Faith healing

Posted by admin on Mar 9, 2011 in Academy | 1 comment

When dared by Satan to spurn common sense and leap to demonstrate his trust in God’s protection, Christ famously responds, “do not put the Lord your God to the test.” It’s a principle which, I would argue, applies directly to today’s issues of “faith healing” versus modern medicine.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The promise of healing of the body has often played a large role in Christian ministry. In charismatic Evangelicalism, revival movements such as those at Bethel Church in Redding, CA or the Lakeland Revival in Florida have featured healing of the sick.
Catholic pilgrims travel to sites such as Lourdes or Quebec’s Basilica of Ste. Anne-de-Beaupre, hoping for healing. And North American Christianity has seen too many televangelists such as Benny Hinn or the miracle water salesman Peter Popoff.
For Christians, hope in faith healing comes from scriptures such as Psalm 103:3, which state that God is the one “who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases,” or Mark 11:24: “whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Yet often our trust is misplaced.
The following case was presented in a medical ethics textbook: an infant boy has developed leukemia. It is treatable, but the parents inform the attending physician that they are refusing treatment for their son, and instead take him to a miracle service. The doctor proceeds to make sure that the family fully understands that with medical treatment, the boy will live, but without it, there is a much higher chance that he will die. Both commentators agreed that the doctor had an ethical responsibility to intervene in the interest of the child.
Evidently, it is the opinion of many in the medical community that if faith healing was a legitimate option, it would stand up to scientific testing. As might be expected, no significant trend has been observed that conclusively proves the healing power of prayer. It’s easy for a Christian to point out that God does not work in a scientifically predictable way, but one would expect that on average, prayed-for patients would fare better. At best, studies suggest that prayer improves the pain of optimistic patients.
So what of the pilgrims at Lourdes, or the thousands claimed healed at Benny Hinn crusades? In 2006, CBC’s Fifth Estate showed that although Hinn claims to follow up with patients and their doctors, this is simply not the case. Although many appear to be healed, no accurate examination has proved the individual cured.
The Roman Catholic Church has declared only four official cases to be cured at Lourdes since 1978. And a list of anecdotes on Bethel Church’s website reads as we would expect: a woman with lung cancer reports that she feels no more pain; a man had 50 percent hearing in his left ear, but now his hearing has improved; A woman from Germany has been HIV positive and suffering from fatigue, but after prayer she felt the oppression lift and she was filled with joy. All of the cases listed were of individuals who were self-reporting a change in their subjective experience of their illness. Even from these examples, the woman with HIV has not necessarily been healed: she may still have the virus in her body.
When I say that our trust has been misplaced, I’m not suggesting that God is unable to heal. But, Christ warns his disciples to “beware of false prophets” in Matt. 7:15. Hinn loves to cry “Don’t worry about the doctors, they’re wrong … forget about that operation when Jesus comes in” during a healing service. This is offensive to any doctor who believes that God has called him to medicine, whose goal is to worship God through the practice of his art. In the case of the child with leukemia, God had already provided an answer. Rabbi Akiva suggests that “a plant will die if it is not watered and fertilized. Drugs and medicine are the water and fertilizer, and the physician is the tiller of the soil.” So be discerning. Trust in God, yes, but remember that Christ’s faith was not weakened by his refusal to jump.