Dr. William L. De Arteaga wrote Agnes Sanford and Her Companions: The Assault on Cessationism and the Coming of the Charismatic Renewal to describe the history of Cessationism within the Christian Church. He splits the book into five parts, each describing a different aspect of the topic. The first three sections focus primarily on how Cessationism arose in response to the heresy of Marcion, how it was challenged by movements that developed in reaction to attempts to quench revival, and how its rejection eventually brought forth both the Pentecost and Charismatic Movements. The last two sections are centered on Agnes Sanford, first and foremost describing her ministry and writings and then discussing how her contributions affected later movements and ministries. De Arteaga presents an insightful and scholarly book reflecting both research and insight into historical persons and movements. His evaluation of Cessationism, not only as a movement but also as an impetus for change, is invaluable for anyone interested in understanding renewal and revival. Although his opinion of Sanford is clearly favorable, he provides sufficient support to allay any suspicions of interpretive bias. I highly recommend Agnes Sanford and Her Companions for anyone who is interested in Agnes Sanford as well as the theological issues related to the rise and fall of Cessationsim in Christian history.

Reviewed by Martin L. Dignard

William De Arteaga has created a ground-breaking, major contribution that is foundational to the evolving understanding of the Pentecostal/charismatic movement projected to reach 811 million in only four more years.

The author offers a surprisingly sympathetic narrative of one whom he regards as the foremost, and ultimately, most influential theologian of the charismatic renewal, a woman nonetheless maligned as a “new age” heretic, Agnes Sanford.

De Arteaga’s work employs two metaphors to express its thesis that Sanford’s ministry overcame cessationism (the “Galatian bewitchment” 3:1-3, replacing the miracle power of God with human effort), by a series of “Marcion shoves” (a reference to a heretic pushing a truth into error in order to bring that truth to the attention of the mainstream). In Sanford’s case, hers was a trial-and-error sampling of various contemporary positions on healing, being dialectally “shoved” into a thoroughly biblical understanding.

In the early 1930s, the loudest voice against healing, however, was the heretical consensus doctrine of Protestantism of that time: cessationism, that is, miracles of healing simply do not happen today. Sanford began her God-given quest by having to reject the “Galatian bewitchment” of her cradle faith, Protestantism. In this De Arteaga showed how Sanford, in the total vacuum of Christian biblical scholarship on healing, was compelled to search a variety of fringe groups for any possible insight into the truth about the healings she had received from God. Through all this, Sanford held to the centrality of Jesus and his scriptures, but only gradually, with no help from the church, discovering how central was healing to the biblical mission and message of Jesus and the New Testament.

Agnes was the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries in China, educated in the US, who as an adult continued their ministry back in China briefly until she met and married an Anglican missionary, Ted Sanford. Against the growing destabilization of China by competing warlords in the 1920s and by the insurgent communists, the new family moved to the USA to minister in Anglican churches near Philadelphia. Upon the healing of her baby son of a severe ear infection and of her own deep depression by a fellow Anglican clergyman, Agnes Sanford’s life course was set. It was discerned that her depression derived from “violating her God-given nature” by trying to be an excellent housewife instead of the writer and minister of healing that God had called her to be.

At this point, since the Christian tradition at that time was unanimously cessationist (the “Galatian bewitchment”) Sanford decided to test (ever alert to the “Marcion shove”) the variety of competing ideologies on healing, Christian Science, occult “science,” spiritism, “New Thought,” New Age, etc. against the “standard” of Jesus described in the four Gospels.

Since she had personally experienced such miracles, Sanford’s curiosity was drawn to the only voices of the time, who seemed to affirm what she had seen so clearly. She skimmed Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health but found “it did not make sense.” She twice attended a “Christian” spiritist séance, “carefully keeping an open mind,” but discovered the leader himself was plagued by spirit-induced headaches. When Sanford prayed for the spiritist’s sick mother, she found herself in “deep depression” and “could taste in [her] own mouth” the foul odor on the breath of the spiritist. On top of that the spiritist’s mother immediately died. Sanford promised the Lord that she would “never go near a séance again.” Unwittingly, she came to understand that her prayer was mixing the “energy” of the demonic with that of the Holy Spirit. Thereafter, she would screen out for special attention and prayer anyone who admitted to involvement in spiritism. Despite her strict and clear repudiation of her experiment with “Christian” spiritism, critics pounced on her account as evidence of her “demonic” ministry, instead of it serving as a “Marcion shove” toward biblical truth. Sanford’s “scientific” and biblical process of “Do not quench the Spirit . . . test all things, hold fast to that which is good” (1Th 5:19-20) proved inflammatory for her critics.

Philip Jenkins, “Companions of Life: A Supple Faith” Christian Vision Project, Books & Culture 13:2 (March/April 2007), pages 9-18.

Philip Jenkins, professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University, is one of the most invigorating voices currently investigating the present state and future fate of global Christianity. Having read his work (e.g., The Next Christendom) and heard him speak (at a Society for Pentecostal Studies meeting) I have come to appreciate both his wit and wisdom, humor and insight. Hopefully, he would appreciate my ideological identification of him as the “Mr. Fantastic” of contemporary Christian studies! Mr. Fantastic, the leader of Marvel Comics’ superhero team “Fantastic Four” (since 1961) and in two major motion pictures to date (2005, 2007), is a scientific genius and incredibly flexible, able to stretch his body into great lengths and shapes. In an exciting scene from the 2005 film he contains his unruly friend, “The Thing,” who is huge, hard, and amazingly strong, by wrapping himself around him until he cannot move. Thus he proves that flexibility and mobility can overcome brute strength and sheer size. And here we have Philip Jenkins’ “supple faith.” But lest we allow my comic book illustration to mislead, let it now be known that Jenkins is most serious and should be taken so by readers. Recognizing his expertise in the area of Christian mission, Books & Culture printed his “provocative answer,” as they called it, to their question, “What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God’s mission in the world?” And indeed, his answer is must reading for those most interested in contemporary Christian mission.

Philip Jenkins

Jenkins begins by noting European and American Christian missions have been astonishingly successful around the world; so much so, in fact, that the demographics and dynamics of global Christian identity have been significantly transformed. The majority of Christianity now resides outside the global North inside the global South. Consequently, Jenkins recommends rethinking mission. First, “we Northerners” need to better appreciate our place in the wider Christian context. We do not represent the norm within Christianity and may over time become more marginalized. The average or ordinary Christian today lives in poverty in a non-stable nation-state probably without a real priority on human rights. This profile calls for a reorientation of priorities. According to Jenkins, although we don’t need to completely give up on gospel proclamation quite yet, we’ve done a good basic job of reaching the world and now need to consider our “primary obligation” (original italics) that of helping the many who are already Christians improve their dire and dreadful living circumstances. Also, rather than thinking exclusively in terms of foreign missions, we need to take account of opportunities provided by globalization and immigration bringing former missionary prospects to our own shores instead. Finally, we might also begin to think in terms of “reconversion.” Countries and even continents once prominently considered Christian are experiencing a “dechristianization” process. So then, for example, how to “rekindle the ancient flames” in the faith of Europe could be an extremely important project.