Healing Pioneers: John & Ethel Gayner Banks – founders of Order of St Luke the Physician

In 1932, when the healing ministry was neglected in many churches, Rev. Dr. John & Ethel Gayner Banks birthed an interdenominational healing ministry at St Luke’s Church in San Diego called the Fellowship of St. Luke. From that fellowship was formed The International Order of St Luke the Physician (OSL), incorporated initially in the state of California in 1935, and later in North America in 1953. OSL helped ordinary people realize that the healing ministry is not just for snake-handlers and religious fanatics. John Banks commented: “People are very scared of the healing ministry. They’re scared that nothing might happen, and they’re scared that something might happen.” In the 20th century, people became more aware of God’s healing power that is available to all people, not only through medicine but also through healing prayer. Earlier healing ministries in which John Banks had participated had been specifically Anglican/Episcopal. Dr. William De Orteaga commented that “Anglicans and Episcopalians have been among the most pioneering, persistent, and innovative leaders of the renewed Christian healing ministry of the last century and a half.”  Many Anglicans however were unaware that there are 22 pages in the Book of Common Prayer on the healing ministry.  All the Anglican healing ministries emphasize the close relationship between medicine and healing prayer. 

In 1914, the Society of the Nazarene was first sponsored by William Temple, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1926, the Society of the Nazarene was officially approved and endorsed by the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops as the healing organization of the Anglican Communion. In the USA in 1920, Rev. Henry Wilson and John Gayner Banks established an American Branch of the Society of the Nazarene. Banks had moved from England as a layman to obtain a doctorate in therapeutic psychology at the University of Missouri. Wilson encouraged Banks to be ordained. However, after the death of Wilson in 1929, the Society of the Nazarene withered away.  Wilson’s family did not even allow the Banks to continue to use the Nazarene name.

While conducting a healing mission in California, John Gayner Banks met Ethel Tulloch, a top postal union leader. The economic panic of 1907 caused banks to collapsed, resulting in great unemployment. Tulloch couldn’t find work, until she taught herself to type and do stenography, making herself invaluable for the post office. In 1908, the San Diego Post Office had no eight-hour day, pension plan, overtime, or sick leave. She recalled, “These were the jungle days of the post office.” In January 1919, she was appointed fifth vice president of the National Federation of Post Office Clerks, the first woman to hold the office. The Labor Leader (Sept. 1919) called Tulloch a “live wire” and “one of the strongest workers for the cause in the country.” As a gifted writer, Tulloch personally replied to complaints to the San Diego Postal Office: “She probably met more people…than any other person in the city. She was known for her courtesy in the treatment of the public.” Tulloch commented: Seventy-five percent of the friction and trouble in the world occurs because of misunderstanding — and so I consider it a favor when anyone, instead of harboring resentment or bitterness, asks for an explanation.

Because of her standing up for workers’ rights, Tulloch was unfairly targeted by the Postmaster General Albert Burleson as a communist agitator. She almost lost her job and was put under severe scrutiny. The stress and exhaustion of this thankless 90-hours per week job left her ‘brain weary’. A specialist diagnosed her as having an incurable fatal illness. She suffered from incessant images of “pain… pain… pain. Pain and death…. Where could I hide from them?” One sleepless night, Tulloch dreamed about the opening lyrics to Rock of Ages: ‘From Thy side, a healing flood.’ She saw the Rock of Ages with living water spilling like a healing flood through the Rock. She cried: “‘Lord help me’… from the bottom of my troubled heart.” Tulloch then had a vision of Jesus in white robes bidding her to receive Holy Communion. His eyes glowed with such “yearning and tenderness and compassion.” Two hands stretched toward her from the light “with a loving welcome – and there were nail prints.” Jesus invited her to the altar. “I knew he was pleading ‘come unto me.’” She realized: “Could not my sick body be made clean of disease by his body if he dwelt in me and I in him?” Her faithful obedience resulted in a miraculous healing of her body, mind, and emotions.  

After reading Tulloch’s Come from Away pamphlet about her healing, John Banks appointed her as convenor for the Southern California Chapter of the Society of the Nazarene.  Banks and Tulloch were married a year later in 1929 at Calvary Church, New York City by Dr. Samuel Shoemaker, one of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now John Banks was no longer a widower. While on their honeymoon, they visited all the healing homes in England and America, dreaming of drawing them all together into a world healing fellowship.

The Anglican Lambeth Conference of 1930 recommended the restoration of the Sacrament of Healing, or Holy Unction, after prayer and preparation, and where moral and intellectual difficulties exist, confession as well. Lambeth also suggested for complete restoration, that prayer for healing be followed by the Sacrament of Holy Communion, which is also a sacrament of healing.

Ethel Tulloch Banks’ original two-page newsletter grew in 1937 to become the OSL Sharing Magazine, the oldest continuously published Christian healing journal in North America. She as a gifted writer and theologian did much of John Banks’ writing, so that some of what appeared under John Gayner Bank’s name was in fact her work. The Banks’ strong emphasis on Jesus and the sacraments gave an alternative to sick people who were otherwise tempted to get ‘healing’ through the very popular Christian Science and the New Age/Thought movements.  

Ethel Banks conducted Monday prayer meetings for forty years, beginning each session with the question: “Has anyone been a witness to faith?” The Banks were convinced that Christ’s power to heal to-day is just as great as it was when He walked on earth. One of John Banks’ sayings was, “A little faith brings little results; greater faith, greater results; and marvelous faith, marvelous results.”

OSL is committed to 

1. Promoting the restoration of the Apostolic practice of healing as taught and demonstrated by Jesus Christ;
2. promoting a sound pastoral and counseling ministry;
3. promoting the practice of holding healing services in every church;
4. developing local chapters to promote healing missions, workshops and prayer groups in their area.

OSL believes that 

1. God uses many agencies for healing: some are spiritual such as prayer, love, faith, anointing with oil, and the laying on of hands;
2. some are medical such as medicine, surgery, and psychology.
3. These agencies should be supportive of one another.
4. God’s desire for us is wholeness and health.
5. Christian healing is accomplished through faith in Christ and through subjecting one’s entire life to the scrutiny and counsel of God.
6. Jesus Christ is alive today and still possesses all power on earth as in Heaven.

We pray that John & Ethel Banks and the OSL might inspire us all to recover the healing ministry of St. Luke the Physician: “Almighty God, who inspired your servant St. Luke the Physician to set out in the Gospel the love and healing power of Your son. Make obvious in Your Church the love and power for the healing of our bodies and souls, to the praise and glory of Your Name, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”