He saved others?

During the crucifixion narrative, in Mark 15v31 it says: 

"In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself!"

This seems a bit like an anachronism to me, because at this point in the story, Jesus hasn't 'saved' others. He has healed a lot of people, sure. And the Greek word for heal appears to be the same word as for rescue or save; σῴζω (or 'sōzō'). But it makes no sense for people observing the crucifixion to make any connection between someone healing people of diseases and having the ability to rescue themselves from the cross. Its like they are saying 'oh, he was a doctor, he must be a good escapologist as well...'; it makes no sense, in the context.

Where it does make sense is later, after Jesus gained a reputation for being a saviour - one able to save others from going to hell. Once there are Christians who believed in Jesus as saviour, it would make sense to look back on the cross and wonder why he couldn't save himself.

For these reasons I think this detail in the crucifixion story is not historically accurate, but was probably a literary construct, written by a Christian some time after the fact, putting words into the mouths of his imagined characters. I can't see how anyone would have really said that, when watching a real crucifixion.

Hinge - Episode 8 - Miracles

I've been listening to the "Hinge" podcast and have been meaning to blog about my thoughts on it, but have been so busy recently that I've not managed to write any coherent thoughts down before I've forgotten what they were and have moved on to the next thing. I may revisit this podcast in the future and post some thoughts at a later date, but for now here are my thoughts on episode 8.

I suppose I should briefly explain the setup of Hinge, in case you're unfamiliar with it. Basically its written and presented by two friends, one a pastor, one an atheist (former Christian) who decided to take a year off work and explore the big questions about God and Jesus properly, and then present it in ten podcasts, each about half an hour long. Its been interesting so far, but more than a little frustrating, because you simply cannot do justice to the questions they are exploring in only about five hours of audio.

This week's podcast is a perfect example of how the show doesn't really get to grips with the subject. The topic for this week was basically miracles; do they happen? In the half hour show they discussed three supposed miracles, which I will briefly summarise here:

1. A situation where a believer was really short of money, did her sums and wrote down exactly how much money she needed to pay the bills, then she prayed about it. Later that week a Christian friend of hers (who knew nothing about the financial difficulty) felt compelled to send a cheque for a specific amount to this woman. When the cheque arrived it turned out to be exactly the same amount of money the woman had calculated.
2. A situation where a man had a heart attack and the doctors could not resuscitate him, but kept trying for ages. When his wife arrived at the surgery, she prayed and the man's heart started working again. Despite being clinically dead for almost an hour, he eventually made a full recovery, with no brain damage.
3. A situation where a man was crushed by a car, severing five major arteries and destroying much of his lower intestine. Somehow he survived until the hospital, but his guts were severely damaged and much of them had to be removed. When in hospital, some Christian healer felt compelled to come and pray for the guy and he felt something change in his insides. Some time later an atheist surgeon operated on him and discovered that much of his lower intestine had regrown.

Items 2 and 3 on that list are discussed in Craig Keener's book on Miracles that I really should read some time, but it is massive, so I'll pass for now.

The options presented and discussed in the Hinge podcast were the following:

1. These were all miracle events, brought about by the Christian God.
2. These were not miracle events, and some natural (but not explained) process must be at work.

That's it. No third option was even considered. 

For me, the answer to these conundrums does not necessarily need an omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent God. Indeed, if there was such a God involved, I'd expect different outcomes in each case.

Take the first case, what role does God play here? He basically gets the magic number telepathically from the head of one character and inserts it telepathically into the head of another. And the two characters already know each other. You don't need an infinite God to link these two, if you're prepared to speculate, then a simple telepathic link direct between the two would explain it with no divine agent. In one scenario you have two telepathic links and an infinite God, in the other only one telepathic link is required. Occam's razor would prefer the option with no God. Of course, there is limited evidence for telepathy, but then again, there is limited evidence for God.

You think an infinite God is more probable than telepathy? Are you sure about that?

And what this show failed to even mention is what about the many (hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions) of Christians in financial trouble who work out their financial shortfall, pray about it, and then nothing happens? Nobody sends a cheque. What about them? One anecdote doesn't explain why most of the time God seems to do nothing, and occasionally (I've heard a similar story before) people get just the right amount of money given to them in mysterious ways.

Given the law of large numbers, this could simply be coincidence. According to the story, the financial shortfall was a very specific number, and the mysterious cheque had that exact (and obscure) value, but here I must question the reliability of human memory. Suppose the shortfall was $164.07 and the cheque that arrived was $167.95, I have no doubt that the recipient would think those numbers were close enough for it to be a miracle, and as the story was told and retold over many years, the actual numbers could have been forgotten, but only the 'fact' that they were the same was remembered. Or maybe I'm being a bit cynical. I know my memory isn't perfect, I can't assume that everyone else has a perfect memory.

Turning to the medical miracles (and as far as I can tell - without reading it - most or all of the miracles in Craig Keener's book are medical in nature; nobody seems to walk in water or turn water into wine these days), there is one feature of both stories that was not questioned in the podcast - why does God need to work through an intermediary? In story 2, above, no 'miraculous' healing happened until the guy's wife showed up, then things turned around. In story 3, the apparent miracle only happened after the Christian healer guy turned up and prayed. In both stories it appears that God chose to, or perhaps needed to heal through an intermediary. Why didn't/couldn't he heal directly? I've heard this in many other healing stories - some human healer is involved.

Lets speculate again. What if some people simply have innate healing powers, able to cause healing, regrowth, or resuscitation just by laying on of hands, or something like that? Its like the telepathy thing again, in one hypothesis we have a healing individual and an infinite God, in the other we simply have a healing individual. Just because that individual believes that the power comes from God, doesn't actually mean that any God is involved.

And again, the programme doesn't discuss the stories of those who had heart attacks and then died. Or those who were crushed by cars and then died. The stories presented are the tiniest minority of actual incidents. Most of the time miracles don't happen. Some of the time, people just get lucky. Maybe these miracles were just instances of people at the favourable end of the probability bell curve, who happened to pray at some point in the incident. Maybe they are wrongly attributing their good fortune to God, when there was actually no God involved.

The feedback loop of faith is involved here (which I first discussed in this post). We don't hear the stories of dying people who cried out to God and died anyway. Those stories should cause us to reduce our belief in a God who answers prayer, but we don't do that because we never hear those stories. We only hear the stories of the survivors.

And the other thing implied in the show, but the issue was never raised, is that only the Christian God answers prayer and heals in these ways. What about those who call out to Allah and don't die? We never hear about them. What about those who cry out to Krishna? What about the prayers of Mormans, or Moonies, or whatever? The narrow focus on only two possibilities in this show (i.e. option A "The Christian God exists" or option B "There is nothing supernatural") rules out a whole host of interesting possibilities ad speculations. Reality isn't black or white.

Personally, I don't think these miracle claims are enough to demonstrate that the Triune God of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is the only way to explain the weird stuff discussed. But I also don't think that Hinge takes seriously the possibility that weird stuff can happen without there being a God. From observation and from reading I am quite sure that weird and inexplicable stuff happens all the time, and our current understanding of the universe simply cannot explain it. But that doesn't mean we need to jump straight to God as an explanation.

Richard Carrier's very human Jesus

I've just been listening to a debate on YouTube between the noted atheist Richard Carrier (pictured) and an apologist called David Marshall. You can watch it here. Its fair to say that Carrier wins this debate. Its also clear that one of his arguments against Jesus being divine is very strong and appears not to have an adequate rebuttal by Christian apologists. The argument is basically as follows (my summary):

Jesus is depicted in the gospels as having direct revelatory knowledge from the creator God. He is also depicted as being someone who cares about people and miraculously heals some of them. Given these two observations, why does Jesus do nothing to inform his disciples of a few health related things which could prevent disease? For example, he could have instructed his disciples in the merits of properly washing your hands before eating. He appears to actually do the exact opposite to this, by telling them that hand washing before meals is not important (Matthew 15:1-20). We know (from science) that washing is important and this simple action can prevent disease and infection, etc. Jesus does not know this. He appears to have no conception of germs. This is no surprise if he was merely a human being, but is very surprising if he was sent on a mission - which involved healing - by the creator God.

Furthermore, Carrier claims, the three most prevalent fatal diseases in the first century CE were tuberculosis, malaria and typhoid. Jesus is never recorded as healing anyone with any of these. Also, there are simple steps which can be taken to minimise the risk of catching these, such as mosquito nets and avoiding stagnant water. Jesus does not advise these actions, so clearly he has no divine knowledge of disease transmission.

Carrier has more to say, but you get the gist. I have to say that it seems like a very strong argument to me. But there are apologetic responses to it, for example this one.

As I see it, if Carrier is right, then there are only two options:

1. Jesus was a man with no divine knowledge, or
2. God doesn't care about the life and health of people.

When I say "doesn't care" what I mean is that God must have another - more important - agenda that would be hindered by healing more people and giving them advice that would prolong their lives and ease their suffering.

Let's think about these options, I'll take the second one first.

Healing and God's Agenda

The standard apologetic argument to the problem of pain is that God must have a morally sufficient reason for allowing this, and that even though we can't know what this reason is, we should trust God for other reasons and leave this in the hands of faith. I must say, this strikes me as yet another instance of the 'unseen infinite' argument that I've blogged about before. If prolonging people's lives and easing their suffering is not part of God's plan, then why does Jesus heal anyone? Why feed thousands of hungry people, why raise some from the dead? Again, apologists and preachers will tell you that Jesus did all these things to reveal aspects of the character of God, to reveal the heart of God - to show that God wants to heal. But if God wants to heal, then this must be part of his agenda. And if healing is part of his agenda, then he should have been able to do more, much, much more than is recorded for us in the bible.

But suppose we look at this the other way around. If God's agenda was not primarily to heal, but was to come to earth and suffer and die, and in this way to bring about post-mortem salvation for people, then surely he didn't need to spend 30 years doing nothing worthy of note, then up to three years of ministry in which he did not explain that this was his agenda. Why didn't he just come quickly, die quickly, and also hasten the deaths of all people, so that those who he would save would get to heaven more quickly?

Clearly, this is not consistent with what Christians believe, or what the bible apparently teaches. So I think we can say with reasonable certainty that Jesus simply did not know any more about disease and illness than his fully human contemporaries, and that if a modern day doctor were able to be transported back in time to the 1st Century, then they would be able to do many more kinds of 'miraculous' healing than Jesus is recorded as doing - because they have a far greater understanding of illness than Jesus. Which brings us to the second option.

Jesus was just a man
Is it conceivable that Jesus was genuinely divine in nature, but had no divine knowledge? We can discount the option that he had no inherent divine knowledge but God revealed things to him, using the reasoning above - if God revealed his agenda to a human Jesus, then we face the same problems as we have above with the question of God's agenda. If God only revealed part of his agenda and didn't empower Jesus to heal many multitudes of sick and dying, then we end up with a truly unbelievable or evil God. So barring this possibility, the only option we are left with is that Jesus simply didn't know more than his contemporaries about disease, and also didn't know any more than them about God's agenda. If Jesus was just a man without revelation, then nothing he said or did had divine authority, even if he truly had a divine nature. In this option, all of Jesus' teaching goes out the window as worthless, and all of his commands and life examples become meaningless. He becomes just an ordinary guy, and no more worthy of following than anyone else. Any good teaching he gave and any great insight he had came from human means, and other humans have just as much access to such wisdom as Jesus had. Indeed, the flip side is true, Jesus could just as easily have been wrong about a great many things. Even if he was right about some things, we have no reason to trust his claims about things he could not demonstrate, such as what happens after death. he knew no more about that than you do.

No, if the words and works of Jesus have any value, then he must have had knowledge and wisdom which transcended those of humanity. But in that case, we see a God who can only heal in limited measure or doesn't value the health and wellbeing of his people.

I can't see a way out of this conundrum except to say that the claims of Christianity about Jesus must be false or at least very flawed. It is much easier to suppose that these stories are simply that: stories, and that Jesus was no divine Son of God.

Jesus, if he lived at all, was just human. No more than that. If following his teachings bring you joy and happiness in this life, then all's well and good, follow him. But if following his teachings leads you into suffering and possible death, then be careful, because nothing promised after death is anything more than guesswork or wishful thinking.

The God of Christian experience vs. the God of the Bible

A recurring struggle I have faced over the past few years as I wrestle with (my) faith is the apparent discrepancy between the claims the bible makes about God and the reality I have experienced and observed as a Christian for over twenty years. 

You see, the God of Christian experience (GCE) seems considerably different from the God described in the bible (GTB). So much so that I have to wonder if the God of the bible is an amplified and exaggerated version of the 'real God' as distorted through the rose tinted lens of faith. Of course it is equally possible that the characteristics of the 'real God' are distorted by experience too. Taking a skeptical position, we might also have to consider the possibility that GCE is purely an illusion based on misunderstood experience.

But anyway, here are a few of the characteristics of the God of Christian experience, based on my experiences and observations of others:

• GCE seems to be a source of comfort for many.
• GCE seems to provide some form of guidance sometimes, though this is often ambiguous.
• GCE seems to answer certain prayer requests, sometimes.
• GCE seems able to perform a range of mostly minor healings, sometimes.
• GCE seems to be able to strengthen and embolden people, sometimes.
• GCE seems to be a source of joy, even in otherwise joyless circumstances.

Most, if not all, of these characteristics appear to be sporadic; sometimes being in evidence while at other times being seemingly absent. The characteristics which most commonly appear active are also those in which it is hardest to be sure that there is any real external influence, such as the comfort, joy and emboldenings. The skeptic could write all of these off as being 'purely psychological' and having no supernatural source. It could be that God provides genuine comfort to the believer, or it could be that believing in God - in itself - is the source of comfort.

But what of the others? Answered prayers are common, but rarely does a believer calculate the probabilities of the things they ask for happening 'by chance'. Indeed, for many believers there is no such thing as chance, so if what they prayed for actually happened, then it must have been God at work. And if the thing prayed for does not happen, then it must have been against the will of God, so he didn't do it. I've commented before about the positive feedback loop here - if the prayed-for thing happens, the believer's faith is boosted, if it doesn't happen, their faith is not lessened, so as long as prayed-for things happen occasionally, the net effect is a boost of faith. If the believer prays for lots of possible things on a regular basis, they will see answered prayers fairly frequently, whether or not there is a God involved.

Surely if there is a real God then it should be possible to observe his actions consistently? The GTB is frequently portrayed as consistent, unchanging, and so on, yet GCE seems to act with no consistency, except perhaps in influencing the feelings of his followers.

Before I started taking a properly critical look at (my own) faith, I would have made the claim (had I thought to express it this way) that the real God was broadly the same as GTB and the reasons that GCE appears to be smaller and less powerful than GTB were that something (either the devil, my puny faith, or some unrepented sin in my life) was blocking the full experience of God from breaking through. I guess this is pretty standard Evangelical belief. Its certainly consistent with the picture of reality expressed by most of the evangelism programmes that I've seen or been part of. The problem is sin, our sin gets in the way. In other words, most of the time, the reason GCE appears so small is my fault. The picture would be something like this:

But when you look at the holiest people you know (and, having been in some good churches for many years, I have known a good many truly godly people) you will see that they have exactly the same experiences as you. Something seems to block God from getting through, so GCE is so much smaller than GTB, even for those spiritual giants. Of course, they would never say it in those terms, but this is my observation.

I eventually, through observations like the above, and through a critical reading of certain bible passages, came to view things a bit differently. While still convinced that the real God was there, I considered that GTB was an exaggeration. The real God, while still powerful, wasn't omni-anything. But I never really reconsidered the presupposition that something in me was also blocking the full reality of the real God, so for many years I guess I believed that the real god was somewhere in between GTB and GCE. Like so:

But then I came to wonder whether there was any actual evidence that the real God was any more powerful than GCE. The claims in the bible are simply that, claims. The more I looked into the evidence for things claimed in the bible, the more I found that the bible itself is the only evidence for all the miracles up to and including the resurrection of Jesus. I've recently posted several thoughts on the so called 'evidence' for God [see here, or here] and it all eventually boils down to assuming that the reporting of events as presented in the bible is fundamentally accurate and true. Without that assumption, all arguments defending biblical miracles, including the resurrection, fall apart.

For several years two things kept me believing that the real God was greater in power than GCE (though less than GTB). These were the firm belief that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead, and the belief/observation that 'miraculous' healings continue to happen today. Let's look at both of these:

Firstly, contemporary miraculous healings. I've been through this issue recently on the blog. The issues here for me remain that while healings undoubtedly and indisputably happen in the world today, these don't appear (as far as I can tell) to happen more in a Christian context than in contexts associated with any other religion or belief system. The other issue is that almost all of the healing claims I have heard of are well within the realms of possible natural occurrences. That is, if someone experiences a remission from cancer, how do we know if this was due to God's healing power or was 'just one of those things' that happen? What we observe is that healings happen, and that the claimed power of these healings comes from some supernatural source, for which there is usually little or no other evidence. What if there is some other explanation other than the involvement of a God? Which is more likely - that some people have some inherent 'magical' healing ability, or that some God chooses to channel his 'magical' healing ability through some people? Given that we don't know the mechanism in either case, Occam's razor would tend to prefer the former option; invoking a God is not required as a source of the unknown ability, that only multiplies the entities involved.

Of course, if this is true, then we are attributing 'natural' healing ability to God which doesn't come from him. Thus actually CGE is greater in power than the real God:

That's an uncomfortable thought, but one we must face if we're really serious about examining the validity of (our) faith. Even if there is a God, if we attribute things to him which he has no part of, then our picture of God ends up positively skewed and we imagine him to be bigger than he actually is.

And so, all that remains is the resurrection of Jesus. If this happened then it would fundamentally endorse the things he taught and go much of the way to proving the existence of God, and not merely any god, but specifically the Christian God. For me, this was the last remaining support holding up my faith. But, like all the other things, I found that this belief didn't really stand up to scrutiny. The evidence for the resurrection is simply not strong enough. All that we can really be sure of is that there were folk who came to be known as Christians who believed that Jesus died and rose again. We can be sure these people believed this a couple of generations after the time of the alleged events. What we can't do is bridge the gap between the beliefs in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries and the supposed events of about 30AD. Nobody wrote anything for at least a generation, and the things written by the first generation of writers were rewritten by subsequent generations.

You can see where I'm going with this. Eventually, I have come to the conclusion that as we can't be sure if the resurrection actually happened, we can't use this as anything remotely like evidence for the existence of God, whether we're talking about GTB, GCE or the real God.

I'm still open to the possibility that there is a 'real' God. But the more I consider the evidence of Christian experience, the smaller he appears to become. Is this really a God worth believing in? Or, more crucially, is this really a God worth trusting, following, or committing your life to? All the truly important aspects of God, which would make him worthy of praise and commitment, are those aspects which are claimed in the bible, but are not evident in Christian experience. These evaporate as we look critically at God.

Unbelievable Miracles

The Radio show 'Unbelievable?' had two shows looking at miracles earlier in the year - the first show looked at miracles in the bible and the second one looked at miracles today. OK, I'm a bit late in commenting.

The guests on the show were:

• Craig Keener, a theologian who has just written a huge book on miracles and miracle claims, which concludes that miracles happen today and therefore it is legitimate to believe the biblical miracle accounts. And
• Geoff Lillis, an atheist who is a regular contributor to the Unbelievable forum, Facebook page, etc. I must say, he presented himself and his case very well.

Keener did a good job of demonstrating, with examples, that miracle claims are made within a Christian context all over the world today. And that many of these miracle claims are made by reliable witnesses. And that, in some instances, the miracle claims can be supported by medical evidence.

Lillis did a reasonably good job of questioning the evidence and suggesting non-miraculous explanations for some of the alleged miracles.

What I found frustrating, listening to the show, was that all of the contemporary miracle claims which were discussed involved medical healings or resuscitations from apparent death-states. I don't mean to dismiss these as irrelevant, and I'll get back to these below, but what about other kinds of miracles? Biblical miracles include the multiplication of food (feeding of 5000, etc.), turning water into wine, walking on water, cursing fig trees, and so on. No contemporary claims of anything like these were discussed - does nobody claim anything miraculous like this anymore?

Faith healers do what it says on the tin - apparently heal people using 'faith'. There's no point in denying this, it happens all over the world, to many people, in many different faith contexts. And I suppose that is the point. Christian faith healers certainly seem to be able to heal some medical complaints. But Hindu faith healers also do. And so do some African 'Witchdoctors', and so on.

Is there any evidence that proportionately more faith healings are successful in Christian faith contexts than in those of other religions? If the healing was due to the actions of the one, true God, who is only found in Christianity, then you would expect that you would only find healings in Christian contexts, and not in others. The fact (and I'll admit I haven't done much research on this matter beyond a quick Google search) that faith healings occur in all faith contexts actually serves to underline the non-special nature of Christian faith healing. Or, to put it more bluntly, to emphasise the fact that the apparent healing does not come from any particular God, but rather from 'faith' itself.

Believing that there is a God who can and will heal you is, in many cases, the source of enough hope, or whatever, to effect healing. Which is why claims of faith healing are generally limited to non-visible ailments, from back pain through to cancer. Faith healers cannot make limbs grow back, although, there still is the issue of the leg-lengthening thing, maybe that has more to do with muscle relaxation than bone growth, I don't know.

But what about the non-medical miracles? Has anyone multiplied food miraculously in recent years? Turned water into something alcoholic? Walked on water? Parted seas or rivers? Miraculous catches of fish? People carried up to heaven in fiery chariots? This is a serious question, I want to know if anyone claims these things today. Because if not, then why should we even entertain the notion that any of the biblical miracle claims are anything other than myths?

Miracles today?

Just listened to last week's 'Unbelievable' radio show on Miracles in the bible - did they happen? Tomorrow's show is on Miracles - do they happen today?

I'm thinking these issues through at the moment, and will blog about them in due course. So just out of interest, please leave comments below regarding any miracles - other than medical healings - that have happened to you or those you know.

I know that healings happen today. Its the other stuff I'm unsure about, so please tell me if you know any good stories...

Witness vs demonstration

Further to my earlier post, I have to comment on one aspect of one of the talks from last year's Vineyard Leaders Conference (UK) that I've been listening to. The rather uninspiringly titled "The reformation today: Theology 2" (link to mp3) is one of the best and most challenging talks I've heard in a long time. Highly recommended, even if the audio quality is a bit lacking.

One of the points made in the talk was that when Jesus sent out his disciples (Matt 10, Mark 6, Luke 9) to preach, his instructions were simple:

1. Preach the simple message "the Kingdom of Heaven is near"
2. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, drive out demons
3. If anyone is unwelcoming, simply move on to the next place

At no point in there is the instruction to debate non-believers, or attempt to convince anyone of anything - if people don't want to hear, just move on, leave them alone, someone else will want to hear.

How come nobody seems to view evangelism in those terms today? Some folk seem to go out of their way to try and persuade those who aren't interested about the reality of the gospel.

Oh, hang on, the problem with the 'proclaim and demonstrate' model of witness is that (for the most part) we don't seem to be willing or able to do the 'heal the sick' bit these days. Or rather, it is easier to try to engage with non-believers on an intellectual level, because if they don't believe this is due to some fault in their perception of reality. Whereas if we tried to heal people and nothing happened then it would be our lack of faith, our fault.

Hmmm. Maybe we should be more about demonstration than debate.

“Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words” as St Francis of Assisi once supposedly said.

Somewhere in the light greys...

In the article I posted last week called "The skeptical position and the apparent miracle" I probably gave the impression that I had concluded that the healer guy who came to our church was a fraud.

Let me just state for the record that I did not come to that conclusion. It was one of the possibilities which I considered, but is certainly not the belief that I finally landed on.

At present, and unless further relevant information presents itself, I believe that he was doing what he was doing out of an honest and God-inclined heart. And people were healed.

Of course, I still have questions, and some of those questions are big ones, but it would appear that people have been genuinely healed through this guy, so I'm unable to conclude that he is a fraud. Quite the opposite.

This news story on a BBC web page was one of the factors (see also the YouTube clip below, which the story refers to), and the dramatic improvement in eyesight of someone I know who was prayed for was another.

The clip in itself proves nothing, that sort of visible effect can be faked. But the testimony of the healed person two weeks later (as recorded on the BBC web page and the embedded audio clip) is far more compelling.

There were also testimonies of healing at our church last week. And I hope there will be more. I still haven't heard if either of those folk who had a visible leg inequality before they were prayed for have now got balanced legs or not. Will let you know.

---

Update: The younger of the two folk who had a visible leg inequality (more than 2cm, it was really quite obvious) now has, since being prayed for a week past on Sunday, two legs the same length. Awesome. In all senses of the word.

The 'if' doubts about healing end here.

The 'how', 'why' and 'when' questions continue, as well as the big 'why not's...

What would I have become?

Where do you go when you've lost the keys
When all is dark and you're on your knees?
And in a world where it's love betrays
There is a light that will save the day
Don't go away
What would I have done if it wasn't for Jesus?
What would I have become if it wasn't for Jesus?

"What would I have done" by Delirious?

Following on from my previous post, I found myself questioning what sort of person would become a fake faith healer. And I realised, it could have been me.

What would have I become, if...?

I can't remember if I've ever given my full testimony on this blog, but here's a potted version of it:

I used to be a fake Christian.

From the age of 11 to the week before my 18th Birthday, I appeared (to some observers) to be a Christian, but I wasn't. I spoke Christianese fluently, I could pray in prayer meetings, I could lead bible studies, I could discuss most issues relevant to Christian life, I said the right things, went to the right meetings, read the right books, but I wasn't a Christian.

You see, I was raised in a Christian home, went to church every week, and believed the right stuff. If you'd asked me (aged 10) if I was a Christian, I wouldn't have really understood you. What else was there to be? But then, at an Easter holiday houseparty (run by the organisation that is now 'Action Partners') in 1981 I realised, for the first time, that there was such a thing as 'conversion', and furthermore that I hadn't done it. I realised that Christianity was not about believing certain things, but about making the choice to act on those beliefs. While I did believe that Jesus was the son of God, I had not made the choice to follow Him.

Things came to a head on the second last day of that houseparty. Someone preached an evangelical message and loads of the kids there made the decision to follow Christ.

Now there were quite a few kids who were Christians already, and these kids (in a very mature way for kids ranging in age from 10 to 13) took the new converts back to the dorms and prayed with them. I can't really remember how it happened but I ended up being back at the dorm with two established Christian kids and three who had just made the decision. So I joined in the prayer group. It seemed the thing to do at the time. But obviously, I didn't join as a 'new convert' I was playing the part of the established Christian. And then someone asked me "So when did you become a Christian?" and I made the choice, there and then, to lie. "A couple of years ago" seemed a good answer as nobody there had known me for that long. Furthermore, I made the choice to let that lie stick. I also made (for the first time) the choice not to follow Christ.

From then on I lived a double life. In certain groups (i.e. family, church, SU groups, etc.) I played the part of a Christian, made the right noises and did the right stuff. I did it really well. I was very good at faking Christianity. In other groups, of course, I was a regular secular kid who listened to quite unchristian rock music and traded dubious magazines with his friends. For years it was easy, as the two groups did not overlap at all.

It only really got problematic in my final year at school. The two groups began to have slight overlaps. As the only sixth year in the school Christian group, I was expected to take on the leadership of the group. I managed to avoid that (just) and dumped the responsibility onto one of the 5th years (sorry Ewan). But as the year went on, the 6th years were expected to be involved in all these community events and when church based events came along it got increasingly hard to wriggle out of them, especially as one group of people I knew expected that I would be part of them. Actually, once I had to wriggle so hard to avoid doing a reading at a 'World day of prayer' meeting that a rumour was started that I was a satanist!

So, 6th year was crunch time and over the course of the year I realised that I had to make my choice and just be one thing or the other. It was an impossible choice, but I had to make it. And eventually I did. But the reasons I made the choice for Christ will have to come in another post.

The point here is that I was a fake Christian for 6 years. And played the part very convincingly.

But, I was a fake Christian in a very conservative evangelical setting. Raising hands in worship was frowned on. Nobody talked about healings, miracles or the like happening today. That was all considered as being in the past. Biblical teaching, right living and prayer. That was all that it was about.

But. What would I have become, as a fake Christian, if I'd been in a church where people raised hands in worship, spoke in tongues, prayed for healings, expected miracles, and the like?

I'll tell you. Because I know. I would have been very good at faking all that too. Fake speaking in tongues would have been easy. Fake praying for others? No problem.

And I'm reasonably sure I'd have been able to fake some 'miracles' like the leg lengthening trick.

If I could have done it, I know that others could have. And do. And are perpetuating fake Christianity right now.

There are fakes out there who are leaders in the church. There are fakes who are well known preachers, there are fakes who are pastors of big churches and there are fakes doing the rounds as healers.

Occasionally one of the big, high profile televangelist fakes is found out, but they're just the tip of the iceberg.

The thing is, even though I (as a former fake) am generally quite good at spotting other fakes, there is no real way of knowing. You can't always separate the sheep from the goats.

Oh, and just as an aside, there are also people who are or were genuine Christians but who 'backslide' in their faith whilst still maintaining a 'sound' mask. But I'm not talking about them here. I'm talking about those who have never made the choice for Christ and simply play the part of being a Christian, probably - like me - initially for the sake of an easy life, but who then keep it up for personal gain, as an ego-boost, or for other self-centred reasons.

If there are any Christians reading this who have slipped internally, while still maintaining the facade of a good Christian, I recommend you read "Buck Naked Faith" by Eric Sandras - because he was just like you...

The skeptical position and the apparent miracle

I've been meaning to state my skeptical position on this blog for a couple of weeks now, but hadn't found the time to write it down before I was overtaken by events yesterday, and now feel I have to comment on what I saw yesterday, but prefix it with a brief statement of my position.

The Skeptical Position

I've noticed in a few discussions online and in the real world recently, that the idea of taking a 'skeptical' position on an issue is frequently perceived as meaning taking a 'non-believing' stance. But this is not the case.

Suppose that something 'miraculous' happens, or appears to happen. The 'believer' will tend, by default, to see it as an act of God and will dismiss other theories. The 'non-believer' will tend, by default, to see it as a fake and will dismiss all possibility of 'supernatural' activities. One side sees the event as white, the other sees it as black. The true skeptic, however, must remain open to the possibility that either side could be true, or even that there are more possibilities out there. The skeptic should remain agnostic on the issue unless there is good evidence (not necessarily proof) to support one hypothesis over the other(s). The skeptic, therefore, sees the issue not as black or white, but only in shades of grey.

This is where I often find myself. For example, in the discussion on miracles which went on last week [here and here on my blog, and here on Chris's], I find myself stuck in the grey area in between two opinions [within the church!], that of:

1. The Meeting House: "big, obvious miracles and healings, of the kind performed by (or through) the Apostles in the book of Acts, are not possible today." [my paraphrase]
   
2. The 'Modern Evangelical' View: "God has not run out of "miracle-juice", nor has it become watered down over the millennia. He is the same awesome miracle working God today that he was two-thousand years' ago." [quote from Chris's blog]

The grey area I find myself in is that I can see no reason (biblical or otherwise) why opinion 1 should be the case, but I see little or no evidence to support opinion 2. So I remain skeptical of claims of healing, but open minded.

That is my position. Now my experience and observations from yesterday...

"Healing on the streets"

Our church (that's the Almond Vineyard in Edinburgh) were host to a couple of visitors from the Causeway Coast Vineyard in Northern Ireland this weekend. Both have been involved in their 'Healing on the streets' initiative, one of them started the initiative in 2005. Basically, a team from their church goes out onto the high street in their town -every Saturday- and offers prayer for healing to anyone who wants. They say the public response has become quite favourable and the claim to have seen quite a number of people being healed of various ailments.

Now while I am skeptical (as in open minded, but unsure) about what can be achieved through prayer for healing in this way, I am convinced that - at the very least - people can sometimes experience relief from pain, reduction of symptoms and occasional remission through this activity. A few folk from our church are involved in this kind of ministry in Edinburgh on a semi-regular basis, and I support them in this. It is a good thing. I haven't been brave enough to participate yet, but I might in the future.

So, the guy from 'Healing on the streets' preached at our church yesterday, spoke a bit about his experience 'on the streets' and in the church in Northern Ireland, and then offered to pray for healing for people. Several people were ministered to and prayed for. He specifically called for anyone who has 'one leg longer than the other' to come for prayer, and invited 'anyone who wanted to see a miraculous healing' to gather round and watch. I watched. Something appeared to happen.

This left me inclining toward the lighter greys, I have to say. It was convincing.

But then, when the next two people who came for healing, claiming back pain, appeared to also have one leg slightly longer than the other, my inner skeptic alarm bells started ringing. Having one leg longer than the other is not particularly common. If you counted the number of people who apparently had this complaint at church yesterday, it would appear to be about 5-10% of the gathering, but most of them were unaware of this 'complaint' before the healer identified it.

And I began to remember hearing someone talk about 'debunking' a 'leg lengthening miracle' before. The skeptical needle began to incline towards the darker greys.

The 'Leg Lengthening' Scam

Later on I Googled it and was reminded that it was (professional magician and paranormal fraudster debunker) James Randi who I'd heard talking about it. He even discussed the 'scam' at length in his book "The Faith Healers" back in the 1980s.

If done well, the person being 'healed', as well as the audience, are completely unaware of the scam. The trick is, when getting the patient seated and settled, to gently pull the heel of the shoe on the 'longer' leg. Now, when the audience is gathered around, they will clearly see a small difference in the relative positions of the person's two heels. As the healing takes place, the focus of the interest of the audience (and the patient) is on the 'short' leg, so they're not looking at the foot on the long leg as the healer slowly slides the shoe back to its original place, making the 'short' leg apparently grow relative to the long leg.

That is the scam. I'm still not sure if that's what I saw yesterday, but I'm inclining toward believing that that is what was going on.

Its interesting that in all cases, the 'short' leg was made to grow, the 'long' leg was never made to shrink. That would be a harder one to pull off...

What I now find myself wondering is whether it is possible for an entirely genuine person to have stumbled onto a 'technique' which seems to work for people during prayer ministry and remaining entirely unaware that they are perpetuating a fraud. Or is it always a deliberate fraud? In other words, was the guy misguided or a charlatan?

I really don't want to believe the latter, as the guy appreared to be a nice enough guy. And he works in a Church full of good people. But, of course, a good con-artist will never appear to be a con-artist.

There is one way of possible verification, of course. Someone was there yesterday who I know has one leg a bit shorter than the other. She was prayed for by the guy. If her leg did get longer, I'll have to stop being so skeptical. I'll be keeping my eyes open...

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Due to inexplicable spam on this post, no further comments are being allowed.

Apostolic authority...

Hmmm. In my former post, Theophilus, I wrote about an issue I have with the current teaching from The Meeting House in Canada.

I don't go to that church, I'm on the wrong continent, but ever since I discovered them, over a year ago, I've been really impressed with their teaching, their theology and their overall view of Christian life, the universe and everything. If I lived in Canada I'd certainly have tried going there a few times.

So I'm slightly miffed that they have been emphasising a point recently that I'm not totally in agreement with. Although, having said that, I've still not made up my mind on this issue one way or the other...

Last week's sermon touched on the same points as the previous ones, but went one step further, or actually, two steps further.

The points are:

• There is a difference between miracles and healings carried out by the Apostles in the book of Acts from what is possible for believers today.
• Apostolic miracles were immediate, dramatic and unambiguous. Miracles & healings today are, at best, ambiguous and leave plenty of room for skeptics to remain skeptical.
• The Apostles were those who were directly commissioned by Jesus, there have been no further apostles since the first generation died out.

Chris has pointed out that even Jesus's miracles were sometimes ambiguous and that some were skeptical of those miracles.

I doubted about what Jesus said about future generations of followers doing 'greater things' than him.

Obviously this came up in the house groups at the Meeting House as this was raised in last week's sermon. The two new points raised by the Meeting House are:

1. Looking back over history, there is no evidence of successive generations of Christians doing 'greater' miracles than Jesus did. So either Jesus was lying (which we assume he wasn't) or he didn't mean 'greater' in that sense. Maybe he meant 'greater' in the quantitative sense? More believers = far, far more miracles and healings than one man, even the Son of Man, could have done.
2. What the Apostles had, which we don't have, is authority. They could command a healing or a miracle, we can only ask.

I'm really not sure about point 2!

In 'the great commission' Jesus asserts that he is the one with the authority. He didn't pass it on, he retained it, so that all of the folk who carried out the commission - on his behalf - would be people under authority. If we're still carrying out the same commission, we have the same access to authority as the first generation of disciples did! Sometimes I think we don't see the working of the authority, because we haven't been brave enough to behave like commissioned people.

Having said that, I suspect their reasoning in point 1 is fairly good. We haven't seen Christians doing 'greater' things than Jesus (healing blind, walking on water, raising dead, turning water into wine), indeed we rarely hear of things of that level of greatness and I (for one) am pretty skeptical of some of the semi-great stories I hear.

But the doubting goes on... I still need to wrestle with this a bit longer...

The Apostolic Miracle

I've been listening to the current sermon series on Acts from the Meeting House. One of the points they've made a couple of times so far in the series is that there is a difference between the miracles and healings that the 1st generation apostles performed, from anything that has been or is possible for subsequent generations of believers since the first century.

They assert that the healings and miracles of the first Apostles were clear and unambiguous - everyone, even sceptics, could not deny that a miraculous event had occurred. For example, the healing of the cripple at the gates of the temple in Acts 3. Even the Sanhedrin could not deny that the cripple had been healed.

However, they go further and assert that this is not possible today. They state that such 'healings' and 'miracles' which apparently occur today tend to be ambiguous, with the sceptics left with plenty of room not to believe them at all.

I'm guessing that this is a derived theology, I can't see this teaching in the bible. But I can see where it could come from - big obvious miracles happened back then, smaller, less obvious 'miracles' (if any) seem to happen these days. Anyone got any insight here?

I also guess that they don't believe in apostolic succession. That is, that after the first generation of Apostles, there were no further apostles.

The thing is, from observation of the way the world appears to be, this seems like perfectly sensible reasoning to me. But its not the way I want the world to be. I want it to be possible for the big miracles still to happen. I want apostles to be walking among us.

Discuss.

How to Get Rich as a Televangelist or Faith Healer

I heard the author of this book interviewed on the Infidel Guy show a couple of months back. It was reasonably interesting, so I thought I'd buy and read the book.

Its a short book. You could probably read it in a single sitting if you had a few spare hours. It is also reasonably interesting and informative, even if it does have a few annoying characteristics, which I'll get to in a mo.

However, its not a particularly uplifting or affirming read (as you might have guessed) and is downright depressing at several points.

The author of the book is clearly a disgruntled guy who got taken in by some religious con artist a couple of decades ago. He presents himself as a once gullible, evangelical Christian, but doesn't really say what his beliefs are now, which is a big hindrance to fully understanding where the book is coming from.

Even having finished the book, I'm not sure if the author's main point is:

1. "All successful Christian leaders are charlatans and just out to make money out of your gullibility; there is no God really...", or
2. "These are the techniques the bad guys use to lead good Christians astray, watch out for them and keep following the good guys..."

I suspect the author's intent is actually somewhere between the two, while this is not stated in the book, I suspect the author was raised in a fairly fundamentalist church, had a bad experience or two and now is an agnostic or an atheist.

So anyway, the book is presented as a 'how to' guide, but is really more of a guide through some of the more colourful pseudo-Christian con-men (and women) of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

The book presents all of these characters as being corrupt and charlatans from the outset, whereas in some cases I have sometimes wondered whether some of these people started out with the right intentions and gave in to the temptations that their positions afforded, ending up being out for their own gain, but possibly starting off with a gospel agenda. I mean, some are clearly con-artists at the start, but maybe not all of them. Or maybe I'm being too naive.

I recently blogged about the Lakeland 'outpouring' and Todd Bentley. Given that this book was written last year, it never mentions Todd, but it is amazing just how much of a fit there is between the 'instructions' given in the book and the things that seem to have happened at Lakeland. A few good Christian people have told me good things about their experiences with the Lakeland thing, but I must admit that I am still agnostic on this one. I'm considering 'revisiting' Lakeland in another post soon...

So, you're probably wondering how to go about getting rich as a televangelist or faith healer. Well, there's a few easy steps to follow. These are:

1. Get some form of credentials, but not from a prestigious institution. Some small bible college that nobody has ever heard of is good. There are several online ones that will ordain you for cash. These are fine.
2. Present yourself as the mediator between God and man. Yes, the bible presents Jesus as the only mediator, but you need to present yourself as the mediator between the people and Jesus, who then mediates between you and God.
   
3. Build your mailing list. It is reasonably easy to persuade people to part with $1 or other small amounts of cash, but to make money this way you need a big mailing list.
4. Target Christians from specific denominations only. You'll get nowhere going for folk from the big denominations like the Anglicans and the Presbyterians, but rather target folk from the smaller denominations with names like "Full Spirit Assemblies of the Family of God"...
   
5. Preach the 'prosperity gospel' and look the part - your 'flock' will expect you to have a big car, a big house, expensive suits, expensive jewelry, etc.
   
6. If you're balding, wear a wig. Its all about image.
7. Learn some bible verses and quote them often, but be careful which ones you use.
8. Avoid actually preaching about what the bible says about Jesus - I mean, he doesn't exactly promote the prosperity gospel, does he? He loved the poor and saw riches as a hindrance to getting to heaven. What you need is 'Diet Jesus'...
9. Demonise your opponents. Anyone who says anything against you must be in the control of Satan.
   
10. Speak in tongues. Any random string of syllables will do.
11. Be careful who you attempt to 'heal'. You're not gong to be able to heal amputees. Bring people onto the stage in wheelchairs, but only those who are capable of walking. Only heal non-visible illnesses, cancer is good, etc.

There is other advice, but you get the idea.

The thing is, you come away from reading this book wondering if there are any genuine or honorable 'televangelists' out there. Are any of them serving the gospel or are they all con men?

There probably is an answer to that, but not in this book.

So, all in all, this is an eye-opening read but is probably not recommended for anyone as it will make Christians less sure of their own church leaders, and will give non-Christians a skewed view of honest preachers and genuine healers (if such people do exist).

Healing outpouring: Lakeland Florida and Broxburn Scotland...

[this is going to be a long post, sorry]

Have you heard about the 'revival' that is going on in Florida at the moment?

Neither had I until the Sunday before last, when the pastor in our church preached a whole sermon about it (which you can download here, if you want). The basic message of the sermon was: God appears to be working though these people; people are being healed; but they do things differently from the way we would do them; but if God is working through these people, who are we to judge them...?

The thing was, the preacher didn't go into detail about what they were doing that was different, or even what was happening, so I was a bit confused. So I had to go and read up on what is happening.

It seems that a few months back, a preacher called Todd Bentley (of 'Fresh Fire' ministries in Canada) was invited to speak for a few nights at a church in Lakeland, Florida. It was just a routine thing. But a few nights into the run, stuff started happening, so the team stayed a bit longer. And the stuff kept happening and getting bigger and bigger. Within a couple of weeks the church they were meeting in (on a nightly basis) was overflowing and they moved into a stadium (yes, a stadium!) down the road - which they managed to fill on a nightly basis. You can watch all this - every night - on God TV (on Sky or online at www.god.tv).

What stuff? Well, people were claiming being healed in remarkable ways. And (unusually) people were being healed in the streets of Lakeland during the day, not merely in the meetings in the evenings. They (the Fresh Fire folk) say that they have been given an anointing which is highly transferable - in other words, they heal you one night, you can then go on and heal someone else the next day, they can go on... and so on.

And now, as is often the case with such 'revival' type happenings (although the Fresh Fire folk have stopped calling this a 'revival' as revivals come and then go, but they think this current season is here to stay) various members from the Fresh Fire team have started going out into other parts of the world to share the blessing. And some of them have come to a place only a few miles from my home. And I went to a meeting last night...

But before I tell you about that, I have to tell you about my take on the Florida stuff.

-Todd Bentley in Florida-

Last week I listened to a downloaded podcast of one of Todd Bentley's sermons from Lakeland. It was quite an ordeal. I have now heard the words 'anointing' and 'impartation' enough times to last a lifetime. Also, Todd Bentley has one of those voices that sounds like he should be voicing a comedy character in an animated movie - not quite like, but with similarities to the voice of Pumba in The Lion King. And he went on and on and on and on making the same point over and over and over again. But there was nothing fundamentally flawed with the message, it was just delivered in a manner that I don't relate to. Very Pentecostal. However, there was nothing astoundingly new or original in the sermon I listened to.

I've also watched clips of the healing services, etc., on YouTube and - to my untrained eye - it all just looks like exactly the same sort of stuff we've seen for years with the likes of Benny Hinn at the front [note: due to many things I have seen and heard, I am quite skeptical of Benny Hinn's alleged healings]. Indeed, I've read some reports who compare Todd Bentley to Benny Hinn. So we see people coming to the front at meetings, being prayed for, some falling over, some not, a few people shaking, some weirder manifestations, and so on.

But for all my skepticism, it would appear that some people are genuinely being healed. On one YouTube video clip, there was someone with x-rays of a broken arm (taken before the meeting) and an unbroken arm (after the meeting). Sure that could be faked, but it would have to be deliberate false witness, not merely being carried along by emotionally driven belief (which is what I believe most of the 'false healings' to be). Certainly, I can see no evidence that any of the Fresh Fire team are doing this as a show or for personal gain. They seem to believe it, they seem to think that this is the way that God is healing people through them, and lives do seem to be being transformed. Of course, we'll have to wait a while to see if there are lasting benefits, but I'm prepared to believe that (at least) some of what is going on is the hand of God at work.

[As a quick aside, way back in 1994 when the 'Toronto Blessing' stuff was happening, a team from Toronto came to Edinburgh and I went along to some of the meetings. There I saw weird stuff, fake stuff, genuine stuff and found myself doing 'carpet time' in a church for the first time in my life. There followed a spate of other 'Toronto-esque' meetings in various churches, some of which I was at. One in particular was truly awful, the preacher (an American whose name I thankfully can't remember) was a smug, egotistical, control freak who quite definitely was simply pushing people over at the front - so much of what was happening was clearly fake, entirely due to emotional manipulation and certainly not due to God. And then I saw a preacher who I respected more than most - one of the most practically holy people I know - rolling about on the floor in laughter making miscellaneous animal noises. Having known this man for several years, I know that he would not be taken in by the hype or the emotional stuff, but would only go under the influence of the Spirit. So despite all the nonsense that was going on in that place, Jesus lived up to his word "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them" (Matt 18v20), but on that occasion I suspect it was in spite of what was going on at the front, not because of it. And I must say that the man I respect fell under the influence of the Spirit very early in that meeting and was completely oblivious to what was going on at the front - I like to think God took him aside to spare him from having to listen to all the nonsense.] But anyway...

- Craig Kinsley in Broxburn -

One of Todd Bentley's associates, Craig Kinsley, who was at the original meetings in Lakeland, has come over from the USA (with his wife Lori) to Scotland, essentially to bring the anointing with him and pass it on to folks here. They're having meetings in Broxburn Academy every night between now and Sunday - hosted by New Life Christian Fellowship. I went last night to the first meeting he was speaking at (Craig is the second speaker from Fresh Fire to come to Broxburn, someone else came a few weeks ago and another speaker is coming in a few weeks time...).

I know I have a tendency to err on the side of critical skepticism (as all three of you, my regular readers, will have noticed by now), but I'll try to rein in my skepticism here, because I really did want to go into this with an open mind. Was God there? Was he going to do stuff? Or was it all just hype?

The meeting allegedly started at 7:30, but it was fully 8pm before things got going. We were meeting in the assembly hall of Broxburn Academy - which is a fairly drab rectangular space with no particular artistic merit and certainly no 'atmosphere'. After a short welcome by someone from NLCF, we went into a time of worship - mostly songs I knew. Starting with 'Days of Elijah' and 'The battle belongs to the Lord' (haven't sung that for a few years) and a few other - stereotypically pentecostal - songs declaring the triumph of Jesus and the defeat of the devil, before lapsing into songs of longing, 'Rain Down', 'Sweet mercies' and the like [Marcus, I kept on expecting the keyboard player to sneak the 'Hill Street Blues' theme in during 'Sweet Mercies' like you used to do, and was disappointed that he didn't...]. The band were generally quite good and refreshingly down to earth, but they did labour each song a bit too much and over-syruped a few of them. I have never sung 'To be in your presence' quite as slowly as we did last night. Every line took about a minute. The band was clearly just the regular band from Broxburn, not an imported professional bunch, but they did a good job. The worship leader was great on the keyboards but didn't have the greatest singing voice. The drummer and bass player did their jobs perfectly (i.e. made good music, but you hardly noticed they were there) and the two other vocalists were good, but oddly positioned at the opposite side of the stage from everyone else. The musical highlight was when one of the vocalists (the bloke) started playing his trumpet brilliantly. Trumpets in worship can be horrible grating things, but this was really smooth and soulful. And I'll not pass comment on the time he played the panpies during one song (only one though, phew). The worship was fine, but went on for well over an hour - which was too long.

However. In addition to the five members of the 'worship team' on stage, there were four other folk with 'woship team' badges on. These folk spent most of the hour waving huge flags about in front of the stage, often obscuring the words on the screen - just as well I knew most of the songs. I have nothing against flags in worship... no, actually, strike that... I do have something against flags in worship, but can tolerate them if they're used sparingly and discretely. If you must have flags, have them at the side or (preferably) at the back. Not in front of the screen. What was going on at the front with the flags (and also with sticks with no flags, which was even weirder) was not worship, it was performance, and a distracting performance at that. At least there was no interpretive dance.

So the worship was an OK, but overlong experience with dull moments and annoying flag waving. This was followed by a short "say hello to the person behind you" (who turned out to be someone I know) break and an uplift of the offering. In big buckets. And the guy at the front kept emphasising that we should be generous, God loves a cheerful giver, who cheques should be made out to, and that they were tithing the offering and sending 10% to Fresh Fire in Florida. Which he said far too many times and every time he said it I heard it as "we're keeping 90% of this for ourselves" - there were only about 300 folk there last night, in the previous run of meetings they had up to 1200 people a night. They must have raked in -literally- buckets of money. I passed the bucket without putting anything in.

Then Craig Kinsley took the mic and started speaking. Having listened to the Todd Bentley sermon I was expecting the worst, but Craig was a reasonably engaging speaker with no annoying quirks, no repetition, no comedy accent, etc. Phew.

He started by giving his testimony (which you can read on his website if you want), basically he was raised in a fairly dead church, went off the rails, did drugs, came back to God, went to the Pensacola revival and had a serious vision, which turned him around and set him off on the track of ministry. All fine so far. Then he said he was going to preach prophetically (slight warning bells) and spoke at length about what is happening in Lakeland and what he believes will happen worldwide in the Church in the next few years - actually he didn't put a timescale on it and acknowledged that he wasn't sure if it will happen in his lifetime. But he believes that the end is nigh and the second coming will happen 'soon' [note that, of course, Jesus himself had no idea when the second coming would occur and - as Tony Campolo once said - the only people who do know when the second coming will be are tele-evangelists]. But before the end we will see Churches meeting in stadia, whole cities turning to Christ and whole nations being transformed. It was a great, motivational, message. Nothing I hadn't heard before, but nothing terrible. Hope (as I have said before) is a very good thing indeed. But the thing that struck me about this message was that it was remarkably unremarkable. For all the hype, there was really nothing outstanding about it, it was just a bloke (albeit one who claims to have had angelic visitations and actually seen Jesus in a vision) telling his (believable) story and describing his hopes for the future - which he calls prophesy. Along the way he did dip into the bible a few times (Malachi 4 and Hebrews 11) and made some reasonable points about faith, life and healing. But he did speak for the best part of 80 minutes, which was way too long.

Then we got to the ministry time. I had arrived at 7:20, worship was about 7:55 to after 9pm, Craig spoke until about 10:30 or so. It was already late and I knew this could go on for hours yet. What I really wanted now was to see the stuff, perhaps be prayed for myself (still undecided), and then go home before midnight, knowing that I would likely be woken twice in the night by my young son (1:55-2:10 and 6:05-6:20 it turned out to be, with daughters finally waking me for good at 7:05).

Early on in the night I had a bit of an internal discussion with God regarding why I was there. Two things are worthy of note. One was that I noticed a lady a couple of rows in front of me with badly arthritic hands - very swollen joints, at unusual angles, and I thought 'if I see her hands healed, I'll know this is real'. The other thing was that I made an unusual request of God - and I don't know where this came from - but I asked to see the tongues of fire... Anyway, that was earlier.

When it came to the ministry time, Craig called out for a few specific groups to go forward for healing. The very first group he called forwards was those with arthritis, and the lady in front of me went forward. He also called for those with chronic diseases, things the doctors had never got figured out and a few other specific things. Maybe about 80-100 folk went forward. Much to my annoyance, he didn't call forward anyone suffering from migraine. If he'd specifically called for that, I'd have gone forward. But I didn't really fall into any of the categories of folk he called out. So the folk who went to the front lined up in two rows and Craig wend from one, to the next, to the next, and blessed them, generally spending not much time with each. For most of them he seemed to hold their head in both hands, say a few words (he had the mic off at this point, so I have no idea what he said) and then do a little jerky thing with his hands just before letting go and moving on to the next. Perhaps about half of the people fell into the arms of catchers and were lowered to the floor. With a small minority, however, he held them in different ways and spent longer praying with them. However, he managed to get through all of the folk at the front in only a few minutes. He then turned his attention to those who hadn't gone forward and commanded blessing - of various types- on us. He told folk to put their hand on wherever they needed healing (I placed a hand on my head) and commanded healing for those people. He did mention back pains and migraine specifically there (but that was after he had told us to put hands on the places in need of healing). He then called a few of the folk who had been at the front and had returned to their chairs to come forward and testify. An old lady with hip problems reported that the pain had gone and she could waggle her hips, a younger lady with problems following a shoulder breakage reported that her arm was all tingly as if something was happening.

And then it was 11pm and the folks I was with decided to go. I decided to leave too.

I hadn't seen the tongues of fire. And I hadn't specifically seen the hands of the arthritic lady. But I kind of feel that I did see her healed. Remember, the original doubting Thomas thought he needed to place his hand in Jesus's side before he would believe, but actually needed less evidence than that...

Those are my thoughts at the moment, I may have further reflections as time goes on, but that's more than enough for now. Thanks for reading this far down the page, now please comment.

Oh me of little faith...

Remember this post about 'Healing'?

Or this one about 'Healing (again)'?

Well, I'm not done with the subject yet! But maybe I'm a bit less skeptical this time...

A couple of weeks ago, on Wednesday, I woke up with a pain in my left shoulder. It worsened through the day. By the evening I couldn't pick up my three year old daughter or even look over my shoulder in the car without wincing. On Thursday it was much the same - couldn't look over my shoulder, couldn't pick things up without pain. Don't get me wrong here, it wasn't debilitating pain, just very inconvenient.

Thursday evening was the housegroup meeting. So I asked them to pray for healing. They did and nothing happened... immediately. Friday morning, however, my shoulder was a bit better. By Friday lunchtime it was totally back to normal.

Aaaargh! So I've experienced healing of a totally unverifiable ailment! How annoying is that for a skeptic?

Thank you Jesus!

I guess I get a bit of humility as well as healing here.

But its not all unverifiable. There was a lady at church yesterday who'd just been healed of something much more verifiable. She had been suffering with kidney stones and had had all the scans, etc., which had identified 'many' stones in her kidney. They were giving her a lot of pain. A few weeks ago, the pastor of the church had a specific 'word' for someone with a pain in their lower left back (I was there and remember him saying this). The lady went for prayer ministry at the end of the service. Following this, her pain went, and when she went back for more scans at the hospital and they found that there was only one stone left, which was much more manageable. They did whatever procedure it is they do to break down kidney stones. The nurse warned her that the procedure was going to be extremely painful... it wasn't. Indeed the nurse had never seen anyone suffer so little during the procedure. The next scan revealed that the stone was gone totally.

Healings do happen. I've experienced a minor one and met someone with a more major one.

So my questions now shift to the 'how', 'why' and 'when' questions, and I'll leave the 'if' question behind. I guess its a little step in the right direction.

Healing (again)

I've blogged about healing before, but it came up again in our housegroup last night...

Its a new housegroup, and I don't know the folk in it that well, so I didn't throw all my doubts about healing into the discussion, but I did observe that I have never actually seen anyone healed of anything more serious than a headache or a sore back (Yes David, I know that certain sore backs are a major thing, but bear with me).

Several of the others in the group claimed healing and recounted their stories. And before you make assumptions about me here, let me state that I totally believed all their stories.

But while one of the stories related to a potentially life-threatening condition being healed, in every case the illnesses or conditions that were healed were all completely unverifiable by medical science. In the serious case, the doctors weren't really sure what was wrong and thus were surprised when things improved rapidly, but still didn't know what was wrong. In all of the other stories the healing involved things that are known to just clear up by themselves, although it has to be said that major coincidences were going on there if God wasn't involved.

But I still came away from the meeting with no greater faith in healing than before. Apparently God heals sometimes and sometimes does not. But some conditions clear up spontaneously even when nobody is praying. The skeptical side of my brain says 'what if its mostly psychological?' - perhaps the benefit of 'praying' for healing has no supernatural effect but does have some physical or psychological effect which simply works.

Perhaps this is why we see frequent healing of aches and headaches, etc. but not frequent healing of cancer or broken bones or (as the atheist website has it) amputated limbs.

But you see, the problem I face here is major. For I believe that it is God who heals the minor things, the tennis elbow, the headaches, the back aches, the intestinal difficulties. But when I don't see the serious illnesses being healed, the question I find myself asking is not 'Why doesn't God heal these?' but rather 'What if God is unable to heal these?'

As doubts go, that one is pretty major.