Faith healing
Great Expectations
Occasionally updated and edited.
Copyright © 2009
Another classmate died this month. It had been 35 years since I'd seen Ken. We shared a passion back in the early seventies: politics.
I didn't know about Ken's passing until I came across a memorial on Facebook. Wondering when he left us — and why — I began reading the posts offered by his friends and congregants (Ken was a pastor). The older posts, written early this month, pledged prayers for Ken's recovery. They abruptly changed; expressing both shock and sorrow at his sudden demise.
I wonder, what do Christians expect? Do they really believe God will supernaturally interject Himself into the physical realm and reverse what ails us? Do they not realize that the God who has never healed an amputee won't heal cancer? Do they never grow weary of excusing God's inactions as "the will of God"?
Truth be known, most Christians promise their prayers as platitudes of empathy. Few actually offer serious intercession, even in the most dire of circumstances. When his life was hanging in the balance, I wonder, how many Christians devoted themselves to hours laying prostrate before the Great Physician praying for Ken's recovery? Maybe some. Probably none.
Christians, themselves, know better. Their belief is tempered by reality. Though they claim to "walk by faith, not by sight," in reality they walk by experiential sight, not by delusional faith. And that's good thing.
Genuine faith
Some, however, truly believe.
One such believer was a Wisconsin man charged with second-degree reckless homicide after his 11-year-old diabetic daughter died. According to news reports, the man was "accused of killing his daughter by praying instead of seeking lifesaving medical help."
Unlike the girl in Wisconsin, Ken's death was not due to withheld medical treatment. Nonetheless, prayer did nothing to change his physical state.
Still, there are countless Christians who eagerly testify of God's miraculous interventions that remedied their particular ailments. Few are as foolishly faithful as the father of the unfortunate daughter. Rather, theirs is a God of unverifiable healing.
The tragedy is compounded by those who refuse treatment. Of the hundreds of thousands who crowd coliseums to hear notable faith healers, many falsely presume themselves to be healed and recklessly refuse further treatment. How many have died from organ failure or other conditions due to a silly notion that their faith had made them whole?
Blind leading the blind
When I was a pastor I occasionally visited inmates at the local jail. On one such visit I was encountered by a pentecostal preacher who displayed concern over my head cold. He boldly laid his hand on my nose and cried aloud to the God of heaven for the healing of my sniffles.
The healing didn't take. And I found it ironic that the faith-healing pentecostal preacher was blind.
July 31, 2009
November 25, 2011 - Six HIV Patients Died After Being Advised by Church to Stop Treatment