IS RELIGIOUS FAITH a factor in healing? Important evidence indicates that it is. There was a time in my own experience when I was not convinced of this, but now I am, and that very definitely. I have seen too many evidences to believe otherwise.
We are learning that faith properly understood and applied is a powerful factor in overcoming disease and establishing health.
My conviction regarding this important question is shared by many medical men. Newspapers carried an account of the visit to this country of the famous Viennese surgeon, Dr. Hans Finsterer. I quote the newspaper story which was headed “Honor Surgeon ‘Guided by God.’”
“A Viennese doctor, Dr. Hans Finsterer, who believes ‘the unseen hand of God’ helps make an operation successful, was selected by the International College of Surgeons for its highest honor, ‘master of surgery.’ He was cited for his work in abdominal surgery with the use of local anesthesia only.
“Finsterer, seventy-two-year-old professor at the University of Vienna, has performed more than 20,000 major operations, among them 8,000 gastric resections (removal of part or all of the stomach) using only local anesthesia. Finsterer said that although considerable progress has been made in medicine and surgery in the past few years ‘all advances are not sufficient in themselves to insure a happy outcome in every operation. In many instances,’ he said, ‘in what appeared to be simple surgical procedures the patients died, and in some cases where the surgeon despaired of a patient there was recovery.
“‘Some of our colleagues attribute these things to unpredictable chance, while others are convinced that in those difficult cases their work has been aided by the unseen hand of God. Of late years, unfortunately, many patients and doctors have lost their conviction that all things depend on the providence of God.
“‘When we are once again convinced of the importance of God’s help in our activities, and especially in the treatment of our patients, then true progress will have been accomplished in restoring the sick to health.’”
So concludes the account of a great surgeon who combines his science with faith.
I spoke at the national convention of an important industry. It was a large gathering of the leaders in an amazingly creative merchandising enterprise that has established this particular industry as a vital factor in American business life.
I was somewhat surprised when one of the leaders of this organization at the convention luncheon where the discussion centered around taxation, rising costs, and business problems, turned to me and asked, “Do you believe that faith can heal?”
“There are a good many well-authenticated examples on record of people who have been healed by faith,” I answered. “Of course, I do not think we should depend on faith alone to heal a physical ailment. I believe in the combination of God and the doctor. This viewpoint takes advantage of medical science and the science of faith, and both are elements in the healing process.”
“Let me tell you my story,” the man continued. “A number of year ago I had a malady that was diagnosed as osteoma of the jaw, that is, a bone tumor on my jaw. The doctors told me it was practically incurable. You can imagine how that disturbed me. Desperately I sought for help. Although I had attended church with fair regularity, still I was not a particularly religious man. I scarcely ever read the Bible. One day, however, as I lay in my bed it occurred to me that I would like to read the Bible, and I asked my wife to bring one to me. She was very surprised, for I have never before made such a request.
“I began to read, and found consolation and comfort. I also became a bit more hopeful and less discouraged. I continued to read for extended periods every day. But that wasn’t the chief result. I began to notice that the condition which had troubled me was growing less noticeable. At first I thought I imagined this, then I became convinced that some change was taking place in me.
“One day while reading the Bible I had a curious inward feeling of warmth and great happiness. It is difficult to describe, and long ago I got over trying to explain the feeling. From that time on my improvement was more rapid. I went back to the doctors who had first diagnosed my case. They examined me carefully. They were obviously surprised and agreed that my condition had improved, but warned me that this was only a temporary respite. Later, however, upon further examination, it was determined that the symptoms of osteoma had disappeared entirely. Still the doctors told me it would probably start all over again. This did not disturb me, for in my heart I knew that I was healed.”
“How long has it been since your healing?” I asked.
“Fourteen years,” was the answer.
I studied this man. Strong, sturdy, healthy, he is one of the outstanding men in his industry. The incident was told to me in the factual way that a businessman would recount it. There was not the slightest indication of doubt in this man’s mind. Indeed how could there be, for whereas he had been condemned to death, here he was alive and vigorous.
What did it? The skillful work of the physician plus! And what was the plus? Obviously the faith that heals.
The healing described by this gentleman is but one of many similar accounts, and so many of them are attested by competent medical evidence that it seems we must encourage people to make greater use of the amazing power of faith in healing. Sadly the healing element in faith has suffered neglect. I am certain that faith can and does work what we call “miracles” but which are, in truth, the operation of spiritually scientific laws.
There is a growing emphasis in present-day religious practice which is designed to help people find healing from the sicknesses of mind, heart, soul, and body. This is a return to the original practice of Christianity. Only in recent times have we tended to overlook the fact that for centuries religion carried on healing activities. The very word “pastor” derives from a word meaning “the cure of souls.” In modem times, however, man made the false assumption that it is impossible to harmonize the teachings of the Bible with what is called “science” and so the healing emphasis of religion was abandoned almost entirely to materialistic science. Today, however, the close association of religion and health is increasingly recognized.
It is significant that the word “holiness” derives from a word meaning “wholeness” and the word “meditation,” usually used in a religious sense, closely resembles the root meaning of the word “medication.” The affinity of the two words is startlingly evident when we realize that sincere and practical meditation upon God and His truth acts as a medication for the soul and body.
Present-day medicine emphasizes psychosomatic factors in healing, thus recognizing the relationship of mental states to bodily health. Modern medical practice realizes and takes into consideration the close connection between how a man thinks and how he feels. Since religion deals with thought and feeling and basic attitudes, it is only natural that the science of faith should be important in the healing process.
Harold Sherman, author and playwright, was asked to revise an important radio presentation with the promise that he would be contracted as the permanent writer. After some months of work, he was dismissed and his material used without credit. This resulted in financial difficulty and humiliation. The injustice rankling in his mind developed into a growing bitterness against the radio executive who had broken faith with him. Mr. Sherman declares that this is the one time in his life when he had murder in his heart. His hatred made him subject to a physical affliction in the form of a mycosis, a fungus growth which attacked the membranes of his throat. The best medical attention was secured, but something in addition was required. When he gave up his hate and developed a feeling of forgiveness and understanding, the condition gradually corrected itself. With the aid of medical science and a new mental attitude, he was healed of his affliction.
A sensible and effective pattern for health and happiness is to utilize the skills and methods of medical science to the fullest possible extent and at the same time apply the wisdom, the experience, and the techniques of spiritual science. There is impressive evidence to support the belief that God works through both the practitioner of science, the doctor, and the practitioner of faith, the minister. Many physicians join in this point of view.
At a Rotary Club luncheon I sat at a table with nine other men, one of them a physician who had recently been discharged from military service and had resumed his civilian practice. He said, “Upon my return from the Army, I noticed a change in my patients’ troubles. I found that a high percentage do not need medicine but better thought patterns. They are not sick in their bodies so much as they are sick in their thoughts and emotions. They are all mixed up with fear thoughts, inferiority feelings, guilt, and resentment. I found that in treating them I needed to be about as much a psychiatrist as a physician, and then I discovered that not even those therapies helped me fully to do my job. I became aware that in many cases the basic trouble with people was spiritual. So I found myself frequently quoting the Bible to them. Then I fell into the habit of ‘prescribing’ religious and inspirational books, especially those that give guidance in how to live.”
Directing his statements to me, he said, “It’s about time you ministers began to realize that in the healing of many people you, too, have a function to perform. Of course you are not going to overlap on the work of the physician any more than we shall intrude on your function, but we doctors need the co-operation of ministers in helping people find health and well-being.”
I received a letter from a physician in an upstate New York town who said, “Sixty per cent of the people in this town are sick because they are maladjusted in their minds and in their souls. It is hard to realize that the modern soul is sick to such an extent that the physical organs pain. I suppose in time,” continues the doctor, “that ministers, priests, and rabbis will understand this relationship.”
This physician was kind enough to say that he prescribes my book, A Guide to Confident Living, and other similar books to his patients and that noteworthy results have been achieved thereby.
The manager of a Birmingham, Alabama, bookstore sent me a prescription form made out by a physician of that city to be filled not at a drugstore, but at her bookstore. He prescribes specific books for specific troubles.
Dr. Carl R. Ferris, formerly president of the Jackson County Medical Society of Kansas City, Missouri, with whom I had the pleasure of appearing on a joint health-and-happiness radio program, declared that in treating human ills the physical and spiritual are often so deeply interrelated that there is often no clearly defined dividing line between the two.
Years ago my friend, Dr. Clarence W. Lieb, pointed out to me the effect on health of spiritual and psychiatric problems, and through his wise guidance I began to see that fear and guilt, hate and resentment, problems with which I was dealing, were often closely connected with problems of health and physical well-being. So profoundly does Dr. Lieb believe in this therapy that he with Dr. Smiley Blanton inaugurated the religio-psychiatric clinic which for years has ministered to hundreds at the Marble Collegiate Church in New York.
The late Dr. William Seaman Bainbridge and I worked closely together in the relationship of religion and surgery, and we were able to bring health and new life to many.
Two of my medical friends in New York, Dr. Z. Taylor Bercovitz and Dr. Howard Westcott, have been of inestimable help in my pastoral work through their wisely scientific and yet deeply spiritual understanding of the ills of the body, mind, and soul as related to faith.
“We have discovered the psychosomatic cause of high blood pressure as some form of subtle, repressed fear—a fear of things that might happen, not of things that are,” says Dr. Rebecca Beard. “They are largely fears of things in the future. In that sense, therefore, they are imaginary, for they may never happen at all. In the case of diabetes, it is grief or disappointment which we found uses up more energy than any other emotion, thereby exhausting the insulin which is manufactured by the pancreas cells until they are worn out.
“Here we find the emotions involved in the past—reliving the past and not being able to go forward into life. The medical world can give relief in disorders like these. They can give something that can lower the blood pressure when it is high, or raise it when it is low, but not permanently. They can give insulin which will burn up more sugar into energy and give the diabetic relief. These are definite aids, but they do not offer complete cure. No drug or vaccine has been discovered to protect us from our own emotional conflicts. A better understanding of our own emotional selves and a return to religious faith seem to form the combination that holds the greatest promise of permanent help to any of us.
“The answer,” Dr. Beard concludes, “is in the healing teachings of Jesus.”
Another efficient woman physician wrote me of her own development in combining the therapy of medicine and faith. “I became interested in your straightforward religious philosophy. I had been working at top speed and getting tense, irritable, and at times beset with old fears and guilts, in fact in need of a release from morbid tension. At a low moment early one morning I picked up your book and began to read it. This was the prescription that I needed. Here was God, the great Physician, with faith in Him as an antibiotic to kill the germs of fear and render useless the virus of guilt.
“I began to practice the good Christian principles outlined in your book. Gradually there came a release of tension and I felt relaxed and happier and I slept well. I quit taking vitamin and pep pills. Then,” she adds, and this is what I want to emphasize, “I began to feel that I wanted to share this new experience with my patients, those who came to me with neuroses. I was surprised to find how many had read your book and others. The patient and I seemed to have a common ground to work on. It has been an enriching experience. To talk about a faith in God has become a natural and easy thing to do.
“As a doctor,” she adds, “I have seen a number of miraculous recoveries due to Divine aid being given. In the past few weeks I have had an additional experience. My sister had to undergo a serious operation about three weeks ago. Following the operation she developed an intestinal obstruction. On her fifth day she was very critically ill, and as I left the hospital at noon I realized that she must take a turn for the better very soon or her hope of recovery would be slim. I was very worried, so I drove slowly around for about twenty minutes praying for a relief of this obstruction. (Everything that could be done medically was being taken care of.) I had not been home more than ten minutes when the phone rang and her nurse told me that the obstruction had relieved itself and that she had taken a definite turn for the better, and since that time she has recovered completely. Could I feel otherwise than that God’s intervention had saved her life?”
So runs the letter of a successful practicing physician.
In the light of this viewpoint based on a strictly commonsense scientific attitude we may approach the phenomenon of healing through faith with credibility. If I did not believe sincerely that the faith factor in healing is sound I would certainly not develop the point of view contained in this chapter.