The Press: Stranger in Church

Religion Editor Adon Taft of the Miami Herald (circ. 225,169) is an earnest Baptist who goes to church twice every Sunday—once to worship, and once to report on a new congregation in his column, "A Stranger in Church." Last week, obeying his instincts as both believer and newsman, Taft was working to expose the tent-show evangelism of a faith healer.

The first night Taft attended the tent show of the Rev. Jack Coe of Dallas, who has been drawing 6,000 Miamians nightly, he saw no healing efforts, wrote a tolerantly favorable story. But the next night he witnessed some "cures"—and started digging. On the Herald's front page he showed that there had been no real changes in the physical conditions of Miamians the revivalist had claimed to cure. Taft found, for example, that a crippled woman who had ostentatiously flung aside a pair of crutches had never ordinarily used them. Taft also showed that Coe stood to clear $30,000 in profit from his Miami appearances.

Faith Healer Coe angrily lumped Taft and the Herald with the Devil. But at week's end he had yet to accept the challenge, inspired by Taft's stories, of three ministers of the Miami Churches of Christ. They offered to pay Coe $2,500 if his "faith healing" would cure anyone who had been duly certified as ill by two physicians, and then certified as cured.