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Christian Faith Healers in a spot of bother (from IOL):

Christian Faith Healers in a spot of bother (from IOL):
Posted Fri, 08/06/2010 - 20:56

Faith healers anger council of churches
August 06 2010 at 05:44PM

The SA Council of Churches has slammed all faith-healing practices in which people are supposedly miraculously cured of life-threatening illnesses, as irresponsible and extremely dangerous.

This comes after the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) alleged that two people died after attending a healing session at the Christ Embassy church in Johannesburg, where they were supposedly "cured" of HIV and extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB).

The two allegedly attended the faith-healing sessions at different times and were apparently told to stop using their antiretroviral (ARV) treatment because God had healed them.

Their doctor, Graeme Meintjes, said: "The patients were on treatment before they attended the Christ Embassy healing session and were doing extremely well."

Meintjes said that when he saw one of his patients a year later, she hadn't taken her medication and had advanced Aids.

SA Council of Churches secretary general Eddie Makue said it was "completely and utterly irresponsible" for churches to claim to have faith-healed patients.

He said in order to be cured from any illness, people needed to undergo a medical process.

"We believe that ministers are endowed with gifts and knowledge, but it should be used responsibly," said Makue.

"Doctors and medical professionals are endowed with gifts to prescribe medication to cure people, not ministers.

"People cannot claim to have healed people and that it is no longer necessary for them to take their medication. It is extremely dangerous.

"If people want to be leaders, they have to understand theology." TAC treasurer, Nathan Geffen, said religious organisations played a critical role in the fight against HIV and Aids and TB, but this was not the case with Christ Embassy.

Geffen said that by claiming to heal life-threatening conditions, the church led people to believe they no longer needed to take their tablets or seek appropriate medical care.

National Health Department spokesman, Fidel Hadebe, said: "Our position remains very clear. People who are sick must consult their doctor or nurse and take their medication as instructed.

"Where people decide to go for faith healing or any other such healing there's not much that anyone can do. We, however, encourage patients to stick with what their doctors or nurses tell and give them."

Geffen said that the TAC had contacted the church, but no resolution had been reached.

Christ Embassy was sent a list of questions on Monday. The church's director in Cape Town promised to reply by the end of the day on Tuesday. No response has yet been received.

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Morgause's picture

Watching

Wed, 08/11/2010 - 19:51 — Morgause

I'm watching this space with interest!

Registrar

Erebos's picture

BEWARE OF POWER-OVER

Thu, 08/12/2010 - 14:31 — Erebos

Faith healing is a concept that religious/spiritual belief can bring about healing - either through prayers or rituals that, according to adherents, evoke a divine presence and/or other power toward correcting/healing disease and disability.

Within Paganism there are a variety methods of healing which involve magic; herbal, folk remedies, Eastern techniques which involve the changing of the body’s energy field; Native American and shamanic techniques; etc. Many of these could fall under the ambit of faith healing as magical thinking tends to be dominant.

While it is true in many cases that the advantages of using alternative and holistic medicines and practices are being recognised more and more by conventional health-care professionals, anyone who is being treated is vulnerable, and “healers” often find themselves in a position of utmost trust. Ethics are thus of utmost importance – in fact I would say that ethics are there to specifically prevent the “power-over” sort of relationships which often develop between “faith healer” and “patient”.

It doesn't matter whether you are a spiritual healer, an herbalist, a shaman, a Witch, etc, the ethics are the same. These practitioners must recognise that their primary obligation is towards those they are giving “healing support” to.

I think that all forms of “alternative medicine” or “holistic medicine” are, and should be, complementary to professional medical advice/care and should never replace medical healthcare.

Complementary health-care practitioners are not medical practitioners - I would describe them rather as “alternative first-aid practitioners” and as “after-care practitioners”.

Charles's picture

The biggest problem...

Sat, 08/14/2010 - 00:03 — Charles

as far as I am aware, isn't so much defining borders or limits, or even the role that alternative medicine (as it is now called - funnily enough, prior to the advent of the burning times it was the PRIMARY medicine) should play in concert with 'chemical' medicine - but the fact that ethics per se no longer seems to be regarded with any sort of respect or even seriousness.

We have doctors who ignore ethics in favour of profits (Anna Nicole-Smith's physician, for instance), policemen ignoring ethics in favour of bribes (ok, that's also profits - ask Glenn Agliotti and Jackie Selebi about the sums involved), politicians (presidents, even) who impregnate the daughters of friends despite already having a stable of willing and legally wed wives to choose from, and who associate with known (but terminally ill) fraudsters who are still well enough to play golf and go shopping every Saturday for 6 hours, sportsmen and sportswomen gobbling banned performance-enhancing drugs the way schoolchildren eat sweets, and so on and so forth.

I can go on and on - but I'm sure you get the picture. I've barely scratched the surface.

Point being - morality as a measure of acceptable behaviour just seems to have disappeared, and ethical behaviour is so close to extinction that it makes the Dodo look alive and well.

Of course, I'm talking about society as a whole - I would like to feel/believe that MY community, the Pagan community, still has a certain morality and a strict sense of ethics.

Or am I wrong?

Are we all descending into the sticky sweaty morass of politically-correct answers for every question, of doing what we want regardless of the rights and wrongs, and to Hel with the consequences - because to question the status quo and stand up for what is right would be too uncomfortable and too difficult for us to live with?

I most certainly hope not.

Ethical behaviour is probably the very last bastion of our general system of (Pagan) beliefs against the everlasting and unending onslaught of mediocrity over excellence, of convenience over rectitude, and of profits over accountability. I most certainly agree with Erebos's assessment of the part that ethics must play in any faith-based process in which power/authority is involved. I'm just not sure that enough people, particularly those who most surely SHOULD be moral, honest, and ethical, actually still understand what ethical behaviour is...

well said

Mon, 08/16/2010 - 07:50 — Damon Leff

Hear hear!