This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

NNEAL, EMILY GARDINER (22 October 1910, New York–23 September 1989,Glendale, Ohio). Education: Attended Brearly School and David Mannes Collegeof Music. Career: Freelance journalist and writer; staff member, St. Thomas EpiscopalChurch, Terrace Park, Ohio, 1976–86; ordained deacon, diocese of Pittsburgh,1978; founding president, Episcopal Healing Ministry Foundation, 1987.Emily Gardiner, a deacon and leader of the healing ministry in the EpiscopalChurch, was born in New York City in October 1910. She was the daughter ofJohn deBarth Gardiner and Rebekah McLean, neither of whom were Christianbelievers, and she grew up as a religious skeptic. Educated at Brearly School andDavid Mannes College of Music, she was originally trained as a concert violinist.She married Alvin W. Neal in 1930, and they had two daughters. While Alvinworked as an executive of the Gulf Oil Corporation, Emily had a successful careeras a freelance journalist, publishing over 50 articles in popular magazines suchas Look and Redbook.Emily’s life was changed dramatically after attending a healing service—anevent that she described in her first book, A Reporter Finds God through SpiritualHealing (1956). From that point on, she became a lecturer and counselor on thesubject of spiritual healing in the church. In 1961 she was appointed to the JointCommission on the Ministry of Healing, and she wrote the commission’s reportto the 1964 General Convention. She always resisted the label of “healer” inreference to her work and preferred to say that she was simply an “enabler ofhealing” or “an instrument that is used for God’s healing.” She joined the staffof St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Terrace Park, Ohio, in 1976, and in January1978, after 20 years of lay ministry, she was ordained a deacon at Trinity Cathedralin the diocese of Pittsburgh. The Episcopal Healing Ministry Foundation wasfounded in her honor in 1987, and she was its first president.