Pastoral Care And Direct Divine Healing

The ministry of healing has been a central aspect of the Christian faith, beginning with the work of Jesus and the apostles. Throughout Christian history, the church has pursued several approaches to the ministry of healing: hagiographical, incubational, revelational, soteriological, and confrontational. Adolf Harnack, eminent historian of the early church, observed early in the twentieth century: Deliberately and consciously [Christianity] assumed the form of "the religion of salvation or healing" or "the medicine of soul and body," and at the same time it recognized that one of its chief duties was to care assiduously for the sick in body. (The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, 2nd ed. trans. and ed. James Moffatt [New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1908], 108. ) Harnack thought this was one of the church's crucial strategic decisions, and he continued,"Christianity never lost hold of its innate principle; it was, and it remained, a religion for the …