For many years I have heard the name Maria Woodworth Etter. I first heard about her at a Kenneth Hagin conference on healing at Rhema Bible School in Oklahoma in 1983. I heard the story about her being in a trance for a long period of time — someone said it was for days. Something pricked my interest in recent months, and I decided to look into this noted evangelist and revivalist. I did not find the report of her being in a Holy Spirit trance for days.
Why Study Maria Woodworth Etter?
It is well to study this amazing woman and her ministry for insight into the great outpouring of the Spirit in Pentecostalism. It was even much greater than I had imagined.
For the last two years I have been studying the miraculous in the advance of the Gospel of the Kingdom — healings, outpourings of the Spirit, supernatural phenomena, revivals and more. Professor Craig Keener, one of the world’s leading New Testament theologians, published a massive two-volume set documenting the most wonderful miracles. His book is entitled The Credibility of New Testament Miracles. One could misunderstand the title. It is not a defense that the miracles recorded in the Bible really happened — there is already a good bit of writing on that. Rather, Keener’s book is about New Testament miracles happening in our day. Keener traveled the world to document and confirm.
Many point to the revival at Azusa Street in Los Angeles as the launch of the Pentecostal movement, where healing miracles and other supernatural events were widely reported. Yet the movement of healing and miracles did not begin with Azusa Street — one can point to the Faith Cure Movement of the 19th century. The Pentecostal movement, however, was so very important. Fr. Peter Hocken, in his book Azusa, Rome and Zion: Pentecostal Faith, Catholic Reform and Jewish Roots, argues that the Pentecostal movement, the charismatic movement, and the Messianic Jewish movement are intersecting with great implications for the return of Yeshua. It is a profound book.
Maria Woodworth Etter — Etter from this point forward — was pre-Pentecostal. She had a dramatic baptism in the Spirit, heard the voice of the Spirit calling her to evangelism, and received revelation that preaching on healing and praying for the sick were to be central to her ministry. I read two biographies and then her own massive account of her ministry. Etter was licensed by the Church of God, Anderson, Indiana, which in those days was more oriented to the supernatural works of the Spirit. The stories are amazing, and Etter sought documentation from doctors and detailed, credible testimonies.
When the Pentecostal movement began, she had questions — were tongues, which she practiced and promoted, really the essential sign of the baptism in the Spirit? Eventually she identified with the Pentecostals, and for the last ten to fifteen years of her ministry until her death, that identification was clear.
The Believable Accounts
The accounts are believable. I think she may have been the most effective healing evangelist in the history of the American Church. Reading through the credible accounts is like drinking from a fire hose. Instant healings of terrible conditions — blindness and deafness from birth, paralysis even from birth, and multiple serious diseases — are documented page after page. In all of her meetings, many fell under the power of the Spirit. She did experience trances, and a few times maintained an impossible posture, standing rigid for hours. Her ministry was a key example and inspiration for Aimee Semple McPherson, who founded the Foursquare Church denomination.
She lost all her children at young ages, save one daughter, yet she carried on — indefatigable. She kept a schedule that was superhuman, traveling from east to west and north to south.
Etter’s Theology
What about her theology? She maintained an orthodox Pentecostal confession. Her sermons, several of which appear in her book, show she was totally immersed in Scripture and could bring text after text from memory spontaneously and at an amazing level — this without a Bible college education. I take little issue with most of her preaching, though her exegetical accuracy is not the highest; more than 85% solid, in my view. One notable point: she proclaimed that Jesus was coming soon. This was the message given in tongues with interpretation, in prophecies, and in multiple visions. It may seem in part unfulfilled, yet the soon return of Yeshua is always the orientation of disciples — indeed, it is the very word of Yeshua himself, spoken 2,000 years ago. Sometimes Etter presents a pre-tribulation view of the rapture of the saints; other texts suggest a post-tribulation view. She did believe in the regathering of Israel and, even at that early stage of the return, pointed to its significance as fulfilled prophecy.
A Window into the Early Pentecostal Movement
Etter is a great window into the early Pentecostal movement. There was more amazing power, more outpourings, and more miraculous workings than I had imagined. Pentecostalism, including the newer charismatic streams, now comprises the majority of the Protestant evangelical world. At the Pentecostal World Fellowship in Finland last May, we heard wonderful stories of the advance of the Gospel with signs and wonders — most coming from the Southern Hemisphere, from Global Christianity.
My Great Desire, Hope and Prayer
So how does this fit my calling and our work in the Land of Israel? It is part of increasing my faith that a great signs-and-wonders movement of the Gospel will return to Israel. I long to see it and to be part of it before I die. As it was in the days of the Apostles — may it be so again, and as amazing and powerful as those old Etter meetings!