I just finished a book called Jesus > Religion (yes, the greater than is part of the title) by Jefferson Bethke. It’s a fairly short book, and I think
it’s well worth a read. The author is not a theologian; he appears to be a fairly typical recent college graduate who nonetheless has some very insightful
things to say about today’s Christian culture. I know he has gotten my contemplative juices flowing. One of the issues he touches on is the topic of healing.
He doesn’t spend a whole lot of time on it, but healing is something I’ve been ruminating on for a long time, and I think it deserves some enlightenment
here.
As a person with a physical disability, I am no stranger to the concept of faith healing. I have been prayed over on a few occasions. One incident bears
mentioning, as it left an indelible mark on me. At this particular time I was attending a Pentecostal church. At this point in my life I found many aspects
of this church—the speaking in tongues, the yelling of the preacher—very off-putting. In the midst of one Sunday night service, during a time when the
Spirit appeared to be very much in evidence, somebody approached me and, with no warning whatever, laid hands on me and started speaking in tongues. To
me, this just sounded like nonsensical babbling, and besides I didn’t give permission for this person to put their hands on me. My initial impulse was
to yell at them to get the hell away from me. Thankfully my sense of decorum had not totally deserted me, and I didn’t do anything. Nevertheless, this
experience did much to cast a negative light for me on church in particular and, to a great degree, religion in general. For a long time after that, although
I did attend church sporadically, my soul wanted absolutely no part of it. Much time and a lot of experience, however, have drastically changed my perspective
on the issue of faith healing. For one thing, I understand now in a way I didn’t then that the person who laid hands on me meant absolutely no harm. To
the contrary, they were trying to give me what they saw as a great gift. That does not change the fact that it was administered in completely the wrong
way. At the time it made me feel, at least in a way, personally violated. I can’t help but wonder how many other people have come away from similar experiences
feeling the same way, and as such come away as embittered with religion as I was. Time and experience have shown me that, while it was done in the wrong
way, the intent was sincere. But there was another factor that this particular person, and others who prayed over me, did not seem to consider. Whenever
people have prayed for my healing, it almost always centers on my physical disability. Here’s a hard question: What if my physical disability isn’t the
part of me that needs healing? For all practical purposes, I’ve been blind my whole life. It has been every bit of a hindrance, an inconvenience, a huge
pain in the butt, and everything else that goes along with that. Despite that, I have lived my life. I haven’t always been great at it, but be that as
it may here I am, in the middle of my fiftieth year, still in their pitching. I might still get shelled from time to time, but I still take the mound,
and will continue to do so. The bottom line is, as crappy as it might be, I made peace with my blindness long ago. Right now, when I think about the parts
of me that need healing, I can say with relative certainty that my physical blindness wouldn’t even crack the top ten, maybe not even the top twenty. There
are many, many parts of me that are in need of repair, and the physical needs are a vast minority. The fact is, in the recent past there has been some
healing happening for me. It’s inner healing, the healing of my soul, the healing of my heart. Just like physical healing, this will continue to be a long
and laborious process, with much rehab involved. But I’m glad to say it is happening. Perhaps my physical body will follow suit at some point, perhaps
it won’t. That’s not important to me right now. I’m making every effort at this point in time to concentrate on the healing that really counts. Once that’s
done, the rest is just pretty much gravy. There’s nothing wrong with praying for physical healing. Over time, I’ve seen enough evidence to know there is
a lot to it. I do think, however, that there are other kinds of healing that are just as important, if not more so, and in keying so much on one type of
healing we may lose touch with the other type, to our huge detriment.
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