A Social Anthropologist’s Analysis of Contemporary Healing, Part 1
Although participant-observation is a standard research method among cultural anthropologists like myself, it is almost always supplemented by in-depth interviews and attempts to understand the perspectives of the participants themselves. Unfortunately, almost all of Lewis’ evaluation was of Wimber’s theology: he gave no evidence of any interviews with other participants, assessments of the accuracy of “words of knowledge,” evaluations of the kinds of healings which took place or analyses of other aspects of the ministry.
What sounds more impressive is the so-called “medical evaluation of a Wimber meeting” presented by Verna Wright, FRCS, Professor of Rheumatology at Leeds University, when addressing a conference in London on 15 November 1986. Wright’s so-called “medical evaluation” is based on the second-hand opinions of five unnamed doctors whose description gives no indication of any attempt to interview other participants.5 As is the case with other observers, many of the comments tend to be more of the nature of opinion than fact, largely because of the absence of systematic data collection.
Medical Views of Healing
It is not surprising that Wright should have come across cases of people who were not healed after receiving prayer at one of John Wimber’s conferences, because these are the very people who are likely to go back again to their doctors afterwards for further treatment. By contrast, many of those who had received healing after prayer had seen no need to consult their doctors again. This process means that some medical doctors are likely to hear a disproportionate number of “negative” cases.
Other doctors, however, confirm that they have come across cases of apparently inexplicable recovery following Christian prayer. “More and more Christian doctors, cautious by nature and training, are beginning to expect the unexpected. In ways that defy medical explanation they sometimes see instantaneous, sometimes gradual, reversals of the disease process. ‘It’s an answer to prayer,’ they confess.”6
Many of those who had received healing after prayer had seen no need to consult their doctors again.