This post was written to allow me to vent AND to provoke critical thinking regarding the things that are typically said as statements of faith or belief. It is not a call for some kind of civil action.
Recently, I ran into a man that I sometimes see at my church. A regular member of a Pentecostal church, Bill (not his real name) considers himself to be a kind of lay minister and, evidently, preaches and teaches in his home church on occasion. It is very obvious that "Bill's" faith is very important to him and that God is experienced as a very real presence in his life.
As we spoke together, Bill told me that his wife is dying of cancer. In fact, she is undergoing hospice care and, as happens in situations like this, her body has begun the process of shutting down. Bill and I talked about how much he and his wife had shared together over their many years of marriage and of their hopes for a future that seemed out-of-reach.
However, even as he was expressing his grief and sadness, Bill told me that he was assured by his pastor that his wife was going to undergo a miraculous healing. Indeed, his pastor told Bill that he had "heard a word from God" that God is going to heal his wife. Bill said that his pastor told him that it would "be at the last minute," but that he knew that God was going to perform this miracle. And Bill and his wife, as well, are confident that this will happen even as they both witness the continued deterioration of her physical condition.
My hope is, of course, that Bill's wife experiences just such an incredible miracle of healing. I hope that her case goes down into medical history as a recovery from the brink of death that no physician can explain. But I also know that this is unlikely to happen. The fact is, while many people have recovered from dire physical conditions that seemed insurmountable, there are certain realities that we must face and we are then forced to accept that life does come to an end. There are conditions of disease or illness that one cannot recover from.
Yet, here we have this pastor making a statement of fact regarding recovery from a physical condition that, as far as I know, he is unqualified to make. He did, indeed, make a diagnosis and, as a result, provided a prognosis of recovery from this cancer. And I know that this is not the first and only time that a pastor or "someone from the church" has done the same. Time and time again, I have heard people assure someone that God is going to provide a healing. Unfortunately, the reality is that many of these people did not receive that healing.
So, what happens when the miraculous healing fails to be realized? Often, we simply ignore the failure and we carry on as though nothing happened. The pastor expresses grief and now adjusts her words to those of condolence. The assurance of healing becomes the assurance of the entry of the deceased into eternal life with Jesus. For many thinking people, this heralds the end of their relationship to a church, or even to a sense of the value and relevance of Christianity. People and communities are damaged.
Maybe we have been too soft on these purveyors of false hope. Maybe we are too quick to excuse the claims of medical insights from unqualified people simply because they are from "the church" and they are only speaking out of their faith and that they really only mean well, after all. Maybe pastors and others who represent the institution of the church should be held accountable for making unsubstantiated claims. Maybe they should be sued for medical malpractice or for, at the least, practicing medicine without a license.
Of course, I am not referring to the many faithful clergy and lay persons who lovingly offer comfort to those who are suffering from illness or disease. There are many incredible examples of people of faith who provide supportive companionship and caring and who share in prayer to God for strength and comfort. Many prayers are said in faith asking for God to guide the medical care-givers as they apply their education and experience in order to discern the best treatment options for a patient. And there are those who have spent hours in a "ministry of presence" with those who are suffering and for those who grieve. Our human experience is blessed by those people.
At the same time, there are those who by some sense of entitlement mislead others into false hope under the guise of pastoral ministry, both clergy and laity. It is a pretty heady experience to be looked at as a special mouth-piece of God, by both clergy themselves and by those they minister to. But, perhaps, it is time to hold those people accountable. Perhaps, we too easily excuse unsubstantiated claims of "knowing" out of a too sensitive concern about judging another's faith. Maybe faithfulness calls us to acknowledge our human condition as it really is.
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