A Social Anthropologist’s Analysis of Contemporary Healing, Part 1

 

How do doctors respond to claims of healing? Are there any lasting social effects when people experience divine healing?

 

What kinds of healings are associated with contemporary Christian healing ministries, conferences for training Christians in praying for healing, and such ministry in many evangelical churches? How do medical doctors perceive the healings? How do healings relate to the revelations known as “words of knowledge” (I Cor. 12:8; 14:24-25)¹? Can associated physical phenomena be explained by psychological mechanisms? Why does God appear to heal some kinds of people more often than others?

These are important questions which for the most part have been ignored by critics of healing ministries, who have tended to concentrate on theological and historical questions rather than medical, sociological or psychological aspects.² These are the dimensions to healing which I wish to examine in this chapter, since the theological issues have been addressed by other contributors to this book. In particular I shall present some of the detailed findings from my comprehensive follow-up study of one of John Wimber’s conferences as an example of contemporary cases of healing.

In 1986 a detailed questionnaire was given to all those who attended John Wimber’s Signs and Wonders (Part II) conference in Harrogate, England. The questionnaires were collected just before the final session of the conference. Out of the 2,470 people registered for the conference, 1,890 returned usable forms, producing a response rate of 76.5% (which is very high in comparison with most sociological surveys). These were processed through a computer at Nottingham University.

Using a random number table, I then selected from these 1,890 respondents a random sample of 100 people whom I followed up between six and ten months after the conference. With ninety-three of them I was able to conduct in-depth personal interviews, involving my traveling almost literally throughout the length and breadth of Britain. Another seven people had to be interviewed over the telephone or by mail because they lived outside Britain or were unavailable for other reasons. My research combined the breadth of the questionnaire with the depth of the interviews. Some other potentially interesting cases outside the random sample were also followed up by telephone, mail or personal interview. Where appropriate, specialist medical opinions were sought regarding various cases of healing. Although each patient signed a form consenting to the release of confidential medical information, the doctors varied considerably in the extent to which they were willing to co-operate.

Much criticism of evangelical healing ministries and, in particular, of John Wimber and the Vineyard Christian Fellowship has been expressed in print recently. The research described above followed on from the preliminary study which I had undertaken in 1985 of John Wimber’s Signs and Wonders (Part I) conference in Sheffield. My report on that conference was published as an appendix to Wimber’s book Power Healing.³ The report was apparently available to Donald Lewis, who later wrote that his intention was, “to reflect upon my own experience of John Wimber’s conferences, rather than to critique what he has written (although I have read his books). My aim is to evaluate one such gathering from the vantage point of an observer-participant.”⁴

Although participant-observation is a standard research method among cultural anthropologists like myself, it is almost always supplemented by in-depth interviews and attempts to understand the perspectives of the participants themselves. Unfortunately, almost all of Lewis’ evaluation was of Wimber’s theology: he gave no evidence of any interviews with other participants, assessments of the accuracy of “words of knowledge,” evaluations of the kinds of healings which took place or analyses of other aspects of the ministry.

What sounds more impressive is the so-called “medical evaluation of a Wimber meeting” presented by Verna Wright, FRCS, Professor of Rheumatology at Leeds University, when addressing a conference in London on 15 November 1986. Wright’s so-called “medical evaluation” is based on the second-hand opinions of five unnamed doctors whose description gives no indication of any attempt to interview other participants.⁵ As is the case with other observers, many of the comments tend to be more of the nature of opinion than fact, largely because of the absence of systematic data collection.

 

Medical Views of Healing

It is not surprising that Wright should have come across cases of people who were not healed after receiving prayer at one of John Wimber’s conferences, because these are the very people who are likely to go back again to their doctors afterwards for further treatment. By contrast, many of those who had received healing after prayer had seen no need to consult their doctors again. This process means that some medical doctors are likely to hear a disproportionate number of “negative” cases.

Other doctors, however, confirm that they have come across cases of apparently inexplicable recovery following Christian prayer. “More and more Christian doctors, cautious by nature and training, are beginning to expect the unexpected. In ways that defy medical explanation they sometimes see instantaneous, sometimes gradual, reversals of the disease process. ‘It’s an answer to prayer,’ they confess.”⁶

Some of the most thorough investigations in this area have been conducted by Dr. Rex Gardner, a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist. His Presidential address to the Newcastle and Northern Counties Medical Society was published in the prestigious British Medical Journal and contained half a dozen medically documented cases of otherwise inexplicable healings associated with prayer in Christ’s name.⁷ Following on from his article in the British Medical Journal, Gardner wrote a book containing many more well-documented contemporary cases of Christian healings which could appropriately be described as “miraculous”.⁸ One of them, for example, concerns “Rebecca,” a nine-year old girl whose audiograms and tympanograms showed a hearing loss of 70 decibels in her right ear and 40 in her left. “The consultant confirmed that she was nerve deaf in both ears and that there was no cure, no operation, nothing he could do.” However, Rebecca and others among her family and friends began to pray for God’s healing. On 8 March 1983 Rebecca had to attend the audiologist to obtain a new hearing aid. The following night, at 9:30 PM she came running down from bed to say, “Mummy, I can hear!” Her parents tested her and found she could hear even their whispers. When they telephoned the consultant, he replied, “I don’t believe you. It’s not possible. All right, if some miracle has happened I am delighted. Have audiograms done.” Rebecca’s audiograms and tympanograms were normal on the 10th March 1983—48 hours after the audiologist had seen her and knew she was deaf. Both the audiologist and the consultant were unable to give any kind of known medical explanation for the healing.⁹

In my follow-up study of John Wimber’s Harrogate conference, I found a number of cases which were similarly difficult or impossible to explain away by reference to known medical processes. One of those whom I followed up told me how in 1983 she had received many injuries to her neck, back, arms and right knee when she had been involved in a “severe car crash.” She had prolonged treatment, including frequent physiotherapy sessions, but continued to have pain in her right knee. In 1986 a consultant diagnosed her as having contracted Hoffa’s disease in her knee. This is “post-traumatic intra-pattellar fat pad syndrome,” but once the condition is established it is “virtually incapable of cure other than by surgical excision [i.e. cutting out] of the painful piece of fat.”

However, at John Wimber’s Harrogate conference this same woman received prayer for her knee and discovered a very significant improvement: “Now it’s so much better that the only time I feel it is if I’ve been for a long walk or bang it against something … [such as] when I knocked it against some steel railings and knocked the knee badly.…” She therefore said it was “90% to 95% healed.” Some people, however, might say it was actually 100% healed, if these isolated incidents were due not to the Hoffa’s disease but to natural bruising or other factors.

In this case, the woman’s doctor, in reply to my inquiry, could only repeat the consultant’s opinion that it is “virtually incapable of cure” except through surgery. He then commented, “I gather she is now very much better and she regards herself as cured.”¹⁰

This kind of case certainly does not fit the superficial opinion (unsupported by any objective evidence) that the healings which occur at Wimber’s conferences “are not real miracles at all but are only self-induced ‘mind cures’ for relatively innocuous and unverifiable ailments.”¹¹ In an appendix to my book Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact? I list all the different types of physical complaints for which people received prayer at Harrogate.¹² I also give the maximum, minimum and mean (average) degrees of healing for each condition on a nine-point scale from no healing (point one) through to total healing (point nine). The sixty-eight cases reported of total healing included conditions as diverse as arthritis in the neck, hand or leg; severe bone malformation due to injury; painful and swollen lymph glands; inability to hear in the higher register; eye squint; hernia; prolapse of the womb; cystitis; allergic reactions; vaginal bleeding (which had been continuing for twenty-five days); sleeping sickness; endometriosis; urinary problems; fever; breathing difficulties; and pain behind the eyes.

Among the 1890 people who filled in a questionnaire, 621 had received prayer for some kind of physical healing. As some of these had prayer for more than one condition, there were a total of 867 cases. By the end of the conference, some noticeable improvement was reported in 58% of these cases. It is significant that, when I followed up the random sample of 100 people between six months and a year later, virtually the same percentage (57%) reported a sustained and noticeable improvement since the conference.

Although healings did take place at the conference itself, the primary intention of the conference was to train Christians to pray for healing in their own local situations. I therefore asked those I interviewed to what extent they had put the teachings into practice, and what results they had obtained. Though many had prayed for other Christians, with varying results, some of the most interesting cases came from the minority who had been willing to try praying in this way for non-Christians. Often they saw signs of God’s power in unexpected ways. For instance, the following account was related to me by a young woman in a northern English city:

“We’d been doing a scheme of door-to-door visitation … but I started off on the wrong street. I knocked on the door and then realized that we’d already done that street—but in fact no one had visited that house. I explained who we were and asked if there was anything she needed. She then said, ‘My baby’s got cancer.’

… I’d only been a Christian eight months, and it was a first in everything. I spoke to [my vicar] and he encouraged me to pray for the baby.… I’d been to Harrogate with him—just for the last day, and then I went to the team visit at the Grammar school—and he told me to do what I’d seen them doing.

I saw stage by stage, week by week, [the baby’s] recovery.… One day … I prayed all day.… I couldn’t get him out of my mind.… Even by bedtime I was still praying. I was about to give up because I felt God wouldn’t heal unless [the mother] made a commitment [to Christ]. The next day [the baby] was pronounced healed.”

From the hospital consultant concerned, I was able to obtain copies of the baby’s records. They confirmed this account in detail, and showed that the tumor did suddenly disappear in between two of the hospital examinations. It was also at the time when this young Christian had been praying.¹³

The consultant claimed that this was a case of “spontaneous remission.” However, the available medical literature on this particular type of tumor—called infantile fibrosarcoma—contains no reference to any other case of “spontaneous remission.” In fact, a detailed follow-up study of forty-eight cases showed that eight patients had died and the others had been treated by surgery, sometimes followed by chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The more severe cases had required amputation of the limb. There were no recorded cases of “spontaneous remission.”¹⁴

The case detailed above, in which the tumor disappeared after persistent prayer and without any medical treatment, was in fact a severe case. It involved a malignant tumor which had grown around the nerves and arteries. Treatment of it would normally have necessitated amputation of the baby’s arm. The consultant had no other explanation but the rather unlikely one of so-called “spontaneous remission.”¹⁵

“Spontaneous remission” is in itself a loose, catch-all term which does not explain anything but simply admits that an explanation for the recovery is beyond the present bounds of medical knowledge. Christians who have been praying interpret the events as a divine intervention, but the doctor has no other medical term than the rather hollow one of “spontaneous remission.” In a case of this kind, to speak in terms of probabilities and statistics seems a more fruitful approach than arguing about whether or not the healing can be “explained away” by calling it “spontaneous remission.” Such arguments involve the well-known problems of the “God of the gaps” theories, and seem to involve a rather mechanistic, nineteenth-century view of the universe. Nowadays, scientific progress in fields as diverse as genetics and nuclear physics makes much more use of probability and statistics. In medicine too, new drugs are tested and the results analyzed according to whether or not they are associated with a statistically significant difference among a sample of patients: they do not necessarily produce cures in everyone. Similarly, in examining cases of miraculous healing, a more fruitful approach is to ask how likely it is that particular results would have been produced by known medical treatments. Very often, we find that prayer is associated with outcomes which would have been very unlikely from a medical point of view.

Words of Knowledge

A statistical approach is also very useful in analyzing the revelations commonly referred to as “words of knowledge”¹⁶. Certainly some of these seem to be very “general” and could be expected to apply to at least one or two people in a congregation. More specific ones, however, are less easily dismissed, as I demonstrated in my report on Wimber’s Sheffield conference.¹⁷ A good example of a highly specific word of knowledge occurred at the Harrogate conference, when John Wimber announced the following revelation:

“There’s a woman named Janet who at eleven years of age had a minor accident that’s proven to be a problem throughout her adult life. It had something to do with an injury to her tailbone but now it’s caused other kinds of problems and so there’s radiating pain that comes down over her—er—lower back and down over her backside and down her legs. It has something to do with damage to a nerve but it also has to do with some sort of a functional problem with the—um—I think it’s called the sacroiliac.”

There was indeed someone who matched this description exactly. She was in the overflow hall down the road, where she received prayer for healing. Over a year later she wrote to me, “My back appears healed and I am not receiving any discomfort from it.” Elsewhere I have analyzed this example and worked out the statistical probabilities of correctly guessing all these features by chance alone. I found that, even with very conservative figures, the chances against accurately diagnosing all these various details by chance alone were at least three million to one.¹⁸

Moreover, those responding to such highly specific words of knowledge also tended to report higher degrees of associated healing than those responding to less specific revelations. This process is obscured in the overall percentages of people receiving healing because at the Harrogate conference many more people responded to a less specific word of knowledge for anyone with skeletal problems (including arthritis) to receive prayer: their degrees of healing ranged from “a great deal” or “total” healing through to “little” or none. It was only in the subsequent statistical analysis that I discovered the tendency for more specific words of knowledge to be associated with greater degrees of healing.¹⁹

One of Wimber’s critics—Dr. Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London—regards supernatural revelations in the Bible as divinely inspired but classifies contemporary revelations like those given to Wimber as examples of occult “clairvoyance,” which he describes as “disobedient to God’s word and highly dangerous.”²⁰ He is right about the dangers of occultism, but may be mistaken in classifying all modern revelations, including those occurring in Christian contexts, as “occult”.²¹ Certainly I have found that the revelations associated with Wimber and some of his associates are far more specific and accurate than comparable data available from scientific studies of “extra-sensory perception” or of the revelations attributed to psychics and mediums.²² There is also evidence of fraud involving a well-known British medium named Doris Stokes.²³ However, in my studies of Wimber’s conferences I have been able to rule out the likelihood of fraud on the grounds that those registering for the conference had no previous contact with the American visitors. The conferences were advertised in popular Christian magazines and organized by different groups of local Christians who had no control over those who might apply to attend. Moreover, through their exposure to the training received at Wimber’s conferences many “ordinary” Christians have also begun to receive similar kinds of divine revelations in the course of their own ministries.²⁴

 

Inner Healing

Another area of controversy concerns what is variously called “inner healing,” “healing of the memories” or “emotional healing”. Often this approach to healing is concerned with overcoming the effects of past hurts which can affect attitudes and behaviour in the present. Matzat argues, however, that the main founders of “inner healing,” especially Agnes Sanford and Morton Kelsey, took their ideas from secular psychology. In particular, the ideas behind ministering to childhood hurts buried in the subconscious are said to be taken from Sigmund Freud’s “depth psychology”.²⁵

To a large extent, it is possible to accept this general criticism of Sanford and Kelsey even if one might quibble with some of the details. However, influential practitioners of “inner healing” are aware of some of these difficulties and they warn against the uncritical use of certain kinds of “inner healing.” For example, John Wimber writes,

“I am using the term ‘inner healing’ sparingly … because different authors use it to mean so many different things, many of which I do not agree with. In many instances inner healing is based on secular psychological views of how our personalities are formed and influenced. But where these views contradict the biblical teaching, they must be firmly rejected.”²⁶

Matzat further claims that methods of “visualizing” Jesus in various scenes from the past (as advocated by Agnes Sanford or Rita Bennett) were borrowed from Karl Jung, another major founder of modern psychology.²⁷ However, although I came across many cases of “inner healing” in my study of John Wimber’s Harrogate conference, very few of them involved a person receiving a visual picture of Jesus. Wimber in fact says that they do not encourage such visualization. Instead, most instances of “inner healing” were dealt with by forgiveness, repentance, confession and other widely recognized biblical principles, without recourse to “visualization.”²⁸

Nevertheless, there are cases in which Jesus does appear to people and minister appropriately to their inner hurts. One of the most dramatic instances concerns “Jill,” a seventeen year old girl who had come to live with her pastor’s family. The pastor’s wife told me the following story:

“… Her parents divorced when Jill was four years old. Her mother was anti-Christian and would have nothing in the house which was Christian. Jill became a Christian when she was ten and had to carry her Bible with her and sleep with it under her mattress or else it would be destroyed.… Her mother’s boyfriend subjected her to all forms of abuse—everything. Jill’s sister who is two years younger had everything lavished upon her but Jill was totally deprived.…

After she came to live here, she woke every night screaming with nightmares from what her mother’s boyfriend had done to her. No man could go near, only I could.…

[One night we] heard her rattling the door in her nightdress. We took her back to bed and as we were doing so we were aware she was talking—in a very childish voice.… She talked as a four year old.… It was the time of the divorce and she relived it: horror and horror. ([Her mother’s boyfriend] sexually handled her, burned her, choked her—she was literally going red in the face and not breathing: we couldn’t believe what we were experiencing.) She would even say what she had for dinner—but at the end of the day said, ‘My Jesus is coming. He’s so big.’ It was so delightful. She gave a full description of how he was dressed: ‘Long, white and shiny, and a shiny thing round his waist. Gold varnish on feet and hands, a pretty sticky-up thing on his head—and his eyes, his eyes … ‘—four year old language. The first one was ‘Mummy’s friend’ but ‘My friend is big—my friend is bigger than your friend. Mind your head, Jesus, don’t bump your head on the door.’ Then he’d come and minister to her. He had pockets on his robe: ‘I wonder what he’s got for me?’ Cream to soothe bruises or beating, plasters to put on. Something to eat—she was starved as well. She would go through the motions—a big strawberry milkshake.…”

There is no way in which I could attribute this girl’s experience to the influence of suggestion. In fact, Jill’s pastor and his wife recorded her later experiences and were able to confirm the accuracy of her memories from her own diaries. They took it in turns on successive nights to be present in Jill’s room when they began to hear her talking. On two occasions, while Jill was being ministered to by Jesus, they saw a mist or cloud filling part of the room. It was so dense on the second occasion that it “covered half a chair, blotted out the dressing table and just a bit of the mirror was poking out of the mist.” They later identified it with the Shekhinah cloud of God’s presence and glory which is mentioned in the Bible (e.g. Exodus 33:9; 2 Chronicles 5:13-14; Matthew 17:5).

One other detail further highlights the divine character of Jill’s visions. On one occasion, Jesus brought her a “knickerbocker glory” ice cream with a large strawberry at the bottom. Later, when she went on holiday with her pastor’s family, they all decided to have knickerbocker glories—Jill’s first taste of a “material” one. Hers alone turned out to have a large strawberry at its base!

Jill’s experiences continued for a few months and were punctuated by a recurring vision of a house, the rooms of which symbolized various areas of her past life. As these were dealt with, the doors were shut on them. Finally, Jesus took her outside the front door and across the lawn to where her pastor and his wife were standing. He handed her over to them, indicating that her treatment was over. After this, her visions of Jesus ceased.

The extent of her healing is shown by the fact that she has now been accepted for training as a psychiatric nurse. During her interview for the course, she was asked how she felt about dealing with sexually abused children. Jill replied that she could handle it because she had been through that experience herself. When asked if she needed counseling for it, she said that she did not need it and told the interviewers about her own experiences of healing. The fact that they recognized her healing and accepted her for training as a psychiatric nurse testifies to the effectiveness of what Jesus had done for her. Moreover, because of her own experiences she now seems to have a special rapport with children who have been sexually abused, who instinctively seem to know they can trust Jill.

We have to ask, therefore, whether God can make use of methods at certain times which appear to parallel those of secular psychology. Essentially, we have to ask whether the one who created humanity and designed human psychology in the first place also knows the kinds of techniques which are most appropriate for healing it. Are these methods ones which God has made available because he knows that sometimes they might be necessary?

Confusion has arisen because of a failure to distinguish between sources and methods.²⁹ For physical healing it is clear that God makes use of a variety of methods, so why should the same not be true of emotional or psychological healing? The Gospels record that Jesus used many different methods for healing conditions which are all described as ‘blindness’ (though the causes in each case are not specified). On one occasion Jesus gave a word of command (Mark 10:52), on another occasion spat in the blind man’s eyes and then laid hands on them (Mark 8:23-25), and at another time rebuked a demonic spirit causing the blindness (Matthew 12:22). On yet another occasion he spat on the ground and mixed his saliva with mud before applying it to the blind man’s eyes and telling him to wash it off in the pool of Siloam (John 9:6-7).

It seems that Jesus may not have been the first to use spit in healing contexts but that he made use of an existing practice. In the same way, there are no scriptural precedents for the divine filling of dental cavities, but such miracles have been well-attested in recent decades from both North and South America.³⁰ If God can make use of methods which are widely used by dentists of all religious persuasions, or none, can he also make use of techniques for psychological or emotional healing which were humanly pioneered in other contexts?

Most biblical passages relating to forgiveness and Christian attitudes are addressed to groups rather than to individuals. Their focus is more on preventing the need for ‘inner healing’ than on giving directions how to go about it. However, in actual practice the Holy Spirit appears to make use of a wide repertoire of methods, which in themselves might be neutral but can be used for either positive or negative ends.³¹

 

PR 

To be continued in Winter 2009

 

Notes

¹It is evident that for the Early Church, whose Bible was the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), the “word” (Greek logos) in the phrase “word of knowledge” denoted “divine revelation” (hence “word of knowledge” = “divine revelation of knowledge”) as the Hebrew dābār “word,” which Greek logos renders in the Septuagint, frequently denotes (Hebrew dābār denoting “divine revelation,” I Sam. 3:7; 9:27; II Sam. 7:4; I Kg. 17:2, 8; 6:11; 13:20; Jer. 1:4, 11; 2:1; 13:8; 16:1; 24:4: 28:12: 29:30; Ezek. 3:16; 6:1; 7:1; 12:1; Hos. 1:1; Mic. 1:1; Zeph. 1:1; Isa. 2:1; BDB, p. 182b [meaning III.2]; O. Procksch, “logos,” TDNT, vol. 4, pp. 94-96).

²This certainly applies to two books which specifically purport to be examinations of the ministry of John Wimber, namely James R. Coggins and Paul G. Hiebert (eds.) Wonders and the Word (Winnipeg: Kindred Press, 1989) and R. Doyle (ed.) Signs & Wonders and Evangelicals (Randburg: Fabel, 1987).

³David C. Lewis “Signs and Wonders in Sheffield,” in John Wimber and Kevin Springer, Power Healing (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987). Wimber adds a note on page 285 stating that during the October 1985 Sheffield conference he was not aware that I was conducting a study and had neither personally met nor heard of me. In fact, my article reached him only through a circuitous route (involving Bishop David Pytches and Dr. John White) and I did not expect the request for permission to publish it in Power Healing.

⁴Donald M. Lewis “An Historian’s Assessment,” in Coggins and Hiebert (eds.) Wonders and the Word (Winnipeg: Kindred Press, 1989), p.53.

⁵Verna Wright “A Medical View of Miraculous Healing” in Sword and Trowel 1987, No.1, pp.8ff.

⁶Dr. Ann England (herself a medical doctor) in Ann England (ed.) We Believe in Healing (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1982), p.15.

⁷Rex Gardner, “Miracles of Healing in Anglo-Celtic Northumbria as Recorded by the Venerable Bede and his Contemporaries: A Reappraisal in the Light of Twentieth-Century Experience,” British Medical Journal, 287, 24-31 December 1983, pp.1927-1933. Gardner compared the contemporary accounts with similar ones recorded in seventh-century northern Britain by the Venerable Bede, arguing that the modern cases lend credence to Bede’s account of similar miracles.

⁸Rex Gardner Healing Miracles: A Doctor Investigates (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986).

⁹Gardner Healing Miracles, pp.202-205. He also quotes from the medical report of the consultant ENT surgeon, who confirmed these details and concluded, ‘I can think of no rational explanation as to why her hearing returned to normal, there being a severe bilateral sensorineural loss’.

¹⁰David C. Lewis Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact? (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989), pp.28-30. (The consultant’s remarks are also confirmed by the authoritative text in the U.K. on Hoffa’s disease, Smillie’s Diseases of the Knee Joint.)

¹¹James M. Boice, “A Better Way: The Power of the Word and Spirit,” in Michael S. Horton (ed.) Power Religion: The Selling out of the Evangelical Church? (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), p.127.

¹²Lewis Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact?, op.cit., pp. 276-283.

¹³For further medical details, see pages 221-228 of my book Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact?, op.cit.

¹⁴E.B. Chung and F.M. Enzinger “Infantile Fibrosarcoma,” Cancer, 38 (1976), pp.729-739.

¹⁵He cited an article by P.W. Allen entitled “The fibromatoses: A clinicopathologic classification based on 140 cases,” American Journal of Surgical Pathology (1977), pp.255-270, 305-321, which mentioned the possibility of remission among the ‘fibromatoses’. However, Allen recorded no cases of ‘spontaneous remission’ among the tumors of the type which this baby had. In his article he classified them as ‘congenital fibrosarcoma-like fibromatosis’ but after his article was submitted for publication Allen read Chung and Enzinger’s article (cited above, note 14) and then added a footnote to his own article stating that the tumor should now be re-classified as an ‘infantile fibrosarcoma’ rather than as a fibromatosis. Therefore Allen’s remark about the possibility of ‘spontaneous remission’ in the ‘fibromatoses’, which this baby’s consultant quoted to me, is not in fact applicable to this case.

¹⁶See note 1 above.

¹⁷David C. Lewis, “Signs and Wonders in Sheffield,” in John Wimber with Kevin Springer Power Healing, op.cit., pp.248, 250-259.

¹⁸Lewis Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact?, op.cit., pp.132-135.

¹⁹Lewis Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact?, op.cit., pp.155-157. Owing to the relatively small numbers who received prayer in response to highly specific words of knowledge, the correlation is statistically ‘noticeable’— meaning that it is almost statistically significant but would need a larger sample to confirm if this is the case.

²⁰Peter Masters “The Texts all say No!” in Sword & Trowel, 1987 No.1, p.21 and passim.

²¹Differences in psychological and other characteristics associated with Christian and occult involvements are shown by my research among a random sample of 108 nurses in Leeds: those nurses whose principal spiritual experience was the ‘presence of God’ ranked higher than average, and those who had consulted spiritualist mediums ranked lower than average, on scales of psychological well-being, satisfaction with life, and two different measures of altruism. Using a statistical technique known as the analysis of variance, this difference turned out to be statistically significant. Details are given in my chapter on “‘Spiritual Powers’—Genuine and Counterfeit,” in Michael Cole, Jim Graham, Tony Higton and David Lewis What is the New Age? (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), pp.112-120.

²²Lewis Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact?, op.cit., pp.140-142; id., “Signs and Wonders in Sheffield,” op.cit., pp.251-259; id., “Is ‘Renewal’ Really ‘New Age’ in Disguise?” in Michael Cole, Jim Graham, Tony Higton and David Lewis What is the New Age?, op.cit., pp.127-133.

²³See David C. Lewis “Spiritual Powers—Genuine and Counterfeit,” in Michael Cole, Jim Graham, Tony Higton and David Lewis What is the New Age?, op.cit., pp.122-123. (Stokes sent free tickets to a woman who had consulted her over the telephone. At the meeting Stokes then announced details of the row in which the woman was sitting, the name of her dead son—with whom Stokes claimed to be in contact—and other previously ascertained details. Although the woman in question was asked to stand up, she was unable to say in public that she had already told Stokes these facts over the telephone.)

²⁴Examples are given in Lewis Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact?, op.cit., pp.139-140, 148-149, 351.

²⁵Don Matzat Inner Healing: Deliverance or Deception? (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 1987), pp.48-57.

²⁶John Wimber with Kevin Springer Power Healing^, op.cit., p.276.

²⁷Matzat Inner Healing: Deliverance or Deception?, op.cit., pp.63-75.

²⁸However Jn. 5:19 suggests that in all his ministry activity Jesus looked for and saw what God the Father was doing: “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees (ti blepÄ“i) his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (cf. Jn. 3:34; 7:16; 8:28; 12:49-50; 14:10, 24, 31; see W. Grundmann, TDNT, vol. 2, p. 304; W. Michaelis, TDNT, vol. 5, p. 343 and n. 152; C. H. Dodd, The Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963], p. 386, n. 2). Jesus also tells his disciples in Jn. 14:19, “Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me (theōreite me). Because I live, you also will live” (cf. Jn. 14:23; Heb. 12:12; 13:5; Mat. 28:20; Rev. 1:10, 13-18; cf. W. Michaelis, TDNT, vol. 5, pp. 362-363).

²⁹The same confusion has arisen concerning words of knowledge and prophecies, because the methods (visions and strong ‘intuitions’) can be used both in spiritualism and in Christian contexts. In the same way, apparently similar methods for healing hurts from the past can be documented from both Christian and secular sources.

³⁰See Gardner Healing Miracles: A Doctor Investigates, op.cit., pp. 175-184; Francis MacNutt Healing (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1974), pp.327-333.

³¹For further discussion of these issues, see chapter two of my book Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact?, op.cit., or pages 133-141 of my chapter “Is ‘Renewal’ Really ‘New Age’ in Disguise?” in Michael Cole, Jim Graham, Tony Higton and David Lewis What is the New Age?, op.cit., from which most of the above material has been reproduced.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the NIV®.

Note from the Editor: The chapter, “Revival and the Spirit’s Power: A Psychiatric View of Behavioral Phenomena Associated with Healing and Gifts-based Ministry” by John White, will not be featured as previously announced. This chapter may be found in Gary S. Greig and Kevin N. Springer, eds., The Kingdom and the Power: Are Healing and the Spiritual Gifts Used by Jesus and the Early Church Meant for the Church Today? A Biblical Look at How to Bring the Gospel to the World with Power (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1993) and adapted from John White, When the Spirit Comes with Power: Signs & Wonders Among God’s People (InterVarsity, 1988).

This chapter is from Gary S. Greig and Kevin N. Springer, eds., The Kingdom and the Power: Are Healing and the Spiritual Gifts Used by Jesus and the Early Church Meant for the Church Today? A Biblical Look at How to Bring the Gospel to the World with Power (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1993). Used with permission.