Healing in the History of Christianity [Hardcover]

Amanda Porterfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2005

Healing is one of the most constant themes in the long and sprawling history of Christianity. Jesus himself performed many miracles of healing. In the second century, St. Ignatius was the first to describe the eucharist as the medicine of immortality. Prudentius, a 4th-century poet and Christian apologist, celebrated the healing power of St. Cyprian's tongue. Bokenham, in his 15th-century Legendary, reported the healing power of milk from St. Agatha's breasts. Zulu prophets in 19th-century Natal petitioned Jesus to cure diseases caused by restless spirits. And Mary Baker Eddy invoked the Science of Divine Mind as a weapon against malicious animal magnetism. In this book Amanda Porterfield demonstrates that healing has played a major role in the historical development of Christianity as a world religion. Porterfield traces the origin of Christian healing and maps its transformations in the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. She shows that Christian healing had its genesis in Judean beliefs that sickness and suffering were linked to sin and evil, and that health and healing stemmed from repentance and divine forgiveness. Examining Jesus' activities as a healer and exorcist, she shows how his followers carried his combat against sin and evil and his compassion for suffering into new and very different cultural environments, from the ancient Mediterranean to modern America and beyond. She explores the interplay between Christian healing and medical practice from ancient times up to the present, looks at recent discoveries about religion's biological effects, and considers what these findings mean in light of ages-old traditions about belief and healing. Changing Christian ideas of healing, Porterfield shows, are a window into broader changes in religious authority, church structure, and ideas about sanctity, history, resurrection, and the kingdom of God. Her study allows us to see more clearly than ever before that healing has always been and remains central to the Christian vision of sin and redemption, suffering and bodily resurrection.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tell the story of healing throughout Christian history in under 250 pages;a daunting task? Absolutely. But Porterfield, a religion professor at Florida State University, pulls it off admirably. In her view, healing encompasses more than just dramatic miracles worked by Jesus or his followers. Learning to live with chronic pain can be seen as a form of healing, as can repentance and the experience of being forgiven. The early church frequently described Christ as a physician and suggested that spiritual healing could protect believers from physical illness. Christians nursed the sick in a conscious emulation of Christ's ministry. The medieval church developed the idea that the body parts of long-dead saints could heal, and icons were considered "vehicles of healing power." This book is boldly global in scope—the chapters on the early modern and modern eras travel from China to South Africa—yet one wishes that Porterfield, who cut her scholarly teeth on colonial New England, would have written a bit more about the U.S. Nonetheless, she proves that healing is a central theme in Christian history, and is a fascinating lens through which to examine the Christian faith. Indeed, she has produced not just a history of healing in Christianity, but a history of Christianity itself. (Nov.)
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Review

"In these days of medical miracles and double-blind tests of intercessory prayer, Amanda Porterfield provides a welcome introduction to the 2,000-year-old history of Christianity and healing. Ranging from Galilee to Lourdes (and beyond), she investigates the intriguing world of angels and demons and boldly explores the biological bases of spiritual healing." -- Ronald L. Numbers, Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, Department of Medical History and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin

"In an era newly attentive to the relationship between religion and health, this striking analysis of Christianity as a religion of healing offers insights deeply informed by imaginative research, breadth of scope, and clarity of argument. Beginning with the texts of the New Testament and concluding with the healers and hospital builders of the late twentieth century, Amanda Porterfield provides a skillful description of the manifold ways that Christians have engaged in practices of healing for the past two thousand years. The book is an eye-opener." -- E. Brooks Holifield, author of Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War

"This wide-ranging survey is unusually even-handed in its treatment of a difficult and controversial subject. In particular, Porterfield is entirely persuasive in arguing that healing--as a multi-faceted response to suffering and evil--has been at the heart of Christian practice from the time of Jesus to the present. Her sensitive treatments of the large place of healing in Christian missions and in the recent world expansion of Christianity are especially welcome." -- Mark A. Noll, author of America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

"This book represents a singularly important contribution to the study of the history of Christianity. With sparkling prose, Porterfield shows that Christianity, from the beginning to the present, and in all parts of the world, has concerned itself with the healing of broken bodies. The scope of the story Porterfield tells, and the richness of the documents she consults, establish a standard of excellence for all future studies of the subject."--Grant A. Wacker, author of Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture

"Porterfield proves that healing is a central theme in Christian history, and is a fascinating lens through which to examine the Christian faith. Indeed, she has produced not just a history of healing in Christianity, but a history of Christianity itself."--Publishers Weekly

"Porterfield weaves her narrative with skill and dexterity... A complicated, sometimes chaotic, but consistently captivating configuration of Christian history -- a vibrant and compelling picture that offers a distinctive perspective on how and why Christianity has flourished in diverse cultural, social, and historical settings." --ooks & Culture

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (August 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195157184
• ISBN-13: 978-0195157185
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #859,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Worthy Effort that Leaves Some More to be Desired, June 4, 2011

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This review is from: Healing in the History of Christianity (Paperback)

Amanda Porterfield follows the course of healing as an expression of Christianity during the faith's history starting with Jesus' own ministry. Through her studies, Porterfield discovers that healing has consistently been a central element in the faith throughout its global reach. Porterfield explores how Christians have attempted to relieve sickness and suffering in response to Christ's example and his redemptive work. This spans the practice of laying on of hands and exorcisms of the first Christians to more recent medical centers inspired by the faith.

Healing in the History of Christianity takes readers on a journey patterned by brief stops with Jesus, his early disciples and those who would come in the proceeding centuries throughout Europe, Asia, North and South America, Russia and Africa. Porterfield shows how Christian healing continually revamps itself in time and place. Christianity has inspired its adherents to reach out to the suffering in many forms. Porterfield examines a plethora of these; however, due to the scope of this exercise many facets are left untouched.

An attempt to trace the history of healing in Christianity becomes a study of the history of Christianity itself. Porterfield shows that the Christian message without the ministry of healing is found to be incomplete. In her survey, she helps paint the picture of Christian healing, sometimes with broad strokes and at other times with precise artistry.

Porterfield's willingness to approach this subject with an open mind and follow various paths assures that all readers will learn surprising details. Conversely, readers may also wonder what inspires Porterfield to follow some trails such as Native American ghost dances while ignoring others such as Mother Teresa's ministry to the poor and suffering. The author makes minimal use of Scripture and often seems uncritically dependent on secondary sources and to lack both intimacy and depth with her topics.

Rather than discussing Jesus' ministry of healing and his disciples' continuation of it, Porterfield gets bogged down in source criticism of the gospels themselves. She falls into the trap of the ill-informed Jesus Seminar practices of labeling portions of the gospel as valid and others as embellishments. As she examines the early church, she fails to highlight the central role of healing in the book of Acts or spend much time on the writings of Paul, James and Peter who also highlight healing among Christians. Porterfield fails to mention the spiritual gift of healing cited by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians. She connects Paul's inspiration to Greek stoicism which is strange considering he repeatedly urged his audiences to rejoice and describes his own weeping and joy. This is one example of Porterfield's apparent disconnect with her subject, but is replayed throughout the book, as the author seems to follow tangents inspired by secondary sources.

I wish she had also discussed contemporary healing ministries, Christian hospital systems and their impact today.

Despite the book's flaws, readers are sure to stay interested and to share Porterfield's conclusions about the significance of healing in Christianity.