The Day I Realised I Wasn't a Catholic!

I was raised in a Catholic family and attended RC schools until I was 18. Three of my Grandparents were Irish who moved to Bradford in the north of England before WW1, but I never knew them because they had all died before I was born. So to say that I come from an Irish Catholic family is a bit of a stretch because we had no links with the old country, and if asked I would have said I was from Yorkshire. In fact the only Grandparent I did know was a true Yorkshireman. Bradford was a boom town in the 19th Century and attracted Irish people looking for work. My Irish Grandfather, Patrick, had several brothers who emigrated to the USA. Bradford obviously had its attractions, with a sizeable population of Irish descent, even having its own soccer team, Bradford Park Avenue with its Celtic-like strip. Bradford City Football Club being its protestant counterpart.

If my ties to Ireland were tenuous my connection to the RC church was little better - I did the stuff required by the Catholic school system but had no personal attachment or sense of belonging. At primary school it was expected that all the lads would serve as altar boys in the parish church on a Sunday. I refused point blank, not that I was making any courageous sort of 'statement' by it, I just felt it looked daft! I gathered later that the Head-Sister (we were taught by nuns) spoke to my parents about this; 'doesn't he realise what an honour it is?!' In fairness to my parents, who were regular church-goers, they never pressed the issue and when I was 13 they allowed me to decide if I still wanted to go to church. I did not.

Despite going through a 'raving atheist' phase in my teens, in one respect being Catholic did remain with me. In the late 1960's when I was 10 or 11 years old 'The Troubles' started in Northern Ireland and I vividly recall the parish priest coming to our house and speaking to my mother about the possibility of the violence spilling over to the UK mainland. My mother was in genuine fear and even though I didn't understand all that was said, being of a sensitive nature too I registered that sense of foreboding. Occasionally school would finish early and I recall that we would be told to go home directly when rumours circulated that gangs were planning to target Catholic kids - often in response to some IRA bomb outrage. Looking back now it may seem far-fetched that 'The Troubles' should affect us but the fear was genuine enough at the time, even if it never came to anything.

When I was 17 I started attending an Evangelical church and it grieved me that some people I knew felt a sense of betrayal far more acutely then than when I had ceased to attend Mass.

Later when I left school, in 1976, my first job was working in the Criminal Litigation department of a firm of solicitors in Bradford. The senior partner was an amiable gent called Desmond Joyce who, as this story will go on to relate, was a pillar of the Irish Catholic community, a point I had completely failed to register. One day I took a phone call for Mr Joyce from his golf partner arranging a game, I wrote down his name phonetically having asked him to repeat it a couple of times. Later I passed on the message to the Senior Partner, 'an Italian bloke called for you' I said. He looked mystified, slowly I read out the name, 'a Signor Roncelli'. Mr Joyce looked at me in despair, 'that should be Monsignor Ron Kelly, stupid boy!'
That was the day I realised that I really wasn't a Catholic!

Human, Humane, Humanity.

Incomprehensible actions comfortingly described as "inhuman" turn out, on reflection, to be all too human.

Parents who Believe in Miracles are "torturing" Dying Children.

An article published recently in The Journal of Medical Ethics, in the UK, cited over two hundred cases where the parents' religious beliefs adversely affected the care of children in intensive care. In the majority of cases there was some meeting of minds but in 17 cases no accommodation was possible between the parents and the medical staff caring for their dying children. The authors, who included medical staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital along with their chaplaincy department, expressed concern that there was an increasing number of instances where parents required futile and intrusive treatment in the expectation of a miraculous recovery. The ethical issue was whether parents had the right to 'stonewall' the medical judgement of the health professionals and impose their religious beliefs on their children with pointless medical interventions.

'Christian Nurses & Midwives' (CNM) addressed this very problem in the Spring 2007 issue of CNM News, number 17, in an article titled 'Faith in Faith or Faith in God?' I was the author of that article and given the current interest in the media I thought I would revisit this issue here. I will start with a major caveat - I have only read the abstract of the JME article and some of the media comment resulting from it. I am not a subscriber to JME so I can't comment in detail on the piece in question. But given my prior interest in this topic I hope my thoughts will be helpful to the reader.

CNM gave some consideration to the interaction of 'faith' and medical treatment in the light of some cases not dissimilar to the ones cited by JME. Those were instances I had personal knowledge of in my work in Paediatric Intensive Care over twenty years and as a committed Christian I could bring to bear some insight into the predicament the parents of dying children face in the context of their 'faith' position. I too have met parents who wished to continue medical treatment in the hope of divine intervention and wrestled with the ethical dilemma of such demands as well as having to reflect on my own understanding of my own 'faith' position. My article 'Faith in Faith or Faith in God?' arose out of these demanding challenges.

The obvious point to make is that parents who seek medical treatment in the hope of a miraculous outcome are not doing so from a considered conviction borne of their faith as the JME authors intimate. Such a position is self evidently paradoxical and conflicted; why is the hoped for miracle contingent on human effort?! Theologically it is ill-considered. In fact if a belief in miracles was the driving motivation it ought logically to give rise to the opposite problem - of parents refusing reasonable medical treatment. So the dynamic is not the superficially stated position, the true dynamic lay elsewhere.

In 'Faith in Faith or Faith in God?' I set the stated 'faith' in the context of a faith community with a self deluding and self re-enforcing faulty theology. The media reports of the JME article set the parents up as discrete individuals with little social context. However it struck me that these individuals exist in the context of a 'faith' community and one, as a committed evangelical Christian, I would argue has a faulty theology which has triumphalistic expectations and a 'party' line to be adhered to. The sheer paradox I've already alluded to should be a clue that it is faulty on every level. For every miraculous deliverance in the Biblical text there are more accounts of suffering. And while it is entirely appropriate to pray for deliverance it is difficult to reconcile the naive notion that Christians are above the common suffering of humanity with the stories of Job, Jeremiah, Jesus or Paul. The conflict JME points to is not between secular values and Christianity as it implies, it is actually between Christian values and worldly ones defined by which kingdom we seek to belong to; is it a 'this worldly one' or a 'heavenly one'? From that perspective the JME authors have far more in common with the parents they despise than either have with authentic Biblical Christianity!

I am troubled by reports of the JME article which use words like 'torturing' and 'stonewall' (these may not be in the original JME article of course) which are clearly weighted to prejudice the reader and draw them on to a particular side of the debate. The discussion actually comes to centre on 'distributive justice' - a disingenuous term which means 'health care rationing' - ie each individual is entitled to only so much of health care product at the discretion of the health care professional. That is the core issue here. I'm not sure I would want that sort of power or responsibility but that is the end point the JME authors are pointing to.... an ethical debate about whether agents of the state have the power to decide the fate of your children.

'Hard cases make bad law' means that when we make generalities based on relatively rare events we are only creating a future injustice. Even assuming that the JME article is merely attempting to stir up a debate, rather than being a tendentious polemic, the problem is that it is theologically and socially naive. No doctor is compelled to 'torture' a dying child... This is mere journalistic hyperbole! If this is to be a mature discussion then such histrionics need to be set aside.

And before you comment on this article check out the one I did in 2007!

How would I deal with these ethical situations? If I thought that there was no realistic prospect of recovery despite all our efforts in intensive care - I would tell the parents we had come to the end of all that Man can do... an acknowledgement a secular humanist is far more likely to choke on than a believer. Yet such an admission instantly resolves the clash of worldviews and focuses the discussion where it should be both medically and theologically without any contrived phoney war between the two. These parents should be treated as any other parent in a grief state of 'bargaining' or 'denial'.

What these parents most fear is not breaking faith with God, but breaking faith with their dying child.

Testimony 2

Why is humility such a difficult virtue to aspire to? Perhaps it is because the primordal vice is pride, the desire to have the pre-eminent position and to be second to no-one. I hate the notion that my intellectual abilities may be considered second rate and that I will be despised as a consequence. I want to be respected and well thought of.

Notionally, as a Christian, I aspire to humility but in practice my flesh cries out in protest - I generally consider myself better than others, look out for my own interests and indulge in vain conceir contrary to Philippians 2 v1-11 etc.

When I discuss Christian things with non-believers I am more inclined to talk in a sophisticated way about philosophy of religion out of fear of being looked down on. Perhaps that is why my Christian life lacks real power and why I often feel hollow spiritually. In 1 Corinthians 1 v17b Paul talks of avoiding such sophistication 'lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power'. I want to look intellectually impressive and find the result is empty while 2 Corinthians 4 talks about 'treasures in jars of clay', it looks totally pathetic and yet conceals true riches. The point to bear in mind is that the Kingdom of God subverts the standards of the world and it is well worth reading 1 Corinthians 1 v18-31 in full to get the real impact of what God id doing! It is something I want to take to heart for sure!

The church in Sardis (Rev 3 v1-6) has a reputation for being alive but its incomplete actions belie its orthodoxy. I often feel full of good intentions but they don't often get translated into reality. My deepest regrets in life have never come about by being too dedicated to the Lord Jesus, they have always arisen from my unbelief and compromise. A half hearted believer is in the most pitiful situation of all. With one foot in the world's camp I will never truly taste the joy of the Lord.

When I come across old notes written by myself I discover fossil aspirations which touch on things like personal Bible study and Scripture memory. They are great intentions but if I am half hearted about them I am simply giving way to unbelief aren't I? I find time for other things, general reading and TV etc, which aren't necessarily bad in themselves, but they distract me. I suppose it could be argued that these other things cause me to imbibe the values of the world although in practice I find these values actually wearying to my soul rather than attractive. But perhaps that is sufficient to leave me tired, cynical and dispirited.

The fact is whatever doubts attack me they always prove to be silly and insubstantial. They may be in tune with the world's thinking but on examination invariably prove to be paper tigers. But Jesus' words always ring true. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light".

"Religion is a Force for Good" - discuss!

In a recent public debate Tony Blair argued in favour of this proposition and Christopher Hitchens against. But much of this so-called discussion, it seems to me, is framed in post-modern language which inevitably predetermines the conclusion. Not surprisingly Christopher Hitchens had the better of the debate while Tony Blair seemed hesitant and defensive.

For example, to discuss "faith" as an abstract condition without any reference as to what that "faith" is in is completely non-sensical. Personally I am often mystified as to what people actually mean when the "faith" word is bandied around like this. This concept of faith as an abstraction is surely a post-modern imposition which invariably skews sensible discussion; it treats "faith" as a personal attribute rather than having an objective focus. The post-modern is more concerned with the journey itself rather the destination because that resolves all discussion about value judgements by internalising them as a matter of personal taste. The post-modern probably thinks he or she is doing you a favour, but by patronising people like this they are actually quite insulting without ever realising it... all because they do not have the conceptual framework to gain any meaningful insight.

The same applies to the "religion" word (barely a Biblical word at all!). The post-modern will lump all "religion" together as if it is an indistinguishable mass; and perhaps to the undiscerning it is. But it is not part of my worldview to endorse all "religion" - far from it. I could not argue that all religion is a force for good... or that even most of it is. In fact such a concept is actually anti-thetical to my belief in Jesus Christ, who made a number of exclusive truth claims.

I wonder why Tony Blair allowed himself to get into a discussion framed in terms which are, in actuality, indefensible! It is like being set up with the "have you stopped beating your wife?" question - there is no good answer!

Heidelberg Catechism.
How are you right with God?

Only by true faith in Jesus Christ (1).
Even though my conscience accuses me
of having grieviously sinned against all God's commandments
and of never having kept any of them (2),
and even though I am still inclined toward all evil (3),
nevertheless - without my deserving it at all (4),
out of sheer grace (5),
God grants and credits to me
the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ (6),
as if I had never sinned or been a sinner,
as if I had been as perfectly obedient
as Christ was obedient for me (7).

All I need to do is to accept this gift of God with a believing heart (8).

1. Romans 3 v21-28; Ephesians 2 v8-9.
2. Romans 3 v9-10.
3. Romans 7 v23.
4. Titus 3 v4-5.
5. Romans 3 v24; Ephesians 2 v8.
6. Romans 4 v3-5; 2 Corinthians 5 v17-19; 1 John 2 v1-2.
7. Romans 4 v24-25; 2 Corinthians 5 v21.
8. John 3 v18; Acts 16 v30-31.

DOUBT IN PERSPECTIVE.

Unbelief is an act of will, rather than a difficulty in understanding.

Doubt often means asking questions or voicing uncertainties from the standpoint of faith. You believe - but you have difficulties with that faith, or are worried about it in some way. Faith and doubt aren't mutually exclusive - but faith and unbelief are.


Doubt is probably a permanent feature of the Christian life. It's like some kind of spiritual growing pain. Sometimes, it recedes into the background; at other times, it comes to the forefront, making its presence felt with a vengeance. A medical practitioner I knew once remarked that life was a permanent battle against all sorts of diseases, with good health being little more than an ability to keep disease at at bay. For some people, the life of faith often seems like that - a permanent battle against doubt. It is helpful to think of doubt as a symptom of our human frailty, of our reluctance to trust God. Let's develop this by thinking about how people come to faith.



Coming to faith - with unresolved doubts.

One way of understanding conversion runs like this. What stops people from coming to faith in God is doubt. After wrestling with these various doubts and overcoming them, the way is clear to come to faith. Coming to faith this happens once all doubt has been cleared out of the way. Faith excludes doubt! Now it is quite possible that some people do come to faith this way. However, most do not. Experience suggests that a rather different way of understanding conversion is more reliable.


Many people feel deeply attracted by the gospel, despite their doubts. On the one hand, their doubts are real, and hold them back from faith; on the other, the pull of the gospel is strong, and draws them towards faith. In the end, they decide to put their trust in God and in Jesus Christ, despite unresolved anxieties and difficulties. They are still in two minds. They hope their doubts and difficulties will be sorted out as they grow in faith. The seventeenth-century philosopher Francis bacon commended this way in his Advancement of Learning (1605): 'If a man will begin with certainties, he will end in doubts; but if he is content to begin with doubts, he will end in certainties.'

An analogy may make this clearer. Suppose you are at a really boring party one evening, when you meet someone you feel drawn to. You get to know this person, and, as time goes on, realize you're falling in love. However, you hold back from allowing the relationship to develop any further. After all, you don't really know the other person that well. There might be some dark side to their character. Can you really trust them? And, like many people, you may have a sense of personal inadequacy: what, you wonder, could this other person possibly see in you? Could they ever possibly fall in love with you? You are profoundly attracted to them, yet you hold back. You have doubts. You're in two minds about it.


Now in this situation, you have two options. You can still hold back, and become a prisoner of your doubts and hesitations. If we all did this all the time, we'd miss out on many of life's great adventures and surprises - including both falling in love and discovering the Christian faith. Or you can take a risk. You can say, 'I'm going to give this a try, and hope that my doubts and anxieties will be resolved as things go on.' And so you allow the relationship to develop.


Many people become Christians in that kind of spirit. They are aware of the enormous attraction of the gospel; they are deeply moved by the thought of Jesus Christ dying for their sins; they are excited by the great gospel promises of forgiveness and newness of life. Or they have experienced glimpses of transcendence, and just know there is a God out there. They decide to reach out in faith, and claim these as their own. As for their doubts and anxieties? They hope they will be resolved and put in their proper perspective as their relationship with God develops. 'I believe; help my unbelief!' (Mark 9:24).



Quoted from pages 14 & 15 of "Doubt in Perspective" by Alister McGrath., published by Inter-Varsity Press (IVP), ISBN: 978-1-84474-137-3.

EVANGELICALS:
ELECT or ELITE?

The book "Father and Son" by Edmund
Gosse is an autobiographical account
of Gosse's relationship with his
evangelical father while growing up
in the mid nineteenth century. Some of
his observations and experiences resonate
with my own spiritual journey so it was a
fascinating and touching story. In many
respects his criticism of evangelicalism
(his parents were part of the Plymouth
Brethren) are ones I would endorse.
Gosse is right to point out the dehumanising
nature of religion when innocent pursuits
are arbitrarily counted as 'sinful'. And it
wasn't that Gosse's father was meaning to
be a dreadful ogre - his actions were meant
for the best - and that is the real issue isn't it?

What turns a reasonable, loving, caring father
into an ogre if it wasn't his evangelicalism?!

I believe that we can pinpoint the problem:
there is just a great a danger in living above
the line of God's Word as living below it!
(A crucial distinction between 'evangelicalism'
as a sociological phenomenon and the ideal
of the body of evangelical doctrine to which
all evangelicals ostensibly hold).

What does that distinction mean in practice?

The Pharisees of Jesus' day were orthodox,
upright people whose lives, in many respects,
were praiseworthy. The problem is in their
desire to remain unsullied by the world they
hedged themselves around with religious
requirements which God never asked for.

Not surprisingly they came to see themselves
as God's elite and that fed their spiritual pride.
Spiritual pride is an abomination to God.
They didn't just presume they were 'okay' -
they presume that they are better than okay!
Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, said
"Beware of practising your righteousness
before other people in order to be seen by
them..." Jesus challenges us with the question
'who are you trying to impress?' It is perfectly
possible to have orthodox beliefs but use
them in a self serving way - God says to
such people 'you sought the admiration of
your contemporaries.... and that is the only
reward you will get!'

It isn't wrong to seek to love and serve God
with all your heart - but it is possible to want
to do this in such a way as to be admired by
other people for it! And that poisons our
relationship with God. It is the comparing
which reveals the true state of our hearts.
Are we doing something solely to please God
or to compare ourselves favourably against
others?

'Others may be content to serve God to "X "
extent', we say, 'but I can do better'. Gosse's
father confused being "elect" with being "elite",
just as the Pharisees did, and as we continue
to do! Not surprisingly when life does not
follow the contours they had confidently
predicted - they felt some degree of grievance
against a God who had not come good on the
bargain they had foisted on Him; holding
God to account for promises He had never
made. God will not be so manipulated.


Their sense of grievance at the 'sacrifices' they
had made to no effect on a God impervious to
their demands is testimony to the nature of
the bargaining relationship they had with God
belying the evangelical doctrine they wore as
a badge of distinction!


It is not surprising that Jesus preferred the
company of prostitutes and swindlers because
they understood what the sheer grace of God
means: they had no spiritual pretensions, they
were 'elect' (that is, chosen by God to receive
His mercy) but they also knew they were not a
spiritual 'elite' - and that is the point every
true Christian needs to come to; where do you
really put your trust - in Christ's righteousness
alone or your own self righteouness?
There is no middle ground.

I should know because I was once full of it... my
spiritual credentials! Now I'm an evangelical:
elect but not "elite"!

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).

DAN BAKER'S AUNT SALLY.

October 2006's thought from my agnostic calendar is:

"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith,
then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its
own merits." Dan Baker.

"Aah.......this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'faith'
that I wasn't previously aware of!" (Apologies to Douglas Adams
and 'Arthur Dent'!)

One cannot have faith in something [that is trust it] unless at
some level you are convinced it already has merit. Derrrrr!

It makes you wonder what the apostle Paul was doing in Athens
debating with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, or why he
spent two years "reasoning daily in the Hall of Tyrannus" with
all-comers [see Acts 17 &19!]. Incidentally what have I been
doing this last year with "Calendar of Doom" if not arguing the
merits of the case?

To have a mature dialogue on issues that divide us requires an
agreement over what exactly we disagree on! Can I recommend
Wayne Grudem's "Systematic Theology" published by IVP:
GB ISBN 0-85110-652-8 or USA ISBN 0-310-28670-0. The
contents give a surprisingly accesible account of evangelical beliefs.
Chapter 35 and specifically pages 710 & 711 puts paid to a couple
of commonly accepted, but laughable, concepts of 'faith' including
the irrational belief in something despite the abscence of evidence
version which yanked Dan Baker's chain. There is a good explanation
there of what 'faith' really means in the context of the evangelical
faith [and frankly I'm not an apologist for any other kind].

Biblically speaking 'faith' is not so much about believing abstract
assertions, it is more akin to trusting in the character of a personal
being and the promises they make. A Christian is someone who
believes that there is ample evidence to justify not merely a belief
in God's existence but crucially to trust in God's character. Now
Dan Baker will almost certainly not accept that evidence as
compelling - but that is a totally different issue to simply asserting
that Christians have put the 'faith' cart before the evidential horse!

Rather than view 'faith' as some special category of knowledge semi-
detached from reality, it is important to say that we all put our trust
in others from time-to-time [eg the pilot of my holiday flight, the
cook who prepared my meal, even the compiler of the bus timetable
etc etc etc]. All civilisation hinges on those little quantum packets of
trust we both give and receive. But we have already covered a lot of
this ground back in February's "Calendar of Doom" when we looked
at 'Doubt & Certainty' with Voltaire. Incidentally the compiler of the
'agnostic calendar' was asserting 'faith' in Dan Baker when they chose
his quotation - they trusted in the veracity of his accusation.

Let us hope that it was not the case that he thought it is sufficient
merely to caricature and misrepresent someone else's position. If so
it can only be the gallery he is playing to. Or it might simply be that
he hasn't done enough background reading before launching his
attack.

Either way; when he sorts himself out his little homily against
"intellectual bankruptcy" will be a tad more credible.




tagline: Dan Baker. Misrepresentation. Caricature. Versus. Peter
Swift. Faith. Gospel. Evangelical. Evangelicalism. Christianity.
swiftypete. Jesus. Jesus Christ. Intellectual. Mature. Calendar of
Doom. The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. H2G2. 'Safe'. The
God Delusion.

VOLTAIRE on Doubt & Certainty!

February 2006's thought from my agnostic
calendar is; "Doubt is not a pleasant condition,
but certainty is absurd." Voltaire.

On balance I'm with Voltaire on this one. One would
need to be all wise and omniscient to have the certainty
Voltaire alludes to. Humans are limited in time and
space, so our knowledge can only ever be provisional
and tentative.

Jesus does not despise the faith of the man who cries
"I believe, help my unbelief!" Mark 9v24. And the
Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 talks about "knowing
in part...the partial passing away...giving up childish
ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly...Now I know
in part; then I shall fully know, even as I have been
fully known". Paul can say this because he grasps that
the Gospel isn't merely a set of propositions. It IS
propositional, but it is not JUST a set of propositions.
Paul realises that Christians need to grow into those
truths and we won't know it all this side of heaven. It
would be absurd to imply that the instant a Christian
becomes a Christian - crash, bang, wallop he or she
should know everything with certainty. A disciple is
"a work in progress!" There isn't a problem with the
transmitter but there is a problem with the receiver.
The Christian knows this and asks the Holy Spirit to
help him grow in understanding. This is why we are
called disciples and not sooth-sayers. God does not
require us to be superhuman - merely to recognise
that we are human.

Christians teach "the sufficiency of scripture", not
that it's a comprehensive compendium of all possible
knowledge, past, present and future. Rather it is
better to say that scripture is sufficient for us to
have confidence to direct the believer in matters of
faith and conduct. That is the common sense approach
.....and that is what it claims for itself.

It seems to me that real life never deals in "certainty".
Nor do we live our lives in a haze of doubt. Voltaire is
in danger of setting up "doubt" and "certainty" as a
false dichotomy when real life actually resides between
those two. In 1980 I did my first [and only] solo parachute
jump. Was I "certain" the parachute would work? Well,
actually no - I couldn't claim certainty for it or for the
reserve if the main failed. Does that mean I was in "doubt"?
Well; no - I wouldn't have left the ground if I was - instead
I made a judgement, one I was prepared to act on. We make
similar judgements each day in real life, well away from the
absurdities thrown up by the extremes of language [what
happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable
object - sort of thing!] To ask, am I "certain" I will arrive
safely home from work today? Or am I "certain" this salmon
mousse I am about to eat won't kill me? isn't how real life
actually ticks is it? We do not have that degree of control
and autonomy. What we do is make a judgement call. Just
as I entrusted myself to the parachute all those years ago
I am now entrusting myself to Christ - I have made a
judgement and believe he is trustworthy.

"Certainty" [or at least the desire for it] is more to do with
a desire for autonomy - being an island "entire of itself" and
making a "judgement" turns on what one has trusted in -
the recognition of the limitations of oneself and ones
connectedness with things outside of oneself, which inherently
mean dependence...and risk...as all relationships do. A child
(unaware of the dangers of electricity) who is told not to
stick it's fingers in the electric socket must make a judgement
call - to trust the carer or to believe the worst of them - it
cannot "know" autonomously.

"Certainty" is indeed absurd, but perhaps we can say that
"doubt in oneself " is the beginning of wisdom.

tag-line. Voltaire. Calendar of Doom. Certainty. Doubt.