Thursday, March 18, 2021

Medical Science and Christian Resistance

 

Oral Roberts University/Google images

On a hot and humid 1950s Sunday afternoon, I sat amongst the crowd of white-shirted, perspiration-soaked men and paper-fan waving Sunday-hat-covered women at a tent crusade in Southeastern Pennsylvania. After preaching salvation, the dark suit jacket came off. Holy hands touched one after another. I watched a line of broken people approach a healing stage and leave with a testimony. Everywhere, white and black hands reached upward as organ tones bolstered songs of praise.

(Sutton, 2021, p. 79)

 

As I was writing Counseling and Psychotherapy with Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians, I was struck by the transitional figure of Oral Roberts who blended faith healing and a nascent Pentecostal theology, which eventually led to a grand attempt to integrate medical science and faith.

 

Oral Roberts

 

Oral Roberts was born 24 January 1918. The next month, four waves of a flu pandemic killed off about as many as died in World War I, which ended four days before fellow American evangelist, Billy Graham entered the world stage.

 

Roberts reported a miraculous healing as a teenager. In the years to come, this man from mixed Cherokee, Choctaw, and European heritage would become an itinerant preacher in America and around the world. In addition to preaching a gospel of salvation, he prayed for people who waited in long lines to be healed. Testimonies encouraged others who might obtain from Dr. Jesus what they could not yet receive from the care of their local physician.

 

As medical scientists made tremendous gains in the treatment of all kinds of diseases, Roberts appears to have adapted to the changes in the culture. As the evangelistic tents folded, his message of faith reached millions more by radio and print media. His meetings soon appeared on television where listeners were encouraged to touch the screen as they prayed. Faith was integrated with technology.

 

Following World War II, medical treatments advanced at a stunning pace, Robert’s ministry evolved as well. Evangelicals criticised his modernised TV programme, which looked like a variety show complete with dancing and less formal messages of comfort (Hunter, 2018).

 

Eventually, the grand integration took shape in the form of a medical centre at Oral Roberts University where people could come for the best of medical science in an atmosphere buoyed by prayer (Pearson, 1978). That attempt at integration collapsed but Roberts left a legacy of spiritual pragmatism worth considering in an era when so many pit faith against medical science.

 

Looking Back

 

As I look back upon those decades, I am rather impressed at Robert’s flexibility, which seems so advanced for spiritual leaders of the times. Roberts was a man who identified with the “spirit of immense struggle” experienced by his Native American ancestors in the Trail of Tears. He experienced his own struggle with illness and shared his simple message of faith and recovery with millions.

 

He could have easily fallen into the trap of scepticism toward medical science and stubbornly refused to give up his tent ministries for the new-fangled technologies. Instead, despite whatever misgivings he may or may not have had, he embraced evidence-based change.

 

I never met Rev. Roberts neither have I studied his character in depth. Nevertheless, I suggest it takes a measure of spiritual humility for religious leaders like him to embrace the revelations of medical scientists. For some, medical scientists can appear as secular prophets competing with the clergy for guidance on how one should live.

 

 For some, medical scientists can appear as secular prophets competing with the clergy for guidance on how one should live.

 

Looking Forward

 

As I write this post in 2021, I am keenly aware that millions of American Christians have been sceptical about scientists’ statements concerning the COVID-19 pandemic, the treatments approved by medical reviewers, and the vaccines developed by scientists at the world’s major pharmaceutical giants in collaboration with government scientists. In fact, some Americans have added nationalism to their scepticism to reject advice by those at the World Health Organisation (WHO).

 

In my experience, clergy, scientists, and politicians fail us when they lack spiritual, cultural, and intellectual humility. People have always made mistakes. Wise people respect evidence even when their theories and ideas do not fully account for the evidence.

 

[It occurs to me that some readers may wonder why this medical and faith healing segment appears in a book about psychotherapy. In the book, I follow this discussion by looking at the barriers psychological scientists and clinicians faced when trying to help Christians struggling with mental disorders.]

 

References

 

Sutton, G. W. (2021). Counseling and psychotherapy with Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians: Culture & Research | Assessment & Practice. Springfield, MO: Sunflower.

 

Timothy, H. (2018). The spirit of immense struggle: Oral Roberts’ Native American ancestry.” Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology. 3, 177-198. https://digitalshowcase.oru.edu/spiritus/vol3/iss2/6

 

 




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