Jack Coe (March 11, 1918 – December 17, 1956) was one of the first faith healers with a touring tent ministry after the Second World War in the United States. Coe was ordained in the Assemblies of God in 1944, and began to preach while still serving in World War II. In the following twelve years, travelled the U.S. organizing tent revivals to spread his message. Coe was hospitalized and died from bulbar polio in December 1956.^[1]

According his obituary in the Charleston Gazette, "Coe was frequently the center of controversy," and "preached extensively through the South and employed some 80 persons."^[2]

Early life

Jack Coe was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma one of seven children to George and Blanche Coe. Jack’s early years at home were filled with deprivation due to his father’s addiction to gambling and alcohol. After an episode of gambling where the family lost everything, Blanche left George and moved the children and herself to Pennsylvania, but soon reconciled with George. It wasn't long before George was back to gambling and drinking, and Blanche left him, this time taking their only daughter with her. George could not cope with raising six boys and soon Blanche returned for the boys. However, the reunion with the children dissolved when she could not take care of this large family by herself. At age nine [1927] Jack and the oldest boy was placed in an orphanage, where he stayed until about 1935, when at age 17 Jack left the orphanage.

Before his conversion to Christianity, Jack's life was filled with uncertainty and drinking. His alcohol consumption brought a warning from his doctor that he was on the path of dying at a young age. Coe continued drinking and wandered between California and Texas, constantly pledging to God that he would stop. Years later, Coe would recount the experience that turned his life around. Jack testified that the Lord spoke to him during one of his drinking binges and said “This is your last chance.” Jack shook off alcohol and soon became a devout Christian attending church and studying the Bible. Jack attended Southwestern Bible Institute at Enid, Oklahoma (an Assembly of God Bible school), but he left the school after the start of World War Two and joined the Army.^[3] Coe continued his ties with the Assemblies of God, and preached several meetings while he was in the Army [eventually being ordained in 1944]. A year later [1946] Coe and his wife Juanita sold their house and bought an old truck and used tent and began to live on the road as itinerate preachers, taking the message of God and healing to whoever would hear them.

Tent Evangelist and Ministries

Coe was dynamic and enthusiastic in his beliefs. Coe knew Oral Roberts and was taken in by the size of Robert’s revival tent. One day Coe went to a Roberts’s tent meeting and measured his tent. He then ordered one bigger. Coe was not bashful about announcing that his tent was the largest in the world [220 feet by 440 feet] seating over 22,000 people-bigger, he claims, than the one Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus used.^{[citation needed]}

In 1950, Coe left as co-editor of the Voice of Healing magazine and began his own magazine, which he called the Herald of Healing. Coe had worked with fellow evangelist Gordon Lindsay on the Voice of Healing, but Jack wanted his own magazine. The magazine, at the time of his death, was circulating at around 350,000 copies.^{[citation needed]} In 1954, Coe opened a children's orphanage at Waxahachie, Texas, and built the Dallas Revival Center seating nearly night large crowds.

Conflict with denomination and controversy

Coe’s revival messages centered upon healing, and he was adamant about not taking medicines and visiting doctors. He preached and taught that consulting a doctor was connected with the mark of the beast. During an era that some^[who?] call the “Religious Wars,” the Assemblies of God expelled Coe (1953) on the grounds the he was "misleading the public." Coe was also accused of having an extravagant lifestyle and home. Upon hearing that, Coe printed pictures of four homes owned by some top officials in the AG and the homes of himself and three other men who worked with him. To Coe's defenders, the homes of Coe and of those who worked alongside of him were modest compared to the church officials. It is probable that Coe was not being singled out because other noted evangelists were being pressured to be more orthodox in their beliefs, preaching, and claims.

Coe's arrest and case dimissed

Coe taught and preached fervently on divine healing, claiming to have healed visitors to his revivals. In a 1955 revival service in Miami, Florida Coe told the parents of a three year old boy that he healed their son who had polio.^[4] Coe then told the parents to remove the boy's leg braces.^[4] However, their son was not cured of polio and removing the braces left the boy in constant pain.^[4] As a result, Coe was arrested and charged on February 6, 1956 with practicing medicine without a license, a felony in the state of Florida. A Florida judge dismissed the case on grounds that Florida exempts divine healing from the law.^[5][6][7]

Death

In November, just months after the charges were dismissed, Coe became sick while in Hot Springs, Arkansas.^[8] He then went back to Texas undergoing a tracheotomy to help his breathing since his muscles were paralyzed.^[8] He was diagnosed with bulbar polio, and died a few weeks later at Dallas Parkland Hospital on December 17, 1956.^[9][10][11]

After his death, A. A. Allen bought his tent and continued on with large tent meetings. Coe’s magazine ceased publications, his Jack Coe Revival Center was renamed, and his orphanage is under other’s care.^{[citation needed]} Dallas Revial Center was located at 2127 South Corinth St Rd. Many well known evangelists came from every where to speak. However, Coe is viewed as a pioneer by Oral Roberts, Kenneth E. Hagin, and several others, and acknowledge him as a trailblazer in the faith and healing movement.^{[citation needed]}

His wife, Rev. Juanita Geneva Scott of Lancaster, Texas died on September 27, 1996 and was buried in Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas, Texas.^[12] Jack Coe's son, Jack Coe, Jr. is now a preacher with a healing ministry.^[13]

References

External links

• Jack Coe Jr. Ministries Website (Coe's son)