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About the Book
"From Bethlehem To Calvary" by Alice Bailey explores the life and teachings of Jesus Christ from a metaphysical perspective, focusing on the esoteric significance of key events such as the birth, teachings, and crucifixion of Jesus. The book delves into the spiritual journey of Christ as a model for personal growth and transformation, offering insights into the deeper meaning behind his teachings and their relevance for modern seekers.
Kathryn Kuhlman
Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman was born on May 9, 1907, in Concordia, Missouri. Her parents were German and she was one of four children. Her mother was a harsh disciplinarian, who showed little love or affection. On the other hand, she had an extremely close and loving relationship with her father. She would describe, as a small child how, her father would come home from work and she would hang on his leg and cling to him. She often said that her relationship with God the Father was extremely real because of her relationship with her own father.
Kuhlman was converted, when she was 14, at an evangelistic meeting held in a small Methodist church. When she was 16 she graduated from high school, which only went to tenth grade in their town. He older sister Myrtle had married an itinerant evangelist, Everett B. Parrott. They spent their time traveling and asked that Kathryn could join them for the summer. Her parents agreed and she went to Oregon to help out. She worked with them, and often gave her testimony. When the summer was over she wanted to stay, and the couple agreed. She ended up working with them for five years.
The evangelistic team was made up of four people, Everette, Myrtle, Kathryn, and pianists named Helen Gulliford. In 1928 Everette missed a meeting in Boise, Idaho. Myrtle and Kathryn preached to cover for Everette. The pastor of the church encouraged Kathryn to step out on her own. Helen agreed to join her. Her first sermon was in a run-down pool hall in Boise, Idaho. The team covered Idaho, Utah, and Colorado for the following five years. In 1933 they moved into Pueblo, Colorado. They set up in an abandoned Montgomery Ward warehouse. They stayed there for six months.
Denver, being a much bigger city, was the next stop. They moved several times but ended up in a paper company's warehouse, which they named the Kuhlman Revival Tabernacle. Then in 1935 they moved once more to an abandoned truck garage they named the Denver Revival Tabernacle. Kathryn was seeing a lot of success in Denver. The church grew to about 2000 members. She began a radio show called "Smiling Through" and invited speakers from all over the country. One of them was Phil Kerr who taught on divine healing. In 1935 another invited evangelist was Burroughs Waltrip.
Waltrip was bad news for Kuhlman. He was a charismatic, handsome man several years older than she was. There was an immediate attraction, and one family claims to have seen the couple embracing in 1935, but he was married and had two children. Waltrip left Denver and went home to Austin, Texas, but the relationship simmered between Kuhlman and Waltrip. In 1937 he was invited back to Denver to take the pulpit for two months. Shortly after he divorced his wife and abandoned his two sons. He then spread the story that his wife had left him. He moved to Mason City, Iowa, where he told everyone he was single, and started a new ministry. Waltrip raised pledges of $70,000 to build a ministry building called Radio Chapel. It was state of the art with a disappearing pulpit and an art deco style. He appeared to be a successful and dynamic preacher.
There was an ongoing relationship between Kuhlman and Waltrip, and they married in September 1938. Kuhlman was naive about the consequences of her choices and the marriage was a disaster. She announced to her church that she and Waltrip were married and they would go between Denver and Mason City preaching at their two churches. Most of the people in her congregation left due to her relationship with Waltrip. She gave up her church in Denver, lost some of her closest associates, and moved to Mason City. Waltrip's success turned out to be a pipe dream as well. The Radio Chapel was completed in June of 1938. By October 1938 Waltrip could not meet his debts. In December Waltrip was demanding a higher salary, even with the shortfall in income. His Board of Directors quit and left him to deal with the finances. His solution was not to pay the mortgage or debts on the Chapel. Radio Chapel went into bankruptcy. Waltrip's last sermon was in May 1939. The Waltrips were on their own. Kathryn's happy vision of she and her husband flying back and forth between Denver and Mason City with a successful preaching careers was utterly demolished.
The next few years were very hard for the couple. They embarked on the road as traveling evangelists, primarily staying in the Midwest. They were not accepted in many places due to their marriage history. Initial advertisements listed Waltrip as the primary evangelist. Then occasionally Mrs. Waltrip was also mentioned. By the early 1940s Kathryn Kuhlman Waltrip was given equal billing. Finally by the mid-1940s Kathryn was using only Kathryn Kuhlman in meetings where she was the primary speaker. In 1944 Kuhlman went on an evangelistic tour on the east coast without Waltrip. It may have been a conscious decision to leave him, or she may also have taken the opportunity to reassess her life. It appears to have been more gradual as Waltrip wrote about them as a couple as late as 1946. Kuhlman never returned to Waltrip and they eventually divorced in 1947. She left her marriage behind and from then on acted as if it never existed in the first place.
In 1946 Kuhlman was asked to speak in Franklin, Pennsylvania. She was well received and decided to stay in the area. Kuhlman began preaching on radio broadcasts in Oil City, Pennsylvania. These became so popular they were picked up in Pittsburgh, and she was preaching throughout the area. She began to preach about the healing power of God. In 1947 a woman was healed of a tumor while listening to Kuhlman preach. Several Sundays later a man was also healed while she was teaching on the Holy Spirit. She was now convinced of God's healing work. One important thing to note is the context and timing of this breakout period in Kuhlman's life. 1947 was the beginning of the Healing Revival (sometimes referred to as the Latter Rain Revival) that would last for the next 10 years. What was happening in Kuhlman's meetings was breaking out across the United States. It was in this time frame that the Voice of Healing Ministry was established and men like William Branham, Oral Roberts, A.A. Allen and many others were propelled onto the public stage. Kuhlman was not associated with those groups, but stepped into the flow of what God's Spirit was doing across the nation and the world.
In 1948 Kuhlman held a series of meetings at Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh. She eventually moved to Pittsburgh in 1950, and continued to hold meetings at Carnegie Hall until 1971. She was used by God to bring the charismatic message to many denominational churches, including the Catholic Church. (She received a lot of criticism over this and was accused of being a closet Catholic.) These were her best known years. Her style was flamboyant. She would hold her famous miracle services and the auditorium was filled to capacity every time. She was on radio and television shows. She was ordained in 1968 by the Evangelical Church Alliance. Hundreds of people were healed in her meetings, and even while listening to her on the radio or television. People she prayed for would often be hit with the power of God and be "slain in the Spirit." Kuhlman never claimed that she was the healer. She always pointed people to Jesus as their healer.
Kuhlman had been diagnosed with a heart problem in 1955. She kept a very busy schedule and overworked herself, especially in the 1970's. She traveled back and forth from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles frequently, as well as taking trips around the world. Her heart was enlarged and Kuhlman died on February 20, 1976, in Tulsa, following open-heart surgery. Videos of some of her services are still available and continue to be popular today.
can i follow my new heart
âWhy shouldnât I follow my heart? If I am a Christian â if God has caused me to be âborn againâ and has given me âa new heartâ â isnât my new heart trustworthy?â Readers have raised some version of this objection when Iâve exhorted Christians, âDonât follow your heart.â And the objection is warranted. After all, the Bible clearly teaches that in this era of the new covenant, God writes his law on our new hearts so that we willingly follow him (Jeremiah 31:31â34; Hebrews 8:8â12). This would seem to not merely imply, but even mandate, that Christians should follow their hearts. But the Bibleâs description of what a regenerated person actually experiences in this age reveals a more spiritually and psychologically complex picture â one that I believe gives Christians biblical warrant to cultivate a healthy suspicion of what they recognize as their heartsâ desires. So, while we may, and hopefully will, reach a point in our lives as Christians where itâs right, at times, to follow our hearts, allow me to make a brief case that the phrase actually undermines Christians as they labor and struggle to discern their various desires, and that Scripture itself discourages us from thinking this way. War Within How might we summarize the complex picture the Bible paints of the born-again experience in this already-not-yet age? The New Testament explains that when the Spirit brings us from spiritual death to spiritual life (John 5:24; Romans 6:13), we enter a strange new reality. Our regenerated new self  emerges, âcreated after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.â And yet our â old self , which belongs to [our] former manner of life,â is still âcorrupt through deceitful desiresâ (Ephesians 4:22â24). We are âborn of the Spiritâ (John 3:6) while still inhabiting the âflesh,â our âbody of deathâ in which ânothing good dwellsâ (Romans 7:18, 24). âThe hearts of regenerated people are not yet fully free from the influence of their flesh.â When Christians are born again, we enter into a lifelong internal war where âthe desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to doâ (Galatians 5:17). Stepping back and viewing these desires objectively, âthe works of the fleshâ that result from fleshly desires âare evident,â and so is âthe fruit of the Spiritâ (Galatians 5:19â23). But Christians often struggle â on the ground, in real time â to discern the desires of the Spirit from the desires of the flesh. This is why the New Testament Epistles are full of exhortations and corrections addressed to Christians. James tells his readers (and us at relevant times) that their âpassions are at war withinâ them (James 4:1). Peter warns his readers (and us), âDo not be conformed to the passions of your former ignoranceâ (1 Peter 1:14). Paul describes this internal experience of warring passions as âwretchedâ (Romans 7:24). And he admonishes the Colossian Christians (and us) with strong language: âPut to death therefore what is earthly in you : sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatryâ (Colossians 3:5). Why did these apostles feel the need to speak this way to regenerated people? Because the hearts of these regenerated people were not yet fully free from the influence of their flesh, their old selves. Follow the Spirit Much of the Christian life is a war to die to remaining sin and live by the Spirit. John Piper calls it âthe main battle of the Christian lifeâ: The main battle is to see our hearts renovated, recalibrated, so that we donât want to do those sinful external behaviors, and donât just need willpower not to do them, but the root has been severed and we have different desires. In other words, the goal of change â of sanctification, of the Christian life â is to be so changed that we can and ought to follow our desires. Thatâs exactly right. And when we have been so changed through progressive sanctification, so renovated that our hearts (and therefore our desires, dispositions, motives, emotions, and passions) are, as Piper says, âcalibrated to Christ,â then we should  follow our hearts. However, at any given time within our churches, small groups, friendships, and families, different Christians are at different places for different reasons in this heart-renovation process. Some hearts are more sanctified, and therefore more reliable to follow, than others. I think thatâs why we donât hear the apostles generally counsel us to follow our hearts in our fight of faith against remaining sin, but rather to follow the Holy Spirit . Let Not Sin Reign Paul is the one who delves most deeply into this issue: âI say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the fleshâ (Galatians 5:16). He devotes most of Romans 6â8 to explaining the nature of the strange new-self/old-self, Spirit/flesh reality of the Christian life, including Romans 8:13: âIf you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.â Paul lays the theological foundation of our understanding by explaining âthat our old self was crucified with [Christ] in order that [our] body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sinâ (Romans 6:6). Our new selves were âraised with Christâ (Colossians 3:1) so that âwe too might walk in newness of lifeâ (Romans 6:4). Therefore, we âmust consider [ourselves] dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesusâ (Romans 6:11). In light of this, Paul admonishes us, Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:12â14) And how do we do this? By learning to âset [our] minds on the things of the Spiritâ and not on âthe things of the fleshâ (Romans 8:5) â by learning to follow the Spirit, to âwalk by the Spiritâ (Galatians 5:16), because âall who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of Godâ (Romans 8:14). Follow the Treasure One of the reasons I find âfollow your heartâ generally unhelpful as counsel for Christians is that many of us, from the time we were young, have absorbed this as a pop-cultural creed that says if we just look deep into our hearts, weâll be shown our deepest truth, and discover the way we should go. Given the significant amount our sinful flesh still influences our hearts, itâs not hard to see how this phrase can easily increase confusion when applying it to the Christian life. âSome hearts are more sanctified, and therefore more reliable to follow, than others.â I also donât believe the Bible encourages that idea since, when it comes to engaging our hearts, far and away what we hear in it is counsel to âdirect our hearts,â not to follow them. We see that clearly in Paulâs instructions above. God made our hearts to follow, not to lead. And what do our hearts follow? Jesus gives the clearest answer: âWhere your treasure is, there your heart will be alsoâ (Matthew 6:21). In time, our heart always pursues (follows) our treasure. When we are born again, the eyes of our hearts are enlightened (Ephesians 1:18) and, through faith, we begin to see the Treasure: God himself in Christ. And since our heart learns to pursue the object  that stirs its greatest affections, its treasure , I suggest we not counsel each other to âfollow your heart,â but instead to âfollow the Treasure.â Looking into our hearts for direction can be spiritually hazardous. It is usually more helpful for us to direct our hearts to what is most valuable and delightful. Which is why I believe David counsels us, âDelight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heartâ (Psalm 37:4).
