In this landmark study, Martin Dignard brings capable historical and theological assessment to bear on a little understood but highly influential forerunner of the twentieth century charismatic renewal, Agnes Sanford. It represents the first comprehensive treatment of her innovative approach to the Christian min- istry of healing, viewed in her life and times in the first half of the twentieth century. Inf luences include being raised in a Presbyterian mission home in China, a developing commitment to an Anglican understanding of sacramental healing, with an outlook influenced by her serious study of the twentieth cen- tury New Thought movement in science
and religion. Dignard finds her to be maintaining a biblical and highly Christological approach to
healing which makes use of the language and metaphors of contemporary science (including
electricity) to convey healing grace. His study seeks to interface Sanford's intent to relate healing to the completion of God's purposes in creation, which found practical expression in a highly influential ministry of intercession for the sick and for healing of aberrations of nature, including seismic shifts causing earthquakes. The anointed and inf luential ministry of Sanford, which was conducted within the context of mainline Anglicanism, has now received its long awaited and empathetic treatment in this research volume which here appears in the Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies sub series of the Asbury Seminary Series in Christian Revitalization Studies.
J. Steven O'Malley
General Editor
The Asbury Theological Seminary Series in Christian Revitalization Studies