Ship of Fools: Proclaiming healing, as in the suspension of the laws of physics, is a lack of faith.

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Thread: Proclaiming healing, as in the suspension of the laws of physics, is a lack of faith.

Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

Posted

And that cannot be proclaimed.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001 | IP: Logged

Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081

Posted

/hosting

Martin: please clarify what you're trying to say or expect this thread to die soon and fail to be resurrected no matter how much its resurrection is proclaimed: thank you.

/hosting

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002 | IP: Logged

Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

Posted

Sir.

My previous char-evo Anglican church was full of healing and exorcism. Reportedly. Although I never met anyone who cared to share any of these experiences. No one ever testified. Three years ago a sermon was given in which everyone who had experienced healing was asked to stand. People stood, so I suppose that was testimony. Then people who knew someone who had been healed were asked to stand. Then people who'd heard about someone being healed or some such final category, I'm sure there were three, were asked to stand. I was the only one out of hundreds I could see from the balcony who wouldn't stand. I won't play that game.

And I HAD heard a most superb account by the vicar of healing that had been done through his disbelieving prayer ... in Africa. Of a woman with sight problems. Up country Milawi neck of the woods. Later a tourist-missionary testified that he was told by a translator that EVERYONE he had prayed for in a queue with indefinable ailments was healed ...

One of the local healings testified indirectly here, from the front, was that someone's leg length changed a bit. I recall NO account of any other healing in four years at probably Leicester's biggest char-evo church. I mean 750 people. But healing went on all the time nonetheless, we were assured.

Now I know that it DOES. But never involving the laws of physics being overruled, suspended, reversed. I mean I KNOW. Anybody who knows by the normal ways of knowing, knows. I've experienced healing of course. I am experiencing it. Spiritual, psychological, relational AND therefore physical. All in God's provision. Day by day. Cyclically. I go down, I get up.

My diabetes is managed quite well. Daren't take my blood pressure. I'm starving it down in the week. I use CBT in prayer, meditation, conversation to confront my demons. Including the tinnitus one. Me rheumatics. Walking every day pushes back at that. And time heals, even at 60 odd. IBS abates. Love heals. No question. Vast amounts of money fix teeth.

The same vicar went to see Benny Hinn in Leicester this week (who had a dream after an email inviting him or some such). One of the 10% of the crowd who paid £10 a head that were white. He saw healings. I don't know what that means. But even with reservations, he saw them. He didn't say what they were.

Last Sunday our curate declared that we must seek, that there must be, will be more ... actual, real, miraculous healings. That we mustn't be 'afraid' of telling our stories to people. That's a whole thread in itself. The healings would come as a consequence of our being 'missional' with our conversion stories.

At the Monday night home group a pillar of the church declared that healing occurred but that it wasn't 'necessarily' physical. Even though God CAN and DOES heal physically. This said to amongst others a man with resurgent post-chemo cancer. And the wife of a man with slow, now severe (as in needing two additional carers to put him to bed and get him up) MS, who thought that Benny Hinn could be healing people, that it could all be true.

And NO I don't go round bursting the bubbles. Bubbles that envelop people incoherently, distractingly, deludingly for a lifetime. Most people. Most of the time.

But I'm getting to the point of wanting to say, to ask when praying for people that while we wait for healing, what should we be doing? Because we don't know what to say or do. What I want to say, but won't, is Lord, teach us how to die. How to comfort the dying.

How to be real and honest and encouraging and compassionate.

As I wrote to a friend, "I had an acute thought in the shower this morning. It IS about a lack of faith! Not in a God who heals by suspending the laws of physics. But faith in one who doesn't.".

When are we going to be able to be honest about God? WITH God? The God who heals. Within the laws of creation, a word covering physics and emergent biology and psychology.

To have faith in, from God despite no evidence of no doubt about it miracles now is surely faith worth receiving?

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001 | IP: Logged

Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:

To have faith in, from God despite no evidence of no doubt about it miracles now is surely faith worth receiving?

Ah, well now you're talking sense. Amen. CS Lewis has a line about real faith being belief when every trace of God has disappeared from the horizon.

quote:
we don't know what to say or do. What I want to say, but won't, is Lord, teach us how to die. How to comfort the dying.

Why won't you say it. Seems perfectly reasonable to me, and I have accompanied more than one person like that.

I admire (?) your staying power in your church. I couldn't stand it. I'm divided over the bubble-bursting issue. I think you're right not to puncture others' faith, along the lines of "not causing these little ones to fall". And yes, as you say, for a lot of people a lot of the time, it seems to (mostly) work, which is annoying in its own way if we're honest. (How many times have I thought "I wish I could be deluded again just to feel better"?).

However, I think the leaders are massively culpable and should be nailed. Or as St. Adrian Plass puts it, guilty of "collusion in corporate acts of dishonesty".

Why do churches behave like this? Partly because it pulls in the crowds (at least for a while). Partly because death is being increasingly hidden in our society, so people don't know how to cope with it.

And the really annoying thing? I think God does sometimes do suspension-of-the-laws-of-physics healings. He just doesn't do them to order, or with the purpose that we often have in mind, or in the places that people make the most noise about them.

I doubt you'll find much disagreement about all this here, though.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002 | IP: Logged

Nicodemia
WYSIWYG
# 4756

Posted

quote:
I use CBT in prayer, meditation, conversation to confront my demons. Including the tinnitus one.

Martin, could you be a little clearer about how you confront you tinnitus demon? And does it work, ie do the infuriating buzzing, hissing and helicopterflying noises actually GO?? [Help]

I hadn't actually thought of demons in my ears/head. Was under the impression it was teeny tiny hairs in your ears curling up and dying. [Eek!]

Should I consult Benny Hinn?? [Confused]

Posts: 4544 | From: not too far from Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2003 | IP: Logged

mark_in_manchester

not waving, but...
# 15978

Posted

Nicodemia - my job was in this area - you're right. But I suspect you know this. [Razz]

I suspect God's peace and grace could well be given to us when those noises are frustrating us or keeping us from sleep.

But I suspect you know this as well. [Razz]

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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)

Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010 | IP: Logged

Twilight

Puddleglum's sister
# 2832

Posted

I saw an example of this when I lived in the American south. A fourteen year-old boy had cancer, real bad, he had to have a leg removed. His church prayed, held special services, he went into remission and was declared cured. For several years the church held this boy up as their beacon of faith,, an example of a miracle and of their own power as a group of believers. Then one day the cancer returned in the boy's spine, this time terminal, and the boy was angry at the church and God. He declared that he had lost his faith and forbade his church to pray for him.

How incredibly sad. He went to his death without the comfort of his faith, because (to my mind) he had been taught a false belief about what we should expect from God while we do our time on earth.

I'm with Martin. I don't want to burst bubbles but neither do I want teach a doctrine that says God will heal us if we say the magic words or travel to the right shrine or have more faith than the other guy who is suffering just as much.

Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002 | IP: Logged

que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Nicodemia:
And does it work, ie do the infuriating buzzing, hissing and helicopterflying noises actually GO??

I've never had helicoptering noises. Something to look forward to I guess. Anything like Apocalypse Now?

I don't use CBT, I read/do something interesting. It works for me. The sounds only seem to be infuriating when I pay attention to them, which means I've got nothing better to do.

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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)

Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012 | IP: Logged

Nicodemia
WYSIWYG
# 4756

Posted

quote:
I've never had helicoptering noises. Something to look forward to I guess. Anything like Apocalypse Now?

Fortunately not. More like when the Police Heli keeps going round and round our area looking for who knows what.

Its worst when I am trying to go to sleep. [Frown]

Or when its quiet, and I'm idling around. Like now. [Eek!]

Posts: 4544 | From: not too far from Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2003 | IP: Logged

Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110

Posted

I suppose people may look for miracles in the wrong places - or miss the ones going on all the time. There is this remarkable saying of Jesus which embraces all kinds of helps which flow from Grace and Truth. From John 16.

33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

We learn that some stuff is not going to be cured, and so must be endured somehow. That's living with all kinds of troubles. Some of which are externally imposed, some of which arise out of our common physical frailties. The truly miraculous thing is that sometimes trouble seems to strengthen faith, rather than diminish it. Personally I find a limit to "patient endurance attaineth to all things". But I'm a lot more patient than I was, and much of that has stemmed from the stuff I've learned in these often very hard places of living through big trouble.

I think it is vital not to collude with either the inevitability of learning through trouble, or the proclamation of inevitable "instant" healing during these times. Sometimes we need to be carried on stretchers by others who care. Sometimes we need to do the carrying. Sometimes things change suddenly for the better in most unexpected ways. And for the worse. Faith may grow, or diminish, in any of those sets of circumstances. Part of the pilgrim journey, I guess.

I have not yet learned to be content in all circumstances! A certain level of discontent is a very good prompt into action. But that's another theme.

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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005 | IP: Logged

Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

Posted

Eutychus. Twilight. Barnabas62. Wisdom. Reality. It's a breath of fresh air: inspirational. We'll work it out in our little village church like we never could in our char-evo megachurch. We actually have FRIENDS! Straight away. (And no, there's no such thing as instant friends, but the process is easy to start and sustain here). So it'll all come out. I might have to join my wife and others at 6:45 prayers to feel my way in public prayer.

Nicodemia. NOTHING is working today [Smile]

Layers of high pitch keening in stereo. The most recent advice I read, which chimes (not yet!) fully with handling the rest of my intrusive thinking, is embrace it. Try and concentrate on it mindfully, which is quite remarkable because momentarily it can go. Be forgotten. Even when trying to concentrate on it. And then getting focussed on something else. But today ... it has my attention. With its nuances. I suspect that like me you ascetically don't, won't have the radio, music or TV on to distract.

Oooh, a good minute or two of not noticing whilst redacting!

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001 | IP: Logged

Nicodemia
WYSIWYG
# 4756

Posted

Heli has gone, but now have annoying mosquito whining behind my ear. I am going to concentrate mindfully on it and see what happens. [Smile]

Except I've got a lot to do.........

Posts: 4544 | From: not too far from Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2003 | IP: Logged

pimple

Ship's Irruption
# 10635

Posted

And I thought, Martin, when you called me a rationalist way back when, you meant it as an insult! A very dear Catholic friend of mine beieves strongly in supernatural miracles - but not ones created by the congregation! Her praying is very orthodox and abstract - Hail marys, novenas and such, but she hols those she is concerned about in her heart when she prays. It works, both individually and corporately, for the congregation. And I think I would rather die with the comfort of people praying for me than the conviction that nobody was - but not for a reversal of the process. What, when I've spent seventy-odd years learning to die, do I want suddenly to discover that it was all a waste of time?

I'm glad you still find something worth going to that church for - fellow humanity, perhaps, as well as God? And you no longer sound to me like a bloke who makes flip judgments. You'll probably never change the minds of those whose faith in false gods is utterly hidebound, but you may be able to find a kindred spirit or two there, who needs your support.

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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)

Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005 | IP: Logged

Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

Posted

Aye pimple, I would have been.

I'm sorry.

I bow to your hoary head. To your wisdom. I'm 110% certain we won't find any progressive Christians apart from one and he's crazier than me and utterly inaccessible. But it's being inclusive with the incoherent (HA!), with any one who will reach out regardless of their two-a-penny beliefs. My beliefs are, of course, worth a ha'penny each.

And aye Nicodemia, silence is screaming.

[ 01. February 2014, 11:02: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001 | IP: Logged

SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967

Posted

I kind of wonder if Western Christians shouldn't just leave faith healing alone. What are we really trying to achieve?

My impression is that in sceptical cultures like ours faith healing is really about PR, as if the best way to convince a secular world is to produce miracles. I feel a bit uneasy about that - perhaps it reminds me too much of 1 Corinthians 22-23. Did the great men and women of church history - who were often ministering to undernourished and diseased people - obsess about faith healing? I don't think so.

Moreover, I think our faith is simply too fragile, our need for personal satisfaction and happy endings too high, our other advantages (.e.g. the advance of medicine and social care) too great to make faith healing much more than a hit and miss sideshow. In a culture (both inside and outside the church) that values reproducible, consistent outcomes that's not going to wash....

Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012 | IP: Logged

Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

Posted

Anything but JUST the simple labours of love.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001 | IP: Logged

Mere Nick
Shipmate
# 11827

Posted

My oldest brother is about 8 years older than me. He had a tumor inside his abdomen when he was about 4. Many people prayed for him. One night, my dad was convinced that God told him his son was healed and that he needed to get rid of his hunting dogs. The next morning he went to the hospital and there was no more sign of a tumor.

An elder in our congregation told me many years ago about his lymphoma. His kids were still little. He asked God to please put off the lymphoma until his kids were grown and on their own. He got better, the kids grew until they were on their own, the lymphoma came back and killed him.

A certain old guy in our congregation was in hospice. The doctors told his family to call the family in because it was the end. Sure enough, he died eighteen years later.

I've also had good friends get sick and die without any healing, and one to have a heart attack and die in his sleep. Faithful believers, all.

Another elder, recently deceased, had a rare form of leukemia. I remember when he told the congregation about it. I knew it was bad when his daughter, who is a doctor, was crying her eyes out. Shortly before his death, the preacher interviewed him in front of the congregation. The elder said the one thing he had learned from it all is that we are all terminal and we either trust God or we don't.

I've never actually seen any of the big and showy "look at me, the great man of God" things work, but I have seen simple, trusting faith work.

Daniel 3 (kjv)

16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.

17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.

18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

Interesting story about "But if not" and the evacuation from Dunkirk and the rescue from the dreaded Hun.

Anyway, it seems to me that sometimes God does answer prayer the way we would like. Sometimes his answer isn't the one we want. We either trust him or we don't. It seems we miss the point of it all if we think God is just in the business of keeping us healthy and well stocked with play purties. It seems he is more in the business of teaching us how to deal with whatever life throws at us in this fallen world and to remember to treat each other right, knowing that in the end, he will be there for us. He is our heavenly father.

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"Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward."
Delmar O'Donnell

Posts: 2797 | From: West Carolina | Registered: Sep 2006 | IP: Logged

Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

Posted

The Dunkirk story says it all. Absolutely spine tinglingly awesome. They all died. In faith.

Well said all round Mere Nick.

I just don't believe God answers or not in any binary way. He just answers in every other way. Not least being that He is answerable. And also not least in helplessly yearning, suffering, hurting with and for us.

And expecting MUCH more of us. With our hands and arms and ears and voices and money and time.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001 | IP: Logged

SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967

Posted

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:

What I want to say, but won't, is Lord, teach us how to die. How to comfort the dying.

How to be real and honest and encouraging and compassionate.

Isn't this part of normal pastoral duties for a minister and his or her pastoral assistants? Your minister must surely have had to give succour to plenty of dying people in his time.

In the 19th c. some of the Nonconformists set great store by 'dying well' (a concept that seems more ambiguous these days). Having been present at other deaths they had an idea of what this meant, and hoped to live up to it when their time came. They didn't see death as a type of failure, the way that we often do today. And they don't seem to have been transfixed by faith healing.

I wonder at what point faith healing become routinely associated with certain kinds of churches. Maybe it was during the rise of Pentecostalism? Maybe churches with a younger demographic are more closely associated with it. I don't know.

[ 01. February 2014, 18:11: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012 | IP: Logged

Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

Posted

SvilanaV2. I wrote a huge response to your earlier post and shook my head and dropped it. Not negative, I value your insights. I just want to acknowledge that now. And I'm sure you're right about a vicar being well familiar with the dying. But on his watch expectations are being raised and that is not good. The expectation of miracles GREATER than Jesus'. The expectation that we'll convert the heathen by our testimonies if only we weren't afraid. I'm NOT afraid. Which is a lie. But I have no idea how to 'evangelize' and know NOBODY who does.

All I hear is talk. I NEVER see.

I made a fool of myself twice recently. Which is progress. Trying to find a way of being real, not knowing what to say. Fearing that my fumbling will not encourage. But it worked as part of the process. It led to more and will.

Rome and Byzantium have been ahead of us for millennia.

We need a Jesus pivot of the Trinity based Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen

I need prayers for the confused, the VERY confused, the VERY broken, for paranoid schizophrenes, for sexual predators, racists.

That was all in the big post but with an edge aimed at my fellowships for failing in this.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001 | IP: Logged

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