I cannot indulge in my hard study for 24 hours a day. So I skimed
over the September issue of "Presbyterian Today", the official magazine of
the PCUSA I subscribed. I found the cover story, Faith Healing Goes
Mainsteam was quite interesting and insightful.
I know most of you would have known the controversy of the healing
issue in our Presbyterican church, either in Taiwan or in the US. I
personally hold the conservative stance on this issue as you would
expect. However, I did undergo several times of the healing events and I
do belive that in God's ommipotency, anything can be possible in God's will.
However, since the complete teaching of the faith healing is lacking in
our chruch, compared with that in the Catholic church, most of the elders
in our church are very suspecious and even hostile to the people who are
for the effect. Basically this is also my attitude. There is supposed
to be some teaching to follow the effect of the healing. Otherwise, we
could see not much difference between the healing in Christianlity and
the panacea in the folk religions.
This article deals with the issue concisely, unlike the cover story of
the April 10 issue this year of the Time magazine which convered the whole
scale of the controversy in terms of the biblical miracles. This article
fsocuses on a pastor's, Craig Barnes', teaching about the faith healing
at his church, National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Most of
the TV evangelicals and the Pentacostals emphasize on the effects of
healing but profoundly speaking about the meaning to the congregation.
However, there is really the eveidence of being healed. So the argument
must not be the evidence but the teaching for the mainline churches.
Rev. Barnes espouses that the healing is for the wholeness of the
congregation. Individual sufferings seperate the connections among the
people in church. God could heal each individual. But God wants us to
commune one another and only through the communion God's work is
salient. Barnes witnessed that for some terminated patients, the faith
healing may not save them physically. But the prayers were always
answerd in a more profound form: The patients themselves would not feel
lonely and fearful of the unknown. The families of the patients were
encouraged and sustained to resume their normal lives after the losts of
the patients. God saves God's people's faith in the most hopeless
condition, the condition seen as the most desperate in the common
people's eyes. Once the faith is saved and protected, healing follows,
physically and spiritually.
So according his notion, the "faith" healing is more than we used to
think of. And the procedure is also different from our old logic.
The old one: people's faith --> God's power --> healing --> the
suffering one's health
The current one : people's communion (wholeness) --> God's power
--> healing --> all participants' faith and health
Therefore in his church the healing procedure is always congregational and
group-oriented. Through the collective prayers and love, the suffered is comforted
and healed. So no healing star. God uses everyone to love and heal one another.
How is this? Pretty neat, right?
I feel this hypothesis is somewhat with our Presbyterian communion
confession. In Lord's supper, Martin Luther believed the real existence
of Christ's blood and body. Ulrich Zwingli proposed that the ceremony was
only for the remembrance of Christ's sacrifice and redemption. John
Calvin walked in the middle, caliming that only with the personal faith,
was the collective communion effective to each individual who had been
"conditioned" to be saved by Christ's crucification and revival. But
remember the predetermination that Calvin always sticked to: faith is
only from God, not from men/women themselves. So we do believe that by
communion in Christ, our faith can be fostered and our sickness can be
healed. You may also see some kind of paradox in here. If you have
better discourse, please donate your two cents in the discussion. You
may just tell me how Bible says. :) The reference: New testament,
James, 5:13-16.
I happened to pastor Shu who tried to promote the faith
healing in the PCT as I went back to Taiwan 4 years ago. He was almost
stoned by many elders in our churches, you know. But people had good
excuse to stone him. Because his notion was in line with the TV
evangelical healing in the US. This is Ok, I mean. But he got his
uniqueness which I think is very Presbyterian. He said the fillfullment
of the Spirit was in two differnt forms. One is the consistent with the
faith of congregation. The other is the suddent (like spasm, you know).
He still highlighted the latter in healing. Further, he stressed that
the latter even could be effective in repairing people's broken
relationships with the others. Now it comes to a cycle, you see.
So I asked him to "heal" me for my lack of faith. See, based on the
traditional logic, my require won't be granted. But he prayed this for
me and I really sensed that my faith, the relationship between God and me,
was restored. So a so called "effective" prayer does not necessarily
need the faith as usually claimed.
The vision I have for the mainline churches today is the healing of
faith which is more urgantly needed than any form of physical healing.
