The Nearly Perfect Crime: How the Church almost Killed the Ministry of Healing and How to Get It Back

Table of Contents

01. About Our Guests
02. In Conversation with Francis MacNutt
03. In Conversation with Harold Koenig
04. Note to our Readers

01. About Our Guests

Francis MacNutt has lived a very interesting life. He was on his way to a career of healing using medicine and scalpels but ended up with a career of healing through words and Spirit. After being drafted into the Army during World War II, he decided to change his career path and obtained a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and an MFA in speech from Catholic University. He became an ordained Dominican Priest and then a trainer of preachers (and the founder of the Catholic Homiletics Society). But contact with a couple of Protestants who believed God was still healing people caused another unexpected career change. Francis became a leading voice for Charismatic renewal. He later founded the Association of Christian Therapists, whose mission was to bring healing prayer into the medical profession. Francis also married, not an easy thing for a Catholic priest to do, and since then he and Judith MacNutt founded Christian Healing Ministries, a national ministry dedicated to bringing healing prayer back to its rightful place among Christians. His most famous book is Healing, which has become a classic.

Harold G. Koenig, MD, is the Director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University. He completed his undergraduate education at Stanford University, his medical school training at the University of California at San Francisco. He serves on the faculty at Duke as Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Associate Professor of Medicine, and is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He has published extensively in the fields of mental health, geriatrics, and religion, with over three hundred scientific peer-reviewed articles, sixty book chapters, and forty books in print or in preparation. His research on religion, health and ethical issues in medicine has been featured on over fifty national and international TV news programs (including The Today Show, ABC’s World News Tonight, and several times on Good Morning America). A few of his latest books include: The Handbook of Religion and Health (Oxford University Press, 2012); his autobiography The Healing Connection: Medicine, Religion and Health (2008); and Religion and Spirituality in Psychiatry (2009, Cambridge University Press). This particular interview is inspired by Spirituality and Health Research: Methods, Measurement, Statistics, and Resources (2011).

02. In Conversation with Francis MacNutt

GWM: Francis, I’m really a fan of the early Church. In fact, I’ve heard it said that: “During the first three centuries Christians were willing to face hungry lions; the world looked on and said, ‘look how they love’; and they toppled a dominant culture without even trying. But now it seems that the majority of Christians are likely to go home from church early to watch the Lions; the world looks on and says, ‘look how they bicker and hate’; and so often seem to be toppled by culture.”

To state it in a less corny manner, it seems that for the first three hundred to four hundred years of Church History, Christians expected healing to take place when they prayed! How is possible that something so central to the Gospel almost died out? What happened between then and now?

FM: When you think about it, this near-destruction of divine healing is an extraordinary mystery, because miraculous healing—with its twin the casting out of evil spirits—lay at the very heart of Jesus Christ’s mission. For the first four hundred years of Church history Christians expected healing to take place when they prayed!

GWM: So what has happened?

FM: As I see it the main reason God heals people is because they are sick. We don’t have a time recorded when Jesus didn’t heal someone who asked.

People asked in faith and God wanted to heal them because they are his children. God doesn’t like to see his children sick. I do think that in the early church, before it was possible to be a nominal Christian, there was more of a sense of living in a world where the Trinity was present and available.

GWM: Would you say just a bit more?

FM: I think that part of the reason we don’t get healed is a simple human reason. It kind of a scary thing, to step out and ask; it involves a risk. John Wimber always said, “Faith is spelled R-I-S-K.” As we all know, if we try to pray for healing, it involves a risk.

GWM: Okay, let me make sure I’m with you. Let’s say that is you pray for one hundred people and fifty get healed and fifty don’t. What would you say are the main reasons for the fifty not getting healed? Are you saying that willingness to step out, to take a risk is the main difference?

FM: I think, well, there is a great deal of mystery connected to this. If anyone says they have a formula for healing, if you do these seven steps you’ll get healed, well, I distrust that because it doesn’t work. There are some things that make it harder for people to get healed, like if they are skeptical or if there is sin in their lives or if they are not loving. If you are not a loving person, not much will happen.

GWM: If you are not a loving person, don’t expect a miracle?

FM: I don’t want to say that. But being a loving person seems to help. To me, the most evident reason for some of those fifty not getting healed, the most important one, is that some things are just more rare to be healed—like a person who has his leg shot off in a war. I went to Lourdes in France and I asked a person there if was impressed with what was happening there and he said: “I see a lot of crutches around here but not any wooden legs.”

Some things are just much more difficult to be healed. It is harder to heal a broken bone than a headache. People that put on the healing services don’t talk about that, but it is obviously harder when someone has a severed spine from a motor cycle accident. That is probably not going to get healed as often as someone who has a bad back.

GWM: What do you make of that, that some things are more difficult to be healed. Shouldn’t it all be the same for God?

FM: I think some things require a “creative” miracle.

GWM: What does that mean, a “creative miracle”? Do you mean regenerative action, like something has to be regenerated?

FM: Yes, and regeneration seems to be a very different thing than something that just needs for a muscle to relax or something to slip back in place.

GWM: I appreciate your candor. Speaking of which, you reference in your book that, mostly, in the established churches, healing has become a lost gift. And not only lost, but ridiculed: Faith healer has become a term of reproach. Why?

FM: Part of it is our own fault. It bothers me how some healing evangelists present things with all the hype and all. I studied theatre for a time and a lot of it is bad acting. Really, it’s terrible. Most people I think do see faith healers as a bad term and assume that it is a money-making scheme. You drum up emotional vigor and then make a financial killing on it.

GWM: You also quote the physician, Larry Dossey, who makes an interesting observation: In a fascinating turn of events, science has pointed a light on the church’s loss of vision: Several medical case studies have shown that prayer helps in the healing process. Larry Dossey says, “Will we reach a point where physicians who ignore prayer will be judged guilty of malpractice.”

FM: I don’t believe that we’ll reach a point where it will be malpractice, actually, but I like what he said. It’s a good way to put it. I mean, what if there was a group of people and someone falls to the ground with a heart attack and you don’t call a doctor? I don’t think anyone would expect the doctor called to that event will have a 100 percent success rate of helping that person survive, but he or she may have a 10 percent success rate. The reality is, though, if you don’t call a doctor at all, that would be cruel, wrong. Well, maybe praying for healing would only have a 5 percent success rate or a 1 percent success rate, but why wouldn’t you do it?

GWM: Perhaps even more odd is the fact that you wouldn’t find many who would accuse a pastor of malpractice if he or she ignored prayer.

FM: Yes, exactly.

GWM: Francis, let me change to topic. From a theological perspective, you state that the basic point is that, through pride, the human race sinned and fell from fellowship with its Creator. God now seems far off; we are outside the Garden, as it were, and can’t get back in. To what extent do you believe it is necessary to be living in ongoing fellowship with God for things like healing to routinely happen?

FM: I’d say it certainly helps, but as Kathryn Kuhlman observed even the scoffers sometimes got healed, too. And some people with absolute belief in God’s healing power came and went in the same condition. It certainly is not totally dependent on the person’s faith or fellowship with God.

GWM: What about the minister, how important to be living in fellowship with the Trinity?

FM: It certainly helps. But there is the mystery part that I just don’t know. Kathryn Kuhlman said that her first question to God, after she dies will be “How come?”

GWM: “How come?”

FM: Yes. “How come” this person had absolute belief, yet nothing happened when she prayed for healing. The word I’d like to use other than faith—although faith is a good word—would be openness. It takes into account wonder and a childlike attitude that anything can happen. That person with that kind of attitude, I find a lot happens with them in general.

GWM: So, being a loving person, willing to take a risk, and being open, with childlike faith are things you would like to see in someone asking for prayer. Francis, what are some things that you do that enhance your sense of living in fellowship with God, loving and more open to God?

FM: Well, obviously, prayer—and the kind that seems to help the most for me is quiet prayer, often alone. My wife and I pray very much in the same way. We sometimes just sit next to each other and pray in silence. Sometimes reading Scripture. My wife is very intuitive and she often gets images during prayer. She often intuits what has been left out when we are praying for healing, and she brings that in and the person often gets healed.

GWM: Do you distinguish between a person being intuitive and someone getting a message or a Word from the Holy Spirit?

FM: Well, there are different personality types and I think that figures in. The person for whom everything is very scientific or very intellectual will communicate with God in a different way.

GWM: Do you think intuitive types have an easier time hearing the Holy Spirit?

FM: I do. I do think intuitive people have an easier time hearing the Holy Spirit, especially inner healing. This seems to be something that women have more than men. Women being mothers have to pick up what the infant is experiencing and know what to do. Intuition goes with a woman’s gifts. It’s not a 100 percent kind of thing, but I think they may have an easier time with some of this.

GWM: How do you tease out—if you are an intuitive person—whether you are hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit or your own intuition, your own thoughts?

FM: That is a natural and normal question as I see it.

GWM: Good, I was afraid you’d be offended by it.

FM: No, I get that question all the time. When I’m praying for inner healing, I try to listen as best I can to the thoughts that come to me, and I found out by experience that those thoughts are not usually emotional, but they are usually pretty accurate. I’ve learned to trust them.

GWM: Would you consider those thoughts independent or from the Holy Spirit?

FM: Well, that’s the question. But just because something comes to me in a natural way, does that mean it was only me? It is really interesting.

GWM: Thank you. And this is slightly off topic, but I know a lot of leaders in the Pentecostal world who have kept it a secret that they never had spoken in tongues. I’ve come to wonder if there is something natural within some people that makes it easier for them to “let go,” so to speak, and speak in tongues.

FM: That may well be, I don’t know. I speak in tongues quite a bit, but I’m not emotional about it. I not only pray in tongues out loud, but I sometimes sing in tongues, and I’m no opera singer. It’s extraordinary what happens. Just last week we had a conference up in Vermont, and while I prefer to minister one-on-one, there were so many, I found myself singing in tongues for the entire group and people started sobbing and all kinds of stuff started happening.

GWM: I’ve known of just one person who when he received the gift of tongues was able to speak fluent Spanish, and he never lost that gift. He literally received a language. I know this person well, and this really happened. Have you ever heard of anyone who as had that experience?

FM: No, that is amazing. I never heard of that. Well, I take that back. I was down in Columbia, South America, and there was a priest who asked me to pray for him. And I did not have the answer to his problem. So I asked him if he would mind if I prayed in tongues (because I did not know what to pray) and he said sure. So I did. I just did it. It wasn’t that emotional. After I prayed he asked me if I knew Greek. I told him no, why do you ask. And he said, well, your prayer was in perfect Greek. And I said, well, “it was all Greek to me.” And then I said, “I don’t know Greek, what did I say? Can you translate it? “And he said, Yes. You said, ‘I am the Lord your God and I know all your problems and I will solve them.’ ”

GWM: So you have had the experience of receiving an actual language, but, it was not something you retained afterwards.

FM: That is right. And you know the next year I was back down there and I asked him if he remembered what I prayed and he repeated it again in Greek. He had memorized what I had said. But I still don’t know Greek.

GWM: Well, as an Orthodox baby that was dropped down a Pentecostal preacher’s chimney, this is very interesting to me, but I had better get us back closer to the topic. You state in the book that the basic practical heresy in present-day Christianity is that we act as if we can cure our own problems and the problems of the world through our own intelligence and effort. Please say more about this . . .

FM: I would put a couple of qualifying words in there, because I do think we need to proceed using our natural intellect. It’s a combination. We need God’s help and our capacities. To me, for example, the basic sin in our culture is not promiscuity, but it is violence. We believe that the solution to a problem is violence, the ability to impose our will on someone else.

GWM: And according to your quote, this is still trying to solve the problem through one’s own effort. So I guess the issue is that those paths don’t involve our own personal cross, giving up the seduction of wanting to be in control, in our own power.

FM: Yes, it is very easy to do that because we think we can see problems. It is usually not either/or but both/and.

GWM: I think that is one of the things I like about your life and writings. You seem to be more of a “both/and” rather than an “either/or” thinker.

Another question. After Jesus’ birth, on the day of His circumcision, “he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived” (Luke 2:21, NIVi). The translation of His name (Hebrew: Jeshua) is “God saves” or “God heals,” and this signified His God-given mission in life.

You write that

“A further blow to prayer for physical healing—in normal church life—took place because of a particular wording Jerome used in his translation of the famous healing text in James (see James 5:14–16). When James tells the sick person to call the elders of the church who will pray for him to be healed, Jerome uses the word “saved.”

If the Bible had always said Salvation/Healing, the two translations always together, what kind of difference to you think that would have made in Church history?

FM: I think it would have made a great difference in church history. Salvation can mean either “saved,” in the sense that an evangelical would take it, or “healed.” The word can be either.

GWM: To me, part of being healed is a return to union with God, a return to fellowship. Not just the healing of a bad back but the healing of our condition of estrangement.

FM: Oh yes! The healing is a return to fellowship, with God and with people. Hatred is transformed to love and forgiveness.

GWM: Yes, I think Jesus put so much emphasis on forgiveness because unforgiveness is like plaque in arteries. Love can’t flow through. So, to be unplugged from God is a spiritual problem that can create physical problems. We can be healed through a restoration of relationship with God.

FM: Yes, that is exactly right, really true.

GWM: Okay, keeping with theological themes. You reference that the word baptism means “immersion,” so Spirit baptism is like being immersed in water. It is, in fact, generally connected with water baptism, especially when it is by immersion. In the early Church, adults who were baptized expected, at the same time, to be baptized in the Spirit; they regarded the two experiences as the same event.

You reference that Fathers Kilian McDonnell and George Montague did an extensive study of the relationship between water baptism and baptism in the Holy Spirit, and they state that the early Church used the terms as if they were one and the same.

FM: I think this is important because being baptized as infants is not the total thing. If you emphasize this too much, then baptism in the Spirit is let go of.

GWM: So, the notion of being baptized into Trinitarian life, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is not a matter of getting sinners wet, but being brought from death into life with the Trinity. Do you think we’ve lost part of that reality?

FM: Yes, I do and I like that. There has to be room for something greater than infant baptism. I’ve seen it take place where people come out the water praying in tongues, alive to a whole new way of living. It needs to be both/ and. We need infant baptism and also baptism as adults that lets you step in to a new dimension.

GWM: Yes, I’ve wondered if for the early Church, when healing was prominent and expected, it was as if they came up from the water into type of a fifth dimension. They were alive to Trinitarian reality.

FM: Yes, in the early Church there was the expectation of living life in a whole new way, in a completely different reality, spiritual reality.

GWM: To sum it up: You say in your book, “We do not want to deny the value and blessings of traditional Christianity over the centuries. Be we have lost so much. And our churches need to be humble enough to admit it. One of the main things, really, that has been lost is the full power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We have lost the power behind Jesus’ mission is the power of God, the Holy.” How do we get this back?

FM: Well, the way it came to me was, that people were talking to me about baptism of the Spirit. The way it was presented, I could see various things in their lives that I wanted. Well, when I heard about it and talk to these folks the way we are talking now, I saw various things in their life that I wanted. And they were talking about praying for people who got healed.

GWM: So what would you advise someone today who wants more of that experience?

FM: My advice would be for them to study a little bit, maybe not a year, but at least several hours. I think they could read some books like, Dennis Bennett’s book, The Holy Spirit and You. My wife, by the way, has just written a book on angels, Angels are for Real. It is important to find some people who understand these things.

GWM: Francis, I think you just plugged your wife’s book. But I’m going to look the other way. Now, if someone has read these books, especially your wife’s book, what is your next advice for a person who wants his or her Christian life to be more like that of the Christians during the period of the first three centuries?

FM: I think it is important to find some people who have found these things. Many will be in the established churches and some are not. They need to be in touch with people who are normal and yet still believe in miracles. They also will need to find a way to live life in an unhurried way.

GWM: Before we stop, I have a few more personal questions. What was the most dramatic healing experience you ever witnessed?

FM: It was a woman, she happened to be a nun, and she was under psychiatric supervision, she was in a mental health hospital. And she was a very angry person and she wouldn’t even talk. I had a couple of counseling sessions with her, and she wouldn’t talk. But I knew what the problems were and I knew what needed to be prayed for. I had read Agnes Sanford’s books, and I knew a bit about how to pray.

GWM: So your first experience with healing prayer has been your most dramatic?

FM: That’s right, my first was also the most dramatic. But I had learned about inner healing at a conference Agnes Sanford directed, I thought maybe there is something I can do. And to my surprise, she, this nun I was counseling, allowed me to pray for her and her life changed dramatically. I could see it immediately with her affect and emotions. It was an amazing thing to see. The next time I saw her, she actually smiled.

It has been amazing ever since. I get cards and letters all the time from people who tell me their life has totally changed. Transformation is the word I like so much these days.

GWM: What has been the most dramatic physical healing that you have witnessed?

FM: Well, let’s see. The ones that are the most spectacular are not really the most dramatic. I’m thinking about people with broken arms and the bone is twisted, like from playing basketball or something. And I’ve seen the actual bone twist and become straight. That is the kind of thing I really enjoy doing.

GWM: And the most humorous healing experience . . .

FM: Once I was praying for deliverance, at a small meeting, maybe a dozen people or so. I was finished and I was leaving the room. I had turned to go and I heard a small voice, a tiny little voice that said, “What about me?” And it was coming from a great big guy and the voice said, “My name is vanity.” [Francis laughing] The thing was working against itself. And the voice was so effeminate and shrill, it was hard not to laugh out loud.

GWM: Okay, that wasn’t exactly a knee slapper, but thank you. Francis, if you could teach three things about praying for someone to be healed, what would that be?

FM: The first thing I think is one’s attitude toward the person they are praying for. It needs to be loving and sensitive.

GWM: There is that word again.

FM: Yes, that is the most important thing. And then I think it is important to identify what they are praying for. Third, is there any unforgiveness that the person is dealing with?

GWM: Last question. What would you have liked for me to ask?

FM: You didn’t bring up the presence of evil spirits. If there are one hundred people we pray for, fifty might also need deliverance. That does not mean they are possessed, but oppressed or something like that. I’d say that on average, about half of the people we pray for need deliverance.

GWM: Okay, since we have waded this far into the Charismatic stream. What have you found to be the most common need(s) for deliverance?

FM: More common things are sexual things, and then hatred and the inability to forgive, and shame.

GWM: What advice to you have concerning knowing when deliverance is needed versus a referral to a counselor?

FM: Oh, I think it is usually both, rather than either/or.

GWM: Francis, what a pleasure to talk with you! And I think with that last “both/and” encouragement, we’ll stop.

03. In Conversation with Harold Koenig

GWM: Harold, you state in Spirituality and Health Research: Methods, Measurement, Statistics, and Resources that “the future of the field of Religion/Spirituality and health depends on at least two things: ideas and the testing of those ideas through research. Ideas, particularly novel ones, often come from careful, thoughtful reasoning by a single investigator deeply immersed in the subject.” What are some of the ideas you have heard about in the past few years that excite you most?

HK: One is the idea that integrating a person’s religious beliefs into secular psychotherapy can help to boost the healing effects in religious patients and that is one that we are now testing in a randomized clinical trial. Another is the idea that by helping highly stressed persons to cope (such as caregivers of person with severe disability or dementia) may help to slow the aging process by affecting DNA telomere length. Another is the notion that medical treatments (antibiotics, chemotherapy, surgical procedures) may work more quickly and with fewer side effects in those with deep religious faith and practice.

GWM: Fascinating. Harold, given your discussion of the role that Religion/Spirituality could play in preventing illness, speeding recovery, and motivating individuals to care for one another in the community (thereby reducing the need for expensive health services), it seems that research in this area will be of critical importance in addressing the escalating healthcare cost in the United States and countries around the world. Which religion/spirituality practices do you feel show the most potential for preserving health and what do you believe are the primary factors in this?

HK: Of all the religious practices most consistently related to better mental and physical health, it is attendance at religious services that tops them all.

GWM: I’m a little surprised and I also think this may demonstrate a potential confounding of this line of research. Is it the “activity” (going to church) or the things associated with, that inspire the activity?”

HK: That’s right. But although people go to church for many reasons, often not religious ones, getting up on Sunday, getting dressed, and taking the time to go to church and worship God—at least means that you are willing to do something about your religious beliefs. Just saying that you love God and pray is easy. I say, “Where’s the beef?” Where’s the evidence that your religious faith really means something in your life and that you are willing to do something about it? Attending religious services is more, however, than simply the social support you get there (which only accounts for about 15 percent of the health effect). Although social interactions are part of how it works, there are also the psychological benefits from listening to the sermon, from praying together at a group, worshipping God together, singing together, and performing powerful rituals together with those of common beliefs. Also, the influence of this on behavior is another factor—less drinking, smoking, sex outside of marriage, and more positive behaviors such as volunteering and other altruistic activities, which religious leaders encourage and religious groups organize.

GWM: Thank you, Harold. As you know, the majority of research on religion/spirituality has focused on mental health. Why do you think this is true?

HK: Probably because it is cheaper and easier to do. Most of the research has been done without research funding (government bodies don’t like to fund research on religion, and there are only a couple foundations that provide support for research in this area). Conducting research on physical health outcomes is very expensive and time consuming, especially when studying outcomes that may require laboratory testing. For mental health outcomes you can measure things with questionnaires, which reduces your costs. Religious beliefs and practices are also more closely related to psychological and social factors, and are only indirectly related to physical health outcomes via the mind-body relationship, so relationships with physical health are more difficult to demonstrate.

GWM: Our initial conversation with Francis MacNutt focused more on dramatic interventions and healing. Are there studies that you are aware of that examine the impact of prayer on physical or psychological healing?

HK: Actually, I’m aware of only two that had a scientific design that was credible and was published in a scientific journal (I don’t include any of the double-blinded distant intercessory prayer studies, which have no scientific or theological basis).

GWM: Of, course not. Our readers would never expect you to do such a thing.

HK: The first study was by Dale Matthews, and involved Francis MacNutt’s group who prayed in person for forty people with relatively severe rheumatoid arthritis by using groups randomized either to receive soaking prayer for three days or to be put in a control group, and outcomes were examined after six months. Those who were prayed for had a significant improvement in joint involvement, pain, and ability to function, compared to the control group, although biological blood measures did not change.ii The second study was by Candice Brown on the effects of in-person intercessory prayer on auditory and visual impairments in twenty-four people in Mozambique. All subjects were prayed for and standard measures of hearing (audiometer) and vision (eye chart) administered before and after prayer. Significant improvements were noted for both hearing and vision.iii

GWM: Harold, your book Spirituality and Health Research: Methods, Measurement, Statistics, and Resources offers many helpful tables summarizing research to date in the religion/spirituality area. Your summary of these summaries states: “The majority of research conducted to date has found a positive relationship between religion/spirituality and both mental and physical health, whereas less than 10 percent of the studies suggest the opposite and about 25 percent no association.” Do you foresee a time where a physician might be questioned about malpractice for not consider religious/spiritual interventions for patients who request such interventions?

HK: No. But I think that gradually over time, as more research is done and as the research results become more widely known, that physicians will become more and more aware of the value of patients’ religious beliefs and practices in their coping with illness and response to medical treatments. Physicians will be more likely to take a spiritual history, identify spiritual needs, refer patients to chaplains, and engage in dialogue with patients over spiritual beliefs and practices that affect their health and influence their medical decision making.

GWM: Okay, sorry to ask, but you’ve listened in on the conversation with Francis MacNutt. What goes through your mind as a no-nonsense researcher when you hear about dramatic interventions such as prayer for physical healing and inner healing prayer?

HK: I absolutely believe it works. However, I’m not sure that we can demonstrate scientifically that it works through supernatural causes. Science studies NATURE, not supernature. I believe that God has the power to perform healing miracles through mechanisms that we simply cannot study—methods that operate outside of time and space, where scientists are forced to operate. I think that one mechanism of healing could be through the mind-body relationship, which we know very little about. The power of the mind to influence our physical bodies is only beginning to be explored. There is no more powerful belief than religious belief. What we can study to some degree is how belief (faith) influences the body through psychological, social, and behavioral mechanisms—and that is what we are doing. Nevertheless, I think the natural world is a lot more complex than even we scientists can imagine, and if you consider that the supernatural may interact in some way with the natural world, the complexity increases dramatically—perhaps incomprehensibly to the human mind. In the end, in my opinion, supernatural healing does occur but will always depend on the faith of the person praying and the person being prayed for—for faith is the evidence of things not seen. Once they are “seen” or documented through science, faith is no longer necessary.

GWM: Thank you for this time and for all you are doing for the Kingdom.

04. Note to our Readers

We hope you enjoyed listening in on these conversations. While many topics were covered— from healing as dramatic the untwisting of a broken bone to the notion of healing as a return to living in union with God—it seems good that both of our experts absolutely believe that this phenomenon, so much a part of life in the early church, still happens today. It also seemed noteworthy that each leaves room for mystery and avoids the formulaic. Please forgive the psychologist in me who wants to say at this point, to any reader who has already stepped out in R-I-S-K and with childlike faith and still did not see a dramatic intervention from the Heavens, that even Kathryn Kuhlman said that her first question to God, after she dies will be “How come?” And it may not be until the answer to her question is heard by all that the mystery of healing—the unknown behind why some requests are answered and but not others—will be fully understood.

Footnotes

Francis MacNutt founded Christian Healing Ministries with his wife Judith MacNutt. He is the author of Healing, The Practice of Healing Prayer, Deliverance from Evil Spirits: A Practical Manual, The Power to Heal, The Prayer That Heals, and The Nearly Perfect Crime: How The Church Almost Killed The Ministry of Healing.

Harold G. Koenig, MD is a psychiatrist on the faculty of Duke University. He is founder and former director of Duke University’s Center for the Study of Religion, Spirituality and Health, and is now Director of Duke’s current Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health. He has published extensively in the fields of mental health, geriatrics, and religion, with over three hundred scientific peer-reviewed articles, sixty book chapters, and forty books in print or in preparation. His latest books include The Handbook of Religion and Health (Oxford University Press, 2001; 2012) and his autobiography, The Healing Connection (2004).

Conversatio Divina