The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology, First Edition. Edited by Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore.© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

CHAPTER 2

Healing

Susan J. Dunlap

Church people get sick. They may suffer from irritants such as chronic skin ailments, or they may suffer from a more life - threatening chronic illness such as diabetes,

which requires regular monitoring several times a day. Some live for decades with cancer in remission or with cancer rapidly metastasizing. Others live with the ever present threat of a debilitating migraine headache or a sudden fl are - up of Crohn ’ s disease symptoms. Still others are watching signs of their multiple sclerosis or Alzheimer ’ s disease progress. Some live with the day - to - day knowledge that they may fall yet again into a debilitating depression, while others struggle minute by minute to keep excruciating anxiety at bay. What is remarkable is that, all over the world and from the very beginning, the advent of any sort of illness in the body of Christ has never been just about the body of a sole individual. It has always simultaneously been a call to respond by the company of saints with whom they worship. Ecclesial responses of care and compassion surround and adhere to illness in churches.

In this chapter, I briefl y consider defi nitions of healing, its place in Christian history, and methods for understanding healing as practical theology. Then I examine the responses to illness in two churches in Durham, North Carolina, lifting up through example and analysis the beliefs embedded in and reformulated through practice. While the forms of brokenness and suffering are legion in human life, this chapter will focus primarily on the healing that happens in bodily rather than mental illness. For each congregation, care for the physically sick is a way of life, a habit woven into the fabric of everyday practice in the church community. The advent of illness or injury is a call to respond in ways as varied as private prayer and exorcising demons.

History and Defi nition

Following Jesus, who healed the sick in both body and mind, the church has responded to illness with rituals, care, and institutions such as asylums and hospitals. Peter and

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John healed the man lame from birth at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3:1 – 10), and Basil the Great established one of the fi rst hospitals in 372 CE . The medieval crusaders, the Knights of St. John, founded the Knights Hospital in Jerusalem in the twelfth century (Miller 1978 : 709), and medical missionaries fanned out in China, India, and various nations of the continent of Africa in the nineteenth century (Grundmann 2008 : 188). The eighteenth - century founder of Methodism, John Wesley, saw healing of physical and spiritual ills as a central part of the Christian ministry and published a popular book on curing disease (Wesley 1960 ). American - born Pentecostalism has always regarded healing as a central part of worship (Thomas 2005 : 88 – 89). Healing responses to illness is a well - worn path for Christian believers.

Healing is one of the key places in which theology has been concretely practiced in the history of the church. In their classic book on the history of pastoral care, William Clebsch and Charles Jaekle list healing, along with sustaining, guiding, and reconciling, as one of four primary avenues of congregational and pastoral care ( 1964 : 4). For them, “ healing is more than mere restoration, for it includes a forward gain over the condition prevailing before illness ” ; it enables the person to “ advance beyond his previ-ous condition ” and “ become integrated on a higher spiritual level ” than before (33). They catalog various healing “ methods ” and “ instrumentalities, ” such as anointing with oil, contact with saints and relics, charismatic healers, exorcism, and what they call the use of varieties of herbs, salves, and incantations for healing, “ magico - medicine ” (34 – 40). They note the modern loss of healing to biomedicine in many, but not all, faith communities, where the power to heal is often relinquished to the physician and hospital.

Contemporary understandings and defi nitions of healing vary. For some, it neces-sarily involves a physical transformation or a cure. For others, healing certainly may include physiological cure , but they do not see the body as the only place where healing occurs. The human being includes spiritual, psychological, interpersonal, and societal realms. When a person fi nds peace, courage, hope, or vocation, there is healing even when illness remains. Or healing may occur in the psyche, when a person is relieved of depression or anxiety, or when the ruptures of the self that occur in childhood trauma begin to heal. There are interpersonal aspects to healing, such as when a parent and child are reconciled, individual and congregation reunited, or a marriage restored. Some speak of nations healing from generations of oppression, such as South Africa, or from the legacy of genocide, such as native peoples in North America.

Healing intersects with caring (Williams 2002 : 97). Transformation toward whole-ness in any realm often happens in the context of compassionately administered care. Caring may include practical help such as food, transportation, and housework. Or it may mean emotional and spiritual presence to people suffering ill health. Some call for a de - emphasis on healing and a focus on caring. South African theologian Nico Koopman says that the headlong drive for cure can devolve into “ an optimistic mod-ernistic attempt to cure at every price, and to free from tragedy and suffering ” ( 2006 : 43). Rather than pressing for cure, he calls instead for “ caring amidst suffering [and] tragedy. ” He refers to “ an understanding of healing as caring, ” suggesting that the caring practices themselves are healing (43). Important insights about healing, curing, and caring have come from the hospice movement. Through the work of hospices,

34 SUSAN J. DUNLAP

people who have no chance of avoiding imminent death can nevertheless know won-drous soul healing. For many, caring and healing cannot be decoupled.

Healing as Practical Theology

Basic to any practical theological method is the “ hermeneutical circle, ” which has mutually interpreting nodes, such as scripture, theology, and human sciences, and a node that has been variously construed as practice , context , situation , problem , human condition , and other terms referring to lived human phenomena. For example, Don Browning ’ s infl uential “ fundamental practical theology ” has four movements, includ-ing the formulation of a “ descriptive theology ” which arises out of thick descriptions of situations (Browning 1991 : 77). The method in this essay construes that node as dense detailed descriptions of specifi c local communities and practices that include placing them in both social and historical context. In distinction from Browning, however, I reject universalized construal of core human tendencies, such as practical reasoning, as formulated in philosophical traditions (Cahalan 2005 : 69). Furthermore, I refrain from privileging certain practices as particularly characteristic of faithful Christian life (75).

Questions may arise about the usefulness of such highly specifi c and dense render-ings of the practices of particular congregations. In her detailed description and theo-logical reading of a single congregation, systematic theologian Mary McClintock Fulkerson demonstrates how such study honors the “ worldliness of an incarnate God ” and testifi es to “ transformations that are attributable to God ” ( 2007 : 231, 237). Pastoral theologian Mary Clark Moschella ’ s study of the devotional practices of a California community of Italian and Sicilian Roman Catholic immigrants provides another example of ethnographic method used to make a convincing theological argu-ment for renewed sacramental practice and imagination, practices that “ relax the bar-riers between heaven and earth ” ( 2008 : 200). Others attempt to discern theology as practiced, particularly in the midst of pastoral care and counseling (Maynard et al. 2010 : 1 ff.). Such detailed studies make signifi cant contributions to both theological discernment and ecclesial practice.

This kind of work provides at least two further elements to the larger practical theo-logical enterprise. First, it demonstrates the creative edge of practical theology as it morphs, creates hybrids, and constructs new forms of practice, material religion, and nuanced beliefs in response to suffering. As such it is an example of practical theology that is “ performed by those who thoughtfully seek to embody deep convictions about life and its ultimate meaning in the midst of ordinary and extraordinary circumstances ” (Miller - McLemore 2010 : 1741).

Second, the mutually interpreting nodes on the hermeneutical circle provide for the accountability of practices to norms and beliefs distilled in doctrinal and sacred texts. It also holds interpreters of doctrinal and sacred texts accountable to the wisdom embodied in congregational practice. Detailed work on specifi c ecclesial practices pushes practical theology as an academic discipline to regard faithful ecclesial practice as a “ node of accountability ” on the hermeneutical circle. Dense accounts of practical

HEALING 35

theology as an activity of a variety of believers, including the disenfranchised, provides a source of critique for practical theological judgments.

To illustrate a practical theology that incorporates rich descriptive material, I offer renderings of two congregations below. I use the term belief - practice to overcome the inability of standard English to express the interconnected relationship of theory and practice. We have diffi culty expressing the unity of theology and visible action. We split these, and have no word for theory - laden practice and practice - laden theory (Browning 1991 : 9). Therefore I suggest the term belief - practices :

Beliefs, which are connected (in some way) to a past preserved in texts, rituals, and symbols, are also connected to present day practices, such as caring, teaching, preaching, serving, worshiping, discerning and praying . . . In other words, beliefs carry with them attendant rituals and habits which give them their specifi c content, and practices acquire their impact as they are linked to beliefs. Beliefs and practices are linked inextricably as each gives the other its particular force or meaning, and so for that reason, I refer to particular belief - practices. (Dunlap 2009 : 9 – 10)

Yet even the coining of a new phrase fails to capture the richness of congregational life. The term belief - practices refers to a present - day snapshot of a congregation. Any understanding of healing in particular congregations also requires knowledge of its theological, historical, social, and liturgical context.

Healing Waters Apostolic Holiness Church

The bishop was dying, a woman with the title of “ evangelist ” told me, and he needed help leading worship. So she went to lend a hand. Here is her account of the bishop healing a worshipper in an African American Apostolic Holiness church in Durham, North Carolina. 1

There was this lady came to the church that night, and she was spitting up blood . . . and a little bit came out of her nose. And the Bishop had his wife to read her that [a text from Ezekiel]. He said, “ Keep reading. Read that scripture. ” And he told the lady, “ Look at me. If you can repeat what she ’ s saying to you from the Word of God, we are going to see a miracle. ” And after a while, she would repeat it, and she would act like she was going to pass out or something of that nature, and he said, “ Repeat it. Just keep saying it over and over. ” And the Lord stopped that blood fl ow right in that church. The church just went up. The folk began to just yell.

This congregation of about 200 people connects spiritual healing and physical cure. It is known as a place of healing the sick. The pastor is a healer, along with other church leaders. Below is an interview excerpt from one of these leaders:

1 The accounts are from interviews conducted for Caring Cultures: How Congregations Respond to the Sick (Dunlap 2009 ). They have been somewhat modifi ed for ease of reading.

36 SUSAN J. DUNLAP

My daughter had called me and told me about this little boy. She said, “ Mama, I ’ ve used the medicine that they have given me for him, and he has open wounds on his legs or his arms. I just don ’ t know what to do. ” So I said, “ Well, OK, I ’ ll be over there. ” So I took my bay leaves and I went over there, and I took my oil with me, and I prayed and I anointed his body with the oil and I took the bay leaves and placed them over the areas on his body and I took white gauze and tied it up, just laced it and tied it up. And I went on home. And my daughter called me the next day. She said, “ Mama, I took the thing off, and Mama, it ’ s gone! ” And I said, “ Well, to God be the glory. ”

This story starts with a declaration that medicine from doctors had not worked. So the mother called the healer, who administered a traditional healing element, anointing oil, and bay leaves that “ God gave her to use. ” The next day there was concrete evidence of complete healing. The healer praised God. In telling the story, this healer has already acted as a kind of everyday practical theologian, interpreting this event according to biblical codes and cadences engraved in her heart. The bishop also drew facilely on scripture as an ally and example when he healed in worship.

Acts and speech on healing in this context are embedded in a particular theological world. Though no unbroken historical thread can be established between contempo-rary healing practices in African American churches and care for the sick among slaves, we see echoes of that earlier tradition in the use of bay leaves. While slave masters had an economic stake in the health of their labor source and provided some medical care, slaves also cared for each other with materials at hand (Gooden 2008 : 150). The herbs, roots, poultices, and teas used in medicinal practices were hybrids of African and New World traditions. This woman ’ s use of anointing oil also rests on her reading of scripture, originating in Christian and Jewish traditions, with James 5:14 explicitly calling for anointing the sick with oil. Oil also has roots in the twentieth - century Pentecostal movement, which began in the Azusa Street Revival in 1906 (Wacker 2001 : 109).

Socially, this healer is middle class, and the congregation in which she worships is a mixture of middle, lower middle, and lower class. The boy with the sores clearly had access to health care. African Americans in Durham have better than average access to health care because of relatively high rates of access to health insurance and a clinic that provides affordable care to anyone in the county (Durham Health Partners 2004 : 3). However, many African Americans harbor a justifi able suspicion of the health care establishment, rooted in such memories as the Tuskegee Institute medical experiments, in which African American men were deceived and denied adequate treatment, and ongoing racism in the current administration of health care (Townes 1998 : 88 – 100). Not surprisingly, church healers continue to have a role and members call upon them.

This healing event embodies Pentecostal theology. In many Pentecostal circles, the doctrine of “ entire sanctifi cation ” is proclaimed, meaning that by Jesus ’ stripes we are healed in both soul and body (Wacker 2001 : 26). The salvifi c work of Jesus on the cross is not just a spiritual matter, but a physical one too. Illness is the devil ’ s work, and thus healing is a matter of doing battle with cosmic forces of evil. Both the healer and the person in need of healing are engaged in “ spiritual warfare against Old Slewfoot, ” as

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the pastor said, and they need to be “ prayed up ” and “ fasted up ” before entering the fray. Pentecostals practice what is called “ prevailing prayer ” during which the person at prayer believes that God has already answered their prayer. By “ contract, ” God is then obligated to heed prevailing prayer, which “ would automatically bring healing to the body ” (Wacker 2001 : 26; emphasis mine). Many of these theological elements are seen in another mother ’ s prayer for her infant son during painful sickle - cell anemia attacks, recited to me in an interview. “ In the name of Jesus, I plead the blood of Jesus, I bind every evil attack, I curse every attack of the enemy, and I believe God for your healing in the name of Jesus. ” It is Jesus ’ blood that will save her son, whom the devil is attacking and whom she believes God will heal.

Acts of healing outside the church are deeply connected to and always carry with them accretions of healing within the church. The climax in Pentecostal worship is the moment of healing. From the time a worshipper enters the sanctuary, they are aware of entering a liminal space between the mundane and the sacred where anything can happen, including great transformations of body, mind, and soul (Albrecht 1992 : 116 – 120). In this particular congregation, some speak in tongues, but the primary form of ecstatic expression is the shout or holy dance, which is primarily a form of praise. Praise of God is the central context for God ’ s healing response. The word healing itself then carries connotations from this context of liminality, transformation, ecstasy, and praise. Just as the seasoned churchgoer in many traditions cannot hear references to the bread and wine without sensing its liturgical context, so also the word healing invokes particu-lar liturgical meanings for those in this tradition.

In this congregation there are at least two areas where practical theological reason-ing is visible. The fi rst is when the faithful do not have prayers for healing answered, and they remain ill. Given the robust and deeply rooted theological claim that the faith-ful will have their prayers answered, this is particularly challenging. But people fi nd ways to understand this that display their facility with theological reasoning. The devil often attacks people who are particularly faithful. People who are doing God ’ s work with great effectiveness are prone to be affl icted with illness by the devil. When prayers are not answered, illness is an instance where “ God may be manifest. ” The faithfulness displayed during the trials of illness is a witness to God ’ s power and a source of great encouragement to others.

A second area that provokes theological refl ection arises around modern medicine and medical care. Congregational members do not hesitate to use modern health care. Yet if God is the one who heals, isn ’ t turning to doctors and medication a sign of faith-lessness? People offer a variety of theological reasons. The pastor put it most succinctly when he said, about the believer ’ s use of medical care, “ You have to have common sense. ” Others lift a pill or prescription up to God and take it “ as a point of contact ” because “ God works through medicine. ” Finally, healing can take forms other than what is precisely asked for. A preacher told a man facing a leg amputation that his leg was “ well. ” But he had the surgery anyway. He interpreted “ well ” to refer to the speed with which his wound healed after amputation. When theological affi rmations meet the realities of non - cure and use of modern medicine, practical theological reasoning produces a variety of responses that allow for the continued practice of prayer for healing.

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First Downtown Church

Other congregations decouple healing and curing. They do not attempt to incorporate physical healing into worship practice. First Downtown Church, a mostly Euro - American, liberal church that made a conscious choice to stay in the center of Durham, was home to a man living with prostate cancer. During an interview with him, this man spoke about when he “ fi rst came upon the notion of healing and not cure ” :

For me, what ’ s important is healing. It is a strengthening, a sense that it ’ s OK to have prostate cancer. I ’ ve got it, I go on living, and there are lots of things that I can do. Healing my prostate cancer is not something that I pray for. My own prayer for others who are sick is really in terms of healing for them, for the comfort of being aware of themselves and of others around them.

This church of roughly 400 members lives by the banner words, “ Downtown by history and by choice. ” It is well known for its commitment to addressing urban poverty. Many members work for social service agencies, public schools, and nonprofi t service and advocacy organizations. Its membership also includes a member of the city council, a judge, and many faculty and administrators from area universities.

When I interviewed congregational members, I heard no healing stories. In fact, there were few stories at all. Rather, people offered prose descriptions of God ’ s presence, and the primary mode of God ’ s presence in the church was not healing, as at Healing Waters Church, but support through “ the community ” :

If you were to look at the whole picture [during this illness] , where was God? Everywhere. The support from individuals, and from the church as a whole. I knew that she was in people ’ s prayers, I would get emails and phone calls from people that I didn ’ t know very well, that were pleasant surprises to us. Cards and notes. I really felt like people were praying for her.

This congregation resembles what sociologist Nancy Ammerman calls “ Golden Rule Christianity, ” often found in mainline Protestant contexts. Faithfulness is defi ned in the practice of care, not in assent to a set of doctrinal tenets. “ This category of religious persons is best defi ned not by ideology, but by practices. Their own measure of Christianity is right living more than right believing ” (Ammerman 1997 : 197, citing Hoge et al. 1994 ).

When asked about a theological basis for their care, people most often cited following Jesus. One woman said, “ I think your job as a member of the body of Christ is to embody as much of Christ as you can with your actions . . . and this is what I would rather do, is just embody in my actions or my attitude what I think Christ teaches. ” Another man said that “ that ’ s what Jesus did, Jesus took care of people. ”

This congregation demonstrates in its practices themes of theological liberalism. Jesus is an example of how we should live rather than a person with whom the believer has a personal, salvifi c relationship. In contrast to a more socially activist or liberation-ist perspective, where Jesus ’ example would be described as solidarity with the poor, the

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liberal stance has traditionally been construed as service to a neighbor. In contrast to the traditional evangelical emphasis on personal transformation and the liberationist emphasis on changing social structures, the traditional liberal emphasis is on the duty to work for social good through existing human institutions.

Modernist views of healing and theological liberalism are evident in one woman ’ s words:

I see it as a gift from God that there are physicians that help us get well. Maybe that ’ s why I don ’ t pray as much when I get sick because I ’ m thinking, “ I ’ m going to the doctor and God ’ s already answered my prayer that I can afford to, that I have health insurance. ” I ’ m not in a country where there isn ’ t adequate medical care. God has already answered my prayer . . . There are things you have to build in society.

This woman does not pray for healing because she believes God works through giving her access to medical care, not through answering such prayers. Her theological liber-alism is apparent in her desire “ to build in society ” access to health care for all people. God is present not through direct supernatural intervention into bodily disorders but through social structures that Christians are called to build here on earth. Confi dence in human knowledge, modern medicine, and the capacity to “ build ” a just society are characteristic of classical theological liberalism of the turn - of - the - century social gospel.

Practical theological dynamics are visible in this congregation as well. While the Healing Waters Church showed how theological reasoning occurs at the ideational level, practical theology in First Downtown Church occurs at the level of practice. This congregation subtly creates practices that disrupt its otherwise deeply rooted iconoclas-tic Calvinist beliefs. Its members have a thin sense of God ’ s presence in the material world, a stance consistent with Calvinist suspicions regarding human idolatry. They do not “ believe in ” the healing effects of artifacts, such as prayer cloths, anointing oil, icons, candles, or other traditional forms of material Christianity. Nor do they speak of God ’ s spirit working through the bodily touch of healers or moving through the mate-riality of their sick bodies. This profound reticence to identify the created order with the creator is reinforced by the powerful infl uence of modernist thinking, evident in this congregation ’ s assent to modernist “ disenchantment ” with the world (Weber 1998 ). Explanations of illness and healing are largely biomedical, with only rare invocations of the divine.

Yet theological engagement occurs at the level of practical improvisation within the material world. Members improvise alternative material ways of mediating the holy. Get - well cards and letters, for example, are very important, and some carefully save the mail they receive, storing it in a special box or wrapping it in a ribbon. A prayer shawl ministry has emerged in the last few years, and members bring fl owers, make quilts, and create other novel material forms for mediating their care. This congregation, in the most iconoclastic of the Protestant denominations, a denomination deeply infl u-enced by modernist thinking, is casting about for ways to establish a relationship between the sick body, practices of community care, and the material world. Practical theology as an activity of believers is evident in this congregation ’ s groping to

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re - enchant the world through practices constructed out of novel forms of material religion.

Congregations, as a generative site of practical theology, use the beliefs, behaviors, and artifacts at hand to construct responses to illness. Whether that response is a mas-saging of strongly held beliefs about the power of prevailing prayer to provoke God or an improvisation of a material culture that mediates God ’ s presence, these congrega-tions attempt to embody deep convictions in the midst of life. Practical theology is evident in their multiple discernments, appropriations, and creations in response to illness, a condition that has been a part of life since the church ’ s beginning, and has always invoked healing as a response.

References

Albrecht , Daniel E. ( 1992 ). “ Pentecostal Spirituality: Looking through the Lens of Ritual . ” Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 14 : 107 – 125 .

Ammerman , Nancy ( 1997 ). “ Golden Rule Christianity: Lived Religion in the American Mainstream . ” In David H. Hall , ed., Lived Religion: Toward a History of Practice . Princeton : Princeton University Press , pp. 196 – 216 .

Browning , Don S. ( 1991 ). A Fundamental Practical Theology: Descriptive and Strategic Proposals . Minneapolis : Fortress Press .

Cahalan , Kathleen ( 2005 ). “ Three Approaches to Practical Theology, Theological Education, and the Church ’ s Ministry . ” International Journal of Practical Theology 9 : 63 – 94 .

Clebsch , William A. , and Jaekle , Charles R. ( 1964 ). Pastoral Care in Historical Perspective . Englewood Cliffs, NJ : Prentice Hall .

Dunlap , Susan J. ( 2009 ). Caring Cultures: How Congregations Respond to the Sick . Waco, TX : Baylor University Press .

Durham Health Partners ( 2004 ). A Report to the Major Stakeholders on the Health Status of Durham County , synopsis by Andrew Wallace. At http://www.healthydurham.org/docs/fi le/durhams_health/RepToMajorStakeholders.pdf (accessed May 13, 2011).

Fulkerson , Mary McClintock ( 2007 ). Places of Redemption: Theology for a Worldly Church . New York : Oxford University Press .

Gooden , Rosemary D. ( 2008 ). “ Seeking Help for the Body in the Well - Being of the Soul . ” In Stephanie Y. Mitchem and Emilie M. Townes , eds., Faith Health, and Healing in African American Life . Westport, CT : Praeger Press , pp. 146 – 159 .

Grundmann , Christoffer H. ( 2008 ). “ Mission and Healing in Historical Perspective . ” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 32 : 185 – 188 .

Hoge , Dean R. , Johnson , Benton , and Luidens , Donald ( 1994 ). Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Mainline Protestant Baby Boomers . Louisville, KY : Westminster John Knox Press .

Koopman , Nico ( 2006 ). “ Curing or Caring: Theological Comments on Healing . ” Religion and Theology 13 : 38 – 54 .

Maynard , Jane F. , Hummel , Leonard , and Moschella , Mary Clark ( 2010 ). Pastoral Bearings: Lived Religion and Pastoral Theology . Lanham, MD : Lexington Books .

Miller , Timothy S. ( 1978 ). “ The Knights of Saint John and the Hospitals of the Latin West . ” Speculum 53 : 709 – 733 .

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Miller - McLemore , Bonnie ( 2010 ). “ Practical Theology . ” In Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams , eds., Encyclopedia of Religion in America . Washington, DC : Congressional Quarterly Press , pp. 1739 – 1743 .

Moschella , Mary Clark ( 2008 ). Living Devotions: Refl ections on Immigration, Identity, and Religious Imagination . Eugene, OR : Pickwick .

Thomas , John Christopher ( 2005 ). “ Health and Healing: A Pentecostal Contribution . ” Ex Auditu 21 : 88 – 107 .

Townes , Emily ( 1998 ). Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care . New York : Continuum .

Wacker , Grant ( 2001 ). Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture . Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press .

Weber , Max ( 1998 ). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . Los Angeles : Roxbury Publishing .

Wesley , John ( 1960 ). Primitive Physic; or, An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases , 23rd edn. London : Epworth Press .

Williams , Tammy ( 2002 ). “ Is There a Doctor in the House? ” In Miroslav Volf and Dorothy Bass , eds., Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life . Grand Rapids, MI : Eerdmans , pp. 94 – 120 .

Further Reading

Barnes , Linda L. , and Sered , Susan S. , eds. ( 2005 ). Religion and Healing in America . New York : Oxford University Press .

Numbers , Ronald L. , and Amundsen , Darrel W. ( 1986 ). Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions . Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press .

Porterfi eld , Amanda ( 2005 ). Healing in the History of Christianity . Oxford : Oxford University Press .