:17–18.
226. Ibid., 82.
227. See, e.g., Taylor, "Letters from Lourdes" (investigating letters from a local contemporary witness in 1858); Porterfield, Healing, 180–84; Mullin, Miracles, 120–23; Smith, Comparative Miracles, 80–96. For some other Catholic shrines historically reporting cures, see, e.g., Oursler, Power, 83–96, 99.
228. The grotto had apparently developed an earlier, local reputation as a frightening location when one was alone or at night, with mysterious groans hailing from it (Taylor, "Letters from Lourdes," 462–63, citing the letter of Adelaide Monlaur, March 8, 1858); some of these "haunted" aspects resurfaced among subsequent visionaries (472–73, citing Monlaur's horrified letters of July 16 and 29, 1858).
229. Ibid., 459–60, 465. This included destroying government barricades in the summer of 1858 (473).
230. Ibid., 475–77 (on the officials' denial, see 476). Taylor (477) compares already widespread French peasant beliefs about the Virgin avenging her honor, often associated with more obscure visionaries. Such elements were excluded from the final official version of the shrine's message (478).
231. Ibid., 460. Cf. more recent hostility toward the "miraculous Thorn" of Kudagama in Sri Lanka
(Stirrat, "Possession," 136–37).
232. Taylor, "Letters from Lourdes," 464.
233. Ibid., 468–69 (assuming that the interview by the commissaire de police is accurate and not distorted by his interpretation or the fourteen-year-old visionary's submissiveness at the time); Garner, "Regressions,"
1254 (suggesting that Massy did not believe her denial). Local officials were plainly opposed to the events
(Taylor, "Letters from Lourdes," 474–76). Female companions apparently were anxious for her when she was in a trance state, as she became pale with labored breathing (Taylor, "Letters from Lourdes," 469); we do expect some physiological changes during an altered state of consciousness (cf., e.g., Goodman,
Speaking in Tongues, 8, 58–86, 153–54; idem, "Glossolalia," 238), which religious groups can construe positively (Ludwig, "Altered States," 88; cf. Goodman, Trance Journeys; idem, Ecstasy).
234. Taylor, "Letters from Lourdes," 470. But cf. the claim of Bernadette's subsequent incorruption
(with supporting information) in McInerny, Miracles, 82–85 (though the Catholic Church today allows that incorruption "can often be explained by natural causes," Woodward, Miracles, 163). Reported "incorruption" has attracted attention also in other cases, like a Cuban woman who died in childbirth in 1901 (Lawal,
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
locally, they were rejected by both the civil government and the church officials,235 and possession behavior quickly led to their rejection even locally.236
Nevertheless, some sources report unexpected and unusual healings. One of these was a paralyzed, feverish toddler whom Bernadette's own skeptical physician thought on the verge of death, and whom the doctor discovered completely cured.237 This child, Louis-Justin Bouhort, was a guest in good health, seventy-five years later, at Bernadette's canonization in Rome.238 After twenty years of blindness due to an accident that left an oozing sore, Pierre Bouriette regained his sight there.239 Against official skepticism, popular sentiments regarding the grotto and Bernadette's role ultimately prevailed; as a recent scholar puts it, "After eighteen visions, numerous healings at the spring, and a groundswell of popular devotion,
Church authorities relaxed their disapproval of Bernadette's visions."240 A number of leaders in the hierarchy of the church "viewed the activities there as too much like paganism to be condoned," yet Bernadette's corroboration of the recent dogma of the "immaculate conception" won favor. Both church leaders and physicians cooperated in the investigation.241 Starting in 1883, a medical bureau consisting of physicians with priests as advisors took over the process of certifying miracles, though "requirements were stiff and certification fairly rare."242 When miracle claims did survive this rigorous process, they normally commanded widespread interest.
Despite the still somewhat polemical character of the age, even a number of prominent nineteenth-century Protestants, like A. B. Simpson, affirmed the genuineness and divine character of such Catholic miracles while demurring from Catholic theology.243 Such approval was, of course, by no means unanimous.244 Even
"Psychology," 135); closely analogous claims do not appear in the samples of miracles offered in biblical narratives.
235. Taylor, "Letters from Lourdes," 470–72.
236. Ibid., 472–73. Shocked by what appeared demonic alongside the real, a local resident complained that events at the grotto must honor either God or the devil (473); this conjunction of approved and disapproved behavior also characterized most North American revival movements from the First Great
Awakening forward, and the early radical Reformation also experienced such extremes.
237. Cranston, Miracle, 37–38; Garner, "Regressions," 1255; McNamara and Szent-Imrey, "Learn,"
212–13.
238. Garner, "Regressions," 1255.
239. McNamara and Szent-Imrey, "Learn," 211–12.
240. Porterfield, Healing, 180–81 (quote from 181). Taylor, "Letters from Lourdes," 460–61, cites correspondence from the local bishop suggesting that the pilgrims' needs left him little choice.
241. Porterfield, Healing, 182. Despite tensions, the hierarchy found these popular miracle claims useful in combating skeptical modernity (Kselman, Miracles, 189–94, 198, 200, esp. 193).
242. Porterfield, Healing, 183; cf. also Mullin, Miracles, 120.
243. Mullin, Miracles, 100; in the early twentieth century, cf. 181; cf. even Dowie, 206; in the midtwentieth century, the Methodist pastor Albert Day (Oursler, Power, 142, 145). G. K. Chesterton, who less than a decade later became Catholic, apparently embraced the claims at Lourdes as well (Mullin,
Miracles, 219). A leading twentieth-century writer in support of miracles at Lourdes, Ruth Cranston, was
Protestant (Cranston, Miracle, e.g., 30). Catholics and noncessationist Protestants tend to unite on the question of postbiblical miracles today (Mullin, Miracles, 265).
244. Warfield, Miracles, 71–124, challenges "Roman Catholic miracles," particularly (on 103–24)
Lourdes. Henson, a British Anglican bishop, also treats Lourdes negatively (Notes, 41–62).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
today, some other Protestants do question accepting divine miracles at Lourdes, in view of the role of Mary there.245 Yet even if one disagrees with aspects of the claims at Lourdes (and still more often with the local tourist industry that has grown up around it),246 no one doubts that many pilgrims exhibit a deep devotion and faith that, from a Christian perspective, might provide a setting for some medically inexplicable recoveries.247 (Some traditional Catholics have offered a similar perspective on miracles among non-Catholic Christians.248) Because the purpose of this book involves the sorts of healings reported in the Gospels and Acts, my focus is more on the prayers of individuals than of healing sites, just as I earlier focused more on the context of Jewish and pagan miracle workers in antiquity than on Asclepius's shrines. Nevertheless, the evidence for some cures at Lourdes seems very strong. Because of its strict standards for verification, I will return to Lourdes in greater detail in chapter 14.
Protestant Healing in the Nineteenth Century Although, as I have noted, Protestants initially lagged far behind Catholics in claims of healings, emphasis ultimately grew among Protestants as well. Numerous scholars, among them recently Heather Curtis and James Opp, on whom I have depended heavily below, have documented the growing emphasis on healing among Protestants in the north Atlantic of the nineteenth century.249 Evangelical
Protestantism dominated U.S. Christianity in the nineteenth century and took many cues from British and other European Protestants.
245. Baxter, Healing, 90–96; also Miller and Samples, Cult of Virgin, 126 (arguing on 134 that, against official church teaching, many at Lourdes worship the Virgin herself). The primary critique of Miller and Samples, however, is of revelations at Medjugorje, which they do distinguish from Lourdes (105).
They note that Medjugorje has also concerned many Catholic leaders, not least the local bishop at the time, Bishop Pavao Zanic; much of their interview with him appears on 157–60, including his opinion
(160) that no evidence confirms the miracle claims there (cf. also the suspicion of fraud in O'Connell,
"Hallucinations," 87n65); by contrast, DeGrandis, Miracles, 135–38, recounts two recoveries there (see further the highly controversial Laurentin, Medjugorje). At the time of writing, the papal commission's report currently remains forthcoming. Here, as with other claims in this section, I am reporting views rather than seeking to arbitrate authentic from inauthentic claims. Theologically, one may question the plausibility of God granting healing effects to a cavern's water (Hambourger, "Belief," 602), but in this book my focus is the question of whether some people are extranormally cured, and many observers would answer affirmatively with respect to Lourdes.
246. Apart from what is written about tourism there today, tourism remained the one stable part of the economy of this mountainous region in Bernadette's day (Taylor, "Letters from Lourdes," 459–60).
247. While a theist need not attribute all extranormal cures to God, one could well attribute many to God (e.g., a Protestant recognizing some divine cures at Lourdes or a Catholic recognizing some through a Protestant evangelist) without endorsing all the particulars of the means, which vary widely among global healing reports (no Christian group endorses all the means claimed by all other groups).
248. Some have allowed these as genuinely Catholic miracles because they were performed by God
(Monden, Signs, 138–39, though cf. his treatment of Jansenist miracles on 309–21). Naturally, since Vatican
II and increasing ecumenical sensitivity, Catholics and Protestants would be even more often inclined to welcome reports of divine miracles among the others.
249. E.g., Curtis, Faith; for Canada, Opp, Lord for Body; for the nineteenth-century healing movement generally, see also helpfully Alexander, Healing, 8–63.
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Starting as a village pastor in Germany and then continuing for nearly three decades in a special healing center in Bad Boll, Johann Christoph Blumhardt
(1805–80) had a controversial healing ministry. Emphasizing prayer alone, he strictly avoided folk healing forms,250 and he remained faithfully in his Lutheran tradition.251 Blumhardt and others report various cures,252 both partial and complete.253 Prayers for healing started with himself: suffering from fever and diagnosed with smallpox, Blumhardt as a young missions instructor prayed through the night and experienced sudden healing.254 In 1843, his dying baby recovered after prayer, as did his dying wife in 1844.255
I offer merely samples here of some of the other reports: in 1845, a dying woman, vomiting large quantities of clotted blood, began recovering within a few minutes of prayer, still tired but regaining strength.256 In 1846 a physician certified the healing of a previously incurable skin rash.257 Other eyewitness reports of cures include blindness,258 paralysis,259 epilepsy,260 and the like. When a woman whose "hand closed by seizures" found no help from her Tübingen physicians, she was cured after her first service at Blumhardt's church; her physicians initially refused to believe that she was the same woman.261 In 1872, after a young man clubbed a boy in the head, the doctor warned that the boy's skull had been split open. Though expected to die within two hours, the boy recovered and from the next day forward treated Blumhardt like a grandfather.262
250. Ising, Blumhardt, 134–35, 165, 177–78, 196, 206, 222, 276, 333.
251. Kydd, Healing, 34–45; Kelsey, Healing, 235–36; Anderson, Pentecostalism, 30; Wilkinson, Health,
168–69; idem, Healing, 277; Bundy, "Blumhardt"; Curtis, "Character," 31; cf. MacNutt, Crime, 167–70; Gordon,
"Ministry of Healing," 220–23, 280–82; for exorcism, see Rüsch, "Dämonenaus-Treibung"; briefly, Collins,
Exorcism, 9. Some rationalist critiques of his early ministry were very one-sided (see Ising, Blumhardt, 262–63), and many dismissed claims of eyewitnesses without investigation (263–64). While Blumhardt's local revival is remembered, other more regional revivals appeared in nineteenth-century Germany (Reinhardt, "Movements,"
259). The influence of Pietism (e.g., earlier, the comments of J. A. Bengel on Jas 5:14–15) is significant (Mullin,
Miracles, 88–89; Dayton, Roots, 119–21; esp. Macchia, Spirituality). For renewal of such gifts in many Lutheran churches today, see, e.g., Synan, "Renewal," 162–66; for more healing services, Schiefelbein, "Oil."
252. E.g., Ising, Blumhardt, 206 (a burned child's pain stopping only once Blumhardt prayed), 226,
351, and passim. Although I have not reproduced them here, Ising cites the primary sources (including contemporary private letters from Blumhardt and others' eyewitness accounts).
253. Ibid., 209.
254. Ibid., 78. On multiple occasions he apparently needed to seek healing from conditions provoked by exhaustion (78, 133–34). He did not always experience healings (216).
255. Ibid., 206–7. Cf. the dying baby instantly healed in Baer, "Bodies," 46.
256. Ising, Blumhardt, 176.
257. Ibid., 210. Pressed for time, he prayed concisely for a man with a severe skin problem; the man was offended by the prayer's brevity (hence perhaps not likely cured psychosomatically), yet as he traveled home discovered his skin beginning to clear (329).
258. Ibid., 209; partial blindness and deafness on 210; possibly partial healing of complete blindness on 329.
259. Ibid., 212–13.
260. Ibid., 329–30, noting two instantaneous cases (though also other cases where he was unable to help).
261. Ibid., 267. People were sometimes healed during the church's corporate prayer (279).
262. Ibid., 328–29.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
Some cures can be explained psychosomatically; others resist such explanations.263 Blumhardt viewed healings as foreshadowings of the kingdom,264 and initially hoped that the cures experienced in his ministry might be signs that the expected eschatological outpouring of the Spirit and renewal of gifts was at hand.265
Some, including some persons close to him, were not healed;266 though he struggled in prayer on behalf of the sick, he recognized God's sovereignty.267
Blumhardt's legacy remained well known into the twentieth century, and his son Christoph continued his ministry in prophecy and healing.268 Although Bultmann, consistent with his skepticism about miracles, naturally considered the "legends" about Blumhardt "preposterous,"269 Karl Barth criticized Bultmann for rejecting these accounts uncritically.270 Indeed, Blumhardt was one of just three persons that Karl Barth numbered among his "mentors,"271 and he cites favorably an exorcism recounted by Blumhardt.272 Jürgen Moltmann notes the influence of Blumhardt on both Karl Barth's dialectical theology and his own theology of hope.273
The work of Dorothea Trudel (1813–62) and her colleagues in Männedorf, Switzerland, was also significant and exercised a greater direct effect on the Anglophone world.274 A scholar even a generation later noted that her cures "were certified by 263. See ibid., 211, 326, 329.
264. Ibid., 234, 410; cf. Macchia, Spirituality, 76.
265. Ising, Blumhardt, 214, 229–31, 234–35, 329, 334, 342, 346, 349, 400–401, 405, 414; for opposition to his view of a promised future outpouring before Christ's return, see, e.g., 270–73. By the end of his life he understood that he would not live to see the time for which he hoped (395). Many other Protestants had long been expecting a future outpouring of the Spirit (see McGee, Miracles, 22–25) and sometimes miracles (50, 51).
266. Ising, Blumhardt, e.g., 161, 209, 267, 329, 334, 354–56, 363.
267. Ibid., 333–35. Although for a time against medicine, he changed (213–14, 267, 337–38). In contrast to some later teachers on healing, Blumhardt was moderate, recognizing that God does not heal everyone supernaturally (Reyes, "Framework," 88); even Warfield, Miracles, 195, respected him.
268. Moltmann, "Blessing," 149 (citing here Ragaz, Kampf).
269. Kydd, Healing, 42n40 (citing Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth, 120). In fact, firsthand letters and other sources, often from immediately after the cures (see the copious documentation in Ising, Blumhardt, passim), demonstrate that however we explain the experiences, they were not legends.
270. Kelsey, Healing, 236–37.
271. Kydd, Healing, 34; see Barth, Letters, 251 (cf. 270). Barth, who spent time in Blumhardt's community of Bad Boll, dedicated a book to Blumhardt's son Christoph, who carried on the father's work (Ising, Blumhardt, 420). Various scholars of Blumhardt's day stayed as guests in his healing home in Bad Boll (e.g., Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Johann Jakob Herzog, and Immanuel Hermann Fichte; 303).
272. Barth, Dogmatics, 4.3:165ff., noted in Kauffman, "Introduction," 7–8; cf. Wilkinson, Healing, 2.
273. Moltmann, "Blessing," 149 (citing Barth, Theology). Other German theologians also cited
Blumhardt's example positively (e.g., Heim, Transformation, 173–74; more conservatively, Koch, Gifts,
100), and Ising, Blumhardt, 413, who wrote his dissertation on Blumhardt under Moltmann, indicates the influence of the former's ideas on the latter. For Bonhoeffer, see Macchia, Spirituality, 1, 4.
274. Mullin, Miracles, 89; Kydd, Healing, 142–53 (including healings of insanity, tuberculosis, and other maladies, 152); Wilkinson, Health, 168–69; Bundy, "Trudel"; Curtis, "Character," 31–32;
Hardesty, Faith Cure, 17–19; cf. earlier Cullis, Trüdel (cited in Wilkinson, Healing, 323); Gordon,
"Ministry of Healing," 213–19. Warfield, Miracles, 184, complains that Trudel "suffered from curvature of the spine from an early age and died at forty-eight of typhus fever," but such complaints are better reserved for those in his day who believed that all who had faith would be cured; her suffering itself may have provided her special compassion for those who were hurting. The typhus was contracted from a
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
well-known physicians."275 Neither Blumhardt nor Trudel opposed medicine or doctors.276 Various healings of individuals were also known elsewhere; thus one
Miss Fancourt in England suffered from severe hip disease for nearly eight years, and was nearly bedridden for the final two. Finally, thinking of Matt 21:22, a friend prayed for her on October 20, 1830, and she arose completely healed.277 The circle of Edward Irving had already reported healings of tuberculosis in 1830,278 and eventually forty-six healings were reported in a single year "among the Irvingites of England alone."279 (Ironically, most of the early claims were less directly associated with Irving's circle.280) Other theological controversies, however, had rendered
Irving's testimony suspect in many circles,281 and other movements proved more influential.
By the late nineteenth century, a much broader and more consistent healing movement than among earlier U.S. Protestants grew from the circles that were heavily emphasizing holiness. This holiness emphasis was interdenominational, and circles that advocated divine healing achieved great prominence in many of the churches in the United States.282 Although Christians had often prayed for healing, the new movement often emphasized more specifically that healing was patient she was helping (Wilkinson, Healing, 277). Although Blumhardt spoke well of her ministry, he felt that the sometimes repeated laying on of hands at Männedorf seemed like forcing God's hand
(Ising, Blumhardt, 335–36).
275. Dod, "Healer," 174.
276. Wilkinson, Healing, 277.
277. Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 233–34, noting that she remained well. Gordon also notes the ensuing persecution, which compelled Fancourt's father, a minister who had previously been cessationist, to add his own confirmation of her account (234–35). Gordon cites from a source about Irving but prudently does not emphasize Irving. Stunt, "Trying Spirits," 401, cites the 1830 cure of "Eliza, the crippled daughter of the Revd Thomas Fancourt."
278. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 93–98; Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 184–89; cf. Vidler, Revolution, 66.
279. Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 91.
280. Stunt, "Trying Spirits," 402: most of the early claims were not "formally associated with Edward
Irving's congregation." Healing reports continued in late nineteenth-century England, though one Anglican bishop assigns them particularly to "Plymouth Brethren and other Bibliolatrous Protestants" (Henson,
Notes, xi, emphasizing failures).
281. Warfield, Miracles, 125–53, uses Irvingite claims as a major example of what he considers false claims (see also Pink, Healing, 23). Irving and his early prophets emphasized a christocentric test (Stunt, "Trying Spirits," 405–7), but at least some also came to affirm the element of his theology that outsiders deemed heterodox (408). Without disrespecting those honest among them, Blumhardt challenged their belief that the final outpouring of the Spirit and gifts had begun (Ising, Blumhardt,
235), though he hoped that it would be soon (214, 229–31, 234–35, 329, 334, 342, 346, 349, 400–401,
405, 414). Some have criticized a movement claiming the heritage of Irving for its heterodox beliefs
(see Kuligin, "Church").
282. See Chappell, "Healing Movement," 1–80, esp. 58–86; Hardesty, Faith Cure, 27–40; Curtis, "Lord for Body"; idem, "Houses of Healing"; idem, Faith; Cunningham, "Holiness"; more briefly, MacNutt,
Crime, 176–78; Alexander, Fire, 62–63; cf. further Brown, "Tent Meetings"; Baer, "Bodies." Among many influences, see Horace Bushnell's antebellum influence in ibid., 15–16; Chappell, "Healing Movement,"
1–4; Mullin, Miracles, 66–75; idem, "Bushnell," 464–72 (noting on 473 that he was not a forerunner of "liberalism" but "proponent of a road not taken"; cf. also Finney, Memoirs, 416); Sweet, Health, 151;
Lloyd-Jones, Spirit, 45 (although Bushnell's approaches were not helpful on all points; see Bebbington,
Dominance, 163–64).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
in the atonement, hence, many argued, available to all.283 This movement reacted against the previously dominant nineteenth-century religious consensus that Christians should passively submit to suffering without resisting it.284 The new emphasis on seeking to actively resist sickness coincided also with an emphasis on serving God actively.285
Early leaders in the U.S. movement, like the Boston doctor Charles Cullis (1833–
92), were influenced by recent examples of healing ministries in Europe, notably
Trudel, as well as Otto Stockmayer and Blumhardt.286 In January 1870, grieved by his patients' sufferings and encouraged by the accounts of Trudel, Cullis prayed for his bedridden patient Lucy Reed Drake to be healed of her brain tumor. Not long afterward, the tumor was gone, Drake returned to work, and Cullis became a convinced practitioner of faith cures.287 In 1873 Cullis, Presbyterian minister
William Boardman, and their wives Lucretia and Mary traveled to Europe to learn from the models of Trudel and Blumhardt.288
Boardman reports some early cures. For example, in an accident, the son of another physician broke both bones in his forearm; the physician's brother, a surgeon, set the bones and required that the splints and sling would be necessary for 283. Opp, Lord for Body, 9–10 (noting detractors, including in Holiness circles, on 32); Petts,
"Healing and Atonement," 12–24 (e.g., Boardman, 12–13; Judd, 13–14; Gordon and Simpson, 14; and Carter, 15–17; Stephens, Healeth, 98–100). Stockmayer helped articulate this approach for the movement (Curtis, "Character," 33), which Elizabeth Baxter then helped propagate (33–34). Some continued to teach this approach (see, e.g., R. A. Torrey, who claimed to have been healed himself, in Witty, Healing, 209; but contrast Torrey, Healing, 63, as cited in McGee, Miracles, 192; nuanced in Baer,
"Bodies," 318) and some do today (Witty, Healing, 129–42).
284. For the earlier consensus, Curtis, Faith, 11–12, 26–50 (including many physicians' support for "heroic" painful therapeutics, a minority practicing even bloodletting; see 30–32); for the reaction against this consensus, see 51–80; for challenging assumptions associating physical suffering with God's blessing, see 21. Thus, in the earlier period, many people would come to a long-term amputee for prayer and spiritual counsel (41). But the widespread use of anesthesia by the 1870s "made passive acceptance of suffering seem not only needless, but sometimes even pathological" (15). Cf. this emphasis on accepting suffering also in the 1700s (Kidd, "Healing," 165). Against the propaganda circulated by prominent nineteenth-century polemicists, hostility toward anesthesia was driven by physicians rather than clergy
(Schoepflin, "Anesthesia," 129).
285. Curtis, Faith, 17–18. Curtis calls this new approach "physical Arminianism: revising the ethic of passive resignation" (59). Many believed that God willed for them to keep suffering (52–53), but Cullis objected that they actively sought medical help, so why not pray (53)? Physicians now "often encouraged their patients to pray for physical restoration" (67).
286. Ibid., 6; Opp, Lord for Body, 27–29, 31; Mullin, Miracles, 92–93; Gordon, "Ministry of Healing,"
213–25 (Stockmayer on 223–25; also Samuel Zeller on 219–20; one Pastor Rein, 225–27; in England,
Lord Radstock, 227–28). Connected with prayer, individuals also reported earlier cures, e.g., the deathbed recovery reported in Finney, Memoirs, 36–37; cures and nature in Taylor, Secret, 118.
287. Curtis, Faith, 6–7; idem, "Character," 32. On Cullis, see further Gordon, "Ministry of Healing,"
228–30; Dayton, Roots, 122–24; Baer, "Bodies," 50–75; Alexander, Healing, 16–18; Hartley, Evangelicals,
53–64 (including on 58 Methodist holiness advocate John Inskip's claim to be healed through this ministry in 1871; emphasizing on 202–3n148 that faith cure was only one among Cullis's many activities). Some of the medical establishment affirmed elements in Cullis's approach (207–8n22). I borrow "faith cures" from some of the literature here; practitioners prefer the expression "divine healing," attaching faith to a specific object and healing to a higher cause than human faith (see Brown, "Introduction," 4–5).
288. Curtis, "Character," 32. On Boardman, see also Dayton, Roots, 124–25.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
at least six weeks. That night, the child asked Jesus to make his arm well, and the next day asked for the sling to be removed. The father and uncle reproved him, but the boy was so insistent that the surgeon uncle finally undid the sling to show the boy that the arm was not yet healed—only to discover that it was. The uncle, who had wandered from the faith, was reconverted.289 Methodist involvement in the new movement was significant, including the influential and previously skeptical
John Inskip after his own healing.290 Starting already in the 1860s, Phoebe and Walter Palmer promoted belief in divine healing in Holiness circles.291 By 1880 the Boardmans and their colleagues, Elizabeth Baxter and Charlotte Murray, were spreading the message in England, and by 1885 voices throughout much of Europe emphasized divine healing, often citing the influence of Trudel and Blumhardt.292
In 1876, Jennie Smith published a work about how she had learned to submit to God's will and accept her sickness,293 in accordance with the traditional religious perspective of the era about humble resignation to suffering.294 Physicians, who had applied popular treatments of the era such as electric shocks, had not been able to help her rise from her bed.295 By the next year, however, she was wondering if perhaps God did desire to heal everyone, hence might heal her. She also wondered whether God perhaps expected her to exercise faith for healing.296 On Tuesday evening, April 23, 1878, her physician, her sister, some Methodist and Presbyterian ministers, and some others began praying with her, for two hours.
She asked for God's will again, felt strength, and then sat up. Finally, she stood up, for the first time in sixteen years. She walked around the room and remained whole thereafter. She became an evangelist preaching to men on the railroad until she died in 1924 at the age of eighty-two.297
In 1880, Carrie Judd (1858–1946) was encouraged by the faith-cure belief of African-American Adventist Sarah Mix. Though bedridden for two years, she struggled to her feet and found herself healed.298 Although some aspects of her
289. Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 239–40, citing Boardman's account directly from the physician father.
290. Curtis, Faith, 8–10 (on Inskip, 8–9).
291. Ibid., 64–65. Walter was a homeopathic physician, but the homeopathic and divine healing movements soon diverged (Opp, Lord for Body, 25). On the commonness of homeopathic approaches, see, e.g., Sweet, Health, 143–49. Healings are also reported in some apparently more locally isolated, individual groups such as the so-called "Gift People" in the mid-1870s (Menzies, Anointed, 29). For the twin emphasis on holiness and healing in the interdenominational evangelical movement of the late nineteenth century, see, e.g., Curtis, "Character," 38; Dayton, Roots, 133–37; Choi, Rise, 10, 18–20.
292. Curtis, "Character," 32–33; on Baxter, see also Hardesty, Faith Cure, 21–22.
293. Curtis, Faith, 1.
294. Ibid., 11–12. This approach contrasted with the approach in the Gospels, where sickness was normally an enemy to be worked against, suggesting that pastoral care should also support the sick rather than resign them to suffering (see Seybold and Mueller, Sickness, 191–92).
295. Curtis, Faith, 1.
296. Ibid., 4–5.
297. Ibid., 5. See also the early summary of her account in Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 241–43.
298. Opp, Lord for Body, 46; Curtis, Faith, 81–82; Hardesty, Faith Cure, 10–11 (on Mix), 11–12
(on Judd); Alexander, Healing, 24–27 (on Judd), 15, 26, 31–32 (on Mix); Anderson, Pentecostalism, 31.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
healing were immediate, she pointed out that it took several weeks to regain her full strength.299 She became a widely known advocate for divine healing. Less widely known, but encouraged by Judd's testimony, in 1882 Canadian Maggie
Scott rose in faith from the bed where she had long been confined and then the pain departed.300 In 1885, the aged African-American woman Violet Edmunds, considered an invalid, accepted healing by faith and was instantly healed, now freed from pain and abscesses and able to speak.301
Such occurrences continued in Europe as well. In 1894, two doctors, one of them a university professor, confirmed that Marie Hesse had a bone disease; she was bedfast through 1895, but on January 12, 1896, Herr Schrenk prayed for her. She found herself able to leave the bed, and over the course of four days she recovered fully, cured and without pain.302 South African Dutch Reformed minister Andrew
Murray, more widely known today for his writings about prayer, sought healing for his throat in faith healing centers in Europe; finding himself permanently cured, he published about healing in 1884.303
Baptist minister304 A. J. Gordon, for whom Gordon College and GordonConwell Theological Seminary are named,305 A. B. Simpson, founder of ChrisFor more detail on Sarah Mix, see Gooden, "Help," 148–50; esp. idem, Faith Cures. Mix's healing came through the ministry of Ethan O. Allen, descendant of his more famous namesake (Alexander, Healing,
15). In addition to Sarah Mix, African-American voices in the healing movement for a time included the prominent evangelist Amanda Berry Smith (Curtis, Faith, 10; for her reports of revival in Liberia, see
Smith, Autobiography, 366, cited in McGee, Miracles, 28). Seventh-day Adventists reported many miracles on the mission field (see Spicer, Miracles, cited in McGee, Miracles, 11, 228).
299. Curtis, Faith, 91. In contrast to some, she opposed depending on medical means (Petts, "Healing and Atonement," 17–18).
300. Opp, Lord for Body, 46–47. She later contracted tuberculosis in China as a CIM (China Inland
Mission) missionary, dying after two years, in 1893 (44).
301. Curtis, Faith, 96–97. Schrenk appears also in Curtis, "Character," 33, 38, 39, 42.
302. Heim, Transformation, 193–95, emphasizing that the cure, while working through an organic process, was unexpected. Hesse was the mother of poet Hermann Hesse (193).
303. Le Roux, "Le Roux," 50 (following Sundkler, Zulu Zion, 17); Wilkinson, Healing, 278–79;
Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 115–16; Alexander, Healing, 23–24; Baer, "Bodies," 129–31. Otto Stockmaier of Switzerland ministered to him (Choy, Murray, 144–46), and after his healing (147) Murray ministered healing faith to others (151; for his views, see Murray, Healing; idem, "Healing," mentioning his own on 5; noting problems, van de Vyfer, "Theology"); during his lifetime, his interest in healing may have been his most controversial position (Ross, "Murray," 807). When the daughter of his disciple Pieter le Roux was healed of diphtheria without medical intervention, Le Roux left the Reformed Church (Le Roux, "Le Roux," 53).
304. Among Protestant groups in 1882 Boston, Baptists were a close second to Trinitarian Con gregationalists (Hartley, Evangelicals, 67). Some early Baptists seem to have experienced various charismatic gifts (e.g., in records of the Philadelphia association ca. 1743), though by the early twentieth century the majority of Baptists had accepted the arguments of cessationists (Synan, "Charismatics," 185). Kidd,
Awakening, 246, notes that some Baptists in the mid-eighteenth century reported many signs. Spurgeon and Gordon, who were not cessationists, were in the minority (186), though there were many other early exceptions (Free Will Baptists and even many Baptist pioneers in the early Pentecostal movement,
186–88), and far more Baptists today (187–92). Even earlier, few would have denied the possibility of God healing in answer to prayer.
305. Pastor of a prestigious Boston church, Gordon was also a popular speaker, including at the Bible institute of D. L. Moody in Chicago (Barron, Gospel, 39); he was a close friend of D. L. Moody and sometimes filled in for him at his conferences (Hartley, Evangelicals, 23).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
tian and Missionary Alliance,306 Presbyterian William Boardman,307 and others became widely accepted figures in the late nineteenthand early twentieth-century healing movement.308 Simpson and Gordon were major influences for "the radical strategy" in missions, that is, exercising faith for miracles to evangelize the world more quickly.309 Gordon in fact produced a much more extensive collection of healing testimonies through history than I have offered here.310 Simpson claimed himself dramatically healed,311 partly inspired by the full and permanent recovery of a paralyzed and dying man in his congregation.312 Such signs also appeared in Christian movements outside the West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including in Africa.313 Healings and exorcisms are well documented even among many early twentieth-century missionaries supported by denominations or movements in which most Western members believed that all spiritual gifts ended in the apostolic era.314
306. Founded in 1887, the Christian Alliance was an interdenominational network, but merged with Simpson's Evangelical Missionary Alliance in 1897 and became denominational in 1926 (Curtis,
"Character," 36).
307. See, e.g., Curtis, "Character," 29–32; Hardesty, Faith Cure, 16–17; Baer, "Bodies," 121–27.
308. Chappell, "Healing Movement," 192–283; Hardesty, Faith Cure, 41–50; Alexander, Healing,
18–23; Cook, "Simpson," 401 (Simpson); Alexander, Healing, 18–19 (Gordon), 19–23 (Simpson); Baer,
"Bodies," 83–96 (Simpson), 110–19 (Gordon); on healing in the life and theology of missions advocate
A. T. Pierson, see 119–21; Robert, "Pierson," 345–46 (noted in McGee, Miracles, 50–51, 242). Gordon was convinced through witnessing the instant healing of a jaw during Moody's 1877 campaign (Hartley,
Evangelicals, 58). More eccentric, note John Alexander Dowie (Chappell, "Healing Movement," 284–341;
Hardesty, Faith Cure, 51–53; Synan, Voices, 46–48; idem, "Healer," 192–95); he distanced himself from the other leaders of the healing movement, who also distanced themselves from him (Alexander, Healing,
58; Curtis, Faith, 197, 200), though Dr. Lilian Yeomans, who knew him, claimed that genuine healings did occur in his ministry (Healing, 107–9). For some writings on the subject from the era, see accessibly
Murray, Gordon, and Simpson, Healing. Warfield, Miracles, respected Gordon (159) and Simpson (195) but regarded figures like Dowie as negative fruit of the movement (196).
309. McGee, "Radical Strategy," 76–77; idem, Miracles, 54–55.
310. Murray, Gordon, and Simpson, Healing, 156–203 (from Gordon's Ministry of Healing); earlier, cf. the recitation in Bushnell (Mullin, Miracles, 79); for others, see Mullin, Miracles, 93–94; briefly, Wright,
Miracle, 136–39. On a popular level, Yeomans, Healing, 102–6; and Venter, Healing, 147–54, provide briefer lists. Gordon came in for attack from those who denied the possibility of contemporary miracles
(Ruthven, Cessation, 105; cf. Mullin, Miracles, 98–99); he is a primary object of Warfield's critique (Miracles,
155–96 passim), though Warfield respects him as the "most rational" supporter of "faith-healing" (159).
311. For Simpson's healing testimony, see Fant, Miracles, 129–40; Miller, Miracle of Healing, 11–12, 106; and esp. Simpson, "Gospel of Healing," 359–69). Cf. also Yeomans, Healing, regarding Simpson's healing
(109) and healing ministry (110–11). Simpson knew Cullis (Simpson, "Gospel of Healing," 364) and was healed in 1881 through his ministry (Hartley, Evangelicals, 204n160; Baer, "Bodies," 85). He viewed healing's purpose as part of empowerment for ministry (Curtis, "Character," 35–36).
312. Simpson, "Gospel of Healing," 361–62.
313. For a Ghanaian respected for healing powers who lived from 1834 to 1917, see Jenkins, "Reindorf";
Nigerian Anglican minister Emmanuel Moses Lijadu was associated with healings, especially during the 1895 influenza epidemic in Nigeria (Kalu, "Lijadu").
314. See McGee, "Radical Strategy," 90–91, and idem, Miracles, 191, with documentation (including for Southern Baptist missionaries in Shandong Province in North China, citing Crawford, Shantung Revival,
35; see also Bays, "Revival," 173). In the wake of rising premillennialism (or remnants of postmillennial optimism), many groups reporting mission miracles shared eschatological enthusiasm; note, for example, miracle claims among nineteenthto early twentieth-century Adventist missionaries (McGee, "Radical
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
Criticisms and Moderation For the most part, late nineteenth-century faith healing, especially in its association with Simpson's Christian Alliance, was a respectable, interdenominational
Protestant movement.315 Among many, interest remained high even in the early twentieth century;316 for example, R. A. Torrey, a severe critic of excesses, reported genuine healings in answer to his own prayers.317 Nevertheless, times changed, and in reaction against the less culturally respected early twentieth-century Pentecostal movement,318 even Simpson's Christian Alliance distanced itself from its own doctrine of healing in the atonement.319 Indeed, the critique of Pentecostalism was one of the factors in early twentieth-century fundamentalism's renewed emphasis on the cessation of miracles.320 But even toward the end of the nineteenth century, various factors moderated some of the healing movement's initial enthusiasm.
John Alexander Dowie321 was more radical than most contemporaries, opposing doctors and medicine and insisting on healing only through faith.322 While
Strategy," 74, citing Spicer, Miracles). Once the subject began to be discussed, late nineteenth-century missionaries had their own testimonies (see McGee, Miracles, 54).
315. Opp, Lord for Body, 64–90.
316. See, e.g., Torrey, Healing (as cited in Baxter, Healing, 15).
317. See examples in Torrey, Healing, 27–32, 47–48, including healings of spinal deformities and his own perforated eardrum (recounted, quoting Torrey at length, in Baxter, Healing, 97–99).
318. One of the concerns was that early Pentecostals tended to emphasize that individuals might have healing gifts, whereas the earlier healing movement emphasized merely receiving healing from God by faith (Curtis, "Character," 39). While these approaches need not be incompatible, Simpson and others expressed concern lest the focus shift from God to healers (ibid.).
319. Opp, Lord for Body, 129; cf. Curtis, Faith, 201. For early U.S. and British Pentecostalism's adoption of the then-current healing-in-the-atonement theology, see Petts, "Healing and Atonement," 31–78; Synan,
"Healer," 195–96; Reyes, "Framework," 83–84 (for some charismatics, Petts, "Healing and Atonement,"
79–92; but it is now rejected by some Pentecostals [54–69] and neo-Pentecostals [92–95]). Ironically,
Simpson had been a major influence on early Pentecostals like Boddy (see Hudson, "British Pentecostals,"
284–86, on Simpson; 286–89, on Boddy).
320. Mullin, Miracles, 214 (noting also the old form of dispensationalism and noting exceptions within the movement, like Philip Mauro); again noting the older dispensationalism, which rejected the relevance even of Jas 5:13–14, see 259–60. The issue might be open for some reconsideration among progressive dispensationalists today, whose emphases lay elsewhere (on progressive dispensationalism, see, e.g., Saucy,
Progressive Dispensationalism; Blaising and Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism). Sweet, Health, 158, notes the reaction against Pentecostalism in evangelicalism; see also Lovelace, Dynamics, 121–23.
321. On Dowie more fully, see, e.g., Baer, "Bodies," 212–19; Mullin, Miracles, 203–8; Opp, Lord for Body, 91–120; Wacker, "Marching"; Major, Faiths, 208–22; Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 116–20; Alexander,
Healing, 58–63. Kay, Pentecostalism, 47–49, suggests Irvingite influence. By 1906 his network boasted
200,000 members globally (Mohr, "Zion," 59, following Faupel, Gospel, 116). Dowie was in some ways ahead of most contemporaries, seeking his community to transcend class and supporting "racial and gender equality" and interracial marriage; he also opposed colonial exploitation of Africans.
322. Opp, Lord for Body, 52–53; Mullin, Miracles, 204; Blumhofer, "Apostolic Church," 129; Wilkinson,
Healing, 280; Harrell, "Divine Healing," 217–18; Hudson, "British Pentecostals," 290 (claiming that doctors were from the devil); Synan, "Healer," 201; Brown, "Dowie," 145; others in the early healing movement in Hardesty, Faith Cure, 76–81. A common mediating position was that medicine was fine but trusting
God for healing without it was better (e.g., Shearer, "Believe," 5–6; in the early healing movement, see
Curtis, "Character," 40–41). The refusal of medical treatment also appears in some syncretistic movements emphasizing healing (Ma, "Santuala," 81; Jules-Rosette, "Healers," 135; Shoko, Religion, 125; Githieya,
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
many cures are reported under Dowie's ministry,323 some of those who refused medical treatment died.324 (Although the qualification mitigates the problem only marginally, it has been pointed out that much of popular medical and pharmaceutical practice until the late nineteenth century had left much to be desired.325)
Reacting against Dowie, most of the rest of the healing movement clarified their recognition that not everyone would necessarily be healed through faith.326 A. J.
Gordon, in fact, while emphasizing that Jesus's atoning suffering had provided for healing, had never claimed that God would always heal everyone immediately (in contrast to many other voices in the movement).327 Most believers in healing then, like nearly all today, viewed doctors and medicine more positively.328
"Church," 241); in 1930s New Zealand A. H. Dallimore, who apparently held an adoptionist Christology,
British Israelitism, and the expectation of a British ruler as a second Messiah (Guy, "Miracles," 457), rejected orthodox medicine (461–62).
323. E.g., Sadie Cody, previously paralyzed from the waist down (testifying in Cody, "Miracle," 20–22);
Lydia M. Markley (Reiff, "Asleep," 2). Some witnesses affirmed that he still retained a gift to heal even after his stroke (Wacker, "Marching to Zion 2," 9). Boddy, "Experiences," 38, noted that one of Dowie's workers estimated perhaps forty thousand healed under his ministry.
324. Opp, Lord for Body, 103–11, 115 (despite the flimsiness of most of the court cases by today's standards; the individuals could have died even with treatment). Dowie was inflexibly consistent, blaming even his daughter's burning to death on sin (Baer, "Bodies," 249; Barron, Gospel, 42–43, though not associating this with lack of medical treatment).
325. See helpfully Kselman, Miracles, 38–40; Schwarz, Healing, 147–52, 171; Sweet, Health, 142–47;
Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 233; Hardesty, Faith Cure, 73–76; Baer, "Bodies," 17–18; earlier examples in Wigger, Saint, 67–68, 75, 229, 248–49, 275, 329–30; Duffin, Miracles, 127–28, 132, 137; Ising, Blumhardt,
210. John Taylor argued that he had tried a succession of experimental remedies (including "galvanism") for two decades, but was cured in less than two weeks after turning to Christ for healing (Curtis, "Character," 41).
326. Opp, Lord for Body, 32–33. On the movement distancing itself from Dowie, see also Alexander,
Healing, 58; Curtis, Faith, 197, 200; cf. Blumhofer, "Apostolic Church," 131; for other Protestants' attacks, see Mullin, Miracles, 206–7. Dowie was also notoriously hard to get along with; see Wacker, "Marching to Zion 1," 8. An analogous conflict has separated some progressive urban churches from their origins in some more traditional African Zionist movements (like Mutendi's) that reject medicine (Daneel, Zionism, 58–59).
327. Curtis, Faith, 88. As Barron, Gospel, 40, notes, "His example of moderation has too seldom been followed."
328. Then, see Opp, Lord for Body, 51–52, though many were concerned about the potentially harmful effects of morphine (56–57); Van De Walle, "Cobelligerence"; John G. Lake seems not always positive toward medicine (Lake, Sermons, 134–35). Though Dr. Lilian Yeomans was healed through Dowie, she did not follow his antipathy toward her former profession (Opp, Lord for Body, 198). Later, see positive approaches toward medicine in Hickson in Mullin, Miracles, 241; Hickson, Bridegroom, 23–24, 392; still later Oral Roberts in Schwarz, Healing, 31–33; Kuhlman in Miracles, 15; Pat Robertson in Miracles, 143–44; others, e.g., Graham,
Spirit, 160; the many pastors surveyed in Braden, "Study," 233; Martin, Healing, 34–35; Lawrence, Healing,
52–57; Baxter, Healing, 288; Witty, Healing, 17; White, Adventure, 44–50; Hock, Miracles, 31; Dearing,
Healing, 159–71; Wilkerson, Beyond, 126, 131; Neal, Power, 22–29; Althouse, Healing, 57; Sweet, Health,
160; Godwin, Strategy, 19, 32, 46; Anderson, Miracles, 52–54 (narrating a miraculous supply of medical help);
Brown, "Introduction," 8 ("most pentecostals"; cf. 14); in Africa, Burgess, Revolution, 225 (most Nigerian
Pentecostals); Bomann, "Salve," 198–99 (Colombian Pentecostals, though many lacked access to medical care); Bergunder, "Miracle Healing," 299–300 (most Indian Pentecostals, though noting on 301 that the poor lack access anyway); Rasolondraibe, "Ministry," 348; Woldu, Gifts, 132; Numbere, Vision, 293, 345;
Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 360–61 (African Christianity generally); Ayegboyin, "Heal," 237, 246 (on the Aladura); generally, see the summary in Harrell, "Divine Healing," 227. Catholic charismatics strongly affirm conventional medicine (Csordas, Self, 34–35; see, e.g., MacNutt, Healing, 14, 164–67). Although
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
All along, some had not been healed, a problem that led to different explanations.329
Some, like Gordon, appealed to God's sovereignty;330 others attributed lack of healing to lack of faith;331 others, like Cullis, insisted that one should believe despite symptoms,332 so that some emphasized acting on their faith, acting as if healed until the healing was clear.333 Critics readily pointed out that many were simply claiming healings that had never actually materialized.334 Cullis eventually "used medicine for his severe cardiovascular problems," but some, like Carrie Judd Montgomery, continued to resist medicine even though her husband had poor health and she needed glasses.335
D. L. Moody, while affirming that God could heal today, denied that healing was in the atonement and thought such views extreme.336 Many others came to share this concern. R. Kelso Carter was a leading defender of atonement-forhealing theology after being healed through the ministry of Cullis in 1879 and authored the now-famous hymn "Standing on the Promises" (1886).337 Much later, however, he became sick for three years until he finally obeyed his doctor. some ambivalence exists, even the Word of Faith movement approves of medical treatment (see the survey in Barron, Gospel, 83–86; comment in Hagin, Midas Touch, 191, 194), with a few exceptions (like those in Bowler, "Bodies," 84, 94–96; Bergunder, "Miracle Healing," 299; earlier, Alexander, Fire, 95, 106, 302).
329. Curtis, Faith, 24–25, 87–88, 195–97.
330. Ibid., 88, 197; cf. Barron, Gospel, 39. This is probably still the most frequent explanation; I summarize a number of examples of this view in an endnote in the next chapter (487n360).
331. Curtis, Faith, 88–90. Sometimes despite contrary pastoral teaching some zealous healing advocates have insisted on this position (e.g., the lament in Roque Cagas, transcript, April 11, 2002).
332. Curtis, Faith, 90–91. On Cullis's eventual rejection of medicine for a time, see Synan, "Healer," 201.
333. Curtis, Faith, 91–93 (Judd), 94 (Simpson); Wacker, "Searching," 152–53 (early Pentecostals).
Advocates distinguished this from will power (Curtis, Faith, 94–95), and Simpson emphasized depending even on God's gift of faith rather than one's own faith (94–95). Many practice this approach today; see, e.g., Bowler, "Bodies," 89–91, noting the influence of E. W. Kenyon's mistrust of "sense knowledge" (89; reflecting Platonic roots); Sánchez Walsh, "Santidad," 155–56, 158.
334. Ibid., 113. Already in the 1880s skeptics were also complaining that faith healing testimonials were marketed the same way medicines and Christian Science claims were (112). For a popular survey of Christian Science history from a nonsympathetic perspective, see, e.g., Schwarz, Healing, 124–38; more sympathetically, Oursler, Power, 101–12 (including cures); on Mesmerism, which influenced it initially, see 121–24; McClenon, Events, 187–89; Bishop, Healing, 89–92 (hypnotism was called Mesmerism until the mid-nineteenth century, McClenon, Healing, 92–93). Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy criticized Charles Cullis for practicing medicine alongside faith (Hartley, Evangelicals, 63). I have not treated
Christian Science claims much in this book because denying the reality of sickness does not provide a close analogy for nt examples of claiming healing; a book treating a wider variety of claims, including those of various other faiths, as noted in ch. 7, would need to include more of these accounts. Likewise, Course in Miracles has a very different content from traditional miracles (Perry, "Course in Miracles," esp. 184).
335. Reyes, "Framework," 87; Kay, Pentecostalism, 47. Hudson, "British Pentecostals," 294, notes that one's death led Boddy to insist that God should lead individuals for their own situations; Reyes,
"Framework," 86–87, says that the arthritis of Boddy's wife changed his resistance against medicine. E. N.
Bell had remained more moderate, though he approved of "claiming" healing (85, 87; cf. similarly Shearer,
"Believe," 7), but many early Pentecostal leaders mistrusted medicine (see Seymour in Synan, "Healer,"
196; many Pentecostals in 197; the early Pentecostal Holiness Church in idem, "Churches," 111–12).
336. Curtis, Faith, 11.
337. For his testimony, see Morgan, Sings, 215 (facing the song, 214). Some other famous songs rose from deep tragedy (e.g., "It Is Well with My Soul," 185). For his atonement theology, see, e.g., Hartley,
Evangelicals, 62.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
After this experience, he himself became a doctor and publicly changed his position in a work in 1897. He still believed in healing and prayed for the sick, but he doubted that healing could be automatically appropriated. He now insisted that healing depended on God's will, which could sometimes be mysterious.338
Apart from Dowie, most of the healing teachers shifted to a greater recognition of God's sovereignty in who was healed.339
Some faith missionaries like Rowland Bingham found their beliefs wanting when confronted with malaria and other scourges of the mission field and came to oppose the idea that all would be healed through faith.340 (Nevertheless, Bingham continued to affirm the many genuine healings that had taken place341 and himself prayed for the sick, who were sometimes healed.342) A zealous Charlie Miller, just twenty-one years old, traveled to Africa to help Methodist bishop William Taylor; confessing that he was healed, he kept refusing medicine and died from his sickness on May 7, 1885.343 In response, the bishop complained about the extreme doctrine that had cost Miller his life. While Bishop Taylor himself affirmed that Christ's death provided "for bodily as well as spiritual restoration," he maintained "that the work of physical redemption would not be completed until the resurrection."344 A number of Alliance missionaries died after refusing malaria treatment, and by the late 1890s, Alliance missionaries used quinine for malaria treatment.345 Simpson and others moderated their views in light of these failures.346
In 1915, just over a decade after the start of modern Pentecostalism, William Burton noted that "45 South African Pentecostal missionaries had died of malaria because they refused to take quinine." The mission's leader, Bowie, died at age
338. Curtis, Faith, 197–99; Opp, Lord for Body, 32; Reyes, "Framework," 76; Baer, "Bodies," 150–51;
Dayton, Roots, 129–32. Carter had previously opposed medical means (Petts, "Healing and Atonement,"
17).
339. Curtis, Faith, 199. On 204 Curtis notes the example of Elizabeth Annabelle Needham, who noted that many were not healed and reacted against the movement's approach of claiming healings that did not materialize.
340. Opp, Lord for Body, 129 (after his sicknesses and the death of his companions). Unlike A. B.
Simpson and (for the most part) R. A. Torrey, he rejected healing being in the atonement (Baxter, Healing,
128–30; for Baxter's own rejection of this idea, see 127–37). (Some today might construe Torrey's ambivalence, as articulated by Baxter, in terms of the already/not yet application of the kingdom.) Malaria remained a hazard outside Africa as well (e.g., in northeast India; the hardship of Miles Bronson in Downs,
History, 60).
341. See Bingham's praise of the many healings through Cullis, in Baxter, Healing, 99–100 (Baxter was a friend of Bingham's). See discussion in McGee, Miracles, 192–94.
342. A man for whom Bingham prayed testified to being healed of tuberculosis and remaining alive fifty years later (P. W. Philpott, in Fant, Miracles, 16–19; Bingham's prayer is on 18).
343. Curtis, Faith, 194.
344. Ibid.
345. Ibid.; on some deaths, including that of one of the Alliance's first missionaries to the Belgian Congo shortly after his arrival, see also McGee, "Radical Strategy," 81. Deaths for refusing medical treatment are also documented more recently, e.g., more than fifty deaths in one church in the early 1980s United
States (Sweet, Health, 160).
346. E.g., Reyes, "Framework," 88. Cf. Church of God Anderson (Stephens, Healeth, 81, 106–9,
169–70).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
twenty-seven despite hours of fervent prayer.347 African Christians found Western
Pentecostals' use of quinine inconsistent348 and Burton himself initially resisted it349 but finally acceded to it in view of the need to stay alive.350 Less radical circles already believed that God at least often expected people to use the natural means of healing where it was available. Lack of healing seemed difficult to explain otherwise, and just as experiences of healings for some justified a theology of healing, lack of healing appears to have motivated others in their critiques of the movement.351 Pentecostal leader Donald Gee by the mid-twentieth century felt that the teaching of healing-in-the-atonement was too rigorous; he affirmed the spiritual commitment of those who died refusing medicine while questioning "'their sound judgement.'"352 Today in many cultures even most Pentecostals allow that God often works through, or even typically expects people to use, natural means when these are available, alongside faith.353
While their Protestant detractors polemically compared their miracles with those attributed to Catholics and some non-Christian religions,354 the radical
Protestants who sought supernatural healing saw themselves as simply believing and returning to teaching already prescribed in Scripture and the example of the 347. Hudson, "British Pentecostals," 295. Pentecostal missionaries also died often in Liberia as well, although some missionaries (such as Grace Agar in Asia) did maintain continued health (McGee, "Regions
Beyond," 82–83).
348. Anderson, "Signs," 207, in the context of Burton's ministry in what was then called the Belgian
Congo. Walls, Movement, 99, notes that one reason for the Christ Apostolic Church's withdrawal "was disillusionment with missionaries who used quinine"; see earlier Parrinder, Religion, 97, though noting that others claimed that rejection of European control was the key factor; cf. Burgess, Revolution, 69.
349. Hudson notes that Burton, seeing many local people healed, could not understand the missionaries' death; some Pentecostal missionaries took quinine to glorify God by living, but Burton insisted that it was better to glorify him by dying, if need be (Hudson, "British Pentecostals," 295–96). Hudson (296) views this as a logical extension of the belief that healing was in the atonement.
350. Anderson, "Signs," 207. Even so, missionaries could still succumb to malaria, as in the case of Ralph Devin in Indonesia in 1951, at the age of fifty-three ("Devin"). The sickness mentioned for Burton's wife and implied for himself in Burton, "Villages," 7, might be malaria. Some people did claim to be healed from malaria ("Certainty of Healing"), though without immediate blood tests this would be difficult to ascertain scientifically.
351. For complete repudiation of miracles, some cite B. B. Warfield's tragic loss of his invalid wife even while working on Counterfeit Miracles; see, e.g., Mullin, Miracles, 214 (cf. also Brown, Miracles, 199, noting her terrible illness throughout their marriage); for the illness of A. C. Cooke's daughter and Cooke's hostility to Charles Price's healing campaigns after she was not healed, see Opp, Lord for Body, 162. The feelings of those who have suffered such losses are understandable and can motivate a commendable desire to expose fraud; Peter May ("Miracles," 146), for example, has a daughter-in-law with multiple sclerosis, and this and other experiences generate "a moral outrage."
352. Hudson, "British Pentecostals," 297. Some others went further in rejecting the view (Kay,
Pentecostals, 87–88). Already in 1915, German Pentecostal leader Jonathan Paul offered an alternative
(Hudson, "British Pentecostals," 297); others, like Elim leader George Jeffreys, maintained the tension between healing and not healing (Hudson, "British Pentecostals," 297–99 with 298–99 on Jeffreys).
353. The case might be comparable to working for one's daily bread as well as praying for it. The greaterthan-usual average longevity of Adventists also might offer principles regarding the value of natural means of health such as exercise, diet, and rest.
354. See, e.g., Curtis, Faith, 76, 98.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
early church. Many other clergy continued to believe that miracles had mostly ceased in the apostolic era, while allowing some exceptions in extraordinary cases.355
There existed, then, a range of positions regarding divine healing.
More serious charges involved obvious abuses generated in many public meetings. Bingham observed that disabled persons were helped to their feet during meetings "only to return to their helplessness" afterward.356 One critic complained in 1930 that many of the same people claimed healings every time a new healing evangelist came to town.357 Such observations do not undercut the testimonies of those who experienced healings and remained whole, but they should caution us against taking at face value all claims offered on the spot at public meetings.
Gender and Healings One criticism of faith healing popular in that period, defined as it was by that era's emphasis on "muscular," "masculine" Christianity, would not set so well with most hearers today. For many critics, faith healing constituted a "feminine superstition."358
This complaint was occasioned partly by the predominance of women claiming healings.359 Although this tendency has existed in some other eras as well,360 at least in that era social factors account for some of the discrepancy.
In the Victorian ethos, working men treated health as their normal state, often suppressing physical complaints, whereas women typically viewed themselves as needing healing.361 The period's literature had idealized especially sick and suffering women.362 It was thus more culturally acceptable for women to publicly admit health problems and testify of healings than for men. After the Victorian era,
355. Opp, Lord for Body, 75.
356. Ibid., 171.
357. Ibid. The critic, fundamentalist preacher T. T. Shields, is a polemical rather than objective source, but this criticism seems a plausible one (though it is unlikely that he would actually recognize all those testifying).
358. Ibid., 76.
359. E.g., the majority of those claiming cures in Price's meetings (sometimes as high as 92 percent) were women (ibid., 160), though Price himself wanted to get more men involved (Tallman, Shakarian,
152). In the same era, women predominated among the healing testimonies in Francisco Olazábal's meetings (Espinosa, "Healing in Borderlands," 141).
360. Such a preponderance of women does not occur in all samples in all cultures (cf., e.g., Castleberry,
"Impact," 151), though women do tend to predominate in most cultures, perhaps because of limited expression in other areas. Women predominated in 1700s Protestant healing accounts (Kidd, "Healing,"
168). At Lourdes the figure is about two-thirds (Marnham, Lourdes, 183; cf. Cranston, Miracle, 154), but this is in proportion to their participation in pilgrimage there (Cranston, Miracle, 154; for examples, see 247–58; for notable men, see, e.g., names on 137). Women outnumber men among participants in Catholic charismatic prayer groups, but their experiences are comparable (Csordas, Self, 31–32); also among Zulu faith healers (Crawford and Lipsedge, "Help," 138) and Brazilian Pentecostals (Chesnut,
"Exorcising," 172).
361. Opp, Lord for Body, 48. By contrast, men were not praised for passivity (Curtis, Faith, 43).
362. Curtis, Faith, 38–50; on the image of "female invalids" also in popular fiction, see 43. On the history of approaches to "hysteria," see Capps, Village Psychiatrist, 15–21. A prominent diagnosis of women in the nineteenth century, it virtually disappeared in that form in the 1930s (22); it mimicked epileptic fits
(111) but doctors rarely proved sympathetic, viewing it as a frailty of the female nervous system (112).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
Opp notes, "The critique of faith healing maintained its gendered overtones; now framed within the context of hypnotism, 'susceptibility' replaced the late-Victorian concern with 'sentimentalism.'"363 One fundamentalist preacher in 1925 associated faith healing with feminine "hysteria,"364 and in 1910 a play associated faith healing with women's greater credulity.365
While we would rightly disparage such criticisms as sexist, cultural expectations may have sometimes made it easier for women to identify with this movement than it was for men. Of the small number of physicians who shifted from emphasizing medical practice to emphasizing divine healing, the majority were women.366 Many of these physicians who turned to ministries of divine healing had first experienced healings themselves. Thus, for example, when Dr. Jane Baker experienced miraculous healing from breast cancer, it felt like hot irons going through her breast (reported in 1892). After some Christians spent the night in prayer for her, Dr. Elizabeth Keller experienced healing from shoulder and nerve injuries caused by a carriage accident (reported in 1910). A fall caused Dr. Florence Murcutt's "internal injuries and a fractured arm," but X-rays confirmed the healing after prayer (reported in 1922).367
Canada's first woman officially licensed as a medical doctor, Dr. Jenny Kidd Trout, helped establish the Women's Medical College at Queen's University. Yet by 1891, Opp observes, she had become an invalid. She recovered after prayer and, retired from medical practice, began praying for the sick.368 The most noted physician-turned-healing minister was the well-credentialed Dr. Lilian B. Yeomans, who was healed from morphine addiction and became a major public advocate of divine healing.369 A book that she wrote, still in circulation, claims a variety of divine healings, including the disappearance of goiters, blindness, deafness, inability to walk, and the case of a woman healed instantly on what was about to be her deathbed.370
363. Opp, Lord for Body, 168.
364. Ibid. (A. C. Gaebelein).
365. Ibid., 204 (cf. also 205–6). The African-American character also appears credulous (see the description in Mullin, Miracles, 208–9), though the play's author did not reject faith itself (208–10). A 1913 play by G. K. Chesterton also made "women and social outcasts . . . the true believers" (in this case, in magic, which proves efficacious; 219). In 1923, Wilson, Power, 14, noted the prominence of women in local ministries of healing.
366. Opp, Lord for Body, 195–202, esp. here 196. Some male physicians were also openly praying for the sick, with resulting healing claims, e.g., one Dr. Yoakum (in Glover, "Modern Miracles," 2). Cullis, however, continued prayer and medical practice simultaneously, rejecting charges of contradiction (Hartley,
Evangelicals, 62–63).
367. Opp, Lord for Body, 196.
368. Ibid.
369. Yeomans, Healing, 7–16; Opp, Lord for Body, 196–98.
370. Yeomans, Healing, 123, for these; also smallpox (57–59); tuberculosis, permanently healed (60,
69); inability to conceive (121–22); a child's eye improved after prayer (115–16); a growth on the face healed (though not instantly, 119–20). Claims of deathbed recoveries (e.g., Woodard, Faith, 30–35, 64–65,
68–70, 90–91) are not limited to Christian circles; meditation cured a Japanese man who believed himself on the verge of death, and he became a shaman (McClenon, Events, 89–90).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Supernaturalist Christian Claims in the Early Twentieth-Century West Healing claims continued in the early twentieth century, though experiences and explanations sometimes varied according to the social class and denomination where they were reported. Belief in biblical sorts of miracles continuing in the present took two major forms in the early twentieth century.371 Some, in line with the intellectual milieu of the era, believed that modern faith cures were mindover-matter cures and that these cures illumined the miracles in the Bible as well.
Others, frequently (though not exclusively) from less socially respected classes, believed that the miracles in the Bible were supernatural events and that such events continued in the present.372 Ecclesiastical politics and concern for intellectual respectability led many church leaders to offer purely naturalistic explanations for healings even while miraculous healing remained popular among rank-andfile church people.373
Some elements of this class difference in how miracle reports are appropriated have persisted. Modern Western academicians have probably tended to discount and ignore some miracle claims not only for cultural reasons but also, unconsciously, for class reasons.374 As one writer skeptical of such miraculous healing claims complained more than half a century ago, they arose and "spread among an entirely different class of people, as to economic, cultural, and social background," namely, "the underprivileged and dispossessed people, folk to whom emotional religion makes an especial appeal."375 Many of the twentieth-century Western claims, especially in the first half of the twentieth century (before the spread of the charismatic movement in the mainline denominations), come from the very poor. This observation is not surprising, since the poor have less access to medical care376 and are less influenced by Western academic philosophic presuppositions of antisupernaturalism. There also were very many of them; education was less widely
371. For one brief and popular survey of twentieth-century healing claims, see, e.g., Wimber, Power
Evangelism, 175–85.
372. Mullin, Miracles, 214–16, 249 (the former position rejecting nature miracles but allowing that God worked through the natural means of mind cures).
373. Ibid., 248; cf. also modernist theological de-emphasis on Jesus's miracles (idem, History, 206–7,
234; contrasted with Pentecostalism in 211–12).
374. As in, e.g., the recollections in Storms, Convergence, 29. Cox, "Foreword," xix, complains that even in the West "chasms of income, race and social status" still often divide Pentecostals from the dominant churches of the earlier Reformation. See the explicit and frank discussion of class prejudices regarding healing in Hardesty, Faith Cure, 142–44.
375. Buskirk, Healing, 78–79.
376. Some contend that in the Western world today, dependence on legitimate medical means of recovery has rendered us less apt to depend on the divine or supernatural intervention that many other peoples see as their only access to recovery (Winckley, "Healing," 178–79). Whatever one's perspective on this suggestion, those of us with access to such care should be grateful for it; the more widely available, the better. In contrast to a few groups like Dowie's, most Christians accept empirical medicine as a gift of God's created order. Yet Chevreau, Turnings, 16–17, rightly emphasizes that around the world, miracles are far more common among the poor; this observation certainly fits Lukan theology
(cf. Luke 4:18–19).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
available in the larger culture at that time.377 As academicians, many of us tend to view Jesus and the first apostles as academically "rational" (or rationalistic) people like us; yet in some respects378 Jesus and the Twelve, in contrast to the Sadducean high priests, may have been more like some of the leading figures in popular-level healing movements that have appealed especially to the socially disenfranchised.
Certainly the social and academic elites despised the Galilean prophet-sage Jesus, who did not meet their standards of education and respectability.
In fact, such claims of widespread healings commanded the attention of much of U.S. popular culture at various times in the past century, some of which I will summarize briefly below. Because I will focus in this section on some particular figures associated with ministries of healing, I must explain both my rationale for and my recognition of the complications involved in doing so. My rationale is not theological, but pragmatic. Healing claims on a popular level are hardly limited to specific, known figures, and most of these figures themselves attribute the healings directly to God and (often) to the seeker's faith, rather than to themselves. One could thus fairly readily attribute the healings to such factors rather than specifically to the individuals who most often report them.379 Claims at public meetings also differ from reports verified subsequently, and I do not work from the assumption that such meetings provide the context of the majority of genuine cures.380
Moreover, I am fairly certain, based partly on random interviews, that the number of miracle claims in a given circle (proportionate to its size) do not correspond to how well known that circle becomes; some ministries market themselves more effectively than others, and I do not intend my citation of particular circles (where
377. It should also be noted that earlier studies of vernacular health beliefs tended to focus on "marginal" nonconventional populations, whereas "the enormous extent of recourse to vernacular healing strategies among educated, thoroughly acculturated, "mainstream" groups has only recently begun to be recognized
(O'Connor, Healing Traditions, 18, and the numerous studies cited there).
378. I refer here only to the matter of healings and exorcisms. Moreover, the observation is not intended to apply to all first-century Christian voices. Paul was highly educated, and we may approach him in connection with the intellectual milieu of his day; as historians or those with literary interests, many of us can identify also with Luke. But just as Albert Schweitzer challenged nineteenth-century scholarship for making Jesus a modern liberal instead of a first-century apocalyptist, scholars can run the risk of playing down his populist and charismatic side because it tends to be foreign to our own approach.
379. Thus even moderate cessationists, as opposed to antisupernaturalists, who might deny present gifts of healings yet allow that God sometimes still answers prayers in miraculous ways, could admit many of these examples in this book, as I have already noted. A significant proportion of those cited attribute the miracles to God's sovereignty rather than to themselves. A moderate cessationist might allow that God could be acting sovereignly or responding to personal, desperate faith even in cases of locations such as Lourdes or evangelists associated with healing. Moreover, one might distinguish Pauline healing gifts in the church from Luke's mission-related emphasis on signs in evangelism, especially evident in new locations.
In Luke's theology, signs reflect God's gracious attestation of the message, not the messenger (Acts 3:12,
16; 14:3). But in many cases even Pauline gifts of healings (1 Cor 12:9) probably imply simply special faith in God for healings (cf. Rom 12:3, 6; see discussion in Keener, Romans, 145–46). Whether extraordinary power (cf. 2 Kgs 13:20–21; Mark 5:27–31; Luke 6:19; 8:46; Acts 5:15–16; 19:11–12) belongs with signs or healing gifts may be debated (probably the former, if we may draw the line strictly).
380. See the mostly balanced warnings against celebrity-style evangelists in Schwarz, Healing, 35–51; for the reminder that preachers could claim healings on the spot that never materialize, see 117, 146.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
I have access to more claims than elsewhere) as an endorsement over against other circles.381 My reasons for citing these circles are largely pragmatic: because such published claims tend to be collected in larger numbers around these figures, and because collecting such claims is part of the objective in this section of the book, it is pragmatically useful for me to note various such claims here.382 In the Gospels and Acts, too, God often worked miracles through individuals, so the analogy is not weakened by this point.383
Dorothy Kerin I begin with two early twentieth-century Anglican healing figures from the British Isles, Dorothy Kerin and James Moore Hickson.384 On February 18,
1912, Anglican youth Dorothy Kerin was healed of tuberculosis during a vision.385
"Though I had not walked for five years," she testified, "I now walked quite steadily, and was not the least bit shaky; indeed I felt so well and strong that I might never have been ill at all."386 Her doctor had left her dying from consumption and diabetes Saturday evening; when the next day he heard of her recovery he assumed that someone had misunderstood and that she had died instead.
When he arrived to find her walking around and able to run up and down the stairs,387 he cried, "Great God, what is the meaning of it all?"388 His statement was published in the local newspaper on February 21, insisting that there was no question about her prior diagnosis. "Had I read of it," he admitted, "I certainly should not have believed it. She is well, but how she got better, I don't know."389
In another interview, he noted that she had advanced tuberculosis and other conditions, to such an extent that she should have already been dead.390 Later, after she had been critically injured during a robbery, she experienced another dramatic healing.391 Various eyewitnesses offered evidence of how close to death
381. All claimants, like all other people, exhibit a range of human frailties; I would be least inclined to trust the judgment of those that deny having any.
382. So also some involved with the 1904–5 Welsh Revival (Synan, Voices, 90–92). That revival had a global impact (Orr, Awakenings, 115–18).
383. With Go, "Ministry," 81 (see more fully Jesus commissioning disciples for this activity involved with their kingdom proclamation, 81–86). In the exodus narrative, see Osborne, "Miracles," 305 (emphasizing
God's special activity through Moses and Aaron). Though I do not find the comparison particularly helpful, those who claim parallels with psychic phenomena note that these are more prominent through particular individuals (Thouless, "Miracles," 257).
384. Although a formal "charismatic renewal" did not exist in their day, Anglican charismatics later became a significant element in the church (Synan, "Renewal," 151–58).
385. Gusmer, Healing, 13; Rose, Faith Healing, 105; Maddocks, Ministry, 101–2; some writers cite also meningitis. She believed that the Blessed Sacrament had affected her (Kerin, Touch, 8) and that an angel healed her (10–11).
386. Kerin, Touch, 12 (noting that just afterward she enjoyed her first hearty meal in years).
387. Ibid., 13. On the doctor's expectation of her imminent death, see also 7.
388. Ibid., 14.
389. Ibid., 14–15.
390. Ibid., 15.
391. Ibid., 28–37. Visions at this time included the Virgin (33) as well as angels and Jesus (31, 36).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
she was on one or the other of these occasions and how astonishing was her instant recovery.392
Archbishop Lang later laid hands on her, commissioning her to minister in healing gifts, and she traveled also elsewhere in Europe and in the United States.393
It was believed that she brought healing to many, including a prominent physicist.394 Among the many healings claimed395 are the disappearance of a gallstone396 and the cancellation of an eye operation after an eye's unexpected recovery.397 At least taken individually, a number of these claims involve illnesses that have been known to remit spontaneously at times (as illnesses often do), but some claims, like her own initial healing, appear extraordinary.
James Moore Hickson British Anglican James Moore Hickson had a prominent and respected healing ministry that was attested and documented by Anglican bishops around the world in the early 1920s.398 Media reports from the period attest that his ministry, accepted within the Anglican/Episcopalian church, attracted much wider attention and raised the level of class respectability accorded faith healing.399 Hickson emphasized that there was no power in himself; it was in Jesus's name that he was laying hands on people.400 (Unfortunately, his gifts being in healing rather than
392. The appendix in ibid., 49–85, includes these eyewitness testimonials attesting her sickness and recovery, some based on months of observation (including from nurses, 58–59, 83–85; and another doctor, 80–82).
393. Gusmer, Healing, 13. She mentions healings, e.g., in Kerin, Touch, 39–40. She does note that God hears prayers in his own "times and ways" (ibid., 40).
394. Rose, Faith Healing, 105, though suggesting that most of the ailments cured were apparently
"psychogenic." On her Anglican healing ministry, see further Gusmer, Healing, 112–14.
395. See at greater length Kerin, Fulfilling, 123–60.
396. Or a kidney stone (the particular organ is not specified). Thomas Golby had remained bedfast for a year before the stone was discovered, at age seventy; after she prayed, the pain disappeared and within two months it was gone (Kerin, Fulfilling, 142). Stones do pass on their own, though not usually painlessly.
397. Ibid., 146–47. Though the text does not specify that there was no more glaucoma, the doctors' decision might imply this verdict.
398. See Hickson, Heal, passim (brought to my attention by Dr. Gary McGee). The book includes letters with healing claims from many witnesses; given the contemporary publication date, to have invented the names or forged their letters would have been an extraordinary act of hubris, quickly exposed and discredited. His Anglican detractors, usually preferring psychological explanations, unhappily acknowledged these eyewitness accounts from the bishops (Henson, Notes, xiii–xiv). Opp, Lord for Body, 150, emphasizes that Hickson remained fully part of the Anglican movement and its interest in spiritual healing, not adopting Pentecostal style or theories of healing in the atonement. His lay healing ministry continued to be favorably remembered in Anglican circles much longer (e.g., Gusmer, Healing,
12–13, 46; Maddocks, Ministry, 100–101); cf. more diverse opinions in Mews, "Revival," 299, 303–5,
312–19, 322–23, 328–31. Lambeth Conferences in 1908, 1920, 1930, and 1958 discussed healing ministry (Gusmer, Healing, 12), and the 1978 Conference affirmed it still more strongly (Maddocks,
Ministry, 107; idem, Call, 66–67).
399. Mullin, Miracles, 237–41.
400. Mews, "Revival," 304; cf., e.g., Hickson, Bridegroom, 283.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
teaching, some of his subsequent public speculations overshadowed for some observers his more substantive earlier ministry involving healing.401)
He claims that people began to be healed when he began praying for them at age fourteen in Australia;402 he ministered to thousands in the United States, based in the Episcopal churches but affecting a wide range of denominations.403 He ministered also among Copts in Egypt;404 in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka);405 in India;406 in China;407 in Japan;408 in the Philippines;409 in the Middle East;410 in Europe;411 in South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), among various ethnic groups there;412 also in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand.413 The author includes dated letters received from named church leaders in each of these locations attesting a number of both instantaneous and gradual cures (though of course many petitioners unfortunately did not improve). He also includes news reports where local newspapers covered the meetings and those reported healed. Claimed healings include cures of deafness, blindness, and paralysis, among other maladies.414 One eyewitness of the Calcutta meetings (March 19–24, 1921) wrote:
401. Mullin, Miracles, 246. I did not notice serious problems in my sampling of Bridegroom (1937).
402. Hickson, Heal, 6–7; cf. idem, Bridegroom, 101. The archbishop recalled similar reports given him by Hickson in 1909 (Mews, "Revival," 312–13).
403. Hickson, Heal, 15–17. Healings attested in letters to the author, especially from church leaders, included a nasal growth shortly before it would have been removed surgically (19); multiple cases of deafness; blindness; goiters (29); another bedridden with arthritis (29); blindness (31–32); a child's eyes straightened (37–38); paralysis (43–44). For the denomination range, see, e.g., 45–46.
404. Ibid., 47–48. One of his detractors claimed that only few were healed there, "so far as I can gather"
(Mews, "Revival," 323), but Hickson himself did not claim that the majority were healed.
405. Hickson, Heal, 48–51.
406. Ibid., 51–67; idem, Bridegroom, 177–78, 393. Healings there in November 1920 included those mentioned by one pastor there (Heal, 53): "a young girl whose hitherto twisted feet had become straight.
And there was a young man who saw for the first time for three years. And we heard of a woman carried to church who had walked home. And then we saw an old backward-class Christian woman whose sight had been restored"; these were followed by gradual healings of other ailments. Cures elsewhere there are noted on 55, 62 (deafness, blindness, paralysis). One informant in early 1921 (63–64) noted that they had verified seventeen cases, and that he was so shocked to see a long-term invalid walking that he stopped to confirm her identity.
407. Hickson, Heal, 68–81.
408. Ibid., 81–88.
409. Ibid., 88–90.
410. Ibid., 91–97.
411. Ibid., 97–110.
412. Ibid., 111–43 (South Africa); 143–54 (Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe). This visit marked a high point in Anglican acceptance of spiritual healing, which related well to local concerns (Ranger,
"Dilemma," 355–58).
413. Hickson, Heal, 155–203 (Australia and Tasmania); 204–39 (New Zealand). These include in Australia multiple healings of total deafness; long-term inability to walk; blindness (196); in New Zealand, many healings of blindness, paralysis, goiters, and so forth (205–6, 212–13, 217–20). A critic claimed that many in the Australian meetings had been disappointed by not being healed (Mews, "Revival," 305), although we should note that Hickson never claimed that all were healed. In New Zealand (1923), fewer experienced permanent cures than originally projected, but Hickson's ministry there had long-term effects (see Farley, "Mission").
414. For deafness, sometimes long-term and total, see, e.g., Hickson, Heal, 29, 74–75, 87–88, 118,
121, 123, 124, 128, 129, 130, 134, 135, 141, 151, 152–53, 159, 162, 183, 191, 196, 212–13, 218, 220; for
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
I have seen the eyes of the blind opened immediately; one was an old man, one a child of six years of age born blind. Others have told me that they had begun to see.
At the last morning's service a Bengali father ran after me to show me that his son, for twelve years a paralytic, and one of the stretcher-cases who could not move when brought to Mr. Hickson, was walking away from the cathedral.415
A minister present in Hankow and Wuchang testified, A lame boy walks straight; two dumb children can speak; a baby carried to the Cathedral in apparently a dying condition was healed almost instantaneously; a hospital evangelist, whose eye has for years been unsuccessfully treated by the doctor, was practically healed before the man left the Cathedral.416
One witness described a crowd around a Indian boy of perhaps nine in South Africa, who had been deaf and mute since age three, now cured. The witness found that the boy could now hear, and "just then the Town Hall clock struck, and he looked up at it with such a pleased expression."417 Local newspapers in South Africa confirmed a number of the cures in 1922, following up on cases of deafness and other conditions cured.418 One deaf boy of sixteen was healed and responded to sounds, but speech "was unfamiliar to him, and he laughed considerably because he could not say what he wished."419 Besides testimony letters preserved by Hickson, we have the memoirs of Eyre Chatterton, bishop of Nagpur, regarding Hickson's activity in India in 1920. He noted how not only Christians but also Hindus and Muslims came for healing. Despite reservations about some of Hickson's views,
Chatterton found Hickson a warm person with a genuine healing gift from God.420
Back in England in October 1924, various newspapers (the Bradford Daily Telegraph, the Yorkshire Evening Argus, and the Yorkshire Observer) were reporting astonishing healings through Hickson's ministry there.421 They reported, for example, how Mrs. Sarah Ann Pinfold of Bradford, paralyzed by rheumatoid arthritis and not helped by two surgeries, suddenly dropped her crutches and began walking goiters, 29, 212, 220, 226. Some cases of cured blindness appear in Keener, Acts, under Acts 9:18, and of paralysis under Acts 9:34. McGee, Miracles, 186, 300, cites a number of contemporary newspaper reports about Hickson's meetings.
415. Hickson, Heal, 65–66; the informant notes that he has heard of other cases that he has not yet investigated.
416. Ibid., 76.
417. Ibid., 121. Similar expressions are narrated for some other healings of those born deaf (e.g., Miller,
Miracle of Healing, 49–50); and of those born deaf and blind (Tari, Breeze, 15–16).
418. Hickson, Heal, 122–23, 129–30, 134–35; cf. 152–53. A priest near Durban in 1922 noted that he could barely believe what his eyes had seen, including the healing of blind, deaf, and paralytic (124); the list of known cures in Johannesburg is quite long (128). South African newspapers are also said to have documented healings through others a generation later (Stewart, Only Believe, 99–100).
419. Hickson, Heal, 134.
420. Mews, "Revival," 307.
421. Ibid., 301–4. Hickson, Bridegroom, 223–24, also reports a healing mission in England, beginning with a dying woman raised from her deathbed and restored over several days.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
and was continuing to do so.422 A more skeptical investigator complained that while she could still walk and felt better, no complete cure had taken place.423 The papers, while reporting cures, seem even more emphatic about the quiet propriety of the services,424 presumably eager to contrast the growing Pentecostal movement, not known at the time for its decibel-level restraint.
In the context of church leaders' widespread acceptance of the "uniformity of nature" (the usual grounds for rejecting supernatural activity) in this period,425
Hickson's ministry not surprisingly generated ecclesiastical criticism as well as praise. He had particular difficulty before the First World War. Although a retired bishop of Bombay, some wealthy women, and some clergy worked closely with his Society of Emmanuel, started in 1905, he worked especially among the poor.426
Archbishop Davidson met with him in 1909, accepting some of his views but remaining highly skeptical of others, such as the possibility of healing being conveyed through a handkerchief.427
In the 1920s, however, the increasing acceptance of the new psychology pioneered by Freud and others opened doors in society for allowing mind and faith cures,428 which in turn made claims of religious healing appear less pathological or low class. Whether such explanations corresponded to Hickson's own would be beside the point; they created social space for healing ministry. Despite Hickson's
422. Mews, "Revival," 302–3, quoting the newspapers.
423. Ibid., 306.
424. Ibid., 303. Mews also cites personal conversation with a clergyman who in his younger days was present at the service, recalling the bishop laying on hands after Hickson to give his blessing (304).
425. See ibid., 313–14.
426. Ibid., 312. Cf. also the Episcopal Emmanuel Movement, starting in 1906 Boston and led by Rev.
Elwood Worcester (Oursler, Power, 113–17), and the Order of St. Luke, founded in 1947 (117–18).
427. Mews, "Revival," 312–13. Hickson's idea of using a handkerchief when unable to reach the sick himself stemmed from Acts 19:12. The early Pentecostal practice seems to have been genuine and free of gimmicks (Parsons, Acts, 278–79, also on 279–80 comparing relics); for example, one British Pentecostal reported that a mentally challenged youth in the United States received prayer through this method and afterward completed high school successfully at age eighteen (Stormont, Wigglesworth, 105–6). Osborn,
Healing, 47, reports its efficacy as a contact point for faith when physical presence is not possible. Salmon,
Heals, 80–81, notes such healings (but prefers "laying on" hands, 81); for proxy and distant healings more generally, see 78–81 (including a child's high fever, 78–79); in the Gospels, Matt 8:8–13//Luke
7:6–10; John 4:50–53. In popular practice, for an example in Nigeria, e.g., Folwarski, "Point of Contact"; in southern Africa, a slipper in Koch, Zulus, 106; in India, a cloak in ibid., 105 (both emergency situations); cf. the blanket in Anderson, Pelendo, 133; in connection with Azusa Street, Robeck, Mission, 106; with Wigglesworth and other early Pentecostals, Wacker, Heaven Below, 94; early Pentecostals in Shearer,
"Believe," 7–8 (a dying woman healed when it touched her, and she thereafter remained active); Glover,
"Healings," 16 (a dying man healed fully but progressively from the moment of contact); idem, "Recent
Healings," 13 (two cases); Reiff, "Los Angeles Campmeeting" (two cases, the one on 14 healing the wife of a Presbyterian minister); Otero, "Convention"; Wise, "Healings" (for a blind missionary); the heterodox
A. H. Dallimore (Guy, "Miracles," 457–58); more recently, e.g., Woldu, Gifts, 141–42; Stewart, Only Believe,
149; Bowler, "Bodies," 93. Devotees of Lourdes likewise find distant contact points for faith (Cranston,
Miracle, 161), sometimes water from Lourdes (311); for other contact points for faith, besides relics, see, e.g., oil from the cave of Gäbrä-Seyon (Michael, "Gäbrä-Seyon").
428. Mews, "Revival," 316–18. In the United States, even popular magazines could write concerning healing claims; see, e.g., Daggett, "Miracles" (cited in McGee, Miracles, 174).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
newfound popularity in this era, however, clerical detractors remained, particularly in England. In 1924, the dean of St. Paul's, suspicious of any supernatural claims, denounced Hickson's ministry as catering to the superstitious and "half educated," hence hampering the church's respectability.429 In 1925, the bishop of Durham critiqued the approach of Hickson and his allies as misguided,430 while unhappily recognizing that Anglican bishops throughout the world offered eyewitness support for Hickson's claims.431 The bishop of Chichester was horrified to discover that Hickson had laid hands on "hundreds of unconverted Africans" and that some of them were healed.432 Various English bishops noted that praying for a few sick persons quietly was acceptable, but large crowds were unacceptable. By this point in his ministry, however, Hickson inevitably drew large crowds, whether or not he wished to, thereby eliciting some clerical hostility.433 Needless to say, no amount of positive successes could prevent the hostility of some critics.434
The Anglican Divine Healing Mission that Hickson founded gradually dwindled after his death,435 but as a healing home it was later renewed through George
Bennett's leadership, with further recoveries reported, though the emphasis was more on psychological healing than it had been during Hickson's ministry.436
Hickson influenced others, such as Alfred Price, who eventually began healing services at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.437 This church reported many healings over the years. One case involved a woman with running sores from her ankle to her knee; she had developed gangrene, recognized by multiple doctors, and was preparing to enter Jefferson Hospital for probable amputation.
She stopped at the church for prayer, however, and left without needing her cane.
429. Mews, "Revival," 304–5, noting that "a fellow clergyman" rejected the dean's argument as "pure naturalism." We should also recognize that this was the era of the modernist-fundamentalist controversy in the United States.
430. Henson, Notes, 90–113.
431. Ibid., xiii–xiv. Henson recognizes here that his opposition to Hickson represents a minority of global Anglican sentiment.
432. Mews, "Revival," 326.
433. Ibid., 326–28. For his part, Hickson protested that he had not deliberately sought to have large missions, nor had he foreseen their size (328).
434. Even much later, some denigrated "irrational" faith healing to condemn "magical" approaches
(e.g., Salsman, "Healing," 149–53, against genuinely fraudulent but also other faith healers; on 154–55 he views accepting one's condition as the only valid form of spiritual healing; Boggs, "Cults"; idem, Faith
Healing). Others from the mid-twentieth century were more positive (Bonnell, "Valid," allowing prayer as well as medicine).
435. Bennett, Miracle, 13.
436. Ibid., 41, 48. Rev. Howard J. Cobb, raised from what he believed would soon have been his deathbed, devoted himself to healing ministry, founding the Crowhurst healing home in 1928; Bennett became warden of Crowhurst in 1958 (Maddocks, Ministry, 103). For Maddocks' own story, see Maddocks,
Call.
437. Oursler, Power, 201; Oursler provides further detail about the church's healing ministry (120–24).
Others in turn cite the wide-ranging influence of Price (e.g., Peterman, Healing, 3). Hickson also influenced many Anglican churches to embrace healing prayer (cf., e.g., Hickson, Bridegroom, 349–53, 363). Similarly,
"Prebendary Carlisle, healed of spinal trouble," went on to found the Church Army (Maddocks, Ministry,
101).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
The surgeon was astonished when the next morning her bandages were removed.
"In two days," she announced, "I was discharged from the hospital as completely cured."438 In another case in 1949, an elderly widow of a Lutheran minister was hemorrhaging from an abdominal tumor and told that she would die without surgery. After prayer, she felt better, and the new X-rays showed that the tumor had vanished.439 Other testimonies included the healing of a boy's clubfoot, a girl's meningitis, and so forth.440
Healings in Other Traditional Churches Not only Anglicans but also members of other socially respected churches reported healings in this period. For example, in Ohio in 1907, Albert E. Day, a recently ordained Methodist minister, discovered that he had tuberculosis. Suffering severe hemorrhaging, he was sent to Colorado Springs, warned by doctors that he would need to remain there or expire within six months. After praying that God would give him just twenty years to preach and fulfill his calling, he decided to return to ministry in Ohio, despite his doctor's solemn warning that if he did so he would soon be dead. The hemorrhaging stopped as soon as he decided to return to ministry.441 Although tuberculosis remained in his system, "he never experienced one further symptom of this disease."442 In the early 1940s, he suffered a heart attack, and X-rays showed an enlarged heart; he continued his ministry, however, and in 1947 a leading cardiologist examined him and found his heart completely normal, a situation the doctors considered unusual.443
In 1950, Dr. Day and some others independently felt led to come together and begin a healing ministry in his church, now in Baltimore;444 although not all were healed, many were, of illnesses ranging from psychosomatic problems "to advanced organic illness."445 One example of a cure reported was "a woman with a growth on her eye." The physician planned to operate on it the next day, but she came first for prayer. The next day, when the physician was about to operate, he found that the growth was now coming loose, and he detached it easily with tweezers.446 In another example, after prayers, a surgeon canceled an operation to remove a brain tumor hours before the operation was scheduled; the young man soon returned home, without the illness returning.447
438. Oursler, Power, 32. Cf. gangrene healed overnight in Seibert, Church, 98–99.
439. Oursler, Power, 122–23. She was still coming to the services seven years later, close to the time of Oursler's writing (123).
440. Ibid., 124.
441. Ibid., 137. For the renewal of healing ministry in the Methodist church, see also Maddocks,
Ministry, 108–9.
442. Oursler, Power, 137–38.
443. Ibid., 138.
444. Ibid., 138–41.
445. Ibid., 141.
446. Ibid., 143–44.
447. Ibid., 144.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
Beginning in the 1940s, Elsie Salmon, a Methodist minister's wife in South Africa, exhibited healing gifts that convinced even some who had not believed that such occurrences happened in their own time (including initially her husband).448
Eventually her ministry touched many thousands in her country. A Methodist minister noted that she prayed at his church's request for a man whose kidneys were hemorrhaging; the bleeding stopped, and two days later the sanatorium released him.449 She describes the cures of various bone diseases,450 spinal diseases,451 skin diseases,452 arthritis,453 blindness and paralysis,454 and the like. She reports that complete deafness that had persisted for ten years was healed after prayer, as was another man who had been deaf without his hearing aid.455 I can list here no more than a sample of cures claimed.456
Methodist pastor Roger Squire of Red Bank, New Jersey, offered another account. In one of the most serious commuter train accidents in U.S. history, a train in 1951 left its rails and crashed over an embankment; in addition to eighty-five people who died, hundreds of others were injured. One was Robert Stout, who was in a coma for several days and scheduled for brain surgery. Sunday morning at 11:15, just before the operation was scheduled, the pastor led the church in prayer for Stout's recovery, and at about this time he began regaining consciousness. The surgeon canceled the operation, and within a few weeks Stout was fully restored apart from "occasional lapses of memory."457
When Lewis Llewellyn was five years old in Pittsburgh in 1915, he was dying of "brain fever, spinal meningitis, mastoiditis, and pneumonia." If he survived,
448. See Sangster, "Foreword" (for her husband, 6–7; for Sangster, 5–6). Though her services were based specifically in Methodist churches, people from many denominations attended (Salmon, Heals, 36); witnesses attesting healings included the secretary of the South African Methodist Conference (ibid., 10) and many others. She knew of few relapses (14), but notes the temporary character of some cures (113–16, some but not all related to returns to former lifestyles or failures to employ common sense). She recognized that many with great faith were not healed (118) while some skeptics (34) or others without faith (cf.
63–64) were. Her reports depend on feedback (usually letters) from those cured; these sources usually cite the original diagnosis and medical confirmation of the cure, though Salmon claimed no diagnostic competence herself (14). Others mention Salmon (93–104), and on the internet I discovered the memoirs of one Freda Phipps, which include (in a much longer collection of memories) the experience of one Mrs.
Turner whose hands were crippled with arthritis "until she had a miraculous cure when I went with her to a Healing Service" under Salmon; http://jamesell.tripod.com/id14.html; accessed Oct. 5, 2010). Some of her methods appear unusual (e.g., 33, 59; "drawing out" inflammation, as on 67, appears also among traditional healers), but apparently more effective than the churches' frequent failure to engage illness.
449. J. Wesley Allen, in Salmon, Hands, 12.
450. Ibid., 52–53.
451. Ibid., 57–62.
452. Ibid., 63–66.
453. Ibid., 94–96 (including a bedridden person, 95).
454. Treated in ch. 12.
455. Ibid., 75–76.
456. E.g., a hemorrhaging child's recovery (ibid., 82–83); a split tongue was healed instantly (85); the healing of gastric enteritis (88); and so forth. Koch, Zulus, 177–78, also reports healing of enteritis in South Africa.
457. Oursler, Power, 147–49, noting that six years later, he remained well.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
doctors expected him to be a vegetable. Both his Baptist church and the nuns at the hospital prayed, and he "was healed and recovered" fully.458
Catholics also continue to report cures from this period. For example, in 1921, after a nurse put a drop of silver nitrate solution into the eyes of infant Peter Smith, she discovered that she had accidentally administered 50 percent solution instead of the normal 1 percent. She discovered the mistake only when she found his eyes
"swollen and inflamed," and the examining physicians believed that nothing but a miracle could save his sight. Prayers were offered, and in the morning the child's eyes were found restored; various doctors and nurses at the hospital provided their written testimonies to the event.459 In December 1925, Sister Delphina Grazioli had been suffering from cancer for several years; surgical interventions in previous years had failed, and she was given days or hours to live. The other sisters and orphans in her order had been praying for her, and suddenly she felt that Mother
Cabrini appeared to tell her there was more work for her to do. She sat up and declared that she had been healed; three days later she walked to the chapel, and she was still working three decades later, when my source was writing.460
From 1908 to 1927, the vision of Sister Jeanne Marie declined. The four doctors (two of them specialists, one of whom was a Protestant) concluded that her "left optic nerve was totally atrophied and the right one was four-fifths atrophied." She began praying fervently on January 21, 1927, for a double novena (a novena is a nine-day period of prayer), and on February 8, the last day of her novena, her pain was gone and her sight restored.461 Capuchin monk Padre Pio Forgione (1887–
1968) was known for his healing gifts, and in the 1920s and 1930s most people for whom Chicago's Father Solanus Casey (1871–1957) prayed were healed.462
Eastern Orthodox figures also were reporting healings.463 In the East, on the Aegean island of Kimolos, St. Methodia (1865–1908) was said to make the sign of the cross, anointing with oil the ailing body parts of supplicants. It is said that people were healed of tumors and other diseases through her prayers and faith.464
458. Llewellyn, "Events," 242, recounting his father's healing. It is not clear whether the cure was instantaneous, but the nuns called it miraculous.
459. Sabourin, Miracles, 165–67, though he, unlike some of his sources, wonders (167) whether the silver nitrate "actually reached the eyeballs." As some other writers on healing acknowledge (cf., e.g.,
Oursler, Power, 97–98), many Protestants would regard the report as theologically problematic because it involves intercession through Mother Cabrini, who was deceased; but some other Protestants would allow that God could respond to earnest pleas of the faithful without necessarily endorsing the particulars of the prayers. Sabourin, Miracles, 171–72, feels that the documentation for many cases of posthumous miracles used for canonization of saints is inadequate. In at least some of these cases, though, the nature of collecting human testimony may render these the best that one can do; evidence need not be perfect to be adequate, depending on the bar of proof one demands.
460. Oursler, Power, 98 (again the story involves intercession to Mother Cabrini, who died in 1917).
461. Garner, "Regressions," 1262.
462. DeGrandis, Miracles, 61–62; Zagrans, Miracles, 207.
463. The Eastern Orthodox Church has always affirmed miracles and charismata (Synan, "Charismatics,"
199), despite the difficulties experienced by some contemporary charismatic renewalists there (199–200).
464. Cavarnos, St. Methodia, 43–44, 68–69 (giving five healing claims with the persons' names).
Among others, a later patriarch of Alexandria endorsed her (51).
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
Somewhat earlier, healings were also attributed to St. Arsenios of Paros (1800– 1877)465 and St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759–1833).466 Other Eastern churches also have healing traditions; one Western visitor notes an Assyrian Christian village church that for an estimated fourteen centuries has had a special room for prayer for the healing of the sick.467 Orthodox Christians have continued to narrate accounts of divine intervention, not only connected with saints and not only in the past.468
Early Pentecostalism Not surprisingly, early Pentecostalism, birthed in a context of the Holiness movement and other circles praying for healings and missions, augmented the quantity of healing testimonies.469 While early Pentecostals, like most previous popular movements, were not generally interested in preserving documentation for their testimonies (not least for eschatological reasons), they are recent enough to have left a massive wealth of sources. The sources do offer some common problems: we may suspect that they were often apt to embrace the most optimistic theological interpretation of their recoveries (a characteristic of their positive faith); some testimonies may have been premature; and some casual claimants and professionals may have been insincere. Nevertheless, many testimonies of dramatic recoveries clearly come from eyewitnesses, and the abundance of these accounts appears to suggest some dynamic active within this early movement.470
Many early Pentecostals saw themselves as a movement that God could use, but their commitment was to the Spirit's work rather than to their movement per se.471 Apart from its addition of speaking in tongues, Pentecostalism essentially
465. For samples of those attributed to him before his death, see Zervakos, "Miracles," 84–85, 86–87
(for accurate prophecy, 85–86); on St. Arsenios more generally, see Cavarnos, St. Arsenios.
466. Cavarnos and Zeldin, St. Seraphim, 22–23 (including the rheumatism of Nicholas Motovilov in 1831). After his death some claimed that they had earlier seen him levitating but had been forbidden to discuss it earlier (24–25). The hagiography tradition undoubtedly exerted more direct influences on reports of these figures than in healing accounts of conservative, British Anglicans like Kerin and Hickson.
Attempts to verify levitation (conducted in Buddhist circles) have so far tended only to disconfirm it (see
Benson, Healing, 166), though cf. McClenon, Events, 216–17 (including a case he witnessed on 217, while allowing for the possibility of fraud; cf. another's claim on 144–45; idem, Healing, 59). For explanations of fraudulent levitation, see Charpak and Broch, Debunked, 25–27.
467. Young, "Miracles in History," 113.
468. The story of a Greek Orthodox woman, Stavritza Zacharion, in Nairobi, in Bredesen, Miracle,
97–98.
469. For early Pentecostal beliefs about healing, see Alexander, Healing, 64–242; for healing in early
Pentecostalism, see also Reyes, "Framework," 67–90; Baer, "Bodies," 254–58; in the early Church of God in Christ, see, e.g., mention in Synan, "Churches," 103. For Carrie Judd Montgomery, one of the few major evangelical healing leaders who embraced the Pentecostal movement, see Baer, "Bodies," 96–110, 272;
Alexander, Healing, 24–27. For other early Pentecostal healing and miracle claims, see also McGee, People of Spirit, 83, 138, 198–99, 206, 243, 266, 275, 337–38, 358; MacNutt, Crime, 185–97.
470. Starting assumptions may affect whether one construes the dynamic psychologically or theologically (or a combination thereof), but the movement clearly shaped how many experienced their illnesses and recoveries.
471. See, e.g., "Episcopal Ministers"; Wigglesworth's prophecy of a greater future movement in Stormont, Wigglesworth, 113 (though Parham expected Pentecostalism to be the final end-time awakening;
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
continued the ideals of the healing movement that had already been circulating at the turn of the century. But despite exceptions, Pentecostalism in this period was not associated with social respectability by the elites. Elite disdain was compounded further by some of Pentecostalism's emotive worship practices borrowed from "slave religion."472
Other healing advocates, like A. B. Simpson, distanced themselves from Pentecostalism, and Simpson's movement increasingly played down its earlier emphasis on divine healing.473 Pentecostal and Holiness groups took up the healing emphasis as many other evangelicals abandoned it474 (and probably some healing advocates simply joined the newer Pentecostal movement).
Even many of Dowie's Zion, Illinois, followers joined the fledgling Pentecostal movement,475 despite his immediate successor's effort to prevent this exodus.476
Many Pentecostals critically affirmed some aspects of his legacy, recognizing both positive and negative elements.477 As Heather Curtis points out, at this point the urban, East Coast, "international and interdenominational" movement of Blumhofer, Sister, 69); Aimee Semple McPherson strove for interdenominational cooperation (Blumhofer,
Sister, 202, 211–21; her vision for Pentecostalism was also eschatological restorationist, but for the entire church, 206, 213–14; charismatics cite a longer legacy than restorationists, Nienkirchen, "Visions").
472. Pentecostalism's appeal was to the masses, and the early African-American influence at Azusa
Street also contributed to the movement's potential for ethnic reconciliation and global multiculturalism (Robeck, Mission, 88, 137–38; testimony in Horton, Corinthians, 66n29; cf. Synan, Movement, 80,
109–11, 165–69, 172, 178–79, 182–83, 221; idem, "Seymour," 778–81; idem, "Legacies," 148–49;
Lovett, "Pentecostalism," 83; Daniels, "Differences"; Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 63, 260–62). These connections are natural applications of Acts 2 itself (Bediako, "African Culture," 120; González, Months,
18; Solivan, Spirit, 112–18; Míguez-Bonino, "Acts 2," 163–64; cf. Keener, "Acts 2:1–21," 526–27; idem,
"Diversity"; Marguerat, Actes, 81; Yong, Spirit Poured, 94, 169–73; Park, Healing, 130–32; Williams,
"Acts," 219–20) and Acts 2 was so applied at Azusa Street (Yong, Spirit Poured, 183; cf. Bartleman,
Azusa Street, 54).
473. Curtis, Faith, 201; Opp, Lord for Body, 129; Hardesty, Faith Cure, 144–45; cf. Barron, Gospel,
44. This is not to say that they abandoned belief in divine healing; see, e.g., Fant, Miracles, passim.
Fundamentalists of the 1920s harshly rejected Pentecostalism, but even one of their own leaders, Baptist pastor John Roach Straton, claimed to have witnessed healings in his church and among family members
(McGee, Miracles, 180–81, noting also Straton, Healing; see esp. Baer, "Bodies," 321–24).
474. Curtis, Faith, 201. Many apparently expected faith to always cure ailments, just as a number (though not all) expected tongues to always accompany Spirit baptism; much of Pentecostalism has moved away from especially the former claim, at least in the West. While this seems to be a theological improvement
(many early Pentecostals, like others, were not healed), healing reports seem to have also declined with their diminished expectation.
475. Note Boddy, "Experiences," 33; this included even some of Zion's leaders (see Blumhofer, "Invasion,"
4–5). For many of Dowie's followers, Pentecostalism assumed the mantle of his restorationist vision after his fall (Blumhofer, "Apostolic Church," 140).
476. For the struggle with Wilbur Glenn Voliva, see Blumhofer, "Invasion," 4–5. It was not only Charles
Parham with whom Voliva, Dowie's most trusted assistant, clashed, however; he had Dowie removed from office while he was away recuperating from a stroke (1905–6; Wacker, "Marching to Zion 2," 9).
477. E.g., Booth-Clibborn, "John the Baptist," 7 (affirming his early restoration of the healing emphasis but condemning his later view that he was the end-time prophet); Boddy, "Experiences," 38 (he began well but was targeted by the enemy); criticism in Gee, "Apostles." Dowie influenced early Pentecostals
(Hudson, "British Pentecostals," 289–94; Hyatt, Years, 161), including Wigglesworth (Hudson, "British
Pentecostals," 291–94).
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the late nineteenth-century United States now shifted to towns and rural areas in the South and Midwest.478
It is possible to do no more than mention some examples of healing claims from early Pentecostalism. (In collecting examples, I surveyed some old articles with "Healings" in the title, but hundreds more included accounts of healings that could easily fill a book by themselves.) Undoubtedly some of the reports involve misdiagnoses; reading the descriptions of doctors' verdicts in the popular reports reminds one to be grateful for how far medicine has progressed in the last century. Many Pentecostals themselves also noted the tragedies of people not healed, frequently on the mission field.479 Clearly, however, many serious conditions were cured, alongside the more general social empowerment that the movement brought to more marginalized people.
Early Pentecostal Testimonies The Azusa Street revival, based in Los Angeles, facilitated the global spread of Pentecostalism, and many healings were claimed in connection with it and its aftermath.480 Although many surviving reports of significant cures recounted in the next section are associated with major figures in the movement, other incidents lacked such prominent connections. For example, it is reported that one young woman paralyzed from the waist down in early twentieth-century England kept looking to God for three months after being anointed with oil; suddenly, through her pain, she heard Jesus's voice and found herself healed. Her mother, shocked
478. Curtis, Faith, 201; for its earlier transatlantic character, see also idem, "Character," 29–30. The later renewed international focus of the healing movement may have resurfaced from a temporary retreat
(in many circles) into local forms just as the spirit of nineteenth-century North American evangelicalism resurfaced after much of it hibernated for a time in early twentieth-century fundamentalism. Although not in view here, perhaps the most distinctive, isolated form of U.S. faith healing persisted in the form of folk tradition among some Appalachian families, where it was apparently applied individually, especially to burns, bleeding, and yellow blisters around a child's mouth ("thrash"); see Wigginton, Foxfire Book,
346–68 (for burns, 350, 355, 360–63; for bleeding, 347–55, 364, 368; for thrash, 355–59). Curers would recite a verse (350, 355, 356, 363) secretly (for bleeding, some used Ezek 16:6; 352, 354, 368; another used a composite, nonexistent verse for burns, 367); they might also have a standard prayer
(363) and prayed in Jesus's name (as with, they said, other prayers, 365), though some felt that the healer need not be religious (363). Cures had to be effected without revealing the formula or verse (cf. 347,
356–57, 365–66). For some, cures were normally immediate (355, but cf. 360–62), and any failures were attributed to failure to use the exact formula (354). These healers attributed all the healings to the Lord (346, 349, 355, 362) and often mentioned faith (346, 355, 356, 359, 363); they would never take money (346, 355). Some testified of their own healing (355); while medical doctors generally seemed skeptical (364), one was ready to pay to learn their method (355). Waving the hand over a burn (355; cf. 2 Kgs 5:11) and reciting a verse (cf. p. Erubin 10:11) appear in other traditions as well; so do secret formulas (in magical traditions, e.g., PGM 1.192–94; Frankfurter, Religion in Egypt, 233). How much involves mere folk tales (cf. Wigginton, Foxfire Book, 359) and how much involves faith in God may differ from person to person.
479. See, e.g., the missionary mother who lost her daughter to measles in Mongolia, accepting this as God's will but clearly grieving deeply (Hindle, "Heart").
480. E.g., Robeck, Mission, 43, 46, 73, 76, 107, 142–44, 259, 269; Synan, Voices, 41, 43; Menzies,
Anointed, 51; Alexander, Fire, 123.
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to see her standing, fainted.481 One minister reports praying in 1926 for a woman named Clara Shannon, who was in a wheelchair with severe multiple sclerosis and given perhaps six months to live. Clara was healed, astonishing the small town, but after her doctor told her that her cure would not last, she lost hope and returned to her wheelchair. After more prayer, she experienced healing again, and this time it persisted; the minister wrote the article forty years later, noting that Clara, whose current photograph accompanies the article, remained in health as he was writing.482
Another source reports the healing of goiters, deafness (after thirteen years of deafness), the visible disappearance of a growth in a child's nose, and so forth.483
Many others also report the healing of deafness.484 X-rays showed that a suffering woman in Miami, Florida, had advanced tuberculosis, with one lung badly damaged; about three months after she was instantly healed through faith in 1927, she reports, new X-rays startled the doctors. Their records attested her previous condition, but their examination showed that she was completely well.485 Many others report healings from tuberculosis, then a common malady.486 Examples include a person who was dying of tuberculosis and weighed only 79 pounds being instantly healed the first time she was prayed for and, at the time of the report sixteen years later, weighing 152 pounds;487 or a woman whose lungs were badly affected by tuberculosis before prayer but three hours later had no sign of it.488
One can barely enumerate the stories. Among healings claimed in Hungary, a woman about to die from heart trouble dreamed that an angel had given her a new heart, and she awoke well.489 Elsewhere, a person who was supposed to die if she did not have an operation was reported healed three hours after the prayer.490
School authorities ordered the parents of one child "badly afflicted in her eyes" to get her glasses, but after her healing pronounced her vision perfect with no glasses.491
481. Stormont, Wigglesworth, 110–11, noting that he heard the account from her pastor.
482. Hurst, "Healings." The second time of prayer included the involvement of Dr. Lilian Yeomans, who was visiting.
483. Forsberg, "Campaign," 15.
484. Reiff, "Later Healings" (noting one case on 5 and another on 6); idem, "Los Angeles Campmeeting,"
13; "Healings in Australia"; Mueller, "Blind, Deaf," 22; Ollson, "Healings"; "Revival in England"; Jessup,
"Healings."
485. Calley, "Healed," giving her testimony, followed by confirmation from her former pastor.
486. E.g., Reiff, "Later Healings," 6; Martin, "Healings at Kilsyth" (noting that the woman was dying before being healed); Mueller, "Blind, Deaf," 22 (though the report appears quite soon after the cure);
Jessup, "Healings."
487. Shearer, "Believe," 5; the reporter, her husband, says God "has made her fleshy" (in contrast to her thin family) to testify to his power. He jests that her only "consumption" now is of food. He claims that he was healed from nephritis and high blood pressure, often coughing up blood, though it sounds like he may still have "symptoms" (Shearer, "Believe," 7).
488. Hansen, "Cures," 115 (Hansen being the examining physician). For other cases, see, e.g., Glover,
"Recent Healings," 14; "Certainty of Healing"; the healing of Nicholas B. H. Bhengu's wife from tuberculosis in South Africa is mentioned in PentEv 1944 (Aug. 12, 1951): 13, in a photo caption.
489. Szabo, "Healings."
490. Mueller, "Blind, Deaf," 22.
491. Kortkamp, "Healings."
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An older woman was warned that even surgery on her cataracts might well not help them, but her sight was restored. Now she replaced the cover of her watch again, because she could see the time instead of having to feel for it.492 Others report, for example, healings of long-term stomach or skin conditions or tumors;493 the healing of a sliced finger bone and the skin;494 the gradual but abnormally rapid healing of broken bones;495 chronic gallbladder problems;496 the healing of a very sick baby;497 the instant healing of a goiter;498 the instant healing of diphtheria;499 permanent healing of epilepsy;500 healing of dropsy so that the enlarged body quickly (over the next few days) began to reduce in size;501 a twenty-two-month-old's severely swollen face healed;502 cancer;503 and a host of other conditions.504
Pentecostalism spread rapidly in the Majority World with indigenous workers who shared the Pentecostal experience. Early Western Pentecostals reported many particularly dramatic testimonies among their missionaries.505 In Africa, for example, in 1922 a missionary described a central African chief who had
492. Ibid.
493. E.g., all from the same page of a Pentecostal magazine in 1913, Sullivan, "Healed"; Kleiner, "Tumor"
(a large fibroid she had for years passed); Ayers, "Eczema" (noting that it had covered all his body). For other claims of tumors healed, see, e.g., Nudgett, "Healed"; Glover, "Miracles of Healing" (gradual);
"Scotland Stirred," 6; Fortune, "Healed."
494. Jenkins, "South Africa": "We prayed also for another boy who had cut the bone of his finger to the joint, and the doctor could not get the bone to join, neither could he get any flesh to cover the joint.
We prayed for him, and his finger came all right."
495. Schmidt, "Bones": a man in his sixties broke three of his bones in a fall (21); the doctor believed that this was the worst break in a limb he had seen (22) and insisted on surgery to insert plates and screws
(21). The man refused (21) but in three weeks believed that his arm was as well as before the fall, and the doctor, though quite surprised, was a Christian and acknowledged that God had done this (22).
496. Glover, "Miracles of Healing," 6, noting that doctors had insisted on removing it but that she had been healed instead.
497. Jamieson, "Healings."
498. Ibid.
499. Martin, "Healings at Kilsyth," noting that "both speech and hearing were gone, and her throat was one white mass of disease," until her instant healing, which brought her full strength.
500. Richards, "Healings."
501. Reiff, "Los Angeles Campmeeting," 13. For other reports of healing of dropsy, see Koch, Zulus,
75, 78–79.
502. Newman, "Healings."
503. Glover, "Miracles of Healing," 5; Mueller, "Blind, Deaf," 22, noting several aftermath reports, including the quick disappearance of an external cancer; Taylor, "Healings," 11; McNutt, "Healed"; and often in the literature.
504. Numerous claims in one church in Glover, "Healings"; cases associated with Welsh minister
Stephen Jeffreys in "Revival in London"; other cases in, e.g., Glover, "Recent Healings"; "Certainty of Healing"; Richards, "Healings" (often gradual but notable); Jessup, "Healings"; Mueller, "Blind, Deaf"; summaries in Buchwalter, "Asking"; "Reports: Little Rock." In one case, terribly painful and severely protruding "bowels" that would require surgery returned to their proper place within a day after prayer
(Glover, "Healings," 16). Recoveries also followed children's prayers (Glover, "Recent Healings," 13). I list some accounts of cured blindness in ch. 12.
505. E.g., protection from bubonic plague in India (Mueller, "Healings") or the recoveries of all flu victims elsewhere (Reiff, "Healings," writing four years after a deadly global flu epidemic). Note the summary in McGee, Miracles, 146.
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sold all his wives to pay shamans to heal his withered arm, to no avail; after the arm was healed through Jesus's name, the Christian message was welcomed in the village.506 From West Africa in the same year came the report of a boy
"instantly healed of what appeared in the natural to be an incurable condition of badly diseased gums and teeth."507 The same source reports the conversion of a man through the healing of his apparently dying wife.508 In Kisumu, Kenya, in 1925, a missionary reports an apparently paralyzed woman instantly healed; she praised God and immediately went to dig in her garden. The missionary also notes that she asked parents if they were willing to part with their child, dying of pneumonia, if it was God's will; they were, "but when prayer was offered, the child was healed."509
Such reports also come from Asia. In 1923, for example, a number of children in a missionary orphanage in China were reported to have been healed, including at least five who had seemed humanly hopeless cases; two cases had stirred considerable interest among the non-Christian local population.510 In 1933, a new believer in Manchuria prayed desperately for his dying child, who was healed.511
Likewise, the same year, a believer in India was experiencing instant healings as she prayed, including of a young man's ear discharge that had lasted three years; her sister was also healed on what had appeared to be her deathbed.512 In 1925, one missionary in Calcutta reported that a twelve-year-old girl "who was almost gone after thirty-one days of fever" began to recover as soon as she prayed; the child was completely well by the next day and soon was skipping around.513 Christians also prayed for a missionary they had not known, whose blindness was healed after a day of fasting.514
In 1917, one couple reports that one Hawaiian woman's body was covered with leprosy; she reportedly hid from doctors lest she be consigned to Molokai, the leper colony. Yet after prayer the woman was healed.515 The same article reports other healings in Hawaii, one of an "incurable" case apparently of kidney disease; another case where an astonished doctor had to cancel an operation,516 and the full healing within twenty-four hours of the skin of one woman who had endured
506. Burton, "Villages," 6 (being the missionary who prayed). A Nazarene missionary in Jamaica prayed for a ten-year-old boy who had never opened his hand, and it immediately opened and remained normal thereafter (Miller, Miracle of Healing, 94, citing the eyewitness account of Evelyn Cohen).
507. Reiff, "Healings," reporting the letter of "Mrs. Ira G. Shakely from Sierra Leone."
508. Ibid., again following Shakely, who also provided additional testimonies.
509. Keller, "Healings."
510. Gleim, "Ministering."
511. Kvamme, "Raised."
512. Mueller, "Miraculously Healed."
513. Wise, "Healings."
514. Ibid.
515. Johns, "Results," 10. Many lepers were of course not healed, and Pentecostals, like others, sought to minister to them (e.g., in India, see Eberhardt, "Fruit"; Helmbrecht, "Leper"; cf. also the testimony of Hickson, Bridegroom, 211–12, about a ministry in Japan).
516. Johns, "Results," 10.
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"open sores for twenty years."517 In Latin America, when a man in Argentina was dying of appendicitis, he was healed during prayer, though "tested" with pain the next night; the next day, when the doctor who had planned to operate examined him, he declared him well instead.518
Early Pentecostal Figures Healing was important to early Pentecostalism, and nearly all early Pentecostal leaders claimed "stunning divine healings in their own bodies."519 One of the notable early evangelists touched directly by the Azusa Street revival was John G.
Lake. His ministry is said to have begun with the healing of some dying relatives520 and eventually claimed thousands of healings,521 in southern Africa as well as in North America.522 For example, his popular biographer reports that one deaf and mute boy was healed and "was quite bewildered at the noise he heard around him for the first time in his life."523 Among the more dramatic claims was the healing of a woman who had had a hysterectomy—and subsequently became a mother;524 another was a boy's misshapen skull returning to normal.525
Another early Pentecostal healing figure was Charles S. Price, who had a law degree from Oxford and was a "modernist" preacher before his conversion to Pentecostalism through the ministry of Aimee Semple McPherson.526 Price reported
517. Ibid., 11.
518. Wood, "Healings in Argentina" (1922; also noting a boy's healing from convulsions and fever within five minutes of prayer).
519. Wacker, "Searching,"151, remarking also on the unusual hardiness of most of these leaders.
520. Lindsay, Lake, 10–14. For his calling to healing, see Lake, Sermons, 5–9.
521. Zeigler, "Lake"; cf. Lake, Sermons; Lindsay, Lake, 26, 31. Some estimated as high as one hundred thousand during his ministry in the Pacific Northwest (Lindsay, Lake, 53), though others have cited
"exaggerations" (noted in Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 55). On Lake, see also Baer, "Bodies," 263–68.
522. He is also known for his half decade in South Africa (e.g., Lake, Sermons, 12–13; Maxwell, African
Gifts, 40; Clark, "Challenge," 81; Anderson, "Signs," 200–201, 206; McGee, Miracles, 164, 292n156; especially Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 55–59, noting both his interracial emphasis and his unfortunate service to apartheid ideology there; some others doubt his service to racialism, e.g., Clark, "Apostolic
Faith Mission," 44; Alexander, Fire, 125); churches he helped found are now said to include some five million adherents. Through his colleague William T. Dugan, thousands were reportedly healed of plague in South Africa (Lindsay, Lake, 37); another associate also had a large healing ministry but fell into error and was discredited (Lindsay, Lake, 49–50). For the influence of his movement on Zionism, alongside its indigenous character, cf., e.g., Hinchliff, "Africa," 479; on the ministry of Pieter le Roux, who later led the AFM, see Le Roux, "Le Roux," 53–60; on the original nonracialism of the movement that later became racialized, see 45–46, 58–60; on his influence on South African Zionist churches, see 61; Moodley, Shembe,
72–73. Those who think (unlike some others) that Le Roux left Zionism for Pentecostalism partly from "racial preference" also note his influence on the early Zionists (e.g., Lang'at, "Experience," 99–100).
523. Lindsay, Lake, 27–28. For a cure of partial muteness in 1921 associated with a different ministry, shocking even the person so healed, see "Revival in London," 15.
524. Lindsay, Lake, 56.
525. Ibid., 57. It was said that the Better Business Bureau investigated claims of cures and was favorably impressed (53–58, including the noting of names).
526. Blumhofer, Sister, 175–76; Opp, Lord for Body, 155; Baer, "Bodies," 301–2. See his autobiography
(Signs Followed), including healings in Victoria (e.g., 60). Pentecostals described him as "a Congregational minister who has received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit" ("Healings at Victoria," 9).
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many healings, such as of a boy's damaged knee;527 full healing of curvature of the spine, freeing a woman from a large back brace;528 another spinal restoration;529 and spontaneous cures breaking out in his meetings.530 A later leader influenced by him reported his sister's dramatic healing through Price's prayer.531 (I will mention one of Price's campaigns in a different connection in ch. 14.)
Another healing evangelist offering abundant claims in the early twentieth century was Maria Woodworth-Etter, who straddled both the Holiness movement and later the early Pentecostal movement.532 For just a few samples among the numerous healing claims in her journal, she records a pastor's observation that a woman crippled by arthritis had not been able to walk for four years and could not comb her hair or raise her arms, until healed along with the blind, deaf, paralyzed, and others in her meetings.533 Likewise, a man with three broken ribs flinched in pain when she touched his side, but as soon as he received prayer, his ribs came together, and "he could pound on those ribs with his hands." A Choctaw Indian from Oklahoma had suffered for thirty years "with a running sore on her foot"; the pain disappeared instantly, Woodworth-Etter's diary claimed, and the foot was now healing.534 F. F. Bosworth attested that Emmett Martin, a fifteen-year-old boy, had one arm paralyzed since the age of one and the other now in a sling from an accident. After prayer both arms were healed, and, once the sling had been removed, he clapped his hands together and returned the next night to testify.535
One writer visiting her meetings in Dallas reported hundreds healed; "the blind have seen, the deaf have heard, the dumb have spoken, broken limbs have been restored," and various diseases healed.536
Not all of her claims were successful;537 others, however, seem to have proved more enduring. For example, a doctor was reportedly astonished to discover some
527. Opp, Lord for Body, 193; a physician had told the boy that he could not even return to school for six to eight weeks; "the pain and swelling disappeared" after anointing; see the 1929 photo of the boy on 194.
528. Ibid., 193, with the accompanying photo of the woman holding her back brace on 194, from 1926.
529. Ibid., 157.
530. Ibid., 158–59.
531. Tallman, Shakarian, 101.
532. See Warner, Evangelist, passim, documenting claims of healings from sources such as WoodworthEtter's publications, newspaper reports of her meetings, and interviews with people who knew her, often children of those healed under her ministry. For concise surveys, see Pope-Levison, Pulpit, 97–109;
Baer, "Bodies," 203–12; Brown, "Woodworth-Etter"; Hardesty, Faith Cure, 122–23. Stanley Smith of the Cambridge Seven, a CIM missionary, affirmed her ministry; see the preface of Woodworth-Etter, Diary.
533. Woodworth-Etter, Diary, 159, and idem, Miracles, 117–18 (from F. F. Bosworth of Dallas, Texas,
Aug. 11, 1912).
534. Woodworth-Etter, Diary, 161, and idem, Miracles, 119. For some further examples, see Miracles,
123–27, reported April 21, 1913.
535. Woodworth-Etter, Diary, 159 (from Bosworth, Aug. 11, 1912).
536. Frodsham, "Victories." Other Pentecostal publications also reported that people saw healings in her meetings (e.g., Reiff, "Los Angeles Campmeeting").
537. Anderson, Vision, 94, complains that she "continued to say her husband had been healed of tuberculosis" in 1913, "even after he died of that ailment a year later." Perhaps she viewed a temporary
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
of his patients inexplicably healed at her meetings. He corroborated the healings to the newspaper, came, was converted, and was healed of a bronchial condition that had lasted for years.538 Eyewitness claims also include an instant and permanent healing of a boy, Louis Romer, from chorea, a healing that Romer confirmed independently many years later.539 Benjamin Denton, who was reportedly dying of tuberculosis, his lungs bleeding, was instantly and permanently healed in 1917
(a testimony again corroborated by a researcher many years later).540 Uncounted other reports also surround her.541
Other well-known Pentecostal ministers reported large numbers of public healings.542 One of the most famous healing evangelists, known for many healing miracles, was British evangelist Smith Wigglesworth.543 Before his significant healing ministry, Wigglesworth himself was on his deathbed from appendicitis that was too far gone; the doctor thought it too late for surgery, but he was instantly healed without medical intervention. A plumber at the time, he went and did a plumbing job.544 Wigglesworth emphasized salvation over healing,545 but many healing reports remission as nevertheless beneficial. Others also kept insisting on healing even when sickness returned
(Reyes, "Framework," 89).
538. Warner, Evangelist, 160–61, citing The Moline Daily Dispatch, Nov. 28, 1902, and later, for more detail, other sources.
539. Ibid., 180–81; he was healed and was eighty at the time of the book's writing; he wrote his testimony to the author on July 20, 1981.
540. Ibid., 181; the testimony is from his family and a letter to the author in 1978.
541. Ibid., noting that he recounts here "only three cases of the reported hundreds who received healing in Maria's meetings during the early years of the Pentecostal movement." Although she was criticized for people falling into "trances" or fainting because emotionally overwhelmed by the Spirit at her meetings
(Baer, "Bodies," 205), similar phenomena occurred in other revival settings, like John Wesley's ministry
(Cracknell and White, Introduction, 17) and that of early American Methodists (Wigger, Saint, 78, 80–81,
301–2, 307, 310, 320, 322, 327, 360); the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist revival at Cane Ridge (1801;
Sweeney, Story, 72; Prather, Miracles, 27–28); and genetically probably unrelated Hebrides revivals among fairly strict Calvinist Presbyterians in the north of Scotland (1939, 1949–52; Peckham, Sounds, 104–5,
120, 183, 239–40); as well as Scottish revivals in 1859–60 (Bebbington, "Clash," 78–79); and the 1904–5
Welsh revival (Davies, "Roberts," 123); it appears in various revivalistic settings today (e.g., Marostica,
"Learning," 215–16, including on 215 a case of six hours of an unbeliever's unconsciousness during deliverance from an occult connection). Pytches, Come, 147–48, notes St. Teresa of Avila's discussion of trances, and falling in the Wesleyan and other revivals, including Welsh revivals (1762–1905).
542. Cf. the brief report (unfortunately without details) concerning Bishop Ida Robinson of Mount
Sinai Holy Church of America in Pope-Levison, Pulpit, 206.
543. Warner, "Wigglesworth"; Baer, "Bodies," 268–72; Frodsham, Apostle; Liardon, Wigglesworth;
Gardner, Healing Miracles, 98–101; a friend's examples in Stormont, Wigglesworth, 99–111; an observer's report in Wigglesworth, Anointing, 66. Wigglesworth attributed healing to God's compassion, though sometimes also to faith (Reyes, "Framework," 85); he sometimes did not feel the Lord's leading to pray for some persons to be healed (Stormont, Wigglesworth, 111). For his early insistence on healing through faith, however, see McGee, Miracles, 183, 189. For Pentecostalism in Britain more generally, see Kay, Pentecostals.
544. E.g., Liardon, Wigglesworth, 4–5. Shearer, "Believe," 6, reports that his own mother was scheduled for surgery due to "chronic appendicitis" nineteen years earlier when she was commanded to be healed and rose up well, never to have another appendicitis attack. Whether or not the initial diagnosis is correct, she recovered from something serious.
545. Andrews, "Healings," citing his words at a meeting in Australia.
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are associated with his ministry.546 One more recent British Anglican writer notes that fourteen raisings are attributed to Wigglesworth's ministry.547 Besides contemporary documents, Dr. Rex Gardner cites the later testimony of a doctor who had heard of some healings in Wigglesworth's ministry from his parents, who had earlier corroborated some such extraordinary claims.548
In North America, F. F. Bosworth (mentioned above) reported many healings.
For example, John Sproul, suffering the effects of mustard gas, was cured when the Bosworths prayed; returning "his disability pension," Sproul returned to work on the railroad.549 Mrs. J. B. Long of Pittsburgh testified in writing (with her address) that she was instantly healed fully of total deafness, from which she had suffered for five years, and from injured knees (from which she had suffered for several years); she could now hear and run.550 Mrs. Edith Watt Lau, who was cross-eyed and had serious vision problems, was healed;551 Alice Baker was healed of cancer,552 and overnight the flesh that had been eaten away in her upper lip was restored;553
Ms. R. Nix of Toronto claimed healing from partial paralysis of the legs and near blindness along with her heart and diabetes problems;554 Mrs. Edward Bander of Easton, Pennsylvania, testified to a healing of her stomach cancer and its long-term effects so dramatic that all twenty of her near relatives and in-laws were converted;555 a woman mute for three years was suddenly healed;556 others testified in writing of their instant and almost instant healings of cancer.557 A thirteen-year-old boy, healed instantly of infantile paralysis that had deformed his legs since age one, began three days later to learn how to use roller skates and announced, "I'm the happiest boy in Easton."558 (Although I treat Bosworth among Pentecostals, he ultimately affiliated instead with the Christian and Missionary Alliance because of disagreement with contemporary Pentecostals on the universal necessity of tongues.559)
546. E.g., a number who had not walked in years, or at all, were now able to walk (ibid.; "Healings in Australia," 28; "Remarkable Healings in Australia"); some deaf persons were excited to begin to hear
("Healings in Australia," 28).
547. Pytches, "Anglican," 194. Wigglesworth claimed that the greatest test of his obedience was when he called his just-deceased wife back to life but God told him to stop (Stormont, Wigglesworth, 112).
548. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 98.
549. Opp, Lord for Body, 161.
550. Bosworth, Healer, 214–16, noting on 214–15 that in the year since her healing the symptoms had never returned; another person who knew her well offered confirmation, 216. A number of healing testimonies appear on 213–40.
551. Ibid., 221–23; she provided her testimony and address a year after the healing.
552. Ibid., 223–28, with confirmation from another person, with her name and address, on 228–29.
553. Ibid., 225; also noted by the other witness (228–29, mentioning the cessation of the odor), who noted also the doctor's astonishment (229).
554. Ibid., 232–34.
555. Ibid., 234–35.
556. Ibid., 238–39.
557. Multiple cases in ibid., 229–32, 239–40.
558. Ibid., 237–38. On Bosworth more critically, see Baer, "Bodies," 290–94.
559. Menzies, Anointed, 129–30; on Bosworth's dissent, see also Opp, Lord for Body, 152. Several leading early Pentecostal figures demurred from the movement's emerging public position on tongues
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Also in North America, the fairly ecumenical but sometimes controversial Aimee Semple McPherson encountered healing dramatically in what is reported as the instant healing of her broken ankle.560 The next year, she and her husband fell ill with severe cases of malaria, however, and her husband, instead of being healed, died.561 Aimee's faith eventually recovered from this blow, and she had great success at her crusades.562 One crusade report that survives cites numerous healings, among them a boy who had never walked without crutches began walking, as did a woman whose leg had been paralyzed for eight months; one deaf and mute claimed to hear; and a woman unable to walk found both her walking and (unexpectedly) her partial deafness cured.563 Her Dallas meetings in the early 1920s reportedly drew more than one hundred thousand, and despite her own emphasis on salvation more than healing, both the sick and the press kept up a focus on her prayers for the sick.564 Being originally from northeast Ohio, I have learned orally from people (noncharismatic as well as Pentecostal) whose families were deeply impacted by her Canton, Ohio, crusade.565 Among healings claimed at those meetings, one named, three-year-old girl limp with paralysis was healed and began running around;566 J. A. Henson of South Canton was healed of deafness;567 and so forth. Newspaper headlines in other locations like Wichita proclaimed that her "prayers melted goiters" (that article also reporting that the deaf heard and lame walked in the meetings she held there).568 Whereas many of their predecessors used "healing homes," evangelists like McPherson preferred always accompanying baptism in the Spirit; see Robeck, "Seymour," 81–89; McGee, "Hermeneutics,"
108–10; Wacker, Heaven Below, 41; Williams, "Acts," 219 (Seymour); cf. Robeck, Mission, 178; Jacobsen,
Thinking in Spirit, 10; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 20 (on Abrams). Seymour may have played down the role of tongues rather than denied their inclusion in Spirit baptism (Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 78).
560. Dr. Samuel Herrington warned her on Oct. 18, 1909, that her ankle was permanently damaged and that she should not walk on it for five weeks; believing that she had been healed instantly in answer to William Durham's prayers the next evening, she had her cast cut off and walked immediately (Blumhofer,
Sister, 83; cf. briefly Menzies, Anointed, 65). Further on McPherson, see Blumhofer, Sister; Pope-Levison,
Pulpit, 187–203; Ray, "McPherson"; Baer, "Bodies," 295–301; for her paternalistic attitude toward MexicanAmericans (though it was possibly progressive for the era), see Espinosa, "Healing in Borderlands," 136–37
(by all accounts, the later McPherson liked to be in control).
561. Blumhofer, Sister, 91–92.
562. See, e.g., ibid., 83, 160–61, 171–74, 213; McGee, People of Spirit, 149–50; Oursler, Power, 215.
563. "Healing from Side." The boy's mother said that he had been unable to walk since "stricken with infantile paralysis" when he was two years old. One researcher who pored over newspaper coverage of her crusades from 1919–22 notes that the documentation unexpectedly yet overwhelmingly confirms that large numbers of people were healed of serious conditions (Epstein, Aimee, 111, 185, as cited in McGee,
Miracles, 183, 300; cf. Prather, Miracles, 92–93).
564. Blumhofer, "McPherson," 266.
565. A noncharismatic missionary whose parents were converted at that meeting, and members of a Pentecostal church founded through that meeting. In addition, the family of a professor of mine came into Pentecostalism through that crusade (noted of Gary McGee in Klaus, "Foreword," xii; McGee notes the crusade in Miracles, 182).
566. "Healing Service."
567. "Deaf Rear" [sic].
568. Blumhofer, Sister, 213.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
large-scale crusades.569 This approach eventually became the more visible one; most healing revivalists of the 1950s employed large-scale crusades.570
Among those mid-century Pentecostal evangelists, often the subject of academic studies today,571 one who remains widely known today is Oral Roberts, who later became Methodist. Roberts claims that he was healed of nearly hopeless tuberculosis572 and claimed many healings in his crusades. One reporter interviewed a number of these healing claims, encountering a number of dramatic stories. Thus, for example, in 1948 Doyle Wills of Greeneville, Tennessee, was dying of tuberculosis; bedridden for twenty-eight months, he was now "hemorrhaging almost constantly," and doctors had given up hope. Commanded to walk in one of these meetings, he claims that he was instantly healed and strong and that X-rays confirmed his recovery.573 He returned to hard physical labor.574 Another man suffering from terminal heart disease was also healed and continued in hard physical activity a decade later.575 Even by Roberts's own estimate, only a minority (about 10 percent) were cured;576 he also admits that God is the healer, and he is merely a "point of contact."577 Nevertheless, some of these reports differ from our typical naturalistic expectations.
Mainstream evangelicalism, much of which had once been open to healing, in the early twentieth century reacted against what it perceived as excesses in contemporary healing movements.578 Since the 1960s and 1970s, however, many have viewed the earlier reaction as itself excessive. Leonard Sweet points out that a new center seems to be emerging that affirms that God sometimes heals, although he does not always do so.579 To many people's surprise, early Pentecostalism's interest in religious healing and early studies in the psychology of religion have converged in widespread contemporary scientific interest in religious factors in health.580 Full consensus may not be achieved, but we can deny neither that many people believe in healing nor that vast numbers claim to have experienced it.
569. Synan, "Healer," 201. Creatively adapting publicity styles of the day, from the Salvation Army to Billy Sunday, McPherson was a leading figure in a new style of evangelism, adding faith healing to the existing repertoire (cf. Opp, Lord for Body, 148–50).
570. For academic analysis of the healing revivalists, see Harrell, Possible, esp. 53–116 (on 1947–58); on a more popular level, Liardon, Generals, drawing on interviews as well as written sources; eyewitness reports in Stewart, Only Believe, passim; on Branham, whose theology fell far short of the acclaim accorded his healing gift, see, e.g., Kydd, Healing, 168–80; for criticisms, e.g., Spraggett, Kuhlman, 22–26. See also works from directly within the movement like Allen, Price; Coe, Coe.
571. The seminal and most often cited work is Harrell, Possible (1975). For one critique of Roberts, see Oates, "Roberts."
572. Oursler, Power, 187.
573. Ibid., 181.
574. Ibid., 182.
575. Ibid., 182–83.
576. Stewart, Only Believe, 58.
577. Oursler, Power, 186.
578. Note, e.g., Spurgeon's critique of cessationism, but later Baptist reaction against Pentecostalism in Barr, Leonard, Parsons, and Weaver, Acts, 106–7. Cf. more affirming cases in Baer, "Bodies," 312–24.
579. Sweet, Health, 158.
580. Eames, "History," 82; see discussion of religion and health in my ch. 13 below.
Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History
Conclusion Not only the Majority World today but also the history of Christianity, including in the West, is replete with supernaturalist claims. The modern Western prejudice against acknowledging or exploring miracle claims rests not on a total lack of evidence for such claims, even in Western history, but on an a priori insistence that they be screened from consideration. Yet such claims belong not only to earlier history or to non-Western cultures; countless examples can be offered today, including in the West.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle . . . performed in such a public manner and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable. . . . It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors.
—David Hume1 That God does heal in the late twentieth century should be accepted on the evidence of all these Case Records. If you do not accept those two statements, you may ask yourself what evidence you would be prepared to accept. —Dr. Rex Gardner2
C laims regarding supernatural phenomena characterize not only the Majority World and the premodern West but also a significant Christian subculture within the Western world, including in recent decades.3 Writing from a sociological perspective, some four decades ago Peter Berger challenged the views of many religion scholars that the modern world no longer harbors much belief in the supernatural.4 Where once some theologians spoke of the death of God, now miracles have become much more fashionable (even among some of the same theologians).5 Thus the "lack of contemporary analogies" that some have used to rule out supernaturalism restricts the source of acceptable human experience
1. Hume, Miracles, 34, 37; idem, "Miracles," 34, 36.
2. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 165.
3. For healings in United Kingdom churches, including Anglican and Baptist churches, see Wagner,
"World," 80–82. For one attempt to classify various Eastern and Christian metaphysical approaches to healing in a Western U.S. city, see Hexham, "Religion."
4. Berger, Rumor, 1–34. Cf. Cladis, "Modernity"; Butler, "Theory," 54, 60–61.
5. Wakefield, Miracle, 8, noting Harvard's Harvey Cox as a chief example. Wakefield also quotes at length Rev. George W. Weber, at one time associate professor at Union Seminary and later president of New York Theological Seminary. Weber grew up in "a liberal, 'postscientific' church" with no need of
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
not simply to the West but, as some scholars have put it, "to the secular academic subculture within this single culture."6
Claims Are Now Common That people make such claims does not by itself compel all interpreters to understand all these claims in a particular manner, but it does make discourteous any simple appeal to an alleged uniformity of human experience that excludes such a large range of humanity's claimed experiences. Such reports are far more common today than in Hume's day. Claims of cures by prayer have even become important media stories in recent times, though scholars debate the reasons.
For example, CNN has noted controversial studies about intercessory prayer helping cardiac patients,7 that many doctors believe that prayer makes a quantifiable difference in healing (though also noting detractors),8 and that "family doctors overwhelmingly believe that religious faith can help patients heal."9 Other media sources have reported a major study by the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) that revealed that prayer was the most common among complementary or alternative therapies employed by Americans.10 Television stations have reported that increasing numbers of physicians pray with or would like to pray with their patients;11 Business Wire reports that 73 percent of doctors believe that miracles can miracles; when he began ministering in East Harlem, however, he was confronted with so many accounts of healings that he had to take them seriously (242).
6. Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 75 (emphasis theirs); on 77, noting Walter Wink as a dissenting example within that subculture. Cf. similarly Evans, "Judgment," 201–2.
7. Catherine Rauch, "Probing the Power of Prayer" (CNN, Jan. 18, 2000), at http://archives
.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/alternative/01/18/prayer.power.wmd/index/html; accessed June 22, 2009.
Subsequent studies have offered more mixed results; my point here is that the discussion has entered mainstream public culture. Most of the links in this paragraph follow the work of the late Dr. David Larson of the Rockville, Maryland, Center for the Integration of Health and Spirituality (here using http:// healthyinitiatives.com/Larson%20Research.htm; accessed June 22, 2009).
8. Jeff Levine, "Doctors Explore Use of Prayer to Fight Disease" (CNN, July 13, 1996), at http:// www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9607/13/nfm/healing/index/html; accessed June 22, 2009.
9. Andrew Holtz, "Many Believe Faith Heals" (CNN, Dec. 16, 1996), at http://www.cnn.com
/HEALTH/9612/16/faith.healing/index.html; accessed June 22, 2009. The article cites 99 percent of "doctors in an American Academy of Family Physicians survey" as affirming "an important relationship between the spirit and the flesh" (though this figure does not directly affirm belief in the supernatural dimension, a significant but lower figure in other studies).
10. Susan Scott Schmidt, "Let Us Pray: New Report Finds Prayer Tops the List of Therapies We Use to Heal Ourselves" (July 27, 2004), at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04209/352161.stm; accessed
June 22, 2009.
11. "Studies Prove Healing Power of Prayer: More Doctors Praying with Patients" (WESH, Orlando,
July 21, 2004), at http://www.wesh.com/health/3559756/detail/html; accessed June 22, 2009. Note also the neurosurgeon and other doctors praying for their patients in Bob Faw, "Doctors, Patients, and Prayer,"
Religion and Ethics Newsweekly (Oct. 23, 2009), accessed at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics
/episodes/october-23–2009/doctors-patients-and-prayer/4724/; accessed Nov. 5, 2009 (brought to my attention by Diane Vescovi).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
happen today,12 and in the same study that more than half pray for their patients and have seen results that they consider miraculous.13
Likewise, a poll concerning pain control produced by USA Today, ABC News, and Stanford University Medical Center found that more than half of respondents used prayer. According to the poll, of those who used prayer, 90 percent found it effective and 51 percent highly effective. For whatever reasons, the only other therapy with comparable results was prescription drugs (89 percent effective, 51 percent very effective), beating out even rest and massage treatments.14 Individual cases have also made the news, such as the 2008 report of a sudden disappearance of a child's massive brain tumor after prayer, before any medical treatment could begin.15 Earlier, Time reported a baby with malignant meningioma, a brain tumor that had always proved fatal, being healed through prayer.16 Moving beyond healing, a Good Morning America cohost called the survival of a skydiver, whose parachute failed to open, "miraculous." ABC
News similarly reported the sudden, inexplicable recovery of a woman from 12. "Science or Miracle? Holiday Season Survey Reveals Physicians' Views of Faith, Prayer, and Miracles" (Business Wire, Dec. 20, 2004), at http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index
.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsID=20041220005244&newsLang=en; accessed June 22, 2009. Of the eleven hundred physicians polled nationally, only 12 percent claimed to reject biblical descriptions of miracles (37 percent affirmed them as literally true, and 50 percent as metaphorically true); roughly two-thirds viewed the Bible as inspired. The study was conducted by HCD Research (Flemington, N.J.) and the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies of The Jewish Theological Seminary
(New York City).
13. Ibid. Most doctors have seen "many cases of unusual results," but their premises will determine whether they view these as miracles, as natural anomalies, or the like (Gorsuch, "Limits," 296); thus the actual number who have seen what most believers in miracles would call miracles would be higher than the self-reporting number.
14. Anita Manning, "Prayer Effective as Painkiller?" (USA Today, May 9, 2009) at http://www.usatoday
.com/news/health/2005–05–09–prayer-pain_x.htm; accessed June 22, 2009. Although apparently many persons do not pray for pain reduction, it is estimated that some 88 percent of people in the United States pray (Poloma and Gallup, Prayer, ix, 1–2).
15. E.g., Clint Yeatts, "Power of Prayer: Kayla Knight," on KLTV (an ABC affiliate), July 20, 2008, reports (with MRI photos) about an eleven-year-old girl whose brain tumor covered nearly a fourth of her brain. Two days after prayer, and before any treatment could begin, an MRI showed that the tumor was gone, a result confirmed by a subsequent MRI (http://www.kltv.com/global/story.asp?s=8699200; accessed Aug. 20, 2008; June 29, 2009). Dr. Nicole Matthews notes that infections can sometimes mimic tumors, but assuming the accuracy of the report, this sounds like a genuine miracle (personal correspondence, July 7, 2009). As one anthropologist notes, however, while such events are probably fairly common, they rarely garner media coverage or the attention of social scientists (Wilson, "Seeing,"
207).
16. Gibbs, "Miracles," esp. 67–68, 70, 72. An Episcopal priest led in prayer and anointing shortly before the surgery (70); after an unusual, sudden reduction in the baby's fluid, surgeons went to remove the rest of the tumor (the part not removed a month earlier for biopsy) and could find no trace of cancer even in the supposedly cancerous tissue (72). The neutral medical label is "spontaneous remission," but few would fault the family or others for calling it a miracle. Elizabeth Jernigan, cured as a baby, was nearly thirteen at the time of the Time article (73). The article reports various other events that could be construed miraculously, including a slightly skeptical Episcopal mechanical engineer who noted that he had survived 600 amps of 575 volts—far more than a thousand times enough current to have killed him (66).
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
six years of coma, noting the family's view that this was a miracle.17 Reports continue to appear.18
Not everyone would explain all these results supernaturally, but that is the usual explanation of the people praying, and for many cases, of most observers. As was noted in an earlier chapter, supernatural beliefs are more mainstream in popular
U.S. culture than antisupernaturalism is.19 This acceptability does not make the beliefs correct (a smaller but significant number of people in the United States who believe in divine activity also believe in ghosts and alien conspiracies, for example20), but it does warn against the facile assumption that modern Western culture, including all scientists or doctors, take antisupernaturalism for granted.
Contrary to some earlier predictions, modernity does not inevitably lead to antisupernatural assumptions. Given the most common users of nt scholarship,21 nt scholars who take antisupernaturalism for granted to appeal to accepted sentiments may actually exclude the real views of most of their audience from consideration on these matters.
In this chapter, I offer merely a sample of recent Western miracle claims. Although surveys show that such claims are more abundant in the Majority World,
I have more examples from the West by virtue of my current geographic location.
Again, in recounting the claims of recoveries in this chapter, I am not yet trying to explain them; different claims may invite different explanations, just as geological specimens that we lump together as rocks invite different explanations (e.g., the different formation histories of sedimentary and igneous rocks). Many of the recoveries recounted in this chapter could have alternative natural explanations, though such explanations seem more hard-pressed in other cases. (I reserve a number of the more dramatic and hard-to-explain cases for ch. 12, which addresses specific categories of healings, recounting claimed cures of blindness, resuscitations, and so forth.) At this point I am merely emphasizing that such claims are widespread, though I have tried to include a number of stronger ones among those listed. It
17. Pullum, "Believe," 135, citing Robin Roberts on Good Morning America (WWAY, Wilmington,
N.C.; March 3, 2007); ABC News (WWAY; March 7, 2007).
18. Cf. accounts about Chauncey Crandall (reported by a Miami television station and others) and Marty Alvey (reported by Amy Troy and others) in ch. 12.
19. See "Landscape Survey," 11; Matthews and Clark, Faith Factor, 4, 23–24; Koenig, Medicine, 55;
Wuthnow, Heaven, 122; Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:11, 520–21.
20. In the 1970s, Greeley noted that nearly one-fifth of the U.S. population reported experiencing the paranormal frequently, without any pathology (Greeley, Sociology, 7; noted also in McClenon, Events, 20).
He defines "paranormal" in such a way as to exclude miracle claims (Greeley, Sociology, 8); even on such a narrow reading, he notes only those who report the experience frequently, though one suspects that those engaged in some familiar mystical practices like prayer may have also responded affirmatively. On reported experiences of haunting, see, e.g., McClenon, Events, xiii, 57–74; media coverage apparently increased belief in poltergeists (to 25 percent; see 57). In the United States in general, those with no religion are more disposed to affirm "nonreligious paranormal phenomena," and such beliefs are highest in regions where church attendance is lowest (21; cf. Greeley, Sociology, 15). "Occult beliefs" flourish in France, once the heart of the radical Enlightenment (Charpak and Broch, Debunked, 116–18).
21. As many scholars have noted, whether we like it or not, most of our audience is religiously motivated; see Mitchell, "Family Matters," 346; Meeks, "Why Study?" 167; Agosto, "Publics."
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
is also helpful to recognize that some of the healings were public, against Hume's eighteenth-century skepticism that reported miracles ever occur in public.22
Most important for historical purposes, I again underline the main point that people can believe that they have recovered supernaturally (hence that such claims can occur on or near the level of eyewitnesses), often almost immediately. Thus scholarship that fails to reckon with such a construction of reality works in academic isolation from social reality. For example, even those who suspect that many claims of healing evangelists proved successful for psychological reasons recognize that "no one will deny that some are healed."23 This chapter simply illustrates the abundance and diversity of claims with a number of concrete examples.
Samples of Individual Healing Reports Scientists, doctors, journalists, and others offer healing reports; in some circles, such as among Pentecostals, they are common enough that a significant number of randomly chosen individuals would know of cases in their immediate circle. I also know of a number of healing claims in my own immediate circle. Again, what
I offer at this point is merely a sample of what could be offered. As noted earlier, many examples can be explained in more than one way; I have tried to represent the diversity of claims by including here some more ordinary claims as well as some more dramatic ones (others of which appear in ch. 12). One should keep in mind my earlier explanation of the ways that I use examples for the argument of this book, especially in chapter 7; I defer most discussion of explanations until chapters 13–15.
To introduce the subject, I turn first to one narrative attested by another academician I know, which I will recount at somewhat fuller length than many others.
One Modern Healing Narrative From Galen Hertweck, a seminary professor in the Philippines, I heard about an earlier story with which he had firsthand acquaintance when he was a pastor in the United States some years earlier. On my request, Galen put me in contact with the member of that congregation whose story he had witnessed,24 Ed Wilkinson. I quickly learned that Ed is not given to uninformed credulity; reflecting his training in neuropsychology, he complains about those who want faith to cure everything,
22. Hume's emphasis on this point reflects earlier discussion; seventeenth-century theologians often emphasized the public character of miracles (Daston, "Facts," 113). This insistence stemmed from Protestant polemic against "sacramental miracles" (114–15) but was taken over by deists like
Toland (116).
23. Scherzer, Healing, 215; cf. Emery, "Cured," 17, who appears to view them all as psychological rather than organic. Some people who are skeptical of supernatural factors nevertheless recognize value in these psychological ones (West, Miracles, 11, 103).
24. Galen Hertweck, interview, Jan. 26, 2009. His recollection was the same as the account that Ed
Wilkinson subsequently gave me, except in less detail.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
using it as a neurosis to avoid dealing with reality.25 Many years ago, however, his family faced a crisis in November 1984, when his eight-year-old son Brad was found to have atrial septal defect, with two holes in his heart. The condition impaired his lungs in addition to his heart. To allow time to convalesce without interrupting school, the visiting pediatric cardiologist scheduled surgery for June, warning that Brad could not play sports anymore in the meantime.
The months of waiting proved stressful. As June approached, Brad began giving away his toys, not expecting to survive. One day he asked his father, "Am I going to die?" Ed answered his son honestly: not everyone facing heart surgery dies, but during heart surgery that is always a possibility. "Can Jesus heal me?" the eight-year-old asked. Aware of how often faith had been abused, the father cringed. "I'll get back to you on that," he responded. A few days later, after some anguished prayer and engagement with Phil 4:13, he shared his resolution with his son. God does heal, but whether he would heal in Brad's case or not, they still had hope of eternal life in Jesus.
Galen, the pastor, informed Ed that someone was planning to conduct a healing service in their church in June. Ed felt that this was their only hope apart from the surgery that was scheduled the Sunday following the service. When the anticipated service concluded, however, the visiting minister, Wesley Steelberg Jr.,26 initially was focusing primarily on praying for emotional healing, and Ed felt cheated.
But then Steelberg called for those wanting prayer for physical healing, and Ed urged Brad to go forward. At first reluctant, Brad finally complied, explaining to this visiting minister what was wrong.27 "Do you believe that Jesus can heal you?"
Steelberg asked. Brad answered affirmatively, and Steelberg offered a simple prayer.
The following Sunday, the family traveled to the university hospital in Columbia,
Missouri, for further tests; the tests merely confirmed that nothing had changed.
The following morning, as Brad was taken for surgery, the doctor explained that Ed could follow Brad only as far as the yellow tape, and the team would be operating on Brad for four to six hours. At this point any hope of a miraculous healing had faded, so the family could only pray for surgical success.28 Ed returned anxiously to the waiting area. After about an hour, the pediatric cardiac surgeon, the pulmonologist, and the risk management director for the hospital entered the waiting
25. Ed Wilkinson, phone interview, Feb. 22, 2009; with confirmation of some details in personal correspondence, March 11; April 3, 2009. Naturally Brad remembers fewer details, but he also shared with me the elements that he recalls (Brad Wilkinson, personal correspondence, May 17, 2009).
26. Steelberg's own background may be significant for his interest in healing: he "had been healed of a critical heart condition and was given just hours to live" before being healed (Galen Hertweck, personal correspondence, May 17, 2009); his daughter confirms that he was healed (Candace Fisk, personal correspondence, May 20, 2009; see further discussion below). Likewise, Steelberg's father,
Wesley Steelberg Sr., had been healed around age eight from "a debilitating condition due to brain fever and spinal meningitis" (Olena, Horton, 69–70).
27. One of Brad's clearest memories is his fear of going "down front and being prayed for" (Brad
Wilkinson, personal correspondence, May 17, 2009).
28. Brad recounts that this was "the first time I can recall when I just had to trust God and let go," because there was nothing he could do (ibid.).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
area and summoned Ed to accompany them. The surgery should have taken at least three more hours, so Ed was anxious. Because the surgery was obviously no longer occurring, Ed, his mind racing, could only fear the worst as he followed them obediently down a long corridor.
Ushering Ed into a room, they displayed films posted on the wall, taken the day before. "You see where the blood was leaking from one chamber to the next," the surgeon explained. Then the surgeon showed the film they had just taken as they were starting surgery, with a wall of some sort where the leak had been. Too anxious and traumatized to process immediately what the surgeon was saying, Ed finally interrupted. "What happened to my son?" "Brad is in the recovery room," the surgeon answered calmly. "I beg your pardon?" Ed demanded.
The surgeon explained that there was nothing wrong with Brad's heart—even though the holes were clearly there the day before. His lungs were also now normal. "I have not seen this very often," the surgeon explained. While this sort of spontaneous closure could happen in infants, it was not supposed to happen in an eight-year-old. "You can count this as a miracle." The pulmonologist added,
"Somebody somewhere must have been praying." The hospital risk manager added firmly, "You can see from the films: this was not a misdiagnosis."29
Because they had done a cardiac catheterization, Brad would have to be kept overnight, but he was free to return home the next day, on Tuesday. Ed asked when Brad could start playing sports again. "When is his next game scheduled?" the surgeon inquired. "Thursday," Ed responded numbly. The doctor assured him that Brad could play on Thursday. That Thursday, as they arrived late for the baseball game, Brad's friend Paul spotted him. Knowing that Brad was supposed to be convalescing, but having prayed for him, he shouted, "Did God heal you?" "Yeah!"
Brad shouted back, thrusting his fist into the air. Brad hurried to second base, where he soon caught a ball and tagged out the runner who had been on first base in a double play. A parent for the rival team complained about the catch, "That was a miracle." "You have no idea," Ed recalls muttering.
An agent from the insurance company later complained about the forms he received. "What is a 'spontaneous closure'?" he demanded. "A miracle," Ed tried to explain. Brad is now in his early thirties with a business and children of his own, and he has never had any heart problems since his healing. Although before his healing experience he had also had pulmonary hypertension, normally supposed to be irreversible, that problem was cured at the same time as his heart. Ed himself went through surgery for an unrelated issue last year and is well aware that miraculous healings do not always happen. He will never doubt, however, that at a time when he had virtually surrendered hope, God did a miracle for his eight-year-old son.
29. Anderson, Miracles, 96, notes another case of a hole in a child's heart being healed, and that such recoveries when purely natural are rare and take years; another case appears in Schiappacasse, Heals, 30.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
Scientists, Journalists, and Doctors John Polkinghorne, the scientist-theologian noted in chapter 5, reports a woman whose left leg was paralyzed from an injury. Her doctors had given up trying to do more for her, indicating that she would remain an invalid for life. In 1980, she reluctantly and without any positive expectation agreed to meet with a priest conducting a healing meeting. On their second meeting, she had a mystical vision in which she was commanded to arise and walk. "From that moment she was able to walk, jump and bend down, completely without pain. Her husband, an orthopaedic charge nurse, on examining his wife, found that a large ulcer, which he had been dressing, had also healed spontaneously." Polkinghorne concludes that one may think what one will, but the account "cannot simply be dismissed on a priori grounds as not having possibly happened."30
Others have collected further claims, and some have investigated them. As in Jamie Buckingham's supportive follow-up of claims involving one ministry (see below), some popular authors have investigated some of the claims available to them. For example, one investigative reporter for the Erie Daily Times recounts that he did follow up on and confirm numerous reports of healings, as well as debunking some others. Some of the confirmed cases were instant and dramatic answers to prayer, and some involved cures never attested as occurring apart from claims of miraculous intervention.31 Some other investigators seem to have gone further.32
Rex Gardner, a physician,33 records numerous healings verified by eyewitnesses, some with medical documentation. For example, a member of a Lutheran order of sisters was supposed to need traction for many weeks but rose immediately after prayer, though some secondary elements of her recovery took two weeks.34
A young medical trainee in North Wales was dying of meningitis in the hospital, but those praying for her felt that she would recover, against medical opinion. X-ray films of her chest initially revealed "extensive left-sided pneumonia with collapse of the middle lobe." Two days later, however, new X-rays showed "a normal chest."
Because of scarring on her eye, the ophthalmologist assured her that she would 30. Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, 55 (citing The Quarterly Review of the Churches' Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Study 125 [1985]: 19).
31. See at length, Grazier, Power Beyond (e.g., rejuvenated bones, documented at the University of Louvain, 125–26; and another case, noting before-and-after X-rays, 127). Notable is the story of the obviously non-psychosomatic healing of a baby from fibrous dysplasia, including the rapid generation of bone (95–97).
32. See below Spraggett, Kuhlman; Casdorph, Miracles, though both are clearly supportive presentations; Prather, Miracles, 88–103 (which I discovered belatedly). Without elaborating full details, charismatic mainline pastor Harald Bredesen (Miracle, 35) recounts that one London reporter was convinced that a particular healing minister was a fraud until his accompanying photographer was instantly healed (after which the minister got front-page coverage in the local paper).
33. The book's back cover identifies him as "a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and of the Association of Surgeons in East Africa. He has served as Examiner to the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as Vice-President of the North of England Obstetric and Gynaecological
Society, and as President of the Newcastle and Northern Counties Medical Society."
34. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 77 (noting many eyewitnesses); also in idem, "Miracles," 1931.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
have "permanent blindness in that eye," despite her confidence that she would be healed. Clearly some patients who insist they will recover are in denial, but such was not the case here. Her eye recovered completely, for which the ophthalmologist could offer no explanation. "The four consultants who saw her on admission to hospital remain confident of their initial diagnosis. She is shown at post-graduate medical meetings as 'The one that got away.'"35
He cites the healing of a cardiac invalid36 and other examples. In one of his other examples, a doctor examined a Baptist woman's ulcer that was daily exuding pus and concluded that even if it should heal, skin grafting would be necessary.
The morning after prayer, nearly the entire ulcer disappeared; a week later, during another prayer, the skin was completely healed. Gardner notes that he was one of the examining physicians and had also inquired of the witnesses.37
In another case, a nine-year-old girl, deaf without her hearing aid but praying for healing, was instantly healed,38 to the audiologist's amazement. The dumbfounded consultant responded, "I don't believe you. It is not possible." But the next day, the tests revealed that her hearing was normal.39 The doctor's report admitted,
"Her hearing returned completely to normal . . . I was completely unable to explain this phenomenon . . . I can think of no rational explanation as to why her hearing returned to normal, there being a severe bilateral sensorineural loss."40 Even in the large world population such events are fairly rare.41 After reporting various other case studies,
Gardner openly challenges antisupernaturalist presuppositions:
That God does heal in the late twentieth century should be accepted on the evidence of all these Case Records. If you do not accept those two statements, you may ask yourself what evidence you would be prepared to accept. If the answer proves to be
"None," then you had better face the fact that you have abandoned logical enquiry.42
In chapters 13–15, I will examine proposed explanations sometimes offered for such phenomena, but these reports are at the least extranormal, and many of the particular cases that Gardner cites should undercut the readiness of Hume's followers to simply assume a "uniform" human experience against miracles.
35. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 20–21; idem, "Miracles," 1929.
36. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 104–6 (partly through prayer, partly at Lourdes).
37. Idem, "Miracles," 1932.
38. The instant character of the healing was clear because she had been tested for a new hearing aid the previous day (March 8, 1983) and had been deaf (idem, Healing Miracles, 202–3).
39. Ibid., 204. Gardner claims that he checked the medical report and found it meticulously accurate.
40. Ibid., 205 (emphasis Gardner's).
41. May, "Miracles," 150–51, while acknowledging that they are rare, notes six cases of such "spontaneous remission," but five are from one doctor who focused on collecting such incidents, and none of these claims indicate the circumstances, such as whether they were instant; the degree of impairment, cure, and evidence; or (and the answer to this question may not have been known or knowable to the doctor) whether they involved prayer. The question is not just whether incidents have occurred, but why; sudden and spontaneous reversal of human nerve damage defies current expectations of how the body functions.
42. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 165.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
Gardner is by no means the only physician offering such testimonies. For example, an Anglican priest in England notes a woman who testified that she had been instantly healed of what was to be terminal cancer, and her doctor was present to confirm the same based on her medical records.43 Another doctor notes a patient immediately cured from metastasized breast cancer after prayer,44 another person cured of metastasized melanoma (spread to the liver) after prayer,45 and other examples.46
Another medical doctor, John White, attests that a woman with a confirmed diagnosis of tuberculosis of the cervical spine, unable to stand, was healed after prayer; her doctor, who had been trying to secure her a place in the sanatorium,
"was bewildered to find there was no evidence of disease in her body." Her illness was certain, her cure permanent, and the witness virtually incontrovertible. White could attest this incident and its permanence because he was not only the person who prayed for her, and an MD himself, but he later married this woman and spent the rest of his life with her.47 I offer some further medical claims in chapters
14–15. Including nurses could expand claims further; thus, one oncology nurse who began praying for her patients in 1984 "noted immediate results." In one case, she prayed for a young woman with deadly cancer in her heart lining; the next day the new pathology report shockingly revealed no trace of cancer.48
Pentecostals and Other Churches Pentecostals have long offered healing claims, both in the West and elsewhere in the world,49 where their numbers are often dramatically higher. For example, a Jamaican Church of God in Brooklyn reported many healings, including a young
43. Lawrence, Practice, 32.
44. Reed, Surgery, 52–53. A breast had already been removed, but evidence indicated that the cancer had spread to the right lung and elsewhere; the morning after prayer X-rays showed no cancer, a verdict confirmed by subsequent testing. Without ruling out other factors, Reed thinks "faith and prayer" critical.
The patient was Jewish but allowed Reed, a Christian, to offer a Christian prayer. Cf. Family Medical
Guide, 16: "Once a cancer has metastasized (spread) it is usually incurable." Salmon, Heals, 38, reports the healing of breast cancer, preventing a breast's removal. Koch, Zulus, 182, reports "metastasis" healed, but in connection with radium treatment.
45. Reed, Surgery, 35.
46. Ibid., 43–48, a woman healed, at least as of the time of writing, from terminal metastasized cancer, with no trace of it in her body.
47. White, "Lady," 72–73. She recounts the same story in White, "Regrets," 177. For other reported healings of tuberculosis, see Synan, Voices, 26; Miller, Miracle, 90–91 (a case of tuberculosis of the bowels deemed incurable by doctors, suddenly and permanently healed through faith); Salmon, Heals, 97–98,
100, 101; Lederer, "Healing" (dramatic, but the report is soon after the cure); Catherine Marshall in Witty, Healing, 21–23; a testimony of Smith Wigglesworth, claiming medical verification, in Confidence
125 (April–June 1921): 23; Fant, Miracles, 72–76 (Marie Bean, five years before the report); Yeomans,
Healing, 60, 69; Huyssen, Saw, 136; clearly verified, long-term healings from tuberculosis in Warner, "Still
Healed"; idem, "Living by Faith," 3; a claim in Wilkerson, Beyond, 138 (claiming medical verification).
48. Johnson and Butzen, "Prayer," 255 (citing an article by C. Dubois).
49. Outside the West, see discussion in chs. 7–9. In the West, see, e.g., reports cited in Poloma,
Assemblies, 55–57.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
man who was told he would need either dialysis or a kidney transplant; after being healed, the pastor reported, he needed neither one.50 For nearly a century, the Pentecostal Evangel regularly reported healing claims, in later years typically certified by eyewitnesses and sometimes physicians, and in recent years published only after three years to be certain the healing remains permanent. In addition to less dramatic cures, these healings include chronic conditions such as blindness, paralysis, and even death.51 Sociologist Margaret Poloma, having surveyed more than one hundred healing claims from the Pentecostal Evangel in 1984 alone, notes that the reports "ranged from a damaged sciatic nerve to cancer cures, from 'total insanity' to healed ulcers, from back problems to double vision."52
Paul Alexander, at the time of his book's publication a professor of theology at Azusa Pacific University, recounts how a random discussion in his extended family of Pentecostals produced memories of how most members had been healed at one time or another. He used this scene to illustrate that such experiences are common in many Pentecostal circles. Their stories included incidents such as a bone spur on a knee disappearing, a potentially fatal spider bite with its swelling being healed immediately, appendicitis being healed immediately, and immediately visible external cures.53 Again, to my knowledge, no attempt has been made to catalog thousands of healing claims in a single published source.54 The majority of claims, in fact, are never published at all (almost none of the large number I have received orally have been published), and fewer still have been medically researched (many occur in places where even full access to medicine is limited). I hope that doctoral students in relevant fields will infer here a hint for further research.55
50. Michel, Telling, 77 (citing Polen, "Church," 27). Writers sometimes comment on Jamaican
Pentecostals' transnational links (e.g., Austin-Broos, "Pentecostalism," passim).
51. Claims from one three-year span include, among many others, healing from meningitis and raising from a wheelchair after years of confinement (Jan. 13, 1985): 19; instantaneous healing from advancing muscular dystrophy (Aug. 11, 1985): 12–13; complete healing of a largely blinded eye (June 8,
1986); raising a child from a wheelchair who had been confined in it for two years (Oct. 19, 1986): 25; full restoration of a child 90 percent brain-dead (May 24, 1987): 13; in an Assemblies of God missions magazine Mountain Movers, e.g., the complete healing of the author's drowned baby, now a healthy adult,
Carpenter, "Death" (I also knew this witness); for another person restored after nine hours underwater,
Harris, Acts Today, 98–99.
52. Poloma, Assemblies, 57.
53. Alexander, Signs, 1–5. Pentecostal scholar Robert Menzies notes ("Sending," 90–91) that his experience of miracles and close relationship with others who have experienced them do not leave disbelief in them an option for him.
54. Nevertheless, cataloging many of them would be a fruitful field for research, especially for dissertations in church history. The official Assemblies of God archives website (www.iFPHC.org) affords access to more than two hundred thousand pages of Pentecostal periodicals; a search for the word healing generated 7,309 sources (information courtesy of Darrin Rodgers), though not all of these involve examples.
55. I should warn such researchers, however, that whether the issue is healings or anything else, ordinary people often prove extraordinarily difficult to track down for interviews and follow-up. I cannot complain; I recall a psychological researcher on "forgiveness" who contacted me and asked for an interview.
I did have valuable stories, but between being busy and being unsure of his research angle, I did not get back to him. Randi, Faith Healers, sometimes makes too much of persons not answering his queries (e.g.,
28, 258, 264); many presumably (rightly) suspected his antagonism (as in Randi, Faith Healers, 259, 311),
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
While such claims flourish among Pentecostals, one must again note that such claims are not by any means restricted to them. A retired Southern Baptist pastor and seminary chancellor noted that he found that most pastors he talked with, few of whom would have called themselves charismatic or Pentecostal, had an account of a healing of some sort.56 Likewise, in 1974, a report from the panel for doctrine for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland indicated that they had concluded that divine healing does occur.57
Moreover, roughly six decades ago, the National Council of Churches in the United States surveyed pastors regarding divine healing and discovered that 160 of them—more than one-third of those who responded—had prayed for healing.
Of these a majority reported cases of divine healings, with some others failing to do so because they thought that only "spectacular" healings counted for the survey. The pastors came from various denominations, especially Methodists, then Episcopalians, Lutherans, Baptists, Disciples of Christ, and so forth.58 One would not expect reports to be fewer today than in this report from mainline churches in 1950.59
The answers given by many pastors to that survey provide numerous examples of claims of cures, the most common class of illnesses mentioned being cancer.60
The roughly eighteen medically diagnosed cancers noted include cancers of lungs (three cases), spine (two cases), bone, and other organs, many of them declared incurably terminal by the doctors.61 Thus one Baptist pastor in Toledo reported a woman whose doctor gave her no hope of recovery from her cancer; after prayer she recovered and had remained in health during the intervening four years before the survey.62 Another patient had been living with diagnosed lung cancer for two years; after prayer with laying on of hands, X-rays revealed "that the condition which reduces the incentive for cooperation. But as in failures to respond to my queries, I suspect that many others were simply too busy or had not bothered to acquire or preserve the corroboratory evidence
I sought, as people who are not writing books or articles on the subject normally do not.
56. Witty, Healing, 206. With necessary qualifications, conservative Southern Baptist leader Adrian
Rogers also recognized that God sometimes heals dramatically today (Rogers, Miracles, 18, as cited in McGee, Miracles, 202).
57. Gardner, "Miracles," 1929, citing "Church of Scotland Report," 167–85. In Scotland, note also the healing ministry of the now-ecumenical Iona Community (Maddocks, Ministry, 110).
58. Braden, "Study," 225–31 (on 230–31 citing 65 percent of Episcopalian respondents; 39 percent of Presbyterian respondents; 33 percent of Lutheran respondents; and so forth); Oursler, Power, 129–32;
Spraggett, Kuhlman, 66–67. A high proportion of those who received the survey responded (Oursler,
Power, 131); follow-up demonstrated that many of those who did not respond also had reports of healings in answer to prayers but had thought that only "extraordinary" healings qualified for the report (Oursler,
Power, 131–32). The vast majority of cures remained permanent as of the time of the report (Braden,
"Study," 231).
59. For the charismatic renewal in the mainline denominations, see Synan, "Renewal"; idem,
"Charismatics"; little of this movement was evident in the United States before 1960, however.
60. Oursler, Power, 135.
61. Braden, "Study," 227; on the majority (83 of 124, more than two-thirds) of the healing cases reported being deemed medically hopeless, see 232.
62. Oursler, Power, 133–34.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
had cleared."63 In another case, bone cancer was medically diagnosed as having spread to the woman's "skull, ribs, hip and leg bones" and considered incurable; a midwestern Mission Covenant pastor reported that the cancer was "completely arrested and permanently cured."64
Likewise, a midwestern Methodist minister noted that several doctors gave a lung cancer patient only a week to live. The pastor prayed with her, and she forgave a person against whom she held bitterness; the next day, the pastor declared, "the lungs were clear of cancer and after two years the woman was still well."65 Presumably most of the patients mentioned did receive the medical treatment available in their era, but we should still keep in mind that cancer treatments half a century ago were on average much less effective than comparable treatments today. The most common cures mentioned after cancer were fifteen cures of heart trouble; five of paralysis; and an assortment of other conditions that include pneumonia, severe burns, crushed bones, brain hemorrhage, and so forth.66 Moreover, these reports are not anonymous, nor are they enthusiastic, spontaneous claims offered in healing meetings; these are signed, written statements from a range of mainline pastors.67
Examples from Interviews in My Circle Various friends have shared with me examples from their lives or ministries, and I include some of these here. In 2006, I interviewed Dr. Douglass Norwood; during the time of most of the testimonies he recounted, he was a Moravian pastor.
He mentioned several dramatic healings but explained two in the greatest detail.
The first case, which took place in Suriname, I have recounted earlier. The other case, more relevant for this chapter, involved his wife, Sarah. Her neck was broken and her spinal cord severed in a car crash on December 14, 1982; she remained paralyzed at the Rusk Institute for six months. Despite the medical impossibility of her walking with a severed spinal cord, she began walking within twenty-four hours after being "anointed with oil," leading to a number of conversions among the hospital staff.68 Doug notes that the healing is only 90 percent complete, though
63. Ibid., 135. It had not recurred as of the time of the report, although in this case that was just half a year after the healing. The present quotation and several of those following are Oursler's quotes of Professor
Charles A. Braden of Northwestern University, who drew up the survey's report (130). Braden notes a woman dying of lung cancer with an expected one week to live; after a Methodist minister prayed for her and she forgave an enemy, her lungs were clear of cancer ("Study," 227–28, reporting two years later).
64. Oursler, Power, 135.
65. Ibid.
66. Braden, "Study," 227–29. He notes (230) that only about 12.5 percent could be described as purely mental cures.
67. Oursler, Power, 135–36.
68. Interview, June 6, 2006. At Lourdes, the functionality of an organ that is medically impossible, such as seeing through eyes the optic nerves of which remain atrophied, appears as a special miracle (Cranston,
Miracle, 136). McCallie, Trophy, 12–13, reports that her neck was broken in two places in a car accident, an injury the doctor expected to be fatal, but (21–22; cf. 24) after prayer (an unspecified amount of time later) X-rays (unfortunately not duplicated in the book) showed her neck healed and she returned home.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
it is a medical miracle; she walks with considerable effort and requires medicines, but that she walks at all still astonishes those who examine her.69
My long-term, close friend Melesse Woldetsadik, a minister from Ethiopia, shared with me accounts of healings in the United States, including the healing of a physician and his wife for whom he prayed on the same night.70 Melesse referred me to the physician in question. Whereas most cured people do not retain or even know how to obtain medical records, this man, being a physician, did so, and provided me extensive copies detailing his test results. (I leave him unnamed here at his request, to protect his privacy and that of his medical colleagues whose names appear on the records, but this information is in my possession.71) The physician shared that he initially experienced a chest pain from an infection, which seemed to start recovering until he began coughing up blood. He approached a colleague who was a pulmonologist, who found not only an infection but also a suspicious lesion on the CT scan; a second CT scan confirmed this mass. It was this lesion rather than the infection that concerned his pulmonologist friend; although only a biopsy could determine whether the mass was cancerous, they expected it to be malignant based on their usual experience with lung lesions.72
After prayer with Melesse and some others, the physician went for the biopsy; his colleague who did the biopsy could not locate any tumor and therefore biopsied tissue where the tumor was supposed to be. The biopsy indicated not only no cancer, but no tumor at all. Another CT scan confirmed this result; a full-body
PET scan intended to see if any cancer had spread also came back negative. The physician observed in conversation with me that he believed that he had been miraculously healed. He noted that in his own practice, any patient with the same initial results he found had faced one of two prospects: either the person had to have a lung (or part of a lung) removed, plus radiation therapy, if the diagnosis came early; or the patient died. In subsequent conversation, he allowed that plenty
On 22–23, despite being told that she would need to wear a brace for three years, she wore it only in the car and not at all after a few weeks.
69. In an interview on Jan. 14, 2009, in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, Doug updated me in some detail on another answer to prayer regarding her complications. The medical records given to me on May 22,
2009, however (after much effort on their parts to acquire them), did not adequately resolve the matter in question; what may have been the most relevant record remained inaccessible to us.
70. Melesse Woldetsadik, follow-up phone interview, Feb. 23, 2009.
71. Phone interviews with the physician, Dec. 17, 2008; March 27, 2009; I received twenty-five pages of copies of test results, spanning July to Nov. 2006, on Feb. 13, 2009. In our first discussion, he noted, "To me, that was quite a miraculous healing." We discussed possible alternative explanations in the second conversation, but they seemed rather forced in view of the hard data and the observations of those accustomed to making these diagnoses. These alternatives did not seem very plausible even if one ruled out supernatural causation and remained agnostic regarding the cause of recovery (citing merely
"anomalies," as noted above in the text).
72. May, "Miracles," 152, is skeptical of any clear miracle in a case of a doctor whose bone lesion gradually decreased, where the lesion was presumed based on scans; even if her prayers had been answered,
Mays would not classify it as a miracle. The present case is stronger in that it is instantaneous, but it unfortunately lacked pre-healing biopsy confirmation. For more doctors and those close to them reporting experiences that they construed as miraculous cures, see examples in Duffin, Miracles, 122–23.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
of unexplained anomalies happen in medicine; a doctor (or writer) could thus be hard-pressed to pronounce any given anomaly certainly miraculous. But neither he nor the pulmonologist regarded this case as medically normal, since such masses, even when benign, do not usually simply disappear. By contrast, this unexpected recovery does fit a larger pattern of healings when Melesse prays, and in the circles in which he moves.73
An American Baptist pastor in Michigan who has long been an adjunct professor in Palmer Seminary's DMin program, Dr. John Piippo, shared with me several reports from his church, including one of an instant and complete healing of a visitor to his church (before the healing, a non-Christian).74 He further referred me to another person from his church who claimed to have been healed, Carl
Cocherell. In March 2006, after a spiritual retreat in Branson, Missouri, Carl was checking the oil in his car when he stepped down and felt a sharp crack. Although he was a Vietnam veteran, he says that he had never felt such pain, and he fainted.
X-rays at the emergency room in the Branson hospital revealed such a serious break of the ankle that after setting the break the orthopedist ordered him to stay overnight. During that night, though, Carl recounts that he experienced a voice from the Lord assuring him that his foot was not broken. After putting Carl's foot in a cast and warning that he would need months of therapy, the doctor referred him to his family physician.
Carl's wife drove them back to Michigan, and the next day his family doctor sent him to the hospital for some more X-rays. After receiving the X-rays, his doctor called him into the office and explained that there were no breaks, or even tissue indicating where the break had been. "You never had a broken ankle," the doctor explained. Carl pointed out the X-rays from Missouri. "That is a broken ankle," the doctor admitted. But now there was no sign that he had even had one, so the doctor removed the cast right away. Apart from the ankle being blue for a couple of days, Carl had no problem with it. At church that Sunday, where he used no crutches or other support, he testified how God healed him. Carl provided me with the radiology reports from before and after the healing supporting his claim.75
Danny McCain, founder of the International Institute for Christian Studies and a friend with whom I worked for three summers in Nigeria, shared with me a healing he witnessed when he was eleven or twelve years old. His younger brother, then about fifteen months old, was so badly scalded by hot water that pieces of his skin came off with his shirt. The hospital staff said they could do little to help him, and 73. I have provided here only one sample, but there are others. Compare also the stories associated with Pastor Dawit in ch. 9, including one shared with me by Melesse's brother with medical documentation.
74. He noted the contrast between X-rays taken before and after the healing. He reaffirmed these reports in personal correspondence (March 17, 2009), though I have not seen the X-rays personally.
75. Carl Cocherell, phone interview, May 2, 2009, also noting other healings he has received. Because two different locations were involved, it took some time to obtain the medical documentation, which reached me on June 17, 2009. John Piippo (personal correspondence, June 15 and 18, 2009), also supports
Carl's account and emphasizes that Carl had been a runner, making the health of his feet particularly important to him.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
the boy cried through the night. In the morning, visitors from their church prayed with Danny's mother, and after a period of intense prayer the mother, noticing the child "playing on the floor," discovered that he lacked even burn marks. Danny was sitting about three feet away, and can "personally remember seeing the pink new skin" where serious burns had been a few minutes earlier.76
Bill Heth, a professor at Taylor University and formerly a cessationist, noted that various healings have occurred on their campus. In particular, he provided me the story of one of his students, Joy Wahnefried, who was miraculously healed of a lifelong condition of debilitating migraines and light sensitivity.77 Before her healing, her migraines were sometimes so severe that she could not read and could barely listen to others or even think; she would spend time isolated in darkness.
These severe attacks came at least once a week but were often more frequent or longer.78 The condition was diagnosed as vertical heterophoria, although other triggers could also set off migraine attacks, which often lasted five to seven days.79
(In vertical hyperphoria, one eye views images at a higher level than the other, so the brain cannot process the uneven images without great stress.80) Although an excellent student, she regularly had to miss classes due to these migraine attacks; two weeks before the healing, her physician had warned that they could provide nothing further for her pain, and sixteen times in four years doctors had changed her glasses prescription due to light sensitivity causing migraines.81
Bill and students prayed for her in three successive prayer meetings; he provided me with the accounts of both Joy, who was healed, and Heather Murphy, a fellow student who prayed for her. Heather was feeling what God was doing for Joy even as Joy was, without expecting it, experiencing it. Now Joy no longer needed glasses, and her eye condition was gone. A couple weeks after the healing, she noted that she had gone to her eye doctor: "She can't explain it, but I suddenly have 20/20 vision and the other condition (the main reason for my glasses), which is incurable, is gone. She has no clue what to do with this information. She says she has never seen anything like this in 4,000 people." They sent back the glasses they had ordered for her.82 Joy and I corresponded subsequently at some length, and she
76. Danny McCain, personal correspondence, June 1, 2009; interview, July 17, 2011.
77. Bill Heth, personal correspondence, Sept. 12, 2009; follow-up correspondence, Sept. 18, 2009. In our earlier work, Bill and I held strong and opposing positions on one issue about which we had both written
(e.g., Heth and Wenham, Divorce; Keener, Marries Another), through which dialogue we became friends
(though Bill's position has since changed on this issue, as well as regarding cessationism, independently of me; see Heth, "Remarriage").
78. Joy Wahnefried, personal correspondence, Nov. 6, 2009.
79. Joy provided a doctor's note to this effect from Aug. 24, 2005, used to attest her need to miss classes.
80. Joy Wahnefried, personal correspondence, Nov. 8, 20, 2009. She also sent me a pamphlet in which her photograph had been used to illustrate the condition, because in her case one eye was physically higher than the other (mailed Nov. 20, 2009).
81. This involved thirty-eight doctors' visits in all over four years for the eye problem; Bill Heth, personal correspondence, Sept. 12, 2009.
82. Joy Wahnefried's correspondence to William Heth and Heather Murphy (May 30, 2009), shared with me with permission and discussed with Joy in personal correspondence (Nov. 8, 2009). I discussed
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
provided for me documents regarding her previous condition and a copy of her vision specialist's letter certifying that her visual acuity is now 20/20 and that she no longer needs corrective lenses.83 She notes that she "didn't fully expect him to heal me in the first place" but is grateful to God.84
Likewise, Marie Brown, a respected friend whose ministry I have followed for many years, shared with me that she has often witnessed instantaneous miraculous healings in her ministry. On my request, she kindly supplied me some photographs of people's stunned and ecstatic reactions when they were healed of deafness, blindness, and paralysis in some of her earlier meetings outside the United States.85
Anna's and Cindy's Stories My friend Anna Gulick, now in her nineties, shared some stories with me. Anna is now an Anglican deacon but recounted a story from when she was a Lutheran missionary in Asia.86 At that time, she was visiting her home in the United States and prayed with an Episcopal priest that God would heal the cancer of his young adult daughter. At the close of their prayers, the daughter said that she had seen a vision of a mass removed from her abdomen. Nevertheless, she went for her scheduled surgery at a Boston hospital the next day; although tests had already shown conclusively that she had cancer, they discovered that the cancer had vanished.87
I have mentioned some of Anna's other stories elsewhere in the book, including a recent situation with her eye, but here recount one about a friend of hers to whom she referred me. This story involves a fellow Anglican, the Reverend Cindy
Larsen, who is now principal of the Bunyoro-Kitara Diocesan Theological College this case further with Joy in subsequent correspondence (esp. Nov. 4, 5, 6, 8, 20, 26, 2009). The doctor, who did not want to call the event miraculous, could only treat the occurrence as an anomaly (Joy Wahnefried, personal correspondence, Nov. 26, 2009).
83. Her doctor's letter is dated Oct. 16, 2009, based on the test administered May 27, 2009. The letter is dated later because it was secured in order to explain to the state why she no longer requires corrective lenses for driving. Joy also supplied a prescription for her glasses from the same vision specialist from June 8,
2006. Dr. Manita Fadele also concludes that the healing of this condition during prayer makes better sense as resulting from God's action rather than mere coincidence (personal correspondence, Nov. 14, 2009).
84. Joy Wahnefried, personal correspondence, Nov. 6, 2009.
85. Marie Brown, personal correspondence, May 31, 2006. Cf. photographs in Osborn, Healing, between 258 and 259.
86. Sent by the Evangelical Lutheran Church (previously called the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America [NLCA], how she identified it to me initially), she was part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church,
Japan Mission (Japan Lutheran Church; personal correspondence, Aug. 24, 2009). The ELC was one of the streams that merged into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (1988).
87. Anna Gulick, personal correspondence, Aug. 23, 2009; Jan. 14, 2010; June 7, 2011. Far more cancer recoveries appear in my sources than I include in this book (see, e.g., Woodard, Faith, 97–99 [instantaneous and complete]; Salmon, Heals, 41–47; Miller, Miracle of Healing, 92–93, 95–96; Zagrans, Miracles, 22–23,
35–36, 92–93, 149–51); I include a smaller proportion of these because critics who emphasize natural remissions often question miraculous cures of cancer and tuberculosis. Nevertheless, I should include at least some of these healing reports in the sample because they illustrate some of the sorts of cases involved when people claim to have experienced or witnessed healing.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
in Hoima, Uganda.88 The story that Cindy told me confirmed what Anna had told me about her, except in much more detail (here condensed).89 Both her children,
Debby and Bob, lacked immune protection as children; Debby began having allergy shots at age five yet experienced chicken pox over and over again, which should have been impossible. Finally, when an infection from a splinter pervaded
Bob's entire body, despite multiple antibiotic treatments, a specialist determined that Bob had such a severe immune deficiency that it would eventually lead to fatal infection, most patients "dying before age 25." Despite assurance that this deficiency would not show up in two children in the same family, testing showed that Debby suffered from the same condition.
A skilled immunologist repeated these tests and confirmed the diagnosis. Debby was now twelve and Bob eight, and he warned that they would probably not live to twenty-five; Cindy had to sanitize everything to extend her children's lives as long as possible. Sometimes infections required their hospitalization; sometimes, to reduce the risk of infection, Cindy kept them home. Cindy laments, "Debby contracted chicken pox at least six times a year and had repeated cases of shingles.
Her eardrums ruptured multiple times from repeated ear infections, resulting in permanent hearing loss and the use of a hearing aid at age nineteen." Cindy just prayed and solicited prayer from everyone she knew.
Eventually Debby entered medical school, married, and came to her twenty-fifth birthday. Although a doctor had suggested that becoming a surrogate for Debby and her husband, Brian, might be the only way for Cindy to have grandchildren, she soon discovered that Debby was pregnant. A high-risk obstetrician ordered full blood tests, including immune profiles, then had the tests repeated. Finally, the doctor called Debby and Brian in. "After stating that the results were impossible, the doctor informed Debby and Brian that her test results were normal, both times. The doctor had repeated the tests to be sure of the results. Consultation with the doctors who had treated Debby all her life brought the same words, 'That is impossible!' Debby says she smiled and said, 'With God nothing is impossible.'"
Debby urged her brother, Bob, to be tested, but he understandably did not like lab tests at this point in his life. Finally Cindy joined her daughter in urging Bob to be tested. Like Debby, he now has a normal immune profile. One can outgrow some problems, and some might respond, "Anomalies happen." "Yes," a believer might respond, "especially when we pray." Two anomalies in one immediate family itself may appear anomalous; the greater the number of statistical improbabilities in a single circle, the more the improbability is compounded. Certainly not all
88. Anna Gulick, personal correspondence, e.g., Aug. 24, 2009; Dec. 2, 10, 2009. Anna also noted
Cindy's brother, who "was in an iron lung with polio" at age five and never expected to reach age twenty, but who was confident that Jesus would heal him, and he did recover to become a grandfather (Aug. 24,
2009). I have focused, however, on Cindy's more direct experience.
89. Personal correspondence, Dec. 17, 2009 (I have condensed, also omitting the immunologist's name). I received an account of another severe immune deficiency recovery, this one unexpectedly sudden, from Tina Tornow, regarding her son (personal correspondence, July 16, 2009).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
prayers turn out this way, but Cindy, who now has three grandchildren, daily praises God for these gifts.
Accounts from Students and Colleagues The accounts in this section are not all equally dramatic, but I share accounts from my immediate circle to illustrate that such accounts are not rare, contrary to what Hume and many of his followers would predict. (I include less dramatic examples as well as more dramatic ones because they also represent some of the sorts of cures people mean when they speak of healing.) My seminary, like most mainline seminaries, is not charismatic (nor anticharismatic); the majority of my colleagues are ministers in mainline denominations.90 Nevertheless, a significant number of my colleagues have direct acquaintance with experiences of healings.
Elsewhere in the book I mention accounts from my current or recent colleagues at Palmer, Emmanuel Itapson, Loida Martell-Otero, Bonnie Ortiz, John Piippo,
Rodney Ragwan, and Gail Randolph. (Paul Alexander, mentioned above, unexpectedly became my colleague during the book's editing.) Another colleague, a Presbyterian elder who for ministry reasons did not wish to be named (but allowed me to use the story), was diagnosed in fall 1998 with a brain tumor the size of a large cherry. After special prayer, it shrank without treatment to the size of a cherry pit in about four months and within about four more months disappeared entirely.91 My colleagues who volunteered stories after my project became known represent a range of disciplines (Hebrew Bible, constructive theology, and so forth) and administration. Altogether perhaps one-third of us have direct experience of what we consider divine healings (not including any others that colleagues did not happen to share with me).
Here I note a story shared with me by my colleague in Greek, Deborah Watson, concerning her younger sister Gloria.92 Her father confirmed and elaborated the story for me. When Gloria was a baby, she unexpectedly fell from her high-perched bassinet onto the hard floor, "face up . . . and motionless." Her father, James, a Baptist pastor, knew that they had to reach the nearby doctor's office with no time to spare and gently placed his hand under Gloria's head only to feel, to his horror,
90. Connected with the American Baptist Churches, U.S.A., the seminary is effectively interdenominational, with high proportions of National Baptist, Methodist, A.M.E., and so forth. The majority of my colleagues are mainline ministers (e.g., American Baptist; Presbyterian; Methodist; Mennonite Brethren);
I was ordained and work in an African-American Baptist church, though I also worked in other churches
(including A.M.E. Zion and charismatic) for several years.
91. Anonymous colleague (personal conversation, May 22, 2010; follow-up personal correspondence,
May 22, 26, 2010; June 7, 9, 2010). Although this recovery was not instantaneous, and the biopsy was inconclusive as to whether the tumor was malignant, even benign brain tumors "typically do not disappear"
(Nicole Matthews [personal correspondence, May 25, 2010]).
92. After we discussed the account, she asked her parents to write the story for me; along with the acknowledgment of her sister, she forwarded her father's detailed account (James Watson, correspondence,
Nov. 27, 2009; sent by Debbie in personal correspondence to me Nov. 30, 2009) to me, from which my narrative above is greatly abridged.
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that the back of the skull was so fractured that it was crunching in his hand. The parents prayed anxiously, acknowledging that whatever God willed would be best.
He explained to the doctor where he felt the bone fragments, but five minutes later the doctor asked him again to show where he had felt them. "To my astonishment,"
James noted, "as I slowly and carefully slid my hand once more beneath Gloria's little head, I could feel nothing but solid skull bone." Gloria was better immediately, with no known aftereffects;93 she is now forty-five.
Once some of my current students knew that I was working on this book, several of them volunteered accounts of extraordinary healings in their own or their families' lives. (Of course, one could also write a book on the many who are not extraordinarily healed, but that less pleasant topic is not much in dispute.) Because most cases were simply offered to me as oral reports in conversation, including one account of the student being raised from the dead as a child, many do not appear here; I offer just a few samples of those who provided their experiences in writing.94 For the sake of space, I have not narrated all of these claims, though the students graciously provided some in detail; others, like the testimonies of Benjamin Ahanonu, Suppogu Israel, Bernard Luvutse, Eduardo Lara Reyes, or Thang Sum, I have used elsewhere in this book. The accounts do not violate any
"laws of nature," but the range of experiences does illustrate some of the sorts of experiences involved when people speak of having witnessed divine healings.
Some might be explained naturally or as statistical anomalies, but some others appear more unusual.
The first three accounts involve cures that have stood the test of time, because they occurred when these students were children. In 1987, seven-year-old Baptist
Melaina Marshall had what appeared to be a bad chest cold, and the staff in an emergency room took an X-ray to make sure that she did not have pneumonia.95
What they discovered was not pneumonia but calcification of her bones; further tests and examinations ultimately yielded a diagnosis of osteopetrosis, which also explained her pain in sitting on hard surfaces. With this information, her pediatrician, Dr. Pamela Hoffman of Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital, referred her to Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia. There the doctors explained that this was a rare bone 93. "She was better right away—no after-effects" (Debbie Watson, personal correspondence, Dec.
9, 2009); I have not known Debbie to exaggerate. In a similar incident where a baby and her crib fell on the floor, Schiappacasse, Heals, 18–19, reports as miraculous the healing of a baby's fractured skull and subdural hematoma over the course of a day of prayer.
94. For those with anthropological interest, the demographic sample is somewhat limited; most of the several who volunteered these stories tended to be Baptists or Methodists (groups fairly common in our student population), and all but two are African-American (African-Americans constitute roughly half our student population).
95. Personal correspondence, Dec. 16, 2009. When she first shared her story with me orally, she planned to collect medical documentation, but as we quickly discovered, most institutions do not keep records that long (more than two decades). A survey of osteopetrosis on the internet will illustrate the seriousness of even the milder forms of the disease, and viewing Melaina's height, strength, and skills, she clearly does not have this disease now. It is not the same as osteoporosis, although reports also exist of that being healed (Schiappacasse, Heals, 60).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
disease that could cause brittle bones, deafness, blindness, and other complications. At the time, no standard treatment was available, but the family was warned that if she did not undergo the experimental treatment her disease would become progressively worse. (Osteopetrosis may be asymptomatic in many cases, but she already had symptoms.) The treatments would be costly, and Melaina's mother would also have to miss so much work that she would likely lose her job. She asked Melaina if she wanted to go through the treatments; a child with strong faith, Melaina declared that she would rather just pray that God would heal her. Soon after this, her mother shared her problem with her hairstylist at the hair salon near 48th and Baltimore Avenue.
Many devout believers were present, and on learning of Melaina's desire to pray, they took her into the basement, laid hands on her, and joined in prayer. "From that moment on," Melaina concludes, "I believed that I was healed. I never looked back on the disease. I played sports, raced children on the block, ran track, and was a cheerleader. I never once broke a single bone in my body." She never undertook the treatment. Her vision has scored 17/15 (better than 20/20), her eyesight so accurate that she read "made in China" on the bottom of the eye chart. Her hearing has also tested as perfect. Most strikingly, a more recent X-ray, prompted by another chest cold, showed no calcifications.96 Family members, most extensively her aunt, also confirmed her story for me.97
Danielle Martin Moffett recounts how when she was five her mother took her to the emergency room, where doctors informed her that had she waited twentyfour more hours, Danielle's condition would have been fatal. For the next seven years, she depended on a variety of prescribed medicines to make her bowels work, until at age twelve her grandmother took her to visit a Pentecostal church in Wilmington, Delaware, where evangelist Perlie Young was preaching and praying for the sick. The evangelist prayed and told her to thank God, and "the next morning, this healing was confirmed; for the first time in 7+ years I could without medicine and help from family independently move my bowels." The problem has never returned.98 After my open-ended questions about the incident, Danielle's older sister and grandmother, both witnesses, vividly confirmed these details in their correspondence with me.99
Twenty-three-year-old West Virginia Baptist Jonathan Turner recounted for me why he is in seminary; I offer here a condensed version of his account. When he was in third grade, he experienced severe immune deficiency and over the following months fell progressively more ill, losing weight and finally dehydrating
96. Melaina Marshall, personal correspondence, Dec. 16, 2009.
97. See especially Paulette Terrell, her maternal aunt, personal correspondence, Dec. 16, 2009, confirming many relevant details, including what the doctors had told them; Melaina's perfect bone health and athletic activities; and so forth; more briefly, Aaron Marshall, personal correspondence,
Dec. 16, 2009.
98. Danielle Martin Moffett, personal correspondence, Dec. 4, 2009.
99. Ibid.; her sister Brianita Bishop, personal correspondence, May 15, 17, 2010; their grandmother
Edith Martin, personal correspondence, June 3, 2010.
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from diarrhea. By the time that he was taken to more advanced facilities at Duke
University Hospital, his mother feared that he was dying; experiencing withdrawal from previous unhelpful medication, he began vomiting on the four-hour trip, and a doctor there immediately hospitalized him. At first they found severe sinus blockage and acid reflux but eventually discovered that he was not producing gamma globulin. His white blood cell count was so low that the doctor was surprised that he remained alive; any severe infections could have killed him. The best treatment they could offer at the time was the hope of a blood transfusion every month, along with a fairly sterile environment that would include homeschooling.
To delay the need for the first transfusion, the doctor gave him a booster shot for his immune system but warned that it would not restore his white blood cells.
That night Jonathan saw a glow and another figure in his hospital room, and his pain reduced as the figure approached. He heard a voice and believed that he was healed; he also felt called to ministry. Jonathan immediately began improving without the expected treatment, although it took a couple of months to regain his weight. Six weeks after this encounter, the family returned for more tests. Shocked by the results, the technician retested him twice; his white blood cell count was now higher than the average adult's. The astonished lead doctor in the case noted that there was no medical explanation for this change. Jonathan's mother pointed out that people throughout several states had been praying for her son, and the doctor, though considering himself an atheist, conceded that a miracle was the most plausible explanation. Jonathan's third-grade teacher still recalls his sickness and admittance to Duke, and his mother provided me a detailed account of his story.100
My student Martha Wheeler recounts the dramatic and permanent recovery of her prayerful mother during the night that she was expected to die in the hospital.101
In a more gradual incident, my student Louise Koffa recounts that on November 5,
2001, an ambulance brought her husband, Henry Koffa Sr., to the hospital, where he underwent a seven-hour operation. After more than a month in an induced coma and on life support, with no sign of recovery, his blood pressure began to drop. The ICU doctor grimly warned Louise that her husband could not survive the night.
Although his recovery was not instantaneous, he was home before Christmas.102
Among more recent illnesses, one of my Methodist students, Fredrick Marz, was devastated to discover that a biopsy for his wife, Peggy, revealed a cancerous tumor.
After prayer that God would remove the tumor even before the surgery, Peggy went for surgery. The oncologist afterward explained that they did not find any
100. Jonathan Turner, interview, March 4; April 1, 2010; personal correspondence, March 4 and 22,
2010; Angie Turner, personal correspondence, March 13, 2010; Sara Bane (his teacher), personal correspondence, March 8, 2010. Jonathan technically became my student only after the interview, but we did live in the same building on campus, and we spent significant time in conversation (on other topics as well as this one) after students who knew his story connected us.
101. Personal correspondence, Dec. 18, 2007.
102. Louise Koffa, interview, Oct. 6, 2010; personal correspondence, Oct. 12, 2010. Louise and her husband are from Liberia, but by then resided in the United States. They belonged to A.M.E. Zion and Pentecostal churches.
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"tumor, only some bruised tissue from the biopsy."103 Leah Macinskas-Le reported
(based on her mother's account) that she was fully healed after prayer of "severe internal bleeding" as an infant.104
Reports also include less severe ailments. For example, another of my Methodist students, Maggie Reid, came to class on April 21, 2009, despite having a respiratory infection with a fever of 102º F that had persisted about two weeks.
(Had I known, I would not have let her come to class.) She had not been taking any medicine except aspirin for the fever for a few days. Soon she had to slip out of class, but an A.M.E. student, Stacey Jones-Anderson, slipped out after her, stopped her, and prayed. "Within a minute or two," Maggie reports, "my ears and sinuses opened"; the congestion loosened within fifteen minutes and disappeared by the end of class. All symptoms disappeared, and for the first time in weeks she slept peacefully, lying down.105 Maggie also reports a recent healing of a long-term condition, which healing also surprised her.106
Others gave testimony of spiritual strength for stroke recovery during a dramatic divine encounter (Henry McCain);107 recovery through prayer from an unusually severe, medicine-resistant staph infection (Sondria Miller);108 and the vanishing of a severe and supposedly permanent wart, without any trace, a few days after prayer (John Dawkins).109 Students naturally also volunteered the names of those
103. Fredrick Marz (personal conversation; follow-up personal correspondence, July 22, 2010).
104. Leah Macinskas-Le, personal correspondence, Oct. 18, 2010.
105. Maggie Reid, personal correspondence, Nov. 19, 2009; also confirmed briefly with Stacey
Jones-Anderson, phone interview, Dec. 9, 2009; Maggie explained the lack of medicines in personal correspondence (Jan. 3, 2010), noting that she had stopped taking an over-the-counter medication several days earlier (having been on it for the maximum number of days) and was planning to go to the emergency room soon after the class. I was also present when she returned to class better, and she explained to me after class what had happened.
106. Previous tests for several years had indicated several problems, including endometriosis, precancerous uterine thickening, a dime-sized ovarian tumor; a test in January 2009 showed that she was now normal, without these problems (personal correspondence, Dec. 2, 2009).
107. Baptists Henry McCain and his daughter Yolanda, also my student, noted his recent stroke recovery, and his wife provided a detailed account of it that she had written for a class paper (McCain,
"Faith"). His ischemic stroke paralyzed his left side, rendering therapy useless until "some sign of independent movement" returned, of which "doctors did not offer much hope." After much prayer and meditating on Matt 9:20–22, on March 31, 2006, he awoke between 2 and 3 a.m., seeing "a brightness" in his dark room; he tried reaching out for it and pleading for healing for about twenty to thirty minutes.
Suddenly, he felt waves of sensation in his left hand and found that he could now make a fist. Now he was able to receive rehabilitation; "God has done his work," the doctor concluded, "now let us get back to ours" (McCain, "Faith").
108. Sondria Miller, personal correspondence, Dec. 12, 2009, regarding 2005; she also recounts the disappearance of a postsurgical growth in 2006.
109. John Dawkins, personal correspondence, Nov. 20, 2009. When he was a boy, the specialist who tried to remove a severe and painful wart on the palm of his hand found that a blood vessel ran through its core, so that when the wart grew back he would simply have to live with it. It grew back, larger and more painful, but when he visited his grandmother in rural South Carolina, she took him for prayer to Will Savage, a barely educated but godly old man who had been born in slavery. A few days later, the wart vanished, without any trace of having been there; when he showed the specialist in Philadelphia, he
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healed in their circles of acquaintance. For just one example, a woman in a student's church had a stroke on August 17, 2007, which left her in a coma.110 In that case, the family told me that the woman was taken off life support on August 31, 2007.
Because she was clearly expected to expire, she was not given even nutrition or water; nevertheless, surrounded by a constant prayer vigil, she regained consciousness on September 5. Months later she finally but unexpectedly began speaking and swallowing again, with improvement in other areas. While such cases would not meet strict criteria some demand for complete, instantaneous healings, families regard them as answers to prayer; some recoveries at least exceed optimum medical expectations. Such accounts are too abundant to elaborate more of them, but they illustrate some of the sorts of experiences involved when people speak of having seen miracles.
Yesenia's Story Another story involves a student of mine only indirectly, but I was introduced to it by that student because of his expertise. The story is not instantaneous (thus some critics would not accept it, and it would not for example be proclaimed at Lourdes), but it is an unusual and noteworthy story of faith. My student Donald
Moore is a speech language pathologist, a clinical director of voice and swallowing disorders, and has fifteen years of clinical experience. He regards many recoveries as natural but pointed me to a rare case where a particular kind of brain injury should have caused irreversible damage. After a number of email exchanges, I finally was able to catch up with Yesenia Robinson111 and was astonished to learn that the voice I clearly heard speaking in the background was that of her son, who was never supposed to be able to speak.
On July 24, 2007, Yesenia, a Catholic born in the Dominican Republic but living in the United States since she was nine, received a traumatizing phone call: her fourteen-year-old son Deric had been in a tragic accident and was airlifted to the trauma center. Overwhelmed, Yesenia offered to accept him in any condition if God would just spare his life. The injuries could have killed him, and doctors, concluded that it was "a miracle." Warts of course do disappear; this sounds, however, like an atypically severe case.
110. Melanie Price-Williams, interview, Nov. 7, 2009; personal correspondence, Nov. 16, 2009;
Marva Gibbs, phone interview, Dec. 2, 2009, regarding her mother, Christine Curtis. Ms. Gibbs also sent me (personal correspondence, Dec. 7, 2009) a day-by-day chronology of the events she described, which I have merely summarized here. I recount this only as an example, and have not recounted most stroke recovery testimonies. One dramatic one is that of Debbie and Alan Moore; the MRI showed massive damage to one-third of Alan's brain, yielding a prognosis of total paralysis for his left side and inability to speak. After nine days of Debbie's persistent faith in God, however, Alan walked out of the hospital, speaking and without paralysis; the doctor, interviewed on the segment, acknowledges these points and his surprise (http://www.awmi.net, May 24, 2010 archives; accessed Aug. 1, 2010, and brought to my attention by Craig Miller). One need not affirm all aspects of their stated theology to appreciate their faith in God.
111. Phone interview, Dec. 15, 2009.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
working valiantly to save him, were not certain if he would survive; the left half of his brain had been forced into the right side. As Yesenia was numb from emotion in the hospital, however, she heard a voice: "Be patient; I will return your son to you."
On the eighth day of his coma, about ten minutes after she begged God for a sign,
Deric opened his eyes. Nevertheless, he could stare only blankly, unresponsively; after his transfer to rehab, he was still eating only through a feeding tube. After eleven months, it was hard for her to pray. His right side remained paralyzed; he could not recognize the family; he was drooling; and she was told that he would not get his speech back. She realized that no therapist could restore him; only the Lord could. Against everyone else's advice, she took him home from the hospital, entrusting him completely to the God who parted the waters and raised Jesus from the dead. Then she remembered the earlier voice: "Be patient." She focused on praying for his right leg, until he regained motion in that leg.
Then she focused on his feeding tube and drooling. She had asked Donald if he had ever seen anyone like this recover enough to eat; when he replied honestly that the most optimistic scenario was that he might eat applesauce someday, she responded defiantly that God would do more than this. She started feeding her son applesauce, mashed potatoes, pasta, chopped-up chicken, macaroni, and so forth, though doctors would not let her remove the feeding tube. Her greatest frustration was trying to convince anyone that the impossible was happening—he was recovering. She tried to persuade Donald that Deric was eating and would someday be speaking, but he would not believe it. Thus around November 2008 she took Deric to a center that did not have his earlier records and asked for a new swallow study. After they acknowledged that he was swallowing, the feeding tube was removed. Moreover, by this point he was no longer drooling.
In early 2009, she began praying for his right arm, with deep confidence, she recounted, as if Jesus was praying for him through her. Within some three or four weeks he could move his arm. He could not yet control his finger movements, but on November 22, he drew a picture; she named that "the day my son returned to me" and declared that she wanted to kiss Jesus's feet. By the time we talked,
Deric was writing. After his arm was recovering, she began praying for his voice to return; in August, he began saying, "Mom," for a few weeks, and then, "I don't care." By October he was forming sentences and was able to hold a conversation, retaining his pre-accident memory.
In October she ran into Donald and insisted that he see her son. To Donald's shock, Deric was able to speak with him. "I just want you to know that I did hear
God right on this," Yesenia explained. Donald responded, "I've got to contact my professor who is writing a book on this subject!" Yesenia shared with others at the hospital; they were amazed but pleased. She shared with me how much deeper her relationship with God is now, through both the suffering and through how she has grown to trust Jesus's voice to her. Donald confirms his lack of "expectations from a clinical perspective" and adds, "What took place in his case would be very
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
difficult to explain in medical expectations."112 We all wish that recoveries like this happened more often, but those that do invite our attention.
Some Other Individual Healing Claims A social scientist collected more than sixty narratives of spiritual cures in northeastern North Carolina and recounts two of these. The night before surgery for uterine cancer, one informant had a strange visitor who prayed for her healing; in the morning, doctors found her uterus unusually healthy, without a trace of cancer.
Another informant noted that in 1952 her eye had been pierced by a makeshift spear when she was a girl. The eye specialist warned that he could only sew up the eye, but the mother refused and had the aunt pray for her. The informant notes that she could see fully again as soon as the prayer ended and "[has] had 20/20 vision ever since."113
Artist and writer Pat Butler shared with me her healing from partial disability.
After experiencing severe whiplash in an automobile accident in May 1985, she was eventually deemed 10 to 15 percent disabled. Her condition deteriorated; twelve years after the accident, the orthopedic surgeon warned that she had lost
40 percent of the function in her neck and planned to operate on her herniated disks when her loss reached 60 to 70 percent. In addition to the neck pain, she was suffering from other pain in the disks in her back. At a conference on healing, she asked a medical doctor to pray for her healing. He asked if she had forgiven the driver who hit her. As she began to forgive those who had wronged her, she was healed, the next morning waking without pain for the first time in twelve years.114
The healing has remained both complete and permanent over the past twelve years, despite her now "rigorous world travels."115
Australian Adventist pastor Anthony Kent shared with me the story of his father, Melvin (Mel) Edward Kent, and Anthony's uncle Raymond Kent provided
112. Donald Moore, personal correspondence, Dec. 16, 2009. Other stories of recovery from brain injuries could be recounted; the doctor allowed no possibility for the survival of John Brooks, a Pentecostal Holiness missionary whose accident had caused skull fractures and inflammation of the brain; to the doctor's astonishment, Brooks recounts, he did recover and returned to his work (Moments,
69–72).
113. McClenon, Events, 131.
114. Pat Butler, personal correspondence, June 8, 15, 16, 17, 2009; this case was brought to my attention by our mutual friend Christophe Savage. It was confirmed to me by the doctor who prayed, Grant Mullen
(personal correspondence, June 19, 20, 2009), who also recounted the story under the name of "Mrs.
F" in Mullen, Feel, 131–32. At least partial healing through forgiveness also appears in the case in Reed,
Surgery, 82–83; and full healing through forgiveness (by a seventy-year-old woman severely injured in a traffic accident) in Wilson, "Miracle Events," 271; healing from nearly paralyzing arthritis after forgiveness in Pytches, Come, 184. One might find theological support in passages like Mark 11:23–25; Matt 6:12–15;
2 Cor 2:10–11; Eph 4:30–32; 1 Pet 3:7–12.
115. Pat Butler (further correspondence, June 14, 2009; cf. also May 17, 2010), noting that no surgery or treatment was necessary. She notes that she suffered another automobile accident after that time but recovered quickly, with no lasting ill effects.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
a description of the story written by Mel's father (Anthony's grandfather), an Adventist pastor/evangelist, before he passed away.116 Suffering from acute rheumatic fever at age five, Mel was confined to bed in a dark room away from other children for three years, and sometimes he endured "ice baths to control his fevers and delirium." The fever led to chorea, often producing involuntary nervous twitching. Neither of the family doctors during this period could offer much hope for recovery, and one warned that if he recovered he would never be strong.
Convinced that God had healed far worse cases and that God had spoken through a verse in the family promise box, Mel continued to trust that Jesus would heal him. One day his grandmother felt a special impression to pray for him, and Anthony notes that "from then on he began to recover and excelled in cycle racing and gymnastics." At age seventeen, during World War II, a military doctor tested him and insisted that he was lying about having had rheumatic fever and chorea for several years as a boy. When Dr. Hopkins discovered that he was Pastor Kent's son, however, he was astonished; this was the very doctor who had first treated him, and he acknowledged that a miracle had taken place. Mel Kent, who became a carpenter, passed away on October 18, 2006, at the age of eighty-four.
A Southern Baptist missionary couple had to return to the United States because the diabetic condition of the wife, Sandy Lewis, had grown too severe. When she fell sick with cancer besides, doctors expected only progressive deterioration.
Although the Lewis family had not believed that God heals people miraculously today, some friends prayed for them with confidence that she would be healed.
"When she went back to the hospital," Presbyterian writer Bruce Barron notes, "tests revealed no cancer and no excess sugar." For the most part, Sandy continued on in good health.117
On May 11, 1992, a car struck thirteen-year-old Heyward Morris as she was Rollerblading. The resultant brain injury was so severe that the doctors at the hospital concluded that she would spend the rest of her life in a vegetative state.
The most optimistic of the doctors said that at best she might be able to feed herself someday. Although the family did not consider themselves strongly religious, others banded together to pray, including Heyward's classmates in a nondenominational school with an Episcopal chapel service. Eager for a sign of encouragement, they prayed that her eyes would open on the eleventh day, and that was the day she began to come out of her coma. To the attending doctor's amazement, she did not even feel a headache. She spent the next two months in a rehabilitation hospital, and by the time of the journalist's interview two years
116. Anthony Kent, personal correspondence, Jan. 4, 2010, including the cycle racing quotation; Feb.
18, 2010; Raymond Kent, phone confirmation, Feb. 11, 2010; undated manuscript from Thomas Kent
(mailed to me Feb. 19, 2010); the written reflections of Jasper Kent, Anthony's brother, for Mel Kent's funeral (Oct. 24, 2006, including the ice bath quotation).
117. As of 1987, when Barron's book was published; the healing took place in 1978 (Barron, Gospel,
7–8). Barron's book is primarily a critique of the Word of Faith movement, but he recognizes times when
God did answer people's faith, as here.
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later she had recovered fully. This full recovery was gradual, but far better than the best possible prognosis shortly before.118
Kelly Krabill had temporomandibular joint syndrome (TMJ) from the age of thirteen until she experienced healing at twenty-seven. After her jaw had locked mostly shut for four months at the age of sixteen, she underwent surgery, but after about a year her problem returned. When a friend of hers from Sweden was praying for the sick at High Mill Church of the Resurrection, he felt that God wanted to heal someone's mouth; she went forward for prayer, and he prayed for her simply and then moved on to the next person. She was afraid, she said, to open her mouth, uncertain what would happen, but was astonished as soon as she did so. For the first time in recent memory, her jaw opened normally and has remained normal. Although the doctor said that TMJ can work its way out, it seemed no coincidence that after years her condition changed abruptly after prayer. Her doctor was surprised and noted that he does see miracles sometimes.119
Despite his useful skills as a board-certified orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Charles Woodhouse felt powerless in the face of his daughter's epileptiform seizures. After another surgeon he respected prayed for her, however, her seizures stopped, so he began praying for many patients and finding medically unexpected recoveries.120
A therapist and his son (Kevin and Alex Malarkey) recount the son's experience in the context of significant prayer and the son's reports of heaven and angels.
Six-year-old Alex may have died at the accident scene;121 whether or not this is the case, he was injured so badly (from "an internal decapitation"),122 that doctors offered little expectation of survival;123 a nurse who had spent twelve years in the unit had never seen a child survive this condition.124 If he survived, he would be a vegetable, and never able to speak or swallow.125 In this case, the child had the best medical attention and the recovery is not yet complete; nevertheless, Alex's ability to speak exceeded the most optimistic prognosis. Moreover, doctors confirmed that severed vertebrae healed without medical intervention.126
Many of the examples above are random, based on what was most readily available; I could have provided a much fuller sample had I, for example, asked several
118. Wakefield, Miracle, 78–79.
119. Kelly Krabill, personal correspondence, Aug. 24, 2009. I attended High Mill sometimes in the late
1970s and witnessed and experienced some remarkable things there (one category of which I mentioned in Keener, Gift, 116). For other reports of TMJ healing, see Schiappacasse, Heals, 25, 53–54.
120. Bredesen, Miracle, 36–38 (based on his direct testimony). He offers the example of prayer for a boy with a fractured ankle too swollen yet for surgery; after Dr. Woodhouse reduced the dislocation manually, he found that surgery would be unnecessary, though it would normally have been necessary in such a case.
121. E.g., Malarkey, Boy, 152, 164. Intriguingly, Alex had a knowledge of events that was not explicable naturally (123–24).
122. Ibid., 33 (with an X-ray after p. 100); this injury would normally lead to death (59).
123. A doctor examining the chart was convinced that the boy must have died (ibid., 85); a named doctor concludes that "it is simply incredible that Alex survived" (59).
124. Ibid., 46.
125. Ibid., 32. He began speaking initially on 113–15.
126. Ibid., 91, 176.
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Pentecostal seminaries to survey their alumni for healing stories or sent a questionnaire to missionaries in regions particularly known for healings today. Indeed, had
I time to collect more claims and had the reader patience to read them, I could obviously go on virtually indefinitely. Clearly there is room for further research in this area, including many dissertations.
Western Healing Ministries in the Past Half Century Billy Graham recounts that X-rays verified the severity of his sister-in-law's tuberculosis; she was dying of the disease. Finding no hope in the treatment, she discontinued it and asked some believers to anoint her with oil and pray. Afterward, the doctors at the sanitarium were shocked by further X-rays, which verified that no active tuberculosis remained. God worked the healing, Graham contends, not through any special healing evangelist but by the simple faith of believers.127 Nevertheless, while Graham found some healing meetings objectionable, he claimed that in others he saw God at work, using "servants with special gifts."128 Probably he alludes to "gifts of healings." This gift does not mean that everyone who receives prayer is healed but that some seem to be gifted to pray for healings with greater than average grace. In the context of evangelism, one might think instead of more dramatic signs (accompanying the mission and not simply the missionary).
This part of this chapter will digress to address some Western healing ministries for a pragmatic reason: these ministries generate large clusters of published claims, though I suspect that unpublished claims would expand the horizon of investigation considerably. Some of these figures have drawn significant attention in parts of the West and have even been the subject of significant academic studies. (In including figures in this chapter, I acknowledge that some Western figures reported here work internationally, and the Majority World churches also influence many of these ministries today. As I admitted earlier, my lines dividing cultures and historical eras are arbitrary; I employ these traditional categories merely as a means of organizing a vast amount of material.)
Why Include Such Accounts?
Critics of supernatural healing often cite fraudulent healing evangelists (not least the fictitious Elmer Gantry, but also some real cases; see comment in ch. 13).
Some of these evangelists have questionable teachings and practices, sometimes driven by financial incentives. In addition, but less fairly, many critics are put off by the subcultures of some healing ministers, sometimes (though not in my examples below) a rural Southern revivalistic tradition that strikes these critics as 127. Graham, Spirit, 161; noted also in Flach, Faith, 89. In Just As I Am, 75, 77, Graham notes her sickness and recovery only in passing (his focus being on his courtship).
128. Graham, Spirit, 162.
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insincere.129 Often, however, the differences reflect merely differing cultural styles; when studying non-Christian healers, anthropologists would note cultural styles without passing judgment on them. Not all ministries fit the harsh stereotypes.
Whatever the concerns, some would ask why I include stories of healing ministries here. I do so largely because some people do report cures in such contexts; they thus represent a sample of some of the healing claims encountered today.
Personal accounts of recoveries provide more evidence than spontaneous claims at public meetings, but given the publicity surrounding the latter, I would be remiss if I did not survey some sorts of claims at these meetings. Again, I must note that my reasons for this focus here are pragmatic rather than theological. Whatever one thinks of larger-scale ministries that focus on healing, many of them supply significant numbers of healing claims that a book like this one cannot afford to ignore. In most cases I list sample claims without means to evaluate them, but in some cases evidence suggests that persons experienced cures. One may view these recoveries as exceptions if one wishes—virtually everyone recognizes that even in ministries focused on healing, most people are not healed—but the reports of some of these ministries do provide some significant case studies.
As I have noted, the proportion of those prayed for in healing ministries who are healed generally seems to be a minority, probably in many cases proportionately not higher than in the cases of some less visible informants treated elsewhere in this chapter. Probably most individuals who experience healing do so in less public settings than healing crusades or Marian shrines, receiving prayer in local churches or Bible studies.130 While there is no reason to level the charges consistently, the capitalist competition among ministries, including healing ministries, can offer incentives for exaggeration or, in less scrupulous cases, fabrication, that are less apt to tempt most private individuals recounting their personal experiences of healing in settings that provide neither publicity nor compensation.131 Throughout this book,
I have tried to offset the potential biases of samples recorded from public meetings with different kinds of samples, namely, those based on interviews with individuals.
Nevertheless, because such public ministries often offer significant numbers of published examples, some of them more extraordinary in character than one would expect based on purely natural considerations, I cite a number of them here.
Moreover, while some charlatans do exist, those who paint all healing ministries
129. The revivalistic style reflects U.S. frontier culture from an earlier era; to many critics unfamiliar with this style (or who know it only from hucksters who share it) it appears insincere. Yet such a style characterized the early ministry of Billy Graham and some others whose moral and fiscal integrity is beyond question, so subculture by itself settles little.
130. With McKenzie, "Miracles," 82. Kay, Networks, 205, suggests that the percentage of those healed through prayer in local congregations is probably no lower than in larger crusades. Testimonies of individuals include many claiming conversion through direct encounters with Christ, despite ensuing persecution.
For some other examples, see, e.g., the summary report in Clark, Impartation, 212.
131. May, "Miracles," 146, emphasizes this incentive. Imaginative hyperbole (such as exaggerating symptoms) is in fact a common practice (Brownell, "Experience," 215–16); for spiritualizing the unknown, cf. Hoffman and Fehl, "Spiritualizing."
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this way because they presuppose that healings cannot occur seem to assume what they hope to prove.132 Secular exposés have done a great service in exposing clear cases of fraud (see ch. 13), but where the critics start from the assumption that all ministries are fraudulent (an approach popularly called guilt by association) they will "confirm" their suspicions the way students writing papers often do: finding evidence to support their thesis while ignoring contrary evidence.
It is fairly easy to find cases where people were wrongly supposed cured, improved only temporarily, or the cures are best explained psychologically (again see ch. 13). Once one has identified such cases, one can always come up with nonsupernatural explanations for other cases if that is one's agenda (see ch. 14), even in cases like blindness or deafness where others may regard supernatural explanations as more compelling (see ch. 12). While healing evangelists have their followings, most people unfamiliar with them will prefer the media exposé as the "unbiased" source. Yet even journalists may have their biases, and if someone does not believe that miracles can happen (or does not believe they are apt to happen when particular kinds of people pray) one may force even less cooperative evidence into that framework. Neither healing ministries nor exposés are all of the same quality, and where fraud is not clear individual claims should be evaluated case by case. Though most of the strongest cases for supernatural healing in my own circle of acquaintances do not derive from these circles, I am convinced that most of the very limited number of informants whom I know or have interviewed in several of these ministries are sincere in reporting what they genuinely believe they have witnessed.
Many of these larger-scale ministries are charismatic or Pentecostal, the groups
(at least in much of the West) that tend to pray most often for physical healings.
Many local churches of various kinds, however, have their own accounts of healings; my experience as part of the African-American church in the United States133 suggests to me that such experiences have a wide denominational spread, even if in predominantly white Christian circles they tend to remain more emphasized among charismatics and Pentecostals. In any case, those who demur from particular groups' theology need not on such grounds discount the value of their more significant testimonies. Those who demur theologically from some examples can nevertheless appreciate them if they distinguish the gift of teaching from gifts of healing or if they do not limit acts of divine grace to those who share their theology.134
132. Popular associations with Elmer Gantry and the like are far removed from most Pentecostal healing practices (Brown, "Introduction," 5), even in cases where healing evangelists appear (15). As noted above, in addition to a minority of genuine cases of fraud, I suspect that there are sometimes cultural reasons for stereotypes and a bias against traditional North American healing evangelists. Those of us who are biblical scholars are naturally also concerned about the way the Bible is often handled in popular religion, though this mishandling is by no means limited to evangelists emphasizing healing.
133. See, e.g., Usry and Keener, Religion, 125–29; White, "Calling"; Johnston, "Ordination"; and numerous other articles.
134. In my theological understanding, lack of sound theology on some points brings its own problems, but lack of humble faith is not always one of them, and God is not bound to bless only those with particular
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These sources therefore provide some useful illustrations for the widespread belief that people are healed through prayer, and some of these sources may factor into my later discussion about supernatural causation. After this section, I will turn to more recent and less known examples. I could have included here many other examples (for example, I engaged Mahesh Chavda's reports, some of which include documentation,135 in a number of notes) but I felt the need to limit the length of this chapter, for which far more abundant material was available than I could wisely incorporate.
T. L. Osborn Because T. L. and Daisy Osborn straddle the mid-twentieth-century healing movement noted in the previous chapter and more recent decades, I include some of their healing testimonies first. Afterward I will focus in more detail on the particularly controversial ministry of Kathryn Kuhlman before turning to Father
Ralph DiOrio and some less conspicuous ministries. Pentecostal ministers T. L. and Daisy Osborn conducted healing crusades initially in the United States and then primarily in the Majority World, especially in the second half of the twentieth century.136 The Osborns were influential in promoting this form of evangelism around the world.137 Many of their volumes include photographs of those who have claimed healing along with their testimonies; one may take examples from crusades in Indonesia in January 1989;138 Kampala, Uganda, in April 1989 and again in February 1992;139 Bogota, Colombia, in February 1994;140 Medellin, Colombia, in August 1996;141 Russia in September 1996;142 and Thailand in October 1996.143 theological perspectives. We need not screen out evidence based on informants' eccentricities if we have reason to believe their eyewitness accounts to be reliable. This does not mean that we do not take into account theological grids through which they may report the events in their accounts.
135. See Chavda, Miracle; also cited by some other scholars (e.g., Breggen, "Miracle Reports," 382).
A friend of mine, Pastor Bryan Crute, witnessed one healing of a woman unable to walk (personal correspondence, Jan. 17, 2011).
136. Their diaries, deposited in several Pentecostal libraries, contain volumes of eyewitness reports
(I am grateful to the Assemblies of God Seminary library for allowing me to survey their collection in Springfield, Mo.); cf. also Osborn, Healing, 281–328. Osborn, like Oral Roberts, straddles both the history of earlier U.S. revivalism and current healing crusades, often in the Majority World (my distinction between the two is necessarily arbitrary). I have chosen Osborn over most other examples from the mid-century healing movement partly because he is one of the few voices of that movement whose ministry survived that era relatively unscathed (see Harrell, Possible, 169–72). On Daisy's role, see, e.g., Hyatt, "Women," 254.
137. See Harrell, "Healers," 333–34.
138. E.g., Osborn, Evangelism, 21:368–70.
139. E.g., ibid., 21:400; 22:65–67.
140. E.g., ibid., 22:536. Some who had been healed at the 1973 crusade there also testified (22:536–37).
141. E.g., ibid., 23:438–41, including narration by LaDonna Osborn and testimonies on 440.
142. E.g., ibid., 23:470–71.
143. Ibid., 23:597 (I include below also examples in 23:592–93, from their ministry in Thailand in 1956, noted in this volume for the fortieth anniversary). Without many photos, cf. earlier, e.g., in El
Salvador in Jan. 1953 (e.g., 1:930, where an eyewitness reports healings, noting that hostile press coverage reported a sick person dying but ignored the healings) and Guatemala in Feb. 1953 (1:938–44). Also, with
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Local reports sometimes exist to confirm Osborn's own; thus on his March 1956 crusade in Bangkok, many claimed to be cured. For example, Presbyterian pastor Saman Wannakiet, who had had heart disease since he was eighteen, was healed; Baptist pastor Chaiyong Wattanachan's cancer was healed.144 As in the case of Reinhard Bonnke and some other evangelists working in the Majority
World, a plethora of material here invites further research by church historians.
Unlike many healing ministries, the Osborns did helpfully preserve their reports for subsequent researchers; thick dissertations could be devoted to their ministry alone. To note the claims is not to endorse every aspect of the Osborns' theology, but if even a modest proportion of these dramatic reports are accurate, they may have witnessed more such cures (the vast majority in the context of evangelism in the Majority World) than any of their predecessors. Testimonies of healings in their meetings over the years involve a wide variety of illnesses,145 such as leprosy,146 inability to walk,147 deafness,148 deafness with muteness,149 blindness,150 spinal injuries,151 and other disabilities.152 One could discount some healing claims as the photos, Tommy O'Dell (T. L.'s and Daisy's grandson) in Bogota, Colombia, June 1994, in 22:779–84; in Botswana, Jan. 1997, in 23:713–22.
144. Hosack, "Arrival," 113.
145. I have merely taken samples from the several volumes above. Cf. Osborn, Healing, 158: "We could record hundreds of such cases."
146. Osborn, Evangelism, 593 (six lepers); Osborn, Healing, 298 (two), 299, 303 (four), 313, 314.
147. Ibid., 1:930, 938; 21:368, 369, three cases on 21:370; 21:400; about six cases in 22:65; two cases in 22:66 (in one case, her knees were "calloused from dragging herself about"; "Now she can even run for joy"); 22:67 (after five years being paralyzed); 22:68 (two cases); 22:779 (one unable to walk for four years, now carrying her crutches); 22:784; three cases in 23:440; three more on 23:441; 23:592 (a girl); 23:597 (two cases); 23:716–17 (multiple cases). In 1:944 (including before and after photographs and the woman's address), a woman paralyzed from the waist down, who had "dragged herself on the ground 52 years," was healed, with many in the crowd amazed, recognizing her. See also Osborn, Healing,
157–58, 281 (many), 286–87, 289, 290, 293 (three cases), 294, 295–96, 296 (many), 298 (many), 300,
304, 305, 307, 308 (multiple cases), 309–10, 310 (many), 312 (multiple cases), 312–13, 314, 317, 319,
321, 322, 323, 324, 325 (two cases), 327; photographs between 258 and 259 (eleven cases).
148. E.g., Osborn, Evangelism, 1:938; 21:368; 21:369 (two cases); 22:536 ("at least a hundred" cases, including some "deaf from birth, some for 30 or 40 years"); 22:782; 23:440 (after twelve years without hearing); 23:441 (deaf from birth); 23:720–21 (multiple cases, including one deaf from birth); Osborn,
Healing, 280, 293, 294, 296, 298, 304, 308, 309, 310, 312, 327 (multiple cases).
149. Osborn, Evangelism, 23:440 (from birth); 23:593 (seven persons on one night); Osborn, Healing,
281 ("hundreds," with "as many as 125" in one campaign), 285–86, 290, 294, 296, 300 (seven), 319.
150. Osborn, Evangelism, 1:930, 938, 941–42; 21:370, 400; 22:65; 22:67 (two cases, the second having been blind for thirteen years); 22:782 (almost, but not completely, blind beforehand); 22:783 (a girl weeping as she testifies that her eyesight has been restored); 23:592; 23:713–15 (twenty-five cases, with photos of five); 23:722 (photos of three more cases); Osborn, Healing, 281 (as many as ninety in one crusade), 287–88, 291, 293, 295, 296 (the sister of a worker), 298 (two), 300 (multiple cases), 301, 302
(two), 304, 306 (two), 308, 310, 313, 316, 317, 326; crossed eyes on 296, 297, 300. In one eye, Osborn,
Evangelism, 22:784; 23:440 (from birth); 23:441; 23:471.
151. Ibid., 23:441 (one with a fractured spinal cord rising from the wheelchair).
152. E.g., one who no longer needs an artificial oxygen supply to breathe, 22:784; a hand previously unable to move for nineteen years, 23:440; a hand in 23:441; a woman who had had severe arthritis was now able to walk and flex her hands without pain, 23:471; a baby raised from the dead in 1:940–41.
Charismatic Mennonite Gerald Derstine also claimed healing from twenty years of stuttering through
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result of temporary suggestion, but this explanation does not suffice for many of the sudden recoveries, often from severe conditions, reported in these volumes.153
Kathryn Kuhlman Not all contemporary reports of healings prove authentic or permanent, but even some of the more controversial examples offer stronger attestation than has often been supposed. One intensely popular (yet often controversial) figure associated with healing in the past generation was Kathryn Kuhlman. I expend more space on her healing activity because she is a fairly recent and well-known figure about whom much has been written and for whom some documentation, including some medical documentation, is available. Various scholars, such as Candy Gunther Brown, have also written about her ministry from an academic standpoint.154 In contrast to some ministers of her era who emphasized healing, Kuhlman's ministry extended across denominational lines, including Catholic and mainline Protestant clergy.155
That she, like some other figures cited here, has been controversial in many circles might make evidence for some of the dramatic recoveries all the more significant.
Indeed, I began my research with a bias against her ministry, not expecting to find material worthy of interest. I had felt put off culturally by her flamboyant style, useful as it may have been for her publicity and holding attention;156 I would have
Osborn's ministry (Synan, Voices, 44; on Mennonite charismatics, see, e.g., Synan, "Charismatics,"
192–98).
153. I spoke briefly in the past with two members of this family (LaDonna and, before her death, Daisy) and have a close friend, Marie Brown, who has worked with them more closely. It is not conceivable to me that they would have simply staged the healings, attendant photographs, and crusade footage, some of which I also watched while investigating the question. That tens of thousands of people would all pretend healing, casting away crutches and so forth, simply to fool the Osborns, and succeed for half a century, seems even less imaginable. This need not mean that every claim would prove authentic (in mass meetings, some individuals do seek attention or wrongly suppose themselves healed) or demonstrably miraculous (some may have recovered from psychosomatic ailments, etc.), but if a reader goes through the volumes and accompanying photographs, to me it seems difficult to imagine any but the most ardent and inflexible skeptic discounting all claims in this manner. Such skeptics exist, but I believe they ask too much faith in their skeptical cause at this point and that a reader committed to neither supernaturalism or antisupernaturalism would find many of these claims significant. I begin with some suspicion of (or at least caution toward) typical healing evangelists, perhaps reflecting my preconversion subculture and my academic background, but in a number of cases sources mitigate my suspicion. I am uncomfortable with some specific elements of this ministry's theology, but evangelism and compassion seem more central to its ministry than such questions.
154. On her, see also Kydd, Healing, 181–97; Pope-Levison, Pulpit, 212–21. Buckingham, Daughter, 179, contends that she insisted on documentation from physicians (minimally including the patient's primary care physician) before healings could be reported in her books; illnesses healed also needed to be already diagnosed and organic; and cures had to prove permanent. Thus, he notes, many apparent spectacular miracles were never reported in the books. See also Brown, "Healing Words," 278 (noting her "panel of supportive physicians to assess the healing claims that came to her attention").
155. See, e.g., the appreciative treatment in Laurentin, Catholic Pentecostalism, 107–10; cf. the invitation of Pope Paul VI noted in Brown, "Healing Words," 271–72.
156. Kydd, Healing, 197, helps pinpoint the internal contradiction in her approach, while noting that all of us have some such contradictions.
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preferred not to write about her meetings. Unexpectedly, the accounts I found in these works forced me to rethink my prejudices.157 Apparently I am not alone.
British Anglican author Michael Harper was watching skeptically in one of her meetings. When she called out that someone was being healed of emphysema and a young man began running around the auditorium at her orders, Harper was disgusted, suspecting some sort of trickery. Annoyed, he asked the man beside him what he thought about this scene, before noticing how deeply moved the man appeared. The man, it turned out, was the boy's father, who informed him that until that evening the boy could not walk fifty yards without being out of breath; doctors had told him that he could never run. "I learned a lesson that evening," Harper concluded; God could work even through people who seemed unusual to him.158
One may dispute the interpretation of the documented healings, especially given the apparently larger number who were not healed, and probably at least a few deceptive or self-deceived attention seekers may have passed the tests meant to screen them out (see further discussion in ch. 13). Nevertheless, the very fact that a number of medical and other professionals risked their reputations to supply documentation in many concrete cases159 demonstrates the minimal point I am making here, namely, that sincere and intelligent eyewitnesses can attest cures that they believe miraculous, even in the modern West.
The popular Time magazine, in fact, called Kuhlman "a veritable one-woman shrine of Lourdes"160 and included four significant, medically attested testimonies of healing, including "a severely deteriorated eardrum," now with "no evidence of damage"; and chronic lymphatic leukemia, with swollen "liver, spleen, and lymph nodes," now completely normal.161 Earlier, Redbook magazine hired Emily Gardiner
Neal, who claimed to be skeptical, to investigate Kuhlman. After her research, Neal's article proved favorable toward Kuhlman, the editors noting that they had medical and other evidence indicating that indeed a number of people had been cured in connection with the meetings. Neal afterward converted to become an advocate of Kuhlman and divine healing.162
One of the first documented cures was of George Orr, whose corneal scarring through an industrial accident left him nearly blind in one eye. Historian Wayne
157. Some academicians who later grew to appreciate charismatic spiritual power in other venues were initially suspicious because of Kuhlman's style (Kraft, Power, 6, regarding himself; cf. also John Wimber in Jackson, Quest, 50). Interestingly, Kuhlman refused to be identified with the "healing evangelists" or "faith healers" (Warner, Kuhlman, 139–40; for her emphasis on God's role as opposed to her own, see, e.g., 128; cf. Dr. Issam Nemeh in Zagrans, Miracles, 59–60).
158. Harper, Healings, 13–14. Harper became a charismatic leader in the Anglican Church, and later became part of the Antiochene Orthodox Church.
159. These include physicians (noted below); likewise, Samuel A. Weiss, judge and former U.S.
Congressman, wrote the foreword (7–12) to her book, Miracles. For the well-documented healing of a well-known businessman, see Casdorph, Miracles, 136–43.
160. "Miracle Woman," 62.
161. Ibid.
162. Buckingham, Daughter, 122–23 (citing Redbook, 1951); Brown, "Healing Words," 273 (noting
Neal, Reporter, 185).
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Warner notes that in 1927, "the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry . . . awarded Orr workmen's compensation for the loss of an eye." But on May
4, 1947, his eye was healed as Kuhlman spoke on the subject of healing.163 The optometrist certified that the scar tissue had disappeared.164 Another case was the progressive but total healing of a baby's clubfoot, a condition that normally would have required braces until at least age fourteen.165 Other cases include the healing of a cardiac invalid,166 the instant healing of someone with muscular and nerve degeneration,167 and so forth.168
Kuhlman frankly admitted that not all were healed,169 attributing the results to God's choice.170 She herself was never healed from her enlarged heart, and she accepted "medical treatment, which she had often endorsed publicly as one of the means that God used to heal."171 She also recognized that healings often occurred before or after the meetings, again pointing out that it was God rather than she who performed the healings.172 The initial healings, in fact, began without her prayer or knowledge as she was speaking.173 Her audiences tended to be ecumenical rather than strictly Pentecostal,174 and a wide range of people appreciated her ministry.
As Candy Gunther Brown points out, "Pope Paul VI invited her for a visit, and the municipal governments of Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis bestowed on her civic awards."175
Close-range testimonies abound. When Dr. Raquel Burgos, now a pediatrician, was a child, her short leg grew two inches to match the other one within days after 163. Warner, Kuhlman, 132–33.
164. Ibid., 134. See at greater length Spraggett, Kuhlman, 71–75, 137; Kuhlman, Miracles, 40–47.
165. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 76–83. The Vatican similarly accepts as genuinely miraculous the claim of the healing of a Muslim boy's clubfeet in the 1980s at a shrine of a twentieth-century Indian Catholic figure (Dempsey, "Lessons," 169).
166. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 91–96; cf. the serious heart condition mentioned healed on 139.
167. Ibid., 117–18.
168. E.g., a case of lupus erythematosus diagnosed as terminal (with no symptoms since the prayer for the two years before the book including it was written; ibid., 121–23). Other claims include cases of permanent healing from inoperable, terminal cancer in its end stages (139); complete healing of a severely hydrocephalic baby, with guarded prognosis (140–41, noting that "spontaneous remissions" of this ailment are very rare); and complete healing of Guillain-Barré syndrome (canceling the lung surgery; 152–53; I recount another report of this affliction's cure below).
169. Buckingham, Daughter, 45–46, 215–17. Her theology was influenced by Charles Price (esp.
Price, Faith; Kydd, Healing, 194–95). Their view that faith is God's gift fits also the approach of Hickson,
Bridegroom, 70 (though apparently missing the probably objective character of the genitive in Mark 11:22).
170. Buckingham, Daughter, 46. She rejected the view that lack of healing meant lack of faith (100–101,
224) but apparently did practice denial of what she did not want to face (129–32, 141, 149, 233–35).
She would not know God's intention in a given case but simply depended on God to accomplish his will
(Spraggett, Kuhlman, 142–43). Not only Kuhlman but Christian healing ministers in general credit God for the healings, at least publicly (Pullum, "Selling," 149–50), in contrast to some accusations (e.g., the slander that Blumhardt became the object of prayer, Ising, Blumhardt, 264).
171. Brown, "Healing Words," 290–91.
172. Ibid., 288.
173. Ibid., 271.
174. Ibid., 271–72.
175. Ibid.
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attending one of Kuhlman's meetings; because she had been seeing an orthopedist, she says, she has medical records verifying her claim.176 One sympathetic author who knew Kuhlman well,177 Jamie Buckingham, reports numerous miracle claims: a nun instantly healed of a large tumor;178 two persons born deaf healed at age sixtysix;179 the healing of a heart condition;180 the healing of a deteriorating multiple sclerosis patient (previously paralyzed from waist down);181 and another person crippled from birth who was now walking.182 A Pittsburgh newspaper reported that while many were not healed, a five-year-old allegedly disabled from birth walked, and another person allegedly unable to walk for twelve years was now walking.183
Presbyterian minister Don Dunkerley narrates that Delores Winder, a Presbyterian woman sick for twenty years, was at the time of her attendance dying and making funeral arrangements. In these circumstances, she attended a Kuhlman service in 1975 and felt herself fully healed during a stretch of fifteen minutes in that meeting. The medically verified healing proved complete, restoring her feeling, motor control, and ability to walk.184
From Galen Hertweck (mentioned earlier) I learned of a healing account involving Kuhlman about which he had some knowledge.185 He put me in touch with Lee Coffey, who shared with me this story of the healing of his first son, Jonathan.
176. Llewellyn, "Events," 255, based on his interview with her.
177. On Buckingham's own struggle with cancer toward the end of his life, see Buckingham, Summer.
When I conversed with him briefly on Aug. 26, 1991, regarding an article on a different subject, I was unaware of his own recent crisis.
178. Buckingham, Daughter, 40–41. Another tumor disappeared (105); a legally blind eye was healed
(106); diagnosed lung cancer was healed (116); a hip was instantly replaced (116–17); all the sores or lesions of severe eczema were suddenly healed (165–67). He mentions "thousands" bused in from Canada being healed (168).
179. Ibid., 128, 132, with those who could testify of their previous complete deafness.
180. Ibid., 180–82, including the disappearance of both a pacemaker and the scar of its insertion
(noting a doctor's attestation concerning the X-rays).
181. Ibid., 183–84, noting that multiple sclerosis rarely goes into spontaneous remission after wheelchair stage. For medical documentation of the instant healing of an advanced case of multiple sclerosis in a Kuhlman meeting, see Casdorph, Miracles, 61–72. Baxter, Healing, 184–94 (following Kuhlman, Late), recounts the permanent healing of a severely deteriorated multiple sclerosis patient (the permanence of which he verified, 184). Another description of an earlier reported healing of advanced multiple sclerosis in Wales appears in Storms, Convergence, 47–48; idem, Guide, 50–52; and another report of a healing of it in England in Jackson, Quest, 255; Wagner, "World," 80; in Turkey, among reports sent to me by Douglas
LeRoy, Nov. 9, 2009, although details are not very clear; claims in the United States in DeGrandis, Miracles,
76; Schiappacasse, Heals, 5, 16–17 (a severe case, instantly healed when a voice commanded her to rise and walk); esp. Prather, Miracles, 91; a possible case in Peterman, Healing, 1–2; more recently, Clark,
Impartation, 118–19; cf. also a claim in Bentley, Miraculous, 231. Llewellyn, "Events," 242, notes that his wheelchair-bound mother, while healed of other ailments, was never cured of multiple sclerosis, yet (he suggests) miraculously enabled to live to age eighty-six.
182. Buckingham, Daughter, 128, 133, noting that hospital records attested this.
183. Ibid., 117.
184. Dunkerley, Healing Evangelism, 189–90. The account is narrated in greater detail in Casdorph,
Miracles, 147–57. For examples of Presbyterian churches affirming spiritual gifts, see, e.g., Synan, "Renewal,"
166–76.
185. Galen Hertweck, personal correspondence, May 17, 2009.
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Immediately after Jonathan's birth in Hoag Hospital in Costa Mesa, California, in 1968, doctors examining Jonathan's features, including his eyes and ear level, warned Lee that they suspected Down syndrome. Early tests seemed to corroborate this diagnosis. Lee was a youth pastor at this time, and the senior pastor (Galen's father) and a visiting evangelist prayed for the child and felt that he would be all right. Kathryn Kuhlman was holding services once a month in Long Beach at this time, so they went to one of the services and happened to see her as she was going in. They asked if she would pray for their son; she did and "claimed him for the service of the Lord." Lee recounts that six to eight weeks later Jonathan's entire facial structure had changed, and at this stage the doctors confessed that they had never seen a case like this before, but that he now appeared completely normal.
Now forty years old, Jonathan is an electrical engineer for a national company in Texas, with two normally functioning children.186
Doctors and Kuhlman Kuhlman respected the healing work of doctors,187 and many doctors who visited her meetings reciprocated the sentiment; both professed the same objective of persons' wellness. Buckingham cites the testimonies of various physicians:
Dr. Cecil Titus of St. Luke's Hospital in Cleveland said that a ten-year-old girl's club foot "straightened before my very eyes while Miss Kuhlman prayed." Dr. Kitman
Au of Burbank, California, a radiologist, told a newspaper reporter, "I have seen healings in Kathryn Kuhlman's services that I, as a doctor, can only say go beyond human power." And Dr. Richard Owellen, the cancer research specialist from Johns
Hopkins University, told of holding his infant child in his arms at a miracle service and watching the child's dislocated hip twist, under the power of the Holy Spirit, until it was healed and in place.188
Another doctor, E. B. Henry, testified of his own healings of his hearing and, more astonishingly, a false joint caused by a bone fracture;189 the consensus of most others examining the X-rays concurred that this was a genuine instance of extranormal
186. Lee Don Coffee, phone interview, July 7, 2009. Despite some possibly extremely rare exceptions
(one is documented in Pradhan, Dalal, Khan, and Agrawal, "Fertility"), Down syndrome is believed to normally preclude reproduction. Because Down syndrome occurs at the chromosomal level (not always in all the chromosomes; Dr. Tahira Adelekan, phone interview, April 24, 2009, not addressing this specific case), some cases of healing claims might involve effects of Down syndrome on various functional limitations rather than the chromosomal issue itself.
187. E.g., Kuhlman, Miracles, 15, in support of doctors: "I believe that God has the power to heal instantly without the material tools of scientific medicine; but I also believe that God gave us our brains to use!"
188. Buckingham, Daughter, 185. Dr. Owellen's testimony appears also in Brown, "Healing Words,"
278 (citing Kuhlman, Impossible, 71). Spraggett (Kuhlman, 120) interviewed Titus, who attested that he personally witnessed the instant healing of this clear case of clubfoot, at close range.
189. Buckingham, Daughter, 185–87 (quoting the doctor's letter). He reports another doctor's healing on 229–31.
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healing.190 Yet another physician, Dr. Martin Biery, a specialist in spinal cord surgery at a veterans hospital in Long Beach, California, testified to witnessing "arthritics whose spines were frozen get instantaneous freedom and move and bend in all directions without pain."191 Dr. Viola Frymann, also from California, testified to cures she witnessed, including a blind child receiving sight, and "another child, whose arm and leg were paralyzed from cerebral palsy, . . . healed before her eyes."192 This healing included paralysis vanishing and a twisted leg straightening.193 Buckingham testifies that he and Dr. Robert Hoyt in 1969 witnessed a sudden healing miracle of an eye that was never (before his book's publication) reported publicly.194
Allen Spraggett, an investigative reporter who does not mince words in denouncing what he considers many spurious healing evangelists,195 believed Kuhlmann to be genuine. He reports other clearly supranormal healings attested by Hoyt,
Dr. James Blackann, and other physicians.196 In one case a boy was born with a deformed foot that could be corrected medically only by major surgery followed by months of convalescence. When Kuhlmann called out that God was healing a child's legs, the boy "walked up to the stage, ran back and forth, and skipped."
Dr. Blackann attested that the boy was well.197 "I've seen massive cysts disperse immediately," he further declared. "I've seen spastic conditions disappear. I've seen arthritic spines and limbs instantly freed in her services."198 Dr. Blackann was instantly healed of serious phlebitis when Kuhlman announced that God was healing someone of such an affliction, although he had not prayed for it and did not realize it until he noticed that the pain and swelling were gone.199
By contrast, Dr. William Nolen offers cases of people who were not healed at Kathryn Kuhlman meetings or who he believed wrongly thought they were.200
190. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 84–90; cf. also 114.
191. Buckingham, Daughter, 187. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 6–7, also notes Dr. Biery testifying in Ms.
Kuhlman's meetings.
192. Buckingham, Daughter, 187–88; also in Spraggett, Kuhlman, 12–13. She told a reporter (noted as a critic of Kuhlman's in Buckingham, Daughter, 215) that she hoped the medical profession would become aware "of such spiritual healing." For another claim of healing of cerebral palsy, see Wilkerson, Beyond, 138.
193. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 13, noting that Frymann observed that in a child this would not be merely a hysterical reaction.
194. Buckingham, Daughter, 188–89. For other accounts, see, e.g., Brown, "Healing Words," 284,
288–89; and more extensively Kuhlman, Again; idem, Impossible (I drew examples primarily from idem,
Miracles). Although I am emphasizing Kuhlman, others also claim to have personally witnessed physical changes as different ministers such as Oral Roberts prayed (Carothers, Prison, 47).
195. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 16–26. Spraggett is no orthodox Christian apologist; he is personally inclined to explain Kuhlman's successes in parapsychological terms (125–29, 155–56, 171–72, though he does not rule out divine activity compatible with this interpretation).
196. Ibid., 58–61. Hoyt was also ready to identify, with Kuhlman's approval, the lack of cure in someone who thought he had been cured (63).
197. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 59–60 (quote from 60); the healing is reported to have occurred in May 1968.
198. Ibid., 64.
199. Ibid., 111–12.
200. Nolen, Healing, 41–102. Nolen starts with sufficient skepticism that he may place the bar too high for genuine evidence; one can give an alternative explanation for almost anything—unless it happens too often, which he lacked sufficient examples to test. Beyond the clear failures, he discounts those who
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
He gives the example of a multiple sclerosis sufferer whom he believed had not improved, except in her own perceptions;201 another's migraines had been reduced, but this could be attributed to psychological causes;202 a nun's bursitis had improved, but bursitis comes and goes anyway;203 a woman's varicose veins had gone away, but these often leave after pregnancy.204 Of sixteen examples
Kuhlman supplied, he "found that two thirds of the patients suffered from diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, paralysis (no cause listed), loss of sight, and allergies, in all of which the psyche often plays a major and dominant role."205
He therefore dismisses cures of such conditions as potentially psychosomatic, although many other observers would be less inclined to dismiss some of them
(such as loss of sight) so readily. Since only one of the six cancer cures on the list would talk with him, he dismissed the other cures, and he observed that the person who did agree to talk with him was healed of prostate cancer, which may have simply been cured by prior medical treatment or by a spontaneous remission.206 (Given his verdict, the person who talked to him may have wished that, like the others, he had refused to discuss the case with Nolen.207) Besides these negative examples, many of which could be disputed, he cites a failure difficult to contest: one woman died of her cancer after testifying of healing at Kuhlman's services.208 Yet even Nolen agreed that Kuhlman believed that she was honest, merely "improved" or went into remissions known to occur sometimes without prayer (most ailments can). He also does not address the more dramatic cures such as recounted in Casdorph, who was much more closely acquainted with Kathryn Kuhlman's ministry. That Randi, Faith Healers, 228–29, simply follows Nolen uncritically does not inspire confidence in Randi, who makes no pretense of neutrality.
201. Nolen, Healing, 79, although it may be noted that the sufferer herself disagreed.
202. Ibid., 79–81.
203. Ibid., 81–84. Bill Jackson (interview, Nov. 13, 2007, recounting an incident in the mid-1990s) shared with me an instant healing of an elderly man with bursitis in his left shoulder, when he prayed for him; immediately after prayer the man could lift his left arm (previously impossible), now with a full range of motion. The man belonged to Jackson's church in Champaign, Illinois.
204. Nolen, Healing, 88–89.
205. Ibid., 100. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 36, also discounts multiple sclerosis, since it "fluctuates between periods of improvement and decline." It does not, however, normally yield to a permanent and instant cure, which some cases associated with divine healing do claim (Cranston, Miracle, 283–84 regarding
Lourdes). May, "Miracles," 154, views medical intervention as the only possible natural cure for organic blindness, though he opines that one person claiming healing may simply have felt "better about her vision." McClenon, "Miracles," 187, includes among Kimbangu's psychologically based cures "many of the blind, paralyzed, and deaf." In ch. 12 we shall examine cases of blindness and other disabilities not so easily dismissed, given their cluster in contexts of reported divine activity.
206. Nolen, Healing, 100.
207. One wonders if the cancer cases who refused to talk with him did so from fear of the very sort of treatment with which he dismisses the one who did talk with him. Certainly, it may have been natural remission, but if we exclude from intelligent causation anything that could not occur naturally, there is very little that cannot remit naturally, and the same criterion would exclude the value of medical cures.
One would need a quantitative study to ascertain cumulative benefits in such cases and would also need to allow for different outcomes among different ministers involved in healings.
208. Nolen, Healing, 99. Randi, Faith Healers, 288, assigns similar failures to Oral Roberts; others occurred early in the twentieth century (Jeffries, "Healing," 72) and more recently (a tragic case in May,
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and that she did not "plant" people to claim healings,209 as some clearly fraudulent evangelists have done.
Yet charges of bias can cut both ways. Buckingham complains that Nolen "visited only one miracle service and interviewed only a handful of people who claimed healings." By contrast, Buckingham claimed that he interviewed "at least two hundred medically documented cases of miraculous healings."210 Less graciously,
Lawrence Althouse complains that the research in Nolen's widely hailed book "would hardly have been adequate for a college freshman's term paper," since it involved a single visit to one of Kuhlman's services and "a clumsy follow-up on some of the people allegedly cured at that service."211
Dr. Richard Casdorph mounted the most serious assault on Nolen's skepticism.212 Despite Casdorph's notably strong medical and academic credentials,213 his subsequent advocacy elsewhere of chelation therapy, an alternative medical approach challenged by current medical research, underlines his willingness to take unconventional, and sometimes highly disputable, approaches.214 Nevertheless,
"Miracles," 146). Buskirk, Healing, 47, notes that many who claim to be cured by faith ultimately prove not to be. "Yet," he adds, "there have been true cures."
209. E.g., Nolen, Healing, 86, 101. He notes that she was very cooperative but medically uninformed
(100). He notes that those who were obviously not cured were not allowed to testify in the meetings (93); while this shows that many were not healed, it also fits the concern of those involved not to permit false testimonies. Less favorable is Bishop, Healing, 67 (cf. 72–73), who claims that one of her assistants in one meeting instructed ushers to keep those who were crippled from coming forward. If this is correct, the assistant may have wished to exclude the obviously disabled whose lack of healing would be conspicuous or even hurtful to them if they tried to walk and unhelpful for an atmosphere of "faith," though this procedure does not suggest the assistant's expectation that many would be healed while moving (cf. Luke 17:14).
210. Buckingham, Daughter, 211–12. He claims (212) that Dr. H. Richard Casdorph confronted
Nolen "on the Mike Douglas Show in Philadelphia in 1975"; Casdorph had with him a teenager who "had been healed of bone cancer . . . and Dr. Casdorph had x-rays and medical records to verify it." Brown,
"Healing Words," 281, notes that "Kuhlman's most adamant critics emerged from the religious, rather than the medical establishment."
211. Althouse, Healing, 59, complaining that "it is not scientific research." Althouse published this work with Abingdon Press, part of The United Methodist Publishing House. Nevertheless, Althouse's citation of scientific research on the healing of wounded mice, plants, etc. (59–65; see more fully Spraggett,
Kuhlman, 144–50; cf. MacNutt, Healing, 31–32, esp. his concession about "an element of the bizarre";
Epperly, Touch, 19), does not seem strongly helpful. Astonishingly, Mayhue, Healing, 95, cites Nolen with approval, perhaps because it suits Mayhue's harder cessationist approach, 75–79. Miller, "Miracle Worker,"
25, simply accepts Nolen's critique and then appeals to Lourdes instead (which also has its share of critics, such as West, Miracles, who appears to me nearly as tendentious as Nolen).
212. Often noted, e.g., Brown, "Kuhlman," 236.
213. Casdorph, MD, PhD, a former captain in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps and a faculty member at the University of California medical schools in both Los Angeles and Irvine, also published widely in medical journals, including four articles in Journal of the American Medical Association and one in the New
England Journal of Medicine. Bredesen, Miracle, 20, also notes his more than four years on staff at the Mayo
Clinic and his authorship of a medical textbook (cf. Casdorph, Miracles, 169).
214. Brown, "Healing Words," 280–81. Chelation therapy, generally accepted for treating lead and usually other metal poisoning, has shown tentative promise for some other ailments but so far has proved ineffective in treating coronary heart disease (American Heart Association; a more definitive study was due to be completed in 2010) and its use for Alzheimer's disease (where Casdorph found it useful) is disputed. In the past, critics have discredited faith healing by linking it with other controversial approaches;
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his book on healings, although on a popular level (like Nolen's), includes medical documentation, including before-and-after X-rays, unlike Nolen's.215 He provides case studies of nine documented healings of serious disorders, sometimes instant healings such as one that allowed a wheelchair-bound person to suddenly walk and run, and remained permanent.216
Many of these examples cannot be explained as remissions or on other naturalistic grounds available to us. One case was Lisa Larios, a teenager who was expected to live only six more months:217 she had not even been told that her condition was terminal but was suddenly healed in a Kuhlman meeting, able to walk and run. Testing revealed that her bones had been repaired—a phenomenon not attributable to psychosomatic causes, even if she had known the nature of her condition.218 Casdorph also documents the healing of a malignant brain tumor;219 medical documentation "includes biopsy proof of the malignant nature of the brain tumor" prior to the healing.220
Were most people cured in her meetings? It appears not. Were some persons somehow cured, even of clearly nonpsychosomatic disorders? It appears so.221 No one claims that everyone was healed, but it is also difficult to dispute that significant
Opp, Lord for Body, 12; Mullin, Miracles, 103. Controlled studies carry more weight than the more limited approach of case studies, but a number of Casdorph's examples of miracle healings, presumably as opposed to the claimed benefits of chelation therapy, are not readily attributable to chance (e.g., bones do not suddenly repair themselves).
215. Some scholars have also cited the evidence in this work in support of credible evidence for miraculous healing (e.g., Breggen, "Miracle Reports," 382).
216. Casdorph, Miracles. Another popular book (Hinn, Miracle) offers some medical documentation
(reviewed by Donald Colbert, MD, as noted on 12–13) concerning Benny Hinn's ministry, with photographed before-and-after medical reports (37, 42, 44, 50, 56, 70, 75, 79, 90, 101–2, 104, 111, 116, 118,
123, 131–32, 139, 142, 146, 157, 159, 161, 173, 175). Hinn claims (21) that he has "seen people walk out of wheelchairs, throw away hearing aids," and so on, and "the files in our office are filled with before-andafter medical reports." He notes that he does not have healing lines and "rarely" prays "for individuals"; rather, he points people to Jesus, who heals them (21–22). Others also cite Hinn's book (Breggen, "Miracle
Reports," 382); I have not engaged it more fully because I did not want large-scale evangelists associated with healing (not really the focus of this book) to dominate much of this chapter. There has been significant controversy about his ministry (see Poewe, "Nature," 24n9), though at the time of his book's publication, he had apparently renounced prosperity teaching (Alexander, Signs, 71, citing Strang, "Hinn"). Others have simply noted that they regularly receive letters from people claiming to have been healed in their meetings, without citing medical documentation (e.g., Dearing, Healing, 118).
217. Casdorph, Miracles, 27; the entire account is 25–33.
218. Ibid., 30–32. Cf. the gradual healing of bones in cases at Lourdes in the mid-1960s (Cranston,
Miracle, 303, 304); the testimony of immediate or overnight transformation of lung and bones in Bredesen,
Miracle, 55–56; the account of a crushed hip and pelvis healed before the following morning's X-ray reported in Tallman, Shakarian, 100–101. Medical treatment for extensive bone growth can require a painful and extensive process (cf. the Ilizarov frame in Piper, Minutes, 68–69).
219. Casdorph, Miracles, 49–57.
220. Ibid., 56. As of the book's publication in 1976, she continued to remain healthy long after the Aug. 1971 healing. Baxter, Healing, 212–27, recounts a dramatic healing of myasthenia gravis in Casdorph
(with medical documentation for multiple family members healed at once).
221. For one fairly neutral assessment, noting both positive and negative features, see Schwarz, Healing,
47–49.
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recoveries occurred, apparently in conjunction with prayer. One may associate these with Kathryn Kuhlman's faith or that of the supplicants, or, as in some of Kuhlman's teaching, to no one's faith at all;222 but the evidence suggests that some people were healed, even in extraordinary ways.
Father Ralph DiOrio One of the figures known in North American Catholic healing ministry is Father Ralph DiOrio.223 One of his books (A Miracle to Proclaim) reports healings of highly malignant bone cancer,224 an inoperable brain tumor unresponsive to chemotherapy,225 a three-year-old's acute leukemia,226 metastatic cancer,227 neuropathy and likely terminal cancer,228 and other claims.229 One man severely injured when hit by a car was told that he would need a cane for the rest of his life. Healed during a prayer service, he ran around the church and no longer needed a brace or cane; X-rays showed that his leg was healed, and he discontinued pain and sleeping pills.230 Another man, Everett Rivers, suffering from multiple sclerosis, had not worked for seven years and had been wheelchair-bound for roughly a year before his healing. Though nonreligious, he visited a prayer service on October 2,
1980, and rose from his wheelchair and walked.231 In contrast to some incidents reportedly generated merely by a burst of emotion, a few years later the man testified, "I have neither returned to a wheelchair nor required medication. In fact,
I've gone back to work."232
222. Her later ministry emphasized especially God's sovereignty (Warner, Kuhlman, 137).
223. Noted elsewhere, e.g., Rogge, "Relationship," 378. Another Catholic priest with a healing ministry is Father Richard Bain (see Winston, Faith, 127–38).
224. DiOrio, Miracle, 27–35. Testimonies in this book are normally narrated by the person healed, and a nun who is a registered nurse compiled them (5). Some (not all) of the testimonies remained recent at the time that the book was written, so I inquired from one of Father DiOrio's associates whether a large number of healings remained permanent. From her personal knowledge of many persons involved, she emphasized that they did (Aldona Sarkauskas, phone interview, June 4, 2009). Apart from what I found in the books, I was not able to obtain any documentation from the ministry.
225. DiOrio, Miracle, 37–43.
226. Ibid., 91–95 (without illness in the four years between the prayer and the book); for another case of leukemia, a three-month-old, reported two years after the healing (153–59). Earlier, Salmon, Heals,
100, reports a cure of leukemia; other reports in McKenna, Miracles, 38; "Doctor Healed"; Danyun, Lilies,
345; Rasolondraibe, "Ministry," 350; Neal, Power, 56; Woodward, Miracles, 368–69; Robertson, Miracles,
150–51; Jacques Vernaud, personal correspondence, Aug. 29, 2005.
227. DiOrio, Miracle 97–105 (the cancer had spread to the liver and spine). This account is narrated by her husband, a dentist, who had himself been cured of bursitis (102).
228. Ibid., 141–51.
229. E.g., juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (57–63, at the age of eight in 1980); a cervical disk (65–79); infertility (81–89); tumor of the heel (107–11); cancer of the chest (113–19); "lazy eye" (121–26); multiple injuries caused by an accident (127–32); a cardiologist healed of arthritis (133–39; this was progressive, after the prayer, 138); a child's severe allergies with bloody rashes (187–93); lupus erythematosus (207–11); progressive healing of Guillain-Barré syndrome (219–31); and myasthenia gravis (245–51).
230. The healed man's testimony in DiOrio, Miracle, 167–71.
231. Ibid., 173–79 (here 177).
232. Ibid., 177–78.
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Further testimonies appear in Father DiOrio's other works. Among them,233 a baby with myelofibrosis, for which there was no known cure, was supposed to die, but the baby started to recover after prayer and within three months its health was normal.234
A doctor testified about the healing of phlebitis through prayer;235 another doctor,
Dr. Alberto M. Barrera, claims to have been healed himself of coronary heart disease236
(though some other doctors question some of his claims).237 One boy given a 20 percent chance of living to age seven was prayed for, along with receiving the normal medical treatments, and continued to remain well at twelve years old, though doctors allowed a 15 to 20 percent chance of the brain tumor's recurrence.238
DiOrio's books that I sampled respect medicine, include medical opinions, and often appear cautious in their claims. Nevertheless, as in the case of Kathryn
Kuhlman, Father DiOrio has his detractors.239 One investigative report discounted all claims to cures in the twenty-eight cases the reporter investigated,240 though
DiOrio's ministry claims that seven thousand have reported physical healings, with one-quarter including a doctor's confirmation of some sort.241 The reporter's figure of dismissed cures included ten that DiOrio's ministry itself had deemed cures (the ones that really count in this matter, since DiOrio does not claim that everyone he prays for will be healed).242 Of these ten, the reporter could evaluate only seven, depending on physicians' reports, and he categorized these in the following way: doctors concluded that two were not genuinely cured; in three cases, he regarded the original problem as not medically certain; and the other two recoveries may have simply occurred naturally or due to conventional treatment.243
233. Also infertility (DiOrio, Signs, 51–57); encephalitis (but gradual and partial, 119); and other recoveries.
234. DiOrio, Signs, 21–26; as of the book's writing, the child was four and needed only annual checkups.
235. Ibid., 28–36 (the doctor's testimony is 34–35).
236. Ibid., 37–46.
237. Emery, "Cured," 11, notes that, contrary to Barrera's claim, another doctor claims that Barrera experienced continued pain and took heavy medication for it; another doubted Barrera's claim that his condition had been clearly fatal. I would not be qualified to arbitrate these claims even if I had all the evidence in hand.
238. DiOrio, Signs, 60–65 (the percentages appear on 65).
239. Like many other healing evangelists, DiOrio comes in for critique in Randi, Faith Healers, 217–25. I am not in a position to verify DiOrio's claimed healings and was not able to obtain from his ministry a response to Emery's claims, apparently in view of their other pressing work, but I do not find Randi's objections compelling in this case, in contrast to several others where he provided genuine evidence of fraud. Although my impression is from a distance and cannot count for much, Father DiOrio appears to be sincere and genuinely concerned for people's recovery, though a number of the recoveries could also occur naturally.
240. See Emery, "Cured," 9. I thank Joseph Carey, my editor on two commentaries, for kindly bringing this source to my attention; being neutral, he also noted some sources appreciative of Father DiOrio, but these did not include sufficient detail regarding particular healings for me to cite here. May, "Miracles,"
148–49, similarly excludes all seven of the examples supplied by Morris Cerullo as having possible natural explanations (although May does not elaborate, he does have the expertise to raise such questions).
241. Emery, "Cured," 9.
242. Ibid., citing a couple that Emery says DiOrio "proclaimed healed," but Emery's report on p. 8 attributes this explicit proclamation only to a bystander. No one would dispute that the couple was not healed (see 12).
243. Ibid., 10.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
These particular results do not offer impressive evidence for divine intervention244
(stronger cases appear elsewhere in this book), but if one is merely considering the possibility of divine activity rather than trying to prove it beyond doubt, the five recoveries admitted out of these seven could involve it easily enough.245 Moreover, they do not rule out some other testimonies noted above, some of which are supported by doctors' opinions. That is, even a report apparently designed to discredit healings associated with this ministry does not decisively settle the question.
Neither Emery nor I are doctors, so we can only depend on doctors' verdicts at this point; and unlike Emery, I was unfortunately unable to secure documentation from Father DiOrio's ministry on which I could follow up.246
Nevertheless, the report does highlight the difficulties of collecting testimonies from public meetings;247 even some who believed themselves improved at the time showed no genuine medical changes afterward,248 a problem not limited to any one ministry. Further, it illustrates that a doctor sympathetic to a patient's beliefs about a recovery might be apt to provide an endorsement even if the same illness is known to remit often without prayer, whereas one hostile to those beliefs might refuse an endorsement or might offer less plausible alternative explanations to an investigator, especially a skeptical one, even if a neutral observer might regard the recovery as naturally inexplicable.249 Most fundamentally, then, the report highlights a problem to which I shall return in chapters 13–15 (a problem not limited to any particular person or ministry, though the reporter raised it only for this case geographically near him): How do we read the evidence?
Some Less-Conspicuous Ministries Although some of the stories that follow involve those known for ministering healing to others, the majority of stories involve voices who come closer to fitting Hume's criterion for reliable witnesses with much to lose. In most cases
244. The "words of knowledge" that Emery cites (ibid., 12–13, 17) are at best imperfect and vague. With many scholars (including many charismatic scholars; see, e.g., Williams, Renewal Theology, 2:355–57), I doubt that this is what Paul meant by the phrase "word of knowledge" in 1 Cor 12:8 (Keener, Corinthians,
101). Nevertheless, many do cite cases of paranormal knowledge (see, e.g., Spraggett, Kuhlman, 115–19; cf. Keener, Gift, 116).
245. In one case, for example, the prior medical treatment for a neck tumor included only ten days of radiation therapy (Emery, "Cured," 11, noting her prior cures of bone cancer by radiation treatments, although not specifying their duration).
246. Perhaps in part because of their experiences with more skeptical inquirers like Emery, whom I perhaps imprudently mentioned during my inquiry, prompting (it seemed) a quick closure to the discussion.
247. See comments in chs. 7, 13.
248. See Emery, "Cured," 13, 17.
249. A skeptical investigator may well prefer only the medical verdicts that share his or her negative assessment, even when no naturalistic explanation is readily available. Anyone who has been involved in journalism recognizes that how one frames questions can also shape answers, and this practice might prove especially significant when doctors do not wish to appear as publicly supporting verdicts that would hurt their standing with naturalistic peers. That is not to claim that Emery necessarily framed questions in that way, and it is certainly not to claim that one should not press for details. I have often had to ask uncomfortable questions of interviewees to establish to my satisfaction how certain they could be of various details.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
their reputations involved other activities, and they would not stand to profit from testifying of healings they experienced or witnessed (especially in the more dramatic cases). While they may vary greatly with regard to their evidential weight for miracles, they continue to illustrate the breadth of experiences included in claims about divine healing.
I started this chapter with the story of Brad Wilkinson. The man who prayed for him, Wesley Steelberg, was alive to pray for him due only to his own unusual recovery. When he was fifty-two, a massive heart attack on October 14, 1974, nearly claimed his life; open-heart surgery helped him, but his heart muscle remained weak. The doctor described his heart as not so much "beating" as "fluttering," and for the next six years he was on daily medication for continued angina (heart pain). His ability to function severely curtailed, he retired from ministry and had to spend much of his time in bed. While he was experiencing what appeared to be another heart attack and desperately trying just to stay conscious, believers prayed for him, and he felt what he afterward described as something like a "bolt of lightning." His dizziness and the pain he had endured constantly all day long for six years suddenly vanished.
His daughter described for me what followed: "From that moment, dad was a new man. On the way home, [it was] he [who] carried the luggage, not mom. He was able to breathe deeply, without any pain, and to exercise, and to live a full life.
He made an appointment with his cardiologist as soon as he got home, and the doctor was stunned, saying he could find no medical reason for the 'spontaneous healing.'" Steelberg "spent the next several years traveling" around the world in vigorous ministry, until passing away six years later in his sixties from congestive heart failure, in 1986.250 It was during these extended years of health that in 1984 he prayed for Brad Wilkinson who, along with many others he prayed for, was healed.
Though the child was much younger than Brad, another account about a hole in the heart came my way. Psychology professor Dan Montgomery stayed with a family whose baby had this condition and was scheduled for a risky surgery the next week. Feeling a repeated compulsion to go pray for the child, he finally acquiesced, with the parents' blessing. "Not knowing what else to do, I put my hand on Julie's head and prayed my first ever prayer for physical healing." It was a simple prayer, but the next week, after the surgeon took a final X-ray to be sure where to operate, he canceled the surgery. The surgeon showed the parents the X-ray confirming that the hole had disappeared.251
Healing claims are not of course limited to holes in the heart, and they appear in a wide range of sources, which we merely sample below. Thus, for example, as superintendent and surgeon at a London Mission Hospital in North China,
250. Candace Fisk, personal correspondence, June 25, 2009 (with June 28, 2009). Cf. the account of Dr.
H. B. Wallin, dying from a heart condition, his heart fully healed in the seventeen days between checkups
(Miller, Miracle of Healing, 97–98, based on his interview and Dr. Wallin's citation of medical sources).
251. Montgomery, Faith, 109–12. Dan Montgomery brought this case to my attention. Note also the similar brief account in Anderson, Miracles, 96.
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Dr. R. Kenneth McAll spent four years in a Japanese prison camp. Lacking other means to treat one dying prisoner, he prayed for him; the man had recovered completely by the next morning. Later he prayed with a patient in English, and within twenty minutes, the operation was unnecessary. "Many instances of this kind came my way," he notes, "both during my years as a medical missionary in China and afterwards in general practice" in the United Kingdom.252
In 1952, the Reverend Dr. John Ellis Large was appointed to the (Episcopal) Church of Heavenly Rest in New York City and found that his predecessor had held weekly healing services. Uncomfortable with the notion and convinced that he lacked any healing gift, he sought to discontinue the services, but his parishioners insisted, pointing out that God was the healer in any case. After much study of the matter, he concluded that God could heal people whether the pastor had a gift or not, and he acquiesced to continuing the services. "To his surprise, cures began to be reported almost from the first service," a reporter notes.253
Corrie Ten Boom is mostly known for her family rescuing Jews during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and her subsequent suffering in a Nazi death camp. But she also prayed for sick persons, reporting as examples of associated cures the instant healing of a Chinese pastor's injured wife in Indonesia and the healing of a missionary's leprosy.254
Lloyd John Ogilvie notes that his church, Hollywood Presbyterian Church, did a study regarding biblical teaching on healing. At the end of the study, one of the elders noted that another elder, a psychologist, had been sitting among them in a neck brace and much pain due to an injury. They therefore prayed for his healing, and the next Sunday he was present without the brace and without the pain. This was the beginning of the church's ministry of healing prayer.255 J. Sidlow Baxter, a noted evangelical leader in the twentieth-century West,256 testifies to being healed from diagnosed, severe diabetes.257
When doctors had abandoned hope of survival for a girl with "an incurable tongue disease," Presbyterian Francis Schaeffer read Jas 5:13–18, then anointed her with oil and prayed. "The doctors could not explain the change which took place," Francis's wife, Edith, noted, as the girl, beginning to recover from that day, grew "completely well." She notes that Francis claimed no special gift; he was simply obeying the passage of Scripture. He continued to anoint the sick, though not always with the same results: "There have been other times when someone
252. McAll, "Deliverance," 296. One mental patient "hidden under the bedclothes" was also completely delivered after prayer without any further medicine. On McAll, see also Poewe, "Nature," 3.
253. Oursler, Power, 53–54 .
254. Ten Boom, Tramp, 125–26. The brief testimony does not clarify how or how quickly the leprosy cure occurred. Cf. her reference to healing and another minister in ibid., 60.
255. Ogilvie, Healing, 35.
256. Born in Australia, he was reared in England and in later life immigrated to the United States. For his biography, see Johnston, Baxter.
257. Baxter, Healing, 254–58 (writing thirteen years later, 258).
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has been healed of a disease pronounced incurable, but there also have been times when no change came at all."258
At age seven, on July 16, 1977, Ben Godwin was hit by a car, splintering and dislodging from his body three inches of his tibia (a leg bone). Doctors expected him to walk with a severe limp the rest of his life, if his leg was saved. His Pentecostal mother refused to stop praying, and some three months later X-rays revealed that the entire length of the bone had been restored, shocking the physician. The expected bone graft operation was canceled, and his bone quickly filled in fully.
Far from limping the rest of his life, Ben went on to play sports. Part of his ministry today helps people deal with tragedy.259 I might add that unlike many people,
Godwin kept the X-rays for documentation, which I have seen.
David Wilkerson is widely known not for healings but as the founder of Teen Challenge, a ministry with a high success rate for addiction recovery. When he was twelve years old, however, his father, a pastor, was dying and expected to live just two more hours. As he saw his father's bed and the floor drenched with blood, he ran downstairs to the coal bin and began crying out to God desperately, unaware that the furnace pipes from the bin carried his voice throughout the house. Hearing him, David's parents asked the family doctor to step outside momentarily while David was brought upstairs so he could lay hands on his father and pray.
The doctor entered again, feeling sorry for the boy, but suddenly grew astonished as he examined the father's blood pressure. "I have just witnessed a miracle," the doctor confessed, and David's father got out of the bed. He was still a Pentecostal minister when David as an adult started Teen Challenge.260
A popular musician until his death in a plane crash in 1982, Keith Green was a recent convert to Christianity when he learned that God sometimes healed people for whom prayer was offered. His widow, Melody, recounts that the two of them prayed for a woman named Lori who had an inoperable blood clot in her brain and was expected to live only six months. After they had prayed for about five minutes, Lori felt convinced that she had been healed. Two weeks later, they learned that an X-ray showed no blood clot, reportedly dumbfounding her doctor and three of his colleagues.261
Presbyterian pastor Donald Bartow prayed for an elderly friend "bedfast with a rare skin disease," whose "entire body was covered with an itching, seeping, painful rash. . . . His wife had to change his shorts four or five times a day because of the seeping." Bartow and others anointed him with oil and prayed; the next morning they discovered that he was sitting up, cured, with new skin beneath the old skin that was now peeling off.262 British Anglican author Michael Harper
258. Schaeffer, Tapestry, 222.
259. Godwin, Strategy, 16–66; idem, personal correspondence, May 23, 2009.
260. Wilkerson, Cross, 39–41.
261. Green and Hazard, No Compromise, 101–3 (note that the pagination differs in some other editions; the relevant pages in a Harvest House edition are 137–38).
262. Bartow, Adventures, 118, noting that the rash never recurred. The man, then in his seventies, lived into his nineties. Bartow's interest in healing had started with his own healing years earlier, gradual but contrary to medical expectations (13–14).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
prayed for the sick because it was biblical, yet barely expected anything to happen. Later he began to receive reports that, despite his own lack of faith, some of those for whom he prayed had been healed of chronic illnesses.263 Due to "a complete nervous and physical breakdown," Methodist missionary E. Stanley
Jones was initially forced to return to the States, but found himself suddenly healed in a moment of faith.264
A few decades ago, the now late Episcopal rector Dennis Bennett supplied numerous stories of healings. One case involved a skeptic named Rupe, who doubted that Jesus ever existed. Rupe was expected to die soon because peritonitis from a ruptured appendix had led to the paralysis of his diaphragm. Instead, he was healed through Bennett's prayer (though Bennett admitted that his own faith was limited), astonishing the doctors. Not surprisingly, Rupe relinquished his skepticism!265 In another case, a young man from Spokane named Sibley, hit by a car, was in almost hopeless condition, which Bennett describes as follows:
"Fractured skull, brain damage, paralyzed on one side, a broken leg which could not be set because of his precarious balance between life and death, gangrene in both feet," in a coma already for a month, and now appearing like "skin and bones." Doctors said that he would not be able to communicate because of the severity of the brain damage.266 Rita Reed (soon after this Rita Bennett) prayed with him, and the next day he began moving his head and eating solid food, after the feeding tube was removed from his stomach. Soon he was talking and recovered completely.267
While warden of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, Donald Bridge noted some cases of healings in his sphere of ministry: "I know personally of a serious blooddisease over which the words 'inexplicable recovery' were written on the medical card, of a horrifying varicose ulcer which was healed in the presence of two doctors, and of a case of cancer in the shoulder and neck which, after prayer, was found on the operating-table to have disappeared."268
Another example comes from the family of the Pentecostal scholar Stanley Horton, whom I have known for more than three decades as a person of integrity.
In 1949, his wife, Evelyn, had a serious case of two fibroid tumors, making her pregnancy difficult. The tumors were deemed too dangerously positioned to remove, and doctors advised the Hortons not to have more children. But after three years,
Evelyn felt that God had healed her, and neither of the two doctors she consulted could find any tumors. When in 1956 the nurse announced that Evelyn would
263. Harper, Healings, 12.
264. Miller, Miracle of Healing, 106. Jones became one of the leading missionary statespersons of the twentieth century.
265. Bennett, Morning, 97–100.
266. Ibid., 142–43.
267. Ibid., 143–44. Bennett compares the restoration of Karen Emmott in Marshall, Beyond Ourselves,
221–28. Cf. the reversal of brain damage in DeGrandis, Miracles, 115–16.
268. Bridge, Signs, 190.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
have another child, Evelyn danced down the hallway.269 Many Pentecostals can recount some stories like this from their own family or local church.270
Assemblies of God Seminary president Byron Klaus shared with me some of the accounts from his earlier ministry. A ten-year-old girl had Reye's syndrome.
She lay in a coma on a bed of ice, with "a shunt in her brain to relieve pressure."
Byron heard the doctor observe that she would be dead in forty-eight hours. He and his intern, a Wheaton College student, prayed fervently and felt that God had heard them. The girl awoke well the next day; despite doctors' predictions that she would need three months to regain motor skills, "she walked out of that hospital in 10 days." The next week the Joliet, Illinois, newspaper reported the remarkable recovery; the girl remained well and is now a mother. Likewise, on another occasion Byron prayed for an elderly woman scheduled for lung cancer surgery, who had smoked for more than four decades before her conversion; during the surgery the doctors found nothing and questioned why she had been slated for surgery.
She died ten years later, in her late seventies, from unrelated causes.271
Suffering from pain in his lower extremities, Gene Wilkins was diagnosed by age seven with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that hung over the rest of his youth.272 Especially when weather was damp or he was fatigued, the pain became unbearable, and some activities were impossible for him. When he was about fifteen, the doctor warned his mother that the disease would progress and leave him in a health-care institution by his forties. By his twenties, his hands were also in pain, but he did not tell anyone about his ailment in the United Methodist church where he was doing ministry. He found particularly annoying an older charismatic woman in the church named Edith who always talked about God speaking, and he became especially uncomfortable when God seemed to be speaking to her about him.273 Whenever his family ran out of groceries, she came by with groceries, saying that God had told her their need; one time she even came by with something they had privately decided to buy that day but could not yet afford, again attributing this to God's voice.
Finally one day Edith said, "You're not well; may I lay hands on you?" Fearful that she might burst out in tongues, he refused, yet condescendingly allowed her to hold his hand and pray if it would make her feel better. Shockingly, she prayed for God to free him from the disease that had gripped him since childhood—how did she know about that? Nevertheless, he quickly forgot about her prayer, lacking
269. Olena, Horton, 127; also Stanley Horton, personal correspondence, May 29, 2009. Cf. also the healing of severe fibroids in Schiappacasse, Heals, 29–30 (though my wife and many others I know have simply had to have surgery).
270. E.g., Alexander, Signs, 1–5 (noted above).
271. Byron Klaus, personal correspondence, July 6, 2009. Another cure of Reye's syndrome connected with prayer appears in Tallman, Shakarian, 224.
272. Gene Wilkins, phone interview, May 17, 2009. With treatments now available, victims of typical juvenile rheumatoid arthritis today are usually able to function normally in adulthood (Family Medical
Guide, 744); but Gene's description (esp. given his doctor's verdict) sounds like an atypically severe case.
273. For the charismatic renewal in the Methodist church, see, e.g., Synan, "Charismatics," 178–84.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
the slightest suspicion that her prayer might accomplish anything beneficial. For a few months after the prayer he seemed "lucky" not to be having any bursts of pain.
Nevertheless, he did not connect this "luck" with the prayer until a new chaplaincy role for the volunteer fire department required a complete physical. The doctor, hearing his medical history, informed him that he must have been misdiagnosed. "I don't know who gave you the initial information, but you've never had any arthritic or rheumatoid disease. There is no trace of it in your body." Gene has never had arthritis since that time, more than forty years ago, and continues as a minister in a United Methodist church in New Jersey. He also soon began praying for the sick himself, witnessing various cures, such as a boy healed of childhood emphysema.
Bobbie Spittler, whose husband, Russ, is senior professor of New Testament and provost emeritus at Fuller Theological Seminary, recounted the healing of her mother when Bobbie was thirteen, in 1944. Her mother was a patient in a private tuberculosis sanitarium in Sterling, Illinois, with tuberculosis of bones in the rib cage. The doctor had said that her mother was not going to live through the night, so churches held an all-night prayer meeting, and during the night her mother sensed that God had healed her. On examining her, the doctor concluded that she was healed and sent her home. "My Dad had promised the Lord that he and Mother would go into the ministry if she were healed," and they "pastored several churches on the east coast."274
In connection with the Redbook article about Kathryn Kuhlman, I mentioned Emily Gardiner Neal. In a later book, she explains that her first book, "conceived when I was an agnostic, was intended to be an exposé of 'faith healing.'" Instead, she was converted in the course of her research and ended up defending both
Christian faith and healing.275 After this discovery, she became part of the healing ministry under the auspices of the Episcopal Church.276 In one of her first experiences, she laid hands on an assistant minister who opposed both healing ministry and her involvement (as a woman) in any form of ministry, even prayer for the sick. She recoiled in shock as she heard a sharp crack, only to discover that the sound was that "of a long-dislocated bone in the young man's body snapping back into place." He became a strong advocate of healing ministry after this experience.277
274. Russ Spittler and Bobbie Spittler, personal correspondence, June 2, 2009. Lois Olena first informed me of this account.
275. Neal, Power, vii, referring to idem, Reporter. C. A. Roberts claims that he was skeptical when he began investigating healing evangelism (Coburn, 13) but was won over, especially when the evangelist he was investigating came to his hometown (68).
276. Neal, Power, viii. Healing ministries can flourish in other mainline churches; for a suggested model for the Uniting Church in Australia, see Lucas, "Foundations," 147–77.
277. Neal, Power, 10. Demos Shakarian recounts that after he prayed for a man bent over and able to shuffle along only with a cane, there were popping sounds as the man's back straightened and he was healed (Tallman, Shakarian, 173); cf. bones snapping into place in Zagrans, Miracles, 51–54, 220–21. In a Catholic church in 1828, as a girl was cured of rickets, "the astonished congregation heard the sounds of her bones cracking" as she joined her mother praying by the altar (Duffin, Miracles, 154).
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
She summarizes even a single trip that yielded many reports of healings:
"the instantaneous disappearance of a large abdominal tumor, the restoration of vision to one long blind, and the disappearance of symptoms of advanced
Parkinson's disease."278 To a woman "bent double" with crippling arthritis, walking only with canes, she commanded, "In the name of Jesus, walk," and the woman immediately straightened, handed her the canes, and walked around the room three times. This woman continued to attend the meetings thereafter, remaining well.279
Among other instant healings she notes, a man who had long been paralyzed walked; a woman was "instantly healed of skin cancer"; a man who had long been deaf now could hear.280 A paralyzed boy confined to a wheelchair had not spoken for several years, since his accident. He suddenly stood and shouted, "Praise the Lord!"281 A four-year-old boy with leukemia went into "remission" after prayer and, as of the writing of her book several years later, remained in good health.282
After she prayed for four mentally challenged children, three have been moving toward normalcy.283
Yet she also acknowledges the continuing place of suffering in this age,284 and that most healings were delayed or gradual.285 Neal believed that God particularly used her to heal spinal problems because of the suffering she experienced in her own spine.286 She emphasizes that God is glorified not just by healing but also by his grace during affliction,287 and that the church must ensure never to make those not healed feel like they have failed in any way.288
Others with similar sentiments found that God sometimes healed. One mainline minister prayed for a woman who was so skeptical about anything happening that he himself doubted that the prayer would help her. The next day, however, he learned that the doctor had postponed the operation because the growth had
278. Neal, Power,18 (noting that the last woman's letter attesting this healing was "the first letter she had been able to write in fifteen years"). She also mentioned (18–19) a young woman cured of warts
(though this can disappear spontaneously); further, a woman's breast tumor, to be removed later that week, disappeared overnight, obviating surgery.
279. Ibid. Other healings in the book include a double hernia (25–26) and partial recovery from a debilitating disease through receiving the sacrament (33–34).
280. Ibid., 41–42.
281. Ibid., 56 (noting that much of his motor function returned).
282. Ibid.
283. Ibid. For claims of healings of mental impairment or its causes, see, e.g., Stormont, Wigglesworth,
105–6; and (gradually, in a child) Alexander, "Marvelous Healings"; DeGrandis, Miracles, 13–14 (healing during a vision at age thirty from the prenatal brain damage that had mildly impaired the person's intelligence); Schiappacasse, Heals, 36–38 (apparently due to healing of brain impairment); possibly implied in Ising, Blumhardt, 122. Llewellyn, "Events," 257–58, cites a healing of intelligence (even if particulars are exaggerated, records seem to indicate a significant change).
284. Neal, Power, x–xi, 1–8, 12–17, 21–22.
285. Ibid., 39–46.
286. Ibid., 18.
287. Ibid., 21–22 (noting on 19 a boy who was not healed but received a deeper experience of God).
288. Ibid., 59–67.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
shrunk; "a day or two later" she was discharged because it had vanished.289 One could cite other sources, such as various traveling evangelists who claim numerous miracles, but these are often particularly difficult to verify, and I will not offer many further examples of these, some of which would be more controversial than others.290
One detailed study of ten Christians involved in healing ministry291 noted contrasts with a study of selected non-Christian healers, especially that the latter often experienced healing power "as an impersonal force," whereas the Christian healers experienced contact with "a personal deity."292 The Christian healers all experienced "awareness of God during healing" and attributed the power to God rather than to something innate in themselves.293 Most of them had once opposed or not believed in "supernatural healing" before their own healing ministry.294 Some felt heat when they prayed, but all felt divine guidance.295
289. Althouse, Healing, 88–89.
290. Some focus first on the least afflicted to "build faith" (Crandall, Raising, 154–55, objecting to this practice). One book by Todd Bentley lists vast numbers of healing claims, though most, in keeping with the genre of many revivalist reports, lack specificity; e.g., Bentley, Miraculous, 111 (a long-distance one), 111–12 (instant healing of bones), 114, 142 (teeth), 145, 168–69, 174–75, 186, 195, 203, 204–5,
206, 208–9, 214, 215, 217, 220, 225, 231, 232–33, 239, 241, 255, 257, 259–60, 271 (a new breast formed after a breast had been removed), 285, 298 (polio), 301 (an infant's hydrocephalus, with instant, visible shrinking of the head to normal size). Bentley acknowledges God's sovereign activity (332) and that not all were healed fully, especially in the earlier years (196); he also notes the lack of resuscitations so far, despite attempts (298; he later claimed even these at the controversial Lakeland Revival). He reports healings of deafness: 133, 146, 153, 164, 166, 168, 169, 177, 178, 179, 181–82, 186, 196, 205 (several cases), 208, 212, 219, 225, 237, 240, 241, 254, 257, 259–60, 262, 263, 264, 269, 276 (139 cases), 284
(twenty-six cases), 298, 302 (120 cases), 306. He also reports healing of tuberculosis: 302 (fifty-two cases), 307 (sixty-five cases, emptying the entire tuberculosis ward of a hospital in Malawi). He reports healings even of HIV or AIDS on 203, 256 (two cases), 260, 262–63, 302 (eighteen cases). I simply list claims here and at some other points in the book, without dependence on them for the book's secondary argument; many of these claims were based on spontaneous experiences at healing meetings rather than subsequent testing, though 301 claims three cases of tested change in status. Serious controversies came to surround Bentley's subsequent ministry, both regarding his theology and the tragic turn taken by his personal life (esp. after he suffered celebrity status). The views of the majority of charismatics and others
I know who attended his meetings have ranged from cautious to (more commonly) skeptical or even outraged (see, e.g., the noncessationist, critical evaluation and firsthand account in Dembski, "Faith").
To my knowledge, the claimed medical documentation for his meetings has never been produced.
Nevertheless, some better-grounded healing claims could at least illustrate the basic point that a number of people in his meetings believe that they have experienced or witnessed healings from God, a point not affected by problems surrounding Bentley's personal life. (Llewellyn, "Events," 256, cites an eyewitness he deems reliable regarding a case of cured blindness earlier in Bentley's ministry; I lack access to further information.) 291. Tilley, "Phenomenology," 73–459 (e.g., Don Williams, 420–59).
292. Ibid., 36. For a psychological study of non-Christian healers among the !Kung, see Katz, Energy,
233–38; but some features may be learned (238).
293. Tilley, "Phenomenology," 540; for experiencing the Spirit, see also 544.
294. Ibid., 540–41.
295. Ibid., 541. For heat or electrical current, see, e.g., Salmon, Heals, 27–28; Brown, "Awakenings," 363
(heat, electricity); Bartow, Adventures, 93 (heat), 94 (current, but noting that both experiences were rare);
Osborn, Healing, 44 (but denying that it predicts whether healing occurs), 327; heat in Koch, Zulus, 102;
Green, Asian Tigers, 97–98; Bergunder, "Miracle Healing," 298; Steve and Sheila Heneise, correspondence,
Aug. 21, 2008. About half spent time alone in prayer before healing ministry, and about half felt special
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
Various Examples from Roman Catholic Sources Although a larger number of my examples above derive from Protestant circles, because they represent the majority of the sources most readily available to me apart from already widely discussed sources like Lourdes, Catholics also report a significant number of healing claims. (I am focusing on them in this separate segment in an attempt to compensate for not being able to represent such claims proportionate to their actual numbers.) In the preceding chapter, I noted some Catholic healing claims associated with Lourdes, and I will return to them in fuller detail in chapter
14. I also noted some claims associated with Father DiOrio's ministry earlier in this chapter and will mention Francis MacNutt in a later chapter. Here I focus on various other cases. Non-Catholics may not be comfortable with the methods in some of the following examples, just as others may object to Pentecostal, mainline
Protestant, or other groups of examples. But we are all glad for recoveries, we have already noted problems with the old Protestant polemic, and however one explains particular cases, many of these examples appear significant cures.
Thus, for example, a woman who was considered incurably crippled claimed that she was healed instantly at a Roman Catholic healing site in Montreal.296 In June 1976, a young man was told that he was dying from Hodgkin's disease. He committed himself to God and testified about five years later that he was grateful for his health and strength; he was now a novitiate in a Benedictine community.297
When two-year-old Teresa Benedicta McCarthy swallowed sixteen times the lethal dose of Tylenol on March 20, 1987, the Massachusetts General Hospital warned that she would die unless she received a liver transplant. After a few days of prayer to the saint for whom she had been named, her liver and kidneys recovered fully without a transplant. Her main physician, Dr. Ronald Kleinman, associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, was Jewish. He considered her cure "miraculous," reporting the cure both to the Vatican and in a 1997 interview with CBS Evening News.298
Sister Briege McKenna was suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis that deformed her feet, stiffened her fingers, and afflicted her with continuous pain for several years. At a retreat in December 1970, she felt deeply touched by Jesus and was instantly and completely healed of sores, stiffness, pain, and deformity. She never again had arthritis or related pain, but, like a number of others whose testimonies I have not noted in this degree of detail, regarded her spiritual healing that day as even more compassion for those for whom they prayed (Tilley, "Phenomenology," 544). Compassion also figures heavily in some earlier reports (e.g., Glover, "Modern Miracles," 4, along with abandoning pride).
296. Oursler, Power, 49. People have reported healings at other sites as well. DeGrandis, Miracles,
27–28, reports that when the body of St. Charles Makhlouf (1828–98) was exhumed in 1950, it was free from corruption, and that more than twelve hundred reported healing in connection with his shrine over the next two years (including one with a hunchback since childhood).
297. Kirby, "Recovery," 113–14.
298. Woodward, Miracles, 370; Duffin, Miracles, 139 (noting also Jewish physicians' testimony in other Roman Catholic miracle investigations). Cf. healing from poisoning also in DeGrandis, Miracles,
113–14.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
significant than the physical one.299 After that experience, people began to be healed when she prayed for them, despite her personal reticence to be involved in "healing."300
Among the first healings was someone blind and paralyzed, who was bitter against God and was skeptical of Sister Briege. That night the woman's paralyzed arms were restored, and within days her sight returned, and a spiritual transformation began.301
Soon after, Sister Briege prayed for someone dying from cancer and for someone with shingles; both were healed.302 In time many others were healed of cancer,303 including a priest who had been dying.304 A French Jesuit priest had gangrene in his leg, and amputation was imminent; after prayer, he was completely and visibly healed.305
In September 1959, when medical treatments for leukemia were far less helpful than what is available today, Veronica Dougherty Hopson in North Sydney, Australia, was given at most six months to live. She was dying from acute myeloblastic leukemia; it is reported that 95 percent of the white blood cells "in her bone marrow were lymphoblasts."306 Her mother asked the Sisters of Saint Joseph to intercede for her with the order's founder, who was being studied for sainthood. For awhile,
Veronica seemed to grow worse rather than better, but in early February she was released from the hospital, and by May her blood count had become normal. As of twenty years later, the leukemia had never returned. Although remissions occur, her physicians considered this one extraordinary.307
Healing has been an important part of the charismatic renewal in the Catholic Church. (I noted earlier that between one-third and three-quarters of active charismatic Catholics claim to have witnessed healings.308) The Catholic charismatic movement has also included the involvement of several biblical scholars, including
Father George Montague, for many years the editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly.309
Toward the beginning of the Catholic charismatic renewal in 1967, one of the students felt led to pray for her housemother's phlebitis; the swelling reduced quickly, and the housemother was released from the hospital much earlier than expected.310
299. McKenna, Miracles, 2–5. The severity of her original illness is described more graphically in the Saint
Louis Review ("Poor Clare Sister Tells of Healing Ministry to Others," Dec. 6, 2007; accessed on Aug. 10,
2009, at http://stlouisreview.com/article/2007–12–06/poor-clare-sister-tells-healing-ministry-others). As with other ministries cited in this book, my record of her healing reports does not constitute endorsement of every idea in her book; but I do pause to note that, like most others with ministries of healing noted in this book, Sister Briege recognizes that not everyone prayed for will be healed (McKenna, Miracles, 20, 38).
300. McKenna, Miracles, 15.
301. Ibid., 16.
302. Ibid., 17.
303. Many people, especially children, had been healed of leukemia when she prayed (ibid., 38).
304. Ibid., 43–44.
305. Ibid., 54. Note also the moving story of Sister Briege's aunt's temporary recovery (125–28).
306. Woodward, Miracles, 368.
307. Ibid., 369.
308. See Csordas, Self, 31; Rogge, "Relationship," 376–77.
309. Father Montague acknowledges his involvement in, e.g., Montague, Spirit, 1.
310. Mansfield, Pentecost, 51–52; cf. also Laurentin, Catholic Pentecostalism, 101. Mansfield was herself the student and initially reluctant because of associations with television evangelists whom she found repugnant (Mansfield, Pentecost, 51).
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
Some more dramatic healings were reported subsequently. In one of the movement's first public healing services, held at Notre Dame University in 1974, Father Francis
MacNutt invited those who had experienced either spiritual or physical healing to stand, and roughly half of those in the stadium stood. After doctors' examinations, a number gave testimonies the next day; cures claimed included blindness and deafness.311 Although no verification procedures were yet in place, in contrast to Lourdes, one researcher spoke with one of the persons healed. Although her eyes remained defective, after the Notre Dame conference she stopped using her guide dog and white cane, astonishing those who had known her as blind. Moreover, although she had attended a university by using Braille, she now learned how to read visually.312
At the 1974 Catholic charismatic conference at Laval University in Quebec, the healing service was not a plenary but merely one of many workshops. As one of the doctors present was complaining about the idea of divine healing,
"a paralyzed woman who had not walked in six years" suddenly rose from her wheelchair, walked from the workshop to others, and continued walking that evening.313 To walk even after being immobilized for a month is difficult; to walk after six years of muscles atrophying is extraordinary.314 While the Medical Bureau at Lourdes excludes all cases of paralysis unless organic changes are clearly certified, and this claim would therefore not be admitted officially by their strict standards,315 a comparable healing at Lourdes early in the twentieth century was widely circulated.316
In another case, a nun's spinal column was damaged, leaving her with impaired movement and the assurance of five physicians that she would need to wear a brace for the remainder of her life. Eighteen months later, she found herself permanently healed the day after prayer.317 One book summarizes some other healings reported in the early Catholic charismatic movement, including "of nervous, muscular and bone disorders; of congenital defects in infants . . . healings from very grave maladies pronounced incurable by specialists," and so forth.318 Healings continue to be reported in a number of Catholic parishes. For example, Father Edward J.
McDonough prays for the sick in a church in Roxbury in the inner city of Boston, and many claim to receive healing there.319 A researcher found persons healed and making little fanfare of it, such as the apparently immediately effective cure of a Houston woman's spinal problem.320
311. Laurentin, Catholic Pentecostalism, 103.
312. Ibid., 104.
313. Ibid., 104–5.
314. Ibid., 105. Reported in other healings as well, e.g., Schiappacasse, Heals, 16–17.
315. Laurentin, Catholic Pentecostalism, 104–5.
316. Ibid., 105 (on Gargam; despite never being officially proclaimed a miracle, the testimony was influential).
317. O'Connor, Movement, 162.
318. Ibid., 162–63. On the movement, see also briefly Hocken, "Renewal."
319. Wakefield, Miracle, 57–58.
320. Laurentin, Catholic Pentecostalism, 118.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Joseph Marchese shared with me his experience. He was about thirty-five in the late 1970s when he discovered that he had a severe case of gout. Every day he had to take the kind of medication that was available at that time; whenever he tried to stop it, he would have an attack of gout within a day or two. Although a charismatic Catholic, Joe had never trusted faith healing, which he associated with images of Elmer Gantry. In 1985, however, he and some friends from a group coordinated by Neal Lozano, birthed from the Catholic charismatic movement, attended an interdenominational conference led by John Wimber (on whom see comments below). Encouraged by the conference's emphasis on healing,
Joe's friend Bill felt an urge to pray for Joe's healing and persisted despite Joe's insistence that nothing was wrong with him. Finally Joe admitted that he had gout; Bill did not know what gout was or even what a pancreas was, and needed even Joe's direction to know where to lay his hands. Nevertheless, Bill finally laid hands on him, much to Joe's embarrassment. Suddenly, however, Joe felt a very hot sensation on his back where Bill's hand was, and it felt like a mule had kicked him in the kidney. Although not aware of it himself, Joe recounts that others reported that Bill jolted about six inches off the ground. Feeling convinced that God had healed him, Joe never took another pill for gout after that day and never had another symptom. Whenever his blood has been tested, it has always remained in normal limits. That has been the case for nearly a quarter of a century now.321
I summarize most of the following examples from a book by Benedict Heron, prior of the Benedictine Monastery of Christ the King in Cockfosters, North
London, which includes comments by physicians on most of the claimed cures.
For example, one doctor was bedridden from malignant tumors of the spine, and other physicians had relinquished hope for him. He was then healed after being anointed with oil by women from a British Catholic charismatic prayer group.
At this advanced stage, this condition is not known to be cured spontaneously.322
A nun debilitated from medically incurable bronchiectasis was healed during a prayer meeting in San Francisco.323 A priest's medically incurable spinal disorder was instantly and completely healed during a prayer meeting.324
Likewise, a medically incurable, long-term, disabling back injury was completely and permanently healed through laying on hands.325 A severe case of psoriasis that was causing partial deafness as well was apparently cured.326 The book's medical
321. Joseph Marchese, phone interview, May 11, 2009. Cf. also the instant and permanent healing of gout in Augustine City of God 22.8.
322. Heron, Channels, 123–24.
323. Ibid., 124–26.
324. Ibid., 129–30.
325. Ibid., 132–33.
326. Ibid., 135–36. The medical note implies that the psoriasis was cured; the testimony claims a cure for all the symptoms but does not explicitly specify whether the psoriasis had permanently departed.
The healing of severe psoriasis, suffered for twenty-seven years (with "scaly and even bleeding" large red blotches all over the body), appears in Salmon, Heals, 63; also twenty-five years of psoriasis in ibid., 65–66.
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editors note that "severe heart failure with fluid in the lungs following several heart attacks almost invariably leads to near incapacity and ultimately death." Yet they report a case of complete healing.327
Some gradual healings reported were also often unusual. Normally a loose hip joint requires surgical correction, but after continuing prayer at a charismatic retreat, the hip gradually repositioned itself without surgery.328 A nurse was gradually healed from medically incurable ankylosing spondylitis, a progressive spinal disease.329 Still, such cures do not happen only gradually. For example, a severe case of spondylitis was reported cured at Lourdes immediately on August 15,
1943, raising a dying woman to complete health.330
Elsewhere, it is reported that when Father Dennis Kelleher prayed for Tom Curtin, who was partly paralyzed due to severed nerves, the pain left, and within five weeks Curtin had the vast majority of his motion back.331 In 1976, knowing that his prostate was to be removed, Chuck Schiappacasse received prayer at a Catholic charismatic retreat; his prostate recovered and has remained normal thereafter (as of the report's publication in 1993).332 Father Robert DeGrandis has compiled numerous accounts from the Catholic charismatic movement, including the following: a comatose five-year-old whose ribs were broken and her spleen ruptured in a dangerous accident, was miraculously healed of all these injuries.333 Likewise, a crippled hand was straightened;334 a child with a diagnosed, serious heart problem was completely healed after prayer;335 during prayer, bleeding stopped and a cut closed;336 a child disabled and fed intravenously for fourteen years was completely healed after Jesus appeared to her in a vision.337
A charismatic Catholic community in El Paso reports numerous healings.338 For example, a woman reports that she was nonmedically healed of uterine cancer, and then had a baby.339 One girl was paralyzed in hand and foot since birth; after twenty
A single prayer cured a two-year-old with blisters since birth (63); three days after prayer a woman with eczema for thirty-five years found herself cured (63–64).
327. Ibid., 142.
328. Ibid., 133–34.
329. Ibid., 137–39. Wilson, "Miracle Events," 272–73, reports another cure of this disease.
330. Cranston, Miracle, 216–23; Woodard, Faith, 53. "Immediately" does not mean that she regained all her weight instantly (it was about three pounds a week), but she did regain her strength and become active right away.
331. Schiappacasse, Heals, 22–23.
332. Ibid., 42; the book (from 1993) reports other healings in connection with the Catholic charismatic movement (e.g., 34, 47, 55).
333. DeGrandis, Miracles, 67–68; although the account is not clear, it appears that the healing took place before the expected operation could occur.
334. Ibid., 32.
335. Ibid., 41–42.
336. Ibid., 79–80 (Catholic charismatic prayer for a six-year-old).
337. Ibid., 89–90.
338. Laurentin, Miracles, 12, also reports one child not healed; but clearly the proliferation of healings in the community was unusual.
339. Ibid., 10.
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minutes of prayer, the paralysis was cured.340 A doctor sent the researcher medical records supporting a surprising cure of diabetes there.341 One of the movement's converts had been an atheist, and appears to have been healed immediately of a serious organic illness.342 Other cures are also reported.343
Third Wave and Other Recent Sources Emphasizing Healing Some charismatic circles emphasizing healing are controversial in noncharismatic circles, but it would hardly be fair to talk about contemporary healing claims while excluding all charismatic sources (any more than it would be fair to exclude some of the other circles noted above that are controversial with some others). They account for too many claims to be ignored; one need not agree with every detail of a figure's teaching to appreciate the recoveries of individuals associated with that ministry. I will not, however, focus on some of the more extreme circles.
Some recent figures publicly associated with frequent prayers for healing include
John Wimber and the Vineyard movement strongly influenced by him;344 those associated with Global Awakening and New Wine; and some recent charismatic and Third Wave sources. Because some of these figures have seminary training, they have often been able to articulate their understanding of healing in ways intelligible to more sympathetic circles in academia in ways that most Pentecostals a century ago were not. Some critics may disagree with elements in some of these figures' theology, but it is difficult to disagree with their concern for helping those who are hurting, and some reports from these circles seem to include cures, like some of those elsewhere, too significant to dismiss. Wimber also appears far more mainstream and theologically informed than many popular teachers with healing or deliverance ministries today. From early in its growth, Wimber's movement self-identified as "empowered evangelicals" rather than as Pentecostals.345
Examples from the Vineyard Movement John Wimber developed his theology of healing from George Ladd's scholarly understanding of the kingdom,346 which Wimber sought to implement practically
340. Ibid., 14–15 (noting photographs of the healing prayer and result, which are included between 26 and 27).
341. Ibid., 27, 32. Though noting that the standards would not meet those at Lourdes (32), Laurentin finds the latter too strict (35, 90, 91).
342. Ibid., 59–64.
343. Healed tuberculosis (ibid., 12–13); childhood retardation (due to prenatal malnutrition) healed
(14); a woman on crutches unexpectedly healed after prayer (58); blindness (86); and others (46–49).
344. Other writers, such as Benedict Heron, prior of the Benedictine Monastery of Christ the King in Cockfosters, North London, also take note of Wimber and Vineyard in this connection (Heron, Channels,
113). Many treat Wimber largely favorably (e.g., the Anabaptist approach in Bauman, "Response," 117).
345. See Jackson, Quest, 14 (citing for the title more generally Nathan and Wilson, Evangelicals).
346. Ladd viewed Jesus's miracles as demonstrations of the kingdom (e.g., Ladd, Kingdom, 47; cf. also others, e.g., Sabourin, "Healings," 157), which he viewed as already/not yet (e.g., Ladd, Theology, 70–80);
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regarding signs. Likewise, Wimber's known openness to academia has made him more palatable in many academic circles than some of his recent predecessors in emphasizing healing were.347 Some popular sources that are particularly harsh toward Wimber today are so partly on the basis of guilt by association, because he was connected, usually temporarily, with persons or movements that they condemn or deem eccentric.348 His own books are modest in the healings they report, but all persons I have consulted who knew him personally have spoken more freely of healings that occurred frequently in his ministry.349 In fact, while
Wimber witnessed few if any healings initially when he began praying, by 1982 they were seeing "fifty to 100 people a week healed" in their church services, most of which he attributed to the prayers of people in the congregation.350
Social anthropologist David C. Lewis researched healing claims in Wimber's ministry and concluded that in fact a number of notable healings had taken place.351 Focusing on a single meeting, Lewis claims that roughly one-third of those prayed for received a high degree of healing, with another quarter or so claiming some degree of healing.352 Reported long-term healings of afflictions in this meeting included a hernia; sensitive teeth; hip pain; another hip injury and leg problem; a twisted ankle; a spine injury; injuries from a car crash; improveon Ladd's life, see D'Elia, Place. Scholars from various traditions have concurred that Jesus's miracles were meant to demonstrate the kingdom (e.g., Saucy, "Miracles," 285; De Wet, "Basis," 51–54). For the kingdom as both present and future in Jesus's teaching, see, e.g., Stein, Method and Message, 60–79; Aune,
Cultic Setting, 3–4; Dunn, Jesus and Spirit, 89; Harvey, History, 91; Perrin, Kingdom, 73–74 (noting the modification in Dodd's approach); Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:389; Witherington, End, 51–74; Meier,
Marginal Jew, 2:10, 289–506; Stanton, "Message and Miracles," 57–61; Theissen and Merz, Guide, 275.
Cf. Barnes, "Miracles," 241: "Those who deny the continuing reality and occurrence of the charismata . . . are effectively denying the realised and present character of the kingdom of God."
347. Lewis, Healing, 293, notes that most participants in Lewis's study involving Wimber were also middle-class professionals, against the usual social stereotype of "ecstatic" activity among the "dispossessed"; for some academic engagement in Third Wave circles, see Collins, Exorcism, 105. (Cf. similarly the "unremarkable" demographic spread in Catholic charismatic healing services in Csordas,
Self, 30.) On his life, see Wimber, Wimber; for his theology of healing, see Kydd, Healing, 46–59; for his influence, e.g., in Australia, see Lucas, "Foundations," 4–5; among some Catholic charismatic circles,
Csordas, Language, 90, 94, 112. With respect to healing, Third Wave theology is more unified than classical Pentecostal theology (Wright, "Profiles," 286; on the Third Wave, see 273–81; on classical
Pentecostalism, 281–86).
348. For these temporary associations with movements that became more controversial, see Armstrong,
"Wimber," 467. See Hexham and Poewe, "Churches," on misrepresentations of charismatics.
349. E.g., Gary Best (phone interview and follow-up personal correspondence, Sept. 25, 2008) assured me that Wimber always underreported miracles, wanting to avoid any semblance of "hype." Others report healing incidents involving Wimber not reported in his own books (e.g., Venter, Healing, 126–27). Venter worked with Wimber in his early healing ministry, but I first knew of Venter after correspondence and reading his earlier Reconciliation (including their story, 29–78), learning only later of his connections with Wimber.
350. Wimber, "Zip," 28, estimating that 20 percent of the three thousand members of Anaheim Vineyard at the time "regularly see someone healed through their prayers."
351. Lewis, Healing, is one of the more carefully documented of the academic studies I have found regarding healing claims so far; it was helpfully recommended to me by Professor Peter Davids. Part of the work has been reprinted in Lewis, "Analysis."
352. Lewis, Healing, 22.
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ment in hearing, with no further need for a hearing aid; and so forth.353 (Some of these claims are more unusual, hence more compelling as miracle claims, than others.) Lewis offers statistical analysis and argues that it is extremely improbable that particular prophetic words about particular conditions at this conference reflect merely coincidence.354 Some other studies involving some faith healing activities have yielded analogous results.355
Wimber himself is now deceased, but I interviewed a few of his long-term associates and other ministers in the Vineyard movement that he directly influenced.356
One was Bill Twyman, who was mentored in healing ministry by Wimber from about 1982 to 1998.357 He related to me that he has prayed for thousands of people, and has consequently seen large numbers improved and healed, sometimes during the prayer and often about two days later. As we talked, he thought over sample cases in his ministry that he could recall quickly offhand (I confirmed with those I met afterward any incidents that involved them); I offer a minimal sampling here.
For example, when Bill was with John Wimber in Canada on one occasion, Wimber called for the blind to come forward for prayer for healing. Bill recounts that on that occasion Wimber had him pray for one of the lines, and the colorblind person for whom Twyman prayed could instantly distinguish colors.358 The next day, when Bill returned home from that conference tired, someone asked him for prayer. The man was scheduled to have cataracts removed because he was blind in one eye. Bill told him to cover his functional eye and simply commanded, "See!"
Twyman recounts that tears issued from the eye that had been blind, and the man shouted, "My cataracts are gone! I can see perfectly!" Bill retorted, "You're kidding!" but the man could read the time on the wall clock perfectly with his previously blind eye. Now confident, Twyman decided to follow up with another
353. Ibid., 21–43. Lewis reports other healings elsewhere in the book, e.g., healing of sciatica (209–10); and, among healings not at the conference, the healing of congenital blindness (288–89); deafness (the wife) and long-term insomnia (her husband; 289–90). Cf. the medically attested disappearance of severe sarcoidosis after prayer, including the apparently immediate disappearance of nodules from the patient's eye (321).
354. Ibid., 135 (after accounting for all the factors via conservative estimates), suggesting one chance in twelve hundred, with a probability of 0.000833 (statistically significant). He compares this quite favorably with scientific studies concerning telepathy and mediums (141). Cf. the unusual knowledge exhibited after an apparent out-of-body experience (190–91). If he is correct, this might also compare favorably with this practice in some different charismatic circles, where some observers have associated it instead with merely random guesses.
355. Benson, Healing, 188, citing 67 percent of those prayed for claiming improvements on physical problems such as back aches and arthritis and 77 percent for psychological problems. These do not appear to have been organic ailments, and Benson acknowledges that the survey did not pursue medical corroboration, "but relief was, nevertheless, afforded to people who had been suffering."
356. In addition, other works recount eyewitness testimony, such as the healing of deafness (Jackson,
Quest, 13, 100, witnessed by Jackson); and other accounts of healing activity when he prayed (e.g., 50,
59, 116–17).
357. Interview, Nov. 11, 2007, in Corona, California. He was at that time pastor of the Inland Vineyard in Corona.
358. Cf. Llewellyn, "Events," 256, for another report of organic color blindness being instantly healed.
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prayer, and, grabbing the man's hand, commanded the nub of his severed thumb to grow—and nothing happened. Bill concluded this account by explaining that they pray for whoever is in need, but God sovereignly chooses whom and when to heal. This emphasis is faithful to Vineyard teaching359 and is held among many who pray for the healing of sick persons.360
Among Bill's other examples, a non-Christian woman was present one day as he was leading a Bible study in his home. She had a lump on her shin, and as his wife, he, and others were coming to lay hands on it to pray, it was healed before they could touch it. He notes that those present witnessed the lump instantly disappear. The visitor quickly became a Christian as well.361
Bill provided numerous other examples as they came to him randomly. One of these recoveries interested me, but because it did not so far sound very complete and might be healing naturally, for all I could tell, I was initially reticent to include it in this already-long book; Bill had already supplied me with more stories than I had space for.362 As Bill had heard the story, the doctor initially held out minimal hope for recovery.363 At the time, I was toward the beginning of my process of interviewing people about their experiences with healing, so I was still a little skeptical, or at least very cautious. Less than three months before our conversation, Jamie Gillentine, Bill's relative and one of the ministers at Anaheim
Vineyard, had experienced a diving accident on August 23, 2007, that shattered the sixth vertebra (C-6) in his neck.364 Although it is possible to break the neck without smashing the spinal cord, the accident smashed 30 percent of his spinal cord, hemorrhaging it and lodging bone fragments in it. After examining the MRI, the doctor warned that in an injury like this one, if all went well, they could expect
Jamie to be quadriplegic. After surgery, Jamie could use most of his arms except his hands, but nothing below his chest. He did not trust that God would heal him,
359. Wimber and the Vineyard traditionally emphasize God's sovereignty (Jackson, Quest, 115, 230).
360. This feature of healing theology, allowing for mysteries in God's will, appears in many accounts, e.g., Neal, Power, 23, 90; McKenna, Miracles, 20, 38; Miller, Miracle of Healing, 61; Baxter, Healing, 265–90 passim; Wilkerson, Beyond, 123–24; Chevreau, Turnings, 185–88; Best, Supernatural, 87; Dunkerley,
Healing Evangelism, 67–70; Godwin, Strategy, 53; Father Richard Bain in Winston, Faith, 137–38; Crandall,
Raising, 151, 154, 179, 192, 197; Bruce, Care, 81; Yonggi Cho (in Yung, Quest, 210); Eleanor Sebiano
(personal discussion, Jan. 31, 2009); Sheila Heneise (interview, April 5, 2009); Louise Koffa (interview,
Oct. 6, 2010); earlier healing teachers like A. J. Gordon in Curtis, Faith, 88, 197, 199; J. C. Blumhardt in Kydd, Healing, 44 (God gives either healing or strength to bear it); cf. Hunter, Christianity Beyond Belief,
136. Even Aladura church members, known to pray with great confidence, acknowledge that "God grants only what he wishes" (Ray, "Aladura Christianity," 284).
361. It is said that Foluso Abiola's long-term abdominal lump disappeared during prayer in Lagos's
Deeper Life Bible Church (Ojo, "Miracles," 47, citing W. F. Kumuyi, Deeper Life Magazine, Oct. 1989).
362. Twyman, interview, Nov. 11, 2007. I have omitted some of his reports.
363. As Bill had heard it, workman's compensation had already spent $25,000 getting Jamie's (the relative's) home ready for a paralyzed person. The doctor had warned that if Jamie regained anything (a proposition he viewed as doubtful), it might be a year before they would know.
364. His emergence from the water, despite being paralyzed from the neck down, was itself unexpected
(suggesting to some the possibility of "angelic help"), as noted in "Jamie's Story," a summary sent to me with permission of Anaheim Vineyard via Joe Gorra (Dec. 9, 2009).
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but he held on each day and began to view the therapists' invitations as joyful challenges. Thousands of people were praying for his recovery.
Sometimes people do recover, and Jamie had significant help from physical therapists; he thus admits that he cannot say what percentage of the recovery was from natural healing and what percentage revealed specific divine action. It was, however, very rare to get that much ability back, and so quickly. Toward the end of writing this book I had grown in personal confidence that extraordinary healings do occur, and accordingly I checked into his progress. Video clips revealed some of his agonizing progress in physical therapy, wearing braces. By the end of the clips, though, he was running, with a clear smile of joy at what he was now able to accomplish. The video was posted March 13, 2008, less than seven months after his injury. At the least, Jamie's faith clearly provided courage that he could work to improve; even the harshest critic should affirm the motivational value of faith in a case like this. And who can blame Jamie and Anaheim Vineyard for affirming that Jamie had some divine help along the way?365 On minimalist scientific criteria, one might not prove miraculous intervention; yet I suspect that given the outcome, many people if in the same situation would have valued the same sort of help.
I also interviewed Bill Jackson (affectionately known as Jax), a Vineyard minister involved in training many Vineyard pastors. When the machinist at Jackson's factory walked by him, the words "carpal tunnel" came to Jax's mind, so he asked the machinist what it meant. It turned out that the machinist had a bad enough case of this disorder that he was supposed to have surgery the following week. Instead,
Jax prayed for him, the man was healed without an operation, and the man was converted, becoming the initial foundation of the church that Jax was planting.366
Bill Jackson noted numerous other sudden recoveries, including of a woman who had a secondary renal collection unit with no outlet, which was collecting toxins.
The area visibly receded as they prayed and receded further by morning. I afterward talked with the woman in question, and she confirmed this event.367
Gary Best, a senior Vineyard leader in Canada, recounts numerous healings,368 often following precise revelations about the needs, such as two crushed knuckles
365. Details of Jamie's injury and recovery appear on an audio recording (also at "Beautiful News,"
Feb. 17, 2008, at http://www.radiovineyard.com/audio/021708CA.mp3) and a video recording (also available elsewhere on the internet) appears at http://kingdomtriangle.blogspot.com/2008/03/jamis
-story.html, posted March 13, 2008 (accessed Aug. 28, 2009). I also subsequently received "Jamie's Story," a written account sent by permission of Anaheim Vineyard.
366. Interview, Nov. 13, 2007, in Corona, California, also in Jackson, Quest, 131. He also recounts the healing of a blind eye when he prayed (Jackson, Quest, 126). In the interview he also reported that his wife had been healed of dyslexia during prayer some years earlier.
367. Due to the limitations in our conversation, I failed to ascertain whether the unit was afterward removed surgically or supernaturally (only that it was removed), but the immediate and urgent situation was visibly resolved through prayer before she understood the nature of her condition.
368. Best, Supernatural, 29, 77–78, 79, 101n7, 108, 124, 126, 127–28, 129. Best notes sadly that some are not healed (214–15) or are healed only partly (216). He also affirms doctors (228) and acknowledges
God's sovereignty (87). Best's book was among my favorites, due to its humility and honesty.
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(shocking the person who was healed),369 blindness,370 and deafness.371 In one case, a six-week-old baby, having fallen some distance onto its head, was unconscious, its face contorted and turning black; they prayed, and the baby recovered completely before the ambulance arrived.372 I recount a healing reported to me by Todd Hunter, an Anglican bishop who was also a Wimber associate, in chapter 12.
Global Awakening and New Wine I offer here some brief examples of claims from the ministries of Global Awakening and New Wine. I address the latter in somewhat more detail because I was able to interview Bruce Collins, the overseer of that group. Although my treatment of Global Awakening is brief, Candy Gunther Brown has devoted careful and detailed attention to this group.373 Randy Clark, a graduate of Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary and at one time a Vineyard pastor, leads Global Awakening.
He reports a number of healings,374 including many cases of deafness,375 inability to walk or walk properly,376 and even hydrocephalus,377 AIDS,378 and Down syndrome.379 He includes the testimony of Carole Baerg, who had been given less than three months to live, who was miraculously healed when prayed for in 1994 and has been traveling widely in ministry since that time.380 He also records a colleague's claim of visible miracles such as tumors falling off and "missing parts" being "restored."381 He personally shared with me some recent incidents, although at a point too late in the production of this book to elaborate them;
369. Ibid., 56. For the healing of fingers crippled by arthritis, see Pytches, Come, 88.
370. Best, Supernatural, 125 (in one eye).
371. Ibid., 88.
372. Ibid., 94–95.
373. For now, see Brown, "Awakenings." Although Clark works with a range of traditions, he does not endorse prosperity teaching (354).
374. Besides those specified here or elsewhere in this book, see Clark, Impartation, 22, 35 (a severe spinal injury), 115, 125 (bone cancer), 127, 128 (bladder cancer), 133, 145, 164, 165, 188, 198–99 (a seriously crossed eye instantly and completely healed), 200–201 (cancer), 203 (a baby said to be dead in the womb, born healthy after prayer), 210 (about four hundred people healed in eight days); also Brown,
Mory, Williams, and McClymond, "Effects."
375. Clark, Impartation, 125, 129, 133, 136, 143, 169 (five cases), 204, 213.
376. Ibid., 125 (paralysis), 126 (a boy unable to walk or speak, instantly cured), 132 (burned-off kneecaps restored), 134 (healing of knees), 170 (a boy's withered legs, previously unable even to stand).
377. Ibid., 27 (ending seizures and the use of diapers; a permanent healing twenty-one years before the book was written).
378. Ibid., 125. Flint Hicks shared with me a testimony of AIDS being healed that is apparently widely known in Fiji (interview, Jan. 29, 2009, also supplying the woman's written testimony), but the recovery seems fairly recent, and I have not been able to verify or disconfirm it.
379. Clark, Impartation, 135 (including the appearance), 143. Because Down syndrome occurs at the chromosomal level (not always in all the chromosomes; Dr. Tahira Adelekan, phone interview, April
24, 2009), some cases of healing claims might involve effects of Down syndrome on various functional limitations rather than the chromosomal issue itself. The question can be resolved by chromosomal testing, but my sources do not normally address the question.
380. Clark, Impartation, 202–4. For the distinction between HIV and AIDS, see relevant notes in ch. 9.
381. Ibid., 166.
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these included a sudden and complete healing of a foot that led to the canceling of its imminent amputation.382
Bruce Collins, from the United Kingdom, is overseer of the international network of New Wine, a multidenominational renewal group originally based in the Anglican Church. He shared with me several testimonies that he has received from people for whom he has prayed in various parts of the world.383 (He provided names and in a number of cases scanned copies of the healed persons' or witnesses' letters.384) Of the sample that he gave me (those that occurred to him during our conversation), I also offer merely examples here.385 In November 2008, among those he prayed for in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, was a woman apparently in her eighties who had ruptured a disk in her spine; surgeons had attempted to help her but had explained afterward that the surgery was unsuccessful. At the time, she struggled to walk using a walking frame. After Bruce left, the woman came into the church's administrative offices; reporting that her doctor declared that her spine was now completely normal, she demonstrated the claim happily by touching her toes.
Bruce recounted some recent healings he witnessed elsewhere. In October 2008, in New Zealand, he prayed for someone who had tumors on his bowel, liver, and adrenal glands, normally a dangerous situation, since the growths had apparently spread.386 Bruce felt such confidence that God was hearing their prayer that he took the unusual step of assuring the man that the doctors would find nothing of consequence. The next day, the doctor insisted that they start exploratory surgery, yet over the next month nothing was found. Though unable to explain medically the disappearance of the tumors, the doctors gave the man a clean bill of health.
A doctor in his own church, a fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, had diabetes, and Bruce prayed for her in November 2006. Being a careful physician, she mentioned nothing further to him until she had had many tests, but the following June she told him that she in fact no longer had diabetes, a result confirmed again in a more recent test.
On another occasion, a student in training for ordination, part of a church that denied the authenticity of miraculous healings in Scripture, accompanied Bruce to Estonia; as she and others prayed, a blind person was healed. A man dying from a cancer-riddled liver was completely healed and took up cycling and walking
382. Randy Clark, personal correspondence, April 1, 2011, mentioning also that he and those working with him have witnessed a wide range of cures, including those of blindness and deafness.
383. Bruce Collins, phone interview, April 11, 2009. I am grateful to Derek Morphew for connecting me with Bruce.
384. I have omitted these details to protect the individuals' privacy.
385. Of those I have omitted in the main text, on Feb. 4, 2009, he and others prayed for an elderly lady in Cardiff, Wales, who was using walking sticks. After about twenty-five minutes of prayer, she was walking briskly, almost jogging. At Christ Church, a person's jaw was completely healed, as was another person with a prolapsed disk who could now touch her toes.
386. As noted above, once cancer has metastasized, it is normally incurable, especially without intervention. In this case it disappeared without any radiation or chemotherapy.
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seven miles per day. This event stunned the man's daughter, a nurse for twentyfive years.387 These experiences did not fit the student's theology at the time, but she consequently moved to a more trusting stance on Scripture. Her vicar had already preached against the reality of healings, but when she returned to tell him what she had experienced, she also prayed for his chronic back problem. The next
Sunday, he announced from the pulpit that he had been healed and was needing to rethink some of his theology.388
Examples from Some Charismatic/Third Wave Churches Healing reports also abound in other charismatic or Third Wave churches, many of which seek to keep some record of some of the healings claimed by members. I do not have direct means to evaluate most of these samples, but they do illustrate that claims are far more abundant than I could list. Many healings have been reported in the Embassy of God megachurch in Kiev, Ukraine, some including medical documentation.389 In one account, at seven months old, Nikita fell from a baby carriage and sustained a skull fracture, with a hematoma of 250 cubic centimeters running through the crack into the skull. His eyes would not focus, and the left side of his body was paralyzed. After prayer, the parents felt that God would preserve their child; he kept getting worse, and they were praying five to six hours a day. They prayed for other children there who recovered, but Nikita kept getting worse. It was hard to maintain faith, but after feeling God speak again, the father trusted that God would act. The next day, Nikita's paralysis ended, and his eyes shifted back into position. The next day, the pneumonia he had contracted left. As they took him from the hospital, the chief doctor declared that a miracle had happened, beyond what the staff could do. Age four at the time of the article,
Nikita had nothing to show for his injury except a scar.390
In another account, a woman who had had her spleen removed to save her life later felt something moving inside her where her spleen had been, and she believed that God had created a new spleen for her. When doctors examined her, they did not believe that she had a spleen removed, but then they found that the documents were clear. As she praised God for a new spleen, an unbelieving neurologist sent
387. In the student's correspondence, she notes that the doctor told the man that the bad news was
"that he would no longer be eligible" for the "experimental treatment" they had planned, "because there was nothing to treat" anymore.
388. Cf. Simpson, "Gospel of Healing," 373: "I have seen the theologian often answered after his most logical assaults upon it [divine healing] by the healing of some of his own people in a way he could not answer or explain," adding that he often took healed persons to see skeptics and found the skeptics unable to respond.
389. I am grateful to Yulia Kolodotchka Bagwell, who does Russian translation, for confirming for me the relevance of the legible medical reports (July 1, 2010). Some complain about some public controversies surrounding this ministry led by Sunday Adelaja; others counter that local Ukrainian politics and other local issues have encouraged misinformation. (One may compare some church leaders in the United States who have received increased scrutiny or even misrepresentation for political reasons on either side of the partisan divide; I know one of these ministers, in this case on the left, fairly well.)
390. "Healed from Trauma," including medical documentation.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
her to a psychiatrist, who recognized that she was healthy.391 Similarly, a man whose heart had scarring felt touched by the Lord and kept standing in faith for a few years, until new tests showed his health completely restored, with no trace of the scars, which naturally shocked the doctor.392
The Healing Rooms website reports hundreds of popular-level testimonies of healings, both emotional and physical, in connection with prayer.393 In the past few years, Bethel Church in Redding, California, has also claimed a number of healings, both in Pastor Bill Johnson's books and (for an even larger selection) on the church website.394 Johnson reports that he witnessed some visible cases firsthand, but the majority of these cases (especially on the website) convey self-reports of those claiming healing. Nevertheless, they again illustrate that many believe that they have experienced supernatural healing.395 These reports include instant healing of a neck that previously required a brace to hold the head in place;396 the instant restoration of an esophagus eaten away by cancer;397 instant healings of a three-yearold's clubfeet;398 deafness;399 a dangling arm without feeling "from the elbow up";400
391. "New Spleen," including medical documentation.
392. "Healed the Scar," again including medical documentation.
393. See http://www.healingrooms.com (accessed July 27, 2010), which lists more than two hundred emotional cures; more than two hundred for back problems; more than one hundred regarding cancer; but also cases of bone diseases, broken bones, diabetes, and even some cases of blindness. Note also the story of Sylvia K., revived from apparent death (suspected to have been dead for four hours; submitted
May 26, 2001).
394. E.g., Johnson, Heaven, 17, 42 (numbness from a stroke), 52 (lupus and severe pulmonary hypertension), 53, 54, 172 (diabetes), 173, 187; idem, Mind, 33–34 (carpal tunnel so serious that the hand had been frozen in a fist), 45 (a broken wrist instantly mended). The website (http://www.ibethel.org
/features/testimonies; cited by the date of posting) includes accounts such as disappearing tumors (March
18; Aug. 25, 2005); a patient bedridden for years from an aneurysm (Jan. 1, 2005); a woman able to walk painlessly "for the first time in six years" (Oct. 10. 2005); the hole in a baby's heart healed during prayer
(while a specialist was watching the screen; Dec. 8, 2006); restored teeth (Dec. 19, 2006); partial restoration of an autistic child (Nov. 7, 2007); a restored kidney (March 10, 2008). Schiappacasse, Heals, 45–46, also reports the permanent, tested disappearance of autism (though again, the vast majority of cases of autism we know have not disappeared).
395. Collecting actual medical documentation has not so far been the church's primary priority, nor has it been an easy task for those in the church seeking to procure it (as anyone seeking to procure documentation from ordinary people in almost any context can well imagine). The church's Pam Spinosi
(personal correspondence, April 21, 2008) gave me what help she could. Nevertheless, James Heth, the son of a nt scholar friend of mine, sent me reports of his eyewitness experiences with healings involving this church (April 2008, including his blogs of April 16–17).
396. Johnson, Heaven, 27.
397. Ibid., 53–54 (the cancer disappeared as well as the esophagus being fully restored); also in idem,
Mind, 36.
398. Idem, Heaven, 188: "For the first time in his life his feet were flat on the ground," and he suddenly began running for the first time.
399. Ibid., 187; idem, Mind, 39 (cf. also partial deafness in 88; the person regretted everything now being too loud); more cases posted Aug. 25. 2005; Nov. 27, 2006; Jan. 18, 2007; May 7, 2007 (born deaf);
July 12, 2007; a person's inability to speak on Jan. 23, 2007.
400. Johnson, Mind, 49: the doctor had said it would always dangle, but now for the first time the woman was able to pick up her young daughter in her arms.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
AIDS;401 the healing of a deadly, debilitating nerve disease never known to reverse;402 instant bone healings;403 and a partially severed thumb growing out instantly.404 One particularly moving story is that of Lee McDougald, who after twenty-seven years of suffering, twenty-two surgeries, and eventually a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, was prayed for by Randy Clark, Bill Johnson, and Jack Taylor, and was suddenly and completely healed in 2007.405
Another church widely known for its prayer and worship ministries, International House of Prayer, has a number of healing testimonies posted on its website.406
Some of the more dramatic reports in recent years include a liver swollen to almost twice the size, normal by the next morning.407 Other claims include: A cyst scheduled to be removed surgically vanished within two days of prayer. A cancer patient facing the removal of half the liver and pancreas received prayer; testing the next day revealed no tumor or cancer at all.408 A person who previously needed to read lips was after prayer suddenly able to hear ministers' words.409
My wife's recent student Lauren Mason joined the prayer ministry at this church.
In this connection, she shared with us various recent testimonies from this ministry that she knew firsthand, including healings of visual impairment, and that another student medically confirmed that she was healed of anemia. Lauren also witnessed the immediate and complete healing of fellow student Jonathan Pollard.
She had known that he had been largely paralyzed from what was thought to be Guillain-Barré syndrome for two months, but was surprised to see that after prayer he rose from the wheelchair to which he had been confined and within moments began running around the auditorium.410 After I watched the incident, which was
401. The Bethel church website, March 24, 2008.
402. Website, April 1, 2006.
403. Website, Nov. 7, 2006.
404. Posted on the website, Oct. 9, 2007.
405. The testimony (at http://www.thehealedguy.com) was brought to my attention by Sam Storms.
I also corresponded briefly with Lee, who granted me permission to use the information on his website
(personal correspondence, Aug. 28, 2008).
406. I accessed the list at http://ihop.org/Publisher/Article.aspx?ID=1000049944 on July 2, 2009.
407. The person had been experiencing pain throughout the body for two months, and the pain vanished completely by the end of the evening of prayer.
408. Testimony from April 27, 2006, naming the person.
409. A named person's testimony, Oct. 2006. Further, a young woman with congenital ovary problems could not menstruate; after a speaker prophesied that someone with her name was being healed, she went to the restroom and discovered that she had begun menstruating. A doctor recommended open-heart surgery for a serious heart obstruction, but after prayer the heart was beating regularly, and the doctor confirmed that the heart was now perfectly fine (testimony from Oct. 27, 2006, naming the person).
Other cure reports include a June 25, 2006, testimony of a named person medically discharged from the Marine Corps who was suffering from a host of problems (pulmonary emboli, pneumonia, nerve damage, and addiction to painkillers) and was instantly healed. In a testimony from July 27, 2006, the left leg of a named person who had suffered polio nearly six decades earlier grew to match the right leg. A breast lump disappeared after prayer in a named person's testimony from July 28, 2006.
410. Lauren Mason, personal correspondence, May 3, 5, 6, 8, 2010; interview, June 3, 2010. People had been praying, but this was only his second night back in the prayer meeting. People do often recover from this syndrome, but normally gradually—not being able to run immediately after being in too much
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
captured on video,411 Jonathan and I corresponded,412 and he confirmed the event in greater detail.413 He explained that it had earlier been too painful to put pressure on his feet, but that after others had prayed for him, while he was praying in the service, around 11:55 p.m., "I felt what seemed like two tennis balls of fire laying on the top of my feet." After walking perhaps fifty feet unaided he took off running around the sanctuary pain free.414 He also provided medical documentation concerning a change in his condition.415
These are merely some conspicuous samples from churches that circulate accounts of their healing testimonies, and a survey of churches known for praying for healing would turn up many more examples. Many other churches report healings with relatively little publicity.416 For example, one church that does not publish its reports on a national level yet has kept a healing log is Vineyard Community
Church in Cincinnati, which in 2008 supplied me a list of healings reported there.417
Some of the healing claims involve simply improvements or the disappearance of pain, which sometimes happens even without prayer,418 but some appear more dramatic. Thus in one case (providing the person's name and contact information), a woman who was too old for a kidney transplant received prayer. After prayer, she reported, the doctors found her kidneys fully functional and wanted to know what she had done differently.
Cursory as they are, the preceding examples should suffice to make the point that many people in the modern West continue to believe that God has healed them and that at least some of their claims do appear to involve unusual recoveries.
How would objective outsiders view such claims? Some claims that people offer cannot withstand scrutiny, but some others prove much more compelling. I will try to address this disparity among the evidential value of various claims to some degree in chapters 13–15. pain to put pressure on the bottom of one's feet. He reports that doctors had felt his life was in danger when he was first hospitalized.
411. At http://cmp.ihop.tv/gp.php?pid=zZzFzChe0FUVH7cy_PIH9uCDBehUxVx; accessed May
3, 2010; also his testimony at the fifty-five-minute mark at http://cmp.ihop.tv/gp.php?pid=zYsSrFPhH n_612mVuiLx14weh7Dpwoc; accessed May 6, 2010.
412. Jonathan Pollard, personal correspondence, May 15, 16, 19, 22; July 16, 22, 2010. When we began corresponding he was enjoying painting his room (personal correspondence, May 12, 13, 2010).
413. Especially Jonathan Pollard (personal correspondence, May 20, 2010), which I have greatly condensed below.
414. Although his muscles grew sore from running after having been unable to walk for two months, as one would normally expect, the soreness dissipated in a week and his doctors found no more signs of Guillain-Barré syndrome, or even signs that he had previously had it (personal correspondence, May
20, 2010).
415. With personal correspondence, July 22, 2010 (which also provided further explanation).
416. Cf., e.g., one mentioned in Van Brenk, "Wagner," 236, who notes that many were reported cured; a Presbyterian church noted by Gwladys Keating (personal correspondence, July 25, 2010).
417. Vineyard Community Church, Cincinnati, healing log, 2008.
418. I do not mean to downplay the potential value of prayer for such matters (noted in the study cited by Anita Manning, above); my observation simply involves how persuasive such anecdotes appear as evidence to those who are cautious about miracle claims.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
Listing Some Further Claims To avoid the temptation of continuing indefinitely, I will simply list below a sample of some further individual healing claims from popular literature and other sources;
I merely summarize them here for the sake of space. They should illustrate further, however, the sort of range of claims that exist even in the West. Some such cases are the sorts of experiences that one might expect on rare occasions, recounted by those who happen to survive; others are physiologically impossible without a supernatural explanation. Although scientists normally would count all such evidence anecdotal because it involves merely individual examples, even in large numbers, it should suffice to reinforce my illustration of the point that claims of firstand secondhand knowledge of healings remain common today (hence that we lack reason to attribute such claims to legendary development). There is no way for me to confirm the validity of many of these authors' sources, but in a number of cases the reports are directly from eyewitnesses, especially the authors themselves. Some of the authors also affirm that they investigated all the claims they report. These claims include accounts, usually from eyewitnesses, of such recoveries after prayer as the following:
• An "underground" outside researcher noted a healed throat condition and the healing of lower spine degeneration after prayer.419
• A Baptist pastor was told he could never speak again due to damage to the myelin sheath to his vocal cords; after enduring this problem for three years, he suddenly found his speech fully restored after reading Ps 103:3.420
• While pastoring, Presbyterian evangelist Don Dunkerley prayed for a visitor who had been given six months to live due to her cancer. The next day she felt fine, and the doctor declared that the cancer was gone. As of the time of Dunkerley's writing, fifteen years later, it had not returned.421
• A Pentecostal Holiness member in North Carolina was healed so thoroughly of his heart condition that not only was no treatment necessary but also tests could not find any evidence of the previously confirmed heart attacks.422
• One woman, nearly dead from severe meningitis, recovered overnight after prayer, to her doctors' astonishment.423
419. The report of Dr. David C. Lewis (Religious Experience Research Project, Nottingham University,
Alister Hardy Research Centre, Oxford), afterward used by Wimber with Lewis's permission (Lewis,
"Signs"; see esp. 269). For other healings of spinal diseases, see Salmon, Heals, 57–62.
420. Deere, Power of Spirit, 145–46; cf. Witty, Healing, 206. Cf. Julia Foote (Alexander, Fire, 88).
421. Dunkerley, Healing Evangelism, 75–76.
422. Turner, Healers, 105–6 (following Reinhardt, "Stripes," 130–32).
423. Harris, Acts Today, 19. Harris claims to have included only accounts that he was able to confirm. At the time at which I was acquainted with Harris, he held a respectable position in his denomination; while
I have no means to guarantee the accuracy of all his claims, I am confident that he did not fabricate them.
As noted earlier, my wife's younger sister, as a baby, was expected by doctors to die during the night from meningitis, yet was recovering unexpectedly by morning, after their father prayed by the bed throughout
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
• A person dying of kidney failure was instantly healed during prayer.424
• A bladder hernia was healed without medical help.425
• A hydrocephalitic girl was "healed instantly of a wandering eye, bedwetting, and an open spine" during prayer.426
• A severe and long-term case of gastroesophageal reflux was accurately described in a prophetic word and instantly and permanently cured during the prayer that immediately followed.427
• A woman dying from an infection was healed completely as she took the Lord's Supper.428
• A hand whose tendons had been cut was instantly healed and able to move.429
• A pastor prayed for a child with a failing kidney shortly before an operation; after the operation, the doctor reported in astonishment that a fully functional kidney, not previously detected on ultrasound, lay behind the failing one.430
• A man with advanced multiple sclerosis, who had lost most motor control and in ten years had dropped from about 230 pounds to about 90, had no faith that he could be healed. After prayer he was fully healed, got documentation, and began traveling to give his testimony.431
• A young woman deteriorating from intense pain over the course of five years was finally bedridden in a sterile environment and receiving fifteen shots a day. She was suffering progressively worse seizures, and it appeared that she the night. Others also claim recoveries from spinal meningitis (e.g., Fant, Miracles, 39–44); Flint Hicks's daughter also recovered from meningitis expected to kill her or leave her a vegetable (interview, Jan. 29,
2009). The danger of meningitis depends on the kind (bacterial is virulent; viral usually clears up on its own) and the stage to which it is advanced; young children and the aged are particularly susceptible to harm from bacterial meningitis.
424. Harris, Acts Today, 70–71 (members of Harris's church; the healed man lived on twenty-five more years, to the age of eighty-nine). Healing from failed kidneys appears also in Koch, Zulus, 178–79.
425. MacNutt, Healing, 35–36, with testimony from the physician.
426. Wimber, Power Evangelism, 63, noting also the knowledge and changed lives of many in the family's Baptist church. See also idem, Healing, 131–32, including the physician's report (from Dr. James R.
Friend, Bakersfield, Calif.; July 6, 1986). He mentions other healings (e.g., ibid., 201).
427. Moreland, Triangle, 169–70.
428. Harris, Acts Today, 7, noting that the funeral arrangements, already made, had to be canceled.
429. Stewart, Only Believe, 122.
430. Dave Workman, pastor of a church in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the oral report given him by the mother; shared with me April 30, 2008.
431. Stewart, Only Believe, 59, on the story of Pat Wiggins. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 20–21, notes the evidence for the healing but ultimately dismisses this case because a neurologist who had treated
Wiggins noted that his form of multiple sclerosis was atypical, and his "impression" was that the cure was psychiatric. Reading even the evidence that Spraggett cites, I do not think that the most natural conclusion. Multiple sclerosis often alternates between "remissions and relapses before the final stage of permanent disability," and natural remissions involve gradual convalescence, not a rapid cure (Cranston,
Miracle, 281, noting on 281–82 the three miraculous cures of this disease recognized at Lourdes; for these examples, see 285–89).
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
would die soon. A prayer of faith raised her immediately from her bed, with instant disappearance of all symptoms and full restoration of all functions.432
• A church keyboard player, increasingly disabled by multiple sclerosis and ready to give up the keyboard in 2005, was completely healed and is still playing keyboard in good health more than three years later.433
• A person experienced visible (also complete, albeit gradual) healing of massive eczema.434
• A person's eyesight was healed so that she could no longer even see properly through her glasses.435
• Around 2003, a lay minister's atheist in-law contacted him about his dying mother because they needed someone to conduct the funeral service; when the minister and his sister visited the frail woman, who was in her eighties and weighed about 85 pounds, they had to put on masks and gowns. After they prayed for her and she accepted faith in Jesus, she recovered and remained in good health, although she did pass away two years later.436
• A woman suffering for a decade with painful, swollen legs found the pain vanish instantly and the swelling within hours after prayer; eventually she could run and dance.437
• Although doctors told the family of a Baptist minister in a coma that he could not survive, he recovered after experiencing a vision of Jesus, and in six weeks he had returned to preaching.438
• The same minister's daughter was confined to bed with nephritis, but three days after he saw a brief vision of Jesus standing over her, she tested negative for the sickness.439
432. The story of Niki Ochenski, reported at http://www.awmi.net/tv/2002/week44 (this segment aired Oct. 28, 2002); http://www.awmi.net/tv/2002/week45a; http://www.awmi.net/tv/2001/week45a
(all accessed June 14, 2009; brought to my attention by Jim Baker, in personal correspondence, April 3,
2008). One need not affirm that every person will be restored in the same way to appreciate the restoration in this woman's life. Andrew Wommack Ministries confirmed that she remains in complete health, "living a normal life" (personal correspondence in response to my query, June 22, 2009).
433. Bruce Collins, phone interview, April 11, 2009. A woman with advanced multiple sclerosis, having lost use of three of her limbs and nearly blind, was reportedly instantly healed, able to walk and see (Storms,
Convergence, 47–48; also in idem, Guide, 50–52, noting a testimony purporting to be from the healed person, mailed to him; the mailer indicated that the woman remained alive and well thirty years after the healing).
434. White, "Lady," 83; cf. the healing of incurable eczema in Bredesen, Miracle, 34–35; Sung, Diaries,
125; Ayers, "Eczema"; Salmon, Heals, 63–64; Buckingham, Daughter, 165–67. Davies, Healer, allows that flaking eczema could have been included in the ancient understanding of leprosy. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 35, reports an instant, visible healing of eczema but attributes the ailment to psychosomatic causes. Would even a psychogenic ailment disappear instantly and visibly?
435. Bennett, Morning, 98.
436. Craig Lester, interview, Jan. 28, 2009, who also recounted some other unusual recoveries. At the time of our interview, Craig was a seminarian from Seattle.
437. Lawrence, Healing, 23–24.
438. Beadle, "Healings," 6.
439. Ibid. Nephritis (Bright's disease) appears in various testimonies (Shearer, "Believe," 5; McNutt,
"Healed"; Woodard, Faith, 90–91).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
• A skeptic was convinced as he witnessed the growth on a baby disappear at the moment of prayer.440
• Two cataracts were healed.441
• One informant (attested also by his wife) noted that his biopsy in 2006 showed prostate cancer; another doctor confirmed it. After receiving prayer at his church, he knew that God had healed him; to prove it, he insisted on another biopsy, which came back negative; we talked three years later.442
• In Sicily, after a three-month-old expected to die was instantly healed and some other healings occurred, the praying church began growing.443
• Although doctors expected a youth to survive his cancer only another month, he was cured after prayer with a prayer group in San Francisco.444
• A patient who had been dying after the surgical removal of his stomach experienced both the recovery and formation of a new stomach.445
• Terminal, metastasized cancer was instantly healed during a prayer service, after being prophetically identified.446
• A severely burned young man close to death was healed even of the severe burns that should have left him virtually faceless.447
• A child's medically attested broken neck, with a chipped and dislocated vertebra and doctors' expectation of permanent paralysis, was completely healed and returned to normal immediately after prayer in the hospital, without surgical intervention.448
• A six-month-old boy with a dangerous liver problem was instantly healed.449
• A girl long immobilized in her lower limbs by polio was healed.450
• Marshall Prince, a ten-year-old polio poster child who had worn braces since the age of two, was instantly and publicly healed during prayer, including his withered foot being made normal.451
440. Harris, Acts Today, 100–101, reporting that the skeptic was then healed, including the restoration of three of his ribs that had been surgically removed, with (according to the account) medical records to prove it.
441. Ogilbee and Riess, Pilgrimage, 43.
442. Edward O'Kelley and Frieda O'Kelley, phone interview, July 7, 2009. Edward is a brother-in-law of Lee Coffey, who knew the story and referred me to him. Unfortunately, despite their attempts to find their documentation for me, they were not able to locate it among their many papers before my deadline.
443. Perna, "Sicily."
444. Oursler, Power, 49.
445. Harris, Acts Today, 68–69 (admittedly one of the more shocking stories).
446. Baxter, Healing, 194–206, summarizing Kuhlman, LeVrier. Baxter confirmed that the healing remained before producing the chapter (Baxter, Healing, 184).
447. Harris, Acts Today, 71–74.
448. Rumph, Signs, 119–24. The prayer was immediate, before surgical intervention could begin.
449. Storms, Convergence, 49 (Dr. Storms being an eyewitness); idem, "View," 213. Cf. the account of another liver healing in Anderson, Miracles, 184–85.
450. Edmunds, "Sick."
451. Stewart, Only Believe, 74. Cf. a withered hand healed in Bulgaria, Seibert, Church, 98.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
• A child at a children's home "was miraculously healed of poliomelitis" and became "the talk of the city."452
• A person near death was completely and instantaneously healed through prayer.453
• An aneurysm was healed immediately after prayer, rendering surgery shockingly unnecessary.454
• Cancer had eaten a hole more than an inch in diameter in the roof of a person's mouth, but even the wounded area was completely healed after prayer, surprising the doctors.455
• A chronic bladder infection was healed.456
• A back and glaucoma were both healed after prayer.457
• A person was unable to breathe through her nose from birth until, at age eleven, she was touched by Jesus in a vision, and thereafter she could do so.458
• Due to a car accident, a fifteen-year-old was not expected to walk again; after prayer, within ten weeks he was playing basketball again.459
• A seminarian prayed for his father who had been suffering terrible pain in his back and abdomen for two months, and he was immediately healed.460
• A woman with a severe, recurring skin rash was instantly and permanently cured during another's prayer, despite her own skepticism.461
452. Hinson, "Healings" (the city being Hot Springs, Ark.; the report is offered a few weeks after the event being reported). Likewise, a baby with polio, unable to bend his leg, was healed within hours of the prayer and became completely normal (Alexander, "Marvelous Healings"). Other healings of paralysis due to polio appear in Salmon, Heals, 108, 110–11.
453. See, e.g., Cunningham, World, 88 (cf. also the more gradual accounts, 28–31, 136–39).
454. Deere, Power of Spirit, 31.
455. Fant, Miracles, 88 (the testimony of H. P. Rankin concerning his earlier healing in 1934; the cancer never returned, and he went from 128 pounds to 170 in under three months). Others also claim healings after prayer from cancers that never returned (e.g., Fant, Miracles, 69–70, on Barbara Bowen, cured on Aug. 9, 1922); Anderson, Miracles, 162–68; Schiappacasse, Heals, 32, 34, 51–53, 58–59; cf. DeGrandis,
Miracles, 99–100 (summarizing five cases). Though without details, cf. also the disappearance of the tumor of Beth Wiseman's son (mentioned in the epilogue in Wiseman, Paradise, 304).
456. Schlemon, Prayer, 54–55.
457. Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 110.
458. Glew, "Experience," 81.
459. Shaub, "Analysis," 118, from his interview with Pastor Ralph Maselli about his injury and healing many years before.
460. Ball, "View," 128–29. Apart from cases cited for other reasons, I have deliberately not included many healings of backs (including one particularly noteworthy case that I witnessed firsthand), but they are many; cf., e.g., the Anglican vicar in New Zealand whose bad back had confined him to bed for a short time but who experienced immediate healing after prayer (in Bennett, Morning, 162).
461. Crump, Knocking, 40–41. Crump notes that this occurred when a televangelist asserted over the television that someone was being healed of this disorder, even though the woman was watching only for entertainment and was not attracted to such programs before or since. He personally knows the healed person and her situation. Cf. the instant healing of rosacea reported in Bruce, Care, 85.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
• A young man, emaciated from lymphatic and bone marrow cancers, recovered fully after prayer.462
• A man seeking God in prayer was "instantly healed" of a long-term "speech problem."463
• A "slipped vertebral disk" was healed over the course of two to three weeks after prayer, though this condition normally requires surgical intervention.464
• A man whose right foot had been turned outward all his life, making his walking irregular; the foot was mostly healed during prayer, with the remainder of the healing coming over the next few days.465
• A severely burned leg without feeling was restored after a few minutes of prayer, and the third-degree burns eventually vanished.466
• A seventy-seven-year-old heart patient whose condition was inoperable, and with other organs failing, was healed in response to faith.467
• Broken wrist bones were healed.468
• A girl supported by braces was healed as other children in the church prayed for her; bystanders "could hear her bones cracking" as they were being
"straightened."469
• A "4-inch cancerous tumor," diagnosed as terminal, disappeared after prayer.470
• A short, shriveled, and reddish arm was instantly and visibly healed and grew out in response to prayer.471
• A man who cracked his skull in a fall (Oct. 11, 1919) and was never supposed to work again was healed instantly during prayer (Nov. 8, 1920) and returned to work.472
462. Chavda, Miracle, 124–25, though not explicitly clarifying whether the healing was gradual and whether medical treatment was involved. Matthews and Clark, Faith Factor, 79–80, recount the medically inexplicable complete disappearance of a breast lump after prayer.
463. Synan, "Charismatics," 205 (the person was then a prominent figure in the Nazarene Church, which believes in divine healing).
464. Heron, Channels, 122–23 (with a medical note).
465. Bill Jackson, personal correspondence, March 24, 2008, along with the testimony of the healed man.
466. Chevreau, Turnings, 143–44. The book includes other healings (e.g., 35–36 [of a foot that otherwise soon would have been amputated], 105–6, 142, 166–67, 181–82, 214).
467. Reed, "Case History," esp. 39, 43.
468. Williams, Signs, 140–41. The healing of broken bones also appears in Lambert, Millions, 115–16
(though over the course of three weeks); Moreland and Issler, Faith, 136 (the healing of fractures, apparently immediately); Huyssen, Saw, 187 (the healing of broken ribs, apparently within hours). After a skull operation, note the claim of bone growth through prayer in Salmon, Heals, 51; although gradual, it was impressive enough to warrant notice in the Johannesburg Star (July 11, 1949). For other cases involving bone diseases, see Salmon, Heals, 52–53 (both gradual).
469. Jackson, Quest, 256.
470. Faris, "Healed" (reporting on a recovery about twelve years earlier, with no recurrence of cancer; the testimony is endorsed by the district superintendent). When medically documented, the instantaneous disappearance of a tumor was accepted at Lourdes (Woodard, Faith, 56).
471. Rumph, Signs, 110–11. Cf. also the healing of a hip, 114–16.
472. The claim is in "Fell Sixteen Feet," concerning D. A. Cowgill (listing his address as 917 N. 9th St.,
East Saint Louis, Illinois).
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
• A mostly bedridden, eighty-three-year-old woman who had suffered for a decade from spinal arthritis and angina of the heart was permanently healed after the prayer of a charismatic Episcopal priest.473
• Destroyed flesh, including missing toes, reportedly gradually grew back, with hundreds of clamps and tubes reportedly being dissolved.474
• An engineer's gash wound was completely and instantly healed during an Episcopal priest's prayer.475
• A Baptist pastor's daughter was born with cerebral palsy, with no medical hope for recovery; he was happily astounded when she was healed after prayer, transforming his subsequent ministry.476
• A man with a severed ankle tendon had his foot locked in place with pins to prevent movement; once healed after prayer, he could walk around, moving his foot freely despite "the complex mechanisms meant to keep it stationary."477
• A woman long suffering from severe asthma and chronic bronchitis was instantly healed.478
• Inspired by faith in Jesus's resurrection while watching the Jesus Film, a terminal cancer patient who was expected to die soon was healed, and scheduled tests the next day showed that her previously cancer-riddled body was cancer free.479
• A scar in the eye disappeared, although medically this does not happen on its own.480
• A woman who had been diagnosed with low blood sugar, allergies, a longterm heart murmur, and a pancreatic problem was immediately healed of all of them after the person praying prophetically discerned each of these disorders.481
• A person was healed of deafness and inability to walk when a believer prayed.482
• A young man was expected by doctors to die, but after four days he was out of bed, in conjunction, he claims, with a vision from Jesus.483
473. Bennett, Morning, 63 (admitting that she had much more faith that she would be healed than he did when he prayed). Cf. spinal healings in Zagrans, Miracles, 15, 144–45.
474. Harris, Acts Today, 74–78, over the course of 1975 to 1979. But in such a case, see critically Randi,
Faith Healers, 265–67.
475. Matthews and Clark, Faith Factor, 239, based on the priest's testimony to Dale Matthews.
476. Synan, "Charismatics," 184–85, on John Osteen and Lakewood Baptist Church.
477. Johnson, Mind, 89.
478. Storms, Guide, 45–46 (reporting, five years after the healing, that the condition had never returned).
Jackson, Quest, 285, reports another healing from asthma along with scoliosis.
479. Eshleman, Jesus, 110.
480. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 15.
481. Deere, Power of Spirit, 39–40. Dr. Deere, an eyewitness, maintained contact with the healed woman for more than a year afterward, confirming that the healings "remained."
482. Bush and Pegues, Move, 51–52.
483. Ibid., 51.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
• A sonogram revealed that one of the kidneys in a six-month-old fetus was dead and no longer growing; the sonogram that followed the subsequent prayer (ten days later) showed both kidneys the same healthy size, and the baby was born healthy.484
• A nearly dead person completely recovered after organ failure, with the organs all returning to full function and the person remaining in optimum health.485
• A baby was growing sicker with lung scarring after measles (a condition almost always fatal) but was healed during a prayer service.486
• An older woman, not previously exposed to the Christian faith, was healed instantly and permanently of a long-term lung condition.487
• A baby's malformed epiglottis was completely healed after prayer, shocking surgeons who had to cancel the surgery.488
• A man was healed of celiac sprue disease (which had kept him from eating most grains); that he can now eat anything surprises his doctors.489
• A pastor in Maine was immediately healed of a throat condition through prayer, hence spared the need for surgery.490
• X-rays showed an injury at the skull base of Therese Marszalek's two-year-old son Joseph, comparable to an adult's fall on the head onto concrete from twelve feet; Joseph was completely healed within hours, and the doctor called it "an absolute miracle."491
• A child's chronic bladder and urinary problems were healed immediately in a prayer setting in church.492
484. Deere, Power of Spirit, 127–28 (Deere being the one who prayed).
485. Rumph, Signs, 173–81. The recovery was relatively sudden; although it followed days of prayer, it surprised everyone. Sheryl Alexander, a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary, prayed for a dying woman wearing a continuous oxygen mask whose organs had begun to shut down; the next day, to her astonishment, she learned that the doctor had now deemed the woman well enough to go home (personal correspondence, Nov. 30, 2008; March 29, 2009).
486. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 25–27.
487. Pullinger, Dragon, 123. For healing of other breathing conditions, see also 171 (additionally recounting another unexpected recovery); other healings, in 73 (stab wounds), 142, 201, 202, 230. Although initially suspicious, after more thorough investigation Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 99–105, came to very favorable conclusions about Pullinger's activity.
488. Rumph, Signs, 49–52. For healing of a serious back injury, see ibid., 54–58 (if one wished, one could report other healings of chronic and severe back problems, e.g., Deere, Power of Spirit, 36–37; for an immediate reduction in back problems, Csordas, Self, 68–69; I witnessed another case of immediate healing of a back pain, as reported by the person experiencing pain, during a prayer); for an immediate, total, and permanent healing of reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome, see Rumph, Signs, 68–76.
489. Richard Riffle (known to my brother); his testimony was shared with me in writing Dec. 13, 2007; cf. another case in Zagrans, Miracles, 31–34.
490. Sheila Heneise, interview, April 5, 2009; she was the one who prayed for him.
491. Marszalek, Miracles, 165–66.
492. Ibid., 8–9 (noting the doctor's confirmation on 10). The book (sharing individuals' testimonies in their own words) includes many others, such as a Native American's instant and permanent healing of
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
• After a doctor ministered spiritual healing, a patient's fibromyalgia went into immediate remission and as of three years later had not returned.493
• Because a baby was born with no hip sockets or ball at the end of the bone, the doctor planned to put her in a cast and warned that she would need a cast throughout her life. The church prayed, and when the doctor checked before putting on a cast, he found that, contrary to the earlier X-rays, the baby now had hip sockets and a ball at the end of the bone. He declared the child healed.494
• A long-term, sizable tumor disappeared immediately.495
• A progressively worsening case of neck and back trouble due to whiplash, making even walking difficult, was instantly healed during prayer.496
• The day that a man's leg was to be amputated because of circulatory problems, he "suddenly was able to walk again."497
• A woman nearly dead and with multiple bone breaks (and some crushed bones) recovered after five days of prayer. Although surgery had been impossible, X-rays showed that the bones had been restored.498
• A mother cites the immediate healing of her baby's abscessed ears after a confident minister prayed.499
• According to one source, so diseased was Alice Newton of Leavenworth, Kansas, that her abdomen was more swollen than a full-term pregnancy; after two years of prayer, one night she had a dream of Jesus's crucifixion, and woke up healed (including of the swelling). So remarkable was the healing that the Leavenworth and Kansas City newspapers celebrated the story.500 his heart and other long-term injuries (59–62); a hospitalized, elderly man's lungs filled with fluid from pneumonia, instantly cleared after prayer (as shown in the tests, 64); the healing after prayer of a man dying from a lung problem (90–92); instant healings of long-term knee problems leading to canceled surgeries (68, 95–97); in Northern Ireland, the healing of a heart problem and hernia (withdrawing from the medicine without withdrawal symptoms; 230–31).
493. Speed, Incurables, 83–87 (the author is both the physician and eyewitness). She also notes other cures, including that of cancer (183).
494. Hock, Miracles, 47–49, attesting a case that he knew directly.
495. Miller, Miracle of Healing, 84–85, citing attestation.
496. Bartow, Adventures, 117. He also reports an injured and barely functional hand healed.
497. Peterman, Healing, ix; Randy Clark shared with me two imminent amputations canceled through healings (personal correspondence, April 1, 2011). Hock, Miracles, 40–41, recounts his own experience avoiding amputation (a few days after being stabbed with a knife infected from an animal carcass). A severed part of his thumb also grew back, much to the surprise of the doctor who had planned to amputate the rest of it (44–45).
498. Sanford, Gifts, 212–13.
499. Ikin, Concepts, 86–87 (on Agnes Sanford's initial, unexpected encounter with healing; on Sanford more fully, 86–93, including her report of a healing of a child from infantile paralysis on 88–89).
500. Ibid., 104–8. I could not find this story in the source to which she attributed it, however (namely
Dr. Rebecca Beard, Mission, 23–27); either she has confused her sources or she cites a different edition not available to me. Woodard, Faith, 155, cites Beard positively, but many would not consider Mission to be well-informed theologically.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
• A Baptist pastor prayed in tongues for fifteen to twenty minutes for a woman dying in the hospital, injured in an accident, and then felt assured that she would recover; she did (albeit gradually).501
• A woman with cerebral palsy from birth, with spasms so violent that they broke a physical therapist's bones, was nearly paralyzed. She felt led to ask for prayer from one pastor who had never witnessed a healing in his church.
After prayer, she was completely healed, even her vision becoming perfect, and after eighteen years remained well.502
• Doctors removed a golf ball-sized brain tumor from a baby, only to discover that the entire spinal cord was now cancerous. After prayer following a vision of healing, one month after the diagnosis and just before the second week of chemotherapy would have begun, an MRI and spinal tap revealed that no cancer remained. Eight years later, the child remained cancer free.503
• Multiple sclerosis progressively reduced Janice Pridgen to a paraplegic; one year she spent nearly half the year hospitalized, and a diabetic coma nearly killed her. One day, fourteen years after her diagnosis, she felt that God was commanding her to rise and walk; she walked around the sanctuary three times and has been walking ever since.504
• Ninety percent of Victoria's blood cells were malignant from leukemia; she relapsed three times after remissions, but on the night that she was expected to die, a pastor, feeling that God had spoken, prayed for her. The next day no trace of leukemia remained, and she remained cancer free sixteen years later, with no relapse.505
• A mother's back problems (caused for three decades by curvature of the spine and pinched nerves) and her son's severe heart problems (caused by rheumatic fever) were both healed during the same prayer. A quarter-century later they remained well.506
• A day after Barbara Kaufman learned that her gallbladder was full of stones, she had a vision during prayer. Two days later, multiple X-rays confirmed that no stones remained.507
501. Sherrill, Tongues, 84–86. The pastor was by this time editor of a Baptist denominational magazine.
502. Robertson, Miracles, 31–37.
503. Ibid., 145–48; for mention of other brain tumors healed, see Bredesen, Miracle, 106–9 (gradually, but it previously had been expected to kill the executive's daughter in three months); DeGrandis, Miracles,
32; Schiappacasse, Heals, 5 (and apparently 19; cf. 34).
504. Robertson, Miracles, 149–50.
505. Ibid., 150–51. Robertson also recounts cancer that had spread throughout Mark's body; just before treatment could begin, he was completely healed (156–58). He reports other healings, including his son
(17); someone about to die (expected to be "a vegetable" but fully restored; 109); and (according to a caller) an open, infected gash healed during a prophetic word (130).
506. Schiappacasse, Heals, 14–15. Cf. the cure of apparently severe rheumatic fever in Woodard, Faith,
86–87.
507. Schiappacasse, Heals, 20.
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
• Three vertebrae fused at birth were separated and healed during prayer.508
• After Maria Rodriguez was permanently healed of severe uterine cancer in 1976, she bore three children.509
• Her husband's cancer drove Nora, a Navajo woman, to God in prayer. He was healed instantly and they have subsequently remained loyal church members for twenty-two years.510
• When Judge Kermit Bradford prayed for a hydrocephalic baby with a deadly brain tumor, the tumor disappeared instantly and the head soon shrank down to normal size; a local newspaper featured the story of the healing.511
• A doctor warned that Pearl Burton's hydrocephalic baby, Terry, had a tiny and damaged brain, and that he would be a lifelong vegetable. She continued to pray and new X-rays eventually showed a normal brain; he attended "college on an academic scholarship."512
• A man dying in the hospital with multiple organ failure and believed brain-dead began to recover after prayer and lived healthily for many years afterward.513
Such accounts represent only a very small sample of the claims.514 One book from which I have drawn some claims reports more than thirty claims of healings through prayer, many of them instantaneous, including only those for which the author considered the attestation adequate.515 Another book claims "over 70 medically confirmed healings" from the Chicago area alone; the book, on a popular level, does not reproduce the documentation, but many recoveries listed are consistent with other reports.516 I noted earlier evidence that suggested that a large proportion of noncharismatic pastors knew of healings in their congregation that they considered miraculous;517 surveys indicate that 28 percent of noncharismatic
508. Ibid., 26 (noting X-ray confirmation). He also reports (ibid., 60) vertebrae displaced due to an accident healed completely over several days after the patient, Ruby Gonzalez, saw a bright light.
509. Ibid., 58–59.
510. Csordas, "Gender," 298–99.
511. Bredesen, Miracle, 38–40, reporting that the healing was long term and the doctors were (naturally) surprised. Brown, "Awakenings," 362, briefly mentions a testimony of healing from a brain tumor.
512. Llewellyn, "Events," 262 (citing her report).
513. The eyewitness account of Dr. Peter Stiles concerning his father (discussion, Sydney, Australia,
April 16, 2011; follow-up correspondence, April 27, 28, 2011).
514. For other written examples of healing claims, see, e.g., Neal, Smoke, 21–28; Miller, Miracle of Healing, 35, 45–46, 80–85, 90–98, 101–3 (including Nazarene and often missionary accounts); Glew,
"Experience," 81–83 (a physician); White, "Lady," 74–75, 79–81, 83–84; Anderson, Miracles, 169–73;
DeGrandis, Miracles, 31, 139–45 (the book draws esp. from a survey of Catholic charismatics); Woodard,
Faith, 31–45, 64–65; Kinghorn, Story, 82, 113, 215, 303. Some eyewitness healing claims come from scholars formerly opposed to such phenomena (e.g., Deere, "Being Right").
515. Harris, Acts Today, 11–12, 14–58. Not all the claims are inexplicable medically, but some are.
516. Schiappacasse, Heals, passim; I have cited only samples.
517. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 66–67; Witty, Healing, 206.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Christians in the United States believe that they have experienced or witnessed a healing miracle, with Pentecostal and charismatic figures much higher still.518
It would thus not be difficult to continue accumulating such claims almost indefinitely. I have simply taken many of the examples that came my way while writing this book. Some critics in the modern West may wish to dismiss the supernatural element in such claims reviewed in the past few sections, but it is difficult to dismiss the sincerity of all the claimants or the serious character of many of the reports they offer. It would be especially difficult for me to dismiss them, after conversing at length with a number of those reporting these accounts and being convinced of the sincerity of the vast majority of those with whom I conversed.
Conclusion Massive numbers of people are claiming healings and other dramatic miracles throughout the world, including in the West. Those scholars who still write as if all such claims in antiquity must be legendary write as if in a social vacuum, oblivious to overwhelming testimony against their assumption.
It is of course precarious for a variety of reasons to compare Jesus or his first agents with twentieth-century North American healing ministers, even when one restricts the discussion solely to claims of healings.519 But since we lack access to contemporary, extrabiblical accounts concerning Jesus or first-century apostles, modern analogies at least provide an additional, minimal sociological control that can be checked with modern sources.520
Based on such analogies, we can aver at the least that probably a number of people touched by Jesus and some early leaders in his movement found themselves cured. If some others did not, these negative cases would not dampen the spreading movement's enthusiasm over the cases that were accepted and recited.
Since Paul expects that apostles exhibited signs (2 Cor 12:12), claims them for himself (Rom 15:19; 2 Cor 12:12), and seems to have anticipated signs in local congregations (1 Cor 12:8–10; 14:24–26), many in his day undoubtedly offered eyewitness claims of healings, and Luke offers in Acts only a sample of what he probably could have reported. Likewise, the Gospels recount some unusual and memorable healing stories but present these as merely a sample of Jesus's works
(e.g., Mark 1:34; 3:10–11; 6:55–56; Matt 11:5//Luke 7:21–22; John 20:30).
I have not yet addressed the explanations for the sorts of recoveries to which people testify. But different sorts of recoveries may have different sorts of causes,
518. "Spirit and Power."
519. See, e.g., Percy, "Miracles" (most persuasively, 11–12). Jesus and his original apostles did not specialize in healing, but in the theology of the Gospels, healings were among the signs of the kingdom.
Likewise, in Acts, signs confirm the message about Jesus.
520. On a different point (orality, literacy, and colonialism), see Draper, "Orality," 2: "The study of ancient cultures in the light of cognate contemporary cultures provides a useful yardstick against which to judge claims about what might have happened in antiquity."
Supernatural Claims in the Recent West
so it is important to examine some kinds of recoveries that the vast majority of observers would concur are extraordinary. Before turning to proposed explanations of healing claims, therefore, I want to examine a few categories of claims today that also appear in the Gospels and that are not usually attributed to psychosomatic causes.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature Some Dramatic Reports To put that differently, if I became convinced that at least a few people have been able to walk on water, then I would be willing to take seriously that Jesus may have done so. But as a historian, I find myself unable to say that the life of Jesus involved spectacular happenings of a magnitude without parallel anywhere else. —Marcus Borg1
I took the dead body into the room while the people waited outside. In the room I prayed and pleaded with God to restore the life of the young boy. A few hours later, the boy opened his eyes and coughed. [With him] fully restored, I came out of the room and handed over the boy to his parents alive! —Leo Bawa2
I n chapters 8–11, I have summarized some cases of healing by region and period.
To continue the summary of miracle reports today, I cover a few sample areas of more dramatic miracle claims by specific topic. Where relevant I note some ancient claims; most of the kinds of individual reports about Jesus have at least some parallels in antiquity as well as in a variety of cultures, because they address some basic human needs. I focus, however, on modern claims, because my focus in this book is arguing that such claims can come from eyewitnesses and not exclusively from legend.
1. Borg, "Disagreement," 232.
2. Leo Bawa, personal correspondence, Aug. 10, 2009 (p. 5). With his permission, I have made slight modifications of grammar and punctuation for U.S. readers, without altering any content.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
Why This Chapter's Focus?
Many scholars who are skeptical about genuinely supernatural healing allow for some kinds of dramatic recoveries reported in the Gospels and Acts, provided that they are psychosomatic. In view of this approach, I want to rehearse here some of the more compelling sorts of miracles that are found today as well as in the Gospels and Acts. While the stories and summaries below contribute primarily to my main thesis—that eyewitnesses often claim what they regard as miracles—I believe that many of the accounts will also contribute to the secondary thesis, to be addressed in chapters 13–15, that supernatural causation should be considered in many cases.
I will thus note some reports of healing of blindness and inability to walk, which are not usually psychosomatic, especially in cases of blindness.3 Then I will turn to the categories of miracle claims most often denied and less common than many others: reports of raisings from the dead and nonhuman nature miracles. Not all of these individual accounts are of equal weight; I have sought to illustrate the range of claims. Nevertheless, readers who are consistently skeptical of reports of naturally inexplicable events should again consider the reasons for their reticence: if it is simply Hume's argument from the uniformity of human experience, I encourage them to reconsider the narrow parameters by which they have defined human experience. Other voices with a wider range of human experience than was available to Hume rightly clamor to be heard today.4
These sorts of claims usually imply more than a single witness. Because many peers in their communities would know of the cured persons' prior conditions, claims not believed by these peers (e.g., if the person had lacked previous functional limitations) would normally fade. The claims I cover here, however, typically have led to the growth of the churches or movements that claim them, often even to the extent of people reversing aspects of respected ancestral beliefs that stretch back for centuries. As in the Gospels, such reports naturally generate interest and a movement's growth. Thus significant local church growth has long been documented in response to signs, both in earlier centuries5 and more recently,6 for 3. Some writers have contended that blindness is sometimes psychosomatic (Dod, "Healer," 175);
Jeffries, "Healing," 71, cites one case where a nerve specialist was able to cure blindness and argues that it was psychosomatic (while arguing that Jesus healed true blindness, in contrast to modern cures).
Even if it might be psychosomatic in some cases (particularly merely poor vision that one only supposes improved in "faith"), it stretches plausibility to believe this is the norm with long-term blindness, especially where organic factors are conspicuous (in some modern reports, cataracts have disappeared) and to offer this as an explanation for a significant proportion of the cures of blindness noted below. In ch. 13 I note arguments about psychogenic blindness (physical conditions originating psychologically), but these would not explain a significant number of instant or almost instant cures clustering around a single teacher like Jesus.
4. Nevertheless, if someone who remains consistently skeptical has continued to read this far in the book, he or she must at least be commended for remaining open-minded enough to persevere thus far.
5. E.g., in Acts (with, e.g., Hardon, "Miracle Narratives"); accounts regarding Columba (Latourette,
History of Christianity, 344; Tucker, Jerusalem, 41).
6. Wood, "Preparation," 61 (for eyewitness testimony concerning a village in Togo, Oct. 1979);
Hickson, Heal, 137, 141; Clark, Impartation, 209; De Wet, "Signs," passim (for the breadth of his
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
example, in India,7 Nepal,8 and Mozambique.9 In one example I noted in chapter 9, an eyewitness shared with me the case of an aged skeptic's instant healing of an almost lifelong paralysis that sparked a people movement among what missiologists considered a previously "resistant" people group in Suriname.10 Such examples could be multiplied, and I offer some further such cases below. Hume doubted that healing claims involved matters of public knowledge, but (to paraphrase the book of Acts) these recoveries are not merely happening "in a corner."11
Healing of Blindness When a blind person receives sight in a medically inexplicable manner, such an event is sometimes considered newsworthy enough to merit public attention.12
A doctor critical of healing claims notes that healing of blindness is unusual; normally those who are registered blind can recover sight by natural means only through medical intervention.13 Yet many such claims of miraculous healing exist. research, see 92), esp. 1–2 (John Lake, in South Africa), 114 (in Sri Lanka, following the eyewitness,
Daniel, "Signs and Wonders," 105–6), 119–21 (in the Philippines). For the resultant conversion of the healed individual or their families or immediate acquaintances, see, e.g., Hickson, Heal, 75, 86, 88,
128–29.
7. Pothen, "Missions," 189–90 (on the Filadelfia movement in 1980s Gujarat and Maharashtra);
De Wet, "Signs," 89 (in Madras, following Sargunam, "Churches," 194), 110–11 (among Nishi tribals in India, following Cunville, "Evangelization," 156–57).
8. Stephen, "Church," 58 (suggesting the cause of more than 40 percent of Christian converts in Nepal); Ma, "Encounter," 137.
9. Baker, Enough, 74–76 (including resuscitations), 171, 173.
10. Interview, June 6, 2006; also in Norwood, "Colloquium," 24–26.
11. Acts 26:26, in a different connection and probably reflecting a common idiom; cf. Malherbe, "Not in a Corner." Lack of public attestation in front of nonbelievers was also a central criticism by Ernest Renan
(1823–92; Loos, Miracles, 23); countless examples challenge Renan's criticism today, though many would have done so in his lifetime had he been willing to admit them. (Schweitzer complains [Quest, 191] that Renan was more interested in his literary public than in scientific objectivity; for Romantics like Renan
[treated in Quest, 180–92], the thrill of recognition identified authenticity.) 12. Despite several years of blindness from irreversible macular degeneration, and lack of anatomical changes, ninety-year-old Marty Alvey, from a Portland suburb, spontaneously received sight; family members called it a miracle, and Alvey declared, "Why God did this for me I don't know, but if it only lasts another minute I have had the best blessing of my life!" Media reports cite also the amazement of specialists who examined his eyes; see Amy Troy, "Blind Oregon Man's Vision Returns, Surprising
Doctors" (Aug. 10, 2009; http://www.king5.com/topstories/NW_081009ORB-blind-man-sees-TP
.ca96d736.html?rss, at a Seattle NBC affiliate, accessed Aug. 12, 2009); also Sarah Harlan, "Legally Blind
OR Man Regains Eyesight" (Aug. 12, 2009, at the Evansville, Ind., NBC affiliate, accessed at http:// www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?s=10887163, on Aug. 12, 2009); Rich Shapiro, "And Then There
Was Sight! 90-Year-Old Gramps Gets Vision Back" (Aug. 12, 2009, accessed at http://www.nydailynews
.com/news/us_world/2009/08/12/2009–08–12_gramps_gets_vision_back_outta_sight.html). Given the lack of anatomical change, the occurrence seems miraculous; but even if this proved questionable, such spontaneous cures are extremely rare, and the reported cluster of them around Jesus and people who pray is significant.
13. May, "Miracles," 154.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
Healings of Blindness in History Healing of blindness has long been considered significant and appears in some ancient, extrabiblical miracle claims. Ancients frequently believed that, under extraordinary circumstances, blind persons could be supernaturally healed.14
Some thus contended that Isis both cured eye diseases and made blind,15 and in a list of healings at Epidauros, the lame and blind appear in a summary, perhaps as the most dramatic of cures.16 In a later report about a much earlier character, a Greek source claims that some Brahmans healed a man whose eyes had been put out.17 The majority of reports are much later than the events that they claim, but one cannot a priori rule out that some petitioners may have experienced restoration of sight.
This category of cures seems to have clustered around one ancient sage more than others, however. The earliest available traditions about Jesus multiply attest reports that Jesus healed some blind people.18 These healings appear in Mark
(8:22–26; 10:46–52); in what scholars usually call Q material (Matt 11:5//Luke 7:22); in John (9:7); and elsewhere (Matt 12:22; 15:30–31; 21:14; Luke 7:21).19
Again, in the Q material, from within the generation of prominent eyewitnesses who knew Jesus, the opening of blind eyes, like the healing of those unable to walk, offers a sign of the impending messianic, kingdom era (Isa 35:5–6; Matt
11:5//Luke 7:22).
In later centuries, reports of blindness being healed continue,20 including a public and well-known event in June 386 reported by Augustine and Ambrose.21 For recent centuries, I have noted some already (such as the healing of Ann Brookes's blind eye reported during the Wesleyan revival22 or healings of blindness through the prayers of Brother André23). Some firsthand reports of eye recoveries also
14. Witherington, Christology, 170–71, cites, e.g., Tob 11:10–14; Syll. 1173.15–18; SIG 3.1168; see also IG 4.951.120–21 (quoted in Whittaker, Jews and Christians, 212). A Jewish writer or tradition suggested that Amorite precious stones could give sight to the blind (L.A.B. 25:12). On understandings of blindness in antiquity, see, e.g., Pilch, "Blindness."
15. Horsley, Documents, 1:15, §2.
16. Epidauros inscr. 4 (Grant, Religions, 57). In Epidauros inscr. 4, Asclepius cuts open an eye and pours in medicine; in 9, he again opens eyes and pours in medicine.
17. Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 3.39. Some contemporary Indians may well have made these claims, but unfortunately, Apollonius's foreign travels tend to be where Philostratus departs most from known data and exercises the greatest creativity. Some Indian legends do report healing of blindness (e.g., in Dube,
"Past," 179, but this is in a story that Dube repeatedly calls mythical).
18. Witherington, Christology, 170, citing Mark, John, and Q (the Matthean summary and other examples he cites do not add to these).
19. Some of the special Matthean or Lukan material could well reflect Q material arranged differently by the other author.
20. E.g., see Kelsey, Healing, 185; Van Dijk, "Miracles," 239; Gardner, "Miracles," 1932.
21. See Augustine Conf. 9.7.16; see Herum, "Theology," 43–45, noting also Ambrose's specific identification of the healed man.
22. Rack, "Healing," 147.
23. Oursler, Power, 81.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
surrounded Blumhardt in the nineteenth century, including those of a blind child24 and partially blind persons.25
Among other reports from the early twentieth century,26 Anglican James Hickson cited abundant eyewitnesses around the world who reported numerous spontaneous cures of blindness through prayer during his healing ministry.27 For example, one local minister reported that a man blind for more than thirty years was prayed for and healed by the end of the service.28 In another account, a mother was hurrying her five-year-old blind daughter home, feeling she had wasted too much time at the service. Only at this point did the mother finally pay attention to her daughter's insistent claim to be able to see and discovered that it was true.29
A bishop who had previously denied the possibility of modern healings testified to having confirmed various healings, including a number of cases of blindness.30
In one case a pupil said to be "eaten away by abscesses" was restored and now could see.31
Among other older reports, a medically documented case of incurable, destroyedoptic-nerve blindness was cured at Lourdes. The woman was first able to see with apparently still atrophied nerves, and then her nerves themselves were restored.32
24. Ising, Blumhardt, 209. A possibly fully blind woman appears to be partly healed (now just myopic) and can function with glasses (329). Cf. also 207 (his son's "eye trouble"). Cataracts and congenital blindness, by contrast, seemed more intractable (209).
25. Ibid., 210 (noted by other eyewitnesses); also a theological student's vision problems (ibid.).
26. Note also from this period, e.g., the healing of a blind child (Gregory, "Healed"); Stephens, Healeth,
72–74; restoration of Raymond T. Richey's eyes that had been injured in his childhood (Hardesty, Faith
Cure, 125–26); claims in Turner, "Healed." One pastor in Wales in May 1925 claimed to witness the healing of a girl whose empty eye socket became a seeing eye after a few seconds of prayer (Synan, Voices,
91–92). One detailed story involved a case, which the account claims was medically certified, of a young man with previously empty eye sockets completely healed in the 1890s (Gibson, "New Eyes," esp. 9–10).
Nevertheless, in the archives of the same period (at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center) I found far more reports of blind Pentecostals involved in or receiving ministry than of people healed from blindness.
One of the movement's key leaders, William Seymour, remained permanently blind in one eye (Bartleman,
Azusa Street, 41). Earlier, Fanny Crosby, though remaining blind, believed herself healed from cholera
(Miller, Miracle of Healing, 68); cf. the narrative of miraculous intervention on behalf of a blind Afghan church leader in Otis, Giants, 159. For a renewal theology of disability, see Yong, "Disability."
27. Hickson, Heal, 29, 31–32, 37–38, 53, 54, 62, 65–66, 74, 76, 78, 85, 87, 118, 124, 126, 128–29,
135, 141 (noting thirty-six cases), 151, 162, 180, 191, 196, 205–6, 213; cf. 226 (I retain more details in my notes); partial blindness in idem, Bridegroom, 300. Some reports were from newspapers (e.g., Heal,
120, 121, 123, 131, 133, 135, 152–53). Most of these claims are taken from bishops' and other ministers' signed and dated letters to Hickson; most claim eyewitness experience; and most of the dates are only a few years before the book's publication, making forgery quite implausible.
28. Ibid., 126 (a letter from Rev. W. H. Hallows in Zululand, Sept. 11, 1922, also reporting the testimony of the man's children).
29. Ibid., 128–29 (in Johannesburg). The healing of the blindness in one eye of a girl in Johannesburg who kept insisting on being taken to the service led to the conversion of her family (idem, Bridegroom, 394).
30. Ibid., 180–82.
31. Ibid., 205.
32. Cranston, Miracle, 42–44 (on Mme Biré). At Lourdes the medically impossible functioning of an organ, such as seeing through eyes the optic nerves of which remain atrophied, appears as a special miracle (ibid., 136).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
In 1915, a young woman suffering long-term, organic blindness was cured during the Mass.33 Some extraordinary claims also surround the ministry of John G. Lake and his early twentieth-century colleagues: it is reported that a destroyed eye, scheduled to be immediately removed, was instead immediately healed through prayer.34 Likewise, a young man, challenged by a cessationist about continuing miracles, was said to have ended the debate by praying successfully for the healing of a woman's blind eye.35 A doctor reported in 1916 a sixty-four-year-old woman with cataracts healed through prayer, her sight now functional. He contacted her eye specialist, who noted that he had previously planned to operate, "for I have never known a spontaneous cure for cataract."36 Others in 1921 claimed to witness the healing of a woman with film over her swollen eyes, and that she left the meeting with "perfectly normal" eyes.37 A twelve-year-old from Newcastle upon Tyne, born blind, was healed in 1927, "and the first face she saw in the world" was that of Pastor Stephen Jeffreys, who was praying for the sick.38 Early Pentecostals gave numerous other testimonies.39
South African Methodist Elsie Salmon reported the instant healing of a fully blind woman with two cataracts.40 Doctors feared that the blindness of a poisoned nurse would be permanent; but the day after Salmon laid hands on her to pray, when the doctor removed the bandages, the nurse could see clearly.41 A woman blind for twenty years was healed in three days.42 Salmon reports other cures of the eyes or sight as well.43 Elsewhere, during World War II, a wounded
Scottish soldier lost one eye immediately and the other appeared beyond salvage, with six metal fragments "on the retina and over twenty in the rest of the eye."44 The naval surgeon working with him reports that some time after prayer,
33. Duffin, Miracles, 61, measurements indicating the shift from 10 to 70 percent of sight.
34. Lindsay, Lake, 32.
35. Ibid., 40.
36. Hansen, "Cures," 114 (translated from Norwegian).
37. "Revival in London," 14 (noting that she did not even need her glasses); no mention is offered of later follow-up. Cf. one or two cases of boys' sight improvement in Glover, "Miracles of Healing," 6.
38. "Revival in England" (taking the report from Redemption Tidings, a British Pentecostal magazine).
On the Jeffreys brothers, see Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 197–99.
39. E.g., Mueller, "Blind, Deaf," 21 (claiming that the witness saw a person blind for ten years instantly and totally healed, and that the blind person's healing was also in the local Toledo newspaper); "Scotland
Stirred," 5 (citing the Elim Evangel); Wise, "Healings." Note also the healing of the eye problem in Menzies,
Anointed, 43–44 (in the U.S. Midwest in 1903).
40. Salmon, Heals, 68. Three days later the blindness returned, but she stood by faith and the next day it vanished, never returning in the following three years (68–69).
41. Ibid., 67–68. The doctor concluded that it was miraculous (68).
42. Ibid., 72–74.
43. Severe keratoma, healed over five weeks of prayer (ibid., 69); an irreparably damaged optic nerve, healed over four months of prayer (69–70); almost complete blindness healed (the timing unclear, 70–71); a man blind for years healed over the course of a few days during the healing mission (71–72); the healing of a congenital, incurable eye disease (29). Eyes permanently blinded by a caustic substance were healed over the course of perhaps a month; the specialist acknowledged a miracle (30–31).
44. Woodard, Faith, 48 (noting on 49 that these were "too near the brain" for operation).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
the fragments simply dropped from his eye, "since which time he has been able to see perfectly."45
John Sung's journal claimed healings of blindness in Asia, especially in 1930s China.46 Other Chinese ministers at the time also reported some healings, some of which surprised them.47 When one blind boy was very ill, the father requested prayer, and the Chinese ministers, uncertain how to respond, told him to turn to God and God would help him. In response, the man immediately "removed the idols from his home to declare his faith in God. His son immediately showed signs of improvement." Two days later, the doctor visited and noted that the boy was healed. "He was still blind, but after three days he received his sight." Many people turned to Christ, and the ministers noted that they were "ashamed of our lack of faith."48 Reports of healings of blindness still occur in China.49
Healings of blindness also reportedly followed Simon Kimbangu in central Africa.50 An account of complete healing of blindness surrounds the early establishment of West Indian Pentecostalism in the United Kingdom.51 Such healings are said to have accompanied Kathryn Kuhlman's ministry: a child nearly blind from a blood clot on the optic nerve was instantly healed during a meeting, with an attending doctor testifying that such a condition does not normally simply vanish.52
Contemporary Reports of Healings of Blindness in Africa Today such reports continue to remain common. As I have noted, this is especially true in much of the Majority World, where medical treatment is often tragically far less accessible than in the West.53 The vast majority of the world's hearing
45. Ibid., 50 (including distant prayer also by the pope, 47–48).
46. Sung, Diaries (mostly in 1930s China), 28, 36, 56, 111 (multiple cases), 116 (multiple cases),
153 (a girl in Singapore), 158 (multiple cases), 161 (four cases).
47. Not to mention Western missionaries. Despite common cessationism among many U.S. Southern
Baptists at the time, some of their missionaries reported a bandit who had lost his sight regaining it upon conversion ca. 1932 (McGee, "Radical Strategy," 91–92, citing here Crawford, Shantung Revival, 35).
48. Hai-po, "Works" (translated from a then-recent issue of Hsin I Pao, the Lutheran weekly of China, and one of the most explicit supernatural claims printed in Gleanings, for a Western Lutheran audience).
49. E.g., Danyun, Lilies, 330 (a man blind for many years; a woman blind for eight years).
50. Rabey, "Prophet."
51. Michel, Telling, 64.
52. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 12.
53. E.g., Protus, "Latunde" (after fasting and washing with water, the latter as in 2 Kgs 5:14; John
9:7); Chavda, Miracle, 122–23 (a seventy-year-old woman, healed completely on her seventh, persistent entreaty); in various nations, Osborn, Evangelism, 1:930, 938, 941–42; 21:370, 400; 22:65; 22:67 (two cases); 22:783; 23:592; 23:713–15 (twenty-five cases, with photos of five testifying of restored sight);
23:722 (with photos of three more cases); Osborn, Healing, 281 (as many as ninety in one crusade),
287–88, 291, 293, 295, 296 (the sister of a worker), 298 (two), 300 (multiple cases), 301, 302 (two), 304,
306 (two), 308, 310, 313, 316, 317, 326; crossed eyes on 296, 297, 300; Clark, Impartation, 21 (tunnel vision), 121, 125, 133, 166, 169 (several), 211 (six instances, including one case where new corneas and pupils were formed); Johnson, Heaven, 187; idem, Mind, 53 (also, on 36, healing of lesser vision impairment, so glasses were not needed; see also examples of various sorts of eye restorations on their church
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
and visually impaired people live in the Majority World, and most lack access to conventional treatments.54 Among other sources I noted a growing movement in Mozambique, where reports of healings of blindness and deafness are common;55 a number of these have now been externally corroborated by a research team.56
Two of my Baptist students witnessed the healing of a man's blindness in Cameroon when one of them, a Cameroonian minister, prayed for the man.57 I have already noted a recent African report where three blind children were healed at once, together;58 reports of other meetings where many were healed of blindness;59 and other eyewitness testimonies of blindness healed,60 including the visible disappearance of cataracts.61 Medically, cataracts can normally be removed only by surgery.62 I focus below on other examples.
A "fetish priest" who had recently lost his sight came to Seth Ablorh, a U.S.trained Ghanaian doctor. Finding no pathology, Ablorh irrigated the man's eyes and asked if he might pray for him. The priest demurred but returned three days later, still blind and now willing to receive prayer. Ablorh irrigated his eyes again, prayed, and then retired to his office to pray further. Suddenly, his office prayers were interrupted, as people outside began shouting, "He can see, he can see!" website, posted Nov. 27, 2006; Jan. 18, 2007; Feb. 28, 2007; Nov. 7, 2007); Bentley, Miraculous, 164, 177,
179–80, 208, 212, 220, 239, 243, 257, 262, 263, 264, 267 (twenty cases), 269, 276 (eleven cases), 291, 302
(124 cases), 304–6 (or vision impairments, 165, 170, 175, 299; though as I noted earlier there is today serious controversy surrounding Bentley's claims); Wagner, Acts, 202; Angela Salazar Aragona, April 14,
2002; cf. also Währisch-Oblau, "Healing in Migrant Churches," 70, on typical demonstrations of healing in West African Pentecostal churches. Although not all the above locations are in the Majority World or are weak in medical resources, the majority of the accounts involve these locations.
54. Brown, Mory, Williams, and McClymond, "Effects," 868 (citing World Health Organization figures of 80 percent of the 278 million hearing impaired and 87 percent of the 314 million visually impaired).
55. See accounts in Baker, Enough, 145, 169, 174, 182 (with further accounts of eyes white with blindness changing color as they were being healed, 76, 171–72, 173; idem, Miracles, 189); idem, Miracles,
8, 39–40, 68, 78 (often), 108, 113, 159, 160, 192, 193 (partial healing); Chevreau, Turnings, 19, 166–67
(partial damage).
56. Brown, Mory, Williams, and McClymond, "Effects." For example, two subjects' hearing thresholds improved by more than 50 db HL (ibid., 866); three subjects' vision "improved from 6/120 or worse to 6/24 or better, and one subject improved from unable to count fingers at 30 cm (6/2400) to 6/38 (ibid., 866–67), with an average visual acuity improvement of more than tenfold (ibid., 867).
Cf. briefly Brown, "Awakenings," 363–64. While a backlash from skeptics may arise, there is no reason apart from skepticism to dispute this evidence while accepting evidence for other kinds of claims. If critics might charge that some reporters are sympathetic, the critics' antipathy is no less a bias, and the data remain. Indeed, would not a rational, initially neutral observer become sympathetic if they found evidence supporting such events?
57. Yolanda McCain, personal correspondence, Oct. 3, 2008; Paul Mokake, interview, May 13, 2009.
58. Daniel Kolenda in a Nigeria crusade, Oct. 9, 2008, forwarded to me by Michael Brown, Nov. 15,
2008, with additional observations.
59. E.g., De Wet, "Signs," 93–95; Osborn, Evangelism, 1:930, 938, 941–42; 21:370, 400; 22:65; 22:67,
782–83; 23:592, 713–15, 722; see also Marszalek, Miracles, 2 (Malawi), 159–60 (several cases in Uganda).
60. Shelley Hollis, phone interview, Jan. 10, 2009.
61. Baker, Enough, 76, 171–72, 173; cf. also the testimony of a retired radiologist in Brown, "Awakenings,"
363.
62. Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009. That is, these are not cases of "hysterical blindness" such as those apparently suggested in Gildea, "Possession," 297.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Ablorh decided that something spiritual had caused the blindness and was convinced that something spiritual had cured it.63
In May 1973, in Ogoniland, Nigeria, the eyes of a fiveor six-year-old girl born blind looked like empty sockets with skin draped over them; no slits were visible in the eyelids. When Geoffrey Numbere, whom we encountered in chapter 9, prayed, she opened her eyes and could see; a blind boy was also healed at that time, and much of the village of Dere was converted.64 In another African account, one believer was healed from blindness after a priest sprinkled on him consecrated water.65 One writer I know recounts that the sight of one completely blind woman returned immediately during prayer in October 1980 in South Africa, and that the South African Sunday Times even reported the healing.66 Others reported a number of healings of blindness during a revival among the Zulu people of southern Africa in the 1970s,67 including eleven persons brought on one occasion,68 a man blind for more than three decades,69 and a blind woman whose eyes had never fully formed.70 The director of the Jesus Film project similarly reports that an African woman blind for twenty-seven years was healed when she prayed along with the blind beggar in the film to receive healing from Jesus.71 Nigerian minister
Joe Olaiya reports that blind and deaf persons were healed in his meetings, leading to many conversions.72
My friend Dr. Bungishabaku Katho, an Evangelical Brethren minister73 who is now president of Shalom University in Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo, was part of a prayer group team evangelizing villages in 1993. The people of the village of Hayo, near Nyankunde, were dominated by a powerful witch doctor. One old man listening to them, however, went to retrieve his wife from the witch doctor's house, where she was being treated. Neither the hospital nor the witch doctor had been able to help her blindness, and the man brought her to the team as they had finished praying for people and were preparing to leave. The husband confessed that he was Catholic and acknowledged that Jesus is more powerful than a witch doctor. The three team members consulted one another; they had never been in such a situation before, but they decided that this challenge for Jesus was the very
63. Mensah, "Basis," 178.
64. Numbere, Vision, 121. The book mentions other blind persons being healed (186, 210; nearblindness on 189–90).
65. Protus, "Chukwu." Cf. also the account of the three-year-old with ulcerated, bandaged eyes healed when sprinkled with holy water in the United States (DeGrandis, Miracles, 31).
66. Jackson, Quest, 254.
67. Koch, Zulus, 71, 82, 94–97, 153, 196 (multiple cases), 232; blindness was not healed (though reportedly pain was) in the case on 79.
68. Ibid., 94–95.
69. Ibid., 96.
70. Ibid.
71. Paul Eshleman, Jesus Film Project support letter, Dec. 4, 1997.
72. Olaiya, "Praying," 111.
73. In Congo-DRC, this is Assemblée des Frères Evangélique; his church is called Communauté
Emmanuel.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
sort of event that they had come for. They had prayed for the woman for about two minutes when she suddenly began shouting, "I can see!" Though in her early sixties (in Congo, this is not young), she began dancing and jumping. Even those who had prayed were surprised, not having witnessed such a miracle previously, but they did find the woman completely healed. She lived on for another ten years, and the healing endured.74
Gary Dickinson, a friend from college, happens to work with the Assemblies of God in my wife's country, and reported a couple healings of blindness in the past year. Intrigued, I requested details. In one of the cases, a blind teenager named
Julia came to their church's youth group, and the youth prayed over her for an hour, until she was healed in front of many eyewitnesses. She remains part of the youth group.75
In chapter 9, I noted Bruce Collins's eyewitness testimony of an orphan in Kenya whose sight was healed. He also recounted the healing of another orphan's eye there, and I have reserved that account for this chapter. Before Oliver was one year old,
Bruce told me, the boy fell on an opened tin can, leaving his left eye completely blind. The eye bulged and appeared grotesque. Two of Bruce's colleagues began praying for him, and within fifteen minutes the eye started to move and Oliver began to see through it. Other orphans began joining in the prayer, and within fifteen more minutes he could see color. Bruce has seen Oliver often in the three years since then, and he has completely normal sight in that eye, though the scar around it remains.76
It is said that an Ethiopian Christian "blind for sixteen years received his sight through prayer" and the instructions of Jas 5:14.77 When I asked Gebru Woldu, a minister from Ethiopia mentioned in chapter 9, if he has seen any blind people healed, he immediately responded, "plenty of people," and that he always gets confirmation from doctors. He noted that after the period of persecution under Mengistu, his young church of two thousand obtained government permission to use the abandoned military hospital in Dire Dawa, though they lacked anything to sit on there. When he prayed, two blind persons received sight, and an astonished visitor asked if anyone could certify that they had truly been blind. Their many neighbors and relatives readily testified that they had been blind; it was common knowledge, and the impressed visitor donated chairs for the whole church.
Likewise, a community leader named Ambase, initially hostile to Gebru's sort of church, had long been blind in one eye, with his other eye crossed; while they prayed, both his eyes were cured. Now an elder in the church, he always testifies of how he was healed and became a follower of Christ; "everybody knows him,"
Gebru concluded. He notes that in cases where blindness was caused by cataracts, he has seen eyes white from cataracts healed as the cataracts disappeared during 74. Bungishabaku Katho, interview, March 12, 2009.
75. Gary A. Dickinson (personal correspondence, June 3, 2010).
76. Bruce Collins, phone interview, April 11, 2009, noting that he has photos of the child.
77. Koch, Gifts, 101.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
prayer.78 Other healings of blindness are reported in Ethiopia,79 South Africa,80
Côte d'Ivoire,81 and elsewhere.
Contemporary Reports of Healings of Blindness in Asia I also have mentioned some healings of blindness reported in Asia,82 and in addition to rehearsing some of these briefly here I will supplement with some other reports. My friend Flint McGlaughlin shared with me an eyewitness account.
Flint is director of enterprise research at the Transforming Business Institute,
Cambridge University, and is also director of MECLABS. In 2004, with several others he was visiting an orphanage in India, where he led them in praying for a leper who was mostly blind.83 To this point, the leper could see only shadows, and people sometimes would lead him around; when they prayed, suddenly he could see. Robin Shields, who was present on this occasion, noted that the man suddenly began looking everywhere in wonder. His eyes had been "flat and clouded," but now they filled with tears and "became clear." "He exclaimed, 'I can see!'" and the many onlookers cheered. "For several days," she added, "you could see him wandering the grounds. He walked round and round. Looking to the sky. Raising his hands looking in the trees. Walking up to people telling them of what this awesome God had done for him."84 Flint and Robin shared with me photos of the joyful man and those rejoicing with him.
In 2002, the leader of a large house church network in China told a U.S. journalist about a revival of healings in China; "I personally know many blind people who recovered their sight."85 Chinese informants offered similar testimony to a member of a U.S. congressional delegation.86 Christopher Daniel of Sri Lanka quotes an observer of one of his own crusades regarding the healing of a man totally blind for five years: "Many in the audience knew him, knew of his blindness. They began clapping their hands with happiness."87 One book reports that a seven-year-old
78. Gebru Woldu (interview, May 20, 2010).
79. Menberu, "Mekonnen Negera"; Negash, "Demelash" (in 1991).
80. De Wet, "Signs," 94–96.
81. Ibid., 93–94 (in 1973).
82. E.g., Khai, "Pentecostalism," 268; long-term paralysis of one eye, in one of my interviews with a Chinese pastor in May 2007. In a different claim, an operation and a corneal ulcer had left Won-chul Shin with a score of 0.02 in his right eye before prayer; after prayer on May 9, 2002, his score was 0.1, far from perfect but a significant improvement (case study from WCDN website, including his ophthalmologic records, http://www.wcdn.org/wcdn_eng/case/case_content.asp?id=21&page=4, accessed May 6,
2009). Yet some corneal ulcers do heal on their own, depending on their extent and cause (Dr. Nicole
Matthews, personal correspondence, May 28, 2009).
83. Personal correspondence, Feb. 6–7, 2009.
84. Robin Shields, personal correspondence, Feb. 7, 2009. She also provided other details of location and so forth that I omit here. In a response to my follow-up query, she confirmed that he was telling others of his healed blindness; she also notes that this man and about fifty other people chose to affiliate with Jesus's followers that day (personal correspondence, Feb. 8, 2009).
85. Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 274.
86. Fever, "Delegation," 34.
87. Daniel, "Labour," 160, noting that he tested his vision.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
Kuwaiti boy had been blind in one eye, with 30 percent sight in the other; yet he saw Jesus in a vision and was immediately healed.88
In Rajasthan, India, Pastor Kantilal Anjaroli prayed for a blind woman named Reshma, from Siyara, who was healed and now attends worship.89 In a fishing village near the Bay of Bengal, Jacob Beera, whom I knew from his connections with one of my home churches when I lived in Ohio, prayed for a blind man named Swami who wanted to see; he was healed and the next Sunday requested baptism.90
A Filipino seminarian, Chester Allan Tesoro, visited a church in Mindanao that was pastored by a friend, where he reported that many miracles were occurring. This seminarian told me that he had noticed an older lady whose eyes were completely white; after the service, he suddenly heard her shouting, "I can see! I can see!" Initially she could see only light, but then she could see color, and then he was able to get close enough to recognize that her eyes were no longer white but brown.91 One scholar, Julie Ma, notes that earlier, many blind persons were reported healed in the Philippines through the prayers of Elva
Vanderbout;92 for example, "an old woman who had been blind in both eyes since 1942 was healed and could once again see out of both eyes."93 Ma cites a more recent case in which she and some of her colleagues prayed for Kapeng
Andaloy, and she was instantly healed of long-term blindness and hearing problems.94
Evangelist Don Stewart recounts the story of Dario Bautista, for many years blind in one eye because of lacerations from barbed wire. Bautista "felt something" in his eye during a healing service that Stewart held in Manila; within a few days he could see fully, and later he became one of the pastors in the movement with which Stewart was working.95 A writer interviewing a healing evangelist who was ministering in the Philippines witnessed an older woman
88. Bush and Pegues, Move, 61.
89. C&C 37 (5, May 2008): 9 (from the Filadelfia movement noted earlier in the book). One writer reports the healing of a Hindu's blindness in the early twentieth century, but the blindness returned when the man returned to his deities (Clifford, "Permanent"; idem, "Healings"). D. F. Higbee reports the instant and visible healing of a cross-eyed boy who had not been helped medically, immediately converting the boy's previously skeptical father (Marszalek, Miracles, 34). Of course, many other testimonies exist (note, e.g., the summary in Pospisil, "Deliverances").
90. Jacob Beera, personal correspondence, Nov. 2, 2009, accompanied with this story in his Hope
Ministries Update ("Sight for Swami," Aug. 2006, p. 1). I mentioned my connection with Jacob in ch. 7.
91. Chester Allan Tesoro, interview, Jan. 30, 2009.
92. Ma, "Vanderbout," 130.
93. Ma, "Encounter," 137; idem, "Vanderbout," 132 (additionally describing the healing of another blind, elderly woman); idem, Mission, 64.
94. Ma, Mission, 64–65, adding that Kapeng's knee pain also subsided immediately. Following this experience, Kapeng, her family, and many others in the village became Christians.
95. Stewart, Only Believe, 151. This report would meet even the extremely narrow criterion for healing of "self-evidently impossible cures, involving something like the regeneration of a lost eye or limb," articulated in West, Miracles, 121 (see also 13), with the assurance that such miracles are not claimed.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
blind in one eye healed at the beginning of a meeting,96 as well as other healings of blindness afterward.97
In Indonesia, it is reported that an illiterate Christian girl named Anna felt led to pour water into the eyes of a blind woman; this woman received sight, and Anna is reported to have miraculously helped ten blind people to receive sight.98
One witness testified of someone who lacked a pupil and iris in his eyeballs yet had miraculously been enabled to see.99 An Indonesian Christian author recounts that he witnessed the instant healing of a seventeen-year-old man blind and deaf from birth, known to everyone in the village.100 Other accounts of blindness being healed are reported there.101
Contemporary Reports of Healings of Blindness in Latin America and the West Another researcher shared with me an interesting report of healing in Brazil. A member of her team, a university biomedical researcher, reported that two blind
Brazilian boys received sight, as well as the healing of a boy who had been deaf and mute.102
Many cures of blindness in response to prayer are reported in Latin America;103 on one occasion, for example, it is reported that a blind woman in San Salvador was instantly healed during prayer, leading to massive crowds the next day because she was widely known in her barrio.104 Other accounts involve healings in Mexico,105
Argentina,106 and elsewhere.
96. Stewart, Only Believe, 139–40 (the writer was Doug Wead; the healing required two prayers, as in Mark 8:24–25).
97. Ibid., 141; Stewart notes that many others were healed of blindness during that meeting. My friend
Bruce Kinabrew tells me that his children witnessed the blind and paralyzed healed while praying for them in the Philippines (personal correspondence, June 23, 2008; Feb. 10, 2011).
98. Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 286 (citing Koch, Revival, 137). Young, "Miracles," 117, also cites Koch's reports about Anna.
99. Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 286, citing an interview with Rev. Benjamin Manuain (March 21,
2001).
100. Tari, Breeze, 14–15. He reports another blind eye cured and it looking different (20), and a child born blind healed (among other healings, 24).
101. E.g., De Wet, "Signs," 121–23; a case of blindness caused by witchcraft, in Crawford, Miracles,
23–24.
102. He reports the restoration of sight in Brown, "Awakenings," 362 (on 363 adding his informal test of sight), and (on 363) the healing of a boy who had been deaf and mute. Also reported, a boy's right leg suddenly grew more than two inches to match the left (363). Not all claims on the trip withstood scrutiny: for example, one claim involving visual improvement from a long-term condition of 20/200 to certified
20/40 eyesight (about 85 percent of the visual efficiency of 20/20 vision; cf. Candy Gunther Brown, personal correspondence, Jan. 1, 2011).
103. So, e.g., De Wet, "Signs," 103–4; Castleberry, "Impact," 108, 112; Doleshal, "Healings," 7.
104. Harris, Acts Today, 22–23.
105. Ramirez, "Faiths," 94–95 (this particular claim appears to be from about 1920); Alexander,
Signs, 86.
106. De Wet, "Signs," 104.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
Such claims also occur in the United States107 and elsewhere in the West.108
Without medical intervention, one medical doctor reports that she ministered spiritual healing to a man who was incurably blind neurologically (his optic nerve had been destroyed), and the man began to see that day.109 I earlier noted how my friend Anna Gulick's vision was partially restored in one eye after prayer for this; while the restoration is only partial, this rapid physical reversal of long-term macular degeneration is medically inexplicable.110 It has had practical effects; she is pleased that she can now even read words with an eye that was previously blind.111
Others have reported such information. The author of an article in one professional journal notes,
When my younger sister was three years old, she walked accidentally into the swordshaped leaf of a Spanish bayonet yucca plant and punctured one of her eyes. It deflated like a beach ball. The attending physician pronounced her blind and offered what treatment he could. My parents prayed and asked the church to pray. In several weeks, my sister could see again. The church and my family praised God for a miracle. The physician sheepishly objected that he had misdiagnosed the injury and the eye had healed quite naturally.112
Misdiagnosis does occur, but so does unfair, retroactive attribution of misdiagnosis; see the brief discussion in chapter 14. It seems clear which view of the matter the article author holds in this particular case.
Dr. Rex Gardner notes that the sight of one schoolteacher, previously functionally blind, was restored fifty days later during prayer with a healing minister; the healing was so complete that he no longer even needed the glasses he had worn for twelve years before his accident.113 One U.S. pastor tells of a member of his own congregation, blind in one eye for sixty-five years, suddenly healed when
107. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 31–35; Neal, Power, 18; McKenna, Miracles, 16; Laurentin, Catholic
Pentecostalism, 103–4; idem, Miracles, 86; DeGrandis, Miracles, 13 (a seventy-year-old); Schiappacasse,
Heals, 5, 16–17, 34, 62 (cf. 56: significant organic improvement); McClenon, Events, 131; Buckingham,
Daughter, 187–88; Bill Twyman, interview, Nov. 11, 2007; Moreland and Issler, Faith, 149; cf. DiOrio,
Miracles, 121–26 (lazy eye); Bredesen, Miracle, 15–16 (an eye burn); Zagrans, Miracles, 5, 56–57
(partial).
108. In Canada, Best, Supernatural, 125 (one eye); Bentley, Miraculous, 227; in Estonia, Bruce Collins, phone interview, April 11, 2009; elsewhere, Randy Clark, personal correspondence, April 1, 2011.
109. Speed, Incurables, 65, 67 (Speed is the doctor and eyewitness).
110. Anna Gulick, personal correspondence, April 19, 23, 24, 25, 2010; May 8, 17, 29, 2010; June 4,
10, 11, 12, 2010). Though her vision in that eye remains only partial at the time of this note, she can now count fingers at a distance of two feet, whereas in Nov. 2008 she lacked anything more than perception of light (June 10, 12, 2010, with the optometrist's report, mailed June 14 and received by me June 17).
Likewise, the macular degeneration specialist noted both better eyesight and improvement on the ocular coherence tomography, without treatment (his report is dated July 6, 2010; mailed to me July 28, received
July 31; further, April 15, 2011); and her glasses include a prescription for the previously blind eye (Aug. 26;
Sept. 9, 2010), with improvements continuing (Oct. 30, 2010).
111. Personal correspondence, Aug. 28, 31; Sept. 3, 2010.
112. Parker, "Suffering," 216. For the healing of another pierced eye, see Duffin, Miracles, 64.
113. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 31–35 (the remark about the glasses is on 34).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
prayed for. He cites both his own eyewitness testimony and that of members of his congregation; the sight had been lost due to the eye having been punctured.114
Emily Gardiner Neal reports that a blind woman's sight was fully restored during two prayers;115 also a nurse, blind for "four years, regained her sight."116 After criticizing a number of faith healers of whom he is skeptical, one reporter notes how Dr. Henry Smith Lieper, previously associate general secretary of the World
Council of Churches, was healed of a medically incurable eye disorder after a Presbyterian pastor laid hands on him.117
A Nazarene writer recounts his interview with a minister who was instantly and permanently healed of organic blindness.118 One U.S. evangelist recounts that a popular girl in Savannah, whose rapid, documented retinal deterioration had led to almost total blindness and a local newspaper story, was instantly and publicly healed in one of his meetings.119 When a blind girl from a cessationist Christian college was healed, he says, the college even encouraged other students to attend the meetings.120 Another writer reports that an elderly blind woman in England with a detached retina in one eye and a cataract in the other was instantly healed of blindness during prayer.121 As noted earlier, blindness was healed within a few days after Sister Briege prayed for a skeptical woman who had no expectation of healing.122 In another account, shortly after doctors had told a woman that she would never see again, the woman, blind for two years, experienced a vision of Jesus and her sight returned.123
Even in my limited survey, I have come across reports of more than 350 modern healings of blindness. While I question some accounts, most of these reports come from sources that I trust, some from trusted friends who were eyewitnesses of the events. I cannot explain such a significant number of dramatic, often clearly organic cures on naturalistic terms, and I will suggest in chapter 15 that supernatural causation is a better explanation for most of them. For the moment, however, their explanation remains beside the main point. What is most critical for nt scholars from a historical standpoint is to note that such phenomena are widely claimed by firsthand sources, so that it is not imperative to deny the possibility of firsthand claims for such phenomena in the first century, however we may choose to explain
114. Harris, Acts Today, 8; I was acquainted with this pastor when he later held a respectable position in his denomination and am confident that he would not have fabricated his testimony. For the complete and instant healing of a person who had long had eye damage, see 18; for other examples of healing of partial sight impairment, see 28–29, 47–49, 159–60; for reported healing and sight through what had been an artificial eye, see 82 (for forty years, with the healed person appearing on television as well).
115. Neal, Power, 40.
116. Ibid., 57.
117. Spraggett, Kuhlman, 26.
118. Miller, Miracle of Healing, 103.
119. Stewart, Only Believe, 1–2.
120. Ibid., 43.
121. Wagner, "World," 80 (confirming that she retained full sight a year later); Jackson, Quest, 255.
122. McKenna, Miracles, 16.
123. Huyssen, Saw, 144–45 (citing an account published by the Chicago Tribune Company in 1965).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
them.124 I will explore some explanatory options in the following chapters (chs.
13–15).
Healing of Those Unable to Walk Healings of people paralyzed or for other reasons unable to walk are prominent in the Gospels and Acts (Mark 2:10–12; Matt 11:5//Luke 7:22; Matt 4:24; 15:30–31;
21:14; John 5:8–9; Acts 3:6–8; 8:7; 9:34; 14:10).125 Augustine reports the known healings of paralyzed persons in his own circle of believers.126 Bede (ca. 673–735) offers a vivid account of a cure of long-term paralysis.127 Sixteenth-century church authorities inquired of at least eighty persons when investigating the cure of a young man who had been paralyzed;128 in the early twentieth century, an injured child with deformed legs experienced healing instantly and walked.129 I focus more fully, however, on more recent accounts, since these are the ones less widely known to most readers. They feature prominently in many modern accounts of divine activity, including in evangelism modeled after methods in Acts,130 especially frequently in the Majority World.131
124. This is intended as an argument against the a priori assumption that such claims can never stem from eyewitnesses, not an argument against specific literary claims as to whether a particular healing claim is traditional or redactional.
125. There is no ideal terminology; because of current usage I have sometimes preferred "paralyzed" to older designations like "crippled" and "lame" where possible, but not all cases of inability to walk technically reflect paralysis. For a non-Christian example where a healer was twice (roughly seventeen years apart) deemed incapable of ever walking again, yet after months (four and two months, respectively) able to recover employing traditional healing methods, see Foltz, "Healer," 159–60.
126. City of God 22.8. In earlier history, cf. Coptic Christian examples of healing of this ailment (Godron,
"Healings," 1213).
127. Young, "Miracles in History," 114, citing H.E.G.A. 3.9.
128. Duffin, Miracles, 18.
129. Ibid., 62.
130. E.g., De Wet, "Signs," 94–95, 114; Edmunds, "Sick"; cf. reported healings in Buckingham, Daughter,
128, 133, 187–88; Johnson, Heaven, 102 (a man who had been unable to stand for years); idem, Mind,
35, 53, 79–80 (a man in South Africa paralyzed for eleven years), 81, 88–89 (also the church website postings for March 17, 2006; instant healings of long-term, partial immobility in idem, Heaven, 54, 188,
189; idem, Mind, 81, 88 [particularly dramatic], 89; website postings for Oct. 10, 2005; April 26, 2007;
July 13, 2007); Bentley, Miraculous, 152–53, 164; an instant healing of a damaged leg reported to me by Bill Jackson (interview, Nov. 13, 2007).
131. E.g., Bush and Pegues, Move, 51–52; Osborn, Evangelism, 1:930, 938, 944; 21:368, 369; 21:370
(three cases); 21:400; 22:65 (about six cases); 22:66 (two cases); 22:67; 22:68 (two cases); 22:779; 22:784;
23:440 (three cases); 23:441 (three cases); 23:592; 23:597 (two cases); 23:716–17 (multiple cases);
Osborn, Healing, 157–58, 281 (many), 286–87, 289, 290, 293 (three cases), 294, 295–96, 296 (many), 298
(many), 300, 304, 305, 307, 308 (multiple cases, including a completely paralyzed man instantly healed, then running), 309–10, 310 (many), 312 (multiple cases), 312–13, 314, 317, 319, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325
(two cases), 327; photographs between 258 and 259 (eleven cases); Baker, Enough, 168–69 (beginning to walk immediately after the command to rise, for the first time in two years, in Mozambique, though strength apparently came less immediately); idem, Miracles, 9 (two cases), 40 (after a crippled foot for ten years); Clark, Impartation, 143, 170; Chevreau, Turnings, 105–6, 142; Bentley, Miraculous, 177, 179,
205, 219, 236, 243, 247–48, 263, 264, 267 (forty cases), 269, 274, 276 (eight cases), 278, 285–86 (three
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
In some reported cases, like one in Malawi attested by an Anglican professor132 and another instance in Uganda,133 the healed person began to run and jump in celebration like the man reported healed in Acts 3:8.134 The Ugandan example, involving the healing of a twelve-year-old boy who had never walked before, led to many of Idi Amin's own officials being converted and protecting many Christians from the security police during his regime.135
Earlier Reports A missionary reported in 1866 that a southern African believer in 1858 found an old friend disabled in both legs; full of faith, he commanded him to rise and walk in the name of Jesus. His friend pulled himself up by "his staff and walked, to the astonishment of all who knew him."136 In 1899, a woman of twenty-two, unable to walk since age nine, was cured. Although those skeptical of miracles dismissed the infirmity as hysterical, her own physicians apparently did not agree; one had previously suggested surgery.137 Witnesses reported healings of paralysis in the ministry of nineteenth-century German Lutheran pastor Johann
Christoph Blumhardt. For example, a paralyzed woman was carried to hear him preach and was touched spiritually by the message; that afternoon she began walking.138
Again, earlier twentieth-century accounts of healing those unable to walk include the healing activities of John Sung in Asia139 and James Moore Hickson in various locations.140 A six-year-old Australian girl who had never been able to cases), 291, 302, 304–5, 306; Menberu, "Mekonnen Negera" (the healing during prayer of someone bedridden for eight years in Ethiopia); Odili, "Osaele" (healing after twenty years' paralysis from stroke);
Lindsay, Lake, 30–31, 49, 57.
132. Green, Thirty Years, 104.
133. Dunkerley, Healing Evangelism, 18 (on the ministry of Peterson Sozi).
134. See also a case reported by Nicholas B. H. Bhengu in Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 131. This is also reported in some Western examples (see Reiff, "Los Angeles Campmeeting," 13; two cases in "Healings in Australia"). The response to dramatic healing seems a common one in many cultures; see, e.g., Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, 55; Todd Hunter, phone interview, Jan. 5, 2009; Sheila
Heneise, interview, April 5, 2009, regarding Chile; Shelley Hollis, phone interview, Jan. 10, 2009; in Mozambique; Osborn, Evangelism, 22:66; cf. the older lady's rapid walking in Pastor Dawit Molalegn,
Atsheber DVD 2 (the fifth track).
135. Dunkerley, Healing Evangelism, 18–20.
136. Cited in Gordon, "Ministry of Healing," 196.
137. Duffin, Miracles, 134–35.
138. Ising, Blumhardt, 212–13. Less dramatically, cf. the man with weak knees "hobbling along on crutches" in 1852, greatly improved after a year (ibid., 380). In the late nineteenth century, Minnie Draper claimed miraculous healing after A. B. Simpson prayed for her, and she went on to work in the Christian and Missionary Alliance and then among Pentecostals (McGee, Missions, 131–32).
139. Sung, Diaries, 44, 48, 56 (many cases), 91, 111 (multiple cases), 121, 134, 135, 140, 162.
140. Hickson, Heal, 29, 43–44, 53, 62–66, 71, 75, 76, 78, 85–87, 124, 128, 141–42, 148, 151, 159,
162, 176, 180, 191, 196, 205–6, 217–18 (in newspapers, 120, 122, 123, 130–35, 140, 152–53); idem,
Bridegroom, 300; cf. Mews, "Revival," 302–3. Those who have the time would find many of these stories intriguing (e.g., in Hickson, Heal, 205, the formerly disabled twelve-year-old who announced to his fouryear-old cousin, "Look, I can walk").
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
walk was among those who were said to begin to walk in Smith Wigglesworth's meetings.141 A woman confined to a "spinal carriage" for eleven years, due to a medically incurable condition, testified that after George Jeffreys prayed for her, she walked up and down the aisles and had been walking well since then.142 In the central African village of Mondongo, Isaac Pelendo prayed for two older boys who had never walked because of a disease in infancy; they were healed.143 Years later he prayed for a ten-year-old in Boyagbagea who had never walked, and he too was healed that day.144
Elsie Salmon, starting in the 1940s, offers various examples. Her husband observed a long-twisted, S-shaped leg instantly become normal after prayer.145 An attorney attested that his client was unable to walk before the cure but able to walk afterward.146 The secretary of the South African Methodist Conference testifies of seeing among other cures a woman in "irons" who had not walked for six years leave the service with only a walking stick, thereafter fully restored.147 A woman paralyzed from the waist down for eight years was healed in a service and remained healed.148 A woman unable to walk for two years due to a car accident, whom the doctor planned to put in a cast, was healed after five minutes of prayer; she walked out, and as of her report three and a half years later, had suffered no relapse.149 A woman whose leg was paralyzed for three and a half years could hobble only a few yards without falling; within five minutes of prayer, her leg became functional again.150 In one case in which amputation had been scheduled for later in the week, a foot was completely cured instead; another (more gradual) healing saved a partly gangrenous foot from amputation.151 In another case, the leg of a doctor's adopted daughter was soon to be amputated, but within "a few minutes" of prayer the leg was restored.152 The toes of a boy's clubfoot straightened immediately in front of his parents, and his much shorter leg grew during the night, rendering special
141. Andrews, "Healings" (an eyewitness; the report is too fresh for memory lapse but also too fresh for follow-up). Some who had previously only limped with difficulty or could not walk at all now were able to walk swiftly or run, and an older woman nearly crippled because of back pain was now happily able to touch the floor ("Healings in Australia," 28).
142. "Grimsby Testimony," 28 (noting that she also was now able to withstand light without dark glasses, 28–29). This testimony was reproduced from The Elim Evangelist a month or two earlier.
143. Anderson, Pelendo, 56–60 (after two days to prepare in faith, and initially using walking sticks but gaining strength as they continued walking that day). The boys' names were Yaliko and Yigba.
144. Ibid., 130. The boy's name was Samuel.
145. Sangster, "Foreword," 6. From Ikin, Concepts, 93 (who heard directly from Salmon), it appears that this is the same case as Iris noted below.
146. Arthur S. Wood, quoted testimonial in Salmon, Heals, 10.
147. Stanley B. Sudbury, quoted testimonial in ibid.
148. Edna Muriel Carter and Rev. R. C. Bellis in ibid., 38–40.
149. Ibid., 57–58.
150. Ibid., 23. An English missionary paralyzed over half her body was healed (109–10).
151. Ibid., 53 and 54, respectively. A man whose "seriously ulcerated leg" was "black from the knee to the foot" was fully healed in two weeks (89).
152. Ibid., 108–9. She used a walking stick "for a few days" while the leg regained strength, and then could walk and returned to work. She remained well four years later.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
shoes unnecessary.153 Spinal problems that prevented walking were also cured.154
A two-year-old paralyzed from the waist down was walking after a service;155 cases of polio paralysis were also healed.156
Finally Salmon recounts the story of Iris, who came for prayer because her leg was to be amputated the next week. Her leg had withered and doubled up thirteen months earlier. Salmon reports that she took the leg and "said, 'Christ, my Master, do Your work," and with these words, the leg immediately straightened out before our eyes and this dead limb at once became filled with life."157 Iris walked to the train station and up the stairs, refusing to sit; when she arrived home, her mother was so astonished to see her walking that she briefly fainted. The doctors were likewise shocked and canceled the amputation.158
Such reports were not, however, limited to these well-known figures. Thus, for example, in 1918, a disabled African girl was instantly healed when two African
Christians prayed for her.159 In 1938, within a relatively short span of time, three people unable to walk were claimed to be healed in one ministry in India.160 An early twentieth-century eyewitness claims that one Christian told a man in the Hauran, crippled from arthritis and lying on the floor, to rise and walk. He was healed and then walked to church after climbing over a stone wall.161 A minister told Marie Kharallah, a woman in Beirut unable to walk, to rise and walk; she did so, and contrary to her family's expectations, she remained well.162
In the West, in Norway in 1916, a twelve-year-old hunchbacked girl using crutches because of tuberculosis of the back was healed instantly during prayer.163
A London man who had used crutches for two decades walked home without them after a healing in 1921.164 A Houston woman's injury in a streetcar accident had attracted widespread publicity, so her 1905 healing generated wide attention in 153. Ibid., 56. Apart from his foot, the boy's long-term paralysis had been gradually restored medically.
154. Ibid., 60–61 (a medically incurable solidified spine functioning as a single bone; after the cure the man could move, walk, and work at will), 61–62 (the healing of a woman who would have been placed in a steel jacket; as of five years later, she remained well).
155. Ibid., 106–7.
156. Cases in ibid., 108, 110–11.
157. Ibid., 130 (emphasis hers).
158. Ibid., 130–31 (the story is also retold in Ikin, Concepts, 93, 96–102). She recounts also other recoveries of feet and legs that I have not noted (e.g., 89–90).
159. Ranger, "Dilemma," 353.
160. Harvey, "Victory," noting one boy without feeling in his legs who began to recover gradually and was ultimately able to walk long distances; a nine-year-old who had never walked whose knees were straightened during prayer and was cured; and a man unable to walk who was healed and still seen walking the next day when some visited his village. Reports of such healings also occur during the mid-century healing revival (Samuel, "Gatherings"; Pospisil, "Deliverances").
161. Fant, Miracles, 70–71 (identifying the location as in the Hauran, at Karaba).
162. Ibid., 148–49 (identifying Beirut as in Syria, according to boundaries at that time).
163. Hansen, "Cures," noting that the mother had some time afterward given him the crutches (Hansen was a physician).
164. "Revival in London," 14.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
that city.165 A man limping with his feet too swollen for his shoes began to walk and jump after his doctor prayed for him, though initially with some pain, and within three hours he was walking completely normally in his shoes.166 On October 26,
1919, an ex-soldier whose left foot was paralyzed and in a brace felt his foot shift position during prayer; having the brace removed, he walked without stiffness and according to the report found himself soon "able to walk, run and jump."167
A Methodist minister's daughter had been crippled by infantile paralysis, but it is reported that after a day of prayer and fasting she was healed and able to walk.168
A middle-aged woman who had never walked since birth "stood and walked, and then in sheer joy sobbed," followed through Durham, England, by hundreds who were celebrating her healing.169 Other cases are reported at Los Angeles in 1913,170 and in many other locations in the early twentieth century.171 When Christopher
Woodard, a doctor, prayed for a twelve-year-old with numb legs paralyzed from infantile paralysis, she felt something like vibrations or electricity. They removed the leg irons and she walked, rapidly gaining increasing strength thereafter.172 Native American minister Andrew Maracle testifies that in the mid-1930s, he was paralyzed from the neck down in an almost deadly accident and told that he would never walk again. Instead he was instantly healed during prayer, and when the doctor discovered this the next morning, he acknowledged a miracle.173
Such events were also attested at Lourdes. A Belgian peasant on pilgrimage to a statue recalling Lourdes, whose chronically diseased leg needed to be amputated, pleaded for grace to be able to work; his leg was instantly healed, converting his agnostic physician.174 Due to war wounds that doctors were unable to repair adequately (especially a bullet that cut his large axillary nerves, as well as epilepsy perhaps related to his head wound), John Traynor of Liverpool, England, was partly paralyzed; he had not walked or used his right arm since 1915 and could not control his bladder and bowels. Yet in 1922, at Lourdes, he found himself cured and rose up. When aides tried to restrain him, fearing that he might injure himself,
165. Menzies, Anointed, 47.
166. Glover, "Modern Miracles," 2 (reporting in 1922 about an earlier incident).
167. Blackman, "Miracles" (the young man apparently remained part of the church).
168. Kortkamp, "Healings" (in this case not many more details are given, except that she started to school the next week).
169. "Revival in England," also reporting that one who had been on crutches for seven years walked home without using them after prayer.
170. Reiff, "Los Angeles Campmeeting," 13.
171. E.g., "Scotland Stirred," 5; "Remarkable Healings in Australia" (two cases, one in the hospital);
Ruesga, "Healings" (Mexico); Cadwalder, "Healings" (describing two earlier healings in Canada); Heim,
Transformation, 198–99 (Germany, citing J. Seitz; the date is unclear). A boy at a children's home was in and out of consciousness, paralyzed from a fall; after some time of prayer, when they had already reached the hospital, he revived suddenly and completely, walking and returning to the home (Hinson, "Healings").
172. Woodard, Faith, 70–74.
173. Tarango, "Physician," 116, citing Maracle's testimony. These events precipitated Maracle entering ministry.
174. Cranston, Miracle, 162–63. After careful investigation, a team of twenty-one doctors recognized that, among other things, a piece of bone had instantly grown more than an inch (163).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
he evaded them, running.175 After seven or eight years of paralysis, running should have been physically impossible; but then, impossibility apart from divine grace is the point. The physicians who had accompanied him from Britain confirmed his state prior to the healing and the change afterward, although the Ministry of Pensions rejected the possibility that he could have been cured and therefore continued his pension for 100 percent disability. The Medical Bureau certified his cure as medically inexplicable. The church, which makes the final theological decision, never chose to certify this case as a divine cure, so it is not listed officially, but the medical records remain eloquent testimony to the cure.176
Contemporary Reports of Healings in Africa and Asia The majority of accounts available to me are more recent. For example, in Nepal,
Mina KC prayed for a twenty-year-old Hindu woman named Janita who had been paralyzed from birth, helped neither by doctors nor by sacrifices. The next week
Janita, who had never before walked, walked to church.177 In another report, in a case not initially intended as evangelism, a Christian doctor recognized that a North
Indian patient's legs, paralyzed in a permanently sitting position, were inoperable.
Lacking another way to help the man, he therefore just prayed for him, and the man was instantly healed.178 Also from India, in 2006 Jacob Beera prayed for an older woman who was unable to walk for a long time, carried to the church by her son. Halfway back to their home, the mother suddenly felt able to walk, and walked the rest of the way home. The next week she came to the children's home to share her testimony, including with Jacob.179
Jacob Beera further shared with me his account of praying for a seven-year-old Hindu girl named Yesamma. Afflicted with polio soon after birth, she had to be carried everywhere, and was now laid on his church's platform, "curled up with arms and legs rolled up like a ball." It was about 1 a.m., after five hours of church service, and he was exhausted. Nevertheless, he offered a simple prayer, and "then her mother picked her up in her arms, apparently still unhealed," and took her home. Although Jacob lived near this family, he had not heard anything about her condition for two months, but after two months Yesamma walked into the service using only a walking stick. Even more dramatic than seeing her walking was noticing that "her limbs had straightened out." Over the following ten years the entire family gradually became believers in Jesus; at the time of his report, Yesamma was nearly eighteen and preparing for college.180
175. Oursler, Power, 61–64; Garner, "Regressions," 1255.
176. Garner, "Regressions," 1255.
177. Mina KC (interview by John Lathrop, March 2, 2010).
178. Bush and Pegues, Move, 56. Pastor Kantilal Anjaroli, mentioned above, prayed for a man in Rajasthan named Beeka Bhai, who had been paralyzed and bedridden for four years, after which he was able to move (C&C 37 [5, May 2008]: 9).
179. Jacob Beera, personal correspondence, Nov. 2, 2009, accompanied with this story in his Hope
Ministries Update ("I Want to Walk," Nov. 2006, p. 3).
180. Jacob Beera, personal correspondence, Nov. 2, 2009, accompanied with this story in his Hope
Ministries Update ("A Miracle Brought a Family to Christ," Nov. 2006, p. 1).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
In various accounts from China, a bedfast man with an incurable spinal disease was healed, and the next day was dancing in the meeting;181 another bedfast man paralyzed for eight years was instantly healed, and began jumping around the house before going outside to tell the neighbors;182 a Chinese pastor in 2007 also shared with me an eyewitness account of someone half-paralyzed being immediately healed.183 Chinese believers shared with members of a U.S. congressional delegation that in one meeting where people had been resisting faith, suddenly
"someone lame for 70 years got up and walked."184 We have also already noted dramatic healings in Myanmar, of a woman unable to walk for twenty years and of a girl.185 In my friend Marie Brown's meetings in Papua New Guinea, a paralyzed man was healed.186
Likewise, Christopher Daniel claims that in one of his meetings in Sri Lanka two people who had been paralyzed could now move limbs that were once limp.187
Similarly, Mark Buntain, who established a hospital and schools in South Asia, recounted the healing of a paralyzed young Sri Lankan woman, Nita Edwards. She heard an audible voice declaring that she would be healed on February 11, and felt that the time would be 3:30. When that day and time arrived, she saw Jesus in a vision, and suddenly "rocketed out over the end of her bed," landing on her knees, her paralysis ended.188
In Indonesia, a woman's leg was broken during an accident; unable to afford treatment, she was unable to walk for a few years. When she received prayer, however, her leg was immediately healed, and she was able to walk; "all who saw it and knew the woman were amazed and acknowledged that Jesus was there to heal."189
A German researcher cites reports from his Indonesian source, including a named eighteen-year-old who had never walked but was instantly healed during prayer.190
An Indonesian Christian reports that he prayed for a man with "skinny, shriveled sticks" for legs, whose legs were twisted and were also bloody and bruised from dragging them around. The witness confesses that he had little faith, but over the next few minutes the man grew stronger and began walking, finally walking home.
In a few days, he recounts, the man's legs had filled out fully.191
181. Danyun, Lilies, 327.
182. Ibid., 333–34. Note also the man paralyzed for three years (344–45).
183. Interview, May 2007 (I promised to omit the pastor's name).
184. Fever, "Delegation," 34, also noting that a hostile official's wife, incurably ill and unable to walk, was "miraculously healed" through prayer, converting the official.
185. Khai, "Pentecostalism," 270.
186. Marie Brown, personal correspondence, May 31, 2006.
187. Daniel, "Labour," 160.
188. Huyssen, Saw, 157–62 (citing the account in Buntain, Miracle). Young, "Miracles in History,"
117, cites a report of healing of paralysis through a vision in Pakistan.
189. Filson, "Study," 154.
190. Koch, Zulus, 110–11 (this case on 110).
191. Tari, Breeze, 44–46. A believer offered prayer for another man, Stefanus Toto, paralyzed completely for four years, unable to walk or talk; the next day Stefanus was well, and soon after walked to church
(ibid., 129).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
A church was planted in Thailand through a paralyzed person walking.192 A man in southern Asia who had been paralyzed for twenty-six years was healed.193
An Anglican archdeacon from Southeast Asia working in the interior of Borneo reports that an aged, bedridden lady asked him for prayer. Local witch doctors had proved unable to help her. After the archdeacon and a colleague prayed, "she got up, began to walk and asked for food." She became a Christian, despite local opposition.194
A source in Iloilo City, Philippines, notes a number of persons who were bedfast who were healed during prayer.195 I earlier mentioned Elva Vanderbout's ministry in the Philippines, documented especially by missiologist Julie Ma.
Among the healings of immobilized persons reported in her ministry, "a paralyzed woman who had spent most of Sunday morning crawling to the service was instantly healed. . . . She stood and walked through the aisle to the platform and testified of God's healing power."196 One boy had broken his leg at the knee and thereafter could not bend it; unable to walk, he crawled or hobbled using a stick for at least seven years. When Vanderbout prayed for him, he discarded the stick, and from that point his leg gradually straightened.197 A girl unable to walk for a couple of years was also healed, leading to her parents' conversion.198
An old man who was "bent over," able to "walk only on his hands and feet, like an animal . . . instantly stood up and walked"; he was converted and stayed in the area to testify to everyone what God had done for him.199 Among healings reported at a more recent meeting in the Philippines, a man paralyzed on one side of his body was instantly healed.200
Such reports are also common in Africa. I noted earlier Shelley Hollis's eyewitness claim of a paralyzed woman instantly healed in Mozambique.201 Ebenezer J.
Obomau of Nigeria's Delta region was grateful to God even though he was not healed of his paralysis during a crusade meeting; when he woke up the next morning to discover the paralysis now healed, however, much of his community was converted.202 Agnes Mbabazi of Uganda brought for prayer her four-year-old child, who had never been able to stand; after five days the child was "walking well" and 192. Hosack, "Church."
193. "Carried but Walked."
194. Green, Asian Tigers, 108–9.
195. Angela Salazar Aragona, transcript (interview with Rosanny D. Engcoy, April 14, 2002; in the only case where she specifies the duration of the paralysis, it was "months").
196. Ma, "Encounter," 137; idem, "Vanderbout," 132; idem, Mission, 63. In Ma, "Vanderbout," 130, it sounds like many paralytics were healed during her ministry.
197. Ma, "Vanderbout," 129.
198. Ibid.
199. Ibid., 132; idem, Mission, 62–63.
200. Stewart, Only Believe, 142.
201. Shelley Hollis, phone interview, Jan. 10, 2009.
202. Numbere, Vision, 183–84. Other cases are also mentioned (186). Others also claim healings
(e.g., in "Our God Reigns," 35); one person in Mozambique said to be bedridden for two years took off running when healed in Marszalek, Miracles, 6.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
now walks to school.203 Gebru Woldu of Ethiopia reports that the sorts of healings in which God has used him most often are the healing of goiters and backbone problems; some of the latter cases involved people who could not bend or run or even walk, but when they have been instantly healed they have run.204
In Nigeria, a father carried a six-year-old boy who had never been able to walk, seeking prayer. Dr. Chauncey Crandall prayed, and as he was going on to the next person the boy began running. The parents fell to the dirt weeping and the two dozen people who had accompanied them from the village began shouting.
Similarly, a drooling man, paralyzed on his right side from a stroke and unable to walk, was also healed as Crandall prayed.205 Elsewhere, a woman with great faith but apparently little sense insisted that her paralyzed baby was healed. Crandall, recognizing that the child remained paralyzed on the left side, refused to let her testify. The next day he was shocked to discover that the baby was no longer paralyzed.206
When I asked my students in a class in Kenya if any of them had seen any dramatic healings, one of them, Bernard Luvutse, provided me one that he knew from his own family. When he was a child, his paralyzed younger sister had been dragging herself on the ground for more than a year. When his mother heard that someone would be praying for healing in a distant village, she decided to take the daughter, though the father was too discouraged by this point to try to help.
Crossing a river and traversing a long distance, the mother carried her daughter on her back and brought her to the prayer service. Starting in the week after this prayer, the girl began to recover quickly. She never had further problems after this recovery, and after thirty years she continues to walk well.207
A noncharismatic European researcher reported on many healings of paralysis in connection with a revival among the Zulu people of South Africa in the 1970s.208
Thus, for example, one paralyzed woman who could not even keep her scarf from blowing off was reported instantly healed during prayer.209 Another woman, carried in completely paralyzed, rose and walked when the minister so commanded; some clerks of the Magistrate's Court, investigating the case, were convinced after hospital records proved her prior illness.210
203. Pastor Solomon Mukonjo, by Douglas LeRoy, personal correspondence, Nov. 9, 2009.
204. Gebru Woldu (interview, May 20, 2010).
205. Crandall, Raising, 152.
206. Ibid., 155.
207. Bernard Luvutse, personal correspondence, Aug. 17, 2006.
208. Koch, Zulus, e.g., 75–77 (a woman crippled with arthritis), 79, 82, 88 (paralysis on one side),
89 (two cases), 98–99, 153 (partial paralysis), 190–91, 196 (multiple cases), 197–98, 290. On 72–73, a man unable to walk, with blood in his urine and apparently dying, was healed within a day of the prayer.
On 277, twisted legs straightened during prayer, allowing the man to walk, but when he later sacrificed a cow to his ancestors in gratitude, he relapsed.
209. Koch, Zulus, 53–54. Her family, coming to carry her, found her walking instead.
210. Ibid., 90–93. Anna Greta Khumalo, eighteen at the time of the healing, had not walked for three years (92); Koch names two independent witnesses.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Contemporary Reports of Healings in the Western Hemisphere Immediate healing of the inability to walk through prayer has been reported in Latin America,211 including in a story about partial but previously lifelong inability that I recounted earlier.212 In another case, a man in Paraguay was paralyzed from the waist down due to having been shot in the head earlier. Carlos, a Christian businessman visiting the area, prayed for him, and "the man was healed instantly"; as word spread, "several other paralytics came for prayer and were healed," leading to local success in evangelism.213 A woman in a wheelchair in Colombia thought that she would never walk again, but the pastor prayed for her and she got up and walked. She testified, still well, just over a week later.214
A doctor reports his astonishment as he saw a woman in Mexico, disabled "for years," brought in a wheelbarrow. After the visiting ministry team prayed for her, "She got up on her feet and walked out!"215 A Baptist doctor in Cuba reported witnessing the immediate healing of a twisted leg during her evangelistic crusades.216Also in Cuba, another woman, named Pucha, was brought for prayer on a bed; unable to walk, she could only move a hand. The church prayed and by the end of the service she was walking; the next day she walked to the service unaided, showing that she was completely healed.217
I have a more detailed eyewitness account of a healing from Eliseo Navarro Jordan, vice president of the ICPC (the Christian Pentecostal Church of Cuba) and dean of the faculty at Elim Bible Institute. His account involved a boy in the church
Eliseo had pastored in Placetas, Villa Clara, from about five years earlier. Onel and his family belonged to Eliseo's church, and were neighbors of Eliseo. Onel was twelve or thirteen, and Eliseo knew him well, because Onel was close friends with Eliseo's son and had grown up with him. But Onel had a serious problem with the bones in his feet; they were malformed and broken, and X-rays showed the lower bones becoming like sand. He could barely walk, much less play sports, and the doctor said that within a year he would not walk at all. When a visiting evangelist was preaching, however, Onel became convinced that God would heal him if the evangelist,
Otto De La Torre, prayed. Prayer was offered, and the family kept Onel's doctor's appointment later that week. New X-rays showed the full formation of the foot, with no deformity, and the doctor insisted that the X-rays were mixed up. But sure enough,
Onel was healed, and from then on has played sports and run like other children.
Eliseo knows the family and has seen the before-and-after X-rays.218
211. E.g., De Wet, "Signs," 103–4; Castleberry, "Impact," 112; Doleshal, "Healings."
212. Steve and Sheila Heneise, personal correspondence, Aug. 20–21, 2008.
213. From Church of God testimonies sent to me by Douglas LeRoy, personal correspondence, Nov.
9, 2009.
214. Bomann, "Salve," 197.
215. Crandall, Raising, 39.
216. Mirtha Venero Boza, interview, Aug. 6, 2010. Before the healing, doctors had immobilized the leg because it was so bent.
217. Dorka Rojas, correspondence, Oct. 12, 2010, based on the research document.
218. Eliseo Navarro Jordan, interview, Aug. 7, 2010.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
A friend of mine has worked closely with Carlos Alamino, a Baptist pastor in Cuba. Carlos recounts that in his youth he was run over by a tractor, paralyzing him.
As doctors were about to operate, he cried out to God, and movement suddenly began returning to his arms and legs; he got up and began to walk, astonishing the doctors. He went on to play baseball until God called him to ministry.219
As he and his ministry teams have evangelized, they have also prayed for the sick, witnessing many healings, including those of people brought from hospitals.220
One man who had not walked for forty years had a large, infected ulcer on his leg,
"infested with insects"; a few days after they prayed, he was completely well and became a regular supporter of the ministry.221 On another occasion they prayed for a woman long unable to walk; her legs had been burned, her feet deformed, and her toes grown together. As they "prayed, God separated her toes and smoothed" the skin on her legs. "She walked independently back to her seat. These types of experiences were repeated day after day."222
On Easter 1998 in Chile, three persons, including my eyewitness source, prayed for a young man on crutches. He walked away without needing his crutches; as a result, he was also converted and became a regular part of their youth group.
During the prayer, a woman in the congregation had a vision of light moving up the young man's leg. She did not understand why healing would be moving up his leg, assuming that the bone was broken across; the young man's mother, however, explained to her that it was a long fracture. The young man was due for an operation that week to have pins inserted, because he had a twisted fracture up the bone. Because after the service he was now walking without crutches, however, the doctor took new X-rays, only to discover to his astonishment that the bone had completely mended.223
In a youth camp that summer, a girl sprained her ankle playing soccer. Her ankle was badly swollen, and the camp doctor warned her not to walk on it for some time; they planned to take her to the hospital for further evaluation the next day.
When they prayed for her that evening in the meeting, the swelling immediately went down visibly in front of everyone, and she started jumping and dancing, completely healed. The two hundred or so young people, all of whom knew about her sprain, began shouting jubilantly, jumping and singing praise songs at the top of their lungs. They grew so loud that the neighbors called the police!224 Another
219. Alamino, Footsteps, 15–16.
220. E.g., ibid., 43. Mental illnesses were also healed (49–50), and an illiterate man previously considered mentally disabled learned to read (59–60).
221. Ibid., 31.
222. Ibid., 46. Elsewhere they prayed for a woman unable to walk for eight years; she got up and walked, and continued with them for some time, but when she returned to her previous lifestyle the paralysis returned (52).
223. Sheila Heneise (interview, April 5, 2009), who was one of the three persons praying (the others being Chilean ministers), knows all the persons in question.
224. Sheila Heneise (interview, April 5, 2009) again knows all the persons in question. Cf. the similar report from an Episcopal parish in the U.S. Northwest: not long after an X-ray showed a broken ankle,
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
report involves a child in Ecuador with no movement in the lower body, healed and able to walk through prayer.225
In the United States, besides cases noted in chapter 11,226 the 1950 survey of several hundred mainline pastors mentioned earlier included five cases of healed paralysis. One case involved a two-year-old with infantile paralysis; a Presbyterian minister in the Midwest prayed, followed by "a complete and permanent cure with no muscular impairment."227 Likewise, the researcher notes, "A Methodist minister in the same area reports the case of a woman 55 years of age, whose case had been diagnosed and treated by a physician, but who was hopeless of a cure"; she was permanently cured.228
Elsewhere, one source claims that a long-term, documented paralysis was healed instantly in answer to prayer in front of two thousand people.229 A Christian doctor prayed for and encouraged an "incurable" woman who had not been able to walk unaided for fifteen years, whose nerves were now degenerating. The doctor testifies that despite atrophied muscles, the woman, now released from her braces, started walking and then running around the room, and she remained permanently cured.230
Another source reports that a Methodist pastor was in a brace for thirty-eight years, suffering from a crooked spinal column and a ruptured disk; it straightened out instantly during a "prophetic word," healing him.231
A Nazarene writer testifies to the instant healing of his friend J. P. Wilson, a retired naval officer, from paralysis of the left leg during a prayer in church.232 The body of Pearl Wiley Hanson, daughter of Nazarene theologian H. Orton Wiley, was so twisted that for thirteen years she could sleep only propped up, yet she was bedridden most of the time. Nevertheless, she felt called to serve in Japan; she made the voyage despite doctors' warnings that she could not survive it. When a missionary and Japanese Christians anointed her with oil, she was instantly healed, her back and neck straightened.233 the foot still too swollen for the cast, the young woman was healed immediately after prayer and joined a baseball game. By the next morning there were no signs of the injury (Bennett, Morning, 98–99).
225. Salvato, "Presence."
226. Including Neal, Power, 18, 41–42, 56; McKenna, Miracles, 16; and other sources; in Canada,
Laurentin, Catholic Pentecostalism, 104–5. Note also the medically inexplicable complete healing of Jennifer
Rees Larcombe's partial paralysis during one Spirit-directed prayer after eight years of non-healing in Marszalek,
Miracles, 18–22; an arthritic woman healed instantly from pain during prayer, and quickly afterward able to walk, after using a wheelchair for eighteen years, in Bredesen, Miracle, 14–15 (cf. Luke 13:11); another case in Zagrans, Miracles, 20, 144–45. An ethnographic researcher studying an African-American storefront church in Durham, North Carolina, happened to be present when a woman who had been (briefly?) paralyzed by an illness had started walking (Bowler, "Bodies," 82, recounting her own experience).
227. Braden, "Study," 228–29.
228. Ibid., 229, citing also healing reports from a Methodist and a Lutheran pastor in Washington, D.C.
229. Harris, Acts Today, 104–5, on an event witnessed at the Oklahoma District Council of the Assemblies of God in Oct. 1942 (subsequent medical examination showed that the skull fractures had also been removed, 105).
230. Speed, Incurables, 17–23 (Speed is the doctor and eyewitness).
231. Bredesen, Miracle, 25–26 (reporting that X-rays confirmed the healing); cf. ibid., 17.
232. Miller, Miracle of Healing, 47–48.
233. Ibid., 105, noting that from then on she could sleep and function normally.
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The healing of a congenitally disabled congressman in California in 1951 reportedly became very public news.234 A teenager disabled by a degenerative bone disease was instantly healed after prayer in 1952, a healing that led to his conversion and ministry.235 Father Pat Crowley notes the encouragement to his faith when a woman paralyzed "from the waist down got out of her wheelchair and walked after prayer."236 A source in the United States reports that a woman who had been unable to walk for two years, carried to a meeting, was healed and now skips rope.237
One journalist reports the account of an Emmy Award-winning actress largely healed of a serious leg problem through surgery but fully and finally healed when in faith she left behind her walking stick at a New Mexico church.238
One California pastor recounts the healing of a young man who broke his leg.
The young man had been told that he would be in a cast for two years and would never walk without a cane, ruining his athletic aspirations. He was not yet known to the pastor when he visited the pastor's very large church, yet when the pastor called out that someone's leg was being healed, the young man was astonished to find himself instantly healed. His leg was completely better when the doctor examined it the next day, and he went through college on a basketball scholarship. The pastor later got to know the young man quite well, since he eventually became his son-in-law.239
Todd Hunter has had an interesting career: an associate of John Wimber, national director of Vineyard-USA, subsequently national director at the interdenominational Alpha-USA, and recently appointed an Anglican bishop.240 Before his appointment, Todd recounted an eyewitness experience that he considers one of his most dramatic in many years of praying for the sick. He was speaking from a high platform in an old auditorium in St. Louis, and about sixty people came forward for prayer. He saw a young woman in her mid-twenties, and, feeling that God was going to heal her of something, he announced this impression. Because of the height of the platform and the crowd in front of her, he had not seen the young lady closely, but as the crowd parted to look at her, he realized that she was wearing braces attached to crutches; she had not been able to walk unaided for months. He confessed to me that at that point he felt that this condition was more than his faith could handle and that he was regretting having called her up.
234. Stewart, Only Believe, 45, on California congressman William Upshaw, noting that this healing attracted some media attention. The contemporary account in "Congressman Walks" notes that he fractured his spine at age eighteen, was unable to walk without crutches for fifty-nine years, spent seven more years in bed, and now healed at age eighty-four was walking "normally, unaided."
235. Ibid., 155, recounting his own experience.
236. DeGrandis, Miracles, 99.
237. Dearing, Healing, 116–17. In the United States, see also DiOrio, Miracle, 167–71.
238. Wakefield, Miracle, 85, recounting the testimony given him by Kathy Baker.
239. Wilkerson, Beyond, 149–51. He lists other healings, which I have not duplicated here, on 139.
Other sources frequently report healings during prophetic words (e.g., Robertson, Miracles, 130, 168–69), including many of the healing cases I have listed but not elaborated.
240. See, e.g., the interview in Neff, "Anglican." His most recent book (at the time of my writing) is
Christianity Beyond Belief.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Nevertheless, he needed to follow through, so he called her aside to talk with her, as was customary in the Vineyard healing ministry. As she was talking, he suddenly saw in his mind two football-shaped objects, each with the number 23, merging into one with the number 46, and he felt this meant "chromosomes," hence something congenital. But as he talked with her and learned that her parents had been involved with the occult, he felt that it was spiritually rather than biologically congenital and prayed accordingly. Suddenly she put down her crutches and began running around the auditorium. Perhaps fifty people in the crowd knew her, and the room erupted wildly. Over the years many people who were present that day have reminded Todd of that occasion.241
These accounts are merely samples, and one could continue almost indefinitely.
For example, paralyzed by a bullet to his spine during World War II, Juan Santos of Puerto Rico had been unable to use his now-shriveled legs for sixteen years.
After he was instantly healed, his wife and daughter each fainted at their first sight of him standing upright and walking, a healing that remained permanent.242 A Methodist visiting Lourdes, disabled for twenty-three years from severe arthritis, was immediately healed and able to walk, and to do so "effortlessly." This cure is not known by natural means to occur instantly as reported here.243 Deeming these examples sufficient for the point, I shall stop here.
Some argue that recoveries from paralysis may involve psychosomatic illness; while this may be true in some cases, one wonders that so many cases of it should be reported in the context of prayers for supernatural healing. Is a psychosomatic cure the most inherently probable explanation for the majority of cases of paralysis?
Normally, chronic paralysis is irreversible.244 But even some of those who regard the restoration of paralyzed limbs as psychosomatic recoveries concede that the case would have to be different when someone dead for a significant period of time returns to life.245
Raising the Dead Some modern writers argue that raising the dead, unlike most miracle claims, would involve a true miracle, but that no one today even claims that such events
241. Phone interview, Jan. 5, 2009.
242. Stewart, Only Believe, 103–6 (noting that there were government medical records because he was a veteran); Osborn, Healing, 290 (also the fourth photograph page between 258 and 259); a contemporary report in "Cripples Walk," 9 (including before-and-after photographs). His healing is also recounted in Miller, Miracle of Healing, 44 (along with many others during the meetings in 42–45).
243. Heron, Channels, 142–43.
244. Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1, 2009: "Paralysis (especially when it is chronic) is typically irreversible."
245. See Mackie, "Miracles and Testimony," 92 (though he specifies a period of forty-eight hours, which is far longer than necessary to be extranormal). Others regard raisings as "the most striking" of Jesus's reported miracles (Miller, "Miracle Worker," 22–23), or the least believable to antisupernaturalists
(Brockingham, "Miracles," 493 [though this is not his own view; see 495]).
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occur.246 This argument, however, proves severely flawed, since raising claims are in fact fairly numerous today (though of course still extremely rare proportionate to the number of deaths). Presumably some such claims today, like some claims about many subjects, will prove deceptive, but I am fully convinced that a number of other claims reflect genuine eyewitness experience. That the writers of the Gospels and Acts believed that the resuscitations they reported took place should no more be doubted than the confidence of many people later in history and today who believe that they have seen, and have offered eyewitness evidence for, analogous experiences.
Whatever the alternative explanations various observers might suggest for the same events, there can be no doubt that eyewitnesses do claim raisings. Even in extraordinary cases for which no naturalistic explanation is readily available, an atheist or deist might grant the possibility of some phenomenon as yet unexplained;247 a theist has an additional and (on theistic premises) plausible option for explaining the cause of such events. In some of the following raising accounts, the person remained weak or ill, requiring further medical attention; whether weakness or sickness remained in any biblical raisings we cannot be certain, but it is possible in some of them (e.g., 2 Kgs 4:37; Mark 5:42–43; Acts 20:10–12). The primary issue for the biblical comparisons is what is explicit in most of those passages: someone dead, insofar as any observers present could detect, returned to life.
Biblical and Non-Christian Accounts Ancients recounted stories of ancient or even mythical heroes who raised the dead, but these are normally told centuries after the alleged event.248 I do not know of ancient stories of particular persons, outside the persons under discussion (Jesus and his first followers), raising the dead, based on eyewitnesses and written within a generation.249 It is possible that I may have missed some, but one
246. Bishop, Healing, 231; Jeffries, "Healing," 71. Price, Son of Man, 20–21, rejects ancient resuscitation accounts because people are not raised from the dead today.
247. Though as Purtill, "Miracles," 203, notes concerning Jesus's resuscitations, one might well wonder how these as-yet unknown laws so frequently "operated coincidentally in the neighborhood of Jesus"
(also idem, "Proofs," 48).
248. E.g., Aeschylus Ag. 1022–24; Euripides Alc. 124–30; Apollodorus Bib. 2.5.12; 2.6.2; 3.5.3; 3.10.3;
Pausanias 2.26.5; 2.27.4; Lucian Dance 45; Diogenes Laertius 8.2.59; Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 4.45; Libanius
Narration 15; b. B.K. 117a; p. Shebiit 9:1, §13. Of these, the story of Apollonius is one of the most recent before being reported, yet Apollonius lived well over a century before that report, and the report may have been influenced by much earlier reports in the Gospels (see my discussion of problems with the narratives about Apollonius in ch. 2). For raisings in rabbinic sources, see further Loos, Miracles, 559–60 (following
Strack-Billerbeck and P. Fiebig); Gentile accounts in Loos, Miracles, 560–62. Many early Jewish sources recount biblical resuscitations; the extrabiblical ones about biblical figures appear especially in fictitious or late legendary sources (Koskenniemi, Miracle-Workers, 290, cites for these Artapanus 3:24–26; Liv.
Pr. 3:12–13).
249. Of someone thought dead reviving, being merely in a coma, there are some known examples
(Valerius Maximus 1.8.12; 1.8.ext. 1; Pliny Nat. 7.52.173, 176–79; also noted by Anderson, Raised, 106–8, who discusses such cases more fully), at least some of which may reflect historical tradition, but in contrast
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
can at least affirm with confidence that they are not very many. By contrast, the summary that Jesus performed multiple raisings (Matt 11:5//Luke 7:22) belongs to first-generation Q material. Further, specific and likely independent healing accounts in Mark (Mark 5:35–43), special Lukan material (Luke 7:11–17), and John (John 11:39–45) confirm by multiple attestation the tradition that Jesus was from our earliest traditions reported to raise the dead.250
I should note that I am not treating Jesus's own resurrection here, which is of a character different from other resuscitations in the Gospels and, in view of the eschatological transformation claimed in the early sources, lacks both ancient and modern analogies.251 The evidence that Jesus's followers somehow saw him alive after his crucifixion is, however, quite strong;252 many (including myself) believe that a supernatural explanation is by far the most plausible one if one allows for it253 (an allowance that I believe other evidence in this book should support).
Accounts of raisings on or close to the eyewitness level are not limited to legends or myths centuries after the time they report; we have firsthand accounts of raisings today. Only a minority of the accounts are like Lazarus (a raising after a few days), but then Lazarus was also fairly exceptional in the biblical accounts as well.254 Most of the biblical accounts, like most of those today, involve someone fairly recently dead255 and without (by definition, for ancient accounts) modern medical attestation. Given the urgency of burial in antiquity,256 the widow of Nain's son had probably been dead only a few hours (Luke 7:12–17); Jairus's daughter (Mark 5:22–43) was not yet even prepared for burial, hence had been dead for less time than that;257 to Jesus's and his followers' ministries, they do not happen to coincide with someone praying for them or commanding them to rise.
250. See further discussion in Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:773–873. For Eve, Healer, 157, similarities to the Elijah/Elisha raising accounts render the Gospel accounts suspicious; but while the narrators undoubtedly conformed the accounts to biblical models, should we not suppose that if Jesus were raising the dead, he himself would follow the widely-known biblical models? Certainly other healers (including those today) look to prior tradition for precedents.
251. The potential modern analogies, such as Sabbatai Zevi (cf. Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, 920; Greenstone,
Messiah, 225–30), are probably derivative in character.
252. See, e.g., Craig, "Tomb"; idem, "Empty Tomb"; idem, "Historicity"; idem, "Rise?" 146–52; idem, "Resurrection"; idem, Assessing, passim (esp. 351–78); Wright, Resurrection; Licona, "Historicity of Resurrection"; Keener, Historical Jesus, 330–48, 579–90.
253. Cf. Keener, Historical Jesus, 379–85, 600–601 (esp. 339–46); sources noted above.
254. Rejecting ancient resuscitation accounts, Price, Son of Man, 20–21, literally refers to "the rotting dead," perhaps envisioning any kind of corpse, but perhaps more specifically thinking of one that has been dead for more than a day. Yet there is only one account of such a late resuscitation in Scripture (John
11:39–44), and some of today's accounts do involve those dead for two or more days (e.g., Koch, Revival,
141; idem, Zulus, 168; Pytches, Come, 241 [two cases]; Bush and Pegues, Move, 118–19; Chevreau,
Turnings, 54–56; Wilkerson, Beyond, 81; Tari, Wind, 76–78; Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 152).
255. Perhaps often before the last bodily systems would have shut down, though also well after other parts of the body, including most of the brain, were too dead to be restored by natural means.
256. Safrai, "Home," 774, especially n. 7; cf. b. Sanh. 47a. Greek funerals allowed one or two days for burial (Klauck, Context, 72; perhaps in a cooler region).
257. They appear to be in the same town (Mark 5:23–24), and the announcement of her death came en route (Mark 5:35). Since Jesus appears to have avoided the major Galilean cities, he is in a small town
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
Eutychus had just died (and Luke's language is guarded; Acts 20:9–12); the child in 1 Kgs 17:17–24 seems to have just died; and the apparently longer but same-day case in 2 Kgs 4:20–37 seems urgent (2 Kgs 4:24, 29). If messengers come to Peter immediately and he comes to Tabitha immediately, her raising (Acts 9:36–42) could be the same day;258 Joppa was less than twelve miles, perhaps four hours' brisk walk, from Lydda,259 and urgency again seems an issue (Acts 9:38).
Ancients lacked sophisticated measures of death, and hence undoubtedly made some mistakes by modern understandings of the category,260 but they could tell when someone stopped breathing. They also could notice a pattern where persons were being cured through a person's prayer or command, a pattern that may be obscured for antisupernaturalist observers today who a priori exclude prayer from being considered as a factor. Given the few people who revive without medical help, is it merely a coincidence that we have so many accounts of raisings in connection with prayer? One who explains modern accounts naturalistically, yet concedes that many may genuinely stem from eyewitnesses, can concede the same for ancient accounts. Those inclined toward naturalistic explanations, however, should recall how often the resuscitations fit the timing of prayer.
Although most of my sources involve Christian prayer, some experiences are reported from other circles and from those not predisposed to believe them. One anthropologist reports that she has filled notebooks with reports from witnesses or secondor thirdhand informants among the Samburu about Nkai (divinity) bringing dead persons back to life.261 While this is a fully traditional culture and criteria for death may differ from most of the cultures from which reports in the present book are derived, the claim still invites attention.262 Nevertheless, the rare with short distances, probably his home base in Capernaum. Matthew offers no geographic transition after Matt 9:1, so this seems to have been his view. Mourners (Mark 5:38) could gather quickly (e.g., b. Sanh.
47a), especially since the child had already been in the process of dying (Mark 5:23).
258. On normal roads, ordinary travelers on long journeys covered roughly fifteen to twenty miles in a day, but soldiers on a forced march could do twenty-five to thirty-five (Jeffers, World, 37; Riesner, Early
Period, 311); this journey was less than twelve miles each way (see note below), with the messengers to Peter undoubtedly hurrying.
259. See, e.g., Map Manual, 13–1. The road would be good; Lydda lay on the road from Caesarea to the inland town of Antipatris (Dar and Applebaum, "Road," 91). Both lay on the coastal plain, with Joppa nearer the lower coast (see, e.g., Satellite Atlas, 1:46–47); for an aerial photograph, with a marking for the fairly straight Roman road, see Satellite Atlas, 2:128.
260. Cf. stories (some more plausible than others) of natural recoveries from apparent death in Valerius
Maximus 1.8.12; 1.8.ext. 1; Pliny Nat. 7.52.173, 176–79; one also has many novelistic accounts of those only apparently dead being revived (e.g., Apoll. K. Tyre 27; cf. fake death as a comic motif, e.g., Menander
Aspis 112–13, 343–87). Most people today understand the importance of differentiating a coma from death, however, and presumably even in antiquity they normally checked for even minimal respiration.
261. Straight, Miracles, 22, with accounts, mostly including eyewitnesses, on 130–31 (a case from nearly a century ago), 131 (a man presumed dead four days), and 132. She notes many witnesses to such resuscitations (5–6), and that such reports are one reason given for traditionally not burying the youthful dead immediately (150). Samburu Christians view Nkai as God (45).
262. Cf. the boy pronounced dead by a doctor in Wamba Hospital; the nurses tried to chase Nompoi
(the mother) away, but she persisted, finding a pulse. The nurses finally realized that he was in fact alive, and after hours he revived (Straight, Miracles, 150–51). In this case, it seems, the usual Western medical
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
accounts feature people randomly reviving, rather than any connection with a specific prayer or command.
More astonishingly, in the Journal of Anthropological Research263 one anthropologist reported that during a shamanic funerary ritual in northwestern Ghana, he witnessed a corpse that had been dead for a few days dance and play drums for at least several minutes. "I saw the corpse jolt and occasionally pulsate" in reaction to the shaman's movements; streams of light invaded the room, and "the corpse, shaken by spasms, then rose to its feet, spinning and dancing in a frenzy. . . . The corpse [of a drummer] picked up the drumsticks and began to play." Soon it was again a motionless corpse, propped against the wall.264
In contrast to the accounts narrated below, this corpse remained a corpse; a local informant apparently interpreted the action indigenously in terms of spirits of the ancestors temporarily activating the man's body.265 The anthropologist fell sick afterward266 and felt that he recovered due only to a local "purification" ritual.267
Describing his experience thirteen or fourteen years later,268 he both continued to insist that it was a real experience shared with the other witnesses269 and tried to offer an impersonal, materialistic explanation for it, namely, a sort of group hallucination caused by the rhythmic drumming and his exhaustion.270 In view of scientific research about hallucinations, this explanation seems probably inadequate for an experience that various persons present shared.271 Still, something like this approach proved premature, although this hospital probably lacked the full apparatus of more sophisticated
Western hospitals.
263. Grindal, "Heart." Paul Eddy brought this source to my attention. Edith Turner also claims that a man's stopped heart and pulse revived when her husband, anthropologist Victor Turner, placed his hand on the man's chest (though apparently within just moments of the pulse having stopped); see Turner,
Hands, 71. A woman apparently dying was revived as a traditional healer tried to draw her soul back; the same woman had been reportedly revived before, with some near-death experiences (idem, "Actuality," 5).
It is said that Sardar Birsa refused the request to raise the corpse of a Muslim supplicant, on the grounds that it was merely a fake corpse made of clay (Singh, "Prophet," 109).
264. Grindal, "Heart," 68. Oral traditions claim that the walking dead appeared in some nocturnal juju (black magic) rituals, if the relatives paid sufficient fees to the practitioners (Nicolini, "Notes," 119).
265. Grindal, "Heart," 69: "You saw the ancestors dance"; also 75.
266. Partly from a death threat (ibid., 73), but he was also nauseated at the scene (68, 77).
267. Ibid., 74.
268. Thirteen in ibid., 61; fourteen in ibid., 76.
269. Ibid., 61; while denying its possible objectivity on 76, he recognizes it as an "intuitive certainty"
(a subjective reality) on 77.
270. Ibid., 61. The exhaustion could explain him hallucinating, but not the others. Denying that a camera could have captured the scene, he seems to deny its objectivity (76), a strategy necessary to reduce cognitive dissonance with his epistemology. McClenon, Healing, 62, who apparently prefers a more rigorous scientific depiction of trance, complains that Grindal's description is "shrouded in anthropological vagueness."
271. If "group hallucinations" occur, they are very rare, as Mike Licona's research has shown (cf.
Licona, "Historicity of Resurrection," 136n196, 346–47; idem, Resurrection, 484–85, 573–74; personal correspondence, April 25, 2010; May 17, 2010). Many cited cases of supposed group hallucinations are misattributed, belonging instead to categories such as optical illusions, legend, or fraud (O'Connell,
"Hallucinations," 71–75).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
explanation is not impossible, given the intense ritual context.272 Whatever the explanation, it differs in any case from conventional Western categories of what should be able to happen. The following cases differ, however, in kind and cannot be explained by a rhythm-induced hypnotic trance, both because that does not fit the circumstances of the reports and because the people remained demonstrably alive afterward.
Alternative Explanations?
To argue that ancient eyewitnesses could have believed that Jesus raised the dead, it is sufficient to demonstrate that eyewitnesses offer comparable claims today; one need not venture an explanation. If we do venture into the controversy of explanation, however, some approaches seem more plausible than others. I do not assume that all of the accounts I have found must be genuine raisings; even assuming that all reporters were truthful, in some cases (such as some babies whose eyes were "set in death") the person may not have been quite dead yet.
The boundaries by which death is defined work for most cases but can be fluid, and some people argue that the usual definition even in Western medicine (brain death) may be somewhat arbitrary.273 Those who would, however, use such observations to simply dismiss all of my accounts (complaining of my sources' or my own naiveté) ought to consider why they dismiss all of them, and on what basis they hold their philosophic assumptions so strongly that they would dismiss abundant eyewitness testimony in which a number of people apparently dead are revived, without brain damage, after a sustained period.274
While one can posit various alternative explanations for a number of the individual accounts, not all of the accounts are so easily explained. In some cases, for example, like the dead girl reported by Albert Bissouessoue, the person was certainly dead. Moreover, the difficulty appears to be compounded as the number of examples so treated increases, until it gives the impression, at least to someone not inflexibly bound to antisupernatural premises, of explaining away evidence by filing it all in separate nonsupernatural categories. I know some of the sources firsthand, and some others are known to people that I know. Some cases might have naturalistic parallels, but some, including some where I find the sources of 272. O'Connell, "Hallucinations," 70–71, acknowledges that group hallucinations are unusual, but on 75–83 offers six documented cases in the past 425 years (all in spiritually charged contexts), plus several cases that he regards as more questionable, showing that in some religious contexts collective hallucinations have occurred. These cases share common elements: visions are expected (84); sometimes stress (84); not everyone present sees the vision (85); those who see it do not all see the same thing (85–86); and the vision does not converse (86). Using these and other criteria, O'Connell distinguishes these cases from Jesus's resurrection appearances (87–105). Reports of some corporate visions (usually with limited details) appear elsewhere (Boddy, "Face"; Koch, Revival, 143; Huyssen, Saw, 110).
273. Straight, Miracles, 145–47, cites the influence of the need for organ donation on formulating current medical definitions.
274. Some sociologists of religion have also warned against ruling out such claims on the basis of ideological bias (Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 153).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
testimony convincing, are very difficult to explain on such terms, and their cumulative weight appears to render these cases mutually supportive. At the least, nearly all interpreters will agree that resuscitations are not best explained psychosomatically.275
From the historical standpoint, the primary point here is that eyewitnesses claim raisings. Because I will eventually address the question of extranormal causation, however, the reader should keep in mind that, apart from particular conditions that do not apply in any of the following cases,276 after just about four or five minutes without oxygen some brain damage normally occurs even if the person's breathing can be started again at that point (by human intervention, usually by special equipment rarely available in the following settings). A survivor would normally spend a few days in a coma, then a varying period of recovery, and if severe brain damage occurred would often face continued coma, seizures or uncontrolled body movements, progressive dementia, disorientation, or near-event amnesia.
If a person's respiration has ceased for six minutes, brain damage is normally irreversible even if one is revived, so that the patient would be in a coma and typically need artificial respiration.277 Most of the following accounts involve longer periods of time, yet those revived lack signs of brain damage, defying normal expectations of what is possible. A person's pulse can start again after stopping, but even in such cases a person will not recover fully unless there is medical intervention.278 Some newer medical techniques can restart a heart even more than an hour after cardiac arrest, but these again are only through technological, medical intervention and can offer hope of functionality only if the brain is preserved.279
275. So correctly, e.g., Purtill, "Proofs," 48. I say "nearly all" to allow for those attributing the raisings to some power exuded by the faith of others present rather than the dead person, but this explanation
(which I find a poor alternative to a supernatural one: it substitutes one paranormal hypothesis for another, ignoring the theological contexts of the raisings) is not what is typically meant by "psychosomatic." Davies,
Healer, 67, in principle allows raisings if the persons were merely comatose or not dead long—i.e., so long as supernatural explanations are not needed.
276. Such as severely lowered body temperatures due to, e.g., drowning in icy water; Greyson,
"Experiences," 339, notes that the body may be artificially cooled to 60° F, ceasing the cerebral flow of blood, for more than forty-five minutes for a delicate operation. Also, since the brain stem is the last part of the brain to shut down, essential bodily systems might be preserved temporarily after severe damage to other parts of the brain. In the case reported in "Indian Baby 'Back from the Dead'" (http://news
.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7463245.stm), which I initially read with great interest, a drug apparently suppressed perceptibility of the infant's heartbeat. This situation is obviously different from any story below, most of which lacked the application of any medicine.
277. After seven minutes the entire brain is normally irreversibly dying, and within fifteen minutes the heart becomes incapable of being revived. Dr. Maurice Rawlings, "Introduction," xi, gives four minutes before tissue death starts in the brain, and brain damage after ten minutes without CPR.
278. Dr. Nicole Matthews, personal correspondence, April 1 and 14, 2009. After six minutes, a person would not recover fully, and would not normally start respirating on his or her own (ibid.,
April 14, 2009).
279. See, e.g., Associated Press medical writer Marilynn Marchione, "Jackson's Hospital Is Known for 'Raising the Dead,'" July 1, 2009, at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyID=106160320, or http://health.yahoo.com/news/ap/us_med_michael_jackson_raising_the_dead.html; accessed
July 2, 2009.
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One might counter that some of the following cases could have involved pulses and respiration merely too faint to detect,280 an explanation one could also correspondingly apply to the cases in the Gospels and Acts.281 Thus for example raising reports in dossiers for miracles of Roman Catholic saints declined after methods for certifying death became stricter and physicians became less ready to claim that a genuine resuscitation must have occurred.282 In view of the abundance of the testimonies, however, I think that trying to explain most or all of them in such terms severely underestimates the ability of people in traditional societies, who live close to death, to detect respiration, especially when deciding that the person is dead means parting with a loved one. Moreover, even if they were merely in comas, one wonders why so many people recovered from such severe comas during prayer. That is, in a number of these cases I think that the supernatural causation that these accounts specifically claim offers the best available explanation for the results that they note.
Defending Hume's position, one philosopher concludes, "If anyone were to tell you that a man had died and come back to life you had better not believe him."
Since the truth of his claim is surely more improbable than that he is recounting something false (deliberately or no), he argues, one should not believe him.283 One could accuse all the eyewitnesses concerning naturally inexplicable raisings of being liars, and perhaps cast me in that barrel for good measure since I claim to know some of them. But is that not a steep price to pay to defend an eighteenthcentury philosopher's assumptions? Whether one must regard all resuscitations as improbable even in theological contexts depends again on one's presuppositions.
By contrast, another philosopher doubts that even Hume, being an empiricist, would have insisted that the person had not been not raised from the dead if Hume himself witnessed it.284
Earlier Accounts In history, claims of extranormal resuscitations specifically associated with prayer appear at various points. For example, Irenaeus claims that the gathered church in his day "often" accomplished such resuscitations (following the example of Jesus and the apostles).285 As noted earlier, an apparently second-century
280. Some observe that "even EEG curves and zero flatlines do not necessarily indicate death" (Van
Brenk, "Wagner," 264, citing Hans Küng); but how long can a person remain in such a state before the damage becomes irreparable, especially without modern technology to revive the person?
281. That is, they would remain plausible on the phenomenological level even if the precise description of their state would differ from that posed by modern medical science.
282. Duffin, Miracles, 81, pointing historically to the influence of Paolo Zacchia (1584–1659), who "claimed that death could not be determined with certainty until the cadaver began to decay." Duffin also adds the observation that Protestant influence may have increased skepticism even within the Catholic
Church about accepting recovery experiences as genuine resuscitations (83); from earlier reports, she judges that those labeled dead were at least "moribund" (81).
283. Sobel, "Evidence," 186.
284. Smart, Philosophers, 32.
285. Irenaeus Haer. 2.31.2.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
source reports that the first bishop of Arbil in Mesopotamia was converted through witnessing the Syrian evangelist Addai raising a man in 99 c.e.286 Augustine cites accounts of raisings attested by eyewitnesses.287 A contemporary attributed three raisings to Martin of Tours (316–97).288 Writing roughly a generation after Benedict
(ca. 480–ca. 547), Gregory the Great (ca. 540–604) attributed a raising to him.289
Bede reports a raising; another source claims that Columba, working among the Picts, commanded a dead boy to return to life and he did so.290 On September
6, 1303, Roger of Conway fell to his death and was discovered in the morning, "still as wood." When someone invoked a saint, however, the boy began to move, and he recovered in a church in front of more than two hundred witnesses. This account appears in contemporary documents involving multiple eyewitnesses.291
In another medieval account, a girl drowned in a pond in early afternoon and was discovered facedown after sunset, "her face and body . . . so badly bloated as to be unrecognizable." Eyewitnesses noted that the father had to use a knife to pry open her mouth to put the tongue inside, and then the mouth would not close.
Forty people present together prayed to St. Thomas Cantilupe, praying until midnight; at sunrise her parents laid her on the altar at church. Witnesses attested her recovery, as did the girl herself.292 Similarly, Welshman William Cragh had been hanged for hours before he was cut down; witnesses described his face as black, his mouth bloody, his black and swollen tongue hanging out, and his eyes protruding
286. Young, "Miracles in History," 110, citing Mashiha-Zakha, Chronicle of Arbil, 2–3, who cites a written source in the second century.
287. City of God 22.8; see also Herum, "Theology," 63; Hebert, Raised, 41–45. On 33–40, Hebert cites various patristic claims.
288. Hebert, Raised, 47–53, citing especially Sulpicius Severus Dialogues (dating the work to 396, roughly a year before Martin's death). Many raisings are attributed to Patrick (ca. 389–ca. 461), patron saint of Ireland (191–98), including corpses dead for years, but because the earliest major source dates to seven centuries after Patrick, our ability to evaluate what information is early is severely impaired. I have found raisings of long-dead corpses (beyond the maximum of a few days) only in hagiographic sources long after the alleged events.
289. Hebert, Raised, 55–56. Gregory recounts other raisings in 59–62. From the style one may suspect that edification sometimes trumped historiography (see appendix C), but I defer the matter to experts in the period in question. For stories about Bernard of Clairvaux, see Hebert, Raised, 65–67; for a plausible contemporary account from Bernard about Malachy, see 68–69; for a plausible contemporary report about Catherine of Siena, see 105–6. For other medieval accounts, see 71–118, 131–37, 155–74. Many of these accounts cite contemporary witnesses, involve then-living persons of great faith, and in some respects appear analogous to earlier and later accounts; some probably do report historical events. Nevertheless, many also contain fantastic details that appear to me inconsistent with the best attested current and biblical accounts; because I am (as already noted) suspicious of hagiographic embellishment in this period to a much greater extent than I find in the sources from the earliest Christian period (my area of expertise),
I defer conclusive judgments to others, but differences are evident. Hebert, Raised, 119–30, addresses raisings attributed to founders of religious orders.
290. Gardner, "Miracles," 1932, citing Bede H.E.G.A. 5.12; Adomnan Life of Columba 2.32. While accepting some of Bede's other accounts, Young, "Miracles in History," 114, is more skeptical about the raising.
291. Straight, Miracles, 135–36 (following Finucane, Rescue).
292. Ibid., 136–37 (again following Finucane, Rescue). Cf. the baby revived near Budapest in Goodich,
"History," 155.
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from their bloody sockets. That is, most observers would consider him genuinely dead. Nevertheless, bystanders prayed to St. Thomas (a favorite recipient of such entreaties), and witnesses claimed that Cragh returned to life.293
Whatever one makes of the quality of medieval investigations, such claims continued afterward and closer to our own time, for example, accounts regarding raisings through the prayers of missionary Francis Xavier.294 In an account of 1595, after doctors had given up and a mother and some neighbors had pleaded for an hour or two for the life of her apparently dead infant, the child recovered.295
On August 5, 1678, a doctor examined a motionless, cold boy with an apparently broken neck and no pulse; expecting a funeral in the church the next day, he instead discovered people rejoicing around the boy, who was now standing and well.296 It has been said that during the Scottish Reformation, John Welch, son-in-law of John
Knox, prayed for a youth whom the doctors had verified as dead. The youth began speaking, completely well, and went on to become Lord Castlesteuart of Ireland.297
Following Wesley's own eyewitness account, historians note that a man apparently dead returned to life when Wesley prayed for him.298 Wesley and one Mr.
Meyrick had both been ill, but while Wesley recovered, Meyrick got worse.299 The physician expected Meyrick's imminent death;300 Wesley found his legs cold, and the man "(as it seemed) dead already." After Wesley and those with him cried out to God, "He opened his eyes and called for me; and from that hour he continued to recover his strength till he was restored to perfect health."301 Likewise, Lutheran pastor J. C. Blumhardt's wife, Doris, revived from near death ("without breathing or pulse," he shared in a letter at the time) when he prayed.302 After attempts to revive a woman who had hanged herself failed, Blumhardt prayed with those present, breathed into her mouth, and she revived.303
We have far more recent reports from the early twentieth century, including apparent raisings associated with evangelists Maria Woodworth-Etter,304 John G.
293. Ibid., 137 (following Bartlett, Hanged Man).
294. Hebert, Raised, 177–83. Hebert attributes much of Xavier's missionary success to signs, comparing
Jesus's ministry in the Gospels (180). Young, "Miracles in History," 116, however, warns that a Jesuit in Goa in 1584 could locate no witnesses (though this was thirty-nine years later).
295. Duffin, Miracles, 145.
296. Ibid., 81.
297. Young, "Miracles in History," 116; Gardner, Healing Miracles, 84–85; Miller, Miracles, 55–56
(following Howie's Scots Worthies, which claims that Welch prayed for two full days). The story (including thirty-six hours of prayer) appears to have been transferred to Knox (1505–72) himself; see Koch, Zulus, 167.
298. Kidd, "Healing," 159; Tomkins, Wesley, 106.
299. Wesley, Journal, 55 (Dec. 15, 1742). Mike Finley tracked down the exact reference in Wesley's journal for me (Oct. 22, 2010).
300. Ibid., 55–56 (predicted on Dec. 20 and again Dec. 25).
301. Ibid., 56 (Dec. 25, 1742).
302. Ising, Blumhardt, 207. The letter also notes breathing into her lips, but this might follow 2 Kgs 4:34.
303. Ibid., 219.
304. Woodworth-Etter, Diary, 156–57, raising a woman (Mrs. Sarah Nelson) who was "cold and limp," without pulse, in her meeting, who testified of having been to heaven and back, and then continued in the meetings. It is not clear from the narrative that the unconsciousness lasted very long.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Lake,305 Smith Wigglesworth (multiple times),306 and (reported with more restraint) Dr. Lilian Yeomans.307 Deaf and blind for two weeks and nearing death on February 17, 1912, Anglican Dorothy Kerin was mostly unconscious; the next evening, it appeared that her breathing and heartbeat stopped. Then she sat up, declared herself well, and went walking around. She reported that an angel had told her to rise and walk. Various doctors attested her cure, and X-rays showed that her tuberculosis-ravaged lungs were now completely healed.308
In most modern cases, we have these reports only because of writers' interest in the persons who prayed, so it is likely that we have only a small sampling of raisings that were believed to have occurred. In fact, a number of early twentieth-century accounts not associated with well-known figures remain extant.309 For example, the raising of a woman pronounced dead was associated with early West Indian
Pentecostal church planting in the United Kingdom.310
Accounts of resuscitated babies seem more common. A non-Pentecostal source reports that a doctor gave up on a baby who seemed fully dead, yet after prayer the baby returned to life, its color changing from black and blue to pink.311 When a sick twenty-three-month-old baby apparently died during a Louisiana church service in 1915, "its eyes set in death," the church prayed for roughly thirty minutes, after which the baby was restored.312 In a Church of God in Christ testimony from Arkansas in 1913, a baby sick for months apparently died during prayer for him; observers detected no pulse or respiration, and eyes and jaws "set." "So far as we could tell," the report claims, "he was perfectly dead." One of the women commanded the baby to return to life in Jesus's name, whereupon the child revived and began to recover; he seemed well the next morning, when he was in church for the Sunday morning service.313 When a baby in Poland died, the father went aside and prayed until he felt sure that God had restored the child; when he returned he found his wife praising God, the child alive.314 In 1923, a mother testified that her son, overwhelmed with fever, became lifeless, his eyes "fixed"; the mother began
305. In popular sources, see, e.g., Lindsay, Lake, 12–13, 32–33 (she remained well at the time of Lindsay's writing, twenty-five years after the event; cf. Maxwell, African Gifts, 40).
306. Young, "Miracles in History," 118; Pytches, "Anglican," 194, and idem, Come, 238–39, citing fourteen occasions. See the description of one in Stormont, Wigglesworth, 102–3.
307. Yeomans, Healing, 120–21 (without claiming that the woman was dead, Yeomans, a doctor, notes that she could find no pulse and claims that she was healed while on the verge of death).
308. Maddocks, Ministry, 101–2.
309. Besides accounts noted here, see also a 1907 account from the western United States reported in Wacker, Heaven Below, 67.
310. Michel, Telling, 64.
311. I. W. Keller, attested by Rev. G. Edward Davis of Louisville, Kentucky (Fant, Miracles, 141–44, esp. 143).
312. "Dead Raised to Life" (listing by name and location ten witnesses, presumably from the church service).
313. Reed, "Dead Raised," noting that many witnesses were present and the mother is ready to testify to anyone who asks.
314. Harris, "Miracle in Poland." For other claims of healings in Poland from that period, see, e.g.,
Ewald, "Healings."
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
rebuking death, and the son "sat up and praised the Lord." After a few minutes he got up and used the restroom by himself, and returned dancing and playing "as if he had never been ill."315 In a later period, Alta Washburn prayed for an Apache infant that the mother was taking from the morgue to the cemetery; she reports that the baby returned to life, and word quickly spread on the reservation. Later she prayed for the same boy, now a man, before he was sent to Vietnam.316
In Massachusetts in 1928, several Pentecostals went to pray for a man from Michigan who had come to visit relatives but was now in the throes of death. As they prayed, he got worse. Finally they could detect no heartbeat, his head was cold, "his eyes . . . set in death," and they lost faith to pray any longer. But as the dead man's wife expressed confidence in prayer that God could raise him even in that state, they regained courage and kept praying, rebuking death and commanding him to get up. Immediately, the report declares, the man began to revive, praying and singing in tongues, and within a few minutes he sat up. He then had to lie down again but showed up at the afternoon service, still weak but alive. His wife later reported that he had recovered fully and was working hard, with no illness remaining.317
For the most part, I can only recount what these early twentieth-century sources claim, but one case afforded opportunity to trace back a story to within days of its origination. If this sample case is in any way representative, many of these claims would appear to reflect actual experiences. In 1907, the Azusa Street Revival's publication cited a raising story in the Nazarene Messenger.318 The citation was not invented; one researcher, Mike Finley, was able to find (for himself and me) a copy of the latter article in Nazarene archives, dating to within a month of the reported event. According to this account, fifteen-year-old Eula Wilson was bedridden for seven months, starting on December 9, 1906. She was attended by many of the most respected doctors in Wichita. Unconscious during her final eight days and experiencing convulsions, she lacked food, water, and medicine. Attendants used disinfectants because of the odor from fluids oozing from her mouth, nose, and ears. Neighbors felt that the mother, who was praying for healing, was pitiably
315. Yeoward, "Miracle." On naturalistic grounds one might suppose a temporary coma until the fever broke, but this explanation does not seem to fit all the details, and the recovery under the conditions described at least seems quite unusual.
316. Tarango, "Physician," 112, citing Washburn's self-published autobiography. The young man did return safely. Most other cures reported in Washburn's ministry were meaningful but less dramatic
(Tarango, "Physician," 112–13, cites a woman not using crutches since they prayed). In another case among Native Americans in the same denomination, a baby was born healthy who had been expected to be born dead (113).
317. Trotter, "Dead Raised," including signatures of the witnesses. Perhaps this was a heart attack, but the recovery without any means except prayer would appear extraordinary.
318. "Raised from the Dead," citing Frank McCluney's lengthy "Correspondence," both provided to me courtesy of Mike Finley (Oct. 10, 22, 2010). The report, which dates to ten days after the event, includes names, addresses, and apparently known local church contacts, although it does not seem possible to gain further detail more than a century later. It also refers readers to the Wichita Eagle for names of the doctors.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
out of touch with reality (an understandable sentiment, given the frequency of denial). Finally at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday night the doctor, visiting on a house call, warned that she was dying; as far as all the gathered neighbors could tell, she was dead by 8 p.m., and they began preparing her for burial. At 2 a.m., she seemed to show signs of life, but "again relapsed into convulsions, which continued until
9:30 a.m. Saturday." At 10 a.m. Saturday morning, June 8, 1907, she sat up and recounted an experience of heaven.319 She then ate lightly, washed, and walked around with no impairment.320
The story could be traced back further than the Nazarene report, however.
Mike checked archives and found the story in Wichita newspapers just after the reported events, quoting named witnesses.321 Because the Azusa Street account seems to have added the healing of her eye to the Nazarene account,322 I initially assumed that this might have been a case of elaborating miracle accounts such as scholars often suggest in the development of the Gospel tradition. Instead, we discovered that, whether by other information or inference, the later Azusa
Street account correctly reported the earlier story; the Wichita Eagle already cited A. O. Burton, the doctor who had attended her before she died, as attesting that her sight was restored. Based on his medical experience, he did not understand "how she revived" when he had left her so close to death.323 Dr. Burton did note that she still had a slight fever shortly after her remarkable recovery, but the paper also reports that she went out to College Hill on the day of her recovery. Her neighborhood, who viewed her experience as miraculous, attested that she had been bedridden and that they had expected her death "any time" for the past half a year.324
One of my nt colleagues from Duke, Dr. Eric Greaux, referred me to a person whom he had known for nearly thirty years, vouching for her integrity.325 Barachias
Irons is a Church of God in Christ evangelist, and she, consulting with her mother,
319. Her description fits descriptions of heaven in most other near death experience (NDE) reports that involve them, including not being allowed past a certain point; she also described accurately deceased persons she had not seen in life.
320. In the ten days before the report, there was no relapse of illness, and she was regaining weight and strength.
321. Mike Finley (Oct. 31, 2010) notes that the Wichita Eagle carried twelve articles related to Eula
Wilson between June 11 and July 7, 1907; the rival paper, the Wichita Beacon, had five articles (June
11–22). The Wichita Star, focused more on agricultural issues, was silent. The Beacon's final article (June
22) questions the severity of her previous condition, but unlike the Eagle does not name its sources.
322. The one obvious addition in the Azusa Street article was to make explicit the healing of Eula's blind and damaged eye; given the nature of testimony, the mention of the damage in the earlier article might assume the later healing, but it is not explicit there.
323. "Saw God," provided for me by Mike Finley, Oct. 31, 2010. I was also not sure whether to assume that she died Wednesday night or whether the original case would have been Friday night; witnesses in the fuller Wichita Eagle account indicate that she appeared to slip away both nights before recovering Saturday morning (this article may be a source condensed in the Messenger; I condense even further here).
324. Ibid.
325. Eric Greaux, personal correspondence, Aug. 27–28, 2009.
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Mother Katherine Taylor, procured for me her well-known testimony.326 Katherine was testifying about the raising of her own mother, Mother Elouise Jordan, from the dead, an event that she personally witnessed. Mother Jordan (1907–82) was part of Mason Temple Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tennessee. (This was the church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke the day before his assassination.) In 1940, however, at age thirty-three, doctors diagnosed her with cancer in her throat. Although she was hospitalized at John Gaston Hospital (now called
The Med), they sent her home because there was nothing that they could do for her. "She suffered with cancer for nine years," and it ate through her throat so that mucous was coming from her neck.
In 1949, Mother Jordan's daughter Katherine had gone to work when "her supervisor received a call . . . for her to come home, because her mother had died."
The entire neighborhood had known of Mother Jordan's illness, so many people were standing outside, and a hearse arrived from the J. O. Patterson mortuary.327
Hearing of Mother Jordan's passing, Bishop Mason, widely known as a man of prayer, arrived before the mortuary could take the body.328 He "prayed and rebuked death, and life came back into Mother Jordan's body." When Katherine
Taylor reached the house, "Mother Jordan was on the porch in a pink night gown dancing and praising God." Although the doctor had indicated that the cancer had destroyed her ability to speak, from that day forward "she spoke until she died of natural causes in 1982."329 Insofar as we know, this testimony has not previously been published, at least in this form; yet it is so firmly part of the oral history that my friend Eric knew about it.
Current accounts are available to me in the greatest numbers. Although far rarer than most kinds of healings, both today and in the nt, large numbers of raisings are claimed in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and sometimes also in the West—far more than I can narrate below.330 Some videos circulating today even portray rais326. The mother has other testimonies as well, including being healed of twisted intestines before doctors could operate (1977) and shocking a nurse when she spoke after being dead thirty minutes in 1999 (Barachias Irons, personal correspondence, Aug. 27, 2009), but I lack the details for these accounts.
For the remarkable growth of COGIC, see, e.g., Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 281.
327. Katherine noted that Elder J. O. Patterson Sr. later became her pastor and the presiding bishop after Bishop C. H. Mason's death; at this time, however, he ran a funeral home.
328. Founder of the Church of God in Christ, Mason declared already in 1924 that hundreds had been healed when he prayed and laid hands on them, from toothaches to tumors (McClymond, "Mason," 253).
On early healing theology in COGIC, see Alexander, Healing, 113–23.
329. Barachias Irons (personal correspondence, Sept. 13, 2009), passing on the information for me directly from her mother, from whom she had it and whom she consulted, Mother Katherine Taylor.
Evangelist Irons also provided a summary of this information in personal correspondence (Aug. 27, 2009; further details and some photographs, Jan. 19, 2010; also Jan. 21, 2010).
330. Many of these surface in popular Christian literature, e.g., an example in Lewis, Healing, 64–65;
Osborn, Evangelism, 1:940–41 (a baby); Osborn, Healing, 281; Wagner, Acts, 476–77 (and less dramatically, 321–22); Wilkerson, Beyond, 14–21, 25–32 (esp. 32), 47–54 (esp. 53), 56–58, 89–97 (esp. 94–95),
97–104 (esp. 101–3; his father-in-law's story), 105–6 (seventeen and a half hours after being pronounced dead, without breathing), 107–9 (esp. 108), 109–14 (esp. 113–14); Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 69–76
(Marvin Ford recounting his return after thirty minutes of clinical death, through Ralph Wilkerson's
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
ings (I have watched two from Nigeria)331 or recount interviews with those raised
(e.g., one from Ethiopia I have watched), though I lack means to evaluate their authenticity.332 A number of instances of persons returning to life, often through medical means after brief cessation of vital signs, involve visions of afterlife while dead, a topic discussed more in some other works of various kinds.333 I shall focus here, however, largely on written sources or the results of my open-ended interviews where some interviewees happened to supply accounts of raisings among their accounts of healings. prayers); Clark, Impartation, 203; see also Rutz, Megashift, 3–14, 21–22, 29–34, 79, 104–5 (collecting many claims from more than fifty countries [cf. 30]; mentioned also in Wilson, "Miracle Events," 265);
Rumph, Signs, 155–73; Smith, "Baby"; Conn, "Visit to Heaven" (in Tonga); Carpenter, "Death"; Harris,
Acts Today, 98–99, 101–3; Seibert, Church, 135–36 (Mongolia, after thirty-six hours); see also McGee,
People of Spirit, 524–25. Mike Finley, whose book is forthcoming, has spent years collecting reports and knows of well over a thousand (phone interview, Oct. 2, 2010); in over forty cases, "medically trained personnel (doctors, nurses, EMTs) were present when the individual was determined dead, and then came back to life" (personal correspondence, Sept. 23, 2010).
331. One on the internet is from the controversial Synagogue Church of All Nations. The other involves
Reinhard Bonnke and is mentioned further below.
332. I am not specifically challenging their veracity (some or all of them could well be accurate, in view of some raisings evidenced elsewhere), but I approach internet material, like unprovenanced artifacts in archaeology, cautiously when I lack sufficient means to verify its source and the source's reliability.
333. See more than twenty accounts in Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 1–141; more than twenty more in Kent and Waite, Beyond, chs. 11–36; they call these "Near Death Experiences." While some accounts sound more convincing than others, NDEs are sufficiently common and well-documented enough that there is little reason to dispute the premise of the collection as a whole. (On NDEs, one may note numerous works from different interpretive frameworks, e.g., Moody, Life; Ring, Life; Habermas and Moreland, Immortality, 73–105; Greyson, "Experiences," and their bibliographies.) Interestingly, even someone blind all her life recounted seeing similar images, though not in color (Kent and Waite, Beyond, ch. 23, reported by Dr. Kenneth Ring), and a blind man also saw clearly while dying (even what people present were wearing), while returning to blindness after resuscitation (Rawlings, "Introduction," xiii).
See further, e.g., Shahid Siraj Din, attested as clinically dead for four minutes (Kent and Waite, Beyond, ch. 11); Rod Lewis, restored immediately after brief prayers by his wife (Kent and Fotherby, Frontier,
129–30); and Paul McWilliams, clinically dead twice during his coma (Kent and Waite, Beyond, ch. 22); possibly also Hock, Miracles, 10–15; McCallie, Trophy, 4 (a nine-year-old describing Jesus as she died).
Rawlings, "Introduction," xiv, contends that lack of oxygen, drugs, and other factors cannot simulate these near death experiences; Greyson, "Experiences," 334, 340–41, notes that brain activity does not account for these, including in a case in which the brain was monitored, yet the brain-dead woman correctly observed features in the operating room; also noting on 321 that cases usually involve psychologically normal individuals. In one study, 18 percent of 344 survivors of cardiac arrest are said to have reported NDEs "while their brains showed no wave activity" (Llewellyn, "Events," 246). While some experiences resemble biblical accounts, some (for better or for worse, but probably unknown to most of the narrators) resemble a literary form found in apocalypses and climaxing in Dante (cf., e.g., Gr. Apoc.
Ezra; T. of Jac.; Bauckham, "Visiting"; idem, "Visions"; cf. a Greek example from 2 c.e. in Select Papyri
3:416–21). Some of their details are clearly postbiblical, reflecting images from Dante (so also Alnor,
Heaven, 51; for historical surveys of Christian imagery for heaven, esp. in medieval sources, see McGrath,
Heaven [esp. 54–65]; McDannell and Lang, Heaven [esp. 69–110]; in U.S. history, cf. Janney, Who Goes
There?). Still, some images may be contextualized. Moreover, while meeting loved ones in heaven was popular in the eighteenth century (McDannell and Lang, Heaven, 213), it had much earlier precedents
(e.g., McDannell and Lang, Heaven, 60–61). Cross-cultural similarities coexist with some elements of cultural patterning (Greyson, "Experiences," 345; cf. McClenon, Events, 49–51, 168–84); for cultural shaping, see O'Connell, "Hallucinations," 90.
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Raising Accounts in Africa Accounts abound in Africa334 (occasionally even of Westerners there335). We first met William Burton in chapter 10, reluctantly acquiescing to the need to use medicine against malaria; yet he also reports many supernatural healings. In one case, reported in 1922, a Congolese evangelist fetched Burton to try to help his dying baby son Philipu, but when they arrived, wailing revealed that the child had already died. Burton meant to pray for the family's comfort but, overwhelmed by the Spirit, found himself instead praying, "Lord, raise up little Philipu." The father, who had not previously believed in divine healing, began praying the same, and the child soon opened his eyes; within two days he had recovered fully. Burton reasoned that perhaps the child had merely been unconscious, though everyone thought him dead; but he believed that God had acted in any case. So did the child's father, who thereafter went from village to village laying hands on people; the resultant healings opened up many villages to the movement's message about Christ.336
Elsewhere, the central African evangelical evangelist Pelendo reported on September 7, 1930, such a raising in the village of Mongila. A woman named Kuzuwa had accidentally severed an artery in her ankle and bled to death; people from her village found her dead in her field. When Pelendo was brought to where the villagers were wailing, he announced that God had sent him to heal and raise the dead as well as to teach the gospel, and then he prayed. "When I finished and said the Amen," he reported, "the woman said it right after me so that everyone could hear." After she was restored to life, the village served the God who had raised
Kuzuwa, and visitors would come to learn about this God.337 Likewise, the black South African evangelist William Duma is said to have raised a girl.338 When asked about miracles more generally, my friend and coworker Rodney Ragwan told me that his grandfather attended Duma's weekly meetings in Durban and reported that miracles took place.339 Among the indigenous church movements with distinctive
334. E.g., Wilkerson, Beyond, 114–15 (on an event in Togo); a Ghanaian boy in Kent and Waite,
Beyond, ch. 16. Some have, however, prayed unsuccessfully for raisings (see the example in WährischOblau, "Healing in Migrant Churches," 72).
335. New Zealander Ian McCormack tells his story of resuscitation fifteen to twenty minutes after death in an African hospital (Ian McCormack with Jenny Sharkey, A Glimpse of Eternity: One Man's Encounter with Life Beyond Death, an ebook at http://www.aglimpseofeternity.org/content.php?folder_id=1, accessed
Oct. 3, 2010; more briefly, Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 1–11). Some who know his work better have spoken to me favorably of him. I cannot obtain further documentation; he reports that he saw the medical records but explains that the hospital would not allow him to obtain copies (personal correspondence,
July 25, 2009), a situation that does genuinely characterize some African hospitals.
336. Burton, "Villages," 5–6. People employed the designation "Congo" in this era more widely, and Burton evidently includes Angola in the designation here.
337. Anderson, Pelendo, 69–70. A similar story appears on 92–94, except that the narrator claims that this woman was merely unconscious (though dying, and apparently some thought her dead, 93); she regained consciousness when Pelendo prayed and was restored. Pelendo clearly did not expect persons to be healed or raised on every occasion (99–100, 107).
338. Deere, Power of Spirit, 123–24 (citing Garnett, Duma, 40ff.).
339. Rodney Ragwan (interview, Dec. 15, 2009), noting the prayer meetings on Wednesdays; he cited
Garnett, Duma, as being an accurate representation of Duma. His wife, Eva Ragwan, also independently
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
customs,340 Samuel Mutendi, a major twentieth-century Shona Zionist leader, is said to have raised a girl named Miriam in the face of local hostility.341
Extant claims are far more abundant for recent years. I have already noted the testimony of Professor J. Ayodeji Adewuya, a professor from Nigeria now teaching in the United States, whose newborn son was pronounced dead at birth by a midwife on January 1, 1981, but was raised after twenty minutes of prayer. Ayo was a witness, and his son has now finished his master of science degree at the University of London.342
After noting the raising and healing of a dead woman in Ethiopia, some researchers cite a major Ethiopian church leader's claim that such raisings are "considered normal" there.343 Others would not put the matter so strongly but know of raisings there.344 Western scholars are increasingly exposed to such reports; for example, when visiting to teach in Ethiopia, one heard and verified two reports of raisings.
The first involved a six-year-old girl at her non-Christian funeral when a Christian prayed aloud for her; four months later (the time of the report) she remained well and a congregation of six hundred believers had formed.345 In the second case, an Ethiopian minister's mother (who did not approve of his practices) died. He felt that God led him to lay hands on the coffin and pray, at which point "she revived and began knocking on the inside of the wooden coffin"; people quickly fled the room.346 volunteered the example of this Baptist evangelist, citing her parents' discussions about him in the 1970s, including that he had raised people from the dead (personal correspondence, Oct. 14, 2010).
340. E.g., unlike mission churches, Mutendi practiced polygamy (Daneel, Zionism, 29). Many customs are distinctive to Mutendi's movement or to local culture. At least around 1970, most converts were also coming from non-Christian backgrounds (26).
341. Ibid.,15–16; Mutendi unfortunately seems to have assumed a messianic role (idem, "Churches,"
182n3). Cf. also the tradition that Samuel Oscoffa, founder of Nigeria's Celestial Church of Christ, raised his nephew through prayer in Jesus's name (Ray, "Aladura Christianity," 289); and that the early Aladura leader Joseph Babalola raised a dead child (Shaw, Awakening, 59).
342. Ayo noted this publicly in the Matthew section at SBL on Nov. 22, 2009, during discussion surrounding my paper (Keener, "Readings"), and subsequently confirmed the details in a phone interview
(Dec. 14, 2009), adding information about the master's degree in further correspondence (Dec. 16, 2009).
He named his son Iyanuloluwa, which is Yoruba for "the Lord is wonderful" (phone interview, Dec. 14,
2009). Ayo is professor of New Testament at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, Cleveland, Tennessee
(correspondence, Dec. 17, 2009).
343. Bush and Pegues, Move, 52, citing the General Secretary of the Evangelical Church Fellowship of Ethiopia at the time (Assayehegn Berhe).
344. Tadesse Woldetsadik (personal correspondence, Nov. 1, 2009). In response to my inquiry he affirmed the reliability of Pastor Berhe, whom he knows, and that some raisings have occurred, but noted that such raisings do not happen at all times and in all places. The difference may reflect the contexts in which they were quoted.
345. Tarr, Foolishness, 329–30 (mentioning verification on 330). His sources include both this Christian who prayed and another eyewitness, both students at the Addis Ababa Bible College where Tarr teaches when in Ethiopia (personal correspondence, Oct. 20, 2010).
346. Tarr, Foolishness, 330. She was quickly released from the coffin. Tarr mentions verification of both stories on 330; this includes testimony from one of the mother's children present on the occasion and (independently) a person they know who knows the raised mother (personal correspondence, Oct. 20,
2010).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
When I asked Gebru Woldu about any raisings in Ethiopia, he immediately named a church member (Salam) who had been sick and died while they were praying for her. He protested to God that she had died during prayer, and pleaded for his mercy for the sake of God's honor in the community. After he had prayed for forty-five minutes, the women preparing the corpse, who had much firsthand knowledge of signs of death, were startled, as Salam awoke. "It was better to be there," she laughed, completely well and ready to eat. A year later she married a teacher, who is also a church elder (whom Gebru named). Everyone knows her,
Gebru insisted: "Anybody can go and can check there," at the Dire Dawa Full Gospel Church.347
One book documents a boy in Kinshasa, Congo, returning to life hours after being pronounced dead and left in the morgue, at the moment that Christian evangelist Mahesh Chavda prayed. In this case the source provides medical attestation,348 including photographs of the raised boy and his earlier death certificate.349 Others tell of a local minister in the same country who raised a woman dead four days, despite the unbearable stench beforehand.350
In one report from Uganda, Church of God pastor Josephine Bayingana was summoned to pray for a sick man who had lost consciousness; by the time she was able to reach the distant location, the man had been dead for six hours. She sent the mourners out and prayed, and the man returned to life; he remains "alive and well."351 Nigerian Pentecostal preacher Ayo Oritsejafor reports that when he boldly prayed for a dead child, she returned to life.352 Some have claimed that the controversial Pentecostal preacher Simeon Kayiwa of Uganda has raised eighteen people from the dead.353 A missionary in Côte d'Ivoire reported a persecuted Christian revived after local believers prayed.354 When Lydia Thofozi died of sickness in South Africa, believers found no pulse and her fingernails had already turned blue.
After her friends had been praying around her (not specifically for her return), she sat up (something she had been unable to do as she was dying), declaring that she had experienced heaven and Jesus sent her back.355 Many have also heard of 347. Gebru Woldu (interview, May 20, 2010; personal correspondence, May 21, 2010; June 3, 2010).
Besides my own time with Gebru, others spoke well of him and referred me to him.
348. Chavda, Miracle, 9, 13–15, 131–41 (see esp. 137–41); also mentioned in Deere, Power of Spirit,
204–6. A woman prayed for her dead daughter for four hours until her raising in Ojo, "Miracles," 48 (citing a 1984 publication by W. F. Kumuyi).
349. Chavda, Miracle, between 78 and 79; also his address (140).
350. Pytches, Come, 241 (citing Steele, Plundering, 173).
351. From Solomon Mukonjo, among reports sent to me by Douglas LeRoy, Nov. 9, 2009.
352. Oritsejafor, "Dealing," 95.
353. Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 96. I received mixed responses to queries about Kayiwa among my
Ugandan contacts; he is controversial in some circles. One leader who knows him personally, however, insisted that "in the early days" many genuine miracles took place (consulted Oct. 29, 2009).
354. Koch, Zulus, 168.
355. Ibid., 170–71, noting that she recovered quickly. Koch says that he got to know her well (as well as coworkers who witnessed the event). Koch also reports a man in a mortuary returning to life for a few days; God had told him to go back and how to find salvation (140–42).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Angus Buchan, the immigrant farmer in South Africa who prayed over a woman who had been struck by lightning and apparently killed. He felt led to lift her by the hands to stand upright, whereupon she was well. He admits that he cannot be sure whether she was previously unconscious or dead, but he was at least certain that she was now fully cured, and she remains well many years later.356
In Nigeria, when an evangelism team member, Lolo George, suddenly died in the midst of juju territory on the morning of October 15, 1973, Geoffrey
Numbere and the other workers prayed until, around noon, she returned to life and began recovering strength.357 Several months later, when Franz Azia, brother of the local ruler of Okwale, died, local believers felt compelled to pray for his raising. They went in to pray for the corpse before burial while onlookers mocked, waiting for the coffin. After several hours of continued prayer and mockery, the man sat up, alive, and asked for water, and the gospel spread widely in Okwale. Frank Azia lived more than twenty more years and had more children, dying finally on September 2, 1995. Philip Azia, one of Frank's sons, was converted through witnessing the miracle and remains a pastor in Numbere's circle of churches today.358
Leo Bawa, a Nigerian friend of mine for about a decade whom I mentioned in chapter 9, shared with me his own experience of a resuscitation. One evening in Mayo Belwa in northern Nigeria, his host's neighbors handed him their dead child. "Initially I was confused and perplexed," he admits, but he recounts that he eventually summoned up the courage by faith that all things are possible through God. I took the dead body into the room while the people waited outside. In the room I prayed and pleaded with God to restore the life of the young boy. A few hours later, the boy opened his eyes and coughed. [With him] fully restored, I came out of the room and handed over the boy to his parents alive! . . . The parents, who had been wailing and weeping, after witnessing the miracle of God were filled with joy. Many people who were skeptics and hitherto suspected me and my missionary work were filled with awe and gave praises to God.359
Evangelist Daniel Kolenda reported that after a meeting on December 12, 2009, a weeping mother asked him for prayer. She was holding the limp body of her threeyear-old boy, whom both she and the ushers at this meeting in Nigeria believed
356. Venter, Healing, 294–95 (citing Buchan and Waldeck, Faith, 39–40). The story is also told with others from Angus Buchan's life in the film Faith Like Potatoes (Affirm Films, 2008). A South African friend assures me that Angus Buchan is well reputed in his circles (Johan Mostert, personal correspondence, July
4, 2009; Aug. 16, 2009). Young, "Miracles in History," 117, cites an account of a raising in South Africa after a man had been certified as dead (citing Shakarian, People, 183).
357. Numbere, Vision, 136–37, citing also an eyewitness's record from the day.
358. Ibid., 140–42. Young, "Miracles in History," 117, cites a report of no fewer than six raisings at one location in Nigeria, in 1966–67.
359. Leo Bawa, personal correspondence, Aug. 10, 2009, p. 5. I have made slight modifications of grammar and punctuation for U.S. readers, without altering any content. The only other occasion on which Leo prayed for someone to return to life was for a friend (personal correspondence, Oct. 13, 2010).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
to be dead; the ushers had tried to send her to the medical tent earlier, but she insisted on waiting until the service was over for prayer. He prayed for about thirty seconds and handed the child back. The next night the mother was back. "She had brought her son, and he was perfectly well. They told us that the child had come back to life almost immediately after the prayer."360
Kolenda works with Reinhard Bonnke, whose ministry has also noted another raising as pastors working with his ministry prayed.361 Bonnke does not claim to have been present at the time of the raising, which militates against the suspicion raised by some Western internet critics that he may have staged the raising. The documentation includes a death certificate, the videotaped testimonies of the doctor who pronounced Ekechukwu dead, the mortician who believed him to be dead, the ministers who were present at his healing, and others, as well as of some footage of the event itself, which was somewhat public. Such a publicized occurrence has naturally generated questions. Inconsistencies appear, but I would judge them no greater than one often expects in oral testimony.362 A number of the objections that Western critics have raised,363 such as skepticism that one would
360. Daniel Kolenda, "3-Year Old Boy Raised from the Dead!" (Dec. 15, 2009, on Kolenda's blog, http://danielkolenda.blogspot.com/); Kolenda had pointed me to his blog for other news (personal correspondence, Dec. 11, 2009).
361. The raising account appears on a separate DVD (Raised from the Dead), as well as in Miracle
Investigation. Others have mentioned it widely, e.g., in http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/bonnke
_raisedpastor.aspx?option=print; accessed May 24, 2009; Kent and Waite, Beyond, ch. 12; Alexander, Signs,
8; Rutz, Megashift, 9–12, photos between 136 and 137, including some footage and the death certificate.
362. The detailed observations in http://op.50megs.com/ditc/ekechart.html are valid, yet many such variations appear in different news reports of the same events or in the Synoptic Gospels (as any careful comparison will reveal), or sometimes even in a single witness's retelling of an event. For a nt scholar's perspective on oral tradition and variations in cultures with strong traditions of orality, see Dunn, New
Perspective, 112 (with 110), 115, 118, 122; using memory studies, Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 333–34,
344–45; Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 275–85.
363. Critical questions have been raised (http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/bonnke2.html; accessed May 24, 2009); some of these are not well founded (thus, against some objections, the pastor did not deny but admitted to being both a pastor and unsaved; Nigerian medical facilities cannot be judged by U.S. standards; and a deliberate fabrication by Bonnke's ministry would more plausibly have had Bonnke present for the raising). The objection that no one would ask to be transported to a more distant hospital near one's home region reflects a lack of understanding of African culture, as noted above and as African informants have confirmed for me (the practice has occurred even in the United States; see McCallie,
Trophy, 12). I lack sufficient evidence to resolve some of the other questions; as a biblical scholar I also wondered about traditional yet postbiblical elements of his visions like angels' "wings" and "mansions," though these may be mere imagery (on the mansions, cf. Alnor, Heaven, 42; Keener, John, 932–39, though the idea is old [cf. Irenaeus Haer. 5.36.2]). Scripture includes no images of those angels portrayed as humanlike messengers (as opposed to cherubim or seraphim) with wings, whereas they do appear in postbiblical sources for angels (1 En. 61:1; 2 En. 1:5; 3:1; 4:2; 72:9; 3 En. 9:3; 18:25; 41:3; 42:2; 47:4; Apoc. Sedr. 2:4;
Ab. R. Nat. 37 A; b. Hag. 16a) and demons (T. Sol. 2:3; 25:3; Ab. R. Nat. 37 A; b. Hag. 16a). Pagans cited wings for divine messengers like Hermes (on his ankles; Heraclitus Hom. Prob. 72.7; Dio Chrysostom Or.
32.22; Fronto De Fer Als. 3.10) and Iris (Virgil Aen. 9.14); also on Eros's (Cupid's) shoulders (Euripides
Hipp. 1271; Pliny Nat. 36.4.41; Fronto De Fer Als. 3.10; Achilles Tatius 2.5.2) and for demigod children of winds (Ovid Metam. 6.713–18). Some visionaries recognize that visions can be contextualized, as in the account in Bredesen, Miracle, 104; cf. Moolenburgh, Meetings, 171, 194. Ekechukwu's recovery is not quite instantaneous, in that he regained strength over the course of the meeting.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
request transportation to more distant facilities that one trusts, show a lack of understanding of local African culture.364 All this to say that while I have no means of corroborating the story besides the information listed above, if one does not rule out the possibility of a miracle (and some of the critics themselves do not), none of the objections so far raised seem compelling enough to dispute it. If raisings do occur, there currently seems insufficient reason to exclude this one from among them, barring more convincing evidence to the contrary.
The raising of the dead, often with abundant witnesses, has been reported in numerous cases in Mozambique, in the movement that has grown around the ministry of Heidi and Rolland Baker and their colleagues, whom I discussed in a previous chapter.365 They reported at least fifty-three cases by 2007,366 and the cases reported have increased considerably since then. One widely watched
DVD includes an interview with one man there who had been raised and immediately healed of his injuries; this raising, Rolland Baker indicated, was public knowledge.367 In one reported case, Pastor Surpresa Sithole was praying for comfort for a family twelve hours after a six-year-old girl's death and holding the child's hand. Unexpectedly, the girl returned to life, dramatically affecting the village.368
One pastor's wife is said to have raised three from the dead, praying over the corpses as she was washing them for their funerals. The first was a threemonth-old girl, who had died from dehydration caused by cholera; after being raised, she remained alive and healthy. The other two (a girl of five months and a middle-aged woman) had died of malaria.369 Mozambican Pastor Jorge was said to have raised seven from the dead, some after a more extended period of prayer, some fairly quickly, one after the person had been dead for two days.
He seemed surprised at the foreign interviewer's interest, since his movement apparently did not consider such activity any more unusual than any of God's other works.370 He simply expected God to heal and restore people as God did in the biblical narratives.
In addition to such sources in Africa, however, I have a more direct connection with a witness in my family. Had other reports not secured my attention, this one would have.
364. Although I have spent only about a year in Africa, Africans confirmed my understanding here.
365. Baker, Enough, 74–76; idem, Miracles, 89, 169; also in Clark, Impartation, 207, 209 (perhaps fourteen cases in Mozambique through the Bakers' extended ministry since 1998).
366. Baker, Miracles, 89.
367. Finger of God.
368. Clark, Impartation, 209; Johnson, Heaven, 75; cf. Chevreau, Turnings, 54 (where Surpresa notes that it has happened to him only once). Pastor Surpresa is a colleague of the Bakers (noted in, e.g., Baker,
Enough, 72, 150; idem, Miracles, 25–26, 37, 63; Chevreau, Turnings, 54, 135).
369. Chevreau, Turnings, 53–54, from his interviews with Florinda, wife of Pastor Antonio Tanueque.
Someone accustomed to washing bodies, by the way, should be sufficiently acquainted with death to be able to distinguish it from a coma.
370. Ibid., 54–56, including more names and details.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
Raising of My Wife's Sister Stories of resuscitations are familiar enough among some circles of African
Christians that I happen to have one in my own family. My wife's family are members of the mainline Protestant church in her country, Congo-Brazzaville. There she tells of her older sister, Thérèse Magnouha, who had been raised after dying.
Having heard the story from Thérèse, we checked the story with their mother, Antoinette Malombé, whose memory of the details is naturally clearest and who is naturally Thérèse's own most important source.371 We also later confirmed with an independent eyewitness, Ngoma Moïse, the basic part of the story for which he was present, which included her raising.372
When Thérèse was about two years old, Mme Jacques, as my mother-in-law is locally known, stepped out briefly to take food to a neighbor. When she returned,
Thérèse was crying that she had been bitten by a snake, so Mme Jacques began strapping the child to her back so she could run to evangelist "Coco" Ngoma
Moïse.373 She quickly discovered, however, that the child had stopped breathing.
I later asked how long the child stopped breathing, so Mme Jacques estimated the time based on the approximate distance between her home and where she would have to run to reach Coco Moïse. She had traveled up a mountainous area and down the other side, and she calculated that Thérèse had stopped breathing for about three hours.374
Medical assistance was not available; once she reached Coco Moïse, they could only pray. They prayed, and the child began breathing; then they called
Papa Jacques, who was at the time working in another town. He asked whether he should return home, but Coco Moïse assured him that the child would recover. Thérèse did begin to recover, and the next day she was fine.375 Today she is doing church work and recently completed her graduate-level seminary training in Cameroon. So far as humanly detectable to these persons who knew firsthand the signs of death, a child who did not breathe for three hours recovered without 371. Interviewed in person in Dolisie, Congo (July 12, 2008). I recount this narrative also in Keener,
"Comparisons," 3.
372. Ngoma Moïse confirmed his recollection of the event in a brief phone interview (May 14, 2009).
373. "Coco" means "grandfather." Although "ngoma" appears as a term with spiritual connections in Swahili in East Africa (see, e.g., Giles, "Spirits," 62 and passim; Benjamin, "Squatters," 256n20; "drum" in Wilson, Swahili, 295; it can mean "drum" beyond Swahili as well), here it is simply a surname, like any other.
374. When I was an undergraduate, I passed out, and some fellow students, finding me not breathing and purple, prayed over me. I started breathing again but could not see; as I and they kept praying over the following seconds, my eyesight returned. But I would suppose that I had stopped breathing only for seconds, and remained clinically alive throughout. Thérèse, by contrast, was to our best possible knowledge dead for roughly three hours.
375. Other testimonies of snakebite healing also exist; e.g., a woman bitten by a snake was apparently dying, and when she said the pain reached her heart, she fainted; "her body became cold and her face ashen." They kept praying, and after an hour she recovered, "sat up without any support and told us the pain had left her body entirely," and the next day she "felt no ill effects" (Lindholm, "Healings"). There is no mention of cessation of breathing, however. See also the cure (partly gradual) of cobra bite in India in Adeney, Kingdom, 127.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
medical treatment, without brain damage, and without ill effects. Again, six minutes without air normally produces irreparable brain damage.
One inclined to doubt all claims of this nature might object that one cannot prove medically, without clinical data, that she was dead, simply because, so far as her mother could discern, she stopped breathing for about three hours. After all, no modern medical apparatus was available, whether to document death or anything else. I cannot be so skeptical: a mother has every reason to grasp at the hope of any breath she could find; she came from a culture much more familiar firsthand with death than most Westerners are; this event belongs to a larger context of a circle with a number of significant events associated with claims of supernatural causation; and three hours is a long time. If her recovery is explained miraculously in either case (if it is indisputably a remarkable recovery), there is no reason to place limits on how miraculous it must have been.
Most important, this extraordinary recovery is reported by someone whom we know well and serves to illustrate a much larger number of stories.376 And again,
I would pose the converse question: For what reasons do some hearers seem desperate to evade each resuscitation claim, despite the number of cases, some of them apparently highly extranormal? Is it possible that they work with a reductionism ultimately rooted in Hume, deism, or atheism that makes them discount miraculous explanations at all costs?377 Why did Thérèse begin breathing again at the moment of their prayer together? How is it that Thérèse was in good health by the next day after such a serious health situation? And would Hume have been so convinced that miracles were against common human experience if he had such an account from his own in-laws? As I have mentioned above, Thérèse's recovery fits a larger pattern of such claims in her circles, which may be further illustrated by stories from Mama Jeanne.
Mama Jeanne's Accounts Mama Jeanne Mabiala, a deacon in the mainstream Protestant body of CongoBrazzaville mentioned earlier in chapter 9, happened to have three firsthand stories of raisings, which she readily recounted when I asked about healing testimonies.378
In the first case, which occurred around 2003, people brought a young woman whom they all viewed as dead to a prayer meeting in Dolisie; those present also thought that she already smelled like she was dead. Around 1 a.m., Mama Jeanne felt that God wanted them to bring this woman before the cross. The believers,
376. When I happened to mention this account, one of my students, from Haiti, told me her testimony, known to her from her mother, that she was pronounced dead in the hospital as a baby (including details such as the name of the doctor), but that she was resuscitated through her mother's prayers. She seemed eager to get me further information, but, as in many other cases that I have not been able to include in the book, ultimately appeared too busy for me to be able to confirm the story through a more formal interview.
377. Or, for those working from some traditional hard cessationist Christian perspectives, following a worldview that made peace with the Enlightenment, in which God only does miracles that can also be explained naturally.
378. In an extended interview (July 29, 2008).
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some of them singing, gathered around the woman; they anointed her with oil.
When they finished praying, the woman stood up and quickly went and sat down among them. Although some had been claiming that she had AIDS, she is now healthy and married. My brother-in-law Emmanuel Moussounga, a chemistry professor, was present during the interview with Mama Jeanne and attested that he knows the woman in question.
Since we still had time, Mama Jeanne offered me another raising story, this one from 2004. At this point she called in her nephew Emmanuel Nzaou, who was also an eyewitness of the event, so he could add his own impressions to the account. This incident involved a young woman from Passi-Passi (outside Dolisie) named Marie. Marie was suffering from malaria and was severely anemic, and she had reportedly not been eating or drinking or opening her eyes for three weeks.379
Those who were with her took her from the village and brought her to Dolisie.
Unfortunately, they had no money for the hospital, and in any case, all the buses and taxis in the city were on strike that day. Marie died, but the people who were with Marie knew about the prayer meeting at Mama Jeanne's home and brought
Marie's body there. Those who normally prayed with Mama Jeanne were coming for prayer, while Mama Jeanne was cooking cassava. Mama Jeanne had a mat used for prayer, and without asking for anything, Marie's companions laid her dead body on the mat. Delphine, one of the people there praying,380 exclaimed, "This is not the hospital! Take the body away!" She was afraid that they would all get in trouble for having a dead body there. The people said, "We don't have any money to go to the hospital. We brought her here so you can pray."
So Mama Jeanne asked those present from the prayer group (her nephew Emmanuel N., Delphine, and a woman named Marthe) to pray. She sent the other people out, but they kept looking in through the windows. Mama Jeanne told the prayer group to start a song; yet they were all so frightened, she told me, that they all started different songs. (At this point, as Mama Jeanne was recounting the story to me, her nephew Emmanuel N. protested, laughing, that he was not frightened.) Mama Jeanne felt the Lord urging her, "Call her name," so she asked the onlookers the woman's name. Those looking from outside the window answered, "Marie." Mama Jeanne thus kept calling her name, "Marie." At first Marie's responding voice was weak, but it kept growing stronger. When Marie woke up,
Mama Jeanne ordered, "Take her to the hospital right away, because she doesn't have enough blood." The family protested, "We don't have a car." When they went outside, however, they spotted a Red Cross car coming on the road, so Mama Jeanne instructed Marthe and Emmanuel to run and stop the car. After some conversation, the white person inside agreed to take her to the hospital. They were going
379. This is the way the story was recounted to Mama Jeanne, and from her to me, but perhaps she had been able to take some moisture during this time. I do not have the medical expertise to evaluate these details. I relate Mama Jeanne's story of Marie also in Keener, "Comparisons," 3.
380. I have her full name, and our family knows her well, but we were unable to make contact so I could secure her permission to use her full name.
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to carry her to this vehicle, but Mama Jeanne heard a voice saying, "She needs to walk herself." They helped her stand and helped her walk to the car. All the other people standing there were astounded, so she invited them all to kneel and pray.
Afterward, only the prayer group remained there; they prayed that God would move the doctors to receive Marie, since they had no money. As it turned out, the white man who was working with the Red Cross paid for all the treatment.
Although Marie had not eaten for three weeks, around 1 a.m. she told those with her in the hospital, "I'm hungry." (In hospitals in Congo, family and friends can stay with a person in the hospital.) So the people with her got some cassava, fish, and water from a small market that was always open near the hospital. After she ate, she returned to sleep.
When Marie's mother came to Mama Jeanne's door, Mama Jeanne feared that Marie must have died. But the mother was smiling; as Mama Jeanne tells it, the mother knelt and exclaimed, "Your God is alive! My daughter ate." Marie recovered, and they returned to their village. Marie's husband wanted to find the white man to thank him, but they never found him or saw that Red Cross vehicle again. The account is not as dramatic as the raising of Lazarus, who was raised after four days with no need for medical help, but everyone present on this occasion believed that God had answered their prayer. Am I wrong to suspect that even most Westerners, if we had been present on such an occasion, would have concurred?
We still had time, so Mama Jeanne shared a third and final story. On another occasion, toward the beginning of the 1999–2000 war, Mama Jeanne helped a young woman named Flore to give birth in a village, because the local midwife had traveled. When the baby emerged, her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. The baby was white, apparently having died in the womb sometime during the night. Mama Jeanne felt a voice saying, "Breathe into the child." The mother and another lady were crying; Mama Jeanne told them to stop crying and pray.
One woman was Catholic and pulled out her crucifix; the other was Protestant, and both began to pray.381 After the baby opened her mouth and eyes, Mama
Jeanne started patting her and she started crying, so Mama Jeanne cut the umbilical cord. Mama Jeanne's son was outside with Flore's father, a carpenter, who by this point had started building the baby's coffin. When the father came in and found the child now alive, he declared, "This child is one thousandfold grace!" so they named the child Mille Grace. She is now in school.
Other Accounts from Congo Mama Jeanne was not the only person with such testimonies from our circle of acquaintances in Congo-Brazzaville. I mentioned earlier also Albert Bissouessoue, a deacon at my brother-in-law's church; on one occasion, he noted, someone
381. Mama Jeanne also cleaned out the nose, ears, and mouth and then breathed into the child for a time; perhaps this action evoked texts like 1 Kgs 17:21 and 2 Kgs 4:34–35, but I do not know. (Those texts do not involve modern concepts of artificial resuscitation; see discussion in Shemesh, "Reviving.")
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who died was brought to him some time later, and healed.382 In February 1986 or 1987, in the district of Etoumbi, in the region of La Couvette, he was working as a school inspector. While in his office, he heard a commotion at his house some twenty meters away and found a large crowd gathered, crying and shouting, so he went over and urged them to be quiet. They had brought a dead, five-year-old girl, with blood in her mouth, nose, and ears, so he demanded why they were shouting at his place with a corpse.
The friend of the girl's father replied that she had died at 7 a.m., and the parents had taken her to six different witch doctors to try to resuscitate the child, all to no avail. The fifth witch doctor had demanded two black chickens for a sacrifice, but they had died on reaching his property; the next pair died on reaching his room, but he sacrificed them anyway and poured the blood into the girl's mouth, nose, and ears, to no avail. The final witch doctor requested 50,000 Central African francs
(locally, perhaps a few months' wages) and a suit before he would sacrifice to the spirits in the nearby forest who were requesting these things; they paid, but the child remained lifeless. It was now about 3 p.m., some eight hours after the child's death, and they thought that maybe the Christian God would do something.
Papa Bissouessoue told them to abandon their fetishes and believe in the Creator, and in Jesus Christ who paid on the cross for humanity's sins. He described for me what happened next: "So I asked them to wash the child and remove all the blood. I took the lifeless body and carried it where I pray. I knelt and called on the name of Jesus Christ. I prayed for about half an hour, and Jesus performed his first miracle in Etoumbi through me by bringing this little girl to life. More than twenty people decided to come to church and follow Jesus and abandon their customs."
If it should be thought beyond the likelihood of coincidence that such resuscitations should happen multiple times during prayer in the same circles, it should be thought even more extraordinary that it happened not only with Papa Bissouessoue as he ministered in that area but also with his wife, Julienne, when Papa Bissouessoue had traveled to Brazzaville.383 One day, the daughter of the dispensary manager at the small hospital at Etoumbi got sick.384 The following day, the girl's situation deteriorated, and it became hard to find her vein to even insert a needle, and the child died. They called the pastor and the evangelists, who came and prayed, but nothing happened; the people were regretting the absence of "Mr. Inspector" (Papa
Bissouessoue). They sent people to invite his wife to pray instead, but she was away washing clothes in the river, so the people found only her children. Their eldest daughter, who was about twelve, and the son of a friend, who was about the same
382. I interviewed him (July 29, 2008) in Brazzaville, where he mentioned this raising. My more detailed description rests on an interview with him by Dr. Emmanuel Moussounga, my brother-in-law, who wrote down the details on my behalf and provided them for us on Dec. 17, 2009.
383. Julienne Bissouessoue, interview, Dec. 15, 2009, by Emmanuel Moussounga.
384. The dispensary was like a small pharmacy at the small "hospital," which was probably staffed only with a nurse or nurses rather than having a doctor available. We might say "clinic," except in Congo that implies fees.
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age, decided to go pray in Julienne's place, but when they reached the hospital and saw all the people crying, they were afraid and ran home.
Other people came for Julienne after she returned home, and when she reached the dispensary she found people half-naked and performing traditional mourning customs. She ordered them to stop crying and to remove the mourning palms, or she was not going to pray. "They obeyed," she explains, "and I went into the room where the dead corpse was. The pastor, the two evangelists, the nurse, and the pharmacy manager were there." She "asked the pastor to pray, after we sang, then the two evangelists, then when my turn came, I started singing a song that says, 'Lazarus, rise up.'" Recalling the story of Lazarus, she prayed, asking God to resuscitate the daughter, so that the people who were there would believe in him;
"when I said 'Amen,' the girl opened her eyes and moved." Then they were able to administer medicine; only on the way home "did I realize what had happened and wondered, 'Where did I get the courage to act the way I did?'" Word spread widely. After the war in her country, my wife heard that during war the young son of Pastor Nsouami, who is now president of l'Église Évangélique du Congo, died and was raised during a desperate prayer. Pastor Nsouami briefly confirmed that story for us, affirming that the son remains alive today, a decade later.385
Moreover, Sarah Speer, a Canadian missionary nurse working in Congo, shared with me that she has witnessed a number of extraordinary recoveries in conjunction with prayer,386 including the spontaneous return to life of a baby who had been born dead. In this case, a mother unsuccessful in giving birth had been brought ten hours by a difficult mode of transportation from Enyelle; only the baby's arm protruded. They had taken the desperate woman to the government hospital first, but because the surgical block there was not clean, they sent her to Sarah's hospital.387
The medical team had to burst the uterus to remove the child (because the mother would have died otherwise), but he had no heartbeat and was not breathing. The medical team tried what they could, while another member prayed. After twenty minutes the baby was still not breathing. (Again, after about six minutes it is very unusual for someone not breathing to be revived.388) The accompanying nurse warned, "He's dead. Don't bother with him!" They needed to attend to the mother instead, on whom they were still performing surgery. But one of the nurses took
385. Patrice Nsouami (phone interview, April 29, 2010).
386. Because people in these areas have less access to sophisticated medical care, accounts of unusual recoveries are more common there, presumably because they are more needed. This is not to downplay the need for wider health care; infant mortality and death in childbirth remain far more common in these areas than in most of the West, and we cannot depend on miracles to cover all the situations we should be covering through economic justice.
387. Sarah Speer, phone interview, Jan. 7, 2009; personal correspondence, Aug. 20, 2009.
388. Phone interview, Jan. 7, 2009. Then the baby began to cry, alive, a result Sarah attributed to God's help. I first heard a story like this from Dr. Joseph Harvey, but as he had not been present and was consequently not certain about all the details, he referred me to Sarah, who had multiple stories. Sarah believes that Dr. Harvey was referring to a different occasion, when she also was not present, but she readily shared her experience of the situation above. My wife knows Sarah very well; Sarah lives simply and sacrificially, serving the local people wholeheartedly.
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the baby into the other room, while her husband continued to pray. "Suddenly we heard the baby cry," Sarah testifies. "He came back to life!"389 They had given their best with what medical resources they had and were thrilled that on this occasion
God had provided help beyond their resources.
No one has ever published Mama Jeanne's or Papa Albert's testimonies or any of the other stories that emerged in my interviews; I had access to these stories simply because these people are in the same circle as my wife's family. Again, this is a small circle in a non-Pentecostal denomination, and my suspicion is that such stories are far more common than what any of us would individually hear about.
This may be partly because many of those who experience these raisings do not treat them much differently than the rest of their experiences in ministry, because they do not work from Western antisupernaturalist premises. They seek to depend on God's activity in every aspect of their lives.
Even if a more Humean reader might attribute all raising claims to misdiagnosis and coincidence to maintain a nonsupernatural approach, one should not doubt that many (perhaps most) others (including myself) would find at least some (or many) of these raising claims convincing evidences of supernatural activity. All readers should recognize that many people recount such stories even firsthand with sincerity. While obviously the vast majority of people who die are not raised, the pattern of so many being raised in conjunction with prayer suggests more than coincidence, all the more so when persons have been dead too long to be resuscitated naturally.
Raising Accounts in Asia A number of reports come from Asia,390 such as a raising through the prayers of Baptist minister Lang Do Khup in Myanmar,391 or the raising of a woman in northern Thailand in 1963 with Robin Talbot and his wife, OMF missionaries, as witnesses.392 Timor, Indonesia, offers reports of the raising of a four-year-old boy, dead for four days,393 a woman dead for six hours,394 and an infant395 and others.396 When the lid was about to be placed on one boy's coffin, an elderly
389. Personal correspondence, Aug. 20, 2009.
390. E.g., in one Asian nation, a woman raised at her funeral (who then described her experience of heaven), among reports sent to me by Douglas LeRoy (Nov. 9, 2009); Gulshan Ester's testimony of a raising in Pakistan in Young, "Miracles in History," 117–18, at which she claims to have been present.
391. Khai, "Pentecostalism," 270; cf. Khai, Cross, 144.
392. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 138; idem, "Miracles," 1932. A contact of mine heard a report of a raising in Cambodia a few years earlier but requested that I not use his name because he had not had opportunity to follow up on the report to confirm or disconfirm it; he noted that it "sounded credible, but all stories in Cambodia should be verified" (a prudent practice elsewhere as well).
393. Wilkerson, Beyond, 81. See the documented Indonesian raising in Yusuf Herman, July 10, 2011.
394. Tari, Breeze, 58–59 (citing a friend who was an eyewitness). She was "stiff and cold"; they prayed for "a few minutes"; then she returned to life and recounted what she saw in heaven.
395. Wilkerson, Beyond, 82.
396. Tari, Wind, 76–78; Wilkerson, Beyond, 77, 81–83. For six cases, see Pytches, Come, 240–41, following Koch, Revival, 129, 138, 141–42. Tari also reports (Breeze, 160–62) that in January 1973, two
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woman felt compelled to pray for him; he "stirred, then rose up," and remained healthy afterward.397 Two days after a two-year-old girl had died in the hospital, the decomposing body was restored to life.398
My next example is from India, where many resuscitation claims are offered.399
I noted earlier one researcher's report that church growth among the Nishi tribals began "when a high government official's youngest son" became mortally sick.
After sacrifices to other deities failed, a pharmacist suggested that the official try
"the Christian God, Jesus," who once raised Lazarus. Returning to find that his son had died a few hours earlier and that neighbors had already gathered, the father promised the Jesus who raised Lazarus that he would worship him if he raised his son. "Immediately," the report claims, "the eyes of the child began to flicker again and he was restored to life." As a result, hundreds in the region committed themselves to follow Jesus.400 Another source claims the raising of a Hindu woman who had died nearly twelve hours earlier when her husband, just converted through a vision, prayed; he learned that Jesus had appeared to her while she was dead.401 A dead girl revived through the prayers of Father Joshua David in Madras.402
In one case reported by two sociologists, local residents, including the Hindu village elder, also affirmed that a woman returned to life after being pronounced dead (with no breathing or pulse), and several hours after a pastor had begun praying over her.403 In another case, an Indian pastor prayed for a girl who allegedly
"not only was dead but actually had worms coming out of her nose"; after about half an hour of prayer she returned to consciousness and shared her postmortem experience. This event generated "considerable attention in the community and was written up in the local papers," as a consequence of which a number of government officials visited this pastor.404
A pastor in Mumbai recounts that in May 2007 more than a hundred believers were gathered at a camp when "one of our young people noticed a young boy, lying motionless at the bottom of the pool." The boy, Vikram, belonged to a Hindu new converts prayed for a man who had been dead for several hours that God would either raise him or comfort the widow another way; moments later he sat up healed and talked about his experience in heaven.
397. Crawford, Miracles, 26–28 (quotation from 27).
398. Koch, Zulus, 168, citing a European informant who had feared to recount the incident in the West.
399. Cf., e.g., three accounts in Bush and Pegues, Move, 57–58, 59, 60; Thollander, Mathews, 88 (a raising through Mathews [the book's informant] of a boy who died from drowning three hours earlier; later, two reported raisings through others). Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 152, note several reports in addition to those cited below. From another source I also received information concerning a sample of some other specific raisings, with names, photos, and dates. Afterward, however, I was informed that this was unpublished, confidential information that was not intended for release to me, because of persecution and because the indigenous movement in question does not work with Westerners. Hence I have had to omit all details about those examples from my discussion.
400. De Wet, "Signs," 110–11 (following Cunville, "Evangelization," 156–57).
401. J. T. Seamands of Asbury Theological Seminary, in Hyssen, Saw, 56–58.
402. Koch, Zulus, 167 (Koch being a friend of David).
403. Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 151–52.
404. Ibid.,152.
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family visiting the resort. Jaya, a trained nurse, who was part of the church, found no pulse, breathing, or other signs of life, so Jaya, with Suneeta, an intercessor, took the boy and his father in an autorickshaw to find a doctor. The first doctor said he was dead; when they found another, he tried and failed to resuscitate him. The Christians kept praying, and an hour and a half later the rickshaw returned with Vikram alive. Vikram explained that he had heard the name of Jesus and then was rescued; his Hindu "parents were shocked," explaining that previously he "had never heard the name of Jesus!"405
Dr. Julie Ma relates the story of a raising in Nepal. Despite prayers and sacrifices to local gods, Tamang's mother died. A Buddhist lama chanted prayers over her for several hours, at Tamang's request, but she remained lifeless. Hearing that Christians could heal, he called some of them from a neighboring village. As the entire village watched, the Christians prayed, and "his mother came back to life."
About twenty families (more than 160 people) became Christians, and "today Tamang leads 20 new fellowships in the Himalayas."406
In May 1988, Pastor Joseph Maru, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God in Papua New Guinea, was visiting a mountain village named Urintogum to help with a baptismal service. The sound of loud mourning interrupted the service, however; a villager named Petrus had just died of a long-standing illness.
At the continued insistence of the local deacons, Pastor Maru reluctantly agreed to pray. As villagers gathered to mourn and church members began to worship,
Pastor Maru and the deacons ordered Petrus to rise. "In a few moments," the report continues, "Petrus blinked his eyes and lifted his head." Petrus accepted faith in Christ, regained strength over the next few weeks, and returned to full health, continuing to live in Urintogum.407
In an early Pentecostal publication, a missionary in Japan recounted in 1921 that when he returned to one village he was told of the raising of a man who had been connected with the mission but not genuinely converted. "The doctors felt his pulse and pronounced him absolutely dead," but a local Japanese evangelist prayed for him, and he revived. The man who had died confessed that he had been in hell until the evangelist "prayed me back out of there," and word quickly spread in the community that the man had been raised. A woman who had been pronounced dead and even had incisions into her body was reported raised through the prayers of the same evangelist.408 In 1932, a new believer there prayed for a 405. Willie Soans, personal correspondence, acquired for me and shared with me Nov. 3, 2010, through Ivan Satyavrata and Jacob Mathew, with photos of the boy and family after the event.
406. Ma, "Encounter," 137 (also idem, "Mission," 31), citing "Miracle for Tamang."
407. Cagle, "Power," based on what the author learned directly from Joseph Maru; I confirmed this report with the author in person (Wayne Cagle, Jan. 24–25, 2009; I also had found this story in Cagle,
"Pray"). Dr. Cagle also supplied an additional testimony from Pastor Joseph Miap of Papua New Guinea on the raising of his two children, whom he found at the bottom of the river after searching for nearly an hour.
408. Moore, "Raised," 20, also noting other accounts of Japanese believers' prayers in faith for healings.
Moore had the raising reports from the two people who claimed to have been raised, and he examined the incisions on the woman; the man sought baptism, and the woman began traveling among villages
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man who was apparently dead until he revived; the man "got up" and came to the church meeting.409
Stories of faith raising the dead in China have been around for some time. For example, a Western Pentecostal visiting the interior of China in 1926 reported
(on the basis of the man's testimony) that "a man who had been pronounced dead by a Chinese doctor was raised to life through prayer."410 Similarly, Anna
Gulick noted to me that during her commissioning as a Lutheran missionary to Japan in 1951, she was told of a Chinese Lutheran pastor who was challenged by soldiers to prove that his God could really raise the dead as he preached.
They laid a dead corporal at his feet and told him that if his God could not raise this dead man, they were going to destroy his building. He prayed for a few minutes, then announced, "If my God cannot raise this man, you may shoot me." In the name of Jesus, he then commanded the dead corporal to get up and walk—whereupon "the corporal opened his eyes, stood up and walked." As the account went, that ended the harassment.411 I have this story at best thirdhand, since Anna had it through the executive secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church's Board of Foreign Missions at the time, and I have no means to verify its source at this remove.412 But stories of raising the dead continue to flourish preaching Christ. I can imagine the accounts being fabricated if these people were seeking to join the mission's payroll (the way some missions worked in that period), but this does not seem to be the situation here, nor was the evangelist in question the only person with whom healings were associated in the article.
409. Taylor, "Healings."
410. Simpson, "Dead Raised."
411. Anna Gulick, personal correspondence, Aug. 23, 2009; interview, March 9, 2011; correspondence,
July 1, 2011. It has been reported that those repressing Chinese Christians have on other occasions taunted that they should raise dead persons present (Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 275).
412. She attributed the story to Dr. Rolf Syrdal (1902–93), but my perusal of several of his writings, including articles from China (e.g., "Courses"), none of which touch on this topic, did not turn it up, and Dr. Syrdal passed away in 1993 (Kari Bostrom, personal correspondence, Sept. 8, 2009). Bruce
Eldevik of Luther Seminary Library consulted Syrdal's daughter and a colleague, who had not heard this story but mentioned that indeed some stories defying normal explanation had circulated on the mission field (correspondence with Melody Mazuk, Palmer Seminary Library, Oct. 12, 2009). Syrdal's
1942 dissertation (Syrdal, "Mission Work") is probably earlier than the story and does not recount stories about the ministries of individual Chinese evangelists; it does reveal Syrdal's interest in revival, often accompanied with indigenous evangelism (e.g., 279–80, 337, 342, 431, 453–54, 457, 460, 507–8; cf. Syrdal, "Transcript," 57; the Spirit in idem, "Taipingtien," 7; idem, "Editorial 3"; idem, "Graduation,"
10; his personal commitment to evangelism in "Highways," 9; "Brigade"; "Byways"; "Editorial 2";
"Seldom"), and dangers from soldiers (Japanese, e.g., "Mission Work," 284–85, 443; cf. 513; conflicts involving early Communist soldiers, 511–12; idem, Disciples, 162–63; idem, "Transcript," 20–32, passim, while noting that the missionaries did not oppose the Communists, 27, 76; in Anna's recollection, the soldiers in this particular case were Communists), and often bandits (e.g., "Mission Work," 336, 414,
418, 427, 463; idem, "Transcripts," 34, 56). It also reveals his respect for the indigenous church as a sister church (e.g., "Mission Work," 516; cf. 320; idem, "Transcript," 3, 27, 46–47, 51–57, 66–67, 73–74,
82, 84, 97; knowledge of local culture in "Gods"; for Lutheran commitment to indigenous churches elsewhere in this period, see, e.g., Shoko, Religion, 51). These themes also appear in some contemporary
Lutheran missionary accounts on the same field, with a growing emphasis on indigenous workers
(Fuh, "China"; idem, "Hope"; "Thoughts Gleaned"; Ran, "Experiences"; Chien-Kuei, "Life"; Fosmark,
"Sketch"; cf. Chen, "Facts"); revival (Nesse, "Awakening"; Nelson, "Editorial 3"; idem, "Editorial 4";
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in China, most of them in our own time and some of them as claims from the eyewitnesses themselves.
Philip Jenkins notes that house church Christians in China have many testimonies of the dead being raised.413 I will not elaborate more fully here on the accounts mentioned already in chapter 8. As we noted, a Three-Self pastor (i.e., one from the official church) also reports such an event in his church courtyard.414
In a different case, after an accident in 1992, Zhao Yu-e was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital at 10 a.m. Despite ridicule, believers kept praying for her, and at 8 the next morning she recovered, leading to the hospital superintendent asking how to become a follower of Jesus.415 In another incident, a boy died of sickness despite his mother's earnest prayers, but after three more hours of her prayers he was raised and healed, leading to the father's conversion.416 In a further story, one believer died from a beating that left his head swollen. He was not breathing, but after the believers prayed, the brother opened his eyes and sat up slowly, recounting a vision.417 After a four-year-old boy drowned, some new Christians who had experienced other healings prayed, and the child sat up, alive; even a traditional religious practitioner who was present converted, destroying her ritual objects.418
Holm, "Awakening"; Sövik, "Growing"); and problems with Japanese soldiers (e.g., Ran, "Church";
Skepstad, "Call," 5); Communist soldiers (e.g., Anderson, "Sojourners"; Nilsen, "Hospital," 25; Rosvold,
"Conference," 7 [though this ends safely in Sovik, "Experiences"]; Guldseth, "Power," 2; the loss of Bert
Nelson in Skinsnes, "Nelson"; Nelson, "Editorial 2"; Syrdal, "Editorial"; idem, "Transcript," 22); and most often bandits ("General News"; Borg-Breen, "Clutch"; Nelsen, "Letter"; "Medical News"; Nesse,
"Psychology"; Groseth, "Killed"; Thorsan, "Robbers"; "Personal and General"; Nelson, "Editorial,"
1; Skinsnes, "Incidents"; Lee, "Ta-Tung-Chai," 15). (Soldiers helped against robbers in Lee, "Juning,"
10; some robbers fought Communists in Hellestad, "More.") Occasionally, though written for Western consumption (hence probably muted, as in most missionary reports, except for indigenous accounts), accounts of supernatural phenomena appear, whether divine (Guldseth, "Power," 4; Hellestad, "Prayer";
Bly, "Glimpses," 10) or demonic (Lee, "Rulers," esp. 5–6; cf. Syrdal, "Editorial 2"). Several of these come from the brief period that Syrdal was editor (Hellestad, "Prayer"; Bly, "Glimpses," 10; and esp. Hai-po,
"Works," probably the most explicit report of divine power in Gleanings for years, and in Syrdal's last issue as editor), though this was also a period of awakening.
413. Jenkins, New Faces, 114. Earlier, see, e.g., Sung, Diaries, 43 (but only for an hour), 45 (but secondhand), 59 (secondhand, after a day of death). From Hong Kong, cf. Pullinger, Dragon, 224–25
(secondhand, of a boy pronounced dead in two hospitals).
414. Lambert, Millions, 109, citing both his personal interview and articles. Lambert notes another resuscitation in answer to prayer, after two days of death, published in 1990 in a TSPM bulletin in Beijing
(Lambert, Millions, 118–19). See also Oblau, "Healing," 319, citing a 1993 publication. A doctor had already pronounced the child dead in the hospital; after returning to life, the child "gradually recovered in the hospital." The evangelist who prayed dutifully played down the incident, while acknowledging the reality of miracles.
415. Zhaoming, "Chinese Denominations," 451.
416. Bolton, "Wife." In Danyun, Lilies, 91, a woman was said to be raised when another woman (Sr.
Chan) acted in obedience, apparently removing the demonic snare that brought the first woman low; in the story on 92, three people who had suddenly and inexplicably dropped dead (presumably again from a demonic attack) were simultaneously raised.
417. Danyun, Lilies, 174–75.
418. Ibid., 305–6.
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Other raisings are reported in South Korea, such as the reported raising of Paul
Yonggi Cho's son after hours of prayer.419 A Baptist pastor in South Korea is said to have "raised seven people from the dead, three of them before their funerals."420
While I cannot verify the provenance of some raising stories, one account of a notable raising in Sri Lanka, with many eyewitnesses, comes to me through Shelley Hollis, who knew the people involved.421 Noel Fernando was an Assemblies of God pastor also working at a Bible school, with a wife and two children. After he was taken to the hospital seriously ill, the Bible school sent out word to pray, but Noel died of a heart attack in the hospital. Because there was little privacy in the hospital, not only doctors and nurses but also many patients were aware of his death. Because he was still fairly young for a heart attack, they used a procedure to try to restart his heart; the procedure managed only to break a number of his ribs, but since he was dead it did not seem to make much difference anyway. The doctors finally gave up and pronounced him dead; because the doctor who needed to sign the release for the body to be taken to the morgue had left the facilities, however, the hospital had to hold his body. Meanwhile, believers elsewhere in Sri
Lanka were still praying for Noel, unaware that he had died.
Some twenty-four hours after being pronounced dead, Noel returned to life, with all his systems functional except, ironically, the broken ribs. Other workers and patients in the hospital, who belonged to various religions, all recognized this as a miracle; some even laid food at the foot of his bed as offerings, in accordance with their traditional customs.422 Some asked him if he saw darkness (fitting a common belief about a stage before reincarnation); he insisted that he had seen light instead.423 The doctors, shocked enough by his being alive, warned him that he would never walk and that he would probably have brain damage. It did take some time before he walked fully normally (if for no other reason, he still had broken ribs), but he had no brain damage; he fluently and regularly interpreted three languages. He remained completely whole and fully active for years afterward.
Shelley worked closely with him and reports that what happened to him was also known to all of those working at the Bible school, who had been praying for him.
Noel eventually passed away during the writing of this book, years after his first experience of death and apparently of unrelated causes.424
419. Venter, Healing, 294–95; Pytches, Come, 242–44 (citing Kennedy, Dream, and noting that the boy had wanted to stay in heaven).
420. Kim, "Pentecostalism," 32; Mullins, "Empire," 91.
421. Shelley Hollis, phone interview, Jan. 10, 2009; follow-up correspondence, including April 23,
2010. This raising is also noted in Hernando, "Function," 272n81, citing Mark Hollis, who also knew the people involved.
422. Analogous responses to wonders appear in Dan 2:46; Acts 10:25.
423. Shelley's daughter had interviewed him at length about his after-death experience, which I have not recounted here, as it extends beyond the parameters of this book.
424. Shelley Hollis, personal correspondence, Nov. 6 and 8, 2009. Historically, the person's eventual death has not been deemed relevant to the question of a miracle provided the cause of death was unrelated
(see Duffin, Miracles, 67; but cf. the likely related cause in 94), since almost no one claims immortality.
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Raising Accounts in the Philippines The Philippines offers multiple reports.425 Chester Allan Tesoro from Mindanao, Philippines, was visiting a church known for miracles on a day that two parents had traveled on a three-position motorcycle (in the Philippines called a tricycle) from the mountains to take their baby boy to the hospital. By the time they reached the city, however, the baby was cold, so they came instead to the church, during the praise service. The mother carried the baby, wrapped in white, and ran forward to give him to the pastor. Since the pastor wondered why they had brought the baby forward, the father explained that they needed prayer for him. Neither the pastor nor Chester, who was seated three rows from the front, yet understood that the baby was dead. After realizing it, however, the pastor asked the entire church to pray for the baby, which was already cold. Chester drew near and asked the father if maybe the baby had died from the travel, and whether he was sure that the baby was dead. The father explained that the baby had been sick for weeks with what they thought was fever and flu. Chester says that after the people prayed, the pastor lifted up the baby, and he cried. The mother immediately took back the baby; the father was looking around with tears in his eyes. The motorcycle driver was waiting outside to take them on either to the hospital or the morgue; not a believer, he was amazed and stayed through the entire service.426
Also in the Philippines, Elaine Panelo recounted firsthand testimony to a resuscitation, although in one sense she is dependent secondhand on the testimony of others present, since Elaine was the one who died. She suffered with diagnosed liver cancer for a couple of years while working at a naval base, because she did not have the money to get treatment. In 1983 and 1984, her fingernails turned black; in 1984, the doctor told her that her condition had now progressed too far for treatment, and she was full of cancer. Elaine was finally brought to the hospital, dying and terribly thin, but with a bloated stomach that decreased as she was dying. After she was pronounced dead in the hospital, she was taken to the morgue, where a Baptist pastor prayed over her. This Baptist pastor was not even sure yet if she believed in divine healing but found no harm in praying for Elaine anyway. When the white bedsheet over Elaine's head started moving, someone supposed that a mouse had gotten inside, so they pulled the sheet back, only to find her moving. It had been an hour and forty-five minutes since she had been pronounced dead, and the Baptist pastor, as shocked as anyone else, explained to her, "You're alive. You were dead for almost two hours." Elaine did not believe that observation initially, thinking that she had just been asleep.
Elaine's health now seemed better, but she still had no money for treatment; 425. Besides those I note below, see also Wilkerson, Beyond, 83.
426. Chester Allan Tesoro, interview, Jan. 30, 2009.
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she had never been able to take anything except some over-the-counter stomach medicine.427 In October 1985, she totally committed her situation to the Lord, accepting God's plans for her and expressing willingness to do ministry. Her guardian warned her that she needed to go to the doctor and confirm whether she was genuinely healed or not; she finally went for a checkup in 1989, which showed that she was completely healed. Not trusting the local verdict, she went to Manila for another examination, for which her guardian had secured a sponsor. There she encountered the same finding: there was no trace of cancer. Given my knowledge of Elaine and the larger context of her life story (of which I have excerpted only this relevant part), I have full confidence that she speaks with absolute sincerity. It appears that she was raised and healed in conjunction with the prayer of a Baptist woman pastor who had not decided yet whether or not she believed in contemporary divine healing.428
There is one more part of the story that Elaine shared with me, that suggests just how unusual her recovery must have been. She said that in 1990 she returned to one of the doctors who had informed her that it was too late for medical treatment and that she would therefore die.429 When Elaine shared her testimony, the doctor initially refused to believe that she was the same person, until checking her records. As a result of Elaine's testimony, this Filipino doctor and her husband were converted. At their last contact with her, they planned to become medical missionaries within the Philippines.430
Raising Accounts in Latin America and the West Latin America provides numerous accounts. Nearly a century ago, a Latin
American woman named Nellie was dying and after a few days was pronounced dead by doctors. Yet "after several hours of being dead," she claimed, "I rose and came back to life."431 Such claims continue in Latin America; Roberto Almaraz, for example, says that in thirty years of ministry "he has 'seen numerous healings and resurrections.'"432 An ordinary believer in Colombia, seeing two people apparently killed in an accident, prayed over them and they got up "dazed" but without even
427. She is not against medicine and now takes it for a hyperthyroid condition. But she could not afford it before.
428. Elaine Panelo, interview, Jan. 30, 2009.
429. This doctor was a Filipino woman married to a doctor from the United States at the U.S. naval base at Subic, where Elaine once worked.
430. This would not be the only occasion when a doctor was reported ultimately converted through a patient's miraculous recovery; see the story of Sadhu Sundar Singh in Lynch-Watson, Robe, 28.
Elaine did supply me with the doctors' names and found their previous location information (personal correspondence, Oct. 8, 11, 18, 2009), but most of that community in question had relocated due to a volcanic eruption, and I have not so far been able to locate the doctors to secure permission to use their names.
431. Sánchez Walsh, Identity, 43–44.
432. Ibid., 44.
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broken bones.433 Such events are reported in Nicaragua and Mexico,434 in Brazil,435 in Chile,436 in Argentina,437 and elsewhere.438
When the eleven-year-old son of Carlos Alamino in Cuba was injured in a car accident, lack of blood to the brain caused brain damage and damage to other vital organs, and he quickly died. Once the father laid hands on him and prayed, however, he began moving and the doctors quickly went back to work. He was released from the hospital two weeks later, and a number of doctors and nurses attended the thanksgiving service; lacking brain damage, he is now an adult with a bachelor of theology degree.439 More recently, Iris Lilia Fonseca Valdés, now a lieutenant in the Salvation Army in Cuba, shared with me her account. In 2009, she discovered that her six-month-old daughter had stopped breathing and moving. As far as Iris Lilia, who had been a nurse, could tell, the baby was dead. Yet after what she believes was more than an hour of Iris Lilia's prayer and yielding the child to God, the baby revived, and remains healthy.440
Such accounts also appear elsewhere in the Caribbean: in Haiti, a man brought his son, who had just died, to a visiting minister for prayer. The raising of the boy reportedly shocked voodoo practitioners in the area.441 A ten-month-old baby there
433. Bomann, "Salve," 195–96. They may have simply been stunned, but their intercessor had witnessed them thrown from their motorcycle after hitting a truck head-on. Bomann heard this recent testimony from the believer in a small Bible study she happened to attend during her eight months in Bogotá's barrio (190).
434. Wilkerson, Beyond, 84–88; also David Hogan, on his website reporting that he has been personally present for 28 raisings, mostly in Mexico (http://www.freedom-ministries.us, accessed Oct. 2, 2010;
Mike Finley directed me to this report). Hogan appears positively in Crandall, Raising, 31–33, 36, 103,
144, 149. Pat Robertson claims to have known people who have raised the dead (Harrell, Robertson, 313).
435. Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 86, recounting a named but secondhand source reporting a man raised by a pastor at the wake. Pytches, Come, 245, cites an article by Peter Wagner recounting testimonies of three raisings there from persons Wagner deemed reliable, one of them a Nazarene pastor himself raised from death as a child.
436. Sheila Heneise (interview, April 5, 2009), though not a witness in this case, tells the 1998 account she heard from the eyewitness, a Baptist pastor and theological teacher in Santiago, Roberto Salgado. An interested but unconverted man died and was in a casket at a wake two days later. The pastor prayed for another chance to reach him, the man suddenly revived, and the pastor led him to Christ (the deceased man prayed with him), after which the man was again "gone." In another case, Sergia Retamal de Zamorano took the body of her five-year-old son Rodolfo from the hospital after the boy was pronounced dead and brought him to a Pentecostal church for prayer; he opened his eyes and started breathing, and he eventually became a pastor in Santiago (Hoff, "Planters").
437. Pytches, Come, 245, citing an article by Peter Wagner who spoke with a woman who claimed to have been raised. Cf. Silvoso, Perish, 85–86 (a case Silvoso recognizes as unusual).
438. E.g., Gardner, Healing Miracles, 139–40, through a Mapuche evangelist, leading to the conversion of the family, whom the informant met.
439. Alamino, Footsteps, 63–65. Alamino notes that the son was supposed to be born deformed, but that the child was born normally, shocking the doctor (65).
440. Iris Lilia Fonseca Valdés, interview, Aug. 11, 2010. On Aug. 12, she brought the healthy child for me to see, and another person from whom I inquired independently attested that she had told the story widely at the time it occurred. Iris Lilia also reported that the daughter's birth had also been dramatic, due to an early, emergency C-section six months before this incident because the uterus now lacked amniotic fluid.
441. A Church of God report sent to me by Douglas LeRoy (Nov. 9, 2009). Caribbean Pentecostal testimonies sometimes emphasize cures of what neither doctors nor voodoo priests could cure (Hurbon,
"Pentecostalism," 134).
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is said to have been restored from death after prayer, and also healed of apparent brain damage at the same time.442
Such claims appear in the West as well and are far more numerous in print, including even in some secular media reports, than I can recount fully here.443 To offer just a few examples: in one case, a Presbyterian pastor's wife, personally known to the account's author, was killed in an automobile accident; the paramedics therefore focused their attention on the surviving passenger. But a church member began praying for the dead woman, and, much to the surprise of the paramedics, the pastor's wife "regained consciousness," after which she was taken to the hospital for her injuries and recovered quickly.444
Jim Sepulveda testified that he heard Jesus sending him back to life; he sat up after being clinically dead for eight minutes, as the surgeon was filling out paperwork.
442. DeGrandis, Miracles, 43.
443. Secular media have reported some of the claims (e.g., the brief quotation in USNWR [July 13,
1987]: 15, regarding an alleged raising by Oral Roberts); see also the reported return to life of a mother and baby in 2009 (in the Associated Press report in http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/christmas
-miracle-mom-and-baby-die-then-revive-17357728; accessed Dec. 30, 2009; with additional details, in the Sydney Morning Herald, at http://www.smh.com.au/world/mother-and-son-come-back-to-life-after-dying
-during-labour-20091231–lkh0.html; accessed Dec. 30, 2009), though medical means were apparently involved, the period of apparent death was brief, and the Christmas season may account for some of the media interest. Cf., e.g., brief mentions in DeGrandis, Miracles, 32, 98; further, the apparent raising of car racer Jan Opperman after his accident in 1976 (Bredesen, Miracle, 123–26), though his full recovery took longer than the account emphasizes (and Opperman later suffered new injuries in another crash); five more raising accounts in Bredesen, Miracle, 126–33. A student in the mortuary, dead for three hours, is said to have been raised through prayer (Pytches, Come, 239–40, citing a Church Army testimony); also a mother raised in answer to her daughter's prayers (ibid., 242, citing Darnall, Heaven). Also police officer
Buddy Farris, for whom rescue teams could not find vital signs for thirty minutes, returned to life while being wheeled through the morgue twenty-three minutes after they had pronounced him dead. He had experienced a vision of afterlife in the meantime, and though several months of recuperation were necessary, he sustained no brain damage, returned to work, and remains fully active (Kent and Waite, Beyond, ch. 15). Among many other cases, David Verdegaal was said to be dead half an hour (Kent and Fotherby,
Frontier, 55–58, esp. 55); note also Dr. Ron McCatty (Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 83–85). I cannot evaluate many of these stories, such as the apparently incredible story of Dr. Petti Wagner (she herself calls it "utter impossibility," 149; though much of it would not seem implausible in many countries even today, and identity theft is much more common even here), but her death certificate appears in Wagner,
Heiress, 61 (see also the court document on 196); Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 66 (see 65–67). One doctor, Richard Eby, claims to have been dead for eighteen hours (though cf. Eby, Paradise, 208) before being raised through others' prayers (Eby, Paradise, 202, 208–15; Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 41–49, esp.
41–42, 45; Huyssen, Saw, 59–65). Without denying that any genuine experience was involved, a number of individual features of the account strike me as in tension with biblical data he claims to represent (e.g., in Eby, Paradise, 203–7 passim; Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 45; perhaps increasingly in later retellings).
Alnor, Heaven, 47–50, notes expansions and contradictions in Eby's various accounts; although one does not tell every detail in a given account, readers should note Alnor's important concerns. Dr. George
Ritchie, then an army private, was pronounced dead Dec. 20, 1943, but nine minutes later returned to life, after experiencing a vision of Jesus (Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 131–36, citing affidavits from "the Army doctor and attending nurse" [136]); others, however, have seriously challenged some of Ritchie's key claims (Alnor, Heaven, 84–85).
444. Dunkerley, Healing Evangelism, 45. On 46 Dunkerley recounts that a Presbyterian minister in Montgomery, New York, died and that the hospital staff gave up on him because he lacked vital signs; his spirit, still conscious, prayed, and he returned quickly to life.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
His severely damaged heart was healed at the same time.445 A girl revived sixteen minutes after being pronounced dead, approximately one minute after being prayed for.446 In 1982, after forty or more minutes with no vital signs, twelve-month-old
John Eric Cadenhead revived; after hours of prayer, he was restored with no brain damage, and both staff at Huntington Hospital and the local Pasadena Star News called the recovery miraculous.447 The full recovery of Connie Davis took a month, but the doctor and nurse who witnessed her return to life after prayer testify that this recovery was beyond natural medical explanations.448 A doctor claimed that a baby was raised fifty minutes after its death in the hospital; far from being brain damaged, the child later excelled in school.449
In one particularly well-known account, Baptist pastor Don Piper died instantly in a car accident; paramedics declared him dead and called for him to be taken to a morgue as soon as an official arrived,450 but at least ninety minutes after being pronounced dead, he was raised through another Baptist minister's prayer.451 He required extensive convalescence afterward452 but miraculously sustained no brain damage.453
I already noted how the baby sister of one of my colleagues appeared to have crushed the back of her skull and died, yet after desperate prayer was immediately better.454 In another case, a baby emerged stillborn, apparently having had her
445. Kent and Fotherby, Frontier, 13–19, esp. 18–19. Similarly, Otto Hunt, treasurer of Pacific Garden
Mission, died in the hospital and was sent to the mortuary. There Jesus sent him back and he revived; a nurse found him moving beneath the sheet (Koch, Zulus, 169–70).
446. Miller, Miracle of Healing, 56–57.
447. Pytches, Come, 244–45, citing Doris Wagner (who checked the medical records and the witnesses and wrote the story for Christian Life).
448. Robertson, Miracles, 110–13, recounts the full story, with the witnesses' names and quotations.
Because Connie had been brain-dead, her ribs broken in a futile attempt to resuscitate, and the kidneys had been shutting down, need for recovery time is not surprising, but there was no brain damage.
449. DeGrandis, Miracles, 43 (citing R. Eby). DeGrandis, Miracles, 44, also cites Father John Hampsch's knowledge of several "resuscitation miracles."
450. Piper, Minutes, 13–20, 37 (noting no pulse for ninety minutes). Piper describes his time glimpsing heaven on 21–36 (though not shared with others immediately, 78; he began sharing it nearly two years later, 125–29, 200), and how torn his body was on 39.
451. Ibid., 44–45. Praying for someone dead contradicted the theology of Dick Onerecker, the second minister, but he felt compelled to do so for several minutes (42–43). His prayer for lack of brain or other internal injuries was answered, despite some of his limbs being nearly severed (55–56). Yet Piper's own prayer to be released from pain after this and return to heaven was not granted (60, 72, 79; cf. 76–78).
452. Well over a year (ibid., 64, 70–73), with some effects much longer (89, 110); the pain (76) and some ailments (154–55) continue. After being raised, he was initially not expected to survive (48–50,
103, 155) and nearly died again from surgical complications but recovered through prayer (57–61, 73).
He nearly turned septic from his initial inability to have a bowel movement (80), but particularly painful was his continual lack of natural sleep (85). With medical help and considerable effort, he learned to walk again, though this was not supposed to happen (88–89).
453. Ibid., passim, e.g., 205. Note also resuscitation in the morgue of the accident victim in Marszalek,
Miracles, 191 (requiring subsequent convalescence); and raising after an accident death in ibid., 202
(requiring medical attention and several weeks for recovery).
454. James Watson, correspondence, Nov. 27, 2009; Debbie Watson, personal correspondence, Nov.
30, 2009.
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oxygen cut off in the womb and not breathing for the first four minutes after her birth. The midwife gave up trying to resuscitate her, but the father, believing that in this case a spiritual issue was involved, prayed with authority, and the child's life returned. She experienced no brain damage or other side effects. Now a healthy adult, the child tells people that she was stillborn but that God did a miracle for her.455 Two days after becoming a believer in Jesus, Maria, a recent refugee from Iran in Sweden, found another refugee wailing because her baby had died. Though knowing barely anything about Christian faith, Maria laid hands on the baby and spoke the name of Jesus; the baby began breathing again.456
Some accounts even in the West are particularly dramatic,457 but I take one closer at hand because the persons involved are better known to someone close to me. Dick and Debbie Riffle, influential members of my younger brother's former church, shared with me how at a home birth, their third daughter emerged stillborn, gray and with the umbilical cord wrapped too tightly to release it; Debbie hemorrhaged internally and lost so much blood that she stopped breathing and lost a pulse. Both resuscitated when Dick prayed, though Debbie remained weak, and when they reached the hospital "the doctors were shocked that she was alive after losing that much blood."458 The mother and child remain healthy many years later.
As with many cases in the book, however, I should note that most of those who report healings do not claim that they occur on every occasion. The Riffles openly shared this other, less pleasant side of the story. After four healthy daughters, they had a son, John. John began having seizures at ten months of age, incapacitating him by age three and killing him at age fourteen. They had not prayed or trusted
God any less in his case than in the case recounted above.
Sometimes people who have stopped breathing start breathing again, with or without prayer, though usually this is within a minute or two (as I have noted, a few more minutes without oxygen can yield irreparable brain damage). Occasionally, someone may appear dead and not be, with faint vital signs, though one should not normally need modern equipment to discern lack of breathing and pulse.459
In some very rare instances, people have recovered spontaneously after more 455. The story of Vita Michelle, daughter of Don Krow (focusing esp. on interviews with the parents), aired Nov. 16, 2001, at http://www.awmi.net/tv/2001/week46c (brought to my attention by Jim Baker, personal correspondence, April 3, 2008). On the same program Andrew Wommack, the host, affirms this account and claims to have seen three persons raised from the dead and to know thirty-eight others who have "raised the dead."
456. Jan Nylund (interview, Nov. 23, 2009), sharing the testimony of his wife, also known as Shiva.
457. Johnson, Mind, 122 (the cited witness claiming that a woman's eye, torn out in an accident, also
"was back in its socket"; also a testimony on his church website, posted June 22, 2007).
458. Shared with me in writing, Dec. 13, 2007. Cf. Yeomans, Healing, 120–21 (a woman without a pulse healed after childbirth). In the West, most children are born in hospitals to seek to protect against complications (esp. when C-sections are necessary, not the case in the examples above), but in many parts of the world people still lack adequate access to safe hospitalization, raising the mortality rate considerably.
459. Mayhue, Healing, 89, complains about a raising testimony where the child "had been dead only about half an hour," hence was not really totally dead. He does not explain why the recovery corresponded to prayer or how long one must be dead to be "totally dead" (half an hour being well beyond the normal limit).
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than an hour with flat EEG readings, reporting "near death experiences," in cases where the documentation does not show whether prayer was involved or not.460
Nevertheless, prayer is too common a feature in nonmedical resuscitations to be coincidental; in virtually all the sample cases noted above, the common factor in the resuscitations is prayer, and in a number of cases the effect was immediate.
These resuscitations were rare and distinctive enough that they often led to many people abandoning ancestral beliefs for their new faith, indicating that they believed they had experienced something radically different from their norm.
Some cases also cluster too frequently in particular circles to be explained most easily as coincidence; it would seem an extraordinary coincidence that someone my family knows has seen not one but three raisings, all in the context of prayer.461
Nor do these people pray for every person to be raised; I do not know if, for example, Mama Jeanne has prayed unsuccessfully for anyone to be raised, but I feel safe in predicting that the proportion of raisings is extraordinarily higher than the number of spontaneous recoveries from near death experiences (in cases externally viewed as death) in the general population. Moreover, a number of the cases above go beyond mere cessation of breathing for a few minutes, or even for an hour.462
At the very least, the examples should challenge skepticism that some observers in the first century could believe that they had witnessed resuscitations. Some of them might also serve to challenge our Western skepticism that the observers' evaluations are correct.
Reports from Physicians Some examples are offered by Christian physicians (e.g., one who had just pronounced the person dead before the persistent wife prayed,463 and some others
I will not take space to elaborate here).464 Some of these accounts may seem less dramatic than above accounts because they combine faith in Jesus's power to raise
460. Habermas and Moreland, Immortality, 77 (see 248nn16, 18, citing published reports of researchers). For some cross-cultural features of near-death and out-of-body experiences, see McClenon, Events,
49–51, 168–84 (including medieval reports); briefly, Greyson, "Experiences," 345; for some culturally and religiously shaped features, see O'Connell, "Hallucinations," 90n71.
461. Were we talking about random occurrences, one might counter that the clustering of such testimonies strains credibility (Fogelin, Defense, 11), but Mama Jeanne's credibility and sacrificial life are well known, and from within a theistic perspective her intimate life with God accounts better for the clustering.
462. Swinburne, Miracles, 32, places among miracle claims not currently explicable by appeal to natural processes those involving someone lacking vital signs for more than twenty-four hours.
463. A surprised physician's claim in Stegeman, "Faith," although in this case the deceased had just been pronounced dead. Stegeman was the attending physician, a university lecturer in clinical pharmacology.
464. E.g., Woodard, Faith, 97 (though noting that the case was hard to verify; cf. possibly 94–95).
Pytches, Come, 239, cites two examples in which Dr. James Van Zyl, of South Africa, recognized a person as dead and they returned to life through prayer (Pytches got these examples from Eileen Vincent, who got the details from Van Zyl). Bredesen, Miracle, 126–28, reports two cases in which surgeon William
Standish Reed, finding a child apparently hopelessly dead (in one case his own), revived them through prayer. Robertson, Miracles, 152–55, reports that a Muslim doctor prayed while using medical means to try to resuscitate his dead Christian wife; he later attributed her resuscitation to her God and eventually became a Christian himself.
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the dead with whatever medical resources available. Naturally, however, a physician would and should use all medical means available to resuscitate a person whom she or he is seeking to resuscitate, so one cannot complain about the combination of medical resources with prayer and still expect a physician's testimony.
In one recent case, around noon on January 7, 2009, Dr. Mervin Ascabano, then the municipal health officer for the municipality of Dumalinao in the Philippines, was summoned back urgently to his primary care clinic because a woman was dying. When he arrived, she was already stiff, motionless, and gray, covered with saliva. Her male companion was crying to her, "Don't leave me!" Lacking emergency facilities, they began looking for a driver to take her to the hospital.
As Dr. Ascabano examined her, however, he lost hope: she was already "cold and clammy," with neither pulse nor heartbeat, and his primary care clinic lacked the emergency supplies needed to resuscitate patients in this state.465 She had already been unresponsive for three or four minutes by the time she was laid on the bed, and there was nothing he could do except attempt CPR. Unfortunately, this attempt was proving fruitless, and, noticing "that the patient's pants were already wet with urine," the midwife observed that there was no hope.
Now desperate, Dr. Ascabano began shouting, "In Jesus's name!" while still trying to administer CPR. The third time that he shouted this, the patient began coughing "out fluids" and moving, "and her skin turned pink." At this point she
"tried to get up," and he had to stop her; she had, after all, just been dead. When her male companion, who had left in dismay that she was dead, returned, he was dumbfounded. Dr. Ascabano recounts that his nurse and midwife, who accompanied her to the hospital, noted that she was moving around freely en route to the hospital "as if nothing had happened! And when they arrived at the hospital, the patient was almost not admitted because her vital signs" (pulse, blood pressure, heart, and respiration) "were all normal." She had been "gray, pulseless," and cold for four or five minutes. Admittedly the dead who were raised in the Gospels had been deemed dead for beyond five minutes, and there is no thought of Jesus having performed CPR before commanding anyone to rise. Nevertheless, this is not a usual occurrence, and Dr. Ascabano is convinced that this patient returned to life especially through God's power.466 Could it not be more than coincidence that the distinctive factor in this resuscitation was Dr. Ascabano's invocation of 465. He had "no epinephrine to jumpstart the heartbeat, no entubation set to facilitate artificial respiration, no ambubag to pump air for the patient and no oxygen" (circular email to his friends, Jan.
9, 2009).
466. Circular email (Jan. 9, 2009); Dr. Ascabano confirmed this report for me in personal correspondence (Feb. 6, 2009). This report was initially brought to my attention by my friend John Matanguihan, who knows the doctor personally (personal correspondence, Feb. 5, 2009). Shortly after this incident,
Dr. Ascabano and coworkers began a church plant that in the next eleven months grew in attendance to roughly nine hundred in the main services in addition to one thousand cell groups (circular email, March
10, 2010). Cf. also the case in Speed, Incurables, 118–20, where Speed reports an unexpectedly positive outcome for CPR; the person revived with no brain damage, despite not breathing so long (though the cold water may have been an additional factor).
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Jesus's name, and that the woman recovered so rapidly? Although this resuscitation came soon after the patient's death, many other resuscitations I am noting took place long past the threshold for any possible unaided natural resuscitation.
One well-known account today is from Dr. Chauncey Crandall,467 and some local and national television news outlets reported on this particular raising claim.468 A renowned cardiologist with world-class credentials, Crandall certainly fits Hume's profile of an ideal witness with much to lose by lying; indeed, in today's milieu, he is risking his reputation even to claim such matters truthfully.469 Crandall told me that he did not seek the notoriety; why risk his established reputation for something so controversial? Yet he could not deny where the evidence led him.470 On Friday October 20, 2006, fifty-three-year-old auto mechanic Jeff Markin checked himself into the hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida, and died of a heart attack there. Emergency room personnel labored for nearly forty minutes to revive him, unsuccessfully shocking the flatlined man seven times. Crandall was called in to certify the obvious: there was no point in continuing attempts to revive the man.
Crandall recounts that Markin was not merely dead but unusually obviously dead: his face, toes, and fingers had already turned black.471 Crandall concurred with the obvious conclusion; the patient was declared dead at 8:05 a.m. and after writing up his assessment, Crandall left to return to his scheduled patients. Very quickly, however, he felt an extraordinary compulsion from God's Spirit to return.
He initially, but only briefly, resisted this compulsion, and then returned. The nurse was disconnecting the IVs and preparing the body for the morgue by sponging it down, yet Crandall suddenly found himself praying over the corpse, "Father, God,
I cry out for the soul of this man. If he does not know you as his Lord and Savior, please raise him from the dead right now in Jesus's name."472 The nurse glared at 467. I take the story here from several sources, including both secular sources noted below and (in this note) expressly Christian reports in Leclaire, "Cardiologist"; Dan Wooding, "Famed Heart Doctor
Tells the Dramatic Story of How a Patient of His Was 'Raised from the Dead' after Prayer," Assist News
Service (http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2007/s07070094.htm); idem, "Raising the Dead: A Doctor
Encounters the Supernatural" (http://opentheword.org/miracles/1595–raising-the-dead); and CBN
(http://www.cbn.com/media/index.aspx?s=vod/SUT35_DrChaunceyCrandall_080508&title=The%20
700). I have revised these in light of Crandall, Raising, 1–5. Others also recount Crandall's experience
(e.g., Llewellyn, "Events," 254–55).
468. For one local television report from Miami, see http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=
-2334132798216105638&q=Raise+from+the+Dead&total=1772&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=searc h&plindex=4; accessed May 9, 10, 2009; on national television, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUJiD
_UFNCE; accessed May 9, 2009. Dr. Crandall noted (phone interview, May 30, 2010) that the reporters did their own careful investigations and reviewed records before running their story.
469. He began his explorations as an evangelical Presbyterian cardiologist in one of the wealthiest centers in the United States, also "a former university professor" who had finished his medical training at Yale (Raising, 31, 55).
470. Chauncey Crandall (phone interview, May 30, 2010).
471. When cyanosis sets in, little hope exists of reviving a patient (Crandall, Raising, 3, noting also his fixed, dilated pupils).
472. I take the wording from the earlier media interviews; it differs slightly in ibid., 4, without any change in meaning.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
him in astonishment, but Crandall instructed the emergency room doctor, who had just walked in, to shock him with the paddle one more time. (For Crandall, prayer and medicine work ideally together; they are not mutually exclusive options.) The other doctor protested; they had all recognized that Markin was beyond resuscitation. Nevertheless, out of respect for his colleague, this doctor complied and shocked Markin's corpse.
Suddenly the monitor, which they were all watching, moved from a flat line to a normal heartbeat, which would have been extraordinary even if the heart had stopped only briefly. "In my more than twenty years as a cardiologist," he reported,
"I have never seen a heartbeat restored so completely and suddenly."473 Markin immediately began breathing unaided, and within minutes Markin's fingers and toes began moving, and he began speaking. Perhaps recalling Frankenstein's monster, the panicked nurse started screaming, "Doctor Crandall, what have you done to this patient?" She did not know what they would do with him now. She could have had cause for concern; as already noted, someone dead even for six minutes would have irreparable brain damage. Markin had no brain damage, however, and even his numb, once-blackened extremities were ultimately restored. Crandall met with Markin Monday morning; sitting up, Markin talked with him, contemplating his second chance on life.474 Since then Crandall has grown still bolder in praying for miracles, and some of his patients have testified to the media about these extraordinary cures.475
An OB/GYN, a medical consultant for the national news program, respectfully suggested that possibly the heart had not stopped completely but just gone into a very subtle rhythm for those thirty to forty minutes.476 When I asked Dr. Crandall his response, he replied that this complaint was merely grasping at straws. The team had "tried to revive him for forty minutes using standard American Heart Association protocols," and this resuscitation could not have happened naturally.477 Even the information in the media reports support Crandall's verdict: the darkening of the extremities and the unanimous verdict of those actually present in the emergency room, including renowned cardiologist Crandall, makes the more skeptical alternative seem forced compared with the more obvious interpretation. While
Markin's heart may not have restarted without the electrical shock, an electrical shock administered at that point would normally accomplish nothing, and it was administered only because of a special confidence that on this extremely unusual occasion it would make a difference. Nor was this the only occasion on which 473. Ibid., 4. "The remaining ECG leads registered . . . a perfect heartbeat" of about seventy-five beats per minute, in a normal rhythm.
474. Crandall, Raising, 6, 188.
475. For a television report from Miami, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYNNXs5rq9s; accessed May 9, 2009. Healings reported include a girl's "severe blood infection," a missionary's "multiple parasitic infections," and lesions that would have otherwise led to the amputation of a leg (an operation that had already been scheduled; Leclaire, "Cardiologist").
476. At http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUJiD_UFNCE; accessed May 9 and 10, 2009.
477. Chauncey Crandall (phone interview, May 28, 2010).
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Crandall prayed and someone revived unharmed.478 There are always options for interpreting the data if one is committed to an antisupernaturalist position, but if one does not rule out the possibility of a supernatural explanation, supernatural causation offers a better explanation in some cases, including, I believe, quite a number of cases above.
It is disingenuous for someone who does a priori rule out all supernatural explanations to ask for evidence, since any evidence, no matter how compelling, will be a priori dismissed. Will critics be able to offer other explanations for raising claims? Undoubtedly; there is very little for which one could not offer a potential alternative explanation, and in some cases, especially those who had stopped breathing only moments before or where the witnesses are not credible, the alternative could be correct. But in a number of cases above, I believe that the critics are the ones straining the bounds of plausibility to retain their thesis intact. Even if they remain the dominant voice in much of Western academia, I believe that their position should be open to question and do not think that their position is as plausible as a supernatural alternative for a significant number of these cases.479
Nature Miracles Some scholars today dismiss the Gospels' nature miracles as legends (with or without historical bases).480 Often even scholars open to more information in the tradition about healings are more skeptical about nature miracles.481 Thus, for example, one scholar who allows that Jesus and Apollonius may have been "faith healers" contends that Jesus as a true human being could not have performed nature miracles.482 The view about whether or not it is possible that Jesus performed nature miracles, however, returns to questions of theism and/or Jesus's identity.483
478. Chauncey Crandall (phone interview, May 28, 2010); idem, Raising, 184–86; also the CBN interview noted above (http://www.cbn.com/media/index.aspx?s=vod/SUT35_DrChaunceyCrandall
_080508&title=The%20700). In this case, the patient had flatlined for five minutes, apparently (due to unusual circumstances) without direct medical intervention during that time.
479. Stating this dissent openly, particularly in a public (academic) work, did not come easily for me.
Yet at some point one must decide whether evidence or majority opinion counts for more, and I believe that the former is the approach more in harmony with the epistemology normally claimed by the academy, when presuppositions about the possibility of supernatural activity are not involved.
480. E.g., Taylor, Mark, 141; Davies, Healer, 67; cf. Crossan, Historical Jesus, 404; see summary in Aune,
"Magic," 1524; Robinson, "Challenge," 329 (suspecting the majority of critics). Even Meier, Marginal Jew,
2:874–1038 is skeptical of the nature miracles, although this may in part be because, having parceled them into four other categories (877–78), he has too few remaining to defend them on grounds of multiple attestation (contrast Habermas, "Miracles," 129, listing a broader range of sources, though necessarily with correspondingly less substantial evidence).
481. Carlston, "Question," 102 (they "have somewhat less claim to reliability or early attestation than the miracles of healing").
482. Hedrick, "Miracles," 312.
483. Cf., e.g., Robinson, "Challenge," 329, contending that those who affirm nt Christology and the creeds have no reason to doubt this portrait; also Hunter, Work, 88–89.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
Theological questions aside, if eyewitnesses today report the stilling of storms and the like, why should we doubt that some of Jesus's earliest followers may have offered the same kind of reports?
Limits of Naturalistic Explanations Some mainstream scholars do suggest that some "nature miracle" stories, like the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6:41–42), stem from genuine, albeit embellished tradition.484 That Matthew and Luke agree in some details against Mark might imply more than one early tradition, multiply attesting the account of the feeding.485 Some have argued that John's version of the feeding is based on a tradition that is independent from the Synoptics,486 which includes genuine historical material missing in the Synoptics,487 and which some view as even more accurate than the Synoptics on this point.488 If John's feeding account is genuinely independent, this independence implies the account's multiple attestation.489 If nothing extraordinary happened at the meal, there seems little reason for tradition to have preserved this meal as extraordinary above many others, even if this was one of the largest crowds Jesus drew.
Some scholars seek to provide other naturalistic explanations, though some sorts of once-popular naturalistic explanations for biblical miracles would carry little credibility today. For example, one could deny any miraculous element in the earlier biblical narrative of Elijah calling down fire from heaven by observing that lightning does sometimes fall; but the odds of lightning coincidentally falling on command at a particularly vital moment and spot are not very good, especially if one is not already in the midst of a thunderstorm and the altar is made of stones and not metal. To offer a naturalistic explanation in such extraordinary cases, one must also argue that a narrative has been embellished to heighten a miracle (for example, by claiming that a prophet merely explained some random lightning
484. On the feeding, see, e.g., Koenig, Hospitality, 28; Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:950–66 (from multiple attestation and coherence). For one nineteenth-century discussion of the feeding narrative, cf. Lumby,
"Feeding" (in Metzger, Index, 18).
485. Witherington, Christology, 98–99. It is possible, however, that Mark simply redacted this same earlier tradition.
486. E.g., Higgins, Historicity, 30; Johnston, "Version"; Barnett, "Feeding," 289; Painter, "Tradition";
Manus, "Parallels"; Smith, John (1999), 146.
487. E.g., Higgins, Historicity, 38; Johnston, "Version," 154; Barnett, "Feeding."
488. Johnston, "Version," 154.
489. Some argue that John more generally used the Synoptics (e.g., Lincoln, John; Davies, Rhetoric,
255–59); probably a greater number of scholars, however, regard them as independent (e.g., GardnerSmith, Gospels; Brown, John, 1:xliv–xlvii; Schnackenburg, John, 1:42; Dodd, "Herrnworte," 86; Robinson,
Studies, 96; Smalley, John, 38; Hunter, John, 5; Ladd, Theology, 219–20; Morris, Studies, 15–63; Marsh, John,
44–46; Yee, Feasts, 11–12; Smith, John [1999], 14). Consensus is, however, elusive (see the discussion of scholarly views in Smith, John among Gospels, 139–76). John may have known other Gospels without choosing to follow them (e.g., Smith, "John and Synoptics," 425–44; also Sanders, John, 10; Conzelmann,
Theology, 324; Goppelt, Jesus, Paul, and Judaism, 40–41; Beasley-Murray, John, xxxv–xxxvii; Borchert,
John, 37–41; Witherington, Wisdom, 5–9; Brown, Essays, 194–96; Dvorak, "Relationship"; Blomberg,
Reliability, 48–49; Köstenberger, Encountering John, 37; cf. Bauckham, "John," 148).
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strike in terms of judgment after the fact). With regard to the Elijah narrative, most scholars today would probably not go to such lengths; most of those skeptical of miracles, as well as those skeptical of the sources, would simply deny any historical core to the account.490
The Gospels report Jesus walking on water or stilling a storm at sea. Although a few scholars today still advance the naturalistic explanation that Jesus was merely walking in shallow water,491 most would find this explanation unconvincing. The setting of the story is a much deeper part of the lake, and even allowing for some exaggeration, fishermen who knew the lake would surely not have reported a miracle of one walking in shallow water.
Although older naturalistic explanations have long fallen from vogue, some newer approaches still opt for naturalistic ways to explain the tradition. Some scholars have sought to preserve a workable event behind the narratives by explaining their reports of nature miracles as genuine but subjective experiences of the disciples, as opposed to objective events. While they note parallels in other ancient sources, they interpret the Gospel records theologically and assign them to "alternate state of consciousness" experiences.492 But while we have abundant anthropological evidence that such states of consciousness can occur in cultic settings, ancient audiences probably did not so construe the analogous stories of other characters, whatever their genres.493 Why then would we apply this approach to the Gospel accounts, especially given their genre and the recent events they depict? Nor do the reported settings of these accounts in the Gospels—the only settings we really have for them—readily support this interpretation.
Limits of Ancient Analogies More commonly scholars attribute Jesus's nature miracles to legends that grew up around him because of his more widely accepted healings. Ancient literary
490. Commentators who address the issue often dismiss older naturalistic explanations such as use of flammable naphtha from the area or a coincidental lightning strike (e.g., Montgomery, Kings, 307–8; Jones,
Kings, 323). Eshleman, Jesus, 114–15, reports that a bhaghat in India placed a picture of Jesus alongside his other gods, and prayed that the greatest god would ignite the cow dung fuel he had placed beneath it; in this narrative, only the dung beneath Jesus's picture burned, and it burned completely. In the narrative in Tari,
Wind, 97, fire from heaven like lightning destroyed images after the evangelistic team, specifically evoking the Elijah story, challenged them; cf. relatively strategic lightning in the anecdote in Koch, Zulus, 158.
491. Cf. Derrett, "Walked."
492. Craffert and Botha, "Walk," 9–11, following Malina, "Assessing Historicity," 356 (cf. Montefiore,
Miracles, 90–91, who appeals to psychic "bilocation," a natural, telepathic appearance; some mention this experience in connection with Francis Xavier, Hebert, Raised, 177). See the critique of such approaches in Licona, "Historicity of Resurrection," 398; idem, Resurrection, 562, 570–73. Their category of "alternate state of consciousness" is an important one, however, as I note in appendix 2. Eve, Healer, 155–56, rejects the alternate state of consciousness interpretation of Jesus's water walking as speculative, preferring (in my view no less speculatively) "an origin in a displaced resurrection appearance."
493. Craffert elsewhere ("Origins," e.g., 341–43) insists on treating nt texts the way we treat other ancient texts; hence, for example, he would not read Jesus's resurrection as an eschatological event. In that case, however, the larger Jewish category of resurrection and Jesus's soon disappearance afterward may actually support theologians' eschatological interpretation (cf. Rom 8:23; 1 Cor 15:20, 23).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
accounts could provide analogies of sea miracles. Thus, in ancient stories, Pythagoras and Empedocles reportedly calmed storms.494 Various ancient figures also reportedly walked on water: Orion, a son of Poseidon;495 Xerxes, who thereby displayed a divine power;496 Pythagoras;497 and a Hyperborean magician.498
These analogies, however, all are tales either about mythical characters or written centuries after the lives of the individuals about whom they are told, not within four decades (as in the case of Mark). In fact, most of these claims do not appear in actual miracle stories as in the Gospels.499 Stories of sages at sea who stilled storms500 usually date from long after the period of the sage,501 in noticeable contrast to another category of stories about sages at sea, stories dealing with the sages' calmness during a storm. This other category addresses not only sages much earlier than the sources that report them but also sources contemporary with these sages.502 The contrast in the nature of the sources about these two kinds of sage stories seems instructive.
Walking on water is not only not a uniquely Christian idea, it is not even a uniquely Mediterranean one. In the early twentieth century, a professor of Sanskrit at the University of Pennsylvania pointed to numerous and ancient Indian stories of walking on water.503 This is one of the accounts about Jesus that most critical
494. Smith, Magician, 119. Blackburn, "ΑΝΔΡΕΣ," 190, cites traditions in which Orpheus, Abaris,
Epimenides, and Apollonius as well as Pythagoras and Empedocles controlled the elements; cf. also the ancient (deceased) hero Protesilaos (Philostratus Hrk. 13.2–3; but see Maclean and Aitken, Heroikos, lxxix [n124]).
495. Eratosthenes frg. 182 in Hesiod Astronomy 4 (Boring et al., Commentary, 99).
496. Boring et al., Commentary, 99–100, cites Isocrates Paneg. 88–89; Dio Chrysostom Or. 3.30.
497. Iamblichus V.P. 91 (Boring et al., Commentary, 100).
498. Smith, Magician, 120, cites Lucian Lover of Lies 13; note also the promise of water-walking ability in PGM 1.121. See the citations in Bultmann, Tradition, 236–37; more extensively, Loos, Miracles, 655.
499. Blackburn, "ΑΝΔΡΕΣ," 192. For an exception, see the Egyptian "scribe" who rescued the imperial army with a rainstorm (Dio Cassius 71.8.4; Rives, Religion, 160–61), perhaps analogous to some accounts elsewhere in this book.
500. For Pythagoras calming waters so his friends could cross, Cotter, "Miracle," 103, notes Porphyry
Vit. Pyth. 29; Iamblichus V.P. 135.
501. Blackburn, "ΑΝΔΡΕΣ," 192, further contends that in such traditions the presence of sages like
Pythagoras or Apollonius could guarantee a voyage's safety, but such traditions did not describe the sage saving the ship from storm (ibid.; cf. also Bultmann, Tradition, 237–38, citing as closest Porphyry Vit. Pyth.
29; Iamb. V.P. 135). Also they were not epiphany stories (Blackburn, "ΑΝΔΡΕΣ," 193). By contrast, Greeks often presented deliverance from death at sea as divine epiphanies (Theissen, Miracle Stories, 101). The sea deity Poseidon could calm the seas with a word (Virgil Aen. 1.142; Valerius Flaccus 1.651–52). For a list of various kinds of nature miracles that early Jewish sources attribute to much earlier biblical figures, see Koskenniemi, Miracle-Workers, 291–92.
502. Cf. Aulus Gellius 1.2.11; Bias in Diogenes Laertius 1.86; Pyrrho in Diogenes Laertius 9.11.68;
Paul in "we" material in Acts 27:22–25. Contrast failures to meet this conventional standard in Aristippus in Diogenes Laertius 2.71; Peregrinus in Lucian Peregr. 42–44; the Stoic in Aulus Gellius 19.1.4–6; hypothetical philosophers in Epictetus Diatr. 2.19.19.
503. See Brown, Walking on Water; cf. briefly Dibelius, Tradition, 116; Bultmann, Tradition, 237; Loos,
Miracles, 657 (following Saintyves, Essais, 338, 340). Brown argues that the Christian legends depend on Indian sources (Walking on Water, 53–65, esp. 61–65; he offers a genealogical table on 71). He admits that he cannot trace how the Buddhist stories reached Syria (62) but notes that Buddhist missionaries
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
scholars most frequently assign to the category of legend. Nevertheless, other details of the water-walking story in these sources are not particularly close, and the mere idea of supernaturally walking (as opposed to sailing) on water could arise independently in different cultures that dealt with the sea. (Scholars often rightly echo Samuel Sandmel's warning against "parallelomania."504) Very ancient
Jewish stories already speak of people walking through the midst of parted water
(Exod 14:21–22; Josh 3:15–17), which is not a very distant concept. Creative ancient minds naturally also had people and other land creatures flying on air, turning invisible, and displaying other paranormal behaviors, often in entertaining stories; it is difficult to think of any paranormal behaviors that could have occurred to ancient minds that did not occur to some of them and hence did not show up somewhere in their literature. It would thus be difficult to find many miracle stories about Jesus that do not have parallels somewhere, but these random analogies do not prove the genetic source (any more than modern analogies do).505 As I have noted, the focus of Jesus's miracles—benevolent healings and the like—also differs from the focus of most contemporary stories.
In some cases, of course, early Christians or Jesus himself might have chosen to provide a counterexample to contemporary stories, whether by creating a fictitious tale or, as a believer in the miraculous can allow, by doing what the stories claim to do. In this case, though, it is difficult to see where the earliest, Jewish Jesus movement would have been exposed to such stories, whether in Greek or Indian versions, especially as distinct from other stories. The earliest extant interpretation traveled abroad (63; cf. Finegan, Records, 67). His argument is also somewhat tendentious, arguing against pre-Christian Greek parallels. Geographically closer and more dominant parallels require greater attention. J. Edgar Bruns proposed Buddhist background for the Fourth Gospel (Bruns, Art, 88; idem,
Buddhism, 14–15; idem, "Ananda"), with virtually no followers; some even suggest (also questionably) that the influence went the other direction (Derrett, "Woman"; cf. idem, Law, 255). Neglecting Greek and Jewish sources, some think that stories of Jesus's supernatural birth and temptation depend indirectly on Buddhist antecedents (Thapar, India, 119; Montefiore, Gospels, 2:19, acknowledges the possibility but also recognizes the more commonly noted allusion to Israel's wilderness experience). Apparently only the Greeks who traveled to the East knew much about Indian religion (Delaygue, "Grecs"), but northwest Indian Buddhist philosophy apparently interacted with Hellenistic thought after Alexander
(Scott, "Attitudes"). Some Greek thinkers knew something about some Indian thought (Diogenes
Laertius 9.11.61; Philostratus Vit. Apoll. bks. 2–3), and educated Mediterranean peoples had clearly heard information (not all of it accurate) about India (Cicero Tusc. 5.27.78; Strabo 15.1.11–13ff.; Xenophon
Cyr. 2.4.1–8; Valerius Maximus 2.6.14; 3.3.ext. 6; Achilles Tatius 4.5.1; cf. Avi–Yonah, Hellenism, 164–66;
Nock, Conversion, 46–47). For more common mercantile ties, see Petronius Sat. 38; Poem 18; Martial
Epig. 4.28.4; Pausanias 3.12.4; Xenophon Eph. 4.1; cf. Wheeler, Beyond Frontiers, 115–71; Casson,
Travel, 124. But it is not the primary sphere of cultural influence for Greeks, and still less for Syrian Jews.
The fairly rare proposed connections with Jewish texts (e.g., Stehly, "Upanishads"; cf. Gispert-Sauch,
"Upanisad") seem coincidental.
504. E.g., Rummel, "Parallels," 3; McNamara, Judaism, 40–41.
505. Cf. Licona, Resurrection, 148, who notes that fourteen years before the Titanic sank, Morgan
Robertson's novel Futility (1898) depicted an "unsinkable" ship striking an Atlantic iceberg on an April night, and that "more than half of its passengers perished due to an insufficient number of lifeboats." The novel's ship was called the Titan (not quite the Titanic). Yet "no causal connection exists between" the accounts.
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
of Jesus walking on water, which should not chronologically precede the story of him doing so, is distinctly Jewish: within the first generation, the Gospels echo biblical theophany passages depicting YHWH treading on the waves.506
Peoples who dealt with the seas naturally prayed to deities to protect them.
Sailors who survived many voyages naturally had experiences of unexpected deliverances and even visual phenomena. Voyagers invoked divine help before sailing.507 Often they invoked deities like Isis, considered a protectress from storms and dangers.508 But the Dioscuri, also known as the Twins, were more prominent,509 and sailors viewed them as providing protection at sea.510 From an early period they were thought to subdue the sea's raging, which threatened to wreck ships.511 They were "saviors" at sea;512 someone who denied their help during a storm at sea would frighten his hearers.513 Thus sailors invoked them in storms or other troubles at sea.514 Poets claimed that both brothers (as "stars") helped ships facing storms.515
Some claimed to have seen them as stars during a storm;516 some scholars suggest that this conception may have originated in "the sudden appearance of the stars when the clouds and storm have cleared."517 Sailors believed that the Dioscuri came to their aid during storms also when lights settled on the sails,518 the phenomenon of corona discharge (a luminous discharge caused by increased electrical activity from the storm) that later European sailors called
506. See Job 9:8 lxx and Job 9:11 ("passing by") with Mark 6:48 (in the context of "I am" in Mark
6:50); cf. Ps 77:16–19. See further discussion in Keener, John, 671–75; idem, Matthew, 406–8; Argyle,
Matthew, 115; Lane, Mark, 236–37; Hurtado, Mark, 91; Quast, Reading, 52–53; Beasley-Murray, John, 89;
Rollins, "Miracles," 48. For a possible Jewish Christian origin for the story, see also Smith, Magician, 119;
Blomberg, "Miracles as Parables," 344. Even D. Strauss appealed to the ot background, but Loos, Miracles,
658–59, points out that this background, while accounting for the interpretation, does not account for the narrative's entire composition.
507. E.g., Epictetus Diatr. 3.21.12; Fronto Ad M. Caes. 3.9.2; for superstition and sailing, see Casson,
Travel, 155; for specifically astrological superstition and sailing, see Manilius Astrology (ca. 14 c.e.) in Friedländer, Life, 1:189.
508. Apuleius Metam. 11.25. Thus a ship could be consecrated in her name (Apuleius Metam. 11.5) or even be named for her, with a figure of her on either side of the prow (Lucian Ship 5).
509. For discussion of them, see comment at Acts 28:11 in Keener, Acts (forthcoming).
510. E.g., Johnson, Acts, 463 (citing Epictetus Diatr. 2.18.29; Lucian Ship 9; Aelius Aristides Or.
4.35–37); Bruce, Acts: Greek, 474.
511. Euripides El. 1240–42.
512. E.g., Diodorus Siculus 4.43.1–2; Artemidorus Onir. 2.37; Lucian Dial. G. 287 (25/26, Apollo and Hermes); Alex. 4 (cf. Casson, Travel, 178). Helen joins them as a "savior" of sailors in Euripides Orest.
1636–37 (she was their sister even in the earliest sources; Homer Il. 3.237–38; she secured immortality for them in Ps.-Lucian Charid. 6).
513. Plutarch Pleas. L. 23, Mor. 1103C. Alexander scorning the Dioscuri (Dio Chrysostom Or. 64.20) is an example of his hubris (Or. 64.21).
514. E.g., Silius Italicus 15.82–83; Catullus 68A.65; Epictetus Diatr. 2.18.29; cf. Hom. Hymns 33.12.
515. E.g., Ovid Fast. 5.720. They are depicted with stars on their heads in Lucian Dial. G. 282 (25/26,
Apollo and Hermes).
516. Maximus of Tyre 9.7 (Trapp p. 83n23 compares Alcaeus frg. 34; Hom. Hymn 33; Theoc. 22.8–22).
517. Theissen, Miracle Stories, 101.
518. Seneca Nat. 1.1.13.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
Saint Elmo's fire.519 Sometimes in antiquity seafarers might claim that this appearance of a star on the masthead during a storm guided their ship safely to port.520
One might claim that the Dioscuri, appearing on the sails to bring deliverance, commanded one to compose an encomium about them.521 They also allegedly appeared as stars on both sides of a Spartan ship destined for victory in battle.522
What we lack are accounts of not-yet-deified human figures doing what the Gospels report Jesus doing, from reporters roughly contemporary with the reports.523
Early Jewish sources claimed that storms could be stilled through acts of repentance (Jon 1:12–15) or through prayer.524 Moses also parted the sea (Exod
14:21–22), and those who stepped into it in Joshua's day found it parted as well
(Josh 3:13–16).525 Both in the Gospels and today we lack large-scale claims of parting the sea, though, as I shall note in the next section, claims of stilling storms or calling for rain do exist. What all these ancient "parallels" have in common is the belief that divine beings can control the sea, but (apart from the more distinctive behavior of water walking) these stories may seem like parallels to modern Western readers simply because we do not share that belief. Yet, as I have noted before, it is our belief rather than theirs that is historically idiosyncratic, and the fact that various cultures claim sea miracles is no reason to discount without examination any particular claim about one.
Even accounts of angelic appearances are reported today, though some are more persuasive than others;526 believers in some parts of the world claim many
519. Corcoran in Seneca Nat. vol., LCL 1:21n2. "Saint Elmo" is an Italian corruption of Saint Erasmus of Formia (d. ca. 303 c.e.), one of sailors' later patron saints.
520. Lucian Ship 9. Lucian regards many claims of them appearing on the masthead as fabricated
(Lucian Posts 1).
521. Ps.-Lucian Charid. 3.
522. Plutarch Lys. 12.1 (the stars disappeared before another battle the Spartans lost, Lys. 18.1). They also reportedly appeared to symbolize in the forum a victory (Plutarch Cor. 3.4) and allegedly appeared at the lake of Juturna (Valerius Maximus 1.8.1). For their association with Sparta, see also, e.g., Robbins,
"Kastoreion."
523. I cannot think of exceptions to this observation, but if there are some, they are surely quite rare.
524. Theissen, Miracle Stories, 65, cites here Jon 1:14; b. B.M. 59b; p. Ber. 9:1 (Bultmann, Tradition,
234–35, prefers the latter). In 4Q451 VII, 3 (in Wise, Abegg, and Cook, Scrolls, 259) apparently the Mediterranean Sea would be still because of the eschatological revealer, but his role (like Moses?) and the character of the peace (nature's or humanity's?) is not yet fully clear.
525. Some early rabbinic traditions attributed this event to the merits of the ancestors; e.g., Mek. Pisha
16.165–68; Besh. 4.52ff.; Sipre Deut. 8.1.1; in later texts, p. Taan. 1:1, §8; Gen. Rab. 23:6; 55:8; 74:12; 76:5;
84:5; 87:8; Exod. Rab. 2:4; 15:4, 10; 31:2; Lev. Rab. 34:8, bar.; Num. Rab. 3:6, bar.; 13:20; Deut. Rab. 2:23;
Song Rab. 4:4, §4; Pesiq. Rab. 10:9.
526. In modern popular Christian accounts, the angel appearance genre often involves sudden rescues by those who appear to be human and then are no longer to be found. See, e.g., Bryson,
"Angels," 46; missionary reports in Boehr, Medicine, 140–41; Bray, "Angel"; Johnson, "Alone"; Stewart,
"Guardian Angel"; Malek, "Stranger"; Harris, Acts Today, 132–40; for angels obvious as angels, see
Tari, Wind, 52; idem, Breeze, 169–70 (an unexpected revelation to an unbeliever, after which the angel disappeared), 170–71 (angels visible in the sky, heard even by the Christians' enemies); Khai,
"Pentecostalism," 269; Numbere, Vision, 202; Eshleman, Jesus, 112–13 (visibly deterring robbers);
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
direct encounters with them.527 For example, a figure in white that an as yet unconverted African man first saw in a dream later guarded him from a lion after his injury, allowing for his subsequent conversion.528 Stories are often told, sometimes on strong authority, of angelic defenders visible only to would-be attackers, whom their presence intimidates. For example, a former director of World Missions for a Lutheran body reports that only one town in a particular region of China never fell to a particular army; the officers asked their U.S. hostage, later released, why the defenders had built a new wall around the town and now guarded it in shining clothes. Those inside the town saw no new wall or defenders, but the Christians there had been praying for protection.529 Even the common version of the vanishing hitchhiker story appears in what purport to be firsthand accounts, though these appear in many cultures and are not limited in a symbolic vision, Rumph, Signs, 90–93. On reported angel encounters, see further Anderson,
Miracles, 30–31, 72–73, 97–98, 102–3, 174–75, 214–16 (cf. 36, 65–69, 79, 81–83, 223–25; idem,
Angels); Pugh, "Miracle," 79; particularly extensively, Moolenburgh, Meetings, provides more than a hundred testimonies of angelic encounters (often with evaluations), including e.g., a rescuing angel described like a Chinese mandarin who then vanished (168–69); the rescue of a Polish girl (204) and other children's experiences with angels (96–117); and how the witnesses' lives had changed
(191–204). Sadhu Sundar Singh viewed one providential rescue as by angels; a Western friend interpreted them more naturalistically as people (Lynch-Watson, Robe, 64, 140–41). Whereas John Wesley believed he survived a mob's abuse because of angelic protection, his brother Charles suggested that his abusers' blows often missed him because of his diminutive stature (Wigger, Saint, 25). Two less ambiguous reports, both involving children, are Caldwell, "Prayers"; Jones, "Rumors," 22 (for children, see also Hickson, Heal, 115 [cf. 116], from 1922 South Africa; Malarkey, Boy, 14, 112, 183–84; cf.
93); a number of claims also appear in Schlink, World, 127–38; Baker, Enough, 18, 62, 64–65 (most visionary); Sundar Singh in Lynch-Watson, Robe, 68 (the angel disappeared afterward); beyond easy attribution to coincidence is the testimony in Moreland and Issler, Faith, 155–56; Ritchie, Spirit,
122 (to one who had not heard of this phenomenon), 206; probably Marszalek, Miracles, 171–73.
For some claims from a wider range of religious perspectives, see Woodward, "Angels"; Wuthnow,
Heaven, 114–41 (noting on 121–22 that roughly a third of Americans claimed to have had at least one angelic encounter); cf. Robertson, Miracles, 88–89 (his interpretation of a Jewish battle account);
Huyssen, Saw, 30–32 (supernatural battlefield rescues from World War I, attributed by witnesses directly to appearances of Jesus; cf. Finlay, "Miracles"). Only in some of these reports are the figures obviously angels; merely a "sensed presence" can be a psychological coping mechanism (cf. Suedfeld and Geiger, "Presence").
527. Noll, Shape, 33, also noting direct encounters with demons, which I have found far more frequently in my sources. For the high percentage of beliefs of angels in Africa, see "Islam and Christianity," 175.
528. Hodgson, "Sorcerer," 13. Although I am abbreviating, this account coheres well and involves a clearly supernatural figure. The person so protected was a witch doctor at that time resisting conversion, and the figure in white had already instructed him to heed the Christian who had settled there.
529. Recounted by Rolf Syrdal ("Transcript," 35–36), who had been a Lutheran missionary in China at the time of the incident; he had the account directly from the released captive. Syrdal was director of World
Missions (then called executive secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, originally for the Evangelical
Lutheran Church) from 1946 until 1963 (the ELC became the American Lutheran Church in 1960, which was joined by the Lutheran Free Church in 1963). Cf. 2 Kgs 6:17. Koch, Zulus, 270, probably thinks of the same incident; he reports a similar account of attackers confessing angelic protection in Germany on 269; one in South Africa on 270. Moolenburgh, Meetings, provides similar reports involving Christians in Vietnam, Indonesia, and southern Africa (188–89), and some of his accounts of angels during war
(135–90). Of the latter accounts, some apparently rest on eyewitnesses from both sides (143–44), but others apparently originated as propaganda (see the example below).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
to Christian circles,530 and there are some reasons to question them.531 For the sake of space, I will not address in this chapter these claims more fully, or specific analogies with miracles appearing in Acts but not the Gospels, such as harmless bites from poisonous snakes532 (Acts 28:3–5), miraculous escapes from prison533
(Acts 5:19; 12:7–10), or timely earthquakes534 (Acts 16:26). For comment, I refer the interested reader to the appropriate passages in my forthcoming commentary on Acts.
Subsequent Analogies I have neither found nor expect to find any solid modern reports of ascensions, which pure invention might create perhaps to evoke very exceptional biblical narratives. We lack many claims today of people walking on water, but there are a few, especially from Indonesia.535 The strongest analogies for a large-scale mi530. McClenon, Events, 153, cites "firsthand" accounts from "North Carolina, the Philippines, Okinawa, and Taiwan," as well as a medieval Chinese story.
531. Moolenburgh, Meetings, 1–5, questions them, and whether they are genuinely firsthand.
Meanwhile, Moolenburgh himself, while not uncritical, credits the story of Washington's vision (ibid.,
138–42), which unfortunately probably originated in a propagandistic genre (see, e.g., the debunking in http://www.snopes.com/history/american/vision.asp).
532. In ancient sources, cf. Num 21:6–9; tos. Ber. 3:20; b. Ber. 33a, bar.; Iamblichus V.P. 28.142;
Mark 16:18; for modern sources, cf., e.g., protection from snakes in Thomas, Walls, 33–34, 42–43;
Koch, Zulus, 123; Eshleman, Jesus, 113; healing from poisonous snakebite in Lindholm, "Healings"
(from scorpion stings in Tari, Wind, 41); Koch, Zulus, 123–24 (though details are not all clear); escape from a black cobra in Lynch-Watson, Robe, 40 (from a panther, 55; from leopards in Andrews,
Singh, 126–27); authority over snakes (Tari, Wind, 41; also over crocodiles, ibid.; rats, idem, Breeze,
28); a traditional belief that sorcerers might send snakes, in Stoller and Olkes, Shadow, 183 (as well as anecdotal reports from some of my African sources). Snake handling of course appears in various traditions (in Africa, see McNaughton, Blacksmiths, 52–53). Cf. also God's sovereignty over driver ants in Anderson, Pelendo, 22–25.
533. In ancient sources, see, e.g., Euripides Bacch. 443–45; Apollodorus Bib. 3.5.1; Apollonius
Rhodius 4.41–42; Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 8.30; Artapanus in Euseb. Praep. ev. 9.27.23; cf. also Hist.
Rech. 10:5 (probably a Christian work); cf. Augustine Ep. 111.7 (Herum, "Theology," 75); medieval reports, where it can appear alongside or instead of ransom (Friedman, "Miracle"). Cf. also later escapes from captivity, deemed miraculous (e.g., Sundar Singh in Gallagher, "Hope," 163; Lynch-Watson,
Robe, 63, 79–80; others in Fape, Powers, 98; Young, "Miracles in History," 118; Yun, Heavenly Man,
64, 251–62) or providential (e.g., Williams, Radical Reformation, 142; Young, "Miracles in History,"
116, multiple times; Olson, Bruchko, 86–89; Yun, Heavenly Man, 44; Seibert, Church, 195–205; and an account of my brother-in-law Aimé Moussounga, ca. 1994).
534. Ancient Greeks often attributed earthquakes to Poseidon: e.g., Homer Il. 7.445; 8.201, 208, 440;
12.27; 13.10, 34, 43, 59, 65, 89, 215, 231, 554, 677; 14.135, 150, 355, 384; 15.41, 173, 184, 205, 218,
222; 20.13, 20, 34, 57–63, 132, 291, 310, 318, 330, 405; 21.287, 435, 462; Od. 1.74; 5.282, 339, 366, 375,
423; 6.326; 7.35, 56, 271; 8.354; 9.283, 518, 525; 11.102, 241, 252; 12.107; 13.125, 140, 146, 159, 162;
Aristophanes Ach. 510–11; Euripides Erechtheus frg. 370.48–49; Pindar Pyth. 4.32–33; 6.50; Isthm. 1.52;
Philostratus Hrk. 25.9. For more naturalistic options, see, e.g., Seneca Nat. Bk. 6 (esp. 6.5.1–6.31.3); cf.
Williams, "Seismology"; Pliny Nat. 2.81.191–92.
535. See, e.g., Crawford, Miracles, 26; Tari, Wind, 43–47 (citing as witnesses who experienced this event his sister, brother-in-law, and cousin); idem, Breeze, 41 (the same event; in one interview on the internet, Tari sounds as if he may have been present himself). The story that Sardar Birsa walked on water without wetting his feet, like the story of lightning infusing his body (Singh, "Prophet," 112), is
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
raculous feeding (noted above as multiply attested in the Gospel tradition) appear in antecedent biblical tradition (accounts about Moses and Elisha), but some subsequent analogies do exist. Although much rarer than healing claims, stories of multiplied food also appear for earlier536 and more recent times.537 (They are rarer in the Gospels and Acts as well.) Some have even reported witnessing water turned to wine (John 2:7–9)538 and fish jumping into nets (cf. Luke 5:5–7; John
21:5–11).539 Beyond the rare specific analogy of multiplied food, claims of divinely older and may reflect rumor more easily than some sources do (no specific eyewitness source is evident; cf. Singh, "Prophet," 112: "it was said"). I omit here some other kinds of nature miracle claims, such as a "friendly" tiger keeping a South Korean evangelist warm in the Taebaek Mountains one night, then leaving him in the morning (Stetz, "Blanket").
536. Duffin, Miracles, 28; Nichols, "Supernatural," 32–33 (citing esp. witnesses for an event involving
St. John Bosco in 1860; Nichols notes [39] that this is not creation ex nihilo, since God works through already created forms); Gardner, Healing Miracles, 13 (in the early nineteenth century; following
Monnin, Curé d'Ars; Ghéon, The Secret), 71 (Martin of Tours); various saints in Thurston, Phenomena, as followed by Laurentin, Miracles, 100–102; Montefiore, Miracles, 81–84 (who provides analogies in psychic research on 85–86 that he himself acknowledges are quite weak ["trivial"]). The claim also appears for a prophetic figure with mixed religious influences named Sardar Birsa (multiplication of rice in Singh, "Prophet," 111).
537. See Young, "Miracles in History," 118–19; Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 286 (citing here Koch,
Revival, 134); Tari, Breeze, 117–18 (for days, as in 1 Kgs 17:14–16), 42–43 (feeding only on visionary food for days; cf. Exod 34:28; Deut 9:9, 18); idem, Wind, 47–49 (with food left over, 49); Ten Boom,
Hiding Place, 202–3; and idem, Tramp, 42 (vitamins in a Nazi concentration camp); Laurentin, Miracles,
4–5, 49 (350 cans of milk being given out to 500 people, one apiece, with fifty-two cans remaining), 95–97
(six different occasions, with dates and witnesses, sometimes multiple ones), 110–12; Wilson, "Miracle
Events," 276–77 (acknowledging Laurentin but having verified the story directly with witnesses); Gardner,
Healing Miracles, 38 (following Laurentin), 71 (following Ten Boom); Sanford, Gifts, 221 (following Ten
Boom); less clearly, Koch, Zulus, 311–12; Baker, Enough, 52 (a clear, credible, eyewitness case, also noted in idem, Miracles, 198; Clark, Impartation, 121; additional occasions in their ministry to the needy in Chevreau, Turnings, 214–15); Bredesen, Miracle, 120; Robertson, Miracles, 126; multiple cases (including following Laurentin) in DeGrandis, Miracles, 101–2; Anderson, Miracles, 202–8; Johnson, Mind, 40; possibly Numbere, Vision, 127; cf. Best, Supernatural, 75.
538. E.g., Koch, Revival, 208–17 (esp. seeing it himself, 212–17); idem, Gifts, 107 (citing himself for the incident on July 18, 1969, and naming eight witnesses of that incident, including foreign educators and a local governor); Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 285–86 (citing interviews with eyewitnesses); Young,
"Miracles in History," 119 (following Koch); Crawford, Miracles, 26; Yusuf Herman, July 10, 2011 (naming witnesses he knows); on a popular level, see Tari, Wind, 78–84 (more than sixty times in Tari's church since Oct. 1967, 79; Tari says that he checked carefully on one occasion, although the water changed color before it tasted like wine, 79–84); idem, Breeze, 16–17; Wilkerson, Beyond, 79–80. In Tari, Breeze, 97–98, though water had turned to wine twenty times when Sister Johanis had prayed over wine (in three-day fasts each time), she was unhappy when she felt led to do this with dirty, stagnant water; nevertheless,
Tari reports, it happened and provided wine for eight hundred participants. By contrast, for wine spoiling overnight in accordance with a divine audition, see Anderson, Pelendo, 34–36. Neil, "Nature Miracles,"
371, doubts that Jesus, being wise, would have provided wine to those who had already drunk freely; whatever the merits of this verdict (ancient Christians did not teach complete abstinence), the wine in most Indonesian reports was unfermented.
539. Cagle, "Church," noting that the coinciding of this event with the dedication of the church led the leaders of the community to welcome the church (on Mangaia, in the Cook Islands). Jesus Film workers also report that in one nation in Asia, after watching the scene in Luke 5, some men cast nets into the river in faith and brought them up full of fish (Jesus Film Project mailing, Oct. 30, 2009, 3–4).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
arranged provision in other forms appear fairly commonly.540 Judgment miracles have also been reported.541
I know of no accounts of massive pillars of fire such as in the exodus narrative, but there are a number of accounts of ministry teams or fugitives in jungles or other dark places being led through the night with shining, supernatural lights.542 (Anomalous lights are not limited to Christian sources, though the function normally appears to be different elsewhere.543) Like subsequent Lukan reports of outpourings of 540. E.g., McGee, "Regions Beyond," 87; Green, Asian Tigers, 97; Menzies, Young, 118–20; Crump,
Knocking, 11–12; Koch, Zulus, 298–316 (including potatoes on 308); Taylor, Secret, e.g., 42; Marszalek,
Miracles, 54–55 (in India), 233–36 (in Kenya), 247–48 (in Germany); Alamino, Footsteps, 27–28, 53–54,
101 (in Cuba); Yohannan, Revolution, 68, 74–76 (a believer from India); Tari, Wind, 14–16; idem, Breeze,
32–34 (Indonesia); Wazara, "Ministry," 158–60, 167–68 (Africa); Ten Boom, Tramp, 33–36, 83–86;
Pytches, Come, 108 (George Müller); Schaeffer, Tapestry, 191; Bredesen, Miracle, 79–88 (including L'Abri,
82–84); Robertson, Miracles, 24–25, 58–59, 122–23; Anderson, Miracles, 108–10; Bruce, Care, 73, 85;
Anna Gulick, June 9, 2011; Craig Keener (personal journal, May 17; June 2, 17, 1987; July 8–9, 1991; Feb.
5, 2001); Horace Russell (interview, Oct. 26, 2009, connecting it with his mother's faith when he was a child; Jamaica); Kinghorn, Story, 131; a testimony sent to me by Douglas LeRoy, Nov. 9, 2009 (precisely
$115,000 needed for a situation in Macedonia, and precisely that much donated without prior knowledge of the need); and so forth: one could readily devote entire volumes to such reports.
541. E.g., Koch, Revival, 155–58 (Indonesia); idem, Zulus, 151, 158, 243, 278, 288–96; Tari, Wind,
32–33 (Indonesia); Anderson, Pelendo, 44–47 (central Africa); Jones, Wonders, 99–100 (China); by sickness, in Lynch-Watson, Robe, 25, 57; cf. the possible implication in Danyun, Lilies, 191; even early
Protestant cessationists allowed for judgment miracles, perhaps for their didactic value (Walsham,
"Miracles," 291 [cf. 289]; natural disasters might function as warnings to other nations [DeconinckBrossard, "Acts of God," 366]). Cf. also the reported shaking of a prison, mitigating the captors' hostility
(cf. Acts 16:25–35), in Jones, Wonders, 105. Some have questioned whether judgment miracles in the Gospels, which they believe are uncharacteristic of Jesus, should be taken literally (e.g., Neil, "Nature
Miracles," 371; Best, "Miracles," 540); others might regard this concern as reflecting a cultural bias, but in any case, such reports in the Gospels are at best very few (possibly Mark 5:13; 11:21, but both these incidents may be explained in other ways; in Acts, see 5:5, 10).
542. E.g., Koch, Revival 143–44 (also noting inside a darkened church, 144); idem, Zulus, 238; Tari,
Wind, 100–101 (on 101 also adding a cloud to protect them from the sun); idem, Breeze, 85 (the author as an eyewitness; on 86 he compares the pillar of fire, Exod 13:21–22; Num 14:14; Neh 9:12, 19), 91; Wilkerson,
Beyond, 80–81 (on West Timor); Yun, Heavenly Man, 32, 323; note also the report of supernatural light during the 1939 Presbyterian revival in Hebrides (Peckham, Sounds, 107, noting also sounds of heavenly singing in Hebrides revivals on 106, 225; cf. the claim of heavenly music at a baby's death in 1897, in Anderson, Miracles, 134–35); the experience of light as a divine sign in Chinese Lutheran settings in 1934 (Hellestad, "Prayer," 16) and 1937 (Guldseth, "Power," 4); light publicly seen emanating from one
Chinese believer who had just been healed (Danyun, Lilies, 322); light during an unexpected revelation in India in Lynch-Watson, Robe, 18; light during a divine audition in central Africa in Anderson, Pelendo,
34; apparently protective lights in Anderson, Miracles, 48–49; a light seen by outsiders over a charismatic
Lutheran and Anglican gathering in McGee, Miracles, 201–2; a room filled with visible light and an audible voice at Anna Gulick's calling (interview, March 10, 2011).
543. Anthropologists report anomalous light appearances "associated with death or spirits" in various independent cultures (McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences," 52); one anthropologist saw two such lights also seen by others present, who attributed them to witchcraft (McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences,"
52, quoting here Bowen, Return, 40), and one of the most noted anthropologists saw a light passing toward a location where someone then died, noting that "this event fully explained the light I had seen"
(Evans-Pritchard, "Séance," 13, as cited in McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences," 52). Victor Turner as a boy saw a large light at the time that (initially unknown to him) the local Anglican priest, his mentor, died (Turner, "Advances," 36).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
the Spirit, most modern popular revival reports that include tongues and other Pentecost-type phenomena omit the tongues of fire at Pentecost (Acts 2:3), but such reports do appear.544 Houses shaking after prayer (Acts 4:31) may not be common, but there are eyewitness reports of this experience in some twentiethcentury revival settings.545
Far more common are rain and analogous large-scale nature miracle claims, similar to the Gospel accounts of Jesus stilling the storm (Mark 4:39; Matt 8:26;
Luke 8:24). I earlier noted Jewish sages, such as Honi the Circle-Drawer, associated with prayers for rain, following Elijah's model. These sorts of events also appear more recently. For example, during a severe drought in seventeenth-century Sri
Lanka, when all else failed, a Roman Catholic priest, Father Joseph Vaz, was invited to pray. It is said that "before he rose from his prayer, abundance of rain began to fall." Because this incident was universally acknowledged, Vaz was released from prison and allowed to evangelize openly.546 Similar older claims appear elsewhere in Asia. Thus, for example, in a power encounter reported by eyewitnesses, rain fell in a long-dry city at the extremely rare but prophesied time in early twentiethcentury China.547
As sailors may pray for help on the sea, farmers are inclined to pray for help on the land. In the summer of 1934, Chinese farmer Mr. Tsai wept in prayer as he saw that his crops were dying from lack of rain. Suddenly, however, he saw "a bright, beautiful light, and from that light came a voice that said, 'Fear not. On 544. See, e.g., Wacker, Heaven Below, 93 (citing W. W. Hall's claim in 1924); Sung, Diaries, 109
(while others were seeing or hearing angels; March 27, 1937), 140–41 (secondhand, but leading to many conversions; Jan. 1935); Synan, Voices, 137–38 (June 20, 1905, in the Indian revival at Pandita
Ramabai's home for orphan brides, also noted in Ma, "Mission," 24; cf. also McGee, People of Spirit, 74; idem, "Regions Beyond," 84; Bartleman, Azusa Street, 35); Liardon, Generals, 400. Cf. also the globe of fire above the head of St. Martin of Tours (Gardner, Healing Miracles, 72; cf. luminosity reported around saints in Montefiore, Miracles, 71–75, though as noted earlier this phenomenon also appears in pre-Christian paganism). One may consider also the visible cloud of glory in Clark, Impartation, 213. Cf. particularly
"an audible wind" in the 1930s Shandong revival (Bays, "Revival," 173); another on Aug. 27, 1970, in the Solomon Islands revival (Koch, Gifts, 22; idem, Zulus, 50); on Sept. 26, 1965, a rushing, intense wind and visible fire at the beginning of the Timor revival in Indonesia (Tari, Wind, 24–25; idem, Breeze, 6).
Cf. also people on Timor gathered for the coming ministry team by the public sound of trumpets, though no one had such instruments, in Koch, Zulus, 238.
545. E.g., Woodworth-Etter, Diary, 107, reports a house being shaken by divine power like a dramatic storm, and even those outside witnessing it. Peckham, Sounds, 106, 113, reports particular houses shaking after prayer and even people falling down (on the Presbyterian Hebrides revivals in 1939 and 1949); in one such case dozing persons awoke and were converted (Peckham, Sounds, 113); a photo of one of the houses mentioned appears between 160 and 161. I treat ancient parallels to Acts 4:31 (e.g., Ovid Metam.
9.782–85; Exod 19:18; Isa 6:1–4) in Keener, Acts, as well as the narrative parallel in Acts 16:26. For references to supernatural protection, see pp. 274–75 of the present book.
546. Daniel, "Labour," 157.
547. See Kinnear, Tide, 92–96. John Sung also reports a "healed" bus engine (Diaries, 142) and the holding back of rain (143, 158, 161); Danyun, Lilies, 328, also reports the stopping of rain in answer to prayer. Earlier, the Life of Mar Aba (composed before 579) reports what Young, "Miracles in History,"
111, construes as a nature miracle in the conversion of Mar Aba (who served as patriarch in the East from 539 to 552). In the West, Bede reports some credible accounts from mostly seventh-century England that could be nature miracles (Young, "Miracles in History," 114).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
the fourth of the seventh month you shall have rain.'" He was so certain that God had spoken to him that he announced this information to all his neighbors. Sure enough, rain fell on the appointed day, flooding the fields; he discovered that the roots were not dead.548 The rice harvest thus came late that year, "but it was the most bounteous harvest that this district has seen for many years."549
Claims appear in earlier Africa. Thus some called Methodist missionary W. J.
Davis the "Missionary Elijah"; in the 1840s, his "prayers brought rain in the midst of severe drought," leading to the beginning of "the first [known] Bantu church."550 In the early twentieth century, Garrick Braide was known for success in praying down rain,551 and many other reports of water miracles appear.552
To elaborate another example, when some early twentieth-century villagers in southern Africa complained that the God whom the preacher Elias Letwaba proclaimed could not bring rain to their parched village, Letwaba declared that it would fall the next day. His momentary confidence quickly yielded to fear, however, and he prayed throughout the night. Nevertheless, the next day, rain poured down.553 Those who live in or have spent time in locations with extensive dry seasons will recognize that such an occurrence is improbable as a coincidence.554 Some stories about dramatic provisions of water are told even about the nineteenth-century United States.555 On some occasions, storms calmed when Francis Asbury prayed.556 (One may also note continued gratitude for deliverances at sea.557) 548. Hellestad, "Prayer," 16 (a contemporary report by the Lutheran mission).
549. Ibid., 17. Cf. also the South African farmer in Buchan and Waldeck, Faith; the child in DeGrandis,
Miracles, 93–94.
550. Yung, "Integrity," 174; McGee, "Regions Beyond," 70; idem, "Miracles," 253 (citing a local report from 1867); idem, Miracles, 51, 242 (citing Taylor, Adventures, 275–76, though noting Taylor's disappointment in the failure of the chief to convert immediately). My sources differ regarding whether his name is spelled "Davis" or "Davies."
551. Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, History, 223–24; Sanneh, West African Christianity, 181–83.
552. In Nigeria, cf. perhaps Protus, "Latunde." More recently, in Cape Verde, see Dayhoff, "Barros."
Elsewhere, cf. the effective nineteenth-century prayer for rain reported about St. Arsenios on the island of Paros in the Aegean Sea (Zervakos, "Miracles," 81–83).
553. Lindsay, Lake, 48–49. On Letwaba's ministry, cf. further Clark, "Apostolic Faith Mission," 45;
McGee, "Regions Beyond," 89–90.
554. Cf. 1 Sam 12:17–18.
555. E.g., during the U.S. Civil War, see Harris, Acts Today, 66–67. Note also the story of Methodist circuit rider Robert S. Sheffey (1820–1902), who is said to have prayed for an oak to fall on a whiskey still, though the nearest tree was nearly one hundred feet distant; later, during a thunderstorm, it is said that a massive oak tree fell down the hill and smashed the still (Carr, Saint, 204, 209). Nevertheless, without further documentation, it is impossible for me to evaluate much about this story. Carr's "biographic novel" about Sheffey weaves together various oral sources, but they are undoubtedly not all of equal weight, and from Carr's more academic work it is clear that not all moonshiner tales (a moonshiner was Sheffey's source of information for this account in Saint) ought to be believed (see, e.g.,
Carr, Profession, 58).
556. When he was ill and prayed for protection, little rain fell on him as he rode though it rained heavily ahead; also a storm calmed when he prayed, allowing him to cross a river (Wigger, Saint, 193, citing
Asbury's own account). Nevertheless, at some other times in his life he rode through storms (e.g., 128, 288).
557. In a war context, see Flanders, "Deliverances at Sea."
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
The majority of reports of nature miracles (such as parting the sea) need not imply activity impossible in nature, but the collocation of events can prove extraordinary.558 I offer two such examples from nineteenth-century German parishes.
A witness confessed his irritation when Blumhardt momentarily interrupted the liturgy to pray for God to withhold an impending hailstorm; yet "in an instant it grew light and in a few minutes we had blue skies and bright sunshine."559
Moreover, one writer who argues that God always works through nature reports a surprising collocation of events. In 1866, some villagers in Saxony were digging a well when on December 8 the sand strata on which they were working collapsed, burying them. The local pastor, O. Th. Auerswald, led his congregation in fervent prayer for their fellow church members. Others agreed to help dig out the corpses, but Pastor Auerswald felt an overwhelming sense that the buried workers were alive. A week and a half later, on December 19, all the men were found alive. When the sandbank had collapsed, they had fallen into a cavity, with the planks that had fallen around them arranged in such a way as to hold back more sand from infiltrating their shelter. Rainwater had seeped in through another (presumably rock) crevice, providing moisture to drink, until their rescue. Most collapses of the ground do not end so happily, even with prayer, but the theologian concluded that the collocation of factors in this case seemed more than fortuitous.560
Recent Analogies in Asia and the Pacific Such events continue to be reported among our contemporaries, including in Asia.561 It is reported that during the West Timor revival, Indonesian ministry teams going out on foot through jungles during tropical rains often found rain falling on either side of the path but not on them or the path.562 After one Indonesian ministry team hired a boat to reach their destination, they confronted a dangerous storm.
The Muslim boat owner promised to believe their message if their God could calm the storm, and he kept his word when, after their prayer, the sea grew calm.563
558. Offering the commanding of rain among other examples, Hume differentiated between mere accidental collocation of events and a causal relationship, in which case a genuine miracle must be involved
(Miracles, 31–32). Frequency of collocation, contrasted with infrequency (for some claims, this is close to zero) in other circumstances, decreases the probability of coincidence.
559. Ising, Blumhardt, 215. Hail would have devastated the harvest, but Blumhardt focused on the immediate distraction to the congregation.
560. Heim, Transformation, 195–98 (on 195–97 quoting the pastor's eyewitness account).
561. Bush and Pegues, Move, 192; 54–55 (an unusual harvest), 59 (standing on hot coals for ten minutes), 64 (unexpected rainfall following prayer after a drought). Cf. also rainfall after prayer, ending a long drought, in the Caribbean in a Church of God report by Luke Summers sent to me by Douglas LeRoy
(Nov. 9, 2009); diverting of rain, in John Coulson (discussion, April 18, 2011; personal correspondence,
April 26, 2011).
562. Koch, Revival, 144, noting that he has heard reports of analogous phenomena elsewhere.
563. Ibid., 143. Tari, Breeze, 154–56, gives further but potentially complementary details. One genuine incompatibility between the two accounts is the gender of the team leader; Koch names her, so Tari's information, in this case not (unlike many of his claims) firsthand, might be incorrect, or his ghost editor
(cf. p. 2) may have added the detail. Peters, Revival, 63, complains that various of his informants accused one
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
When rain was starting to disperse people gathered for a conference, Indonesian evangelist Petrus Octavianus commanded it to stop in Jesus's name, and it did so.564
Conversely, when people hostile to Pastor Daniel's message set on fire the grass roof of his hut, an "unseasonal rain" put it out.565
On the scheduled day for the baptism of six new Christian converts in Japan, a typhoon struck. In faith, the candidates nevertheless traveled a few miles in the storm to the bridge. There they found the water stirred by the wind "into a white froth. Yet as they entered the water, the sun burst forth and the winds died down."
The typhoon resumed as soon as they had finished. After this unusual event, these believers had strong faith for other miracles.566
Donna Arukua shared with me an experience from Papua New Guinea that occurred in 1997, during one of the worst droughts in her lifetime. Since her province was mostly savannah, fires were burning widely; the rivers were so dry that travelers could just walk across the riverbeds. Her team traveled to an inland village far from the nearest river in any case, where the water in the well was getting lower every day as the heat rose. When they arrived, there was only a little water in the bottom of the well, in the mud, and by evening the well was dry. At the villagers' request, the prophet Kindiwa, who was leading the team, prayed.
The next morning a woman went shortly after sunrise to see if perhaps she could find a little water for her family, and she discovered that the water was now up to the top, and clear rather than muddy. Normally it was clear only during the rainy season, but there had been no rain in months.567
On one occasion in Myanmar, the gathering of three thousand persons for a conference threatened to strain a village's water resources. Believers prayed, and it is reported that "miraculously, a spring broke out in the middle of the village on the day the convention began. This spring supplied enough water for the crowds and still exists today."568 In another account, a team was preparing the foundation for a new church on one of the Galapagos Islands when it came to their attention that at the time no sand for concrete was available on the island (the grinders used to pulverize the island's igneous rock were not functioning at the time). In faith they kept digging for the foundations when they ran into a sand mine on their property; every time they removed a shovelful of sand, more sand filled the place.569 another of fictitious elaboration; but Koch and Tari concur on the main substance of the story summarized here (even the team number and location of the storm).
564. Crawford, Miracles, 75; Koch, Gifts, 106–7 (citing the eyewitnesses he interviewed).
565. Ibid., 28.
566. McClenon, Events, 144, citing his interview with a Japanese Protestant minister.
567. This occurred in January; although rains had normally started by then, that year they did not come until March (Donna Arukua, interview, Jan. 29, 2009). For a drought ended in connection with gospel ministry, see Tari, Breeze, 20. Tari recounts (157–58) that when traditional locals accused a Christian
(Tari's father) of causing a drought, he publicly began digging a well, calling on Jesus for vindication. At just three feet, water gushed out and eventually became a new stream that continued to flow thereafter.
568. Khai, "Pentecostalism," 268. Cf. also the guns that refused to fire at one evangelist (269).
569. Michael Mills's testimony, among Church of God reports sent to me by Douglas LeRoy (Nov. 9,
2009).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
I even received an unexpected and unusual testimony from Dr. Kay Fountain of her experience in June 1975, with several other persons, of suddenly finding herself and her colleagues in a different location after she prayed (cf. John 6:21).
She recounted that this experience brought about the conversion of the group's leader, a scientist who could come up with no other rational explanation for what happened.570 Similar accounts appear in Indonesia and elsewhere.571
Recent Analogies in Africa My colleague in Hebrew Bible at Palmer Seminary, Dr. Emmanuel Itapson, shared with me an unusual incident that he witnessed through the Nigerian ministry of his father, Anana Itap, around 1975.572 When some residents of the village mocked Anana Itap's preaching, he declared, in the midst of rainy season, that the village would remain dry for four days. For the next four days, the village remained dry while rain fell all around it. After this event, Dr. Itapson recounts, only one person in the village remained non-Christian. He notes that people in the village recount the incident to this day.
Both publicly and in a follow-up phone conversation, Dr. Ayo Adewuya recounted a confrontation over nature that he witnessed in Nigeria.573 At the time of a crusade in his hometown in 1979, there had not been rain for some time, but the sky was now full of clouds and about to rain. At this point, a local Shango worshiper, who followed the god of thunder, began going around crediting his deity for the coming rain.574 One of Ayo's Christian colleagues declared that to show that the true God would bring rain, it would not rain that day but the next day at 4 p.m. As predicted, it did not rain until 4 p.m. the next day, when rain poured down even though the clouds were fewer.
570. Kay Fountain, interview, Jan. 29, 2009. For a report of a father transported twenty feet in one step, allowing him to rescue his child, see Llewellyn, "Events," 260.
571. After recounting reports of levitation and supernatural transport in non-Christian religions (Koch,
Revival, 145; cf. Tedlock, "Dreams," 457), Koch reports that Indonesian ministry "Team 47" covered a forty-eight-hour journey in four hours (Koch, Revival, 145–46; also mentioned in Wiyono, "Timor Revival,"
288). Stewart, "Firewagon," reports a case in India that saved his family's life; cf. also Yun, Heavenly Man,
39. For miraculous though not instant transport in ancient pagan sources, see, e.g., Dio Chrysostom Or.
37.2–3; Tacitus Hist. 4.84; for instant transport, see, e.g., Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 8.10–11; cf. Tacitus Hist.
4.82. Pythagoras was once said to teach in two locations simultaneously (Blackburn, "ΑΝΔΡΕΣ," 190;
Iamblichus V.P. 28.134). For rapid teleporting, Verman and Adler, "Path Jumping," cite b. Sanh. 95ab;
Yeb. 116a; Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 4.10.363–64; and medieval tradition.
572. Emmanuel Itapson, interview, April 29, 2008; reiterated in a phone interview, Dec. 15, 2009.
Emmanuel and his father belonged to the noncharismatic Evangelical Church of West Africa.
573. Ayo noted this publicly in the Matthew section at SBL on Nov. 22, 2009, during discussion surrounding my paper (Keener, "Readings"), and in our phone interview (Dec. 14, 2009).
574. Practices in traditional religions can involve rain (e.g., Maddox, "Cigogo," 156). Among the Karanga, spirit mediums perform a ritual (Shoko, Religion, 37, 41), then "rain falls immediately," but "the spot at which the medium sits is not affected by rain," and "people disperse in a heavy downpour"
(37). Koch, Zulus, 157, portrays some witch doctors as able to cause storms (cf. Rev 13:13), though here countered by Christ. To match such power, many African Christians believe that they must also exercise power.
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
Similarly, one of our seminary's doctor of ministry students from Cameroon, Paul Wose Mokake, shared with me more than one such account of nature miracles in power encounters with traditional religions.575 In one case, he noted how thirty minutes before an evangelism meeting was to begin in Nguti, a heavy storm dispersed the crowds; he and his colleagues came for the meeting anyway, confident that God would clear the rains. The rain receded before them as they approached, so no rain was falling on the grounds as they held the meeting, and people regathered.576
I first learned this aspect of his ministry when one of my other students (Yolanda
McCain) who was visiting him reported to me her astonishment in witnessing a clearly blind man healed when Paul prayed.
When a torrential downpour began in the midst of Peterson Sozi's altar call in Uganda, he prayed, "Lord, stop the rain!" People applauded as it stopped immediately.577 When one southern African chief requested that missionaries pray for rain because of local drought, the missionaries asked that God would not only send it but also make it convincing to others. That night, "there was a great downpour, the roads becoming rivers of water." The chief was convinced.578 A Christian family was about to be burned to death in their home in Rwanda when a sudden, deadly thunderstorm dispersed the mob.579 In another African country, when some witches were cursing the Christians' God, lightning destroyed the sacred tree around which they had gathered; the source includes photographs and the claim of eyewitnesses.580 Elsewhere, it is reported that a Tanzanian pastor cursed a rampaging lioness, whereupon lightning suddenly killed it.581 When a brushfire threatened to destroy a home in Swaziland, a mother and her sons cried out in prayer for a miracle; abruptly, rain came down, but only for the seven minutes needed to put out the fire, and not beyond a few miles surrounding them.582 (Some similar accounts appear elsewhere.583) When raging wind and waters threatened to 575. On June 3, 2006.
576. Paul Mokake (interview, May 13, 2009). Cf. a ministry area exempted from a downpour in Koch,
Zulus, 127, though the case for the occurrence being extraordinary appears weaker.
577. Dunkerley, Healing Evangelism, 112 (close friends with Sozi, and hearing the sound of the rain stopping on the tape of the service; many were converted). For similar testimonies, see Numbere, Vision,
130, 213, 266 (somewhat differently yet effectively, 279); Pytches, Come, 108; the Church of God testimony in Kenya, among reports sent to me by Douglas LeRoy (Nov. 9, 2009).
578. Richards, "Healings."
579. Wagner, "World," 93; cf. 1 Sam 7:10. Sadly, thousands of Christians perished in the Rwandan genocide; any miraculous protection was the exception. Still, I have heard dramatic accounts of protection from individual survivors and their families (e.g., Frederic Mulindahabi, Sept. 1, 2010, following up on previous conversation), who suggest that they would not have survived otherwise.
580. Chavda, Miracle, 9–10, 128–29. Photographs appear between 78 and 79.
581. Pytches, Come, 108–9 (citing a named missionary's account, but not specifying whether he was an eyewitness). Some others recount providential lightning strikes (e.g., Koch, Zulus, 289–90).
582. Johnston, "Rain."
583. Cf. two cases of protection from fires in Anderson, Miracles, 196–97; flames subsided during prayer in Laurentin, Miracles, 14; apparently similarly in Sanford, Gifts, 219–20; selective protection in DeGrandis,
Miracles, 56; Bruce, Care, 68–69; in South Africa, see Buchan and Waldeck, Faith; in China, see Kinnear,
Tide, 60–62 (Watchman Nee's parents); Osborn, Christ, 89 (a firsthand account from Franklin Wu).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
swamp an evangelism team's boat in southern Nigeria, the leader followed Jesus's example of commanding the storm to stop, and the sea became "as placid as glass."584
Eugene and Sandy Thomas, noncharismatic missionaries with a noncharismatic interdenominational mission, pioneered significant ministry in northern Congo, based in Impfondo.585 Sandy Thomas tells of an occasion in the 1970s when they were baking thousands of bricks for a building project. The bricks had to be baked for three days yet protected from rain; when heated, they would explode if they got wet. Because it was the rainy season, they constructed a roof to protect the baking bricks. On this occasion, however, the roof burned, leaving them no option but to pray that the rains would not come as the vulnerable bricks were baking.
In fact, the rains did come; it rained for more than an hour. While it rained on either side of the brick kiln, however, no water fell on the brick kiln. Their son was running in and out of the rain, and she reported that the workers could not believe what they saw.586
Sandy Thomas recounted another occasion, and although it does not involve nature in quite the same sense, this context seems the appropriate place to narrate it. As she and her husband were returning from Bangui, their forty-horsepower outboard motor burned up, perhaps 150 miles from their destination. Faced with overwhelmingly hot sun, Sandy insisted on praying. Her husband opened the motor and showed her the burned parts; he noted that he generally had a lot of faith, but that this time if she wanted to pray, she should lead the prayer. After she prayed, confident that God would help them, she insisted that they push out into the water and pull the rope on the motor. They had nothing to lose, so he pushed out and pulled the rope. As he did so, the motor sprang to life. Eugene observed that he could not explain how it was working but that he was happy that it was working. That motor took them the next 150 miles or so and then died about 50 feet from the shore of their destination, never to work again. When their Bible school students examined the motor, they pointed out that it was burned out
584. Numbere, Vision, 206–7 (quote from 207). On a different occasion in Numbere, Vision, 212–13, it appears that he may have been rebuking the sea for some time, but after other members of the team had also been worshiping, the sea calmed and they reached their destination safely.
585. Some of their stories appear in Thomas, Walls; through my wife's close relationship with them,
I got to know them well once they retired in the United States.
586. I first heard this story from Dr. Joseph Harvey in Congo (interview, July 25, 2008), as best as he could recall it from having heard it from Eugene Thomas; I confirmed and corrected that account based on a phone interview with Sandy Thomas (Aug. 26, 2008), who notes that it is one of the stories she plans for a subsequent book. Tari, Wind, 44–45, reports Indonesian ministry teams traveling through jungles dry while rain would fall ten feet behind and in front of them; in Breeze, 91, the ground and trees were wet everywhere except in the square where Tari's team slept (cf. Judg 6:36–40). Alexander, Signs, 4, notes a Pentecostal story of some girls who made it home in a hailstorm with hail falling all around them except in the path of the car. This story reminds me that about 1979, in a car whose windshield wipers were not working, we found ourselves inadvertently driving the wrong way on a one-lane, one-way street blinded by a heavy storm. Annoyed, and being fairly young in the faith, I impulsively commanded the wipers to work "in the name of Jesus." They instantly began working and continued at least until we safely reached home. Other similar stories could be multiplied (e.g., the temporary filling of the blown-out bike tire in Campolo, Pentecostal, 26).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
inside; hence, this could not have been how they returned. Nevertheless, the burned motor had worked.587
Similar cases are reported elsewhere.588 Scholar David Crump reports a case about a missionary family who ran out of gas en route to their destination and would be stranded in the central African wilderness far from any villages or means of survival. The only fluid he had was a large container of water, so he emptied it into the tank and offered a desperate prayer that God would make it work. He then started the car and drove it safely to the next village. Crump notes that the eyewitness source, a member of this family, is a highly reliable person not given
587. In Congo, their former coworker Dr. Joseph Harvey told me this story on July 25, 2008, and when
I began talking with Sandy Thomas about miracles (Aug. 26, 2008), she brought up this story without my having mentioned it. Her account proved almost identical to Dr. Harvey's secondhand version of the story, but with more details. She was concerned that some people would not believe the story if she told it; it was one story they had told in only one church out of concern that people in the United States would not believe it. She told me of another occasion when, during a storm, a motor had fallen from the boat into the river, and when the motor was recovered the local people were so astonished that the church began to grow, from a few people to just under a thousand.
588. Surveying missionaries working in less technologically advanced locations would probably yield a number of cases. Closer to my immediate circle, on June 14, 1997, my Congolese brother-in-law was driving a car near a military battle when the car died; it restarted only after he prayed fervently, and once he reached safety, it died and never worked again (my wife recorded the story in her journal, June 23, 1997, when she heard it from her brother after he escaped war; he is now a university science professor). On July 9, 2008, the two of them showed me the place in Brazzaville where this incident occurred. Many Westerners would regard that instance as a fortuitous coincidence; if so, it was one that certainly preserved his life for today. I have numerous other anecdotal reports of answered prayers regarding stalled or broken cars, including one from Anna Gulick (personal correspondence, Feb. 4, 2010; June 21, 2011, a split carburetor working) and two cases that I witnessed, but this one seems particularly worthy of mention. Yohannan, Revolution, 70, reports supernatural warmth while trapped in a long snowstorm; Robertson, Miracles, 12–14, reports that a tornado suspended a van containing a praying mother and her child above telephone wires. It then set them down unharmed and in the same position three blocks away, despite having destroyed much on the ground. For other sorts of "car miracles," see, e.g., DeGrandis, Miracles, 31–32, 41; Bredesen, Miracle, 7–8,
53–54; Anderson, Miracles, 26–27, 55–61, 101–2, 189–90, 209–10, 220–22 (some of which remind me, albeit usually less dramatically, of my own close call around winter 1979; also the incidents in my journal,
June 9, 1987; Jan. 24–30, 1999); Koch, Zulus, 87, 117–18, 245, 302–3, 305, 307; Sanford, Gifts, 217–18
(a key miracle); cf. roadside angel stories in Moolenburgh, Meetings, 5–42 (with evaluations); the account retold in Gaztambide, "Relocating," 41. Anderson, Miracles, 190–91, also reports claims of a telephone line working when it naturally could not (thereby preserving a life); on 226–29, miraculous protection during falls
(including a fall from the sixth story, without injury, 226; and, most impossibly from a natural standpoint, a child's fall from a window in progress reversed, 226–27; and witnesses claiming that a baby, ejected from an out-of-control car, was suspended six or seven feet in the air, then set down gently, unharmed, 228–29); a "falling" miracle also appears in DeGrandis, Miracles, 51. Apparently DeLonn Rance's plane ran out of fuel in Honduras, but ran anyway until their landing (Rance, "Fulfilling," 32–33; idem, personal correspondence,
Sept. 25, 27, 2010; known also to Byron Klaus, as evident in personal correspondence, Sept. 24, 2010; cf. a brief mention of flying on an empty fuel tank that Synan, "Foreword," 11, received from Demos Shakarian's pilot). What believers would count as miracles might stand behind even the report of a boy surviving a sixteen-story fall (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100725/ap_on_re_as/as_new_zealand16_story
_survival; accessed July 25, 2010) or the vast majority of passengers surviving a plane breaking apart (Vivian
Sequera, "'Miracle' in Colombia Crash: Woman Dies, 130 Live," Associated Press, http://news.yahoo
.com/s/ap/20100816/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_colombia_plane_crash), and the rescue of thirty-three miners in Chile (cf. testimony in the diary in http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11475156; accessed Oct. 15, 2010).
Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity
to exaggeration.589 Again, accounts like this could be multiplied. Clearly they do not always happen, but given what we know of nature, they should never happen.
Accounts in the Western Hemisphere Reports of answered prayers regarding nature appear in the Western Hemisphere, including in the United States590 and in Latin America.591 In 1965, a severe drought afflicted Santa Rosa, Guatemala, and many people were praying. In one small Pentecostal church, an interpretation of tongues instructed the church to dig in the pastor's backyard, and water would be found. Because his backyard was on a hill, people mocked the diggers as fanatics, but after six days of digging, they found sweet and plentiful water; the new well provided both water and witness to the entire town, and the church "grew from a few dozen to over 900" that year.592
My student Benjamin Ahanonu, from Nigeria, noted that when he was an undergraduate at Drexel University, InterVarsity had an outreach planned but rain was forecast and it was certainly raining that day. When he and his fellow students prayed, he said, the rain stopped, and they were able to conduct the outreach.593 I asked him if he knew how to reach any of the other students who were present; he gave me the name of his friend from that time, Simon Hauger, and noted that he is now a teacher in Philadelphia. When I tracked Simon down, he filled in further details.594 He noted that it apparently rained everywhere in Philadelphia that day except on the volleyball court where they were holding their outreach. He had told his father, who was not a Christian, that they were praying for no rain that day; that morning his father commented that it appeared that God had not answered his prayer. When it did not rain on the outreach, his father took notice, and still remembers that event to this day.
Given the abundance of eyewitness claims to what we consider nature miracles, there is no reason to doubt that eyewitnesses in Jesus's day could have made similar
589. Crump, Knocking, 13.
590. Briefly, see, e.g., Bennett, Morning, 100–103; Harris, Acts Today, 80; Sanford, Gifts, 216 (three layers of clouds opening just long enough for a plane to descend); Michael Licona, interviews, Nov. 20,
22, 2010. Some would also cite the publicly documented rebuke of Pat Robertson against Hurricane
Gloria (Oct. 1985); though supposed to strike Virginia Beach, the hurricane quickly turned northeast instead (Woodward, Miracles, 372). Much of Long Island, which now bore the brunt of the hurricane, may have felt less sanguine about attributing the shift to divine causation (though even in that region the damage proved much less severe than anticipated; cf. "Storm," 12, citing "luck"). Robertson, Miracles,
46–48, cites a succession of hurricanes turned back, improving what was previously labeled "hurricane alley."
591. Cf. Castleberry, "Impact," 111–12, for rains being mostly suspended precisely during scheduled outdoor evangelistic meetings in a rainy season (Ecuador, 1982).
592. Enrique Zone, in Wagner, "World," 95–97. In Malawi, massive rains ended a drought within an hour of the first public prayer for rain (Marszalek, Miracles, 2–4). Less dramatically, Mansfield, Pentecost,
38, notes the restoration of water flow in a house after prayers for it but allows that perhaps a plumber had intervened without their knowledge.
593. Benjamin Ahanonu, interview, Sept. 29, 2009.
594. Simon Hauger, phone interview, Dec. 4, 2009. I witnessed a similar event, which I recount in ch. 15 (also described in Keener, Gift, 62).
Blindness, Inability to Walk, Death, and Nature
claims in which they believed. The sorts of claims I have recounted in this chapter, however, often stretch the credibility of a nontheistic or nonsupernatural paradigm.
I believe that the stronger examples cumulatively invite open-minded hearers to consider the hypothesis of supernatural causation. We will try to weigh some of the evidence for such a hypothesis in the next three chapters.
Conclusion Many healing claims involve blindness, inability to walk, and even raisings from death; other claims involve sudden changes in nature after prayers. Despite some debatable instances, some other cases are fairly clearly extraordinary. It seems to me that to dispute that such phenomena have sometimes occurred is not really possible for open-minded people. What is more often disputed is what to make of such phenomena. How can investigators explain such phenomena? Different cases may require different sorts of explanations. We turn to this question in the following chapters.