Faith Cure: Divine Healing in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements

Rating:
Summary: I really enjoyed reading this book.
Review: I am not an historian, but I have been interested in history for most of my life, especially historical aspects of Christianity. My professional background is in psychology, and I have taught on the college level for thirty-two years. It is very apparent that Nancy Hardesty thoroughly researched the subject and has sifted through scores of original documents to get to the fascinating stories of the individuals involved in the Christian healing movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hardesty is careful to state at the outset that her book is not about faith healers, such as those seen on TV and those who conduct large crusades across the country today. I did find the biographical sketches of the men and women who were part of this movement to be at time deeply inspirational, surprising, unusual, controversial, and necessary to my understanding of it. For instance, it was important for me to learn that these individuals were part of a time in history when many had a primarily negative attitude toward doctors and medicine--many people were hurt or died as a result of so-called "doctors" and their practice of "medicine." Ignorance and quackery mixed with drugs, poisons, and other unhelpful treatments left many hopeless with their physical ailments. In short, the medical profession today is much different than it was during the time when the healing movement got underway in Europe and America. The information in the book proved very helpful in my own understanding of the origins of pentecostal and holiness healing movements and why they were so powerful and controversial. The last chapter is a provocative exploration of some of the newest medical experiments which suggest that faith, prayer, religion, and community are positively correlated with healing. As a child growing up in a very conservative and non-pentecostal Christian church, I was taught to be fearful and very suspect of "those types of people and churches--the so-called 'holy rollers'." The information in the book has enabled me to put my own religious upbringing in more of an historical context, and in doing so, I believe I have become more understanding and tolerant of those who have had different spiritual experiences than I have had. Quite unexpectedly, on some pages I found myself marveling at the faith of the individuals discussed and on other pages questioning my own level of faith and my trust in God.