A Very Short Discourse On Faith Healers

I posted this at Shadowland's (Ros) blog tonight and thought I would post it here too since I had never written anything on the subject of faith healers before. I guess I figured that anyone who had read me would already have a pretty good idea of how skeptical I would be of such people. The subjects of Smith Wiggelsworth and Nathan Morris had come up:

Smith Wigglesworth was in my opinion the Benny Hinn of his day. Like ALL faith healers since the apostles, he was a fraud. (His own daughter who assisted at his meetings was deaf until the day she died.) As is Nathan Morris. The very fact that he has allied himself with a mountebank like Bob Kilpatrick should tell you all you need to know about him. Delia Knox, incidentally, and despite numerous requests, has refused steadfastly to show any medical findings from her doctor (whose name she will not give either) that would substantiate any healing. Unlike most of you, I grew-up in a charismatic Assembly of God Church, the congregation of which personified the term Holy Rollers. Faith healers are a dime a dozen in those circles. I had to endure more faith healing rallies and revivals before I was eighteen than most people will their entire lives. Everyone from Ernest Angley to, well, name any faith healing evangelist who traveled the Midwest USA during the 60 - 70s and I probably saw them. Not one of them ever convinced me they had something real going on. It’s amazing how ALL their so-called healings happen internally where we can’t see them. I’d look around at people in the crowds, men who had come back from WWII or Korea missing hands, legs, and fingers, and not one of them ever grew a new one. Either God lacks the power to heal people of external afflictions or these faith healers are frauds. Or they may be something just as bad—self-deceived lunatics. When I see a hand grow where there isn’t one I’ll believe in them, and not one minute before. I’m not a Doubting Thomas. He had seen Jesus perform so many miracles (including restoring an ear that had been cut off) that it was more irrational NOT to believe Christ had risen from the grave like he said he would. We have every reason to be skeptical of modern day faith healers though, many of whom have been caught in outright lies and fraudulent activities. Some have even gone to jail for them. I approach faith healers with the same incertitude as marriage proposals. Either way, I’m a tough horse to rope.