In China, the following testimonies are typical of the part healing prayers play in evangelism. Below are several testimonies from Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing, Oxford University Press, 2011. Each of these testimonies have been peer reviewed and verified for publications.
A common testimony 1
I used to be a party member . . . . So of course I was an atheist, I didn't believe in anything. But then my daughter contracted some kind of heart disease . . . . We were so poor; we didn't have much money for expensive treatments. At that time, someone introduced the Gospel to me. I started to pray and became a believer . . . . My daughter also believed. After ten days, she could leave the hospital because she was much better. After that, my whole family became Christian. . . . And the really miraculous thing is: Since then, none of us has ever been back to the hospital ever. We didn't have to spend one penny on health care! [1]
A common testimony 2
My neighbor fell seriously ill. She was hospitalized, but the doctors couldn't help her…. She tried what she could to regain her health. Finally she said, “I will try and become a Christian now, then the other Christians will come to pray for me. Perhaps that will help.” The woman was indeed healed! [2]
Testimony of a peasant woman from Li Shuying
(In this testimony, the distinction between the spirits of Daoism and the Jesus of Christianity is clearly seen. Especially note how the peasant women is awed by Jesus’ graciousness. She emphasizes that Jesus does not demand money or sacrifices, but simply responds to prayers and hymn singing.)
About ten years ago, I suffered from serious anemia. I fainted frequently; but in order to earn a living, I had to sell fruit every day on the streets. One day, I overheard someone say that I was possessed by six demons. I was very frightened and asked the help of a sorceress. I spent a lot of money with her, but my health was not a bit improved. Another day, while selling fruit, I heard some strangers reciting unfamiliar words which I later learned were the Ten Commandments. These people claimed that Jesus was the greatest god and could heal the most stubborn illness. I hurried home to tell my husband what I had heard on the street, adding that I was determined to seek this greatest god. My husband, however, mistook the word Jesus for Zushi [founder of Daoism], because the two sound familiar in Hakka. But I knew it could not be Zushi, for I remember clearly that this god, Jesus, did not take chickens or ducklings as offerings. Then, months later, I came across a preacher named Jiang Yunying and I inquired about Jesus. She first taught me to sing a hymn of praise. I was so anxious to seek God, I memorized the whole hymn and it has stayed in my heart: “Opening the door we see the blue sky. Do not worry about firewood, or about money. Do not worry about rice, or about clothing. For all these are in the hands of the Lord.” . . . Every Sunday I asked my husband to take me [to church] to Huacheng by bicycle, a journey of 17 miles one way. It was through [the preacher's] influence that I learned to be an honest person. Like all hawkers, I too often gained extra advantage at the expense of the customer. To be a Christian means that I must never cheat again. In practical terms, I lost money in my business. This antagonized even my own mother, but I cared little about the derision and taunting of others. On the contrary, I felt enthusiastic and shared with them what I learned from the church. Now, my anemia is gone, my whole family, including my mother, are Christians, and my business is good. With all these blessings, how could I ever forget to thank the Lord? [3]
Testimony of a professor turned preacher
A retired physics professor turned preacher in Jiujiang (Jiangxi Province) relayed to the interviewers an account of how he came to believe in divine healing.
While traveling to villages around his city, he was approached by a farmer who had a tumor the size of a soccer ball on his leg. This farmer had been to a hospital and was informed that his condition was too serious to be remedied by any other (Western or traditional) cure than an operation. Like most farmers in China, however, he lacked health insurance, and the necessary operation would have cost more than he earned in a year. He thus had few options besides asking prayer for healing. As a scientist who had worked in an ideological environment of enlightened materialism and as a church worker trained in “western” theology, the preacher was skeptical about divine healing. However, due to the farmer's urging and out of love for this poor, stricken man, the preacher gave in and said a prayer, since he could not help him financially. When he visited the village again a few weeks later, the farmer came running toward him, greeted him enthusiastically, then pulled up one trouser leg to show him that the tumor had all but disappeared. [4]
Testimony from a female leader in Shaanxi Province
The healing of my daughter was just the beginning of my faith. But there is a lot of faith healing around here. In most cases, people first start asking about Christ when they are sick. They don't have any other way to go. To believe in Christ is their last resort, when nothing else is possible. When they have received Christ, they also realize the need for change and repentance. Of course, those who are ill and experience other obstacles on their life roads need to believe in Christ, but those who don't have these obstacles need to believe even more . . . . Because we don't just believe in Jesus for reasons of our flesh, our body. We need the salvation of our souls. Faith is not just for now, it is also for the future . . . . So, if you are healed, you should believe, but if you are not healed, you should also believe. Because faith is not only for our life on earth. [5]
China church DNA: Prayer, Care and Love
The connection between religious conversion and healing from an illness may not always be as simple as the testimonies suggest. As Oblau has pointed out, healing prayer is practiced in a natural way by everyone. Thus, it is not an isolated ritual abstracted from the context of community but an integral part of life in community. It is one aspect of the loving, comforting, and supportive attention shown to the hurting by the church.
So it is not just a spectacular healing that brings Chinese people to the faith but also the care for one another observed by outsiders. Oblau notes that in his own experience, many attest to seeing the apparent commitment and care with which the church representatives keep visiting their members in the hospital. Such observations produce appreciation often leading to curiosity. Further, in China, family is important. The virtues of loyalty and love within the family are common. Yet rarely, if ever, does it extend out beyond the bounds of blood. What makes Christianity so attractive in China is the expansion of traditional family values to the extended family of the church. That people help each other though they are not blood relatives causes astonishment and admiration from outsiders. Even when prayers do not seem to bring immediate healing, those receiving prayer are often observed to experience a betterment of life. A spectacular recovery often gets people’s attention, but it is the care and familial bond among the faithful that makes Christianity attractive.
Oblau points to a holistic view of healing as a central of the Chinese church's view of divine healing. It is never about a Holy Spirit whammy. Where everything is made right in a moment, almost magically, like the end of a Disney movie. God never works that way for we are all works in process. Pastors should also not work that way. It takes more than an a hand on your forehead with a strong shazam to bring wholeness. It takes community, not celebrity, to make people whole. This consumeristic, prepackaged, Amazon-shipped, view of healing that claims instantaneous cures without personal engagement and community involvement is a doctrinal virus in need of eradication. Divine healing can happen in a moment. The dead are raised. The lame walk. God moves in power and the sick are made whole. But that is not the end of the story, only the beginning, the start of a path to wholeness if one is willing to walk it.
The Chinese church understands that the gospel brings wholeness. The healing found in Christianity extends to all aspects of life; relational, physical, spiritual, emotional. Yet, this process happens as prayer, care, and the love of Christ are practiced in community. In this way, God’s healing power is experienced as love and care are actualized in terms of social support, nurturing human relationships, and improved living conditions. In this sense, healing is a process of unfolding wholeness. So in reality, a personally experienced health crisis, help received, and betterment felt (with or without full healing) becomes the starting point for the majority of converts in China’s churches.
In the next blog, we will look deeper into the Chinese church's holistic view of healing. Also see our playlist on healing found on Remnant’s Youtube page
Footnotes
[1] Währisch-Oblau, interview, Shaanxi Province (1997).
[2] Währisch-Oblau, interview, Zhejiang Province (1991). These events took place during the Cultural Revolution, when all religious activities were officially banned.
[3] Areopagus: Magazine of the Tao Fong Shan Christian Centre (Advent 1993): 28.
[4] Währisch-Oblau, field notes (Feb. 1993).
[5] Währisch-Oblau, field notes, Shaanxi Province (1997).
Did you know the Eastern Orthodox Church has its own list of saints? Until recently, I did not. For me and maybe you, these men and women of faith are new. People who are mostly unknown in our little corner of Christianity. I would hate for their stories to pass by us unknown and never celebrated.
One such person is Elizaveta Pilenko also known as Mother Maria. A Russian noblewoman, poet, nun, and member of the French Resistance during World War II. She has been canonized as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Born to a wealthy, upper-class family in 1891 in Latvia, she was given the name Elizaveta Pilenko. Her father died when she was a teenager, and she embraced atheism. In 1906 her mother took the family to St. Petersburg, where she became involved in radical intellectual circles. Yet the communism and activism of her youth did not satisfy the deep longing of her soul. She longed for transcendence and eventually tried to find it in romance.
Elizaveta married and her family found themselves falling out of favor with the communist party. The political tide was turning and in order to avoid danger, they fled Russia. They made their way to Eastern Europe and finally end up in Paris in 1923. In 1926, her daughter died of influenza—a heartbreaking event for the family. Soon after, her marriage fell apart.
In the middle of her personal pain the Lord became real to her. Elizaveta found God through the orthodox faith and gave herself wholehearted to Jesus. Soon Elizaveta was dedicating herself to theological studies and social work. She became widely known for her poetry and theological essays.
Her bishop encouraged her to take religious vows and become a nun, something she did only with the assurance that she would not have to live in a monastery. She never wanted to live a life secluded from the world. This disposition soon became a deep conviction that Jesus would never hide way from the people who needed him most.
In 1932, she took the monastic vows of the orthodox faith and chose the name Maria making a rented house in the middle of Paris her own personal convent. To be a proper monastic convent they needed a priest to be a confessor and oversee the rites of the order. The bishop found a willing priest in Father Dmitri Klepinin. Father Dmitri became the chaplain of the house.
The little "convent” was Maria, Father Dimitri, Yuri Maria’s son and Sophia Maria’s mother. The rented “convent” in the middle of Paris became a sanctuary for the weary and oppressed. It was an open door for refugees, the needy and the lonely. It was also well known as place for rousing and spirited intellectual and theological discussion. In Mother Maria these two elements—service to the poor and theology—went hand-in-hand.
When the Nazis took Paris in World War II, the little “convent” was not left unaffected.
As the injustice mounted against the Jewish people, Maria could not remain on the sidelines just out of view. The little “convent” and the nun soon became a part of the French underground. A resistance movement in occupied France made of French nationals and other noble rebels.
In July, 1942, when the Nazis’ requiring Jews to wear the yellow star, she wrote a poem entitled "Israel". In it a deep respect for a noble people can be seen. With wisdom and insight, she rightly reclaims the meaning of the Star of David from the attempt to make it into a mark of shame. Lifting it up as a sign of their sacred history and calling them to not fear the laws of men but fear God, the just lawgiver.
Two triangles, a star,
The shield of King David, our forefather.
This is election, not offense.
The great path and not an evil.
Once more in a term fulfilled,
Once more roars the trumpet of the end;
And the fate of a great people
Once more is by the prophet proclaimed.
Thou art persecuted again, O Israel,
But what can human malice mean to thee,
who have heard the thunder from Sinai?
In the same way her writing was an extension of her mind, her compassion was an extension of her faith. Soon Jews seeking help approached the house asking for certificates of baptism, which Father Dimitri would provide them. Many Jews came to stay with them. They often provided shelter and helped many escape.
She was know for being fearless in the face of injustice. For example, when the secret police would come around the “convent” looking for Jews Maria would show them the icon of the Mother of God.
When the Nazis began the mass arrests of Jews, they were all interred in a sports stadium. For three days Mother Maria used her monastic robe and social work contacts to gain access to the stadium. She provided food and comfort for many. She even smuggled out some children with the aid of garbage collectors who hid them in trash bins.
Eventually the the Gestapo closed down the house. Mother Maria, Fr. Dimitri, Yuri, and Sophia were all taken by the Gestapo. Father Dimitri and Yuri both died in the the concentration camp. Mother Maria was sent to the Nazi concentration camp called Ravensbrück in Germany.
In the midst of this unimaginable horror, it would have been easy for her to despair. Yet in that dark place, the light of wisdom was granted her. The wisdom conferred to her gave her new eyes. She gained the ability to see her situation not as misfortune, but as opportunity. She wrote a little prayer during that time:
“I am Thy message, Lord. Throw me, like a blazing torch into the night, so that all may see and understand what it means to be Thy disciple.”
Her prayer would be answered in the most dramatic of ways. Even as the sound of allied artillery informed the camp that the end was near. Mere days before Ravensbrück was liberated, Mother Maria would enter that great cloud of witnesses.
On Holy Saturday, the day before Easter, 1945, Mother Maria was taken to the gas chamber. Her fellow prisoners testified to her final moments. Even as the sound of freedom could be heard in the distance, she took the place of another who had been selected for death. She died like she lived.
“No amount of thought will ever result in any greater formulation that the three words: ‘Love one another,’ so long as it is love to the end and without exceptions.”
- Mother Maria
Brought to you by Remnant Radio. If you’re interested in church history and would like to learn more check out Remnant radios' playlist on Church History. Click here.
Authors Note: this blog is not an endorsement of all of Mother Maria’s theology but it is a celebration of her life. She is an example of what Christ can do with one person who says “Yes” no matter the cost. Mother Maria’s love grew feet and moved her to help the hurting. May we all have courage and compassion like Mother Maria.
During the month of August 1739 in Bristol England, John Wesley had three separate interviews with Bishop Joseph Butler. Butler a towering intellect and presiding bishop. Wesley an upstart preacher of a burgeoning movement. The first interview lasted about 15 minutes, the second about 30 minutes, and the final one approximately one hour. [1] Wesley who was making waves through his proclamation of justification and grace in open fields, was hopeful Butler would be open to his work.
In this meeting, the younger Wesley was perhaps a little too aggressive with the Good Bishop. Despite Wesley’s admiration of Butler’s masterful denunciation of Deism, it was perhaps too bold for him to expect that the Bishop would receive a minister the enthusiastism and manifestations that were accompanying their open-field preaching. [2]
First they talked about the nature of faith in its justifying sense, but the conversation quickly turned to what was probably irritating Butler the most about the preacher. It appeared that Wesley and the flourishing Methodist movement assumed that God was doing something special in their faith and ministry that was isolated from other believers who did not embrace their cause.
To Wesley, Butler sternly snots: “Sir, the pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a very horrid thing.” [3] Wesley’s response to Butler was the eighteenth century version of "epic" clap back. He candidly responded, “I pretend to no extraordinary revelations or gifts of the Holy Ghost—none but what every Christian may receive, and ought to expect and pray for.” [4]
The conversation that ensued between the two Anglicans must have been a civil but heated one because a few moments later Bishop Butler forbade Wesley from preaching in his diocese, and Wesley, for his part, refused to abide by Bulter’s prohibition. Wesley’s justification was his own ordination credentials in the Church of England to preach to the church universal. [5]
What he meant by his “epic" clap back was not a denial of the miraculous but an affirmation of the universality of the Sprit’s work through all believers. Within the exchange, there is an important feature of Wesley’s understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit and his conception of the experience of the supernatural among believers.
Scholars, particularly Robert Webster, have argued persuasively that John Wesley both believed in demonstrative manifestations of the supernatural and that he collected various accounts of such experiences among the Methodists in a rhetorical defense of the supernatural. [6]
John Wesley was not only committed to the idea of the Holy Spirit’s movement and manifestations but he also elevated that idea to prominence in his rhetoric of the supernatural. Because of his acceptance of supernatural occurrences, John Wesley often found himself combating charges of enthusiasm (the eighteenth century term similar to hyper-charismatics) . Regardless of various oppositions, Wesley consistently contended that the movements and gifts of the Holy Spirit that were active in the first century were also active in the eighteenth.
Wesley held an understanding of the gifts of the Holy Spirit were for all people not just a select few. At the foundation of Wesley’s argument was the idea that the charismata operative in the first century had not died out with apostolic Christianity and emerged in every generation since then. Though Wesley agreed that the primary assurance was an inward one where love, peace, and joy are realized with an incremental advancement towards spiritual maturity, it was also the case that, just as in the first century so in Wesley’s own day, believers could judge the true sense of faith working by love, which often appeared in miraculous ways.
Two Simple Examples
Scattered throughout Wesley’s journals were a variety of stories that Wesley had collected and edited for edification; stories of healing, dreams and visions, exorcisms, and an assortment of preternatural occurrences. Here are just two of those stories.
On April 6, 1756, Wesley approvingly wrote the story of a lady who had fallen and sprained her ankle several years prior. On her way home from a preaching service, she stumbled and fell on the ankle again. Her injury was recorded by Wesley in the journal: “I thought, O Lord, I shall not be able to hear thy word again for many weeks. Immediately a voice went through my heart, Name the name of Christ and thou shalt stand. I leaped up and stretched out my foot and said, ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, I name thy name; let me stand.’ And my pain ceased. And I stood up. And my foot was as strong as ever.”[7]
Another is the case of an exorcism, Wesley recounts for an entry on October 25, 1739, how he was sent to see a young girl in Bristol. After some reluctance, Wesley entered into conversation with the demons that possessed the young girl. In the midst of the exorcism, Charles Wesley walked into the room and the demon-possessed girl screamed out: “Preacher! Field preacher! I don’t love field preaching.”[8] After two more hours of intense prayer, Wesley recorded the results: “And now it was that God showed he heareth the prayer. All her pangs ceased in a moment. She was filled with peace, and knew that the son of wickedness was departed from her.”[9]
These stories and many more like them, can be found in Wesley’s journals.
Footnotes
1. Frank Baker, “John Wesley and Bishop Joseph Butler: A Fragment of John Wesley’s Manuscript Journal 16th to 24th August 1739,” Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 42 (1980): 93–100. The essence of the interview between Bishop Butler and John Wesley is found in Wesley’s journal as well. See Nehemiah Curnock (ed.), The Journal of John Wesley (London: Epworth Press, 1938), 2:256–57 and W. R. Ward (ed.), “Appendix B: Wesley’s Interview with Bishop Butler, August 16 and 18, 1739,” in The Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley, ed. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1990), 19:471–74.
2. See Joseph Butler, The Analogy of Religion, Introduction by Ernest C. Mossner (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1961). For Wesley’s complimentary remarks on Butler’s Analogy of Religion see John Wesley’s journal entries for January 1, 1746 and May 20, 1768 in The Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley, 20:112 and 22:134 respectively.
3. “Wesley’s Interview with Bishop Butler,” The Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley, ed. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1990) 19:471.
4. Ibid., 471.
5. Ibid., 472.
6. Robert Webster, Methodism and the Miraculous: John Wesley’s Idea of the Supernatural and the Identification of Methodists in the Eighteenth Century (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2013).
7. John Wesley, April 6, 1756, The Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley, ed. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1990) 21:49.
8. John Wesley, October 25–27, 1739, The Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley, ed. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1990) 19:110–11.
9. Ibid., 19:111.
Throughout his life, John Wesley held to an orthodox view of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Godhead. It was his trinitarian understanding of the God that informed his view of the Spirit's role in the Christian life. So adamant was Wesley’s conviction of this doctrine that he noted at the conclusion of his homily on the Trinity:
But I know not how anyone can be a Christian believer till “he hath” (as John speaks) “the witness in himself”; till “the Spirit of God witnesses with his spirit that he is a child of God”—that is, in effect, till God the Holy Ghost witnesses that God the Father has accepted him through the merits of God the Son—and having this witness he honours the Son and the blessed Spirit “even as he honours the Father. . . . Therefore I do not see how it is possible for any to have vital religion who denies that these three are one.[1]
In Wesley's view, one can not have an authentic "inner witness" of the Spirit without an equally orthodox view of the Trinity. Non-trinitarians beware. Wesley's words remind us that no experience of the Spirit whether it be in vision, spiritual gift or personal encounter is deemed authentic if one denounces a trinitarian understanding of God. The gracious would say such manifestations are heterodox. The honest call it hersey. Wesley would surely support the proposition that without an orthodox view of the Trinity one cannot claim an authentic experience of the Spirit.
Footnote
1. John Wesley, “On the Trinity,” The Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley, ed. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1990), 2:385–86.
A minister, about to write an article criticizing a fellow minister for his lack of orthodoxy, wrote to John Newton of his intention. Newton replied in a letter that has now become famous, called Letter 19 - on controversy. The letter is one Calvinist writing to another Calvinist. In light of this, John Newton may sound a bit opinionated but He was sincere and wise man.
The former slave trader turned pastor and author of the hymn Amazing Grace, gives us insight into a problem we still deal with today. Newton explains that self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines, as well as upon works. He describes how men of his day, on both sides of a debate, can find their identity in such doctrines and feed on those doctrines to their moral detriment. Newton believed doctrine was important, yet without humility operative in our life we can grow sick. Humility keeping our spiritual immune system strong. Without it we quickly succumb to the intellectual and moral sickness of self-righteousness [with accompanying Covid like symptoms]. Consider for yourself his advice:
“There is a principle of self, which disposes us to despise those who differ from us; and we are often under its influence, when we think we are only shewing a becoming zeal in the cause of God. I readily believe that the leading points of Arminianism spring from, and are nourished by, the pride of the human heart; but I should be glad if the reverse was always true; and that to embrace what are called the Calvinistic doctrines was an infallible token of a humble mind.
I think I have known some Arminians—that is, persons who, for want of clearer light, have been afraid of receiving the doctrines of free grace—who yet have given evidence that their hearts were in a degree humbled before the Lord. And I am afraid there are Calvinists, who, while they account it a proof of their humility that they are willing in words to debase the creature, and to give all the glory of salvation to the Lord, yet know not what manner of spirit they are of. Whatever it be that makes us trust in ourselves that we are comparatively wise or good, so as to treat those with contempt who do not subscribe to our doctrines, or follow our party, is a proof and fruit of a self-righteous spirit.
Self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines, as well as upon works; and a man may have the heart of a Pharisee, while his head is stored with orthodox notions of the unworthiness of the creature and the riches of free grace. Yea, I would add, the best of men are not wholly free from this leaven; and therefore are too apt to be pleased with such representations as hold up our adversaries to ridicule, and by consequence flatter our own superior judgments. Controversies, for the most part, are so managed as to indulge rather than to repress this wrong disposition; and therefore, generally speaking, they are productive of little good. They provoke those whom they should convince, and puff up those whom they should edify. I hope your performance will savor of a spirit of true humility, and be a means of promoting it in others.”
–John Newton, “Letter XIX: On Controversy,” The Works of John Newton, Volume 1 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2015), 1: 272-273.
I am sure there are more, yet here are the principles I gleaned:
.
I recently over-heard a coffee house patron clam that ancient people could not practice ‘abortion’ like we do today. Ancient people did not even understand the female biology. Likely this ignorance was a case of chronological snobbery. The speaker assumed people in and around Jesus day had just learned about fire how could they even know about things like biology, let alone, how to kill a baby in the womb.
If that’s you, buckle up this will be eye opening. The practice of abortion was known in the first century. Many of the cultures around them performed abortions or gave abortifacient drugs with breathtaking frequency. (1) Abortions were performed by binding a woman around the abdomen until the baby was expelled; using a copper needle or spike; or by the use of a circular blade. Writing the middle of the Second century Tertullian describes this method and tools used in vivid detailed.
Accordingly, among surgeons' tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all, and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery. There is also (another instrument in the shape of) a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: they give it.. the name of ἐμβρυοσφάκτης, the slayer of the infant..(2)
Clearly Late term abortion were practiced. We also have evidence that chemical abortions were possible using pessaries—oral drugs or poisons—that would cause miscarriages. Eubius, a first-century B.C. poet, even put abortion formulas to verse so they could be more easily remembered. Infanticide also practiced, exposure being the most common method. All these methods were commonly practiced in the first century.
What would lead them to allow such a practice.
The Greek culture was the first in the Ancient Near East to permit, and in some cases require, abortion. In The Republic, for example, Plato (427-347 B.C.) opines that in his idealized polis (greek for city-state), women over 40 years old would be required to have an abortion.
A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty . . . And we grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any [subsequent] embryo which may come into being from seeing the light; and if any force a way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such an union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly.(3)
Similarly, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) thought the state should not bear the burden of disabled or too many children. He said,
Let there be a law that no deformed child shall be reared; but on the ground of the number of children, if the regular customs hinder any of those born being exposed, there must be a limit fixed to the procreation of offspring, and if any people have a child as a result of intercourse in contravention of these regulations, abortion must be practiced on it before it has developed sensation and life; for the line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive (Politics 7.14.10).(4)
While Plato and Aristotle have many good ideas, it is clear their ethic of human life was deficient. In each of these cases the same perspective is at work. Rather than considering the moral value of the unborn as the deciding factor, the philosophers considered the well-being of the polis to be paramount. This view amounts to a form of political utilitarianism that sees each person’s value only in terms of the good of the state. (An egregious assumption that persists to this very day in the halls of academia as well as among the political philosophies of many cosmopolitan elite.)
The grim conclusions of these philosophers demonstrate the perils of thinking ethically apart from Scripture. Scripture revealing God as the first principle, the point from which all moral and ethical reflection must begin. God not humanity is the standard of all morality, Apart from this theocentric perspective a person’s ethical reflection can rise no higher than the political good. Yet the good of the state does not provide a vantage point from which to make a judgment about something so lofty as human life.
The Christian tradition, however, viewed the sacredness of every individual human life in theocentric, not political, terms. Since all individuals, including unborn children, were made in the image of the living God, their lives would be respected and were worth preserving. The moral status of a human being was not grounded in what persons could do for the state, but in how persons were related to the God who made them, a relation rooted in being made in God’s image.
While today the argument may not center around the political or social good, but the personal good. Talk of personal right have given way to an idolatry of the Self. We are a culture of entitled children crying “I deserve this” - “I have the right to do this” -even if ‘this’ is the killing of the unborn. The moral status of the unborn is not grounded in whether or not the unborn is a blessing or burden to the parent, but again, grounded in the intrinsic worth of the unborn as an image bearer of God.
In today’s culture, although the center has shifted to individual right, the same moral logic applies. Only a theocentric vision of life leads to an ethic that respects life, everything else (utilitarian, or progressive), inevitably produces a culture of death.
Footnotes
This is the third blog in a three part series on the modern attitude towards healing.
Many people today may say that God “can” heal but those same people often have a negative attitude towards miraculous healing. Such a negative attitude is expressed in suspicious looks, cynical reasoning, dismissive conversations often ripe with bumper sticker talking points. All these marks express a negative view towards healing. Yet some of these arguments remain salient in various communities of faith making the attitudes all the more suspicious, dismissive, and cynical.
As we have seen in previous blogs. Morton T. Kelsey, studied how the church’s teaching on ‘why God does not heal’ has formed over time a negative often unconscious attitude towards healing in the church today.
It is important to remind the reader that Kelsey builds on a principle in social psychology.
The principle states, in any given group a commonly repeated public arguments (like from the pulpit) against something will over time form a negative attitude towards that thing. Once formed those attitudes will endure, even after the argument is disproved or no longer held by the group. While the two arguments in the last blog are no longer taught in the church but are still found in lingering social attitudes, the two in this blog still remain in many segments of Christianity, thus exert an even stronger tendency to cultivate a lack of openness towards healing.
We come to the last two of Kelsey's list. These arguments are still taught in two vastly different sections of Christianity.
Argument from Biblical Cessationism
This view makes an exegetical argument that the more miraculous gifts died out in the first century. It is prevalent among groups that cherish the truthfulness of the New Testament and believe healings did happen in biblical times but such things as healing miracles do not happen today. It first became prevalent during the reformation. The reformers adopted what came to be known as a cessationist approach to miracles. Due to the catholic claims of miracles as proof that God approved of their doctrine and practices. The Reformers concluded that the gift of healing in the New Testament served only a temporary purpose. From this perspective, the minister’s only role is expound scripture to prepare the sick for suffering and pastor those who are enduring sickness with care and compassion.
The cessationist view is still alive in some segment of Christianity but is slowly dying the death of a thousand biblical observations. While It is beyond the scope of this blog to refute the clams of cessationists. Eminent New Testament scholar David Garland in his commentary on the gospel of Mark explains the problem with the cessationist argument:
“The problem with the cessationist’s approach is that it can be interpreted negatively as a kind of bait-and-switch tactic on God’s part. The church got started through the power of miracles, but it was withdrawn later. If one does believe that God wills our physical and spiritual wholeness and that God’s power remains available to us and can intervene directly in our lives, then one must allow for Christian healing today. Christians and Christian communities can be instruments of that power and love. It does not necessarily follow that because many persons today have not witnessed New Testament quality miracles, they therefore are no longer possible. We do not understand the vast world of microorganisms, let alone how God works in our world. It is best, therefore, not to place limits on God regarding healing.” [1]
The reason for cessationism’s incredible resilience is due in large part to the attitude about healing promoted in most cessationist churches. For many cessationist churches healing is not only less prominent, but has virtually disappeared from the discussion except for when they’re speaking abstractly about the Bible stories. In this way, nostalgia is confused with reverence. Yet the cessationist’s explanation for the modern miracle shortage is the evidence that God has withdrawn such sign gifts. The lack of healings and other such works of God’s power in their own experience seems to confirm what they believe. Yet in the final analysis, a lack of experience should not confirm their belief the narrative world of the Bible and the experience it describes should shape Christian experience.
Argument from Anti-supernatural materialism
The last view rejects the biblical worldview entirely. It assumes that the idea that supernatural beings can intervene in the natural order of things is a fiction and such stories are properly filed under the heading of ‘myth’. Modern, educated people now “come of age” have progressed beyond such archaic ways of thinking. This view regards healing miracles to be impossible because they violate the laws of nature. The New Testament miracle accounts are dismissed as legends aimed at magnifying Jesus.
This view is rooted in the post-enlightenment materialism. From this perspective science is understood to give us the truest view of reality. Religion is an important for its humanistic way of creating meaning and purpose from the barren wasteland of our material monastic existence. The minister role is to help facilitate meaning making through rituals and the retelling of sacred myths. Outside of that the minister functions as a secular social worker in a clerical collar.
When a church becomes an Eco-chamber.
In these communities, the arguments remain entrenched in their respective segments of Christianity regardless of the full weight of biblical scholarship that has dismantled them on a scholarly level.
Socially speaking, the arguments described above social legitimizes the negative attitude, sanctifying and masking suspicious, dismissive, and cynical attitudes as “cautious”. The process is simple enough to follow. The teaching bounces around a group’s eco chamber until it mutates into a negative attitude, eventually becoming the ‘in-group’ disposition towards healing. This way of thinking and feeling about healing is exclusionary; affirming the groups view as inherently biblical and placing counter evidence and other legitimate interpretations of scripture outside the realm of consideration. Such a process of ‘group think’ is evident no matter if the group is liberal or fundamentalist, Reformed or Unitarian Universalist.
In short, these arguments remain relevant given the ability to passively explain away the group’s lack of experience. They redefine and reframe experience in such a way to push healing outside the ‘Overton window’ into areas deemed unacceptable for respectable dignified and upstanding Christians. Ministers no longer approach the issue by way of biblical analysis and logical assessment. In the pulpit the negative attitude leads many to teach oddly contradictory ideas and ‘unreal’ interpretations of scripture prompted more by the negative attitudes that permeate the church than relevant academic and biblical arguments.
Moving Forward Wisely
At the level of the Christian community, Openness and discernment are not opposite to one another yet discretion and wisdom should always be employed. Being open to the power and work of the Spirit is important while a valid concern remains over charlatans and wolves in the flock.
It is the responsibility of all Christian’s to discern the spirits yet Pastors are undoubtedly responsible to guard against shamanism and religious quackery in the larger community. It may seem counter intuitive but the best way to sharpen Christian discernment is good old fashioned common sense. David Garland [2] helps in this regard with some qualification and helpful advice to keep us wise and open to the things of God. I have added bullet points for accessibility:
Footnotes
[1] David E. Garland, Mark. NIV Application Commentary. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.) 91
[2] David E. Garland, Mark. NIV Application Commentary. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.) 92
In a previous blog we looked at Kelsey’s four historical arguments about divine healing to answer the question; "why people lack an openness to Divine Healing?" He observed that many Christians today react emotionally when talking about divine healing and don't even entertain the concept of healing in their own lives, while intellectually claiming God can heal someone. Kelsey concluded the hindrance seems to be a negative affective attitude about divine healing and not just a doctrinal one. The historical teachings have formed something of a social construct in the church shaping people's unconscious attitude over the issue.
To my knowledge, the first two arguments are not taught anymore in the church. Yet still exerts a powerful influence over the attitudes of many
In this blog we will look at the first two arguments in greater detain and give a brief rebuttal. Even though no one formally holds these views the attitude still persists in the social DNA of many churches. Today, people can give mental ascent in healing but hold a negative attitude due to the lingering influence of these arguments.
The approach taken by Kelsey is helpful in understanding a common paradox many see in ministry. The Paradox of people affirming healing in theory while denying its power in their personal life. Such are not hypocrites, in the moral or biblical sense, for they are unaware of all of the assumptions about healing that they hold.
In thinking thought these ideas I have come up with what I see as the root assumption at the bottom of each argument.
First, The Argument from Philosophical dualism
The first view began as a practical argument based on the common Greek division of reality into the material and spiritual. The argument holds that there is a fundamental divide between the secular and the sacred parts of life. It asserts that Medicine is deals with the physical world and religion is secluded to the spiritual with the two spheres not overlapping. Religion is seen as otherworldly, primary concerned with saving souls for Heaven. Thus religion has nothing to do with someone’s physical health. On the other side, there are those who believe that only scientific medical means can affect significant healing. Based on this (false) dichotomy, it is reasoned that sense Medicine is for the body; religion is for the soul, it is best to keep them separate but equal. Any attempt to mix the two ends of in failure. The mixing of the two only breeds superstition and fraud. In this a view, the minister role is to maintain the separation and teach the wisdom of staying far away from such people and practices. Kelsey keenly observes the illogical nature of christian practices in this area. Highlighting how our negative attitude can place some behaviors outside the Overton window while legitimizing others.
“By some quirk of logic, it was legitimate for suffering Christians to go to the doctor for relief; it was even good for the church to build hospitals to minister to the sick. But neither the individual Christian nor the church was to bring the direct power of God to bear upon getting rid of the sickness.” [1]
In our day it is easy to see the practical angle of this argument. Although religious fakes and fraud have always been with us the access to exposure and ability to build a platform is much easier today than in previous generations. Exposure to the quacks and frauds makes many cynical if not combative, leading to those in the church defaulting to the secular sacred division of labor. They would rather keep the religious and medical worlds separated rather than dealing with the mess.
A few rebuttals to this idea.
Helping someone get out from under such assumptions begins by "bring heaven and earth together" that is discussing the assumption they likely hold about the secular sacred divide. Central to this is a set of metaphysical assumptions about reality as well as the role of religion in human experience. Another notable area of exploration would be their assumptions about the kingdom of God in general, as well as the individual's "locos of control" and how they relate that to Christ's lordship.
Two, Argument from Theological rationalism
The second view holds that God is sovereign and sickness is his tool. Since God controls all sickness and sends it as a strong rebuke for sin. Sick persons ought to learn from their infirmities. The minister only role is to exhort confession of sin or help the individual to grow in faith through the suffering.
A little background will be helpful to make sense of how Christian’s could have such a view of God. The theological method used at that time was known as “scholasticism”
Scholasticism is a deductive theological method that arose in the Middle Ages Particularly the work of Thomas Aquinas. It was the marriage of Aristotelian philosophical analysis and Christian reflection. Yet Scholasticism moved beyond the synthesis of Aquinas and into hyper rationalism.
Scholastic theological discussion centered on dogmatics (doctrinal propositions) and not exegesis (textual analysis). The scholastic method was deductive in it’s approach. Beginning with a General theological statement, implications were deduced, without much nuance or qualifications given to the primary proposition. The result was a set of blanket conclusions that were more rational than real. By the 1600’s the rigid English scholasticism reasoned in a very absolutist fashion. Adherence defended the view with appeals to a greater good argument of character formation as Kelsey notes:
“It came to be believed that the suffering caused by illness had a real value in developing good Christian character. According to this belief, some illness (if not all of it) is sent by God for a reason, and one of the great Christian virtues is the courageous bearing of such sickness. Obviously, what God has sent for man's good the church should not presume to take away.”[2]
Kelsey gives an interesting example showing how morbid the logic became:
“This attitude is magnificently expressed in the English Prayer Book. The service “the Office of Visitation of the Sick” written in 1661, has to be read to be believed. It states quite clearly that God sends most illness upon us as punishment for sin. The crowning touch (which has been dropped from the American version) is the idea that healthy people are bastards, to use the Prayer Book word. Since they have not received God's fatherly correction in the form of sickness, they cannot be real sons because, as anyone can see, God chastens those whom he loves with divine chastisements like physical illness. Modern Protestantism has taken no official action to countermand this basic idea, and it still represents pretty well the popular, unconscious attitude, although we moderns are not quite so frank as they were in the 1600s.”[3]
A Quick rebuttal
Helping someone likely will involve mining a persons assumptions about how someone develops christian character, the nature and role of suffering and especially the implication of the resurrection on the embodied life in the new creation. Central in this project will be understanding the locus of hope in the person.
Footnotes
[1] Morton T. Kelsey, The Healing Ministry within the Church, Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Apr., 1970), pp. 106
[2] Morton T. Kelsey, The Healing Ministry within the Church, Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Apr., 1970), pp. 106
[3] Morton T. Kelsey, The Healing Ministry within the Church, Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Apr., 1970), pp. 106
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I recently had a conversation with an old friend in which we discussed the idea of divine healing. I was surprised at how immediate and negative his response. I asked myself if next time, I need to give a trigger warning before I talk about healing. My experience hints of a larger problem in the church. In most of the evangelical and mainline churches the idea of healing comes with a negative attitude about the subject. Even if those you speak with have not thought about it in decades. So Do we need safe spaces in the church where no one will bring up God’s power to heal or is the church that safe space? I'm joking a bit but Many people today do not believe that miraculous healing is possible. Many more don’t know what they believe but they know they don’t like it.
This phenomenon has been studied by Christian scholars. Morton T. Kelsey, an Episcopal priest, and Christian psychologist, studied the historical roots of the church’s present negative attitude toward healing. [1] The question he sought to answer was why the church today has a negative attitude towards something found all over the Bible. He does this by surveying four arguments in church history on healing that has produced a fundamental resistance to believing God heals today.
In the study Kelsey builds off a principle in social psychology. The principle states that public arguments against ‘X’ can over time form negative attitudes towards ‘x’ and those attitudes will remain even after the arguments are disproven. Kelsey shows how four historic arguments for ‘why God does not heal’ has, over time, formed a negative attitude towards healing in the church today.
To be clear these points are not a list of hindrances to personal healing but anyone of these points could keep someone from seeking prayer for healing. Nor am I putting forth the ides that God heals everyone if we have enough faith and pray.
I have followed the historical progression without much discussion. In later blogs we will look into the individuals arguments and assess there veracity. In this blog, I just wanted to introduce you to these arguments.
Kelsey’s four arguments
1. Philosophical argument
The first view began as a philosophical argument based on the common Greek division of reality into the material and spiritual. Religion is seen as otherworldly, primary concerned with saving souls for Heaven. Thus religion has nothing to do with someone’s physical health. On the other side, there are those who believe that only scientific medical means can affect significant healing. It is reasoned that sense medicine is for the body; religion is for the soul, it is best to keep them separated. Any attempt to mix the two ends of in failure, often breeding superstition and fraud. In this view, the minister role is to maintain the separation and teach the wisdom of staying far away from such people and practices.
2. Theological argument
The second view holds that God is sovereign and sickness is his tool. Since God controls all sickness and sends it as a strong rebuke for sin. Sick persons ought to learn from their infirmities. The minister only role is to exhort confession of sin or help the individual to grow in faith through the suffering.
3. The biblical argument
This view makes an exegetical argument that the more miraculous gifts died out in the first century. It is prevalent among groups that cherish the truthfulness of the New Testament and a large portion of the Gospels and Acts describe miracles performed by Jesus and his apostles. Those stories are understood to teach that God granted to the early church a special ability to demonstrate his power in an unusual way, to help the church get started, and to authenticate the apostles. After that time those manifestations of power died out. This view first became prevalent during the reformation. Due to the catholic claims of miracles as proof that God approved of their doctrine and practices. The Reformers concluded that the gift of healing in the New Testament served only a temporary purpose. The minister’s only role is expound scripture to prepare the sick for suffering and pastor those who are enduring sickness with care and compassion.
4. The Anti-supernaturalist argument
The last view rejects the biblical worldview entirely. This view is rooted in post-enlightenment materialism. It assumes that the idea of supernatural beings intervening in the world is a fiction. The New Testament miracle accounts are dismissed as legends aimed at magnifying Jesus. This view regards contemporary healing miracles to be impossible because they violate the laws of nature.
Adherants understand humanity has progressed beyond such archaic ways of thinking yet religion is seen to still hold an important function in society. In this view, the minister role is to help facilitate meaning making through rituals and the retelling of sacred myths.
Ideas have consequences
In his conclusion he ties it all together by showing how the modern negative attitude stems from the way these ideas have shaped our view of the world. Kelsay summarizes the influence of the four views:
“Certainly most Christian thinking, both Catholic and Protestant, has been swept clean of any idea of Christian healing. On the one hand the successes of medicine have made it unnecessary, and on the other, modern theology has made any belief in it untenable. First of all, the church had accepted the necessity of dealing with the natural world on its own natural, material terms. Then there has been an acceptance of sickness as a part of the world, put there by God. Dispensationalism has found a way to divide this world so that healing, once seen as one of the greatest divine gifts, no longer seems needed or even wholesome. Finally, most modern theology has made it clear in ample reasoning why it did not happen at all.” [2]
Kelsey’s thesis about the historic roots of anti-healing sentiment checks out. Each argument builds on the next to shape christian attitudes about healing today. These attitudes have become entrenched in modern Christian culture especially in the West. While their influence often goes unspoken, occasionally you can hear them in our conversations about sickness. Here are a few example:
If Jesus is the model for the church’s ministry, we see one who is confident in the power of God, who touches the unclean and restores the banished to his community and the sick to a meaningful role of service. The church should follow our Lord. While affirming the necessary and importance of medicine.
As someone in the evangelical space, I have to ask; Why is the healing ministry of the church talked about in hushed tones? Why is Wednesday night prayer meeting more a time for gossip than for prayer? Why does no one feel the need to first stop by the church before going to the doctor? When a Christian is sick, why is prayer a last resort and not our first action? All such questions are often more complex than they appear. What Kelsey makes clear are the effects of these arguments. Over time they have incurred a historical momentum and now collectively they promote a negative view towards healing in the church. As stated above, historical arguments for "why God does not heal any more", have over time, formed a general negative attitude towards ‘healing’ in the church and that attitude have remained even after the arguments have been forgotten or disproven.[3]
Ideas have consequences and effect more than we think they do. Don’t let the negativity around you, influence how you relate to the rest of the body of Christ. Conflating your attitude towards an ideas with your approach towards a person is dangerous.
So even if you hold number 3 to be the ‘gospel truth’. If you treat those who disagree with you with the same negative attitude you have for their idea is not the way. It does not reflect Christian unity. Whether the negative expression is avoiding them like they have a memetic virus or approaching them in a condescending manor. Such behaviors are the hallmarks of spiritual elitist. "Those people," don’t have a spiritual plague nor are they gullible, ignorant plebs.[4]
In my opinion, these four specters have become the shadowy doubts lingering in the back of the church, crouched in the corners encouraging fear, promoting a negative attitude towards healing, and sewing doubt and discord among men of good faith.
In upcoming blogs, I will look at each point in more detail, assessing the veracity of each argument.
Footnote
[1] While I would not affirm all of Kelsey’s work, His assessment of the negative attitudes towards healing in the church is well known and widely cited by scholars like David Garland. Two works were used for this study, Morton T. Kelsey, The Healing Ministry within the Church, Journal of Religion and Health, (1970); and Morton T. Kelsey, Psychology, Medicine & Christian Healing (1988)
[2] Morton T. Kelsey, Psychology, Medicine & Christian Healing: A Revised and Expanded Edition of Healing & Christianity (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988). 24.
[3] This is one reasons, Christian’s should never define themselves by what they are against( ie. By a negative).
[4] Same dynamic applies to those who respond to such negative attitudes with just as much negativity. A negative plus an negative is not a positive. It’s just double the negativity. So the same can be said of those who respond with spiritual pride over believing in divine healing. They can be just as elitist.
Conversions are like snowflakes no one is like another. Each and every story of how Christ pulls a soul to himself is special, unique, delicately powerful. Each story is touched with redemptive beauty. Even the story of the five-year-old child who prays with his mother contains more than enough unexpected wonder and truthful beauty to make even the fattest angel dance. But the story of Israel Zolli is not about a child on bended knee. It is of a heroic rabbi caught in the maelstrom of World War II .
A Christ haunted life
Rabbi Zolli was one of the most remarkable men of the 20th century. A leading European Jewish intellectual, chief rabbi of Rome, who converted to Christianity in 1944. Not much had been written about him the Jewish community considers him a heretic to his faith, and a traitor to his race. To Jesus, he is a trophy of grace.
He was born in 1881 in what now is the Ukraine. As a young man, he worked in Florence where he also did his rabbinical studies. He became professor at the University of Padua and was named vice-rabbi of Trieste. In 1918, he became chief rabbi of the city.
During this period, Zolli led a divided life. In public, the life of a rabbi celebrating certain number of rituals and shepherding the jewish community. But alone with the Torah, he lived the life of a writer and thinker. This latter work eventually brought him onto the road leading to Christ.
Prepare the way of The Lord
Before God does a work whether in redemption history or on human soul he begins by preparing the way. The same can be said of Zolli's conversion. Before he publicly confession, the winds of providence were preparing him.
One such preparation was the slow pull of intellectual curiosity. He had always been attracted to the Gospel. As a young rabbi studying the Old Testament, he could not just stop at the end of it: so he continued, and read the New Testament. For him, it was the natural continuation of the Old.
He had always been attracted to the figure of Christ on the cross in which he saw the evidence of His being the "Suffering Servant of God" spoken of by Isaiah. Something he did not speak publicly about until after his conversion. Like Hazel Motes in Flannery O'conners' Wise Blood, who was haunted by the Compelling Christ. For Zolli like Motes, "Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he was not sure of his footing"
In 1938, he wrote The Nazarene in which he explored the exegetical problems concerning the relations between the Old and the New Testaments. Soon after publication, he was transferred to Rome and named chief rabbi of the city. Seen as a rabbi who could build bridges and keep the peace continued his work both in public and in private where amidst his prayers and thoughts Christ moved from tree to tree in the back of his mind.
In 1942, the winds of providence began to stir again as the storms of war raged in Europe. By September 1943 the Nazis occupied Rome. The War had now come to Rome. Under Mussolini the Jews had been marginalized but not mistreated.
Now a Nazi officer named Kappler demanded 110 pounds of gold in place of the Jews. The Jews feverishly managed to collect 77 pounds. The chief Rabbi Zolli realized his helplessness. For the first time he stepped into the Vatican and begged Pope Pius XII: "The New Testament must not abandon the Old Testament!" The Pope was so moved that by that afternoon, the remaining 33 pounds of gold was collected from the parishes of Rome. But Kappler took the Jews as well as the gold as rabbi Zolli begged in vain for him to take him as a trophy instead. His life for his people. A substitution to pay a ransom and satisfy wrath but Zoolli's pleas went unheard. He was not the one to represent and redeem his people. Christ once again move from tree to tree in the back of his mind.
From the betrayal and disappointment a great courage arose in him settling into an otherworldly resolve. He walked away from that meeting determined to protect his community. Diplomacy had failed but all his cards had not yet been played. He had only began to fight.
The deportation of the Jews from Rome was fixed for 16 October 1943. Rabbi Zolli called on the Vatican once again. They began at once smuggling Jews out of Rome. Out of the 8000 Jews of Rome, they managed to get 4447 Jews hidden in over 150 monasteries and parish houses, hidden against the threat of the highest punishment from the Nazis. Till the threat was over, they were provided with all they needed for survival.
Haunted no more
The Americans freed Rome in June 1944. Yet Rabbi Zolli seemed to be caught in a deeper battle. Father Dezza, a Jesuit and friend of Zolli tells of a conversation they had on August 15, 1944. Zolli had come to him and revealed the tension of his soul : "How can I continue living in this way when I think very often of Christ and I love Him?"
In October 1944, all tension was put to rest by the living Christ. On the holy day of Yom Kippur (day of Atonement), Zolli had an extraordinary experience which would come to be decisive. He was in the synagogue in contemplation and suddenly, in a vision He saw Christ beside him. Christ said to him: "You are here for the last time: from now on you will follow Me." That was it. Zolli was profoundly moved, visibly shaken and spiritually renewed. He had went to his knees a Rabbi but rose a Christian.
At home that evening, he did not want to say anything to his family, but his wife told him that while he was in the synagogue celebrating Yom Kippur, she too had seen a figure of Christ next to him. His daughter Miriam, who was then 18, added that she had seen Jesus in a dream. For Rabbi Zolli it was the last sign he needed. He resigned from the synagogue and on 17 February 1945, Israel Zolli, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and his wife made public confessions of faith in Christ and received a Christian baptism identifying them as a follower of Christ.
After 40 years of rabbinical studies with fingers blackened by ink from hours of study, a tired rabbi weary from war's bitter sting, and weak from protecting his flock rose from the waters to find God was already there, with him, face to face.
Epilogue: Certainty of the mountains
In an interview after his baptism the good rabbi was asked why he had given up the synagogue for the Church, he gave an answer that showed he had a keen understanding of biblical realities: "But I have not given it up. Christianity is the integration of the synagogue. The synagogue was a promise, and Christianity is the fulfillment of that promise. The synagogue pointed to Christianity: Christianity presupposes the synagogue. So you see, one cannot exist without the other. What I converted to was the living Christianity."
"Then you believe that the Messiah has come?" the interviewer asked.
"Yes, positively," replied Zolli. "I have believed it for many years. And now I am so firmly convinced of the truth of it that I can face the whole world and defend my faith with the certainty and solidity of the mountains.