Old Wine, New Wineskins

PNEUMA: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Volume 28, No. 1, Spring 2006

Old Wine, New Wineskins: The Rise of Healing Rooms in Revival

Pentecostalism

Margaret M. Poloma

Divine healing was an integral part of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and of the early Christian church. It is not without significance that nearly one fifth of the Gospels is devoted to accounts of healing, and the Acts of the Apostles (a biblical account of the history of early Christendom) includes many stories of miraculous healings. Divine healing had remained (more or less) a normative expectation in the early church for nearly three centuries.1 It was with the increased institutionalization of Christianity and the eventual development of an Aristotelian-based theology dichotomiz-ing body and soul that divine healing was downplayed in favor of secular medicine.

While Catholicism left room for faith healing in its folk religion of pilgrimages and apparitions, Reformation Protestantism (for the most part) inherited a theology in which faith healing was regarded as little more than superstition. Theologians may have acknowledged that miraculous healing occurred in Jesus' ministry and could be found among early Christians to lend an impetus to the development of Christianity, but such "signs and wonders" were no longer normative experiences. Influenced by the Enlightenment, Catholics and Protestants alike (in both liberal and conservative dress) shared a common skepticism about so-called faith healing at the onset of the twentieth century.

Rumors of divine healing, however, could be heard from time to time in new religious groups that encouraged its belief and practice. One of the earliest American groups to advocate healing was the Society of Friends, with George Fox (the founder of the Quakers) having a significant healing ministry. It was not unusual for American religious movements birthed in the fervor of revivalism (including the Shakers, Mormons, Noyesites, and Adventists) to encourage the practice of healing prayer.2

1 See Morton Kelsey, Healing and Christianity (New York: Harper and Row, 1973); and F. S. MacNutt, The Nearly Perfect Crime: How the Church Almost Killed the Ministry of Healing (Chosen Books, 2005).

2 F. G. Chappell, "Healing Movements," in S. M. Burgess and G. B. McGee, eds., Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1988), 353-74.

2006 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden pp. 59-71

PNEUMA The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Volume 28, No 1, Spring 2006

Wesleyan revivals of the late nineteenth century added a theological ratio-nale to the experiential base that served to restore divine healing as a nor-mative Christian belief and practice. In the Wesleyan Holiness movement, a direct antecedent to the Pentecostal revivals of the twentieth century, leaders began to link a doctrine of Christian perfectionism with divine healing, teaching that "Christ's atonement provided not only for justification but also for the purification of the human nature from sin." According to some perfectionist theology, this purification would "eliminate illness."3

In sum, there appears to be a strong link between religious revivalism and divine healing in American religious history. The practice of divine healing has tended to decline within religious movements as revivalism gives way to church doctrine and structure. This routinization of charis-matic healing has been experienced throughout the two millennia of Christian history, with the practice being revitalized in recent history dur-ing heights of religious revivals. With the noteworthy exception of the Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science), however, most groups in the nineteenth century that practiced divine healing did not make it a cen-tral tenet of faith. It was not until the twentieth century and the rise of Pentecostalism, with intermittent waves of revival washing across its shores during its one hundred-year history, that divine healing once again assumed a central role in orthodox Christian practice.

Divine Healing in Revival Context

The belief in and practice of divine healing within American Protestantism experienced revitalization through the healings reported during the revivals of the late nineteenth century and the emergence of Pentecostalism in the first quarter of the twentieth century. One of the best-known and most controversial historical figures in the early healing movement is John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907), founder of the Christian Catholic Church and the Utopian religious community of Zion City in Illinois. The 1893 Chicago World's Fair provided a public forum for Dowie to practice his healing powers in meetings he conducted across the street from popular attractions. His healing ministry flourished in part due to countless testimonies of healing that allegedly took place as a result of his prayer. Dowie's restorationist vision for Christianity lost ground to his critics, however, and he died in 1907, rejected by many who had acclaimed him. With his combative style, Dowie had alienated even other believers

3 Ibid., 357.

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Old Wine, New Wineskins: The Rise of Healing Rooms in Revival Pentecostalism

who practiced healing. His vision of a pristine Christianity left no room for the medical profession, and he barred its practitioners from entering his Zion City. Anyone who sought Dowie's prayers for healing was required to relinquish all medical treatment, relying solely on the power of faith to heal.4

Although Dowie died during the height of the Azusa Street Revival (1906-9) that gave birth to Pentecostalism, he is commonly seen as an important forerunner of the Pentecostal Movement. Particularly relevant for this discussion is Dowie's establishment of "healing homes" and his influence on John G. Lake, the Pentecostal evangelist who is regarded as the grandfather of the healing rooms movement. Dowie's ministry estab-lished what he called "healing homes" to replace hospitalsplaces where those with severe illnesses moved and where they received prayer until they were either totally healed or died. Dowie became a mentor to Lake when Lake's wife was instantly healed from tuberculosis after Dowie prayed for her. Following the healing, Lake joined Dowie's ministry and served as an elder in the Zion Catholic Apostolic Church.5

Eight years into his healing ministry with Dowie, Lake experienced another spiritual breakthrough. As he and a friend were praying for heal-ing for a woman in a wheelchair, Lake felt as if he had "passed under a shower of warm tropical rain, which was not falling on me but through me. My spirit and soul and body, under this influence was soothed into such a deep calm as I had ever known."6 Lake believed he heard the Spirit speak to him and tell him that he was now "baptized in the Holy Spirit." Nearly immediately Lake, his prayer partner, and the woman all began to experience the "rush of power" that they attributed to the Spirit of God.

Shortly after this perceived anointing (and after Dowie's death in 1907), Lake and his family set out for mission fields in Africa. His wife's untimely death in 1908 shortly after they arrived in Africa failed to dampen Lake's belief in healing. After returning to the U.S. in 1913, Lake opened Dowie-like healing rooms in Spokane and Portland, with a view to establishing chains of healing rooms across the country. He put together a team of men and women whom he called "healing technicians" who ministered from a suite of rooms in downtown Spokane from 1914 to 1920. Five

4 E. L. Blumhofer, "Dowie, John Alexander," in S. M. Burgess, ed., The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 586-87.

5 J. R. Ziegler, "Lake, John Graham," in S. M. Burgess, ed., The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, 828.

6 J. G. Lake, The John G. Lake Sermons on Dominion over Demons, Disease and Death, ed. G. Lindsay (Dallas: Christ for the Nations Inc., [1949] 2002), 7.

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years after establishing the Spokane Divine Healing Rooms, Lake described the work of the "competent staff of ministers" as follows:

They believed in the Lord as the present, perfect Healer, and ministered the Spirit of God to the sick through prayer and the laying on of hands. The records show that we ministered up to 200 persons a day; that of these, 176 were non-church members. The knowledge of and faith in Jesus Christ as the Healer has gripped the world outside the present Church societies, and the number of those who believe are increasing with such rapidity that in a short time they may become a majority in many communities.7

When Lake died of a stroke in 1935 the unfulfilled vision of establishing a nationwide chain of healing rooms seemed to die with him.

Although healing had been and remained a central belief and practice for Pentecostal believers throughout the twentieth century, the revitalization of dynamic healing practices often came through famous healing evangelists, including well-known "anointed" men and women like William Branham (1909-65), Kathryn Kulhman (1907-76), Oral Roberts (1918-), and Benny Hinn (1952-), rather than through ministry teams. In teaching common men and women to function as healers, Lake's healing rooms and their contemporary counterparts demonstrate that the practice of divine healing is not the property of a few healing evangelists. Perhaps no single individual did more to promote this democratized belief during the last decades of the twentieth century than John Wimber, the founder of the Association of Vineyard Churches. Wimber conducted many well-attended conferences on healing in both North America and abroad during the 1980s and until his death in 1998 that taught attendees how to pray for healing. It was in Wimberite circles during the 1990s that revival fires ignited to energize the rebirth of John G. Lake's vision of a chain of healing rooms, not only across the nation but also around the globe.8

The 1990s Revivals and the Rebirth of Healing Rooms

The story of the resurrection of the healing rooms at the turn of the third millennium is rooted in a revival that occurred at Bethel Assembly of God in Redding, California in 1996.9 Cal Pierce, a retired real estate

7 Ibid., 127-28. 8 M. M. Poloma, Main Street Mystics. The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism

(Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press, 2003). 9 Under the leadership of Pastor Bill Johnson healing rooms were established at Bethel

Church that predated the establishment of the Spokane healing rooms. Thirty-three healing rooms were listed throughout California on the IAHR website in midsummer of 2004, with

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developer who founded the contemporary movement, had an experience not unlike experiences reported by John G. Lake decades earlier. Pierce offered the following description of his divine encounter at a mandatory meeting called for by his pastor at a time when Pierce would describe himself as being "spiritually stagnant":

The meeting opened with prayer, and someone led us in a series of wor-ship choruses. Then, suddenly, Bill [the pastor] was standing before us. He had his hands upraised to heaven, and he was saying, "Come, Holy Spirit!" The next thing I remember is that wave after wave of fire began to course through my body. The flames seemed to be going deep into my bones, and that made me want to run or jump or shout or scream or all of those things at once. But I couldn't move. My feet were stuck to the floor, as if they had been glued there.10

On seeming impulse and without a clear sense of direction, Pierce decided to drive north to Spokane for a few days of prayer. When he made this announcement to his Sunday school class before he left, a woman in his class spoke up and said, "That's where John G. Lake was from, and he's buried there." While driving to Spokane, Pierce was unable to get the Spokane-Lake connection out of his mind, and he resolved to visit the site of Lake's healing rooms and his grave. Soon Pierce felt God was call-ing him to move to Spokanea move that was made possible by numer-ous acts of "divine serendipity" accompanied with prophetic words with a seeming divine mandate to "re-dig the ancient wells."11 By the summer of 1999, Cal Pierce had settled in Spokane and opened his envisioned healing rooms in the building where healing evangelist John G. Lake had established his healing rooms in the 1910s. John G. Lake's mantle for the establishment of healing seemed to have fallen on Cal Pierce and, with it, the unfolding of prophetic events.

Around the same time that Pierce's vision for healing rooms around the country was being born, another revivalist was sharing his mandate

six more "opening soon." The healing rooms at Bethel Church in Redding, California, however, were not listed as a member of IAHR.

10 Cal Pierce, Preparing the Way (Hagerstown, MD: McDougal Publishing, 2001), 34. 11 Ibid. The 1990s prophecies and visions known in some revival circles included

words about "healing rooms." When Cal Pierce moved to Spokane in the spring of 1999, he produced a brochure describing the healing rooms and disseminated it as widely as pos-sible. The brochure fell into the hands of two men from Vancouver, Washington who had made a series of trips to Spokane "to prepare for what the Spirit is saying will be a new outpouring of healing upon the city" (Pierce 2001:66). They sought out Pierce after see-ing a copy of his brochure and hearing a prophecy given by a well-known renewal prophet, Bob Jones, in Spokane in 1996. The gist of the prophecy was that a new healing anoint-ing would be "brought into the city and would eventually go from here to all the world."

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to establish healing rooms in the Cleveland, Ohio area. John Rowe, an evangelist from Arkansas, had been conducting revivals in northeastern Ohio and eventually moved to the Cleveland area. Despite a visit to the Spokane Healing Rooms, Rowe died of colon cancer at the age of forty-eight with his vision still unfulfilled. He did leave a folder about healing rooms with a friend, however, to give to an unknown and unnamed recipient "as the Lord leads." The recipient turned out to be Jim White, an evangelist in the Cleveland area whom Rowe had never met or even heard of.12

After Rowe's death, White (who knew nothing of Rowe or the concept of "healing rooms") had an open vision during a revival servicea vision so real that "I thought everyone else was seeing it too." In the vision a man clad in Olympic attire was running across the church stage with a gold torch in his hands bearing the words "healing rooms." The man ran past White, handed him the torch, and ran off into a corner of the sanctuary that looked to White "like heaven." The same night that White had the vision, an elderly man handed him a blue file folder. White tossed it on the seat of his car, but failed to open it until two days later. Meanwhile, White was on the Internet trying to find information on "healing rooms" and discovered the Spokane Healing Rooms website. When White finally did open the blue folder, he found a note from John Rowe that read "by the time you read this I will have died and gone to heaven." (About six weeks after the vision an anonymous person sent White a photograph of Rowe, and he was certain that the man of his vision and the one who left the blue folder and note were one and the same.) Within a matter of months and after countless other divinely serendipitous events (including White's healing from cancer in Spokane in May 2001), the Healing Rooms of Greater Cleveland opened their doors in October 2001 amidst a strip of medical offices in Parma, Ohio.13

The Healing Rooms of Greater Cleveland (HRGC) moved from the southwestern suburb of Parma to the northeastern suburb of Willowick,

12 The narrative of White's ministry as an evangelist provides another complementary account of White's perception of divine guidance. White had been leading a revival that developed in late 1997 at an Assemblies of God church in an eastern suburb of Cleveland that lasted for three years. For White, it was a "dream come true." One night he heard the Holy Spirit ask: "Do you want to be popular or do you want to be effective?" White knew the "correct" answer and sensed that he was to pull back from the church revival (and his livelihood from his ministry) to pray and fast while waiting for further directions. They came in the form of the Healing Rooms of Greater Cleveland.

13 S. Roth, "It's Supernatural: Guest Jim White," Video, Code IS245 (Brunswick, GA: Messianic Vision, 2003).

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Old Wine, New Wineskins The Rise of Healing Rooms in Revival Pentecostalism

Ohio in March 2004. HRGC is but one of over two hundred healing rooms listed on the International Association of Healing Rooms website in the United States, Canada, England, Continental Europe, and approxi-mately a dozen other locations. The healing rooms movement has grown rapidly within Pentecostal/Charismatic communities, with each entry undoubtedly having its own story of visions, prophecy, and divine serendipity narrated in the same mystical chord as that of the Spokane and Cleveland examples.14

What are "Healing Rooms"?

The Healing Rooms of Greater Cleveland offer sensitive prayer for those suffering in their physical bodies. It's a ministry committed to serving the sick through the ministry of God's Healing Word, the power of his pres-ence, and compassionate prayer. We believe that it is God's will that the power of Christ is available to all who ask. Many who have come experi-enced the miraculous in their lives. If you're looking for a touch from God, we invite you to come and receive.

(Brochure for Healing Rooms of Greater Cleveland)

Healing rooms are presently being established in medical/professional office buildings, churches, and independent "houses" as places where the sick can come for prayer for healing on a regular basis across North America and internationally. At the time of this writing, over two hun-dred independent healing rooms have sprung up throughout North America and overseas that are listed as members of Pierce's International Association of Healing Rooms (IAHR). This figure is double the one hundred mem-bers reported two years earlier, and the movement shows no signs of slow-ing down.15

The International Association of Healing Rooms in Spokane provides a covering for member groups. IAHR's website (www.healingrooms.com) describes its purpose as follows:

We are an association of Healing Rooms Ministries in churches and cities with a common vision to establish healing back into the body of Christ.

Poloma, Main Street Mystics. 15 Pierce was not the only one to hear the call to "re-dig the wells of John G. Lake"

in Spokane. Jerry and Mary Breeden, who since 1973 had reportedly been "asking God to use our lives as he had the life of John G. Lake," received instructions similar to Pierce's in January 1999. In August 1999 they purchased Lake's home, where they now live and minister healing to people. In August 2001 they reopened the original site of John G. Lake's Apostolic Tabernacle. (See www.johnglake.com) Breeden's Divine Healing Institute of Spokane, although similar in ministry and purpose, is not affiliated with Pierce's IAHR.

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http://www.healingrooms.comhttp://www.johnglake.com


Our commission is based on Mark 16:17-18: "And these signs shall follow those that believe . . . they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." The vision is to see Healing Rooms set in around the world. Our goal is to establish uniformity and accountability in each work by offering, through an association, the tools to properly equip each healing room. Our focus must be on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to work through us to heal the sick.

Most members of IAHR share Dowie's and Lake's tenet that divine healing is something to be expected, teaching that just as salvation comes through Jesus' atoning death, so does healing. They also share the vehicle of healing homes or healing rooms (often set up outside the church proper) to conduct ongoing prayer for the sick to which all (church and unchurched) can come for healing. That ordinary Christians volunteer their time as ministers in these healing rooms is a strategy found throughout this new healing movement. Followers of the movement do not, however, share the disdain that Dowie and Lake had for the medical establishment. While their theology of healing does not disparage modern medicine, it does express greater regard for divine power to heal than for the efficacy of medicine. With an eye on avoiding potential lawsuits, pray-ers are instructed not to offer medical advice and not to "give direction for someone's life." The task of the pray-er is not to give advice of any kind but "to release God's healing power" to those who come to the healing rooms.16

The theology underlying Cal Pierce's and IAHR teaching shares with Dowie, Lake, and their followers an insistence that healing and salvation are intimately related. Just as conservative Protestants profess that salvation comes by faith, so too is healing believed to be a result of faith. Accordingly, the "atonement" of Jesus' crucifixion guarantees not only spiritual salva-tion but also physical healing for all who believe in and accept it. Sickness is seen as the work of the devil, while healing is seen as the work of God. The articulation of this healing theology resonates with the so-called "Word of Faith" message made popular in the Charismatic movement during the last half of the twentieth century by "faith healers" like Oral Roberts, Kenneth Hagin, and Kenneth Copeland.17 Pierce succinctly explains his position as follows:

16 The "Release of Liability Form" for persons seeking prayer at the HRGC includes the following statement: "I acknowledge and agree that I will not accept counsel or advice directing me to cease taking medication that I am presently taking. I further agree that my personal physician will be the only one to advise me to cease taking any medication."

17 On October 2, 2002 I was presented with a copy of Aaron D. Lewis' book Healing for the Twenty-first Century during the training seminar. The book is one of the most recent of many books written by Charismatic/Pentecostal healing evangelists in the past one hun-

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Our faith does not depend on how we feel, because it is more real than our sickness. If the Word of God created the world and everything in it, then doesn't it make sense that the world and everything in it is subject to the Creator?

If Jesus came to destroy the work of the devil, and the infirmity that is in us is the work of the devil, then that work needs to be destroyed. That is a message for Christians. We would not allow the lost to come into our church services and become involved in our programs and think nothing of it. We would have a burden to get them saved. Still we allow sick peo-ple to be involved in our churches at every level, and we think nothing of it. Why let them suffer? It is time to prevail against sickness. Jesus came to destroy it, just as He came to destroy our sin.18

Despite the prevailing teachings, the protocol for healing prayer min-istry at HRGC offers instructions that would (if followed) soften the impact of a theology that would appear to "blame the victim" for his or her ill-ness. Underlined in the training manual is the statement, "Never make anyone feel they are unable to receive healing because they lack 'faith' or are resisting the Holy Spirit. We're called to encourage, love and heal, not to speak words that will bring rejection or discouragement."

Not surprisingly, those involved in the healing rooms movement are subject to terminal illness, just as are those who do not share their beliefs. As we have seen, Dowie suffered a stroke just as he planned to reproduce Zions in other areas, Lake's wife died just as they began their healing ministry in Africa, and Lake died of a stroke without seeing his vision actualized. Closer to the contemporary healing rooms, John Rowe, the itinerant evangelist who was given the first vision for establishing heal-ing rooms in Cleveland, died of colon cancera disease that also threat-ened Jim White during the time his vision was unfolding. It is interesting to note that Jim White, who believes he has received the mantle of John Rowe in successfully opening the HRGC, also contracted colon cancer but was healed during a visit to Spokane before the scheduled surgery.19

(White did experience the death of a close friend of cancer, however,

dred years that teaches variations of what has come to be called the "Word Faith" approach to healing. This approach has great similarities to the nineteenth-century Mind Thought and the twentieth-century New Age movements in emphasizing the role that "correct think-ing" plays in the healing process.

18 Pierce, Preparing the Way, 130-31. 19 In February 2001during the period of early visions and eight months before the

October opening of the HRGCJim White believed the Holy Spirit told him, "Thousands fly into Cleveland to receive healing from Cleveland Clinic. Thousands will come to receive healing from the healing rooms." Hundreds, if not thousands, have come to the HRGC for training on how to establish healing rooms and conferences, and White is in demand as a national and international speaker/consultant for the larger movement.

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despite the many prayers offered for her healing.) The reality of sickness and death in the midst of the movement is noted but is seen as an enemy that will be conquered rather than a cause for defeat.

A Report from the Field

In September 2002 I signed up for a four-day training program to pre-pare me to serve as a pray-er on the volunteer prayer teams at HRGC. Joined by a team of twelve lay persons who came in from England to learn how to establish healing rooms, I underwent training that included basic teaching and prayer for healing empowerment as well as additional insights as to how to establish healing rooms. I began serving on the prayer teams in the fall of 2002, originally around three times a month and, after HRGC's move in March 2004, approximately twice a month. Since pray-ers always pray with at least one and usually two other team members, my field notes suggest differences depending on the prayer partner. Moreover, despite efforts at "quality control", not surprisingly not all rules are always adhered to.20 Significant differences among pray-ers exist that go beyond nuances in interpretation and application of the basic training. In praying with dozens of different women and men, I have observed differences in natural giftedness (or, from a charismatic per-spective, differences in "empowerment") that affect the outcome of the ministry.

One example will suffice. Upon arrival, each first-time client is asked to fill out a brief informational form and to sign a consent form. The infor-mational form is brought to a prayer team by the staff person who has welcomed the client. Ordinarily the prayer team reviews the form and then immediately proceeds into the prayer room to pray for the client. After my prayer partners and I reviewed the form and noted the client's request to be healed of migraine headaches, I proceeded to get up and move toward the door leading to the prayer room. One of the women said, "No. Wait. We need to pray before going to the room to find out

20 For example, on one of my first visits, I joined two other women who had been serving as prayer volunteers for several months. Although I said nothing, I noted they had spent a considerable amount of time talking with the client trying to "diagnose" the prob-lem. Volunteers were discouraged from long conversations with the client that too readily lend themselves to advice giving. One of the women said to me after the prayer time was over, "I know we are not supposed to do so much talking, but you know how it goes." I also noted that over the months additional chairs were removed from the prayer rooms, allowing the client to sit but the pray-ers to remain standing in an effort to curb the talking.

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Old Wine, New Wineskins: The Rise of Healing Rooms in Revival Pentecostalism

what the Lord wants." We prayed for five or ten minutes until the woman received what she believed was a "message from the Lord." It dealt with the client's relationship with her mother and the client's need to forgive her. As we entered the room we introduced ourselves to the client and asked her what she wished us to pray for. Knowing nothing about the "word" that the prayer team member believed she had received, the client replied, "Originally I wanted prayer for my headaches, but I believe I need to ask you first to pray for my relationship with my mother."

Despite attempts to discourage the development of name healers within the healing room through prayer teams and to keep all volunteers "on the same page," volunteers cannot help but see differences in spiritual intu-ition and the growth in "empowerment" as pray-ers exercise healing prayer. But it is also worthy of note how often teams (despite differences in style, theologies, and personalities) work together as "tag teams" playing their prayer off one another and somehow winding up on the "same page." Out of such team prayer comes a distinct message that usually is evident to all, including the prayer client.

Following a time of extemporaneous prayer among the team members that lasts an average of approximately twenty minutes, someone will turn to the client and ask how he or she is doing. Although I have never wit-nessed a dramatic and miraculous healing during my hours of service, I have yet to see a person report no change: tension and anxiety may dis-sipate, physical pain may be alleviated, peace may blanket the person. The most common response is a deeper sense of the presence and love of God.

Clients regularly report healings, although there is no calculation of percentages or attempts made to verify reports medically. The time and resources are put into prayer ministry rather than evaluation research. The testimonies are used to encourage and inspire the pray-ers and their clients to expect healing such as those found in "Healing Headlines."21 "Healing Headlines" is a booklet containing about three dozen short testimonials distributed to prayer team members and made available to visitors to the HRGC. The testimonies reflect a blend of the supernatural accounts and healing through modern medicine. Cathy's report "Fractured knee cap healeddoctors say, 'It's a miracle' " and Kate's "Ulcers healed in Jesus' name" reflect the miracle mentality that is found in many one-line testi-monials. Matt's report blending the medical component with the healing

21 "Healing Headlines. Testimonies of God's Healing Power" (2004), available from Healing Rooms of Greater Cleveland, Willowick, Ohio 44095.

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testimony represents a minority narrative: "Diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in August 2003; received 3 rounds of chemo. Cat scan on 11-14/03 reveals 'NO CANCER.' " A range of testimonies can be found in the booklet, from the healing of broken bones to arthritis, various forms of cancer, migraines, and backaches.

Sprinkled into the more common accounts of healing are more dramatic ones that have pray-ers expecting more to come by way of healing miraclesmore miracles in which the blind see and the lame begin to walk and even the dead are raised. In a recent conversation with a prayer team member from the Spokane Healing Rooms, I asked him to share the most memorable healing in which he has been involved. Josh responded with the following account:

That's easy. A woman came in with a shriveled arm that was all withered and discolored as a result of an automobile accident. I don't know why the doctors didn't amputate it; she could not use it at all and it looked terrible. When we asked what she wanted, she said want to be able to pick up my grandchildren.' As we began to pray, I felt the Lord telling me to rub the arm with healing oil. It was hard to do; the arm appeared ugly and cold. But I began to do as the Lord instructed. I couldn't believe it! As I began to rub oil over her arm, color came into it and the arm came to life. By the time we were finished with prayer, she was able to use her arm. She just wept with joyand I stood there totally amazed.

Accounts like these are the fuel that feeds the expectation of the healing rooms staff and volunteers of seeing greater healing miracles and seeing them with regularity.

Some Concluding Thoughts

This paper undoubtedly raises more questions than it answers. It has limited itself to a description of the rise of contemporary healing rooms through the lenses of the Pentecostal Charismatic worldview22 and through my own participant observation at the Healing Rooms of Greater Cleveland. No attempt has been made to study the efficacy of healing prayer, differences and similarities among healing rooms, the clients who frequent the healing rooms, or the volunteers who serve as pray-ers. Hopefully this preliminary report will serve as a catalyst for further research.

Although divine healing has become a doctrine for many Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians, this ministry waxes and wanes under the

This is described in detail in Poloma, Main Street Mystics.

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forces of what I have called elsewhere "the routinization of charisma."23

The so-called gifts of the Spirit, including prophecy in its various forms and healing, have blossomed during times of revival but wilted when revival fires have grown cold. Attempts to create doctrine out of unpre-dictable experiences of healing have historically led to extremes, including attacks on medical science and a tendency to blame the sick person for a failure to be healed, that caused many modern Pentecostals to downplay its practice. Although professions of belief in healing have persisted in cultural Pentecostalism, expectations and testimonies of miraculous heal-ing tend to wane as the movement experiences routinizing forces.

Revival fires have continued to erupt periodically during Pentecostalism's hundred-year history, and with each revival came new healing movements. The revival of the 1990s was no exception. Although revival fires may have been reduced to glowing embers in North America, a contemporary healing rooms movement has emerged that includes expectations of early Pentecostalism while eschewing the extremes of its earliest days. Moving the practice of healing out of isolated churches and into the marketplace, the healing rooms movement may have developed a structure less sus-ceptible to the forces of routinization that have domesticated earlier heal-ing movements. Its structure, beliefs, and practices fit well with an era that is somewhat skeptical of allopathic medicine and is seeking com-plementary alternatives to the biomedical model to enhance health and well-being. The healing rooms movement may just have found a niche in a postmodern culture in which spirituality and health, rather than being competitors, are seen as companions on life's journey.

23 See M. M. Poloma, The Charismatic Movement: Is There a New Pentecost? (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982), and The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads: Charisma and Institutional Dilemmas (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989).

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Old Wine, New Wineskins

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Transcript of Old Wine, New Wineskins