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Book Reviews / Pneuma 34 (2012) 95-159
Pavel Hejzlar, Two Paradigms for Divine Healing: Fred F. Bosworth, Kenneth E. Hagin, Agnes Sanford, and Francis MacNutt in Dialogue (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), ix + 289 pp., $147 hardback.
Hejzlar’s many-sided and thought-provoking monograph explores the teachings of four Pentecostal-Charismatic practitioners to develop a “Christian theology of healing” (13). The book’s primary thrust is to differentiate the theory and practice of “healing evangelism” among classical Pentecostals (Fred F. Bosworth, Kenneth Hagin) from a “pastorally oriented healing ministry” (7) among mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic Charismatics (Agnes Sanford, Francis MacNutt). In Hejzlar’s treatment, Bosworth and Hagin are more scripture- oriented and faith-oriented. For them, the healing-evangelist’s task is less the conferring of healing than the evoking of faith through the preaching of God’s Word. Unbelief — as much as sickness — is the enemy to be overcome. Moreover, Bosworth and Hagin view Christian healing as rooted in Christ’s atoning death. Without denying the importance of faith, scrip- ture, or Christ’s atonement, Sanforth and MacNutt highlight God’s compassion as the basis for healing. MacNutt views Jesus’ life, teachings, death, resurrection, and return as intercon- nected so that healing is not so much in the atonement as it is simply in Christ. Sanford and MacNutt state that there are cases in which God does not bring healing to those seeking it in faith, and this distinguishes them from Bosworth and Hagin. Another major difference in the “two paradigms” pertains to the social location of healing practices. Bosworth and Hagin relied on public gatherings and the “healing line,” while Sanford and MacNutt preferred to pursue healing ministry in more private settings.
The book is not merely descriptive. Instead it is a theological evaluation and assessment that brims with arguments and counterarguments. It also contains a good deal of biblical exegesis, and should be useful for those seeking to understand the scriptural underpinnings of the divine healing debates. Despite the “two paradigms” title, the book does not present a simple bifurcation. Often Hejzlar sets three figures against one or pairs the four figures in varied ways. Of the four, only MacNutt engages traditional Roman Catholic notions of sanc- tified suffering. Sanford receives notice for her social and ecological sensibility, according to which believers should pray for national repentance and the healing of the land. Cutting across the “two paradigms,” Hagin and Sanford may be distinguished from Bosworth and MacNutt because of their indebtedness to New Thought — viz., their notion of a world gov- erned by “laws of faith” that allow Christians and non-Christians alike to alter the physical world through faith. Sanford herself admitted the influence of New Thought author Emmett Fox. She also may be the originator of “inner healing” (34). Hejzlar affirms Hagin’s depen- dence on Essek W. Kenyon throughout the book. Kenyon, in fact, comes into discussion so often that he is virtually a fifth protagonist. Kenyon, Sanford, and Hagin together share an unusual teaching about God’s own “faith” (104).
The Hagin-Kenyon-New Thought linkage is much debated. Hejzlar cites Dale Simmons’s 1996 monograph on Kenyon, which challenged the idea (proposed by D. W. McConnell in 1995) that Hagin’s teaching was largely a reiteration of Kenyon, and Kenyon of New Thought. Simmons demonstrated the complexity of Kenyon’s theology and the diversity of Kenyon’s theological influences. While recent scholarship has rejected a simplistic reduction of Hagin to Kenyon and Kenyon to New Thought, Hejzlar shows rather convincingly that New Thought
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/157007412X621851
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Book Reviews / Pneuma 34 (2012) 95-159
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should not be discounted as a constitutive element in Hagin’s or in Sanford’s theologies of healing. Hejzlar’s bibliography contains some curious omissions — e.g., Geir Lie’s mono- graph E. W. Kenyon (2003), Jon Ruthven’s On the Cessation of the Charismata (1993), Heather Curtis’s Faith in the Great Physician (2007), and James Opp’s The Lord for the Body (2007) — though the general argument does not seem to be affected by them.
So which of the “two paradigms” — or which of the four theologians and theologies of healing — comes out on top? One could say “none” or “all.” In his meticulous presentation, Hejzlar affirms ideas and values in both of the “two paradigms” and in each of the four authors. In most respects, Hejzlar’s synthetic position stands closest to that of Francis MacNutt, with whom he shares the conviction that healing is a sign of God’s kingdom, though the kingdom’s “already but not yet” reality makes healing an ambiguous phenome- non. Hejzlar shares MacNutt’s opinion that “the faith-teaching turns grace into law as people struggle to produce the requisite faith” (107). He opposes what he takes to be the human- centered views of Kenyon and Hagin, for whom God is limited by his own decision to do nothing except in response to human faith or human prayers. Yet Hejzlar judges that MacNutt’s practice of “soaking prayer” lacks adequate biblical support and affirms Bos- worth’s and Hagin’s expectation that healing will ordinarily manifest itself suddenly, though perhaps as the culmination of a process of seeking. Hejzlar is uncomfortable with MacNutt’s more Catholic and corporatist idea of healing as mediated through the faith and prayer of others. His view appears to be more individualistic. Having criticized Calvin’s cessationism, Hejzlar seems at times to veer back toward a Reformational stress on divine sovereignty. He notes scriptural examples of sickness as sent by God for judgment or chastisement, and approvingly cites Martin Luther’s reference to sickness as God’s “alien work” (183). Readers will need to judge for themselves whether Hejzlar’s final position — a blending of faith-teaching, kingdom eschatology, pastoral sensitivity, and divine sovereignty — succeeds in addressing the many challenging conceptual questions raised by Pentecostal- Charismatic healing practice. Yet Hejzlar makes a convincing case for his broad distinction between “two paradigms” and so adds something new and distinctive to the literature. As a theological analysis of Pentecostal-Charismatic healing, Hejzlar’s book is the now the work to be reckoned with, and should be consulted by everyone interested in this topic.
Reviewed by Michael J. McClymond Professor of Theological Studies Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri [email protected]
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