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Faith Cure

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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.

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.

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.

I ordered this book with excitement and looked forward to this professor's dealing with such a neglected topic. Perhaps I expected too much, for I came to realize the subject was way too broad for 124 pages. The title should be changed to reflect the author's expertise and emphasis on divine healing as preached by female healers and experienced in the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The anecdotal contents of the book are interesting. For instance, I found the discussion of the types of medicine practiced in the late nineteenth century very informative. But I was shocked that the bibliography did not include any works of A. J. Tomlinson, the Church of God of Prophecy, H.Richard Hall, Margie Minton, Bobbie Jo Hamilton, David Roebuck's dissertation, or any reference to the contemporaneous New Thought movement of Nona Brooks, Phineas Quimby, Ernest Holmes, or the Fillmores. The author's insertion of cutesy-remarks also lent a degree of frivolity to this important topic. I do not mean to imply that I am totally negative about the book, but reiterate that I was motivated to purchase it by the title and looked forward to reading it, but in the end was disappointed.