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Healing in the History of Christianity Presidential Address, January 2002 American Society of Church History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Amanda Porterfield
Amanda Porterfield
Affiliation:
professor of religious studies at the University of Wyoming.
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Extract

In 1866, after a fall on the ice left her in despair of ever being able to walk again, Mary Baker Patterson (later Mary Baker Eddy) picked up her Bible and began reading stories of the healings performed by Jesus. As she lay in bed, picturing Jesus commanding the lame to rise and demons to be gone, her own sense of the power of Divine Love became so strong that she stood up and walked, knowing that she was completely healed. Free from the weakness, pain, and fear that had plagued her life for decades, Eddy became a forceful and successful leader, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist who devoted the rest of her life to teaching others to know the healing power of Divine Love.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , June 2002 , pp. 227 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2002

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References

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4. Research supporting these findings is described in Koenig, Harold G., McCullough, Michael E., and Larson, David B., Handbook of Religion and Health (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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