Evangelist David Hernandez reflects on the Spirit’s ministry of healing and the classic work by Francis MacNutt.

Rob Murdoch with woman healed of deafness.

Recently, I was at a crusade in a certain country where we saw many extraordinary things take place. Through the sound system in those nights, the gospel was preached to thousands. Then we began to pray for the sick and many people would come up to testify. I came to realize one detail. The people that were testifying weren’t Christians, or at least weren’t Christians when they came to the event. The majority were Hindus! People who hadn’t believed in Christ before are now getting healed and giving their lives to Jesus. Especially this one Hindu woman that caught my attention, who testified that God had opened her deaf ears. I thank God for these miracles happening all around us.

The 25^th Anniversary edition of Healing by Francis MacNutt.

However, this sparked my interest in the topic of healing. I came to realize that it was topic I knew little about. So how do you learn about a topic? You read. This book about healing is written by a former Catholic priest who became involved in the Charismatic Renewal through the ministry of Agnes Sanford. He became disheartened by traditional church teaching of sickness and suffering that claims that all pain is part of God’s redemptive plan. After this, he himself became interested in the ministry of healing. Through his years of experience, he came to learn much about this controversial teaching that was spreading like wildfire during the Charismatic Renewal. With the help of others, he learns enough to be able to write about this subject.

He first points out that it seems to be God’s general will to heal the sick. I must say that when the Bible talks about sickness, it has absolutely nothing good to say about it. God’s general concern is for our well-being since he is a loving God. It is not simply God granting wishes every now and then, but him revealing his character towards us as our healer. Since Jesus healed, this is the revelation of God’s character towards sickness and disease.

Francis MacNutt

He talks about the traditional teaching of sickness and suffering and points out that the more traditional teaching (that of the early church to the 3rd century) was actually one of healing. Many Catholics, and even Protestants, have been stuck with the teaching that all sickness and suffering are something from God. Slowly, as we look at the Scriptures and the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit, we see that is not the case.

Not only is healing something of the physical body, but also of our soul, mind and emotions. He separates the different types of healing that he has encountered from inner healing to forgiveness. He also talks a little about the controversial deliverance ministry. These types of healings could all be intertwined or the healing of one could resulting in the healing of another. Basically, God wants to heal all our being, not just our bodies.

Healing is a difficult subject where not every question can be answered, but this take on it is an interesting one from an interesting perspective that we should pay attention too.

If we want to live our lives according to the Bible, how we approach Scripture means everything. What differences in interpretation can we see between the contemporary Word of Faith movement and the classic Faith movement?

This chapter is from Paul L. King’s book Only Believe: Examining the Origins and Development of Classic and Contemporary Word of Faith Theologies.

Many, perhaps even most, of the controversies regarding contemporary faith theology and practice have involved the interpretation of various passages of Scripture. Regarding the “health and wealth gospel,” Fee affirms: “The basic problems here are hermeneutical, i.e., they involve questions as to how one interprets Scripture. Even the lay person, who may not know the word “hermeneutics’ and who is not especially trained in interpreting the Bible, senses that this is where the real problem lies. The most distressing thing about their use of Scripture … is the purely subjective and arbitrary way they interpret the biblical text.”¹

Hermeneutics and the Contemporary Faith Movement

James W. Sire, in his book Scripture Twisting, addresses ways in which cults misuse the Scriptures: inaccurate quotation, twisted translation, ignoring the immediate context, collapsing contexts of two or more unrelated texts, speculation and overspecification, mistaking literal language for figurative language (and vice versa), selective citing, confused definitions, ignoring alternative explanations, among others.² Many of these misuses of Scripture in the contemporary faith movement have been pointed out by their critics. However, this does not mean that the contemporary faith leaders are cultic as some have claimed them to be, but it does demonstrate that there is a serious problem with some contemporary faith exegesis.

This is nobly said; but what does it mean? Implied is the hint that interpretations that differ from his are based on what people think, not on what the Bible says. But also implied is the truth that good interpretation should begin with the plain meaning of the text. The plain meaning of the text, however, is precisely what Copeland and the others do not give us, text after text. … But “plain meaning” has first of all to do with the author’s original intent, it has to do with what would have been plain to those to whom the words were originally addressed. It has not to do with how someone from a suburbanized white American culture of the late 20th century reads his own cultural setting back into the text through the frequently distorted prism of the language of the early 17th century.⁴

To illustrate Fee’s apprehension, a popular saying in the contemporary faith movement proclaims, “God said it; I believe it; and that settles it.” That statement is true as far as it goes. But it leaves something out: what is it that God really said, and what does it mean? Often this is presumed, rather than thought through and studied exegetically. Lovett, formerly a professor at Oral Roberts University, also writes of his concern, explaining, “The problem with exponents of the Rhema [word of faith] interpretation is their biased selection of biblical passages, often without due regard to their context. The self-defined phrase ‘confessing the Word of God’ takes precedence over hermeneutical principles and rules for biblical interpretation. This approach not only does violence to the text but forces the NT linguistic data into artificial categories that the biblical authors themselves could not affirm.”⁵ Simmons concludes that the shaky hermeneutical foundation of the contemporary faith movement stems from its acknowledged founder: “In Kenyon’s hands, even the texts that were a major focus of Keswickeans in general proved to be remarkably elastic. … Kenyon’s tendency was to stretch a term or metaphor to a literal extreme that the original word or figure of speech did not intend.”⁶

Historian Paul King introduces us to the origins of the controversial Word of Faith movement.

Paul King speaking at the 2014 Society for Pentecostal Studies convention.

A spate of articles and books have appeared over the past two decades debating the controversial teachings of the “Word of Faith” movement. Several blistering critiques such as those of D.R. McConnell (A Different Gospel) and Hank Hanegraaff (Christianity in Crisis) have claimed the movement as heretical or cultic, originating in New Thought metaphysics.¹ Others such as William DeArteaga, Joe McIntyre, Derek Vreeland have mounted defenses or reconstructions of modern faith theology, while still others such as Geir Lie, Dale Simmons, and Robert Bowman have presented more moderate critiques and scholarly studies.²

E. W. Kenyon (1867-1948) is generally recognized as the chief originator of the modern faith movement.³ The core of the controversy is found in the purported origins of Kenyon’s teachings. McConnell’s pivotal and influential book entitled A Different Gospel made a case for extensive influence from New Thought metaphysics upon the thinking of Kenyon, detailing noticeable parallels between Kenyon’s writings and New Thought writers. He thus concluded that Kenyon’s thought, and therefore modern faith teaching, is derived from non-Christian cultic sources and thus suspect. Hanegraaff built on McConnell’s research and conclusions to avow further that the modern faith teaching is heretical and cultic. Both books have made a significant impact on the evangelical Christian community in labeling the word of faith movement as heterodox and even sacrilegious.

Church historian Eddie Hyatt comments, “These critics … display a lack of knowledge concerning the historical development of the twentieth century Pentecostal movement from its nineteenth century antecedents and its influence of the modern movement. It is in the religious mileau [sic] out of the Holiness and Healing movements of the nineteenth century that the modern “Faith Movement” finds its primary emphasis.”⁴ Similarly, Simmons’ doctoral dissertation concludes:

As for Kenyon himself, it would appear that he is best placed within the Keswickean/Higher Christian Life tradition. … This is not to say that there are not aspects of Kenyon’s teaching—specifically those centering on one’s confession—that he stresses to a point that is only comparable to that of New Thought. … It would be going too far to conclude that New Thought was the major contributing factor in the initial development of Kenyon’s thought.⁵

Taking a more scientific approach than McConnell and Hanegraaff, Bowman compared 23 standard New Thought concepts with Christian Science and Kenyon. From this statistical analysis, he concluded that while there is much in common between Christian Science and New Thought, there is “little resemblance” between Kenyon and New Thought. Further, he concluded that Kenyon is “far closer to orthodoxy than is Christian Science.” Kenyon may share some similarity with metaphysical thought, but his views are “fundamentally different.”⁶ He demonstrates that McConnell’s methodology is faulty, and thus his conclusions regarding Kenyon’s connections with metaphysical New Thought are deeply flawed. While there may have been some metaphysical influence, Kenyon’s views are more unlike such concepts than like.