Hit the floor

[maystone]

The band is Drowning Pool; you probably all know them, but I am old and my scream-rock days are way behind me. The self-anointed "faith healer" is Benny Hinn. I used to be up on my religious charlatans, but I'm out of touch with that side of things, too. Apparently he has a world-wide following of faithful.

I was raised Evangelical Lutheran; we were about as far from ecstatic religious experiences as you could get and still call yourself fundamentalist. Very German, very controlled. However, my grandmother - who converted from Judaism to Christianity when she came to America and married my Lutheran grandfather - was a devout follower of Oral Roberts, a Pentecostal faith healer in the mid-to-late 20th century. My grandmother had been crippled by rheumatoid arthritis nearly all of her life. I never knew her before she was consigned to a wheelchair. (It was one of those huge Lionel Barrymore "It's a Wonderful Life" wheelchairs, and it and she scared the crap out of me as a kid.) I can remember her sitting at her kitchen table, console radio on her left side, her leaning slightly into it so as not to miss a word of his show, crocheting something beautiful and delicate with her painfully gnarled hands.

My family was appalled. To their credit, it wasn't primarily because they considered it trashy (although they did), but because they were afraid that my grandmother would try to rise up out of her chair and seriously hurt herself, perhaps even fatally. And perhaps when no one was around, late at night, she would try. If she did, it was never to any successful completion. She never took a step on her own in my lifetime. For my part, I couldn't blame her. Who wouldn't want to regain their health, their strength? I was young, and I wasn't seeing the whole picture.

My mother was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer in the early '90s. By that time she had been divorced from my father and remarried for about fifteen years. During that time she had also joined The Church of the Covenant, an Evangelical fundamentalist church with Lutheran roots. They didn't believe in healing through the laying on of hands, but they did believe in healing through faith. My mother joined prayer circles; there were prayer circles created and devoted just to her healing. It was all laid at the door of faith. I hated it, and I worried about her. She still carried on with her chemotherapy, and her cancer still progressed. She still prayed for rescue and was prayed for in turn by her fellowship. It didn't work. She died. And I'm afraid she died thinking - fearing - that her faith wasn't great enough to save her. And that is the trap of so-called faith healing. When it works, it's God; when it fails, it's you.

Comments

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

And I'm afraid she died thinking - fearing - that her faith wasn't great enough to save her. And that is the trap of so-called faith healing. When it works, it's God; when it fails, it's you.

Oh, this is so true. And it's hard to watch someone you love go through this other ache of the heart or spirit. I hear someone I know say quite often how her husband's cancer was cured because of everyone's prayers and their faith. I'm glad he's cured, but I want to say, how can you say that when someone else has died of cancer. They are not worse people or people with less faith in whatever they believe in. It's just not fair. It's the same people who think luck is a matter of being good or bad, productive or unproductive. It diminishes people.

[maystone.livejournal.com]

It diminishes people.

Yes, that's it exactly. Well stated.

[caerwynx.livejournal.com]

When it works, it's God; when it fails, it's you

Yup.:(

[maystone.livejournal.com]

Did this happen with George, too?

[gabrita.livejournal.com]

Wow, so much pushing, slapping, falling over, seizuring and screaming all in the name of blind faith. I understand the power of positive thinking but this? Are they insane or is it really me who is insane? That kind of thing is just so incomprehendable to me.

Thank you for sharing. Your last line, yes.

[maystone.livejournal.com]

All that violence is supposed to be the power of the spirit - God - transferring itself through the preacher and into the body of the believer. It overwhelms them, so they say. That kind of "faith," that kind of self-imposed, explosive, loss of self just scares the crap out of me.

[gabrita.livejournal.com]

That POV helps make a little bit more sense of their madness. It's scary and kind of creepy. It could easily be the theme of a Supernatural episode and it'd be really, really creepy.

[malterre.livejournal.com]

I remember when a family blamed the church I attended because it didn't cure the Mother's Stage Four cancer. To its credit, the church community was more comfort and help to Sue than her family was to her.