Willard Fuller, Th. D. - Teacher, Healer, Counselor & Theologian
By Lynn Woodland
There seems to be no doubt that the pace of life is speeding up, hurtling us toward something-pessimists say the end of the world as we know it, optimists say the beginning of life as we've always wanted it. An internationally renown healer and theologian, Dr. Willard Fuller, says we're approaching the "End-Time" prophesized in the Bible. Yet he diverges from his Southern Baptist roots in his interpretation of this end-time.
Unlike the often-heard Christian prophesy that a small handful of good Christians will soon be swooped up to heaven, leaving the rest of us behind to burn in hell, Dr. Fuller says we're not going anywhere-the end-time is when we will experience the Kingdom of Heaven right here on this earth. And not just Christians. All of us.
Rapt Attention
I have never been interested in theology, particularly
Christian theology. Raised in a family of agnostics,
I found my way to spirituality through meditation and
metaphysics. Theology to me comprised the three D's,
dry, dull and dogmatic. Yet I sat through 45 hours of
theology with 87-year-old Fuller in rapt attention at
the edge of my seat.
I was drawn to Willard Fuller because he is a genuine miracle-maker-the real article. I attended one of his packed healing services in Minneapolis, where in the coarse of only two hours, he had hundreds of Minnesotan New Age types laughing, shrieking and screaming "AAA-men" in true Baptist style. This in itself is something of a miracle. But there was more. After an hour or so of lively talk, he and his wife Althea, also a minister of healing, laid hands on everyone in the house, healing at breakneck speed. When they lay hands on people, amazing things happen.
Afterward, he began pulling people out of the audience and quizzing
them about the state of their dental work. Discreetly
popping a tic-tac breath mint, he asked them to open
their mouths and, with a flashlight and disposable dental
mirrors, peered in to take a look. Then he let them
see for themselves. Pandemonium broke out as one person
after another saw gold fillings where there had been
none and other startling changes, nothing short of miraculous.
Members of the audience rushed up to crowd around someone's
open mouth to watch teeth change right before their
eyes, while others inspected their own teeth with mirrors
that had been passed around the room. Fuller has seen
over 40,000 dental healings in his 43-year healing ministry
and estimates that the other kinds of healings out-number
the dental 3 to 1.
Shiny new fillings
I enjoyed the spectacle, feeling uplifted and inspired
but didn't realize that I, too, had received a mouthful
of shinny, new fillings until hours later at home when,
just for the heck of it, I looked in a mirror. A teenage
friend of mine had the experience of all her fillings
and cavities just disappearing. She left the healing
service with a mouthful of perfect virgin teeth.
Most of the people I interact with are far from the
mainstream. They are spiritually inclined, open-minded
and willing to believe all manner of things most people
don't. But even the most "out-there" friends questioned
my sanity when I told them the story of my teeth being
spontaneously filled in the hands-on healing service.
Even people who have no trouble believing that inoperable
cancer could be spontaneously healed had difficulty
believing that teeth could, likewise, be healed spontaneously.
This is exactly why Dr. Fuller's ministry of dental healing is so important. It could be argued that dental needs aren't as crucial to our well being as the more serious diseases. Yet teeth are such a stony unchangeable part of ourselves-a part of us that can't get better without the extreme interventions of drilling, pulling, filling and replacing. If we can experience this rock-like part of our body changing so easily and instantaneously then what, truly is impossible? What other "carved-in-stone" aspects of our body, mind and life circumstances might also be subject to some new rules of reality?
Profoundly changed
Having been both a presenter and attendee at numerous national holistic conferences during the last 20-30 years, I have had the opportunity to experience in person many leaders of spiritual and new age thought. In all that time I have never seen anyone who could work with such a large group of people in such a short period of time and leave so many of the audience deeply and profoundly changed the way a healing service of Dr. Fuller does. Not only do people come away with new fillings, or the experience of seeing miracles happen first hand, they come away with a new definition of reality. Life can never be quite the same again.
Dr. Fuller makes it clear that he is not doing the healing. God is. And because God is everywhere and in everyone, that same power is in each of us. Perhaps he is so successful in his work because he truly believes this more than most. I think the most valuable gift I received in spending a week and a half in the presence of this man, who sows miracles like Johnny Appleseed sowed apple trees, is the opportunity to leave reality as I knew it, behind and experience the reality God would have for us-one where miracles are normal. As A Course In Miracles puts it, "When they (miracles) do not occur something has gone wrong." It's one thing to read this, think it and believe it to be true. It's something else to know it's true. Now I know, and once knowing, can never go back. Perhaps this is what the "end-time" is all about.
