From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: 10k Christians perform miracles ever so quietly
Date: 11 Oct 92 15:41:09 GMT
 92Oct7.181004.4613@desire.wright.edu> <LEET.92Oct9083847@dove.ims.com>
Followup-To: sci.skeptic
Organization: Wright State University

In article <LEET.92Oct9083847@dove.ims.com>, leet@ims.com (Lee Thomas) writes:
>>>>>> On 7 Oct 92 18:10:04 EST, sbishop@desire.wright.edu said:
> 
> Sue> In article <BRUCE.92Oct6144017@suprenum.uxb.liv.ac.uk>, bruce@uxb.liv.ac.uk (Bruce Stephens) writes:
>>>>>>> On 6 Oct 92 07:37:29 GMT, alanrw@cs.man.ac.uk (Alan R Williams) said:
>> 
>>> The program was fairly horrific.  The "believers" threw a disabled man
>>> out of his wheelchair and were generally maltreating him all because he
>>> insisted that he still could not walk and they claimed that if he had
>>> faith then he could!  In the end the police had to be called to rescue him.
>> 
>> I thought that was terrible too.  But to be fair, it did seem to be a
>> very small proportion of the audience; for the most part it was
>> believers crippling themselves voluntarily by getting up from their
>> wheelchairs.
> 
> What "program" was this?  I can think of several televised "healing
> ministries" that would fit the bill, alas.  I'd like to get the name,
> date, and any other information I can, because I want to expose these
> people for the flaming frauds and accomplices to negligent homicide
> that they are.  (Pardon me while I go calm down.)  This snakepit is
> generally called the "Word of Faith" movement, and its relation to
> Christianity is like the relationship between astrology and astronomy.
> I'd better stop before I get *really* upset.
> 
> Sue> My personal experience with 'believers' has been fairly horrific.
> Sue> When my very devout mother was dying of terminal cancer, some of
> Sue> her church group showed up and very accusingly told my sister and
> Sue> me that she would be healed if we would only 'believe and pray
> Sue> for her'.  We were extremely exhausted and grieving for our poor
> Sue> mother and these total strangers (!) were intimating that the
> Sue> reason she was dying was because we didn't have faith!
> 
> This story makes me ill, and I'd like to have a few moments alone with
> said "church group" to discuss their actions.  (Make that "several
> hours alone".)  I wish I could say I'm surprised, but the current
> president of the Christian Research Institute just recently failed to
> prevent a very similar occurrence.  (A woman refused cancer treatment
> because her "church group" told her that by having enough faith she
> could be healed.  Her daughter wrote to CRI, and Hank Hanegraaff wrote
> a long letter to the woman, pleading with her to accept medical
> treatment.  The woman died, the church held the funeral, and the
> preachers at the funeral claimed that the woman would rise from the
> dead!!!  When this didn't happen, the preachers blaimed the
> congregation for their lack of faith!  This makes me furious ...  I'd
> like to nail 95 theses or so to the doors of "Faith" churches with a
> pile driver.  Christianity needs another man with the vocabulary of
> John the Baptist to label these people for what they are - they
> CERTAINLY aren't Christians, I'll tell you that!)  Sue, I'd like to
> tell you how tremendously sorry I am for what happened to you, but I
> realize how it would sound, coming from yet another "believer".
> 

I can add several other true happenings.  Just two weeks before Mom died,
she begged my sister to take her to this 'revival' meeting in Cincinnati.
The preacher there prayed for her and then claimed she had been healed.
Two weeks later, after she had died, he still was claiming on his radio
show that he had healed her of cancer.  
The day of my mother's funeral, one of the people from her church called
me on the phone at mom's house, insisting she must talk to me.  Then she
proceeded to go into this spiel of how 'mom would have wanted me to Turn
To God and Be Saved'.  I hadn't even ever MET this woman!  I was so upset
I managed to get off the phone before I screamed at her but I really don't
know how.  
I wish I could say that 'christians' like this are in the minority but for
some reason they seem to be the majority in the fundamentalist churches
in this area.  As for amount of experience I personally have had, my mother
dragged all four of her children to every church service being held. We
attended church four to ten times a week for anywhere from two to four hours
at a time.  As a result, she raised four children who are all agnostics and
set foot inside a church reluctantly only for weddings and funerals.

> I'd like to get full documentation on any similar stories, and
> permission from the senders of the documentation, so I can send it to
> CRI and get a movement started to decry these people, and if
> necessary, prosecute them.  This has gone far enough.
> --

You have my permission to use anything I have told you.  Arrogance and 
a feeling of superiority seems to be rampant in many fundamentalist churches.

Sue

> Lee Thomas,  leet@ims.com      | "But when he saw many of the Pharisees and
> Integrated Measurement Systems |  Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto
> 9525 SW Gemini Dr.             |  them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned
> Beaverton, Or 97005            |  you to flee from the wrath to come?"
> (503) 626-7117, ext. 1558      |  - Matthew 3:7                          THUMP!
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,rec.org.mensa