Article October 28, 1922 Issue

The first great need of the church to-day is the revival...

Daily World

The first great need of the church to-day is the revival of her ministry of healing, according to the finding of the joint commission on the ministry of healing of the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States, reported to-day to the House of Bishops and in the House of Deputies in triennial convention here. "The church must renew," said the report, "and act more confidently and constantly on her faith in the power of prayer— especially in the power of her corporate intercession — to heal the sick, whatever the means or process by which the blessing comes." (Extract from Associated Press dispatch reporting the Episcopal convention at Portland.) Thus, after nearly two thousand years the principal teachings of Jesus Christ, the highest points of his ministry while on earth, are officially recognized by one of the earliest organizations to set itself the task of carrying forth his words and works.

The secular student of history, philosophy, and world affairs in general, has always been perplexed at the disposition of religious organizations to predicate their creed and their mission upon a single phase of the Nazarene's ministry or philosophy. While each such organization has clear warrant in Holy Writ for the forms practiced, not one has uniformly practiced all of the forms prescribed by the great Preceptor. And of all the teachings and doings of the Christus none was more important than his healing of the sick; and concerning none of them did he lay a more imperative command upon his followers than concerning physical healing. He not only positively commanded them to go forth and heal the sick and perform the other so-called miracles he had performed, but he explicitly told them that it was through their ability to do such things that they should be sure of their own fitness to serve him.

It was not an evangelical church that at last, after thousands of years, revived Christian healing, but an evangel of a new sect; and, strange enough, no greater critic or bigoted opposition was encountered anywhere than in the pulpit of the various evangelical churches of the world. Ministers, almost without exception, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, felt called on to inveigh against the healing art as practiced by this sect. Yet a moment's Christian contemplation and reflection should have convinced them how utterly absurd their opposition was. For they preached the efficacy of prayer; they preached the omnipotence of God; they preached the power of God to do anything, and expressed a confident belief in every word set forth in the Bible. And all the while in that very Bible was both the command for them to engage in Christian healing of the physical body, and the positive promise that if they were sincere in their professions of faith and love they should exercise the power to successfully practice the healing art.

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