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Jackie Pullinger

Jackie Pullinger is one of the world’s best known missionaries, and a heroine of the charismatic movement. Here, she talks about her dislike of being a celebrity, burnout, and whether salvation comes through grace or works

Jackie Pullinger is reluctant to be interviewed and really hates her photograph being taken. When visiting the UK she was happier sitting with some of the former addicts she has helped than hobnobbing with pastors and journalists. It is clear that she is suspicious of her semi-iconic status as the woman who evangelised and loved the forgotten addicts of a diabolical slum in Hong Kong, and who sees miraculous conversions, healings and transformations in the lives of some of the world’s most desperate people.

It’s pretty rare that she makes a public appearance. When she does, it is usually to call the Church to get out there and do more to help the poor and the suffering. This summer she has visited churches around the UK in conjunction with the International Substance Abuse and Addiction Coalition (ISAAC), a Christian network of ministries to the addicted, putting on workshops to pass on some of her experience to those working in the field. In the evenings, she has had a simple message for the wider group of attendees: ‘Go!’

‘All over the world, there are places for you to go and people for you to meet, people for you to heal and people for you to bring back from the dead,’ she tells the crowd gathered in Coventry, where she is speaking. ‘They are waiting for you. Nobody else can do what you are called to do. If you don’t do it, someone else might miss out [on] knowing God’s love.’

‘Go’ is exactly what she did as a young woman in her early 20s, fresh out of music college where she studied the oboe. She wanted to be a missionary, but she was turned down by the organisations she applied to. Still, she felt that God was telling her to ‘go’. When, in 1966, she followed the advice of a vicar – to get on a boat and get off where she felt God told her to – she found herself in Hong Kong.

She soon came across the Walled City, a dire slum full of Triad gangsters, heroin addicts, prostitution, and with barely a chink of light in the whole place. Tens of thousands of desperate people were crammed into a few acres of space. She received the gift of speaking in tongues, and began praying for people while in the Spirit, finding that as she did so, addicts would sometimes detox without any withdrawal symptoms. She spent her time befriending the people, praying for them, and telling them about Jesus. She is tight-lipped about how many addicts she has helped over the years, but it is estimated to be many thousands.

The Walled City – once notorious for sin and despair – has since been knocked down by the Hong Kong government and is now a pleasant park area. But Pullinger still works for the addicts of Hong Kong, and currently houses around 300 people recovering from the ravages of addiction at St Stephen’s Society, which she founded.

Of all the Christians in the public eye, Pullinger must surely be one of the most deserving of attention and admiration. But she is very reluctant to be in the spotlight, telling the audience that it makes her nervous due to the addictive nature of fame: ‘We do things that we know won’t satisfy, but they trick us that they do,’ she tells them. ‘The same thing is likely and possible for pop stars, pastors, worship leaders, anything where there are performances. That’s why I’m personally terribly nervous of big meetings, because there’s a high…then afterwards…you get a pop star alone without the crowds, and then there is the low.’

So when she begins a healing ministry in a worship service, she won’t let people come to the front so she can pray for them, instead telling the Christians around them to pray: ‘The work of Jesus is through everyone. It’s not someone at the front,’ she explains. ‘Jesus said everyone could do what he had been doing. He said together we could all do even greater [things] than he had [done]. So we had better all get on and do it.’

You sounded very cautious earlier on about being in front of people and being interviewed. Is there something about being a celebrity Christian that you find difficult?

Yes, very, because it’s anti the gospel. In the Old Testament you had a few special people like judges or kings or prophets. In the New Testament God said, ‘I will pour my Spirit out on all flesh.’ So, the more you put one person on a pedestal, the more people think there’s a special anointing or something, which is not true, and it actually makes the Church go backwards and not forwards.

We’re not going to reach the ends of the earth if we’re relying on a few specially anointed or gifted people. The good news is that the job was given to every ordinary, weak kind of person. Now, why he did it that way, I don’t know. It seems an awful risk, but that’s the way he chose.

As much as you don’t like that feeling of being famous, your book has inspired many others. Would you say that’s true?

Oh, that’s good…That’s why I’m not writing a whole lot more. Just in case people want one more book, instead of ‘you go and do it’.

So is that what you’re saying to the Church? Are you saying, ‘You can do this too?’

Well, I do sometimes (laughs). That’s partly why we’re here in the UK. We’re here to specially give a few things that people can get hold of to help the broken and the addicted.

How does it make you feel when you see people who have been set free?

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