{"id":1368,"date":"2009-01-22T14:00:19","date_gmt":"2009-01-22T22:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=1368"},"modified":"2009-01-22T14:00:19","modified_gmt":"2009-01-22T22:00:19","slug":"what-is-the-message-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/what-is-the-message-here\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the message here?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jesus never sent anyone to a doctor or a hospital. Jesus offered healing by one means only! Healing was by faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Pastor Bob on the Unleavened Bread Ministries website.\u00a0 The daughter of two followers of that group died last March <\/a>from untreated juvenile diabetes.)<\/p>\n

What is the orthodox response to Christian Science?\u00a0 As A-Bax said in a comment a while ago, it seems a fairly pure and principled test of the power of prayer.\u00a0 Is the conventional wisdom that prayer is only additive\u2014God will respond only if humans have availed themselves of all secular means of healing?\u00a0\u00a0 Under that theory, asking for God\u2019s help is like seeking habeas relief in federal court\u2014you have to first exhaust all your state court remedies.\u00a0\u00a0 But why should that be?\u00a0 Why should we be obligated to use the fruits of the scientific method before asking for divine intervention?\u00a0<\/p>\n

One hundred years ago, there was no treatment for juvenile diabetes, so if God were going to cure a child of the disease, he would have had to act absent relevant medical treatment.\u00a0 Now that such treatment exists, will he not intervene without prior medical effort?\u00a0 I don\u2019t understand why, though I\u2019m sure that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.\u00a0\u00a0 (Of course, we know that God doesn\u2019t always respond even after massive medical effort.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rick Warren says about God<\/a>: \u201cyou are loving to everyone you have made.\u201d\u00a0 Why not throw our fate upon his love always and unconditionally?<\/p>\n

On the other hand, why do Christian Scientists only abjure medical care?\u00a0 Why not expect God to drive them to the supermarket or fix their computer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesus never sent anyone to a doctor or a hospital. Jesus offered healing by one means only! Healing was by faith. (Pastor Bob on the Unleavened Bread Ministries website.\u00a0 The daughter of two followers of that group died last March … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1368"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1373,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368\/revisions\/1373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}