Opp Religious Healing

Both Opp’s The Word and the Flesh: Religion, Medicine, and Protestant Faith Healing
Narratives in North America, 1880-1910 and Griffith’s both present interesting insight into health practice, and the beliefs that surround it at the turn of the 20th century. While Opp’s essay is a look at Protestant faith healing, Griffith is looking at fasting and masculinity. For two seemingly different topics taking place in the same era, there are a surprising number of connections and parallels. Though looking at slightly different aspects of health and belief in the late Victorian era, the relationship between the two is evident in both of them. This is seen through the firsthand testimonies of believers in faith healing in Opp’s essay, and through the
For the women in Opp’s essay, this meant working with medical physicians in addition to maintaining that strong religious beliefs were the cause of all healing. This gave these women the best of both, as they felt healthy and strong- both physically and spiritually, in both body and soul. This also applies to the fasting experts mentioned in Griffith’s essay. One can be both a respectable businessman, with strong Christian values, as well as a body builder- with a fit, manly body. Showing self-control in one’s intake of food shows restraint from sin, such as greed and gluttony, as well as a more appealing (at the time) physical, healthy body. Both articles explore human intervention into the divine body, in the form of medicines or fasting, as creating the optimal body at the time. Despite societal ideals, coming from many on both the religious and scientific sides, that medicine and religion are two separate entities, the coexistence of the two in the ideal human body at this era prove
Despite being called the progressive era, and being one that so often associated with medical advances, the common societal values and beliefs at turn of the 20th century were still evidently engrained in faith. It was something, like religion itself, that believers thought should be shared and spread. The women who wrote the testimonies about their successes with faith healing were encouraged to spread the power of faith healing if they wanted to remain healthy. Thus, due to mass testimonials as an aspect of the healing process, it became an informal but massive movement across North America in the late 19th century. When it came to the rise of fasting, characters such as Haskell played a tremendous role- as they preached the successes in a evangelical way that attracted many to the practice