“I think so,” he responded.
“Great. Now be sure to read the bible and pray every day, go to church and find some Christian friends.”
We let him ride off and never saw him again. But the group became quite enthused, spreading out to share the good news of the gospel with the poor lost souls who had come to spend a nice summer afternoon in the park.
For me it was an exciting moment. I had won a soul to Christ; I had a star in my crown. It was like earning my wings, or getting the first notch on my six-shooter. Of course, I gave all the credit to the Holy Spirit, but I accepted it as an authentication of my calling to the ministry. It was a heady moment. I was a real evangelist, an active participant in God’s holy cause, a soldier of the cross. It was like the first taste of blood, and I wanted more.
Back in California, as a teenager singing in the Anaheim Christian Center choir, I had accepted the small but important ministry of choir librarian, organizing the music, proudly carrying it all home in the basket of my bicycle, and neatly arranging everything for the next rehearsal or performance. I had started doing this even before I was called to preach.
When Kathryn Kuhlman started coming to Los Angeles for her regular faith-healing services at the Shrine Auditorium, our choir formed the initial nucleus of her stage choir. I was there for her first regular visit in the mid ’60s and for two years I hardly missed a meeting, remaining choir librarian as the group grew in size, eventually incorporating singers from dozens of charismatic churches in Southern California.
It was the sound of the organ, more than anything else, that established the mood of the place. With its dramatic sweeps and heady crescendos flooding the huge vaulted building, we felt engulfed by the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, breathing in, breathing out, laughing and crying for joy and worship. Here and there a woman was standing, arms reaching upward, eyes closed, praying in an unknown tongue. Wheelchairs and crutches littered the aisles. Hopeful candidates pressed to find a seat as close to the front as possible; the balconies were standing-room-only.
My responsibilities as librarian did not inhibit me from sensing the intense hopefulness of the occasion. Before Kathryn walked out on stage the building radiated that strange, eager beauty of an orchestra tuning up before a symphony. I would often watch her as she stood backstage, nervous yet determined, possessing a holy mixture of humility and pride, like a Roman or Greek goddess in her flowing gown. The audience was anxious. The Spirit was restless.
The organ crescendo reached a glorious peak as Kathryn regally walked out on stage. Those who could rose to their feet, praising God, weeping, praying. It was electrifying and intensely euphoric. I felt proud to be a witness to such a heavenly visitation.
Kathryn would often deny that she was conducting “healing meetings.” She stated that her only responsibility was obedience to God’s moving; it was
His
business to heal people, and it didn’t need to happen in every meeting. Of course, the people had come for miracles, and would not be disappointed. She often seemed uncertain how to start. She would pray, talk a little, preach somewhat freely, or just stand silently crying, waiting for God to move. He always moved, of course—but the audience couldn’t stand it, this delay of climax. (It was like the anticipation on Christmas mornings, waiting for Dad to finish reading the biblical nativity story before we could open the presents.)
In those early months, before local ministers began sitting on the stage in front of the choir, we singers were placed directly behind Kathryn in folding chairs. I always sat in the front row, right behind her, about six or eight feet from her center microphone, peering past her down into the sea of eager faces in the audience—the faces of people who had come to be blessed. The choir would often sing quietly behind the healings, “He touched me, yes, he touched me! And, oh, the joy that floods my soul! Something happened and now I know; he touched me and made me whole!” It was rapturous. Ecstatic.
After 20 or 30 preliminary minutes, which included a few choir numbers, the healings would begin. People would be ushered up to Kathryn, one at a time, some sitting in wheelchairs, to receive a “touch from God.” She would face the candidate, touching the forehead, and would either ask the problem or directly discern the need. Often the supplicants were “slain in the spirit,” meaning they fell backwards to the floor under God’s presence, often with arms raised in surrender. I sometimes had to pick up my feet when they fell in my direction. Kathryn had a “catcher,” a short, stocky, redheaded former police officer who would move behind the people and soften the fall. He was often quite busy. People would be dropping all over the stage, even choir members and ushers. He rushed back and forth like a character in a video game, never missing, though it was sometimes quite close.
It didn’t matter that the healings were visually unimpressive. We were in God’s presence and a miracle is a miracle. Sometimes an individual would discard crutches or push Kathryn around the stage in the unneeded wheelchair, things like that. But the healings were usually internal things: “Praise God! The cancer is
completely
gone!”
One very common cure was deafness. Kathryn would tell the person to cover the good ear (!) and ask if she could be heard. “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?” she would ask, speaking louder and louder until the person nodded. Then she would dramatically move away and speak softly to the person, who would jump and say, “I can hear you! I can hear you! Praise God!” The place would fall apart, people screaming and hopping. Miracles do that to people. It was an incredible feeling, an ecstasy beyond description. We felt embraced by the presence of a higher strength, participating in a group worship (hysteria), floating on the omnipresent surges of the organ music, joining in song with heavenly voices.
In one service Kathryn replied to the criticism that some of her healings were purely psychosomatic by saying, “But what if they
are
merely psychosomatic? Is that not also a miracle? Doctors will tell you that the hardest illnesses to cure are the psychosomatic ones.” God works in mysterious ways.
As I look back on it now, I can see that most of the “miracles” were pretty boring. The excitement was in our minds. I saw people walk up to the side of the stage in search of a healing, before being told by an usher to sit in a wheelchair to be rolled up to Kathryn. When Kathryn quietly told the person to “stand up and walk the rest of the way,” the crowd went wild, assuming that the person couldn’t walk in the first place. I never witnessed any organic healings, restored body parts or levitations. A few crutches and medicine bottles littered the aisles, but no prosthetic devices or glass eyes. The bulk of the “cures” were older women with cancer, arthritis, heart problems, diabetes, “unspoken problems,” etc. There was an occasional exorcism (mental illness?), too. We had come to be blessed and we were not to be cheated, taking the slightest cue to yell, sing and praise God. I think, in retrospect, the organist was the real star of the show, working with Kathryn to manipulate the moods. We were so malleable.
Experiences like that were tremendously affirming. When I was “seeing miracles,” it seemed so real, so powerful, that I wondered who in the world could be so blind to deny the reality of the presence of God. Nonbelievers must be stupid or crazy! Anyone who deliberately doubted such proof certainly deserved hell.
I used to pray and “sing in the spirit” all the time. Riding my bike around Anaheim, I would quietly speak in tongues, exulting in the emotions of talking with Christ and communing with the Holy Spirit. If you have never done it, it is hard to understand what is happening when people speak in tongues. I actually got goose bumps from the joy, my heart and mind transported to another realm. It’s a kind of natural high that I interpreted as a supernatural encounter. I’m certain there are chemicals released to the brain during the experience. (I know this is true of music and the cerebellum, but has anyone studied the brain during glossolalia?) While some of my friends may have been sneaking out behind the proverbial barn to experiment with this or that, I was having a love affair with Jesus. I didn’t think I was “crazy”—I was quite functional and could snap out of it at any moment, like taking off headphones—but I did feel that what I had was special, above the world.
Jesus said that “My kingdom is not of this world,” and I felt like my physical body was just a visitor to planet earth while my soul was getting messages “from home.” It gave me a sense of overwhelming peace and joy, of integration with God and the universe, of being wrapped in the loving arms of my creator. It caused everything to “make sense.” I’m not sure why, but it did. I simply knew from direct personal experience that God was real, and no one at the time would have been able to convince me that I was delusional. I would simply say, “You don’t know.” I had seen miracles. I had talked with God. I knew the truth and the world did not.
My third- and fourth-year Spanish teacher at Anaheim High School was James Edwards, the head of the Anaheim School District foreign language department. He was a great teacher, but I had heard that he was an agnostic, or unbeliever, or something bad. This was not long after the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court’s
Schempp
decision that removed prayer and bible reading from the public schools, so we Christians were quite recently wounded and sensitive about the issue of religion on our campus. Anaheim High School was forced to end the tradition of opening each day with a morning bible reading broadcast to the classrooms. But I figured that I possessed a calling from a higher level than the Supreme Court, and I proudly took my bible to school, being careful to place it on top of my other books so that everyone would notice.
I often took two bibles to school: the King James Version and another in Spanish. When Mr. Edwards would give us some free time to read Spanish literature, I would open my Reina-Valera bible and kill three birds with one stone: learn Spanish, worship God and prepare myself for my missionary career. I noticed that Mr. Edwards noticed.
One day as I was leaving the class, Mr. Edwards called me over to his desk and told me that he wanted to talk with me after school. I was pretty sure he wanted to talk about my bible in the classroom—the bible hardly qualifies as Spanish literature, I thought—so I prayed all day long. After gymnastics I steadied my nerve and walked into his classroom. He shut the door and went back to his desk, where I was standing.
“Dan,” he said, “I notice that you have been bringing your bible to class.”
“Yes,” I said, swallowing hard.
“And I notice that you have been reading your bible during class time.”
“That’s right,” I answered, ready to do battle with Satan. I was his top student, so I didn’t fear any academic lecture.
“Well, then,” he continued, hesitating, “maybe you are the one who can help me.”
“Help you, Mr. Edwards?” I asked, anticipating some kind of trick.
“Yes. Maybe you can help me make sense of spiritual things.” His whole manner changed, and he started talking like a humbled man, friend to friend, hurting. I was surprised to see him like this. He told me that he was an agnostic, but that he was starting to think that there might be something “out there.” He had read some articles about ESP and other psychic phenomena, and was deciding that a strictly materialistic view of life was unrealistic and unsatisfying.
“Dan, you seem so confident and happy. Tell me what you believe.”
So, I told him that I believed in God, that God was revealed in the bible, that we were all sinners, that God sent his son, Jesus, to die for our sins, that Jesus rose from the grave to conquer death, that we could confess our sins and accept Jesus as our personal savior and be born again, becoming “new creatures” without guilt and with a joy and purpose in life to know God, praise God and do his will. I took advantage of the opportunity, telling him everything I believed. He listened quietly, and as our meeting ended he thanked me and told me he wanted to hear more.
We met every day or so after that, with me mostly talking and him listening. I kept stressing the reality of God, and the moral difference between believers and nonbelievers. We became friends. Sometimes during break between classes he would stop me in the hallway and ask about a verse in the bible. I felt self-conscious, knowing that some of my classmates were watching and wondering.
Early one day Mr. Edwards found me in the hallway and excitedly pulled me over. He was grinning. “Dan, I had to tell you. I did it!”
“What happened?” I asked, still able to be surprised that the important head of the district language department was treating me like a buddy.
“I accepted Jesus as my personal savior. This morning as I was getting out of my car in the parking lot, it hit me. What you were saying about making a conscious, deliberate decision to accept Jesus made perfect sense. I prayed right there in the parking lot and it happened! My sins are forgiven and I am now a child of God.”