Kathryn Kuhlman

Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman
Richard Roberts and Kathryn Kuhlman in 1975.
Born(1907-05-09)May 9, 1907
Johnson County, Missouri, U.S.
DiedFebruary 20, 1976(1976-02-20) (aged 68)
Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
OccupationEvangelist
Spouse(s)Burroughs Allen Waltrip, October 18, 1938– ? 1948 (divorced)

Kathryn Kuhlman (May 9, 1907 – February 20, 1976) was an American Christian evangelist, preacher and minister who was referred to by the press as a faith healer.

Early life

Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman was born on May 9, 1907[1][better source needed] in Concordia, Missouri, where her father was mayor.[2] She was one of four children of German-American parents,[1][better source needed] Joseph Adolph Kuhlman and Emma Walkenhorst.[citation needed] One report states that Kuhlman's father was Baptist and her mother was Methodist, and the latter as having been "an excellent Bible teacher".[1][better source needed]

As a teenager, Kuhlman had a "deep spiritual experience",[2] otherwise referred to as her being "converted" at age 14 "at an evangelistic meeting... in a small Methodist church".[1][better source needed] Her New York Times obituary states that she began preaching at age of 16,[2] a matter otherwise stated as her having begun "sharing her testimony" at that age, in a ministry involving the Parrotts—her older sister, Myrtle, and brother-in-law and "itinerant evangelist, Everett B. Parrott".[1][better source needed]

Career

According to one source, at an evangelistic meeting much later than her sixteenth year, in 1928, her sister "Myrtle and Kathryn preached to cover for [Myrtle's husband] Everette",

Everette [having] missed a meeting in Boise, Idaho. The pastor of the [host] church encouraged Kathryn to step out on her own. Helen [the Parrott ministry pianist] agreed to join her. Her [Kuhlman's] first sermon was in a run-down pool hall in Boise, Idaho[,][1][better source needed]

a sequence of events that has Kuhlman's independent ministry beginning in that year.[1][better source needed] In a 1970 write-up in the Pasadena Star-News, it was suggested she had no theological training.[3][dead link] At some point,[when?] she is said to have "stud[ied] the Bible on her own for two years", after which she sought and received ordination from the fundamentalist Evangelical Church Alliance.[2]

Kuhlman had a weekly TV program in the 1960s and 1970s called I Believe In Miracles, which aired nationally. She also had a 30-minute nationwide radio program, which featured sermons and frequent excerpts from her faith healing services in music and message. Her foundation was established in 1954, and its Canadian branch in 1970. Late in her life she was supportive of the nascent Jesus movement.[4]

By 1970, she had moved to Los Angeles, conducting services for thousands of people hoping to be healed, and was often compared to Aimee Semple McPherson.[3]

She was friendly with Christian television evangelist Pat Robertson,[citation needed] and made guest appearances at his Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and on the network's flagship program The 700 Club.[citation needed]

Employee lawsuits

In 1975, Kuhlman was sued by Paul Bartholomew, her personal administrator, who said that she kept $1 million in jewelry and $1 million in fine art hidden away and sued her for $430,500 for breach of contract.[5][6] Two former associates accused her in the lawsuit of diverting funds and of illegally removing records, which she denied and said the records were not private.[7] According to Kuhlman, the lawsuit was settled prior to trial.[8]

Controversies regarding faith healing

A retrospective in Tulsa World in 2016 estimated that two million people had reported that they had been healed in her meetings over the years she was active.[9] In the 1970s, physician William A. Nolen conducted a case study in Philadelphia of 23 people (following his 1967 medical fellowship), individuals who has said, during one of her services, that they had been cured of some malady.[10][page needed][11][12][13][14] Nolen's long term follow-ups concluded that there were no cures in those cases. One woman who was said to have been cured of spinal cancer threw away her brace and ran across the stage at Kuhlman's command; her spine collapsed the next day and she died four months later.[8][15][verification needed]

Nolen's analysis of Kulhman came in for criticism from believers. Lawrence Althouse, a physician, said that Nolen had attended only one of Kuhlman's services and did not follow up with all of those who said they had been healed there.[16] Richard Casdorph produced a book of evidence in support of miraculous healings by Kuhlman.[17][full citation needed] Hendrik van der Breggen, a Christian philosophy professor, argued in favor of the claims.[18][full citation needed] Author Craig Keener concluded, "No one claims that everyone was healed, but it is also difficult to dispute that significant recoveries occurred, apparently in conjunction with prayer. One may associate these with Kathryn Kuhlman's faith or that of the supplicants, or, as in some of Kuhlman's teaching, to no one's faith at all; but the evidence suggests that some people were healed, even in extraordinary ways.".[19][full citation needed] Kuhlman's New York Times obituary noted that "Richard Owellen, a member of [a] cancer‐research department of the Johns Hopkins Hospital who appeared frequently at Miss Kuhlman's services, testified to various healings that he said he had investigated".[2]

Personal life

Kuhlman met the married Texas evangelist Burroughs Waltrip (b. 1903[20]), in 1935, when he was a guest speaker at Kuhlman's Denver Revival Tabernacle, and the two began a romantic relationship.[21] After it began, Kuhlman's friends tried to encourage her to not marry Waltrip, friends whom she told that she could not "find the will of God in the matter"; however, she is said to have reasoned that Waltrip's wife had left him, rather than he leaving her, a matter about which available sources are unclear.[21][better source needed][verification needed]

Eventually, Waltrip divorced his first wife and left his family, and moved to Mason City, Iowa.[4] On October 18, 1938, she secretly married "Mister," as she called him, in Mason City.[22] The two started a revival center called Radio Chapel, with Kuhlman helping Waltrip raise funds for the new venture.[4] The marriage is said to have brought Kuhlman no peace,[22] and they eventually separated, childless, in 1944, and divorced in 1948.[citation needed] Regarding the marriage, Kuhlman stated in a 1952 Denver Post interview that Waltrip "charged—correctly—that I refused to live with him. And I haven't seen him in eight years."[23][page needed]

Kuhlman expressed remorse on many occasions for her part in the pain caused by the breakup of Waltrip's marriage, citing his children's heartbreak as particularly troubling to her, and claiming it to be the single greatest regret of her life.[23][page needed][24]

Death

In July 1975, a doctor diagnosed Kuhlman with a minor heart flare-up; in November, she had a relapse.[25] As a result, Kuhlman underwent open-heart surgery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during which she died on February 20, 1976.[2]

Kathryn Kuhlman was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. A plaque in her honor is in the main city park in Concordia, Missouri, a town in central Missouri on Interstate Highway 70.

Kathryn Kuhlman Plaque, Concordia, MO
Kathryn Kuhlman Plaque, Concordia, MO

Legacy

The Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation continued, but due to lack of funding, it terminated its nationwide radio broadcast in 1982. The foundation shut down altogether in April 2016.[26] After Kuhlman died, her will led to controversy.[27][dead link] She left $267,500, the bulk of her estate, to three members of her family and twenty of her employees. Smaller bequests were given to 19 other employees. According to the Independent Press-Telegram, her employees were disappointed when they learned that "she did not leave most of her estate to the foundation as she had done under a previous 1974 will."

Hank Hanegraaff, writing in Counterfeit Revival, has suggested that Kuhlman might be viewed as an important forerunner to the present-day charismatic movement.[28] She influenced faith healers Benny Hinn and Billy Burke. Hinn has adopted some of her techniques and he also wrote a book about Kuhlman, as he frequently attended her preaching services.[29] Burke did meet her and was counseled by her, having claimed a miracle healing in her service as a young boy.[30]

As a child, minister-turned-moviemaker Richard Rossi was fascinated with Kuhlman. In 2007, a BBC article mentioned Kuhlman as an influence on a young Rossi, that led him for a time to conduct similar faith-healing services.[31][32]

In 1981, David Byrne and Brian Eno sampled one of Kuhlman's sermons for a track which they created during sessions for their collaborative album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. After failing to clear the license to Kuhlman's voice from her estate, the track was reworked to use audio from an unidentified exorcism, with this modified version being released as "The Jezebel Spirit".[33] The Kuhlman version was later included on the 1992 bootleg recording Ghosts, titled "Into the Spirit Womb".[citation needed]

Published works

The following is a list of some of Kathryn Kuhlman's published works.

  • Kuhlman, Kathryn (1962). I Believe in Miracles. Carmel, NY: Guideposts Associates. Retrieved October 1, 2025.
Also published as/by:

Further reading

See also

Works cited

  • Buckingham, Jamie (1976). Daughter of Destiny: Kathryn Kuhlman... Her Story. Bridge-Logos Foundation. p. nos. unstated. ISBN 0882703188.[full citation needed]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Anon. ["Healing and Revival Press Staff "] (2004). "'I Believe in Miracles'". Healing and Revival (healingandrevival.com). Retrieved October 1, 2025.[better source needed]
  2. ^ a b c d e f NYT Staff (February 22, 1976). "Kathryn Kuhlman, Evangelist And Faith Healer, Dies in Tulsa". The New York Times. Retrieved October 1, 2025. She began preaching at the age of 16, following what she described as a deep spiritual experience. After studying the Bible on her own for two years, she was ordained by the Evangelical Church Alliance, a fundamentalist group.
  3. ^ a b "Aimee Macpherson has a Dazzling Successor". Pasadena Star-News. July 4, 1970. Retrieved November 12, 2007.
  4. ^ a b c Bp-Relate (September 15, 2016). "Biography Of Kathryn Kuhlman". Believers Portal. Retrieved May 20, 2024.
  5. ^ "Evangelist Sued By a Former Aide". Washington Post. July 18, 1975. Archived from the original on June 4, 2009. Retrieved November 12, 2007.
  6. ^ Chandler, Russell (July 3, 1975). "Ex-Aides Sue Kathryn Kuhlman". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on June 4, 2009. Retrieved November 12, 2007.
  7. ^ "Kathryn Kuhlman Sued By Former Associates". St. Petersburg Times. July 12, 1975. Retrieved November 12, 2007. [dead link]
  8. ^ a b Lester, Kinsolving (November 8, 1975). "Inside Religion: Kuhlman Tested By MD's Probe". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved November 12, 2007.
  9. ^ Sherman, Bill (February 20, 2016). "Famed preacher Kathryn Kuhlman died here 40 years ago". Tulsa World. Retrieved March 16, 2018.
  10. ^ Nolen, William (1975). Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle. New York, NY: Random House. p. nos. unreported. ISBN 0-394-49095-9.[page needed]
  11. ^ "Psychic Healing? Investigator declares no". The Greenville News. August 16, 1975. Retrieved November 12, 2007.
  12. ^ "Dr Nolen Looks at Faith Healing". The San Mateo Times. March 7, 1975. Archived from the original on August 15, 2009. Retrieved November 12, 2007.
  13. ^ Michaelson, Michael (February 2, 1975). "Men of medicine and a medicine man". The New York Times. Retrieved November 12, 2007.
  14. ^ "Extra-Dispensary Perceptions". Time. March 17, 1975. Archived from the original on January 14, 2009. Retrieved November 12, 2007.
  15. ^ Randi, James (1989). The Faith Healers. Prometheus Books. p. 228. ISBN 0-87975-535-0.
  16. ^ Althaus, Lawrence W. (1977). Rediscovering the Gift of Healing. Nashville : Abingdon. p. 59. ISBN 978-0877286042.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  17. ^ Casdorph, Richard (1976). The Miracles: A Medical Doctor Says Yes to Miracles!. p. 169.[full citation needed]
  18. ^ Hendrik van der, Breggen (2004). Miracle Reports, Moral Philosophy, and Contemporary Science. p. 382.[full citation needed]
  19. ^ Keener, Craig (2011). Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. p. 614 (ebook format).[full citation needed]
  20. ^ Nickay, Deb (August 31, 2013) [28 January 2007]. "Salvation and Scandal". Globe Gazette (globegazette.com). Mason City, IA. Retrieved October 1, 2025.
  21. ^ a b Auth. Unknown (December 24, 2018). "Kathryn Kuhlman-'The Woman Who Believed in Miracles'". AfricaChurches.com. Accra, Ghana: Africa Churches News Portal (AfricaChurches.com). Retrieved December 31, 2022.[better source needed] Note, this source internally cites 39 references, but only presents 9 at its end, and in other ways appears to represent a work that was crudely cut-and-pasted into this digital form, from another unnamed source.
  22. ^ a b Artman, Amy Collier (March 29, 2019). "Turning Points in the Life of Kathryn Kuhlman". Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans. Retrieved May 9, 2019. An excerpt from the book, The Miracle Lady: Kathryn Kuhlman and the Transformation of Charismatic Christianity, see Further reading.
  23. ^ a b Buckingham 1976.
  24. ^ The source states this regret as being second only to "any betrayal of her loving relationship with Jesus", see Buckingham 1976, op. cit.[page needed][verification needed]
  25. ^ "Kathryn Kuhlman Is Dead". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. February 21, 1976. Retrieved November 12, 2007.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  26. ^ "Kathryn Kuhlman's Foundation Shutters Doors 40 Years After Her Death - Charisma News". Charisma News.
  27. ^ "Kuhlman Bequests Listed". Independent Press-Telegram. April 17, 1976. Retrieved November 12, 2007. [dead link]
  28. ^ Hanegraaff, Hank (1997). Counterfeit Revival. Word Pub. ISBN 9780849938924.
  29. ^ Nickell, Joe (May–June 2002). "Benny Hinn: Healer or Hypnotist?". Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the original on October 12, 2007. Retrieved November 12, 2007.
  30. ^ "Billy Burke Evangelist - Teaching Resources".
  31. ^ "Spiritual healer". No. Inside Out -North East. British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC. March 2, 2007. Retrieved October 24, 2025.
  32. ^ Griffiths, Lawn (October 7, 2011). "Finding Sister Aimee". No. Front Page. East Valley Tribune. Freedom Communications. Retrieved March 15, 2025.
  33. ^ Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola (March 14, 2011). Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling. Duke University Press. pp. 167. ISBN 9780822348757. Retrieved February 11, 2014. The Jezebel Spirit Byrne.
  34. ^ This is a television talk show which is hosted by televangelist Sid Roth, a Jewish convert to Christianity who admires Kathryn Kuhlman and Benny Hinn.[citation needed]
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Johanna_Kuhlman