PRAYING FOR THE SICK

Jon Farrar was a very good friend of mine. He loved his sport and was a very accomplished athlete. Football, hockey, squash, tennis, cycling, swimming, running, Iron Man races and ‘off piste’ skiing were his delight. He had become a Christian as a young man whilst travelling the world ‘to find himself’. He met some Christians in Spain who started him thinking about the claims of Jesus. He gradually became convinced and committed his life to Christ. After returning to this country he trained as a primary school teacher. He rose to be a headmaster and his school won a national ‘school of the year’ award. Then Jon’s speech became gradually more slurred. He noticed some twitching of muscles in his legs and arms. He felt that he was getting weaker. He couldn’t swallow so easily. The dreaded diagnosis was made. He had progressive motor neurone disease. We prayed for him regularly, he was anointed with oil at his request. He discussed the option of euthanasia but rejected this as not being honouring to his Saviour or to the church. So many people prayed but his disease relentlessly progressed. He needed a gastrostomy tube so that he could be fed. Significantly as he became weaker and could only communicate through a voice machine his passion increased that his old friends should hear the gospel. He became weaker and weaker. What a heart wrenching sight it was to see such a previously fit athletic, able man become so weak and dependant. Why had God, who according to the Bible is all powerful, not intervened?

Another close friend in our church had married a beautiful girl from the Philippines. Just a few months after the marriage she became very ill. She was diagnosed as having acute myelocytic leukaemia. She received aggressive chemotherapy but the disease affected her brain and she was not the same woman again. The church prayed. Her Philippine friends, who were great believers in the idea that what was claimed would be given by God, prayed fervently. Even when she was terminally ill and comatosed they still expected a miraculous healing. But she died leaving behind a bereft husband and puzzled friends. Why had God not intervened? Some suggested that that she died because we had not had enough faith to see a supernatural miracle.

One of the features that I find interesting is that the public faith healers I have seen nearly all put on a similar forceful persona when they are ‘on stage’. They appear to be acting and appear to be using very strong psychological techniques to influence people. The preaching is emotional and insistent. The speech is very confident and forceful. The music is rhythmical and repetitive. People are praying all around, often making strange noises. Claims of supernatural knowledge abound with statements such as,

“God is telling me that there is someone here with a bad back.”

Yet when I read about Jesus he did not behave in this way.

A friend of mine who had recently become a Christian was having severe back ache which was not settling. An MRI scan had shown a large prolapsed disc that was putting pressure on a nerve. She went in desperation to a healing service in a local Pentecostal church and an appeal was made for any who wanted healing to come out. She hobbled forwards. She was prayed for in a very emotional way and hands were laid on her. She was then asked expectantly,

“Are you feeling better now?”

She felt too embarrassed and stressed to say no! The preacher then told her to touch her toes. She tried but felt the old pain coming on so she quickly withdrew. There was no change in the next two weeks. In fact her back pain did settle after four weeks and plenty of bed rest.

There are churches that teach that having faith will heal without external help; they consider medicine is not only superfluous but its use demonstrates a lack of faith in God. Larry and Lucky Parker regularly attended a ‘Faith Assembly’ that had such teaching. Then their eleven year old son became ill and weak. Their response was to pray and, when there was no improvement, to pray harder. He died of a diabetic coma. The parents were charged with both involuntary manslaughter and child abuse. Subsequently the parents changed their views and wrote a book called, ‘We Let Our Son Die’ in which they admit that they were wrong. Subsequent studies of these churches have shown that over 126 other children died when medical care was withheld and the mortality rate associated with childbirth was a hundred times that of groups using standard medical care.

Yet for every story recounted of a supernatural healing there are many hundreds of accounts of people for whom God has not intervened in spite of earnest prayer.

I was speaking at a university mission and one afternoon went for a walk through the city. In the central square there was a church stall with a large poster.

“Are you sick? Come to us for healing.”

This would seem to be shoddy, false advertising. They admitted that they do not keep records of the healings that occur. Such churches hardly ever audit their long term results and although this has frequently been suggested it has not been taken up. The reason for this omission is itself very suspicious that an element of misinformation or even fraud is going on, even if well intentioned.

Yet those who claim to have a gift of healing today do not frequent the geriatric wards full of patients with Alzheimer’s disease or centres for the blind or hospitals caring for children with genetic diseases.

When visiting a variety of Roman Catholic shrines for healing there is often a room where a variety of physical aids that people had previously used to support their infirmities are displayed. There are an array of walking sticks, crutches and even callipers. Yet I have never seen an artificial limb in such a display, suggesting that amputations are not within the province of their faith healing. Indeed there is no evidence that I have found after a wide search of clear-cut faith healings of genetic or structural diseases.

Philip Yancey tells the true story of a faith healer from the United States who led a healing campaign in Cambodia where there are few Christians. It was very well advertised throughout the country. At great personal cost many sick people travelled to Phnom Penh for the rally. One of the consequences of the Vietnam War is that one in two hundred Cambodians has had an amputation because of the many landmines used. Such people flocked to the crusade. However when no amputees were healed a riot broke out in the soccer stadium. The evangelist had to be rescued by an army helicopter. Later the angry crowd besieged the evangelist’s hotel forcing him to flee the country. i How do such episodes honour the Lord Jesus? Have those attending the crusade learned the Christian gospel that they can be forgiven and put right with God because Jesus came and died for them?

The Benefits of Faith

However there is evidence from over 1,200 studies and 400 reviews showing that there are undoubted health benefits resulting from having a faith. 81 per cent of these studies show benefit and only 4 percent showed harm.ii In one such study 21,204 American adults were followed up for 9 years. Much information was collected, including religious activities. Income levels and education had surprisingly little effect on mortality, but those who attended church lived seven years longer than those who did not. For black people this benefit was 14 years. The researchers attributed this to a variety of causes. Having a faith is associated with healthier life styles and stronger relationships; those with a firm faith tend to drink less, smoke less, use less drugs are less promiscuous sexually. iii These factors are not easy to dissociate but it is becoming increasingly clear that faith itself does contribute to health. Other studies have shown that those with faith make more rapid recovery from operations and heart attacks.

In the realm of psychiatric disease there is much misunderstanding. It is commonly thought that religion is at the root of many of these illnesses. However the famous psychiatrist C. J. Jung felt that it was an absence of personal faith that contributed to many of his patients’ symptoms. He wrote, towards the end of his life,

“During the past thirty years, men from every civilised country in the world have come to me for consultation. Among all my mature patients there was not one whose problem did not spring from a lack of religious world outlook. I can assure you that each of them had become ill because they had not that which only a living religion can give to a man, and not one of them will recover fully unless he regains the religious view of life.”

Recent studies have confirmed that those with a faith are protected against psychoses and fare better under treatment.

“In the majority of studies religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction.”iv

Prof Andrew Sims, former President of the Royal College Psychiatrists from 1990 to 1993 is concerned that more attention should be given to this strong association between faith and wellbeing,

“. . .for anything other than religion and spirituality, governments and health providers would be doing their utmost to promote it.”v

People need to know the true explanation and answer to life in order to have full, satisfying existences.

How does faith help recovery?

The benefit of faith and trust has been known for centuries. This has been called a ‘psychosomatic’ effect. Today there is a derogatory suggestion in the use of the word that this is somehow ‘improper’. This is unfair. The word comes from the Greek words, ‘psyche’ and ‘soma’ which mean ‘mind’ and ‘body’ respectively. The mind undoubtedly does have an effect on the body. Studies at the Cold Research Institute have shown that it is very difficult to infect a person with a cold virus just before they are due to get married and go on honeymoon. In contrast spouses are more likely to die of cancer, heart disease and a variety of other causes in the year after their life’s partner death.

Is it therefore surprising that there is a benefit to patients if they are spiritually well? The mind, body and spirit are all closely related. In palliative care ‘spirituality’ is taken very seriously indeed. Spiritual well-being reduces the feelings of hopelessness whereas spiritual distress, fear of death and lack of purpose are linked with despair and anxiety.

Improvement, at least for a time, is not that uncommon when people with a variety of conditions are prayed for. Dr Paul Brandt was a Christian surgeon who spent much of his life treating patients suffering from the effects of leprosy in India. Dr Brandt concluded that,

“. . . God primarily works through the mind to summon up resources to heal the human body.”

In my own life as a cancer surgeon, I have been looking out for truly miraculous healing of organic disease but have yet to see it. Yet I have not infrequently seen people who have benefited symptomatically from spiritual support. However God intervenes using the natural processes that he had built into our makeup. Even some cancers have been known to regress when the bodies defences are encouraged. The immune system is remarkable. Pharmaceutical drugs and surgery only support these natural processes. Such healings will take time in contrast to Jesus’ healings which were spontaneous and beyond natural mechanisms. Dr Paul Brandt wrote an article with Philip Yancey in ‘Christianity Today’ magazine in which he said,

“From my own experience as a physician I must truthfully admit that, among the thousands of patients I have treated, I have never observed an unequivocal instance of intervention in the physical realm. Many were prayed for,, many found healing, but not in ways that counteracted the laws governing anatomy. No case I have treated personally would meet the rigorous criteria for a supernatural miracle.”vi

The famous French surgeon Ambroise Parè (1510–1590)  recognised that God heals through natural means when he said,

“I dress the wound, but God heals it.”

There are natural processes that fight against bacterial and viral infections and even cancers. Where has our sense of wonder at this gone? Dr. Paul Brandt concluded,

“Those who pray for the sick and suffering should first praise God for the remarkable agents of healing designed into the body, and then ask that God’s special grace give the suffering person the ability to use those resources to their fullest advantage. I have seen remarkable instances of physical healing accomplished in this way. The prayers of fellow Christians can offer real, tangible help by setting into motion the intrinsic powers of healing in a person controlled by God. This approach does not contradict natural laws; rather, it fully employs the design features built into the human body.”vii

This would explain why no amputees are ‘healed by faith’. Those people whose backache improves after prayer still have the same abnormal x-rays. The improvement these people claim from prayer are real but they are symptomatic . God only very rarely breaks his own laws of nature and we are wrong to suggest otherwise to people without presenting reliable supportive evidence.

Natural Law

There is so much confusion on this subject. God is clearly able to do anything; he could prevent us ageing and dying yet most of the time he does not supernaturally intervene by breaking his own laws of nature. Jesus himself performed miraculous signs that broke these laws of nature. Everyone who saw them was staggered. Lazarus was raised from the dead after being in a tomb for four days! Jesus himself, after repeatedly foretelling that this would happen rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion. Everybody that Jesus said would be healed was immediately and completely healed. The paralysed got up and walked straight away. No wonder people believed in him. No-one has ever performed miracles that he performed. His disciples who followed him for three years were convinced about him. Eleven of the apostles were killed as they travelled the world to tell others about Jesus. It was Jesus they talked about and who he was.

Dr Peter May has made an extensive study of Christian faith healing, looking for cases of supernatural organic healing where God has worked outside the laws of nature.In his book, ‘Healing – The Rift’, subtitled ‘Does Miraculous Healing Occur Today?’ he investigates particular cases of faith healing in detail. Although a committed evangelical Christian himself, he concludes that no evidence can be found today that the type of healingmiracles recorded in the New Testament have occurred in any of the cases he has studied.

In our church a one year old toddler was playing in the garden. He fell into a covered pond and drowned in nine inches of water. When he was removed he was blue and pulseless even though he could only have been immersed for two or three minutes. He was resuscitated by a paediatric nurse who just ‘happened’ to be in the house at the time, was rushed to hospital and ventilated for several days. Much prayer went up for him. He has now made a complete recovery. Is that a miracle? For the parents it certainly is. They thought they had lost their lovely son and now he is fully restored. To the physician however it is known that if children can be quickly resuscitated then this can happen and statistically results are improved by early ventilation for a few days. No laws of nature were broken but the coincidence that this child was healed is overwhelming for his parents and friends. Unfortunately other parents in similar situations have also prayed but for whatever reason the results were not so favourable, the child either dying or being brain damaged.

True Miracles

I was recently informed by a medical student about a person who had tooth trouble and who was prayed for. The pain settled and they were given miraculously a replacement gold tooth studded with jewels. The student admitted that this was hearsay. How gullible can people be! If the Lord is really going to do a miracle to show his power he would replace the tooth with a normal one. Clearly this is the work of some dentist trying to bolster faith.

In much of Africa AIDS is a frightening infection. In some areas up to 40 per cent of the population are infected. Churches that had previously taught a ‘health and wealth’ gospel are finding that people are not healed of AIDS by prayer. What they need is teaching that to believe in Christ means a new lifestyle. Then Christians will not catch the disease and will care for those who have it. The miracle is that God does change people to behave like Jesus.

In contrast Jesus did restore to life a widow’s only son who was being carried out for burial, he healed a man who had been paralysed for 39 years. They both returned to normal living. Repeated miracles such as these could be independently verified. Indeed when Jesus healed ten people with leprosy he sent them off to the priest to have their healing verified and authenticated. Oh that this practice were repeated today by churches who advertise a healing ministry!

There is a real miracle God is doing throughout the world today. People are turning from selfish lives to live for Jesus Christ. They turn their backs on sin. They have a peace and joy that help them overcome the problems of life. They have a sure and certain future with God in eternity. They have been ‘born of God’.

“For everyone born of God overcomes the world.” 1 John 5:4

i Philip Yancey, ‘Prayer’ , Hodder and Stoughton 2006 p. 253

ii Koenig H.G., McCullough M.E., Larson D.B. “Handbook of Religion and Health” Oxford University Press 2001

iii Hummer R.A. et all “Religious involvement and U.S. adult mortality”. Demography 1999 May 36(2): 273-85

iv Koenig H.G. et al p228

v Sims A. “Is Faith Delusion. Why religion is good for your health.” Continuum 2009

vi Quoted in Philip Yancey’s excellent book on ‘Prayer’ , Hodder and Stoughton 2006 p. 248

vii Philip Yancey, ‘Prayer’ , Hodder and Stoughton 2006 p. 246

BVP