The Development Of Anointing In The Modern Church

This article traces the history of anointing since the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. Note how each development in the history of anointing was based on larger theological discussions.

The Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century envisioned the purification and renewal of medieval European Christianity according to the doctrinal and experiential norms, which they saw contained in the Scriptures and the first five centuries of early Christian tradition. Remarkably, however, for all the profound theological, ecclesiastical, and societal change brought about by the Reformation, the ancient Christian rite of anointing for healing received little positive attention from leading Protestant thinkers. They rejected the Catholic sacrament of the extreme unction as unbiblical and, for the most part, consigned supernatural gifts of healing to the apostolic age. While Rome was accused of misinterpreting James 5:14–15, no correct Protestant exposition of the text was set forth. Trying to remedy the problem of misuse with non-use, the Reformers replaced the service of extreme unction with a service for the visitation of the sick. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer, which shaped all the Reformed churches, denied the sick person both anointing and the laying on of hands. Luther did, however, appear to recognize James 5 as a prescription to be followed in praying for the physically ill and mentally disturbed, though he did not sanction the practice as a sacrament. The emergence of post-Reformation, nonconformist, sectarian religious movements in England, on the European continent, and in North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was accompanied by a revival of anointing with oil in association with healing prayer. Early English and American Baptists practiced the rite, recounting their success, especially in cases of mental illness. The German Baptist Brethren (also called Dunkers), who originated in the early eighteenth century and later emigrated to Pennsylvania, reinstituted anointing with oil and prayer for healing as one of several New Testament practices they claimed a divine, scriptural call to recover. Modeling themselves after their Anabaptist Swiss Brethren forbearers, nineteenth-century Old Order Mennonites, who settled mostly in Pennsylvania, also observed the rite of anointing the sick. Later Mennonite groups, such as the Mennonite Brethren in Christ, followed the same tradition of anointing with oil. Though eighteenth-century evangelical awakenings in England and America were characterized by miraculous healings, the practice of anointing per se received minimal attention. John Wesley acknowledged that the practice had been lost to the church due to unbelief, but at the same time, showed little effort to recover and integrate it with his ministry of healing prayer. Ironically, few of the groups which grew out of the First Great Awakening, most notably the Methodists, showed much sustained interest in either healing prayer or anointing with oil. The Second Awakening of the early nineteenth century bore more lasting results regarding the restoration of anointing for healing. Many of the denominations of Wesleyan persuasion, which were derived from the camp meeting movement on the American frontiers, continue to teach and practice to some degree the anointing of the sick: the Wesleyan Church, the Free Methodist Church, the Church of the Nazarene, and the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana). The practice of unction for healing assumed new importance toward the close of the nineteenth century as a trans-Atlantic, interdenominational holiness and healing movement gained momentum in England and America. Captain R. Kelso Carter, who authored an early manifesto for the holiness/healing movement entitled The Atonement for Sin and Sickness (1884) continued to practice anointing the sick with oil, even after subsequently publishing some retractions of his earlier radical views on healing. The Bethshan International Conference on Divine Healing and True Holiness, which convened in London in 1885, featured a special public anointing service as part of its week-long series of meetings. Prominent clergymen of varying denominational backgrounds who espoused a holiness/healing spirituality also endorsed healing prayer with the anointing of oil. Dr. A. J. Gordon, the prominent Baptist pastor in Boston, Dr. A. B. Simpson, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and Andrew Murray, the well-known South African theologian, all wrote widely disseminated books on healing which highlighted the practice of anointing. R. A. Torrey, the famed American lawyer turned revivalist, wrote in the same vein at the turn of the twentieth century. The present Statement of Faith of the Alliance Church, which was founded by A. B. Simpson, represents one of the earliest formal evangelical recommendations of "?prayer for the sick and anointing with oil as … privileges for the church in this present age?" (art. 8). The advent of Pentecostalism with its Holiness roots at the outset of the twentieth century spawned a new worldwide family of Pentecostal denominations that affirmed the doctrine of healing through prayer, symbolized in anointing with oil. Some of these churches, such as the Elim Pentecostal Churches of Britain, even enshrined the rite of anointing for healing as an ordinance alongside baptism and the Lord's Supper. The James 5 liturgy of healing prayer and anointing with oil became standard fare in various Pentecostal denominations around the world, thus raising the profile of the rite in modern Christendom. Though not as influential as in Pentecostalism, twentieth-century developments within historic denominations regarding the rite of anointing are also noteworthy. In 1905, Emmanuel Church, an established congregation in Boston, witnessed an attempted synthesis of counseling, anointing, and prayer by several physicians and psychiatrists. Other organizations followed suit. Simultaneously, the Guild of Health was founded in Britain, inspiring healing practices primarily among Anglican and Episcopalian churches. In the United States, the Order of the Nazarene (1910) was established in Boston by Reverend Henry Wilson with a similar agenda in mind. Other organizations followed. The Order of Saint Luke, the Physician (established in 1947), which had its beginnings in 1929 with the ministry of Dr. John Gayner Banks; Camps Farthest Out (c. 1930), established by Glenn Clarke; and the Sanford Schools of Pastoral Care (1955), associated with the healing ministry of Agnes Sanford, all sought to promote anointing with oil and prayer for the sick within traditional denominations. At the ecclesiastical level, the twentieth century has seen the reintroduction of unction and laying on of hands into the mainstream of the church's life. Both the 1928 revised edition of The Book of Common Prayer of the American Episcopal Church and the Scottish Episcopal Prayer Book (1929) included a service of unction. Also, the 1962 revised Prayer Book of the Anglican Churches of Canada contains an anointing service with prayers for the healing of the whole person. During the 1950s and 1960s official studies of sacramental healing were undertaken in the denominations of the American Episcopals, the Presbyterians, and the Lutherans, including also the United Church of Canada and the Church of England. Paralleling these developments in Protestantism, the Second Vatican Council in 1962 prepared the ground in Roman Catholicism for the creation of a "?continuous rite?" of anointing for the sick, complementing the sacrament of the extreme unction administered immediately prior to death. The widespread circulation of healing spirituality during the past twenty years, generated by a proliferation of renewal movements and healing ministries of differing orientations, has served to raise transdenominational consciousness as to the necessary and legitimate place of unction for healing within the life and ministry of the church. As a result, even churches with no liturgical tradition of a healing rite have seen fit to develop healing services which include healing prayer in conjunction with the anointing with oil and the laying on of hands.