Salient questions of our guests are the following: What happened to you? What changed? How did it change? In what ways have your life changed for the better? What did you learn? What suggestions do you have considering what you went through?

We are interested in stories about discrimination, trauma, addiction, oppression, exclusion, and violence.

Stories about personal and communal transformation are both informative and inspirational. They remind us that trauma does not have the last word – redemption is possible!

Narrativity with Dr. Antipas is part of the Mental Health News Radio (MHNR) Network. The show is available wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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Antipas

Listen to the perspective of a retired surgeon who spent his career operating on victims of gunshot wounds. The tragic scene of people unreasonably shot led the surgeon to committing his life to the struggle against violence. Dr. Bob Gayle explains that one of his main interests upon retirement is to help young people make better choices. Dr. Gayle volunteers at the Urban Renewal Center’s Homework Club to help elementary school children focus on a future of success and avoid paths to gun violence.

This week on Narrativity Keeya Vawar tells her story. Keeya was a victim of human trafficking. The glitz and glamor of the music industry lured her at a time of vulnerability. She was 16 years old with an abusive father. She was on a search for “another life.” Too young and too scared to make responsible decisions, a music executive and musicians offered Keeya the world with music videos, money, a place to live and more. Soon Keeya was a slave to the industry. From one situation to the next, Keeya finally cried out for help. She got the help she needed and now she lives to tell her story.

Rescuing Our Pentecostal Heritage

Randy Clark, Stories of Divine Healing: Supernatural Testimonies that Ignite Faith for Your Healing (NMG/Destiny Image, 2018), 288 pages.

While attending the Society For Pentecostal Studies meeting in Cleveland, Tennessee in early 2018, I had a troubling conversation about the viability of divine healing. A young academic told me he accepted the possibility of marvelous works but insisted that the occurrences were rare. He reiterated, “I have never witnessed a miraculous work nor am I acquainted with anyone who has.” He suggested that recent healing claims were mostly outlandish.

His statements dumbfounded me. This man carried Pentecostal credentials but sounded like a skeptic from a European university. Though rooted in the Spirit-filled tradition, he was suspicious of any display of the supernatural.

As incredulity flowed from his mouth, it reminded me of the assertions of David Hume. Centuries ago, this philosopher argued that miracles are chiefly observed among the pagans. “If a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors.”[1]

Many are questioning what used to be widely accepted. Whether Spirit-filled or not,[4] miracles have “aroused unease of intellectual conflict for Christians formed by the enlightenment of the West.”[5]

Credible Accounts

Fortunately, publications are being released that document healing and miraculous encounters. Most of these works were not written with the scholarly community in mind, but they offer a credible analysis of the extraordinary works of God.