A Tangled Knot

I am being told that there is a connection between Catherine Marshall (1914-1983), a leading figure of the charismatic movement in addition to being a novelist, and Mary Boddy (d. 1926), wife of the Anglican vicar who was basically the founder of Pentecostalism in Britain and herself an author of at least one book, "The Laying on of Hands," which is a mash of Anglican doctrines posing a problematic riddle to American Pentecostals of the Non-Conforming persuasion since time immemorial. I don't see any connection between these two widely disparate figures but apparently some people think there is one even if only in their own minds. Obviously there is no prominent character named "Mary Boddy" in the novel "Christy," only a character "Alice" based loosely on the real-life wealthy mission volunteer Mary Alice Warren, so I really don't see it. After all, Mary Boddy was a real life person, a religious woman who prayed for the sick when doctors despaired and they received their healing even when she herself was an invalid in her later years. Mary Boddy was an Anglican vicar's wife and had two daughters, Mary and Jane. In Marshall's fictional account "Christy" there is no prayer for the sick, only a certain doctor, Dr. Neil MacNeill, who, after years of medical study, returns to the hills of West Virginia to provide health care in his own familiar way as a native son of the Scottish Highlanders who migrated there generations earlier. Where is this doctor in the real life Tennessee village where Catherine Marshall's father ministered? According to Wikipedia sources, the doctor was a wholly fictional invention of Marshall's mind. Now I am not one to knock the benefits of medical care as I may need it someday, not being able myself to predict the future and anyway God did not give us brains to use only as hatracks, as my Dad always says, but I suppose that it would be hard for Marshall to frame spiritual healing in fictional terms. For one thing, who can say what God will do, whether to heal or not to heal? Also, it is so typical of these affluently snooty arrogant mainline charismatics to look down their noses in their condescending way at the early Pentecostals who laid the groundwork for the spiritual awakenings of the 20th century. Many of the early Pentecostals were actually 19th century people still full of formalities and language usages that now sound so quaint and peculiar to our modern ears. Also, in the early years of Pentecostalism there were no denominational organizations to institutionalize church practices and doctrines, which is partly why there was a lot of confusion. My great-grandparents went as missionaries to China before the creation of the Assemblies of God denomination and much had changed when they returned to California in 1917. While they were in China they may have worked alongside missionaries who were British among other nationalities and denominations, including Anglicans. Nobody really knows exactly, all of those people being dead now, but Mary's husband, the Anglican vicar Alexander A. Boddy, published a monthly magazine, "Confidence," chronicling the travels and ministries of the British Pentecostal missionaries in China and elsewhere. I really don't know of any connection of the Anglican Boddy's to my great-grandparents but some people have vivid imaginations. My grandmother mentioned that she attended British schools while an MK in Hong Kong. Our family was never Anglican, only American Pentecostal, but perhaps some Presbyterians imagine themselves the only Non-Conforming Church of America. In Britain, the Pentecostal movement is somehow tied to the Anglican Church which is headed by the monarchs of England. In America, Pentecostals are scattered among various denominational organizations and also independent churches and ministries. The charismatic movement came later, in the 1960s, but those Johnny-come-latelies disdained the earlier Pentecostals as too nerdy for them, preferring to disappear into the faded wallpaper of stodgy of old mainline churches than to associate with us geeky denominatioanl Pentecostals. However, if we Pentecostals do not understand the doctrinal implications of these movements, how can we say that we are in control of our future? There are many good things in Mary Boddy's book, and yet she speaks of the "laying on of hands" as an ordinance required for confirmation into the Anglican church. She says that it would be a good thing if persons are filled with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit at the time of their confirmation as Anglicans, but obviously some people are closed to that possibility. No insult intended to the Anglican Church, but the Assemblies of God would not see that as a biblical view of the "laying on of hands." Cut-and-pasted from the AG website, this would be generally speaking the American Pentecostal position on the "laying on of hands": "In the Assemblies of God we believe neither the laying on of hands nor anointing with oil is indispensable for healing, for often in Scripture healing takes place without either. But at times the touch of a praying person and the application of oil are an encouragement to faith, and such a practice is enjoined by Scripture (James 5:14-16)." Thus, we see that the laying on of hands is encouraged as a Scriptural practice often reflected in cases of healing, but there is no stated requirement to join the Anglican church of the UK as opposed to the AG church or some other Christian church of whatever denomination.