Yesterday the pastor at the new church down the street was talking about miracles. Basically it boils down to two things: 1) God does miracles only if He feels that one would advance His plans and 2) the reason we don't see more miracles apart from reason number one is that we need to prepare our lives for one. Now you know.
That said, he said that miracles still do happen today and he trotted out a couple of examples he has personally seen or been involved with. The first one was someone who had died and come back to life. But before he told that story he read from the Gospel of John where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. If you recall, by the time Jesus showed up Lazarus was several days dead. In fact, he was stinking dead. That's what the Bible says. "By this time he stinketh" in the words of the King James Version. Now that is impressive dead. I hate to say it but this guy's "resurrection" story didn't come anywhere near close to that.
The problem with these "dead people brought back to life" tales is that they are ALWAYS about someone who has recently died (like less than an hour recently died). Just as there is a controversy over when life ought to be counted as human and therefore protected, there is also a controversy about when does death actually happen. Is heart death alone counted as death? Is brain death alone counted as death? Or both? This is where it gets interesting. If I understand correctly people can be brought back from heart death provided not too much time has elapsed but when the brain goes, that is it. At any rate I know of NO INSTANCE outside of the Gospel of John where someone has been declared dead for several days, goes through rigor mortis and all that, and THEN comes back to life. Now if anyone knows of any case like that, I'd be interested in hearing the details.
The second story he told was about a young woman who had a baseball-sized tumor growing in her back and was scheduled for surgery. He anointed her with oil and guess what happened? As it turned out this young woman happened to be present and he invited her up to tell the rest of the story. When she went in to the doctor's office, she said, the tumor had shrunk to the size of a ping-pong ball and was able to be removed right there in the office Praise God and was benign. Praise God.
Now I was listening very close and it was not so much what the young woman said as what she did not say. She DID NOT say, "I went to Dr. Ramakrishnan at the West Michigan Cancer Center and this is what he said . . ." She DID NOT produce medical records to back up her testimony. More to the point, Dr. Ramakrishnan was not there to confirm her story. (I am making up the name Dr. Ramakrishnan, but the West Michigan Cancer Center is a real place and I know several fine people who work there.) The point is nothing about her story can be verified.
In contrast, the Catholic church, which has been in the miracle business a whole lot longer than this outfit, has a completely different approach. It has learned from the excesses and gullibilities of earlier ages and as a result has a lot higher standards when it comes to miracles. Lourdes is probably the best-known healing shrine in the Western world. But did you know that of all the people who have claimed to received miracle cures there the Church has only declared a handful to be miracles? Meaning they have ruled out all other explanations and this is the only one left. They don't take the person's word for it. They investigate thoroughly. Now a hard-core atheist might say they don't investigate thoroughly enough and it's always interesting that when a miracle is needed to make someone a saint a miracle always seems to come through in a timely fashion--but investigate they do. Because they know that there are plenty of frauds in the miracle business.
It seems a sign of desperation that these small-church preachers latch on so uncritically to miracles and go trumpeting them around without stopping to examine them critically. I bet you I could go into any of these churches and make up a heart-rending story of being saved from cancer or another illness and not once be challenged for it. Heck, I could even claim that I had an arm or a leg amputated and God restored it just like that. Who is going to dispute me? Maybe those cynics over at the Why Won't God Heal Amputees website. But really, who is going to challenge me? Hey, I might do it once just for kicks!
That said, he said that miracles still do happen today and he trotted out a couple of examples he has personally seen or been involved with. The first one was someone who had died and come back to life. But before he told that story he read from the Gospel of John where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. If you recall, by the time Jesus showed up Lazarus was several days dead. In fact, he was stinking dead. That's what the Bible says. "By this time he stinketh" in the words of the King James Version. Now that is impressive dead. I hate to say it but this guy's "resurrection" story didn't come anywhere near close to that.
The problem with these "dead people brought back to life" tales is that they are ALWAYS about someone who has recently died (like less than an hour recently died). Just as there is a controversy over when life ought to be counted as human and therefore protected, there is also a controversy about when does death actually happen. Is heart death alone counted as death? Is brain death alone counted as death? Or both? This is where it gets interesting. If I understand correctly people can be brought back from heart death provided not too much time has elapsed but when the brain goes, that is it. At any rate I know of NO INSTANCE outside of the Gospel of John where someone has been declared dead for several days, goes through rigor mortis and all that, and THEN comes back to life. Now if anyone knows of any case like that, I'd be interested in hearing the details.
The second story he told was about a young woman who had a baseball-sized tumor growing in her back and was scheduled for surgery. He anointed her with oil and guess what happened? As it turned out this young woman happened to be present and he invited her up to tell the rest of the story. When she went in to the doctor's office, she said, the tumor had shrunk to the size of a ping-pong ball and was able to be removed right there in the office Praise God and was benign. Praise God.
Now I was listening very close and it was not so much what the young woman said as what she did not say. She DID NOT say, "I went to Dr. Ramakrishnan at the West Michigan Cancer Center and this is what he said . . ." She DID NOT produce medical records to back up her testimony. More to the point, Dr. Ramakrishnan was not there to confirm her story. (I am making up the name Dr. Ramakrishnan, but the West Michigan Cancer Center is a real place and I know several fine people who work there.) The point is nothing about her story can be verified.
In contrast, the Catholic church, which has been in the miracle business a whole lot longer than this outfit, has a completely different approach. It has learned from the excesses and gullibilities of earlier ages and as a result has a lot higher standards when it comes to miracles. Lourdes is probably the best-known healing shrine in the Western world. But did you know that of all the people who have claimed to received miracle cures there the Church has only declared a handful to be miracles? Meaning they have ruled out all other explanations and this is the only one left. They don't take the person's word for it. They investigate thoroughly. Now a hard-core atheist might say they don't investigate thoroughly enough and it's always interesting that when a miracle is needed to make someone a saint a miracle always seems to come through in a timely fashion--but investigate they do. Because they know that there are plenty of frauds in the miracle business.
It seems a sign of desperation that these small-church preachers latch on so uncritically to miracles and go trumpeting them around without stopping to examine them critically. I bet you I could go into any of these churches and make up a heart-rending story of being saved from cancer or another illness and not once be challenged for it. Heck, I could even claim that I had an arm or a leg amputated and God restored it just like that. Who is going to dispute me? Maybe those cynics over at the Why Won't God Heal Amputees website. But really, who is going to challenge me? Hey, I might do it once just for kicks!
