Jack Coe

{{short description|American pastor}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Jack Coe
| other_names        = 
| image              = Jack Coe Preaching.jpg
| caption            = Coe preaching
| birth_name         = Jack Coe
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1918|03|11}}
| birth_place        = [[Oklahoma City, Oklahoma]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1956|12|16|1918|03|11}}
| death_place        = [[Dallas, Texas]], U.S.
| known              = 
| occupation         = Evangelist/[[faith healer]]
| title              = Head of Dallas Revival Center
| term               = 
| predecessor        = 
| successor          = 
| party              = 
| boards             = 
| spouse             = Juanita Geneva Scott Coe
| partner            = 
| children           = 1
| relations          = 
| website            = 
| footnotes          = 
}}

'''Jack Coe''' (March 11, 1918 – December 16, 1956) was an American Pentecostal evangelist, nicknamed "the man of reckless faith". He was one of the first [[faith healing|faith healers]] in the United States with a touring tent ministry after [[World War II]]. 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, he traveled the U.S. organizing tent revivals to spread his message. Coe was frequently the center of controversy, preached extensively through the South, and employed some 80 persons."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.newspaperarchive.com/newspapers1/na0003/6786971/40874678_clean.html |title=Faith Healer Dies of Polio |publisher=[[Charleston Gazette]] |date=December 17, 1956 |accessdate =2007-11-12}}</ref>

==Early life==
Jack Coe was born in [[Oklahoma City, Oklahoma]], the seventh child of George Henry and Blanche Zoe (Mays) Coe of Pleasantville, Venango County, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma City.{{Citation needed|date=December 2015}}  His parents later placed him in an orphanage. He left there in 1935 at the age of 17. A heavy drinker, he joined the Army after [[World War II]] began. He later claimed to have experienced a miracle during his time in the military that caused him to become a [[Christian minister]]. Coe had close ties with the [[Assemblies of God]], and preached several meetings while he was in the Army. He was ordained in 1944, and began his career as an itinerant preacher.<ref name=h58>Harrell 1975, p. 58</ref>

==Tent evangelist and ministries==
Coe was dynamic and enthusiastic in his beliefs.<ref name=h58/> He knew [[Oral Roberts]] and was impressed by the size of Roberts' revival tent. One day Coe went to a Roberts' tent meeting and measured the tent; he then ordered a larger one.<ref name=h59>Harrell 1975, p. 59</ref>  Coe was not bashful about announcing that his tent was the largest in the world; bigger, he claimed, than the one [[Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus]] used.<ref name=h60>Harrell 1975, p. 60</ref>

Coe was co-editor of fellow evangelist [[Gordon Lindsay]]'s ''[[Voice of Healing]]'' magazine until 1950, when he began his own magazine, the ''Herald of Healing''. By 1956 its circulation was approximately 250,000.<ref name=h60/>  Coe also opened a children's orphanage<ref name=h175>Harrell 1975, p. 175</ref> and built a large church building known as the Dallas Revival Center.<ref name=h61>Harrell 1975, p. 61</ref>

==Conflict with denomination and controversy==
Coe's revival messages centered upon healing, and he was adamant about not taking medicines and not visiting doctors.<ref name=h62>Harrell 1975, p. 62</ref> In 1953, the Assemblies of God expelled him on the grounds that he was "misleading the public" and "antagonizing Dallas Civil Authorities". He was also accused of having an extravagant lifestyle and home. Upon hearing that, Coe printed pictures of four large homes owned by some top officials in the Assemblies of God and the smaller homes of himself and three other revivalists. Coe also charged that the Assemblies of God were "fighting divine healing". Other revivalists soon came into conflict with Pentecostal denominations as well.<ref name=h111>Harrell 1975, p. 111–112</ref>

==Coe's arrest and case dismissed==
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 had healed their son of [[polio]].<ref name=arrest>{{cite news |url=http://www.newspaperarchive.com/newspapers1/na0040/6776104/33436272_clean.html |title=Faith healer Dies- Victim of Bulbar Polio |publisher=[[The Daily Courier (Arizona)|Daily Courier]] |date=December 18, 1956 |accessdate =2007-11-12}}</ref> Coe then told the parents to remove the boy's [[leg braces]].<ref name=arrest/> However, the boy was not cured, and removing the braces left him in constant pain.<ref name=arrest/> As a result, Coe was arrested on February 6, 1956, and was charged with practicing medicine without a license, a felony in the state of Florida. A judge dismissed the case on grounds that Florida exempts divine healing from the law.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Week In Religion |publisher=[[Walla Walla Union-Bulletin]] |date=July 1, 1956 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=etsOAAAAIBAJ&pg=7419,2676337 |title=Charges Against Texas Faith Healer Dismissed |publisher=[[St. Petersburg Times]] |date=February 21, 1956 |accessdate=2007-11-12 }}{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/121256820.html?dids=121256820%3A121256820&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS%3AFT&date=FEB+21%2C+1956&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=%27Faith+Healer%27+Cleared+Of+Illegal+Practice&pqatl=google |title='Faith Healer' Cleared Of Illegal Practice |newspaper=[[Washington Post]] |date=February 21, 1956 |accessdate=2007-11-12 |archive-date=2012-07-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120725094027/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/121256820.html?dids=121256820%3A121256820&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS%3AFT&date=FEB+21%2C+1956&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=%27Faith+Healer%27+Cleared+Of+Illegal+Practice&pqatl=google |url-status=dead }}</ref>

== Death==
In November, a few months after the charges were dismissed, Coe became sick while in [[Hot Springs, Arkansas]].<ref name="Coe Ill">{{cite news |url=http://www.newspaperarchive.com/newspapers1/na0001/654218/7504003_clean.html |title=Faith Healer Ill |publisher=[[Reno Evening Gazette]] |date=November 27, 1956 |accessdate =2007-11-12}}</ref> He returned to Texas and underwent a [[tracheotomy]] to help his breathing after his muscles became paralyzed.<ref name="Coe Ill"/> He was diagnosed with bulbar polio, and died a few weeks later at [[Dallas]]' [[Parkland Hospital]] on December 16, 1956. He was 38.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://search2.ancestry.com/gg-pg.ashx?db=News-TE-CO_CH_TI&pid=501629967 |title=Faith Healer Jack Coe Dies |publisher=[[Corpus Christi Times]] |date=December 17, 1956 |accessdate=2007-11-12 }}{{dead link|date=March 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/121322882.html?dids=121322882:121322882&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=DEC+17%2C+1956&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=Jack+Coe%2C+Evangelist%2C+Dies+of+Polio&pqatl=google |title=Jack Coe, Evangelist, Dies of Polio| newspaper=[[Washington Post]] |date=December 17, 1956 |accessdate =2007-11-12}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1956/12/17/archives/jack-coe-is-dead-at-38-texas-evangelist-succumbs-to-bulbar-polio-in.html |title=JACK COE IS DEAD AT 38; Texas Evangelist Succumbs to Bulbar Polio |work=[[New York Times]] |date=December 17, 1956 |accessdate =2007-11-12}}</ref>

After his death, [[A. A. Allen]] bought his tent and continued to hold large tent meetings.<ref name=r85>Robbins 2010, p.85</ref> The Dallas Revival Center was later led by [[W. V. Grant]].<ref name=h172>Harrell 1975, p. 172</ref>

Coe's wife, Rev. Juanita Geneva Scott of [[Lancaster, Texas]], died on September 27, 1996, and was buried in Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://docs.newsbank.com/g/GooglePM/DM/lib00376,0ED3D6D9366C4D91.html |title=Services held for evangelist Juanita Geneva Scott Coe, 76 |publisher= [[Dallas Morning News]] |date= October 3, 1996 |accessdate =2007-11-12}}</ref> Jack Coe's son, Jack Coe, Jr., also became a preacher with a healing ministry.<ref name=le>{{cite news|last=Kennedy|first=Allison|title=Jack Coe Jr. to lead area revivals next week|url=http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2009/05/14/719392/jack-coe-jr-to-lead-area-revivals.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130127145850/http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2009/05/14/719392/jack-coe-jr-to-lead-area-revivals.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 27, 2013|accessdate=November 23, 2011|newspaper=Ledger-Enquirer|date=May 14, 2009}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Bibliography==
*{{citation|last=Harrell|first=David Edwin|title=All things are possible: the healing & charismatic revivals in modern America|year=1975|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-10090-0|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/allthingsareposs00harr}}
*{{citation|last=Robins|first=R. G.|title=Pentecostalism in America|year=2010|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0-313-35294-2}}

{{1950s Healing Revival|expanded=}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coe, Jack}}
[[Category:1918 births]]
[[Category:1956 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Christian mystics]]
[[Category:American Christian mystics]]
[[Category:American evangelicals]]
[[Category:American Pentecostals]]
[[Category:20th-century Christian clergy]]
[[Category:American faith healers]]
[[Category:Clergy from Oklahoma City]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Oklahoma]]
[[Category:Deaths from polio]]
[[Category:American Assemblies of God pastors]]
[[Category:Protestant mystics]]
[[Category:United States Army personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:World War II chaplains]]
[[Category:20th-century American clergy]]
[[Category:Clergy with disabilities]]