Healing in the History of Christianity

by Amanda Porterfield

Overview

Healing is one of the most constant themes in the long and sprawling history of Christianity. Jesus himself performed many miracles of healing. In the second century, St. Ignatius was the first to describe the eucharist as the medicine of immortality. Prudentius, a 4th-century poet and Christian apologist, celebrated the healing power of St. Cyprian's tongue. Bokenham, in his 15th-century Legendary, reported the healing power of milk from St. Agatha's breasts. Zulu prophets in 19th-century Natal petitioned Jesus to cure diseases caused by restless spirits. And Mary Baker Eddy invoked the Science of Divine Mind as a weapon against malicious animal magnetism. In this book Amanda Porterfield demonstrates that healing has played a major role in the historical development of Christianity as a world religion. Porterfield traces the origin of Christian healing and maps its transformations in the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. She shows that Christian healing had its genesis in Judean beliefs that sickness and suffering were linked to sin and evil, and that health and healing stemmed from repentance and divine forgiveness. Examining Jesus' activities as a healer and exorcist, she shows how his followers carried his combat against sin and evil and his compassion for suffering into new and very different cultural environments, from the ancient Mediterranean to modern America and beyond. She explores the interplay between Christian healing and medical practice from ancient times up to the present, looks at recent discoveries about religion's biological effects, and considers what these findings mean in light of ages-old traditions about belief and healing. Changing Christian ideas of healing, Porterfield shows, are a window into broader changes in religious authority, church structure, and ideas about sanctity, history, resurrection, and the kingdom of God. Her study allows us to see more clearly than ever before that healing has always been and remains central to the Christian vision of sin and redemption, suffering and bodily resurrection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195157185
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	10/21/2005
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	104,230
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 6.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Amanda Porterfield is Robert A. Spivey Professor of Religion at Florida State University. She is the author of The Transformation of American Religion: The Story of a Late-Twentieth-Century Awakening (OUP 2001).

Editorial Reviews

"In an era newly attentive to the relationship between religion and health, this striking analysis of Christianity as a religion of healing offers insights deeply informed by imaginative research, breadth of scope, and clarity of argument. Beginning with the texts of the New Testament and concluding with the healers and hospital builders of the late twentieth century, Amanda Porterfield provides a skillful description of the manifold ways that Christians have engaged in practices of healing for the past two thousand years. The book is an eye-opener." — E. Brooks Holifield, author of Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War

"This book represents a singularly important contribution to the study of the history of Christianity. With sparkling prose, Porterfield shows that Christianity, from the beginning to the present, and in all parts of the world, has concerned itself with the healing of broken bodies. The scope of the story Porterfield tells, and the richness of the documents she consults, establish a standard of excellence for all future studies of the subject." —Grant A. Wacker, author of Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture

"In these days of medical miracles and double-blind tests of intercessory prayer, Amanda Porterfield provides a welcome introduction to the 2,000-year-old history of Christianity and healing. Ranging from Galilee to Lourdes (and beyond), she investigates the intriguing world of angels and demons and boldly explores the biological bases of spiritual healing." — Ronald L. Numbers, Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, Department of Medical History and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin

"This wide-ranging survey is unusually even-handed in its treatment of a difficult and controversial subject. In particular, Porterfield is entirely persuasive in arguing that healing—as a multi-faceted response to suffering and evil—has been at the heart of Christian practice from the time of Jesus to the present. Her sensitive treatments of the large place of healing in Christian missions and in the recent world expansion of Christianity are especially welcome." — Mark A. Noll, author of America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

"Porterfield proves that healing is a central theme in Christian history, and is a fascinating lens through which to examine the Christian faith. Indeed, she has produced not just a history of healing in Christianity, but a history of Christianity itself." —Publishers Weekly

"A complicated, sometimes chaotic, but consistently captivating configuration of Christian history — a vibrant and compelling picture that offers a distinctive perspective on how and why Christianity has flourished in diverse cultural, social, and historical settings." —ooks & Culture

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