Faith healing ministry of Aimee Semple McPherson

McPherson's faith healing demonstrations were extensively written about in the news media and were a large part of her early career legacy.[4] No one has ever been credited by secular witnesses with anywhere near the numbers of faith healings attributed to McPherson, especially during the years 1919 to 1922.[5] Over time though, she almost withdrew from the faith healing aspect of her services, since it was overwhelming[6] other areas of her ministry. Scheduled healing sessions nevertheless remained highly popular with the public until her death in 1944.

Described incidents of miraculous faith healing are sometimes clinically explained as a result of hysteria or a form of hypnosis. Strong emotions and the mind's ability to trigger the production of opiates, endorphins, and enkephalins; have also been offered as explanations as well as the healings are simply faked. In the case of McPherson, there was no evidence of fraud found.[7] In August 1921, doctors from the American Medical Association in San Francisco secretly investigated some of McPherson's local revival meetings. The subsequent AMA report stated McPherson's healing was "genuine, beneficial and wonderful."[8]

Biographer Daniel Mark Epstein himself was looking for such fraud but found none. In an interview with the Baltimore Sun, Epstein said:

There is no doubt in my mind," he says "that this was a great and courageous woman, whose religious inspiration was totally authentic. I tried to find some evidence in the voluminous newspaper accounts of her healings, of fraud. There is none. Instead I found hundreds of pages of newspaper documentation of reporters who were overwhelmed by what they saw at the healing services. The famous phrase used back then was 'those who came to scoff stayed to pray.' [9]

McPherson stated she had experienced several of her own personal faith healing incidents, among them one in 1909, when her broken foot was mended, an event which first served to introduce her to the possibilities of the healing power.[10] Another was an unexpected recovery from an operation in 1914 where hospital staff expected her to die,[11] and in 1916, before a gathered revival tent crowd, swift rejuvenation of blistered skin from a serious flash burn caused by a lamp exploding in her face.[12]

Her reported first successful public faith healing session of another person was demonstrated in Corona, Long Island, New York, 1916. A young woman in the painful, advanced stages of rheumatoid arthritis was brought to the altar by friends just as McPherson preached "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever", meaning, in part, Jesus had the same power to heal now as in ancient times. McPherson, laid hands upon the crippled woman's head and witnesses looked on as she walked out of the church that same night without crutches.[13] Sick and injured people came to her by the tens of thousands. Press clippings, and testimonials became mountainous. To people who traveled with her, the numerous faith healings were routine.[14] Lubricating her hands with spiced oil, McPherson touched and prayed over the infirm and reporters wrote extensively of what they saw. When asked by a journalist about these demonstrations, McPherson indicated, "the saving of souls is the most important part of my ministry."[15]

Alleged healing miracles played a part in the conversion of past peoples and tribes to Christianity; for example, stated in the testimony of Sozomen (435 AD) about the conversion of his friend Alaphion near Gaza from the city of Bethelea. Alaphion was believed to have been possessed of a devil; and neither the Jewish or pagan physicians and exorcists by their crafts could deliver him from this affliction. The monk Hilarion, by simply calling on the name of Christ, expelled the demon and Alaphion and his whole family and many other relatives immediately embraced Christianity. [16]

The Romani was ethnic group that had many of its members migrate to the United States in the mid-1860s.[17] The infusion of crosses and other symbols of Christianity alongside Romani astrology charts and crystal balls was the result of McPherson's influence.[18] When a Romani tribe king and his mother stated they were faith-healed by McPherson, thousands of others came to her, as well, in caravans from all over the country and were converted. Prizing gold and loyalty, the Romani repaid her in part, with heavy bags of gold coin and jewels, which helped fund the construction of the new Angelus Temple.[19] In Wichita, Kansas, in May 29, 1922, where heavy perennial thunderstorms threatened to rain out the thousands who gathered there, McPherson interrupted the speaker, raised her hand to the sky, and prayed, "let it fall (the rain) after the message has been delivered to these hungry souls". The rain immediately stopped, an event reported the following day by the Wichita Eagle on May 30: "Evangelist's Prayers Hold Big Rain Back,"[20] For the gathered Romani, it was a further acknowledgement "of the woman's power".[21]

Aimee Semple McPherson conducting a healing ceremony at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in 1921. Police support along with U.S. Marines and Army personnel helped manage traffic and the estimated 30,000 people who attended.[22]

Not all healings were successful and McPherson had occasional well-publicized failures. But these were apparently few and people in ever increasing numbers came to her. She was invited back again and again to cities that she previously visited.[23] Perhaps one of the more dramatic public faith healing demonstrations of her career occurred starting in late January 1921 at Balboa Park in San Diego, California. The Spreckles Organ Pavilion in the park was site of several earlier revival meetings by many of her predecessors, and there McPherson preached to a huge crowd of 30,000. She had to move to the outdoor site since the 3,000 seat Dreamland Boxing Arena could not hold the thousands who went to see her. To assist the San Diego Police in maintaining order, the Marines and Army had to be called in.

During the engagement, a woman paralyzed from the waist down from childhood, was presented for faith healing. Concerned because numerous, previous demonstrations had been before much smaller assemblages, McPherson feared she would be run out of town if this healing did not manifest. Author Daniel Mark Epstein, in his book, Sister Aimee, describes her state of mind and what happened next. Believing in the reality of the living Christ, filled with sincere passion beyond love for humanity, McPherson prayed, and laid hands on her. Before 30,000 people—and captured for all time by photography—the woman got up out of her wheelchair and walked. The large gathering responded with thunderous applause.[24] Other unwell persons came to the platform McPherson occupied, and though not all were cured,[25] the sick, injured and invalid by the hundreds continued to line up for healing.

According to news reporters and other witnesses, among the numerous healings that occurred, a goiter shrank, crutches were abandoned, and an abscessed arm was returned to normal. Thousands of people wanted her help, more than she could handle and her stay was extended. As with many of her other meetings, McPherson labored and prayed feverishly for hours over the infirm, often without food or stopping for a break. At the day's end, she would eventually be taken away by her staff, dehydrated and unsteady with fatigue; her distinct, booming voice reduced to a whisper. McPherson herself wrote, “As soon as one was healed, she ran and told nine others, and brought them too, even telegraphing and rushing the sick on trains.[25]" Originally planned for two weeks in the evenings, McPherson's Balboa Park revival meetings lasted over five weeks and went from dawn until dusk.[26][27]

Years later, Epstein interviewed Rolf McPherson, his mother's appointed successor who spoke of the period: "more patients were open to the possibilities of faith healing." Next to him, mounted on his office wall; was a hand tinted photo enlargement of his mother helping a woman out her wheelchair in Balboa Park. He speculated that healings occurred because they had more faith in God and less in science, and he could not "imagine this sort of thing happening again.[28]"

Later in 1921, investigating McPherson's healing services, a survey was sent out by First Baptist Church Pastor William Keeney Towner in San Jose, California, to 3,300 people. 2500 persons responded. Six percent indicated they were immediately and completely healed while 85 percent indicated they were partially healed and continued to improve ever since. Fewer than half of 1 percent did not feel they were at least spiritually uplifted and had their faith strengthened.[29]

Denver Post reporter Frances Wayne writes that while McPherson's "attack" on sin was "uncultured,...the deaf heard, the blind saw, the paralytic walked, the palsied became calm, before the eyes of as many people that could be packed into the largest church auditorium in Denver". In 1922, McPherson returned for a second tour in the Great Revival of Denver[30] and asked about people who have claimed healings from the previous visit. Seventeen people, some well known members of the community, testified, giving credence to McPherson's claim "healing still occurred among modern Christians".[31] McPherson herself disliked being given credit for the healings, considering herself the medium through which the power flows, the power of Christ working the cure.

Aimee Semple McPherson's apparently successful faith healings attracted large crowds and journalists to her revivals. Astonished reporters often took down the names and addresses of those interviewed about their cures. A Washington Times reporter conveyed for her work to be a hoax on such a large scale, it would be more miraculous than the healings that were occurring more rapidly than he could record them. [32]

Actor Anthony Quinn, who for a time played in the church's band and was an apprentice preacher, in this partial quote, recalls a service:

I sat in the orchestra pit of the huge auditorium at the Angelus Temple. Every seat was filled, with the crowd spilling into the aisles. Many were on crutches or in wheelchairs. Suddenly a figure with bright red hair and a flowing white gown walked out to the center of the stage. In a soft voice, almost a whisper, she said, "Brothers and sisters, is there anyone here who wants to be cured tonight?" Long lines formed to reach her. She stood center stage and greeted each one. One man said, "I can't see out of one eye." She asked. "Do you believe, brother?" And suddenly, the man cried, "Yes, sister, I can see, I can see!" And the audience went crazy. To a woman dragging herself across the stage on crutches she said, "Throw away that crutch!" Suddenly, the woman threw away her crutch and ran into Aimee's open arms. I left that service exhilarated, renewed.[33]

When McPherson retired for much needed rest after a long and exhausting faith healing service, she would sometimes suffer from insomnia, a problem she would contend with for the rest of her life.[34] Regarding her own illnesses, she did not abstain from visiting doctors or using medicines.[35] McPherson considered each faith healing incident a sacred gift from God, passed through her to persons healed and not to be taken for granted. In visiting foreign lands, for example, she paid scrupulous attention to sanitation, concerned that a careless oversight might result in acquiring an exotic disease.[36]

In later years, other individuals were identified as having the described faith healing gift. On stage, during Wednesday and Saturday divine healing sessions, she worked among them, or was even absent altogether, diminishing her own singular role. Divine healing, in her view, was not the emergency room, entertainment or something to puzzle scientists, it was a church sacrament.[37] In her own writings and sermons, McPherson did not refer to her own particular personal proficiencies, conveying divine healing was accessible by faith and devotion.

Notes

Citations

• Sheafer, Silvia Anne (2013). Aimee Semple McPherson. New York: Chelsea House. ISBN 978-1-4381-4790-1.