Faith healing

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Faith healing is the use of religious or spiritual intervention to cure disease. Proponents claim that prayers, mental practices, spiritual insights, or other techniques can summon divine or supernatural interventions on behalf of the ill. According to the varied beliefs of those who practice it, faith healing may be said to afford gradual relief from pain or sickness or to bring about a sudden "miracle cure", and it may be used in place of, or in tandem with, conventional medical techniques for alleviating or curing diseases.

Contents

[edit] Faith healing in various belief systems

[edit] Christianity

The term "faith healing' is sometimes used in reference to the belief of some Christians who hold that God heals people through the power of the Holy Spirit, often involving the "laying on of hands". Those who hold to this belief do not usually use the term "faith healing" in reference to the practice; that expression is often used descriptively by commentators outside of the faith movement in reference to the belief and practice.[citation needed]

In the four gospels in the Christian Bible, Jesus both performs healings through divine power and indirectly acknowledges the role of the doctor, for example in saying, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick"[1]. Jesus endorsed the use of the medical assistance of the time (medicines of oil and wine) when he praised the fictitious Good Samaritan for acting as a physician, telling his disciples to go and do the same thing that the Samaritan did in the story.[2] The healing in the gospels is referred to as a sign[3] to prove his divinity and to foster belief in himself as the Christ [4]. However, when asked for miracles, Jesus refused some [5] but granted others[6], in consideration with the motive of the request whether they had faith that he would heal or simply wanted to test him.

[edit] Catholicism

Faith healing is reported by Catholics as the result of intercessory prayer of a saint or a person with the gift of healing.

Among the best-known accounts among Catholics of faith healings are those attributed to miraculous intercession of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary known as Our Lady of Lourdes at the grotto of Lourdes in France, and the remissions of life-threatening disease claimed by those who have applied for aid to Saint Jude, who is known as the "patron saint of lost causes". [7][8]

The Catholic Church has given official recognition to 67 miracles and 7,000 otherwise-inexplicable medical cures since the Blessed Virgin Mary first appeared in Lourdes in February 1858. These cures are subjected to intense medical scrutiny and are only recognized as authentic spiritual cures afer a commission of doctors and scientists, called the Lourdes Medical Bureau, has ruled out any physical mechanism for the patient's recovery. [9][10]

[edit] Pentecostalism

In Pentecostalism during the 1920s and 1930s Aimee Semple McPherson was a controversial faith healer of growing popularity during the Great Depression. William Branham is usually credited as being the founder of the post World War II healing revivals. [11] [12][13][14][15][16]. By the late 1940s Oral Roberts was well known and continued with faith healing until the 1980s. A friend of Roberts was another popular faith healer, Kathryn Kuhlman, who gained fame in the 1950s and had a television program on CBS. Also in this era, Jack Coe and A. A. Allen were faith healers with large a following, and travelled with large tents to hold mobile, open air crusades. In contrast Ernest Angley in Akron, Ohio made his fame on television.[citation needed]

Oral Robert's successful use of television as a medium to gain a wider audience led others to follow suit. For example, Pat Robertson and Peter Popoff became well-known televangelists who claimed to heal the sick.[17]

LeRoy Jenkins was a well-known and financially-successful faith healer during the 1970s, his operation grossing $3 million a year. In 1979, Jenkins ran afoul of the law and was sentenced to 12 years in South Carolina state prison for a multitude of crimes, including conspiring to burn down the homes of both a state trooper and a creditor. Released from prison early after serving 5 1/2 years, he resumed his faith-healing business. His tarnished reputation never healed.[citation needed]

Richard Rossi, known for advertising his healing clinics through secular television and radio, claimed he could demonstrate and prove God's power to unbelievers through indisputable miracles.[citation needed]

Modern healing evangelists include Benny Hinn and Peter Youngren, who based their work and model on Kuhlman. Hinn, like the others, was videotaped by hidden cameras and profiled on an episode of CBC's The Fifth Estate over allegations of fraudulent activity.[18]

[edit] Christian Science

Christian Science advocates the use of prayer instead of medical treatment to treat illness. [19]

[edit] New Thought Movement

The New Thought Movement is a panentheistic religion in which a form of faith healing, called "spiritual mind treatment," is practiced predicated on a belief that God is in everything, including medicine, and that the true nature of humanity is divine. Spiritual mind treatment connects thoughts and state of mind to physical well being, and may be performed solo or with the aid of a practitioner.[20] Specific techniques, such as affirmative prayer and meditation, are utilized to align a patient with their true nature - called the Christ Mind by some denominational practitioners, and the Divine Mind or God by others - to effect a mental or physical healing.[21] It is also advocated and utilized by non-denominational New Thought practitioners; for example, the New Thought author William Walker Atkinson wrote a book on the subject titled Mental Therapeutics, or Just How to Heal Oneself and Others in 1916.[21] Because New Thought postulates the divine in everything, including medications and doctors, believers may use traditional medical approaches alongside spiritual mind treatments. This is a non-intercessory form of faith healing, as the mechanism of action is believed to be access to the inner spark of divinity and belief on the part of the patient that a healing is possible.[21]

[edit] Spiritualism

Spiritualism is a religion which holds as a tenet of belief that contact is possible between the living and the spirits of the dead. For this reason, death, as an outcome of disease, may not seem as frightening to Spiritualists as it does to those who practice other religions. According to the 20th century Spiritualist author Lloyd Kenyon Jones, "This does not mean that sickness is unreal. It is real enough from the mortal viewpoint. The spirit feels the pain, senses the discomfiture of the flesh-body, even though the spirit is not ill." [22]

Spiritualism does not promote "mental" cures of the type advocated by New Thought; however, help from the "spirit world" (including advice given by the spirits of deceased physicians) is sought, and may be seen as central to the healing process. As with practitioners of New Thought, Spiritualists may combine faith healing with conventional medical therapies. As Jones explained it, "We are not taught to put the burden on our minds. We do not 'will away' illness. But -- we do not fear illness. [...] When we ask the spirit-world to relieve us of a bodily ill, we have gone as far as our own understanding and diligence permit. [...] We have faith, and confidence, and belief. [...] If medicine at times will assist, we take it -- not as a habit, but as a little push over the hill. If we need medical attention, we secure it. [22]

[edit] Criticism

[edit] Placebo effect and other logical criticisms

Skeptics of faith healing regard genuine anecdotes of cures or improvements as either post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) fallacy, or as the placebo effect.[23] In both cases the patient experiences a real reduction in perceived symptomatology, though in neither case has anything miraculous or inexplicable occurred.

[edit] Fraud in the performance of healing services

Skeptical critics, such as the stage magician James Randi, have said that faith healing is a quack practice in which the "healers" use well known non-supernatural illusions to exploit credulous people in order to obtain their gratitude, confidence and money.[17]. Randi investigated Peter Popoff, who claimed to heal sick people and to give personal details about their lives. Randi exposed the fact that Popoff was receiving radio transmissions from his wife, Elizabeth, who was off-stage reading information which she and her aides had gathered from earlier conversation with members of the audience.[17] Criticism of the healing service as a "performance" is not applicable to the "self-healing" techniques taught by the New Thought author Elizabeth Towne or her many followers. [20]

[edit] Charging exorbitant fees

Critics of faith healing such as Robert L. Park have called into question the ethicality of the sometimes exorbitant fees charged by "healers".[23]. While this criticism may be justified in some cases, it is not valid with respect to religious faith healing in which no fees are sought, nor to the mental cures of the New Thought movement, which are often self-administered, without any intercession by "healers". [20]

[edit] Negative impact on public health

Reliance on faith healing to the exclusion of other forms of treatment can have a public health impact when it reduces or eliminates access to modern medical techniques. This is evident in both higher mortality rates for children [24] and in reduced life expectancy for adults. [25] This objection to faith healing is not applicable to the way the method is used in Spiritualism or the New Thought Movement, for both of those religions encourage patients to combine conventional medicine with faith healing.

[edit] Faith Healing in the Media

[edit] Books

  • The Doctor in the Face of Miracles (Il medico di fronte ai miracoli) is a book written by the Italian Doctors Association that documents the miraculous cures associated with Our Lady of Lourdes.
  • The Faith Healers is a book by the stage magician James Randi containing exposes of Christian Evangeical faith healers Peter Popoff, Pat Robertson, and Oral Roberts.
  • Lourdes: A History of its Apparitions and Cures is a 1908 book by Georges Bertrin (author) and Mrs. Philip Gibbs (English language translator) that documents early Lourdes cures, including some made after 1905, when Pope Pius X asked that all cases of alleged miracles or cures recorded in Lourdes be scientifically analyzed.

[edit] Film

  • Fannie Bell Chapman: Gospel Singer is a documentary film by Bill Ferris, Judy Peiser, and Bobby Taylor, produced by the Center for Southern Folklore, based on interviews made during the 1970s with Chapman, a singer and faith healer in the African American Protestant Christian folk healing tradition.
  • Leap of Faith is 1992 film starring Steve Martin as a fraudulent Christian faith healer named Jonas Nightengale.
  • Marjoe is an 1972 Academy Award winning documentary film produced and directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan about the career of the Evangelical Christian boy preacher Marjoe Gortner, who briefly became a faith healer during his young adult years.

[edit] Theater

[edit] Music

  • The band Death's third studio album, Spiritual Healing, includes a song titled Spiritual Healing about people who claim to heal with faith and prayers, hiding their true and hideous nature.
  • Metallica’s song “The God that Failed” attacks the failure of faith healing, and was inspired by the death of James Hetfield’s mother, who had refused any other form of treatment for her cancer.

[edit] Television

  • In one episode of "King of the Hill" called "Unbearable Blindness of Laying", Garry takes Hank Hill to a Faith-Healer so that Hank Hill gets his sight back.
  • On "The Simpsons" episode "Faith Off", Bart Simpson becomes a Faith-Healer.
  • On the episode of "South Park" called "Probably (South Park)", Cartman becomes a Faith-Healer in his own church.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Mark 2:17
  2. ^ Booth, Craig. "Faith Healing -- God’s Compassion, God’s Power, and God’s Sovereignty: Is a Christian permitted to seek medical assistance and to use medicine?", December 2003. Retrieved on 2007-05-01. 
  3. ^ John 6:2
  4. ^ John 4:48
  5. ^ Mat 12:38
  6. ^ Luke 9:38-43
  7. ^ Faith healing: The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XII. Published 1911. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  8. ^ Lourdes: The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XII. Published 1911. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  9. ^ How Lourdes Cures are Recognized as Miraculaous ZENIT International News Agency, 11 FEB. 2004. Retrieved Dec. 14, 2007.
  10. ^ Lourdes: A History of its Apparitions and Cures by Georges Bertrin (author) and Mrs. Philip Gibbs (English language translator), 1908. Reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, 2004 ISBN 1417981237
  11. ^ Dictionary of Christianity In America (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990) p. 182.
  12. ^ Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988) p. 372.
  13. ^ Anderson, A., An Introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge University Press, 2004) p 58.
  14. ^ Harrell, D.E., All Things Are Possible: The Healing and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1978) p. 25.
  15. ^ Hollenweger, W. J., Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide, (Hendrickson Publications, 1997) p. 229.
  16. ^ Weaver, C.D., The Healer-Prophet: William Marrion Branham (A study of the Prophetic in American Pentecostalism) (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2000) p. 139.
  17. ^ a b c Randi, James (1989). The Faith Healers. Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-535-0 page 10. 
  18. ^ McKeown, Bob. "Do You Believe in Miracles?", The Fifth Estate, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2004-12. Retrieved on 2006-10-21. 
  19. ^ Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; online version at spirituality.com
  20. ^ a b c Experiences in Self-Healing by Elizabeth Towne, 1902. Reprint ISBN 0766183793
  21. ^ a b c Dumont, Theron, Q. [pseudonym of William Walker Atkinson. Mental Therapeutics, or Just How to Heal Oneself and Others. Advanced Thought Publishing Co. Chicago. 1916.
  22. ^ a b Jones, Lloyd, Kenyon. Healing Forces.1919; reprinted by Lormar Press, Chicago, 1948.
  23. ^ a b Park, Robert L. (2000). Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 50-51. ISBN 0-19-513515-6. 
  24. ^ Asser, Seth M.; Rita Swan (1998-04). "Child Fatalities From Religion-motivated Medical Neglect". Pediatrics 101 (4): 625-629. PMID 9521945. Retrieved on 2007-11-19.
  25. ^ Simpson, W. F. (1989-09-22). "Comparative longevity in a college cohort of Christian Scientists". Journal of the American Medical Association 262 (12): 1657-1658. PMID 2769921. Retrieved on 2007-11-19.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Dr. Matthias Kamp, M.D.: Bruno Groening - A Revolution in Medicine. A medical documentation on spiritual healing. Grete Haeusler Publishing, 1998, (Chapters 1 - 4)
  • Louis C. Henderson: The Gift of Healing is Yours. Glenmore Press, 1956.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

de:Geistiges Heilen es:Curación a través de la fe nl:Gebedsgenezing ja:スピリチュアルヒーリング pt:Cura pela fé fi:Henkiparannus sv:Healing

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