Does the Christian community have the resources to develop a coherent response to today?s health care challenges? In a comprehensive survey covering the full scope of the Bible and three millennia of Christian belief and practice, Willard Swartley fleshes out the central place of health care in the church?s mission.

Ever since Jesus’s proclamation in word and deed as the Great Physician, his followers in mission have assumed that salvation and health are intertwined. Yet for every age, Christians need to examine how they can best announce the gospel message of God’s healing in word and deed in their own context. In our era, we are often simultaneously grateful for modern medicine and frustrated by its inability to care for the whole person in effective, affordable ways. In this edited volume, authors with an interest in health missions from a wide variety of experiences and disciplines examine health and healing through the theological lens of shalom. This word, often translated “peace,” names a much more complex understanding of human well-being as right relationships with one another, with God, and with creation. Reading various aspects of healthcare missions through these glasses not only yields much-needed correctives to current practice but also exposes the Spirit’s invitation to participate in God’s ongoing work of tending, caring, and healing our broken world.

Does the Christian community have the resources to develop a coherent response to today?s health care challenges? In a comprehensive survey covering the full scope of the Bible and three millennia of Christian belief and practice, Willard Swartley fleshes out the central place of health care in the church?s mission.

This unforgettable story reveals how medical missionaries responded to crises, emergencies and sudden illnesses--including grizzly bear attacks and airplane crashes--without modern technology or urban hospitals. It portrays the small missions and infirmaries and tells how their staff handled life and death in the deep bush, on mountain ranges, in Native villages, on trackless prairies and on distant islands. It describes the sacrifices of devoted physicians, nurses and their families as they healed the sick and wounded, often under dreadful circumstances and in primitive conditions. Author Bob Burrows is uniquely qualified to relate this fascinating narrative of the United Church Mission Hospitals. A United Church minister for more than four decades, he has piloted an aircraft and captained a ship to deliver care to remote areas of British Columbia. He has also worked for both the BC and federal governments in positions of public trust dedicated to ensuring the human rights of aboriginal people, women and minority groups. Extensively researched and illustrated with many never before-seen photographs, Healing in the Wilderness will be a revelation and an inspiration to Canadians interested in the development of health care across the remotest regions of the country.

Healing the Nations. Restoring Shalom. The world is grappling with complex health challenges and disparities, forcing us to confront many pressing questions. How do Christians understand and practice healthcare? What is the biblical view of health and healing? This workbook unravels these queries, offering deep insights into the Christian approach to global health issues. Christian Global Health in Perspective delves into the biblical foundations of health, historical perspectives of Christian medical missions, and strategies for integrating faith with modern healthcare. Health is wholeness in body, mind, and spirit. The authors, seasoned experts in theology and medicine, guide readers through an exploration of how the church can innovatively respond to current global health concerns. This resource is essential for healthcare professionals, church leaders, development workers, and anyone interested in the intersection of faith and health. Reading this book may result in a paradigm shift for some who view remission of disease as the sole focus for healing, when from a biblical perspective, wholeness and shalom form the basis for promoting health. Christian Global Health invites you to join this transformative mission, where faith and healthcare converge for global well-being.

This monograph presents the most comprehensive investigation yet made into the healing activity of the Early Church. In contrast to early skeptics like B. B. Warfield, the author is convinced there was a vigorous healing ministry in the centuries that followed the apostles, though it fluctuated somewhat and changed its mode. Exorcism is prominently attested throughout the period. The pre-Nicene Fathers recognized its great apologetic value as a dramatic demonstration of the superiority of Jesus Christ over pagan gods. Interest in healing miracles per se appears to have been particularly characteristic of the less educated members of the Church and those who were chaste in their devotion to the cause of Christ. Amongst these groups gifts of healing were found, becoming rare it seems by the mid-third century, but well attested again later in monastic circles. In the pre-Nicene period anointing with oil (in the name of Christ) was clearly an avenue of healing and, though mentioned comparatively rarely, may have been widespread as part of the regular ministry of local clergy to the sick. Baptismal healing, physical as well as spiritual, also took place. In the post-Nicene Church the shrines of the martyrs became a prominent locus of healing. Devotion to this cult may have been encouraged by Church Fathers as an acceptable alternative to magical practices. But evidence suggests syncretism did occur and martyr's relics could be invested with quasi-magical awe. Most Fathers were positive about the medical profession, seeing it as an avenue of God's work, and in the late fourth century one pioneered the hospital which then spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean. In an appendix to his work, the author sets down nine pointers from the healing activity of the Early Church, and his own experience, to assist those engaged in the healing ministry today.