Faith Cure [Paperback]

Hardesty (Author), Nancy Hardesty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2003

As Holiness denominations began to emerge out of Methodism and other denominations, they were characterized by three distinctive teachings: sanctification, divine healing, and dispensational views of the second coming. This book will look at the second element: the roots of divine healing teaching, its results, its practitioners, its cultural milieu, its biblical and theological foundations, and its relevance today. In general, in this period Holiness and Pentecostal leaders offered healing as an experience and expectation within the community of faith and did not see themselves in any way as dispensers of healing. Their teaching and practice has persisted in many churches today. Hardesty focuses on the period from roughly 1870 to 1920, and in the last chapters, discusses spiritual healing and its connection with the broader cultural search for alternative medicines.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

This is a book about faith healing—not about faith healers. As the Holiness movements developed in the second half of the nineteenth century and the Pentecostal movement branched off in the early twentieth century, divine healing based on the model in James 5:14–15 was a central belief and practice. The growth of these movements, their leaders, and their practice of healing will be outlined in chapters 2, 3, 4, 8, and 9.

From the Inside Flap

"Nancy Hardesty's Faith Cure is a well-written and fascinating study of divine healing movements in both the Holiness and Pentecostal movements. This book is an important contribution to an area of study that has been largely neglected in the past. I highly recommend it to both scholars and general readers."

—Vinson Synan, Dean of the School of Divinity, Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia

"Faith healing brings to mind emotion-charged Pentecostal revivals in the years after World War II. In this stunning work, Hardesty deftly explores a different strand of the story, one often ignored if not forgotten. Drawing on a vast array of primary sources, she shows how the Wesleyan Holiness movement of the nineteenth century, in addition to its emphasis on an experience of sanctification after salvation, generated a passionate interest in healing.

Based on the epistle of James’s insistence that the prayer of faith will heal the sick, not on Pentecostal gifts of the Spirit, healing, as Hardesty ably demonstrates, once pervaded Holiness groups like the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Hardesty probes the hitherto untold story of Holiness healing homes that drew thousands when hospitals were few. She also convincingly shows how scores of sanctified women had viable healing ministries in a day when ordination was restricted to men.

Hardesty also wrestles with the thorny issue of how Holiness advocates dealt with failure, and, in a careful analysis, she tracks the decline of faith cure to the rise of medicine as a science, greater public acclaim given to Pentecostal healers, and passing of a generation of those committed to both sanctification and healing.

In a brilliant conclusion, Hardesty links the recent recovery of a holistic approach to medicine and the growing awareness among physicians that deep faith makes a difference with patients to Holiness faith cure.

Extraordinarily well-written, this book is a "must-read" for anyone interested in American religious life and the intricate ties between faith and health."

—Charles H. Lippy, LeRoy A. Martin Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers (November 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565637143
• ISBN-13: 978-1565637146
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,650,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I really enjoyed reading this book., March 10, 2004

By 

L. Davis "slugom24" (Troutdale, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Faith Cure (Paperback)

I am not an historian, but I have been interested in history for most of my life, especially historical aspects of Christianity. My professional background is in psychology, and I have taught on the college level for thirty-two years. It is very apparent that Nancy Hardesty thoroughly researched the subject and has sifted through scores of original documents to get to the fascinating stories of the individuals involved in the Christian healing movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hardesty is careful to state at the outset that her book is not about faith healers, such as those seen on TV and those who conduct large crusades across the country today. I did find the biographical sketches of the men and women who were part of this movement to be at time deeply inspirational, surprising, unusual, controversial, and necessary to my understanding of it. For instance, it was important for me to learn that these individuals were part of a time in history when many had a primarily negative attitude toward doctors and medicine--many people were hurt or died as a result of so-called "doctors" and their practice of "medicine." Ignorance and quackery mixed with drugs, poisons, and other unhelpful treatments left many hopeless with their physical ailments. In short, the medical profession today is much different than it was during the time when the healing movement got underway in Europe and America. The information in the book proved very helpful in my own understanding of the origins of pentecostal and holiness healing movements and why they were so powerful and controversial. The last chapter is a provocative exploration of some of the newest medical experiments which suggest that faith, prayer, religion, and community are positively correlated with healing. As a child growing up in a very conservative and non-pentecostal Christian church, I was taught to be fearful and very suspect of "those types of people and churches--the so-called 'holy rollers'." The information in the book has enabled me to put my own religious upbringing in more of an historical context, and in doing so, I believe I have become more understanding and tolerant of those who have had different spiritual experiences than I have had. Quite unexpectedly, on some pages I found myself marveling at the faith of the individuals discussed and on other pages questioning my own level of faith and my trust in God.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Historical Account of Divine Healing Doctrine, April 25, 2005

By 

Troy Edwards (Rhode Island) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faith Cure (Paperback)

Ms. Hardesty provides an excellent historical account of the divine healing movements in America. She tells us the crisis that lead some to study the subject of divine healing and then begin to preach it to others. In this book we get a glimpse of the pioneers of this movement and the crisis and teachings that lead them to embrace the truth of divine healing as a valid Christian doctrine for this age and the things that lead them to practice this belief and proclaim it to others. We also see how this preaching on divine healing had an effect on the Holiness, Pentecostal, and Charismatic movements of the past and present centuries. It is amazing that some of the teachings that some today claim to be "Word of Faith" or "Third Wave" were taught long before such movements were in existence. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. One will see from Hardesty's book how the divine healing movements of the past has strongly influenced the teaching in our present day Charismatic circles. When one reads Ms. Hardeswty's book, one will have no doubt that God continues to honor His Word with signs following and that He is still the Lord our Healer who delights to heal in our present age.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Useful Contribution to the Study of Faith Cure, March 10, 2006

By 

Cameron B. Clark (Bristow, Virginia United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Faith Cure (Paperback)

This book contributes to the study of the 19th & early 20th century movements that were involved in healing through faith. As the book's title and subtitle indicate, the focus is on faith cure as it relates to "Divine Healing in the Holiness and Pentecostal movements," not mind cure in the New Thought and Christian Science movements of the time which were more theologically liberal and heterodox in comparison. However, aside from the theological differences between the movements, there's an ambiguity of understanding the difference between "faith cure" and "mind cure" that is not sufficiently addressed in Ms. Hardesty's book. She admits that both the faith cure movement and Christian Science, for example, "saw themselves as based in the Bible, following the practice of Jesus, and accomplishing the miraculous" and that "both saw themselves as exercising faith." However, she asserts that "the main point of difference is that Christian Science sees disease as rooted in incorrect thinking while Holiness people tend to see it as a physically real affliction, most often caused by sin or Satan." Although this is true, there is ambiguity regarding how incorrect thinking relates to sin or how divine healing, as a supernatural or miraculous act of God, relates to faith. The book "Counterfeit Miracles" (1918) by Benjamin B. Warfield addressed the ambiguity regarding faith healing in the chapter on "Mind-Cure" by stating: "When we speak of `faith-healing' we use ambiguous language so far as we leave it undetermined whether we understand the healing in question to be effected immediately by the action of the faith itself, or by the God to whom it is committed in faith. In the latter case the healing is, in the proper sense of the word, a supernatural one. In the former it is a natural healing, as natural as if it were wrought by a surgical operation or by a drug." Warfield goes on to point out that since the term "faith-cure" is frequently used to express cures caused by faith, it becomes indistinguishable from so-called "mind-cure" since faith as "some mental act or state is held to be the producing cause at work".

In many places, Ms. Hardesty uses the term "divine healing" as synonymous with "faith healing" or "faith cure," which promotes ambiguity since some faith healing is natural, not supernaturally wrought by God, although within the parameters of his providence. Many proponents of Christian Science and New Thought are naturally healed through their "mind cure" and/or "faith cure" practices, and it is foolish for conservative Christians to label such healing as "demonic" and/or "not of God" just because they disagree with the theology behind such practices. Ms. Hardesty also states: "A variety of other groups shared Christian Science's viewpoint with regard to healing: Unity School of Christianity, Religious Science, and New Thought" which are "sometimes collectively referred to as Mind Cure (in distinction to Faith Cure)." Her ignorance of important distinctions is again revealed. Unity School of Christianity (later called just "Unity") and Religious Science are denominations within the New Thought Movement, not distinct from it, and there are some notable differences between the viewpoints of Christian Science and New Thought in general. From my own studies of New Thought, I must say that some of the practices of New Thought proponents are identical to some of the practices of conservative Christian faith healers, although their views of God, Christ and salvation in general may differ radically.

A good companion to Ms. Hardesty's book is Dale Simmons' "E. W. Kenyon and the Postbellum Pursuit of Peace, Power, and Plenty." Unlike Ms. Hardesty, he writes with an awareness of the distinctions between New Thought and Christian Science while also seeing some commonality between the New Thought movement and the "Higher Christian Life" and/or "Faith Cure" movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries not only in terms of physical healing but also overall well-being. E. W. Kenyon is one author that is not mentioned by Ms. Hardesty but, according to Simmons, is an influential bridge between the curative interests of these movements in the 19th century and the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements in the 20th. Like Dale Simmons, Ms. Hardesty touches on the medical climate of the 19th century and how alternative medical practices such as homeopathy as well as faith cure related to and struggled with the mainstream or "orthodox" medical experts. Since hospitals at the time were more like "charity institutions than medical establishments," so-called "healing homes" (a.k.a. "faith homes") were established to fulfill many health needs.

One of the most valuable chapters in the book is Chapter 10, When Healing Fails. Here she explores some of the reasons why faith cure practices declined including, among other things, the progress of organized medicine which sometimes attacked legally those who practiced "divine healing". Also contributing to the decline was the rise of fundamentalism. Fundamentalist critics such as Benjamin B. Warfield, quoted earlier, were influential. This doesn't mean that faith cure practices ceased. Chapter 11, Healing for Today, introduces some recent scientific studies that show the positive, healthy effects of religion and prayer in general and lightly touches on some of the healing traditions and popular "faith healers" of today.

Although Ms. Hardesty states that her book is about faith healing instead of faith healers, it is primarily an historical introduction to prominent 19th century faith healers and their influence on others, including those that contributed to Pentecostalism which, she says, "began with a healing". She includes a chapter on theology (Chapter 7), noting that the key concept disputed by detractors was that divine healing was "in the atonement," but it would have been nice to see an exposition of some of the detractors' main arguments against this doctrine as well as the faith cure movement's rebuttals. Also, further theological and biblical exploration on the nature of sin (original sin, willful sin, etc.) and its relationship to incorrect thinking and false beliefs (mind cure concerns) as well as diabolical (Satanic/demonic) causes of sickness and suffering would have been welcome along with an attempt to lessen the ambiguities surrounding the distinction between natural and supernatural healing. Nonetheless, the book contributes to filling a gap that needs further study and is therefore recommended.