A steady stream of “prophets” started appearing, from Sung
Young Moon to David Moses Berg to Jim Jones and more. These
were the big names, the big groups; and there were others.
Kathryn Kuhlman
Kathryn Kuhlman was a lovely, elderly lady in Oakland, who had
a healing ministry popular with the local Jesus freaks. She was sweet
and kind and impossible to disparage, but from a pastoral point of
view, she presented difficulties. Kuhlman was a healer of the old fashioned
kind, and when healing of the body is involved, people flock to
whatever remedy is being touted. Some of the Marin kids in the Bible
studies were driving over to be part of the Kuhlman services. In time,
I made the trip, too.
She had rented out what must have been an old-fashioned movie
theater, and before the scheduled start time, she would walk between
the curtains, peer out at the audience and ask, “Have you been waiting
for me?” The audience would roar back, “Yes.”
Ms. Kuhlman spoke softly, preaching the standard evangelical/
pentecostal line but without much biblical content, and soon, lines
of people hoping to be healed appeared on both sides of the stage.
One by one, they walked or were wheeled to the center of the stage to
receive Kathryn’s healing touch and prayer. Helpers discarded wheel
1 From my point of view, the year was 1970 when the trouble started. The
JPM was still in full flower, but opposing forces had moved in and were winning
victories. I estimate that the awakening that was the JPM ground to a halt in 1972,
though it may have lasted longer in some places.
chairs and pairs of crutches, as loud shrieks of praise echoed off the
walls of the cavernous building. One afternoon as I left for home after
a healing service, I saw people throwing wheel chairs and other stuff
onto a pile of like things outside the back door of the theater.
Kathryn was so warm and loving that one did not want to disappoint
her. If she claimed a healing, then there was a healing. No one
dared to publicly embarrass her. I had studied enough psychology
to know about the placebo effect, and as time wore on I was fairly
sure I was seeing this played out. We were glad to see people healed,
but when the healings wore off, which they most often did, pastoral
chores resulted.
Healing is wonderful, and I have seen people healed, been healed
myself, and watched as my son Vernon was healed on at least two
occasions, but healing began to be a distraction from the core activity
of the Jesus People, which was evangelism. What was occurring without
our full realization was that distractions, if not distortions, were
sweeping into the JPM.
Investigative journalists eventually descended on Kathryn, and
her whole endeavor was discredited. Kathryn slowly receded from
the public gaze; gawk might be a better word. She was a dear old lady
and much loved, and she represented a throwback to the old Pentecostal
holy roller healers I witnessed in Portland as a kid.
Other Questionable Persons
Another “evangelist” who came well before Kuhlman was William
Branham. His only trouble was that an angel, named Emma or maybe
Emily, stood beside him and actually conducted the healing ministry.
Branham admitted to it, and despite the fact that he was killed in an
automobile accident while drunk, a kind of cult grew up around him,
claiming he had been the Messiah or a forerunner of the Messiah. (I
ran into little groups dedicated to him at San Quentin Prison.)
It seemed as though one thing after another was insisting on
attention. Individuals and groups, it occurs to me now, saw what was
going on and jumped onto the bandwagon. David Berg’s The Family
fits this description. Victor Paul Wierwille and his Way International
also fit here. But the healers and the positive-thinking faith people
were whom we encountered most of all.
Through arrangements made by a dear lady in Atlanta named
Cora Vance, I was invited to appear on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club for
an interview. In the small, sterile waiting room before my turn, I found
myself talking with a guy in a light blue leisure suit. His interview with
Robertson was scheduled just before mine, and he asked me what my
“shtick” was. I did not know what he meant, so he explained that he
was known for making legs grow. He said he could do it without fail
and insisted on giving me a demonstration. Sure enough, he declared
that one of my legs was shorter than the other and, boom, he made
them both the same length. I just smiled and hoped he would soon be
called onto the stage.
Prophets and Other Problems
In my view, the most dangerous of all were those who styled themselves
as prophets. It was heady to know a prophet and, of course, to
later be known as a prophet oneself. When we heard the words of
the prophets and prophetesses, we yelled out exclamations such as,
“Wow! Praise God! Hallelujah!” Once a “prophet” is accepted into a
fellowship or church, however, trouble begins to emerge.
My sense of it is that those self-styled prophets had learned from
others how to go about “prophesying” yet sincerely thought their
pronouncements were from the Lord. While praying for a person
who was hoping to receive a word of knowledge or revelation, the
prophet would receive impressions and announce them: “God is calling
you to China.” “You are to marry your boyfriend and stop living in
sin.” “You are being used by God to provide finances for this church,
and you must sell your house and hand over the money to the elders.”
These were typical prophetic words I heard, and some of them came
out of my own mouth. At minimum, I was guilty of giving a platform
to people whom I thought I could trust, whom I thought were genuine
prophets of God, but who eventually proved they were not. It is safe
to say that there was a considerable lack of discernment among the
Jesus People.
Then there were the sexual predators who showed up surprisingly
often. It is too much to go on with descriptions and details, but
I saw it all. There were also thieves, only after money. Cultists hung
about at our meetings, looking for new believers and other vulner
able people, befriending them, chatting them up, and inviting them
to other meetings. I understood then what Jesus said about wolves
attacking the flock. At times, it felt like I was being besieged.
It became increasingly uncomfortable to identify myself as a charismatic.
Yet I had seen what I thought were genuine spiritual gifts,
and I would not let the weird taint the real.
Alongside these difficulties were the disturbing theologies. These
were, in the long run, perhaps more troubling than anything else. I
had personally gotten started in the Christian life embracing Dispensationalism
and had taped on a wall several charts I used to predict
the date of the Rapture.I thought any other viewpoint was complete
liberalistic heresy. We reveled in the thought that, at any moment,
we would be blasted into the air to meet Jesus. We were also getting
ready for the seven years of tribulation—that is, if we got left behind.
We were preparing for a war with the devil and his legions, and those
legions could include anyone, even family, and there was no time to
waste on getting an education, starting a business, or raising a family.
This was not a widespread and commonly held view, but people such
as the Children of God, for example, used this end time scenario to
recruit, motivate, and retain members. It was another kind of high;
it got the endorphins going and put an exciting edge on everything.
The JPM existed alongside the 1960s counterculture revolution,
which was a real revolution sans guns and bombs. The Weathermen,
part of a student activist group centered around the University of California
at Berkeley, the radical anti-war protesters, and others on the
fringe, like the Black Panthers, were taking the law into their own
hands. Rock and Roll had morphed into a different kind of music—acid
2 While I was a pastor at Church of the Open Door in San Rafael, a young man
asked me to prove that there would be a rapture. I said, sure, easy, look here in 1
Thessalonians 4. I looked and looked myself, trying to find proof, but the only way
I could do it was to draw a line between verses 16 and 17 and then invert them. I
saw for the first time that the second coming and the rapture were in fact the very
same event. I was shocked and embarrassed, because I had preached a pre-tribulation
rapture my entire ministry. After a lengthy time of study, humiliation, and
repentance, I had to concede that I had been wrong, but at the same time, I couldn’t
see going over to the “liberal amillenialists.” What I did was announce one Sunday,
from the pulpit, that if anyone could clearly, plainly, show me there was a difference
between the second coming and what we called the rapture, I would give him or her
one thousand dollars. No takers yet.
rock and finally heavy metal—and the relatively mild lusts of young
people were being perverted. Eastern religions and mind altering/
expanding drugs impacted the baby boomers with a vengeance. The
occult arts were out in the open and admired, publicized, applauded,
and approved. Here it was—minds blown out and open, spiritualities
abounding, and power, power, power, at one’s fingertips.
Arrogance Abounded
Arrogance is what I am talking about, and the Jesus People were
also arrogant. I was arrogant, terribly so, and I later had a lot of apologizing
to do. We were Jesus People, we were filled with the Spirit, God
was on our side, and we alone had the “full gospel.”
Another view of our arrogance was that we were not as grace-oriented
as one might expect. The JPM, despite appearances, was really
rather moralistic and legalistic. Yes, salvation was by grace alone, but
unless one repented and believed in Jesus, and even more, had actually
prayed to receive Jesus, then there was no salvation. It was really
that we were in control of salvation and grace was not really grace;
it was, at most, cooperation with God. Jesus died and rose from the
dead, but our job was to repent, believe, and say the sinner’s prayer.
This then carried over into our feelings about ourselves and others. It
was a performance-based gospel we preached, and there was plenty
of room to put ourselves and others down.
Even in our houses, new believers were expected to grow up
quickly, and if they failed to do so, they were often told to leave. The
atmosphere at Church of the Open Door was often the same; people,
including the leaders, were on a short leash. Many of the congregants
were baby Christians, mostly from dysfunctional families and converted
out of all kinds of sin and perversion, just barely rescued from
hell itself—and we were worried about a messy diaper. I carry to
this day a measure of guilt for how I judged people and treated them
rudely when their sin was exposed.
Funny how the truth is right in front of us, yet we fail to grasp
it. The “new birth” is a phrase with a big clue: newborns must grow
up in stages and cannot be expected to be mature adults after a five week
discipleship training course.