Healing and Wellness.... (part 2)

Meanwhile, aside from my personal questions about healing and reaction to something that seemed too formulaic, and away from our local aims, I have in the past couple of days encountered some scary current teaching about sickness and healing in parts of the charismatic churches.

Yes I know that some will note this as about as newsworthy as the proverbial bears in the wood (though the pendant in me recognising that over here that would indeed be 'a great surprise') but I still found these cases shocking.

It is common among those Christians who believe God dramatically heals on a very frequent basis today to encourage people to be prayed for in events and services, often in a highly charged atmosphere of expectation.  Miracle reports can fly about easily, but without the means to check the real story - like most of the internet and press!  People can leave hurt if healing does not occur as the implication is that God wants to heal them so if it doesn't happen then something is getting in the way - maybe they don't have enough faith etc.

These days I have had the impression that such implications are implicit and many groups and leaders are keen to distance themselves from that whilst still praying for and expecting healings, also keen to encourage people to stay on medications until a doctor says so.

There is a tent mission going on this week not far from me but just out of my patch so I was googling to find out more, who was behind it, which churches, what was going on etc.  In doing so I landed on the website of one of the key supporting churches and because I like background input but not music, and being curious, I played one of the recent sermon podcasts. The title said it was about communion, and I wondered what that style of church had to say compared to my more liturgical siblings.  It didn't really catch my attention and was just background until near the end when (and I replayed a couple of times to check I had heard right) the preacher stated that whilst not all sickness is caused by lack of repentance a lot is, and if we really repented before coming to communion, and stopped being divided two ways between God and the world then those sicknesses would disappear.

So the bit in the Bible about not coming to communion unworthily or you will bring judgement on yourself is being taken as literal sickness as God's punishment??  And this is being offered as the true word, how many in that congregation will have gone home wondering what they have done that they or a loved one is sick?

Then this morning a mention of one of these Christian festivals but one I hadn't heard of, so back to the websearch, and on their website a video clip about 'How to pray for healing' in which the male speaker suggests it is not God's sovereignty but as the body is made up of the dust of the earth and God gave humans charge over that it is not about asking God to heal but ordering the body stop causing pain and work as it should. Though sometimes it might take lots of telling. 

I know these ideas are out there and not new, I know the damage they can cause, I do believe God can heal today and that sometimes that is in a dramatic way.  I don't know why one and not another, even in Jesus' day there were others around the pool on the day he asked the man if he wanted to be healed, no reference to their healings.

When I spend time with church people who have forgotten to look outwards, or that being church is about inviting people to meet God rather than a nice club, I want to be able to celebrate the churches that are speaking about the gospel, but these clips are part of what makes me nervous and feel unable to cheer them on.  Not because I always have it right, nor my churches, or denomination - but .... something in my gut chokes the cheer because life is so much messier and greyer.