GOD'S PUB

1800's

Johann Blumhardt

1843: Johann Blumhardt began praying on a dying girl, placed his hands on her, and she was healed. This created a sensation which drew people from all over Western Europe. This, even though Blumhardt himself insisted that it was not his hands that healed, but God's response to honest prayer. Blumhardt saw sickness as a way that our 'fallen' existence bore the Devil's power into human life. He believed that the way to resist sickness is to confess our sin and repent. As years went by, he emphasized soul-searching to find the 'hidden sin' that could be making us ill. However, he did not believe that one could become perfect or sin-free before God in this lifetime; this means that all of us become ill. (Synan, op. Cit)

There seems to be something of the old errors of the Messalian’s in Blumhardts doctrine of sickness as a manifestation of the devil power; such errors continue today in the "Word of Faith Movement." The influence which Blumhardt ministry apparently exercised over the first faith-healers of the Holiness may have also also contributed to one of the great misunderstanding’s about the role of the "laying on of hands" in the Church, since there were those (see above) who attributed healing properties to Blumhardt hands themselves.

JOHN ALEXANDER DOWIE

Perhaps the most prominent member of the faith healing fraternity in the nineteenth century holiness movement was the controversial John Alexander Dowie. He popularized end times "restorationism", the idea that, as the Church was now in the final age of the world, immediately preceeding the second coming of the Lord, the extraordinary signs and wonders of the apostolic age were to be granted it anew; and preeminent among these would be the gift of healing. A disciple of the radical "faith healing" which we read about above-the idea that divine healing is the Christian to claim, as spiritual as well as physical health was won for Christians through the atonement; therefore, as noted above, to pray for healing conditional to God will was for Dowie a lack of faith, as was seeking medical treatment. Hence Dowie refused to permit his followers to consult with physicians or avail themselves of any medical treatment. This was to be one of the factors which would eventually contribute to his downfall, as he established a faith healing center known as " the city of Zion" near Chicago, and would actually prohibit the ill under his charge to seek medical assistance. There have since been many such "faith healing centers" in the United States and around the world, and Dowie is generally considered the true father of the faith healing movment. Dowie was also to exercise an enormous influence on the nascent Pentecostal movement, as many of the prominent leaders of its first generation were actually members of Dowie commune:

Those who arose from Zion City to become influential in the Pentecostal movement included F.F. Bosworth, John Lake, J. Rosewell Flower, Daniel Opperman, Cyrus Fockler, Fred Vogler, Marie Burgess Brown, William Piper, F.A. Graves, Lemuel Hall, Martha Robinson, Gordon Lindsay, and Raymond Richey. Influential Assemblies of God minister Gordon Lindsay, editor of Voice of Healing, wrote Dowie's biography and gave him credit for influencing "a host of men of faith who have had powerful ministries," referring to generations of Pentecostal preachers. (Extracted from: The Strange History of Pentecostalism, distributed online by: Way of Life Fundamental Baptist Information Service, copyright 1998)

In light of the following, this is a startling and significant revelation, as it is documented that not only many of the Pentecostal pioneer elite were once adherents of a bizarre and cultish commune, whose founder preached a totally heterodox doctrine of healing and of apostolic restoration, but also that eight of the founding members of the Assemblies of God, the world largest trinitarian Pentecostal denomination, were also devotees of Dowie. This should give pause to all adherents of classical Pentecostalism and of the Charismatic movment, since God would never ratify the message of a false prophet. That so many leaders of incipient Pentecostalism fell under the spell of Dowie attests to the fact that not only was he a peripheral figure in the beginnings of Pentecostalism, but his influence with regards to the movement adoption of the faith healing banner was probably decisive. This taken by itself represents should represent a devastating blow to the propagandists of a new Pentecost, but when coupled with the other little known facts about the origins of Pentecostalism should lead any and all
Christians desirous of being led to the truth that this movement was nothing but a successful deviation of historical Christianity.

Dowie attitude towards divine healing would lead him to deny those under his "care" any access whatsoever to doctors or medicine. Such actions are generally not in the interest of the public good, and the state of Illinois was soon to charge Dowie with the crime of manslaughter. Around this time a group of followers approached Dowie and attempted to convince him that he himself was the prophet Elijah, come in the spirit and power to restore all things before what they were sure was the imminent parousia. Dowie initially rejected such ideas, but as time went on and his following increased, it was inevitable that the spiritual pride that goes with being regarded by so many as a great healer would play on his manifest spiritual immaturity-not to mention the absence of any check on such illusions by the salutary intervention of a religious or ecclesiastical authority. Dowie, like most such cult figures, was answerable to no religious authority or board, merely to the power of the state. As time went on, these factors were to produce the inevitable march from spiritual pride and pseudo-religiosity to downright diabolical deception and delusion. Dowie eventually made the public declaration, in 1901, that he was indeed the prophet Elijah, and dressed himself in the robes of the Jewish high priest, whereupon he lost much of his following. However, since common sense or logical consistency is seldom in abundance wherever charlatans such as Dowie are revered, most of his previous devotees, in particular those who were most prominent in the subsequent Pentecostal revival, did not deny that he had once possessed the "anointing", or that the Holy Spirit had enabled him to work miracles. The farthest they were willing to go was to maintain that Dowie spiritual pride had led to his downfall.

However, there are charlatans and there are charlatans, and it is important to consider that men like Dowie do not gain their considerable followings merely on account of their fanciful oratory, or their generic "charismatic personality"- not if they claim to be divine healers and to work miracles. Did Dowie possess some kind of real power? At this juncture, once can only speculate, but it would appear that he did indeed "heal" certain individuals, most significantly the wife of John Lake, who was later to become the founder of Pentecostalism in Africa. Lake was to have some rather strange paranormal experiences himself (which we will document further on). But any faithful and sincere Christian should know that recognizewhatever powers Dowie did exercise on occasion could not have been of God, since God will not ratify the message of a false prophet, and there should be no doubt in any sincere Christian mind that Dowie was a false prophet. Dowie was not only reverenced by early Pentecostals such as Lindsay and Lake- he exerted a considerable influence on the founding father of Pentecostalism, Charles Fox Parham either directly or via the religious commune of Shiloh, founded by another cult leader, Frank Sandford, and which will be considered further on. Dowie was to die an embittered and generally forgotten figure, destroyed by the same illusions of spiritual pride and generally ignored (but by no means repudiated) by most of the members of the movement that he himself was instrumental in laying the foundations of.

1900's

John G. Lake

John Graham Lake, (1870-1935), usually known as "John G. Lake", was a businessman influenced by the healing ministry of John Alexander Dowie, received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in 1907 in the wake of the Azusa Street Revival and became known for his ministry as a missionary and “faith healer.His life and message are represented in a book compiled by Roberts Liardon, entitled, John G. Lake: The Complete Collection of His Life Teachings.

Lake was originally from Ontario, Canada. He was from a large family, which was continually affected with illness, and his memory of childhood was that there was always someone in the house either sick, dying or dead. Lake was a very industrious businessman, and started two newspapers, before beginning a very successful career in real estate. By the time he left for the mission field he walked away from a $50,000 year salary (around 1 million in 2005 dollars), as well as his seat on the Chicago Board of Trade.

Early in his career, Lake's wife, whom he deeply loved, and even adored, fell ill with a life threatening illness. Having a lifetime of suffering and bereavement behind him, he refused to accept this, and took the radical step of taking her to see John Alexander Dowie. Dowie had a reputation as a wild faith healer and founder of Zion City, Illinois fifty miles north of Chicago around this belief. Lake's wife recovered and he was drawn into Dowie's movement, and he eventually became an elder in the church. It was here that he began to practice "divine healing". Although Dowie rejected the Pentecostal message, a number of early Pentecostal leaders, including F.F. Bosworth, were trained under Dowie.

Lake's greatest ministry was in South Africa, and his ministry there had dramatic and far reaching consequences. The incredible stories of his ministry are too numerous to recount and difficult to verify. With Thomas Hezmalhalch he founded the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa in 1908, which attracted many of the early Zionists led by Pieter L. le Roux of Wakkerstroom. Le Roux took over the leadership of the Apostolic Faith Mission when Lake returned to America, and led it for 30 years.

1940's

Kathryn Kuhlmann

Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman (May 9, 1907 - February 20, 1976) was an American faith healer and Pentecostal evangelist. She was born in Concordia, Missouri to German parents and died in Tulsa, Oklahoma, following open-heart surgery.

She was born-again at the age of 14 in the Methodist Church of Concordia, and began preaching in the West at the age of sixteen.[citation needed] Kuhlman traveled extensively around the United States and in many other countries holding "healing crusades" between the 1940s and 1970s. She had a weekly TV program in the 1960s and 1970s called I Believe In Miracles that was aired nationally. The foundation was established in 1954, and its Canadian branch in 1970.

Kathryn Kuhlman spoke of God and of miracles. In the fifty years of her ministry, she may have personally witnessed to her Lord's love and power before more than 100,000,000 people. And wherever she went, people who once thought miracles impossible learned to believe in miracles.

Lonnie Frisbee