Agnes Sanford: Apostle of Healing and First Theologian of the Charismatic Renewal, Part 2, by William L. De Arteaga
In the first years, Ted and Agnes were invariably the main instructors, with one of their medical friends rounding out the team. The School was founded after the Sanfords had experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and as a result, the curriculum incorporated the Baptism of the Spirit and its role in healing. The School began to multiply in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1956 two branches were begun in Texas and Ohio. One was begun in Austria in 1961, and this was followed quickly by others in England, Canada, Holland and New Zealand. The Canadian branch was particularly influential, and for a period, the Anglican hierarchy in several Canadian dioceses used the School as part of their priest’s continuing education program.
Mrs. Sanford as First Theologian of the Renewal
The Charismatic Renewal broke out in 1960, triggered by the publicity surrounding the Rev. Dennis Bennett’s “tongues” incident at his Episcopal Church in California.. It reached its crescendo in the mid 1970s. In the beginning years of the Renewal many of Mrs. Sanford’s books served as the primary theological inspiration of the movement. The Healing Light was its first healing textbook. Two other books were also influential, Behold Your God, published two years before the Renewal began, but circulated among Mrs. Sanford’s following at CFOs and denominational churches, and The Healing Gifts of the Spirit, published in 1966 while the Renewal was in full bloom.
From the very beginning of the Renewal there were some who believed Mrs. Sanford’s theology was “far out” and occultic. Besides the “strange” nature-to-grace theology, critics would point to her belief in the “pre-existent spirit” as proof of her unorthodoxy. Significantly, the concept of the pre-existent spirit is clearly indicated in both the Old and New Testaments. For example in Jer. 1:5, God addresses the prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” (Note also: Eph. 1:4 and 2 Thes. 2:13.) The idea seems heretical to contemporary Christians because it was ruled off the theological agenda as in the Fifth century by a Byzantine Emperor who fancied himself as a great theologian, and wanted to discredit the earlier theologian Origen. His prejudice became part of the theological consensus of the Medieval Church and went unchallenged during the Reformation period.
Mrs. Sanford believed that it is only through Jesus’ name that the great works of healing described in the Bible can be achieved.
The Rev. Ted Sanford died in 1960, and five years later Agnes moved to Monrovia, California, to be close to her children. From there, she continued her teaching and speaking ministry and wrote her last books, including her autobiography, Sealed Orders. In California, she developed what might be called her “nature” ministry, which involved praying for the non-human created order. This is a ministry ignored by most Christians and entered into only by few persons such as St. Francis and George Washington Carver.
Category: Church History, Summer 2006
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