Simon

Obviously one of the things that folk with disability or chronic illness have to deal with is the person of Jesus, and the fact that a significant part of his ministry involved healing. And certain parts of the church feel very strongly that this is a central part of the church’s ministry today, at least to pray for healing anyway. Lots and lots of feelings, but it’s still a very important thing and I know that you’ve been adjacent to, and part of, this section of the church. So what was that like?

Craig

There’s lots of angles to that answer. Lots of angles from which to approach it. 

It was a piece of prose read at an evangelistic service that was my BANG moment. In the presentation, a range of people were aiming their personal complaints at God. His answer was to point to the cross – a crucified Jesus was being presented as the answer to all their suffering. A Holocaust survivor was supposed to find solace, and answers. And so was I – because for the very first time I heard the phrase ‘thalidomide victim’ read aloud on a stage.

Tears flowed copiously. Anger arose from hidden depths. Followed by questions and confusion. And I hid it all. The friends I was with were silent. I guessed they were embarrassed on my behalf, but maybe they’d not even noticed. Maybe to them it was just a phrase that sat alongside far larger injustices. To me it was a sharp finger stabbing at my core identity as a human being.

It had been the warmth and acceptance of a group of Christians at school that led me into an arena where questions of God were being explored. It was good to have found a safe place from the bullying and I found the enigma that was Jesus interesting enough to capture my attention. I began to make solo trips to our local Christian bookshop, where Joni Eareckson’s autobiography became my entry point into the disability question.

I remember reading the book in secret, and then returning it to the back of my wardrobe. It’s attractiveness to me was the ‘brave overcomer’ card it played so strongly. I shared that identity so firmly that I accepted the simple link between disability and sin, and it all being made right in heaven when we died, without further question. The fact that someone who had experienced more profound disability than me was willing to face the difficult questions brought me comfort. For a while.

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The next shift in my thinking came when I was at university. That was the time John Wimber was coming backwards and forwards to the UK, and I remember I went to a conference on Power Evangelism. I was incredibly impressed by his Kingdom theology, and the idea that God was involved within a history that was going somewhere. I was impressed by that big sweep approach to scripture. I’d never come across these kinds of ideas before. That idea that Jesus had a mission, that there was a progression and the “you see me, you see the father” methodology. So I was very theologically intrigued before I came across any of the frippery that you see in charismatic gatherings. So, yes, it was a theological question for me to start with and I wrestled with it for a long, long time.

But then of course, at the end of each talk he’d get us to stand and would pray for the Holy Spirit to come, and there would be lots of laughing and you’d see people falling over and stuff like that, and that just seemed so unlike Jesus. People were clearly out of control. Even then I had enough understanding of my own make-up and the way humans function to think this was being manipulated. And it became evident over time that there was nothing of any great worth going on. I knew some of these people and they were just in it for the for the fix. Their lives weren’t changing. They were just going along for the emotional equivalent of another line of cocaine. I’m thinking “surely you can’t plug God in and make him do something. And then walk away and come back for another fix later”.

But, most importantly, if that isn’t what Jesus did, surely we shouldn’t be doing it in the name of God. That was the most profound thing, the fact that Jesus did the complete opposite to what I was seeing. So that was my very, very first introduction to healing and I spent decades trying to hold on to a charismatic theology but being disturbed by the practice. And another thing to add is that whenever I encountered charismatic experience I was damaged every time. I am ashamed at the hundreds of times I’ve had people come and pray for me, trying to stretch my arms and all of that. It’s just hugely painful to remember now and I’m getting tearful even thinking about it. And yet it happened to me. I have dozens of shocking stories of abuse in my memory, but there is nothing else to be learned from them. 

Whenever I read Jesus healing someone – like the way he healed the blind man, yes apparently there was some physical healing involved. But he healed him at every level. He healed him socially, emotionally and physically. The way he treated him with dignity is the most powerful thing. If he had gone away with his sight unhealed, I still think he would have had a profound experience. And I just realised that healing is much more than what happens to the body. I actually genuinely don’t know if physical healing actually happens, because I’ve been around all of those people who do all of those things and claim all sorts of healings but I have never seen any evidence. Genuinely, I’ve never seen any evidence of anything long term happening despite the claims.

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The final thing I want to feed into this already very long answer is what I have learned from seeing Derren Brown do his live stage act. He has a show, the second half of which mimics a classic pentecostalist healer. The first part, you realise on the way home, is made up of a number of illusions during which he is actually seeking out a cast of susceptible people. That’s basically what the first half is all about. And in the second half he ‘fake heals’ them. And then at the end of it he tells them that their eyesight will be better for a couple of hours, but by the time they get home they’ll need their glasses again. And he explains that this is how the mind influences the body. And I’m thinking, well, that’s exactly what I’ve seen in charismatic meetings both large and small over many decades.

So now I’ve just got even more questions about healing than I had when I first encountered John Wimber back in the 80s.

For more of Craig’s wrestling with the question of healing, check out the “Wrestling” blog series here. 

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