Sense of Touch, Healing, and Christianity

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I would like to elaborate on similar descriptions made by Constance Classen in Deepest Sense: A History of Touch that explain touch as a means of healing. I will specifically dive into passages from the bible and a personal experience where touch has been used as a means of healing. 

 Healing the sick was a central part of Jesus’ ministry and of the early Christian church. The gospels are full of stories about Jesus healing the sick and Jesus advocating for healing through the sense of touch in collaboration with faith. For example, in Matthew 9:20-22 (CEV) a woman who has been bleeding for twelve years went up to Jesus and barely touched his clothes hoping to be cured. She said it herself, “If I can just touch his clothes I will get well.” Jesus recognized what the woman had said and he told her not to worry. She was now well because of her faith in touch, and she was healed. In John 9:6-7 (CEV) Jesus cured a blind man after smearing mud on the man’s eyes and ordering the man to “Go and wash off the mud in Siloam Pool.” After the man washed off the mud, he could see.


Over time illness became the domain of physicians and hospitals as oppose to religion. However, in present day, we can still find examples of rejuvenation and health being restored through touch, especially with Christianity. In fact, drawing from personal experience, I have a cousin who suffered from low blood platelet levels and had to have multiple blood transfusions before the doctors could figure out a way to get his body to produce its own blood platelets. His levels were constantly low, and his parents viewed it as a miracle that his platelet levels never dropped to a fatal level. Before the doctors could figure out what was wrong, his parents had a pastor come in and recite a prayer in hope of healing in the near future. The pastor put his hand on my cousin’s forehead and began to pray. Here we can see a level of faith that his parents had in my cousin being healed through the touch of God, which was passed along in the blessings of the pastor’s hand. Eventually my cousin was healed, the reason, we will leave that up to interpretation. Below is a photo that I took of my good friend Kyle and my cousin John embracing each other, horsing around, and passing time when my cousin was in the hospital. We hoped that some good company and some playful fun would help my cousin get through a very tough time in his life. 

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