An investigation into the phenomena and practices of spiritual ...

local autonomy, the majority of Congregationalists were affirming that issues of churchgovernance were less important than what they felt they shared with the Presbyterians, the“Reformed Tradition” stemming from Geneva and the worohn Calvin. It is beyondthe scope of this thesis to explore all the discourses around this, which are anyway welldiscussed in the standard history of the subject by Benedict (2002). In holding healingservices, therefore, URC leaders see themselves as recovering a particular practice of theancient and universal church.The URC and COGIC thus both have a clear place among their practices for spiritualhealing although this is administered differently in each church. Both see their practice inregard to spiritual healing as taking place in the context of (a) the traditions of theirdenomination in regard to what is properly done in church (b) the existence of broadsocietal practices related to health where the standards are set by the state through theagency of the National Health Service.In much Christian ecclesiology it is claimed that the ultimate authority in the church is theHoly Spirit, although this is mediated by the persons who claim authority in church(whether pope, bishop, synod, pastor, or local assembly). The church is not the only placewhere healing is accessed by church members. NHS and other clinical centres that providehealth services also claim their positions as a healing institutions. In the practice ofspiritual healing, therefore, all the classic problems of the relationship between church andstate and the individual believer/citizen are liable to be raised. Communicating decisionson issues such as activities of spiritual healing has broad implications and overlap with thedomain of the authority of the organization such as the NHS. The nature of spiritualhealing, however, takes the participants (the healer and the healed) outside the domain of106