Heart of the Matter: Faith Healing
Live from the Mecca of Mormonism, Salt Lake City, Utah, this is Heart of the Matter, where . . . Biblical Christianity meets American Evangelicalism Face to Face . . . Show 6 Fundamentalist Faith Healing April 9th 2013 1st Show at The Factory
And I’m Shawn McCraney, your host. We PRAISE the true and living God for allowing us to be a part of this ministry and pray He will be with you and me tonight.
Well here we are on our net set located right here in the heart of the Mecca of Mormonism! This location is serving the Lord God Almighty in a number of capacities – first, it’s a studio where we broadcast Heart of the Matter. We also hope “The Factory,” as we are lovingly calling it because it is a place where we hope to manufacture Faith Hope and Love, will be used by other Christian churches, and believers who are looking to create their own Christian programs in the future as we are loaded with state of the art equipment to produce the best quality Christian programming around. Then finally, we are going to be meeting here in the Factory, beginning April 21st for our weekly CAMPUS Gatherings where we study the word verse by verse at 10 am and then again at two thirty. The Factory is located at 137 West 4640 East in Salt Lake City, Utah. Give us a call if you would like to schedule a time to come by.
Recent Changes in LDS Practices
Well it seems like the last LDS conference held here in Utah last weekend was a historical event. How so? For the first time in the history of the Mormon faith general conference a woman offered a public prayer – the benediction, as it were. The Salt Lake Tribune headlined the following day with one word: Amen. This is why I detest organized religion. Their ways and rules and systems and traditions – which are all enforced in the name of God over the years, and then discarded, all of a sudden, and justified, AGAIN, in the name of God. And there is not a more masterful group doing this than the LDS.
We’ve had polygamy, polygyny, polyandry, blood atonement, Adam being God, full body garments, black people not being allowed in their temples, throat slitting temple enactments, and no woman praying in General Conference –which were ALL said to be mandated and ordained by God Himself . . . which have all changed . . . literally, from one day to the next. When I was a faithful Mormon I was literally one day a member of a church that did not allow black people into their temple to receive the rites for exaltation (because of all sorts of prejudicial reasons) and the next day they were allowed entrance . . . because God said so. And all the Mormons were so happy that God moved in this way, after a hundred and forty years of prejudice, God was letting black people in His temple! So now, last week, they have actually allowed a woman to pray, after 183 years of General Conferences! And all the faithful LDS rejoice. The byline in the article quotes the woman who actually said the prayer as saying: “I wanted my children to know that the church hears the voices of women, and that God does, too.” I got news for you lady, God has always heard the voices of women, and children, and black folk, and your church does NOTHING but place itself in between Him and those who have complete access to Him . . . in and through His Son.
Exploring Faith Healing
Tonight we are going to talk about Faith Healing, which, in some areas of Christian fundamentalism it is part of their overall worship and in others it runs rampant and ridiculously out of control. Since we have embarked on this year of exposing American Evangelical Christianity the responses that I have personally encountered have been dumbfounding – even from dear friends whom I love. There seems to be this push to hurry up and get through these subjects so as to ease up on the church today. One brother said the other day that all I needed to do to cover Faith Healing was show a clip of Benny Hinn touching one person and watching dozens fall over like dominos and the message.
Understanding Healing and Faith
I would like to become so pollyanish in my outlook but unfortunately, this advice ignores the fact that MILLIONS of believers actually participate and watch video clips like those of Benny Hinn and are impressed… even persuaded that faith healing performances are real and of God. Now, I want to begin with a disclaimer – I believe that God heals all people. In fact, I lay all healings – from the common cold and hang nails to cancer and death – at His feet. I believe when people are cured or healed by medical professionals it is an act of God, who gave these professionals the minds, skills, and information to do what they do. I do not believe modern science can help or cure anyone who God wants to die nor do I think modern science is a substitute for God – just an extension of Him and His love for us.
I believe that prayer can serve to help – how it works I am not even going to begin to guess. But we are commanded to pray for the sick, so we pray for them. I also believe that there are evidences of divine miracles which stand outside of modern medicine relative to healing but, as I said, do not think the miracle of a blind man receiving sight through divine intervention is one bit more miraculous than a person beating cancer using chemotherapy because they are ALL the work of God.
Faith and Healing
Is faith required for a person to be healed? No. Atheists are healed of issues as often as believers and the Bible is full of instances where people are healed who evidence no faith at all. Can or will faith override the sovereign will of God? In other words, will a person overcome an ailment and live because they have faith when God would otherwise have them die? Never. Listen – everything falls under the will of God and we pray, and have faith – LISTEN – Christians pray and have faith so we have the strength to accept and receive the will of God joyfully NOT and NOT to have our will done here on earth. In other words, if I get sick, my prayer, as a believer and follower of God in faith, is that His will is done and that I and my family can accept it. If I live, we rejoice in His healing, if I die, we rejoice in His wisdom. And I would never be so arrogant to assume that I am in control of the situation and that I am in possession of the POWER to heal my own ailments – the only power I have comes from on high to believe and trust… in Him.
I guess the best way to summarize all the above would be that there is a huge difference between divine healing (which Christians firmly embrace) and faith healing – which is a construct of Christian fundamentalism… which I reject. Before I say why, there are several major points to understanding healing and faith as described in the Bible. All of them need to be understood contextually or they can and will be used by religious charlatans to their benefit.
The Duty of Prayer
First, we ARE commanded to pray in faith for the healing of others. It is a Christian duty, if you will. James 5:14-15, "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up;" The command to pray in faith is plain here and I think in the company of all scripture we can liken it to parenting. When responsible people decide to become parents there are some universal “things” to which they tacitly agree (or ought to agree) to do for their children. We sort of agree to love them, which translates to feeding and clothing and giving them a place to live. We decide to spend time with them, speak with them, teach them to also be responsible, and to correct them when they go astray. We also agree to serve them in reasonable ways, to help nurture them up. But here’s the relevant part – doing these things does NOT guarantee that our children will “turn out right.” They have a will of their own.
The Nature of Prayers of Faith
Raised really well by dutiful parents may “go south” in spite of their parents' devout love and attentions. Nevertheless, good and responsible parents fulfill their parental responsibilities regardless of the outcome. So it is with prayers of faith. Christians have the responsibility to pray for those who are sick among them. We do not offer up prayers of faith for any other reasons than we have been commanded to offer them up. If the recipient is healed, PRAISE GOD – we have been responsive to His command and He has chosen to step in and act. But if the person dies, we praise God too, knowing we did our part . . . and He did His. To think that the command to pray and anoint the sick is a guarantee that a person will revive is like a parent who thinks if they do everything right their child will grow up and do everything right too.
This is NOT how prayers of faith (or how parenting works, either). People are not healed or not healed because of our efforts. We pray in faith trusting in the Lord and His will . . . and not our own. If we pray in faith and the person prayed for worsens or dies, it is NOT because our faith was lacking, it is because God had other plans and He is in charge. To state otherwise is to suggest that we are in command – and it is a step toward man-worship or spiritual humanism. But it also traps or imprisons a person with bars made of steely guilt. This is a lie.
Context of Biblical Healings
Another thing we have to include relative to biblical healings is context. First, let’s look at who Jesus was giving instruction when He talked about faith and healings – his twelve, special witnesses specially trained for an extra special assignment. To read the words He gives them is like reading the training manual for the Navy Seals and expecting every citizen to behave in the same manner. This would be wrong on a number of levels, including no authority to act like a Navy Seal nor ability to appropriately administer the power they possess. In Matthew 21:22 it reads Jesus saying to the twelve, "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." Remember, He was training His disciples to carry His message of salvation to the Jews. They had a specific mission for a specific period of time.
Early Church Miracles
It was one thing for them when they went out to share Him with the world, “I am an apostle of Jesus Christ and I have actually seen His as a resurrected being,” but it was quite another thing to testify of these things and then, IN HIS NAME, perform miracles which would fuel the early church. Remember, the early church did NOT have the word of God (they were in the process of producing it for us) – so all they had to prove their claims was the power to perform miracles in His name which would assist in converting those around them to belief in this New Covenant King. We now have the written word of God to sustain us in our belief. It’s not that healings are done away with, but the ones Jesus gave His specific apostles power to have has been replaced with the fortifying power and reassurance of His written Word. That is the context of early church healings.
For men and women today to read the word and then feign to replicate what happened then is not contextual and frankly frightening, in my opinion. Remember, in Matthew 7:22 Jesus said: “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” This brings me to another VERY important point relative to context and faith healings found in scripture. We know in our study of the Old Testament that almost everything that we read pictures (or is a type) for the promised or coming Messiah. I mean almost every situation, story, practice, or event points to the life, suffering, death, resurrection, or kingship of Christ Jesus (who was to come). When Jesus came, He fulfilled these Old Testament pictures. And while He was fulfilling these types or picture He was also creating types and pictures.
Jesus and the Spiritual Healing
Stay with me now – where the Children of Israel, who lived under the law and the spiritual economy of “obedience/blessing and disobedience/cursing,” Jesus came and worked with them in material terms. What I mean by this is His miracles were physically (or made materially evident) as He fed the masses real food, literally raised dead people, literally opened the eyes of the blind, and the deaf, and literally cured Jews who were afflicted with leprosy.
Now listen – all of His works and the works of His disciples – today serve for us in our day as PICTURES or TYPES of the spiritual healing Jesus provides the world. So where He literally bestowed sight to the physically blinded this pictured the fact that in and through Him the spiritually blind are now able to see – a far greater miracle in my opinion! And where He literally fed the hungry masses bread and fish He now feed all who hunger and thirst with His righteousness and Word. Where He literally raised the dead to new life He today raises the spiritually dead to new life, which quite frankly, is a much greater and miraculous event. I mean, if a machine called a defibulator can bring a man back from physical death but no thing on earth can tame and change the human heart . . . but Him, which is the greater miracle – a revived physical heart or a change new heart that lives for Him? I would suggest the latter.
The Misunderstanding of Faith Healing
The so-called fundamentalist faith healers miss this all together, and instead, being the charlatans that they are, prey upon those unlearned in understanding the Word in Spirit and in truth, and use ruse, and deceptions, and hysteria to supposedly “cure” or heal the sick and ailing – in Jesus name.
These types fill the pulpits of Christian fundamentalism, with the most notable being men and women, past and present, like: Oral Roberts, Aimee Semple McPherson, Kathryn Kulman, Marjoe Gortman, Peter Popoff, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Hagin, Rod Parsley, W.V. Grant and Kenneth Copeland. From small backwater churches on the bayou to world-wide television exposure on so-called Christian networks like the TBN, faith healers have been preying on precious people through prayer . . . with the notables making millions and millions of dollars along the way.
(Video clip of “fundamentalist healings” HERE)
Here’s the gig, folks, these men and women teach the very core values and doctrines all true Christians embrace! They teach Jesus is God. That He was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life of love, suffered for our sin and was raised on the third day! They agree that He ascended and that He now reigns. Because they have these things in common many believers are under the impression that we ought to just leave them be and let God sort it all out? Should we just roll over and say nothing or is it our obligation “to test all things, hold fast to what is good, and abstain from every form of evil?”
The Obligation to Discern
1st John 4:1 says it plainly: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” All over the scripture (from Jeremiah to Jesus to Paul and Peter) believers are warned of false prophets and false traditions, and false signs, and broad ways. Are we to be watchmen on the wall or humpty dumpty? As for me and my house, I will do all I can to properly discern the Word of God and speak truth no matter who is involved. Why? Because I care, and I believe we have been given discernment over these things and then have the obligation to warn the flock, the true body.
In 1987 there was a fundamentalist faith healer appropriately named Peter Popoff. According to atheist James Randi, the man who exposed him as the fraud he was, Popoff was bringing in 4.3 million a month at the peak of his career in 1987. This Christian, who was accepted and essentially went unchallenged by those who follow Christ, literally had people throwing their insulin on stage as a sign that they would rely only on God to heal them. But at the height of his career (in 1987) the body allowed an atheist named Randi to step in and prove (on the Tonight Show) that this Christian (and his ability to heal people and discern their needs) was a complete fraud.
The Popoff Story
Why did it take an atheist to expose the guy and not a reasonable Christian who serves the living God? Had Popoff lived in the day of the Old Testament surely Isaiah or Elijah would have called him out! And if he had been living in the New Testament, Peter and others would have certainly called him out too. But not today. No, today, the church is sacrosanct and above criticism because we have somehow adopted this lousy cowardly attitude (all dressed in supposed Christian humility) that says we have no right, as believers, to look at some obviously incredulous activities being done in the church and to renounce them. It’s a mistake. I am not talking about micromanaging every difference or nuance. NOT AT ALL. I believe in liberty and freedom of expression. But we make a big mistake in allowing uncontested licentiousness to take place where innocent sheep are being fleeced spiritually, emotionally or financially by men and women posing as caring shepherds.
Popoff is back at it. After declaring bankruptcy in 1987, the year he was exposed, he went quiet for a while. But by 2003 Popoff’s ministry received over nine and half million dollars in donations. By 2005 donations were up to 23 million annually. And today the guy is on television, representing our Lord and King, telling people to reach out and touch their screens where he can feel “Holy Ghost vibrations” going down his arms.
The Methods of Faith Healers
See, fundamentalist faith healers work off the same principles as astrologers, horoscopes, and other con men and women – universalisms. My friend Steave Conley, a believer and man whose insights I enjoy greatly, made the following observations about faith-healers, and faith healing. He says that since almost every man over fifty has worries about their prostate and since one of the most popular names given to men who are fifty and older was David, all you have to do is stand before a large audience and say: “God is telling me that there is a man out there, he’s – I’m, I’m, I’m not sure . . . in his fifties or maybe sixty . . . who is really concerned over his prostate.” OR “God is telling me that there is a man . . . Jim, James, Jimmy, JJ???? Who is troubled with financial worries.” First of all in any large audience there is bound to be a Jimmy or Jim and second of all EVERYONE (even millionaires) have financial worries.
Common Techniques
Want more? Take two broad categories and put them together – one of the most popular names in older America and one of the most ubiquitous diseases – diabetes, and say: “There’s a Joe or Joseph or Josephine or Jo-Jo who struggles with diabetes – TOUCHA your television set and I will heal you right here and NOWA.” Did you do it? Did you. Then in the household of faith YOU have been healed. Now, as a means to seal your healing, and to show you believe in its power to remain, won’t you send us a love offering?
Of course, there’s the combo trifecta which is really impressive. Full of non-unique specifics, vagaries, but just enough factoids to make believers! “I see, I see a house, it's not too big but not too small. It’s white, fence around the yard. And I see a grandparent – one really worried about a grandchild – a grandson, actually, who has a problem with partying – drunkenness, drugs. Let me pray for you. God has put you, right here and now, on my heart to free your grandson from the chains of addiction!” Conley points out that very few people in wheelchairs and walking on crutches are not crippled but merely suffer from obesity, or aches and pains – sometimes.
Faith Healing and Christianity
they’re just lazy – and if you shout, “Be healed” and tug on their arm almost all of them will walk. Or that, relatively speaking, few people are totally deaf and if you scream “Baby,” in their ears they will be able to repeat, “baby,” as though their hearing has been restored. Then there’s the coup de grau – heal someone of something they don’t even know they had! All it takes is to walk through a room full of people and stop over a woman in her late forties. Reach your hand out, make it shake over her head, tremble a bit, and announce, to her horror, that she is in the advanced stages of ovarian cancer! The audience recoils, the people cry out around her. Then with YOUR power to heal, proclaim, at that moment, through a series of powerfully placed words, that the cancer be REMOVEDAH!, and slap your hand down on her head and BOOM! You have healed and removed all evidence of a disease . . . that was never there.
The Integrity of Faith
My friends, we lose nothing as believers in exposing such fraud – because it has nothing to do with us . . . or our faith. Our’s is a faith founded on the Good News of Jesus Christ who came and saved the world. This simple message, for the faithless faith healers, is not enough, and they, seeking to make themselves a name, create more, add more to the simple faith delivered once and for all to the faith. The crazed environment where faith healing thrives is the direct result of men taking the simplicity of the Good News and the Christian life of living by faith and love . . . and adding to it. By making Christianity ALSO about miraculous healings, politics, being wealthy, or powerful. It’s because men and women have made being a Christian as much about science as simple faith – its not. Did you know that Jean Calvin, father of reformed theology once taught that the very idea of pulmonary circulation was a DOCTRINAL HERESY! This thinking is the result of Man stepping outside of what the Bible says and reading into what it supposedly means. It’s the result of Man making Christianity a culture that must be embraced instead of about God becoming Man, coming to earth, and saving us from ourselves. Men and Man want to box God in, they want to compartmentalize Christianity into these little divisions of certainty, of formulae, of Christian totalitarianism. But when everything is said and done it is nothing more than fallen Man placing their faith in the life, works, and shed blood of the risen Lord . . . and then loving others as a result.
Miracles and Faith
It is of great intrigue (and relevance) that the Bible records Jesus doing more miracles without anyone exercising faith then with their faith being included. Is this not the way almost everything works in God’s economy? He provides oxygen and sun and causes our hearts to beat without one bit of required faith on our part? If God depended on man for a certain faith to be healed or rescued we all would be looking to ourselves for the power instead of relying on God. This is man centered thinking and has nothing to do with the real “faith delivered to the saints once and for all.” Of the thirty-five miracles recorded in the Gospel accounts in only ten does Jesus make inquiries into the faith of the recipient healed. And remember, the Lord did not heal everyone either. In John 5:1-15 we read that “multitudes were gathered at the pool of Bethsaida, but Jesus picked only one to be healed and He seems to have disregarded the rest. And this man didn’t even know the identity of Jesus until later after he was healed. How many times did Jesus go places and not heal everyone there? How come really strong believers in the faith are allowed by God today to live with horrible physical ailments? Is it because they are failing in faith? (like these phony religious charlatans intimate) or is it because God has sovereign reasons and ways in which He works with each of us specifically?
I want to share a stories that reveal why this topic bothers me so much – aside from the fact that it is NOT Christianity. I had a grandmother who lost her husband and then joined the Mormon church due to my parents influence. She was a lover of Jesus, did not understand
Faith and Healing
Mormonism, but attended because she was really unsure of what else to do. As an active Latter-Day Saint I would visit her in her little apartment in Whittier California. Every now and again I would see taped to her refrigerator these strange little religious icons. Little coins with imprinted words of healing, pieces of cloth, and small viles of amber oil. I’d say, “Grandma, what are these things?” and she would say, “We’ll there’s this man or that woman on Television who says God will heal me or make me rich if I ordered (this icon or that icon). My diabetes is really getting out of control Shawn” or “I want to leave you kids something other than bills when I pass.” That was a tragedy those religious charlatans preying on my grandma. But tragedy was met with tragedy when it came to my response. Remember, I was a believing Mormon at the time so I would say back to her: “Grandma, don’t sent those people your money. They’re con men! These things can’t heal you,” and then I would say, “you belong to the true church of Jesus Christ, Grandma. All you need is a priesthood blessing!”
A New Understanding
I wish she was alive today so I could finally set the record straight . . . you know, set her free from all of the religious shenanigans she fell prey to and help her to just look to Him and Him alone . . . for everything. If the Lord’s ministry was really about physical healing the world would have been healed upon His arrival. And suffering would have ceased. And disease would have ended. And death would have been overcome. He would have fed all the hungry and made everyone rich and healed every disease. But that is NOT what He came to do. He came to us while we were yet in our sin and to grant all who believe on Him new life – spiritual life. If some or part of the physical part of our existence is improved or healed as a result, Praise God, but don’t ever make the sad mistake of placing your personal focus or part of the message you share with others physical healing or faith healing. It’s far, far, far down on the list of what Christianity is all about.
