ABSTRACT
With more than two billion adherents, Christianity is the largest and most widely dispersed religion in the world today. It is also very diverse, especially in what it says and does about health and healing. On the one hand, as evidenced by the pilgrimages to places like Lourdes in France, where millions of Christians have gone each year for generations in quest of miraculous cures, or as seen more controversially in movies like Elmer Gantry and Leap of Faith, its healing methods can be simple, unsophisticated and sometimes even superstitious. On the other hand, over the centuries and in our own time, virtually everywhere Christians have gone they have established some of the best hospitals and universities in the effort to help humankind deal with illness and disease. Some may find it difficult to see much similarity between “faith healing” meetings before huge numbers of awe-struck people gathered in public places like gymnasiums, stadiums and huge tents, and the quiet scientific activity of Christian institutions that treat sick people with resources such as chemotherapy, organ transplantation and proton beam accelerators. These differences are real and significant. But for better or for worse, they are all part of the Christian story.
