A Social Anthropologist’s Analysis of Contemporary Healing, Part 2
Moreover, the more specific public “words of knowledge” cannot be explained away as due to “coincidence” or human manipulation, but seem to indicate a source of knowledge beyond that of the person receiving the revelation. In the examples discussed in this chapter, the words of knowledge are associated with healings, but in other cases they can be of a moral nature, intended to lead a person to repentance.50 This seems to indicate that the source of the revelations possesses consciousness and not only cares about healing and wholeness but is also morally concerned to move a person toward godly, biblical norms.
Similar kinds of difficulties arise in trying to explain away associated physical phenomena by reference to known psychological processes. In each case, known medical, psychological or sociological explanations might account for a limited part of the available facts, but are unable to account for all of them.
Although some people might attempt to interpret those facts in a variety of ways, there is mounting evidence to indicate that prayer in Christ’s name seems to be an important factor in many medically inexplicable recoveries.
What is particularly interesting and unexpected is that the healings and words of knowledge discussed above indicate a significant “bias” in favor of the young and those from the lower social classes. This pattern is even clearer if we consider miraculous healings in a global perspective. The same pattern can also be discerned in the earthly ministry of Jesus. Therefore the underlying values behind the manner in which God grants physical healing to certain people continue to be the same today as they were in the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.
PR
Notes
32This section summarizes some of the material in chapter four (pp.162-202) of my book Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact?, op.cit., to which the reader should refer for further supporting evidence and documentation.
33See appendix 6 in this book: “Models of Prayer for Healing and Related Phenomena.”
34Peter D. Moss and Colin P. McEvedy, “An Epidemic of Overbreathing Among Schoolgirls,” British Medical Journal, November 1966, pp.1295-1300.
35See appendix 6 in this book: “Models of Prayer for Healing and Related Phenomena”; Dr. Cyril H. Powell, the British New Testament scholar, points to occasions when Jesus said He felt “power had gone out from him” to heal people (Mk. 5:30; Lk. 5:17; 6:19; 8:46). Some scholars, points out Dr. Powell, have viewed “the dunamis [power] mentioned here as something automatic and quasi-physical, like a fluid or operating like an electric current” (C. H. Powell, The Biblical Concept of Power [London: Epworth Press, 1963], p. 109); cf. the descriptions of others regarding the power of God in these passages—”material substance (stoffliche Substanz),” F. Fenner, Die Krankheit im Neuen Testament (Leipzig, 1930), p. 83); “a power-substance (eine Kraftsubstanz),” W. Grundmann, Der Begriff der Kraft in der neutestamentlichen Gedankenwelt (Stuttgart, 1932), pp. 62ff.
Category: In Depth, Winter 2009
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