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Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman (1907—1976) was a charismatic Christian evangelist whose healing ministry took off in the late 1940s and ’50s. By the 1960s, her ministry had expanded to the national and international level, including a weekly television program, I Believe in Miracles, regular services in several cities, and two best-selling books. While countless individuals claimed to be miraculously healed during Kathryn Kuhlman’s meetings, she maintained that divine healing was “secondary to the transformation of a life” and that her primary purpose in ministry was “the salvation of souls” (“Healing in the Spirit,” Christianity Today interview with Kathryn Kuhlman, 1973).
Kathryn Kuhlman was born on May 9, 1907, near the town of Concordia, Missouri. She was the third of Joseph and Emma Kuhlman’s four children. In 1911, the family moved into Concordia, where Kathryn’s father operated a livery stable and served as mayor. Kathyrn experienced a profound spiritual awakening in her early teens while attending a local revival service. Two years later, in 1923, she dropped out of high school to begin preaching and traveling with her sister and brother-in-law, Myrtle and Everett Parrott, a Moody Bible Institute graduate.
Within a few years, the Parrot’s unstable marriage interfered with the trio’s ministry arrangement, so Kathryn charted her own course, accepting preaching opportunities in Idaho, Utah, and Colorado. By 1933, she had established the Kuhlman Revival Tabernacle in Denver, Colorado. She quickly outgrew that facility and moved the operation to a larger building known as the Denver Revival Tabernacle. From there, Kuhlman began broadcasting services on a local radio station.
In 1938, Kathryn Kuhlman met and married Burroughs Allen Waltrip, a traveling evangelist from Texas. Because Waltrip had divorced his wife to marry Kuhlman, controversy swept through the Denver church, and the couple was forced to move on. They made a short attempt at pastoring a church in Mason City, Iowa. When that failed, they tried traveling evangelism together and separately. In 1944, after eight years of marriage, the couple divorced, and Kathryn returned to her independent ministry as an evangelist.
In 1946, Kathryn began holding ongoing revival services in Franklin, Pennsylvania. At these meetings, participants began to testify about their experiences of spontaneous physical healing. Crowds filled the Franklin Gospel Tabernacle, where Kuhlman was also broadcasting on the radio. By 1950, she had moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holding services at the Carnegie Library auditorium. These weekly rallies attracted press coverage, some favorable and some unfavorable.
Good-natured feature stories in magazines like Redbook made Kathryn Kuhlman a household name, endearing some while prompting others to challenge her theology and the authenticity of her healings. One skeptical medical doctor, William Nolen, MD, wrote a critical book, Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle (1974), claiming that several of Kuhlman’s healings did not hold up under scrutiny. However, many other medical authorities countered with claims of authentic healing.
Wherever Kathryn Kuhlman ministered, multitudes of followers testified to being miraculously healed. She was not directly associated with the Pentecostal movement, so she rarely touched people or used the dramatic techniques of many healing evangelists. She did claim to have the gifts of discernment and knowledge, which enabled her to identify the conditions from which people were healed. Many who came forward for prayer in her meetings fell on the ground or were “slain in the Spirit” in her presence.
With the explosive growth of the charismatic movement in the 1960s, Kuhlman’s ministry was in high demand. From 1965 until 1975, she traveled back and forth between Pittsburg and Los Angeles, sharing the gospel and holding regular miracle services. She also traveled with the Full Gospel Business Men’s Association.
Although Kathryn Kuhlman enjoyed the lavish luxuries that accompanied her increasing recognition, she was equally generous. She set up the Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation, which offered scholarships and financial aid to people in crisis. She also supported Teen Challenge’s drug rehabilitation efforts and the Christian and Missionary Alliance’s missionary work.
Kuhlman visited Vietnam in 1970 to support U.S. participation in the Vietnam conflict. As a result, she was awarded the Vietnam Medal of Honor, one of the highest civilian honors the military can bestow. In 1972, Oral Roberts University granted Kuhlman an honorary doctorate.
By the time she died, Kuhlman had written nine books, including three bestsellers: I Believe in Miracles (1968), God Can Do It Again (1969), and Nothing Is Impossible with God (1974). She had also produced hundreds of thirty-minute television broadcasts and thousands of radio programs.
Kuhlman’s final years were fraught with stressful disputes surrounding her ministry. Her personal administrator sued her over salaries, contracts, and valuable items, and her integrity was questioned in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and People magazine.
A naturally private person, Kathryn Kuhlman never revealed the extent of her own physical struggles. She died on February 20, 1976, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after undergoing open heart surgery. She was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California, where Oral Roberts delivered the funeral sermon.
