ARGUMENTATION!

A few weeks ago I received a 'freebie' from
http://www.teach12.com/ in the form of an article
called "38 Ways to Win an Argument from
Arthur Schopenhauer's 'The Art of Controversy'."
It makes fascinating reading for someone like
myself who takes an interest in Christian
Apologetics.

The strategies suggested involve misrepresenting
your opponents position, making them angry,
confusing them and twisting their language. Also
by using the innocence of a non-expert audience
you can ridicule a perfectly valid argument made
by your opponent. "For it is with victory that you
are concerned, not with truth"! There is something
unkind - if not downright cruel - about it all, but
perhaps this should not surprise us because
all that is false is cruel by that very fact.

Well, frankly I find the strategies suggested totally
deplorable. Of course I am saying this as a
Christian for whom the 9th Commandment against
"bearing false witness" is a cardinal principle.
Furthermore underhand strategies are antithetical
to the spirit of the Gospel; they imply that the truth
will not do. Integrity requires that one
understands and represents ones opponent's views
fairly.

I can only conclude that there are people out there
who are prepared to publicly argue a case they
know to be false, because these strategies can serve
no other purpose; unless the whole article is meant
to be 'tongue in cheek' of course, but somehow I
doubt it.

I have no interest in arguing something I suspect
is false; my philosophy of argumentation is this:
my primary goal is to understand the truth and
if I am wrong it is a kindness to put me right. In
that sense an argument requires good faith on
both sides to engage with an issue fairly and,
no matter how difficult the discussion is, it will
ultimately be collaborative and enlightening.
Even an insult may contain some flash of insight
from which one might benefit. The alternative
of cheap point scoring at someone else's expense
is mindlessly adversarial and results in nothing
of worth.

The only"victory" worth having is to know the
truth. Ultimately the facts are their own best
argument.

ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN.

"If only there were evil people some where
insidiously committing evil deeds and it were
necessary only to separate them from the rest
of us and destroy them. But the line dividing
good and evil cuts through the heart of every
human being."
Alexandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn
"The Gulag Archipelago".

Buffalo Wings?!

On a recent visit to my local supermarket I came across "Buffalo Wings" in the meat section. I'm concerned that Tesco may have butchered one of the creatures from Revelation chapter 4! Judging from the quantity available there has to be more than one of them too. Could Tesco have a battery farm somewhere mass producing these "Living Creatures"?
Can I urge you to write to Tesco to enquire about the welfare of these angelic beings? Are they 'free range' and is there an 'organic' version? Are there any EU directives concerning the production of these creatures?
Or could this produce be some hideous genetic mutation being foisted onto an unsuspecting public?
If it is one of the 'Four Living Creatures' what are the implications for our understanding of the 'End Times'?

ps It tastes like chicken!

FAITH in "FAITH" or FAITH in GOD?

One of the most perplexing problems that occasionally
arises for Christian health care workers is when a
purported divine promise is quoted for a terminally ill
patient's healing.

The scenario I have in mind is a conflation of several
real incidents; combined to blur particularities and so
aid confidentiality and for dramatic effect. The situation
develops like this: a young child is admitted to intensive
care with irreparable brain damage.The senior elder in
their faith community gives a prophecy to the believing
parents that the child will recover.This is certainly the
outcome everyone wants - including the staff on the unit.
But 'the wish becomes father to the thought' and the
parents home church rejoice in the promise given. The
parents are urged to trust in "God's Word" and not give
way to the fear Satan would attack them with.

I was the senior nurse in charge when this very situation
arose. One of my colleagues was reduced to tears when
the childs mother turned her wrath on her for 'undermining
their faith' when she sought to raise the grave nature of
their childs condition. I spoke to the parents who told me
that there was a conspiracy to undermine their faith and
all the staff were party to it. If only their child were back at
their home rather than here - they "knew" all would
be well....the perceived barriers to their childs wellbeing
were the very medical and nursing staff caring for them!
(To them the child was dying because he was in hospital
- he was not in hospital because he was dying!) One
might wonder why they brought him to the Accident and
Emergency Department in the first place: they brought him
only because they realised that he needed some suction
to clear his airway, the staff had to restrain them from
removing him even as the team resuscitated him.

It struck me that their concept of 'faith' was much more to
do with 'the power of positive thinking'. Almost as if "faith"
was some sort of inanimate spiritual force to be manipulated
by sheer will power, it was certainly nothing I could describe
as biblical faith, which is always a personal expression of
trust rather than an abstraction. In many ways this view of
"faith" is more pagan than Christian. It is more akin to 'spirit
channelling' - only in this case the 'spirit' being so channelled
is, ostensiby, The Holy Spirit: as if He is an impersonal
force rather than God: if only the 'right' spiritual conditions
could be engineered then a healing must inevitably follow.
I spoke to them at some length, seeking to assure them that
we are on the side of 'health' and affirmed that their child was
in better hands than ours and no-one would be more delighted
than me for us all to be proven wrong and for God to be glorified
by their child's miraculous recovery. "We are not against miracles",
I said, "but I would be failing in my responsibility if I didn't tell you
what we are up against". They listened politely to what I had
to say but were unmoved.

A few days later some members of the church youth group
came to visit along with the senior pastor. They were visibly
shocked by what they witnessed of the patients condition;
comatose and ventilated. I spoke to the pastor who was
baffled by the conflicting reports he had heard. What had
been reported to him was the child was indeed staging a
miraculous recovery - and that the patient would be well
enough to receive visitors. My interpretation of this hearsay
was that their particular church had received back the vibes
it was transmitting. In short the parents fed back to the church
every scintilla of positive news (which was largely imaginary)
and edited out all the negative (which was overwhelming).
The parents and their church were effectively caught in a
cycle of mutual deception masquerading as 'faith building'.

At this point I want to flag up a practice common among
some faith ministries of encouraging public testimony
of a healing which has yet to occur as if it already has.
This is justiified on the dubious basis of "declaring that
which is not, as if it were!" Or by suggesting to the supplicant
that the healing will occur as the testimony is given.This in
my opinion is fundamentally dishonest and is indefensible
as a practice.True faith cannot be bolstered by such
(let's face it) manipulation. The lack of integrity belies the
Spirit of God invoked.

The pastor and I spoke together for a while. It seemed
to me that he was too keen (given his miraculous convictions)
to explore further courses of treatment and investigation. The
parting comments indicated that he felt that the onus was
wholly on the parents faith whether the child was healed or
not - he had done all he could. The youth group was ushered
out in an embarrassed silence. He was clearly positioning
himself ready for failure.

It is difficult to imagine what a parent feels when they
lose a child. It is even more difficult to imagine what it
is like to feel that their fate was determined by one's own
lack of faith and to feel estranged from the church
community one had had implicit faith in: and that is where
their "faith" does lie. Stranger still is the notion that the
unbelief' of the medical and nursing staff was the principal
cause of death. The child did die as anticipated and the
promise of miraculous recovery proved false. Unable to
countenance such a loss of face and to reconcile their
conflicting feelings the parents phoned the police to
report that their child had been murdered! Their official
theological position was that the parents and their
community were all on board for a miracle - it could only
have been thwarted by Satan using a staff member as
an agent of his will. This rationalisation was as inevitable
as it was preposterous. How do we unravel a situation
like this? First by realising that every one starts by
meaning well - everyone wants the child to get better.
But that natural wish clouds people's judgement and
problems arise because the people directly involved
do not have a theology of suffering. Don Carson in his
book "How Long, O Lord?"*, says we need to have our
theology of suffering in place before we enter such a
time of trial - unfortunately such a theology is anathema
among believers who have a theology of 'glory now'.
In their 'time-line' we are not in an in-between phase
(between the First and Second Comings of Jesus Christ)
in their minds eye it is all 'Glory' now. To reconcile reality
with their theology when 'glory' fails to materialise
requires a fundamental shift in focus - from God to
Satan as the one in ultimate control. And whether this
is a psychologically tenable position must be disputed;
regardless of the dubious theology involved.

In my own feeble way I attempted to challenge such a
view of events. Surely it is more of a comfort to know
that the child died in God's arms, and not as a
consequence of Satan's activity? Apparently not!
Over and above the usual grieving process of anger,
denial, bargaining, resignation and acceptance over
the dying patient, there was a parallel process over
their "faith", each interwoven with the other, and
conflicting with their immediate church community.

In such a situation I would regard the parents as victims
of false teaching and syncretism.The onus actually lies
with the church leadership who had created an environ-
ment of unrealisable expectations in general and then
spoke a falsehood in particular invoking God's name
as their authority; and who, when confronted with the
reality of the situation, sought to shift responsibility for
their failure elsewhere rather than actually guide their
flock through a pastorally challenging time. One elder
was more concerned with saving face. It was a classic
failure of leadership. By their teaching and actions these
leaders had actually created a nightmare world for
acutely vulnerable people - I have no sympathy for
such wolves in sheeps clothing. False teaching has
nasty consequences and opposition to it is motivated
by compassion; not by dogmatic nit-picking.

A few years ago I attended a Christian convention and
during a meeting and greeting session I happened to
mention where I worked. An individual commented to
me that I must have witnessed a well known event when
a famous healer had healed everyone on the intensive
care unit. I replied that I was indeed working there at the
time and have no such recollection. We both smiled at
each other and made eye contact; my interlocutor
moved on to more fruitful conversations elsewhere.
I could not help feeling that if he had genuinely believed
in these miracles I could have expected a more robust
response: either for him to feel utterly deflated or for
him to denounce me as a liar. I could understand either
response but I cannot understand this 'easy come,
easy go' attitude to such claims. This is no casual matter
for those personally involved; and perhaps that relaxed
approach to God's honour actually belies a lack of true
faith.

Let me suggest some criteria for assessing prophetic
promises of a healing miracle: first there has to be a
confirmed diagnosis by a qualified diagnostician. I have
worked extensively as a nurse in adult and childrens
intensive care and could probably make an educated
guess about someone's symptoms, but I would never
claim to be a diagnostician: it would be unethical and
unprofessional to do so. My best guess would be no
substitute for a proper medical diagnosis. Also self
diagnoses by attention seekers known as the "worried
well" aren't good enough either. Nor is a "spiritual"
diagnosis by the healer themselves sufficient evidence
of a genuine medical problem. Secondly, the person
issuing such a prophetic promise cannot delegate
responsibility for its fulfillment elsewhere in order to
indemnify themselves against failure - they would
(I'm sure) be the first to claim some credit if a healing
did come to pass. Manipulative strategies invariably
indicate false teaching, especially when there is an
abuse of a position of trust, and even more so where
the manipulated are emotionally vulnerable.
Thirdly, a miracle proper only exists when all treatment
has ceased, for example the recovery of patients being
actively treated in Intensive Care is hardly evidence of
a visitors miraculous healing ministry whatever self
serving claims they might make for themselves! And
that brings me to my fourth point; is the "prophet/healer"
more concerned with building their own reputation than
they are about actually serving God's people? These
are some of the key issues I would flag up.

I should also mention the pastoral care of ones work
colleagues in a situation where the Gospel is seemingly
compromised and where they too have been abused in
the name of God. It is important to share that the display
of "faith" they have witnessed should not be attributed to
all Bible affirming Christians. Perhaps it may even be
an opportunity to talk about what true faith is! This may
be the only positive thing which can be redeemed from
such a situation.

As a Christian and a health care worker I see no conflict
in using my God given skills to help relieve the suffering
of others - in fact it is quite perverse to suggest otherwise.
Perhaps my decision to move into nursing was partly
motivated by a Christian urge to be part of God's answer
to a suffering world; I don't believe I am unique in this
because you will find many Christians within all the caring
professions and in public service. You will also find many
Christians serving their Lord in the voluntary sector in their
own time.

Sadly there are occasions when one has to break bad news
and that needs to be done truthfully and compassionately.
Even children die and children of believing Christians die
- we do not live in Disneyland we live in the real world. It is
entirely appropriate to pray to God for his help, and it is
also entirely appropriate to pray for those who care for our
loved ones to enable them to bring about a speedy recovery
....and when that is not possible to continue to care to enable
the patient to die in a dignified and comfortable way. In fact,
for those who die in Christ, we can by faith rejoice, knowing
that death will not have the last word. The Gospel enables
us to face reality and to do so without despair. I must add
that that has been the gracious response of the vast
majority of Bible believing Christians I've met in the course
of my career; the scenario outlined above was a minority
view.

Death and suffering are part of the common human
experience; that is the clear teaching of scripture. One
day Jesus will restore the creation and death itself will
be destroyed - but that time isn't yet. True faith looks
to the future when God himself will wipe away our tears.

Come, Lord Jesus!



* "How Long, O Lord?" by DA Carson, published by IVP.
Don Carson also wrote a helpful little book called
"The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God" also published
by IVP.

post-script; A shortened version of the above article
was subsequently published in the Spring 2007 issue
of "CNM News" (No 17).