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George Jefferys - A Ministry of the MiraculousGEORGE JEFFERYS - A MINISTRY OF THE MIRACULOUS This is a considerably reduced version of Boulton's account of the ministry of George Jefferys, the founder of the Elim Pentecostal movement, from which he broke away in 1939 over the issue of the centralised system of church government which had come to characterise the Elim denomination (and still does). Boulton carries the story from the beginning of the Elim movement in Monaghan, Ireland, in 1915 to 1928. George Jefferys, however, was to live until January 1962 to the age of 72. Thus the book is devoted to the heyday of his life, not to the years after he resigned from Elim. This fact needs to be borne in mind by the reader because it largely explains the hagiographic character of Boulton's book. It is a triumphalistic account of the ministry of a man whose campaigns were never, it seems, disappointing in terms of results. Attended by remarkable healings on a scale not witnessed today, there are only occasional hints that some were not healed. The impression is created that the majority were and that there were virtually no relapses. That George Jefferys was a gifted preacher who could draw crowds so vast as to fill the largest halls in the land, including the Royal Albert Hall, is not open to doubt, nor are the remarkable phenomena associated with his meetings. What concerns me is that Boulton presents him as a healing evangelist with the emphasis on healings, rather than on conversions. This is not to say that Boulton does not mention conversions, but whereas detailed accounts are given of healings, there are none of conversions. On the back cover, Wynne Lewis, General Superintendent of the Elim Pentecostal Churches, says that the book 'reads like a continuation of the Book of Acts'. With the greatest respect, this reviewer would disagree. The detailed accounts in Acts are almost without exception reserved for the conversions of Cornelius, Saul, Lydia and the like. This suggests to me that Acts has a different emphasis. For its author Luke, as indeed for Paul, the miraculous embraces conversion at least as much as physical healing. For Paul, indeed, conversion is a raising from the dead, a display of God's power that is no less mighty than his power in raising his Son from the tomb on the third day (see Ephesians 1.19-23). I would not wish to be understood as denying that divine healing takes place today. Nor would I wish to deny that some remarkable healings did take place in connection with the ministry of George Jefferys. But there is another side to the story which Boulton so uncritically records, a story I heard from the lips of an early Elim minister whose photograph appears in the last chapter of Boulton's first edition. He left the movement because he became disillusioned with claims of healing that he came to believe were not substantiated. There is an uncomfortable saying of our Lord that we need to ponder, remembering that he could hardly be accused of being opposed to divine healing: 'It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire' (Matthew 18.8). Had Boulton kept this saying in mind, he would have written a more balanced book. David Kingdon© Evangelicals Now - October 1999 |