25 Year Remembrance of Hillsborough Disaster

The Hillsborough disaster was an incident that occurred on 15 April 1989 at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. During the FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest football clubs, a human crush resulted in the deaths of 96 people and injuries to 766 others. The incident has since been blamed primarily on the police for letting too many people enter the stadium, and remains the worst stadium-related disaster in British history, and one of the world's worst football disasters. 

At the time I was pastor of Clubmoor Presbyterian Church, not far from Liverpool's home ground, Anfield Football stadium. They were difficult days. The tragedy was compounded by a huge police cover up alongside hostile reaction from the press, in particular 'The Sun' newspaper. The morning after the disaster we had a service of infant baptism and communion. I was a bag of conflicting emotions... and had I not kept a copy of the services that day, probably wouldn't remember a word of what was said.  

As a remembrance of that time... I share the notes and prayer from morning worship the following day.  Not because they are particularly profound or insightful, but because they were part of the way a community journeyed through a time of sorrow. Though now part of my past, some things just never leave you. 

“NEW-LIFE AND TRAGEDY”
Service of Baptism and Communion
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:12-26
Preached at Clubmoor Presbyterian Church, Liverpool, April 16th, 1989

Text: verse 26 “If one part of the body suffers, all other parts suffer with it, if one part is praised, all the other parts share its happiness”

Yesterday morning, I had something all prepared to say. I was going to do a short meditation linking the joy of baptism to the celebration of communion. I thought there would be great celebrations to be had, a day of victory and rejoicing. But then came the tragic events at Sheffield Wednesdays ground, Hillsborough.

We may not all be interested in football. But the grief and sadness will touch us all, living as we do, just a stones throw from the football stadium where those who lost their lives supported their team. I started listening to the match on the car radio and at first thought, 'Oh no, not more trouble', as reports came in about people on the pitch. Then the reports became more conflicting. A fatality feared. Throughout the evening the full extent of the tragedy unfolded and the real horror of what had taken place.

St. Paul wrote to Corinth. “If one part of the body suffers, all other parts suffer with it, if one part is praised, all the other parts share its happiness”. Although these words were written in the context of the church, on a day like today they seem to have an added significance. How can we not feel grief, anger and frustration at what has happened?

Knowing that so many have been bereaved, and so many injured, we cannot but feel something of their pain. It's in the air. It is pervading the very atmosphere of this city.  We may feel anger and want someone to blame; the Football Association, the police, the management at the ground, even God for allowing such life to be lost. No doubt fingers will be pointed, accusations made, official inquiries pursued.

There is still a sense of unreality. Something in us is hoping that we will wake up and find it is just a nightmare, that it hasn't really happened. Something in us wants to deny it is as bad as we are told. Some of you were rejoicing yesterday as Everton made it through to the finals, but that rejoicing has turned to an empty numbness as you have realized that what has happened could have been at your game.

Today, in this service, we are surrounded by contradiction. We have administered the sacrament of baptism to a baby. We are delighted at this new-life now dedicated to God. It would be right to rejoice and be thankful. New life. New hope.

At the close of the service we come to the communion table and we focus on Jesus who died for our sins and was raised to give eternal life. We focus on great hope for the world, the Jesus who said 'I am the Resurrection and the Life', the One whom death could not hold . And we do all this in the awareness of the tragedy that has taken place.

I don't know how to emotionally deal with this. The only thing I have experienced that even comes close is the day that my daughter Helen was born. I called my parents with the news that their first grandchildren had arrived that morning, only to be told, that at the same hour their grandchild had been born, my grandmother had passed away. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Part of me said 'Rejoice', part of me said 'No you can't... your last remaining grandparent just died!”

I feel that same confusing bundle of emotions this morning. I don't want to detract in any way from the celebration of baptism, or from the message of hope that is such a part of the communion service, but neither in any way do I want to take away from the corporate grief and sadness we all feel.

Again I come back to the words of St. Paul. “If one part of the body suffers, all other parts suffer with it, if one part is praised, all the other parts share its happiness”. Part of us wants to share the happiness of worship, another part just wants to dwell on the great suffering of this moment in time.

There really is not much that words can say right now. We are all too close to the events.  There can be no real understanding till we have had the chance to grieve. As yet we haven't. After Jesus was crucified, even then there was space to grieve. He did not rise till the third day. When He met the men on the Emmaus road, He didn't plow into them with a whole lot of reasons why He had been crucified. He just walked with them and asked them to tell Him their story.

There's going to be a lot of story telling in the coming weeks. One thing we can do is be prepared to listen. To allow people to tell us of their grief. It can't be bottled up. It needs to come out.  The eyes of the world will be on Liverpool today. People will be praying for those bereaved and those in hospital. But beyond that they will also see how the tragedy is responded to. Will the 'family spirit', something Scousers are famed for, be enough to pull us through? Or will this be a grief to deep to recover from?

I must confess I'm not one of those people that believes that good can always come from the worst of events. I am not a natural optimist. Yet I do believe that God can bring something out of tragedy... other than bitterness or hatred or anger or guilt. As it is right now, I can't see what good can come out of this tragedy, but the days are early.

One thing I can declare though. That as I held onto that baby earlier in the service, that as I baptized him in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – I held in my arms... new-life.

We know there is sadness, but we must hold on to life, for the sake of our little ones. Grief must be overcome, our pain must not be laid on their shoulders. For they have their own lives to bear, and who knows what the future may bring?

Moving on from there; as I was thinking about communion this morning, I was drawn to the words that Jesus spoke from His Cross of pain and desolation. “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me? Why have You abandoned me?”

Surely that cry will be in many grieving hearts today. The only point of comfort I can find is that Jesus has been there. That in Christ, God feels our pain and shares in it, even now. If it were not so, then it would be pointless to turn to God in our grief.

At one level communion speaks of death, of a broken body, of a heart torn apart by grief, of a life crushed by the weight of a world whose decisions are often wrong. One who saw that in the midst of life, we find all is snatched from us. Another scripture describes Jesus as 'A man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief'. His life shows that He was one who faced tragedy, not as some kind of superman, but experiencing the same pains and trauma that humanity knows only to well.

At another level communion speaks of resurrection. But to be honest, today feels more like Good Friday that Easter Sunday. Before I can contemplate resurrection, faced with the grief around us today, I need to know that that Jesus knows how that grief feels.

When I look to the Cross, I find that assurance.  When I look to the Cross, I can see something of the Father heart of God, that makes God, not distant, but here, and in the quiet sharing in our pain. I invite you then to come and share in this communion. As we do so, let us bring our anger, our grief, and our frustration to God. Let us lay our feelings at the foot of the Cross that Christ may deal with them.

Let us also in silence pray for those who grieve, for those who are injured, and for those in shock who will relive the situation time and time again.

Above all let us seek the peace of God. It is a peace I don't understand, for it passes understanding. Yet that is the peace which must filter though our confusion, our emotions and whatever else we feel, for that peace alone can give us the stability to face the days that lie ahead. 'Though we are weak, He is strong.' To God's name be the glory. Amen.

Prayer

Lord God, Who sees all and knows all, our hearts are heavy this morning. The city is quiet and subdued and sorrow has come upon us. We echo the cry of the Psalmist who has written, “Why are You so far away, O Lord? Why do You hide Yourself when we are in trouble?” Many Lord feel a great anger, for others that anger is buried beneath their grief.

We pray for those who mourn the loss of family. Be Lord their comfort. For those recovering in hospitals, for those anxious about friends, come Lord to their aid. For those in shock, who are reliving yesterdays trauma, grant them Lord, Your peace.

At such times we feel a great sense of helplessness. Teach us to trust in You. We want to ask 'Why?'... but know it is a fruitless question. Teach us rather to ask 'How?'. How can we come through this tragedy and overcome our grief? How can we learn from mistakes that were made? How can we salvage some future from a desperate mess?

We are thankful for those who are helping and have aided the distressed. For the relief and hospital services, who even now work in urgency. For those who have opened up their homes to relatives. For signs of goodwill and genuine compassion.

Let us not forget that we are not the only ones to suffer, but that beyond our present darkness are the daily dramas of human existence. That life goes on, new-life blossoms and the sun continues to rise. As we seek for signs of hope, overcome our doubts and take us again to the cross. For there we see You are no stranger to suffering. Take us again to the empty tomb. For there we see that You can transform death to resurrection.

As we place our lives into Your hands, with all our questions, our anger, our feelings of helplessness... send to us Your Holy Spirit, the Comforter and Guide, that we may know the strength of Your peace, to sustain us in coming days. We offer these, and the many unspoken prayers, to You. Amen.

Rev. Adrian J. Pratt B.D.

Saints of Springwell Road

This is Springwell Road Church, in Orell, Liverpool as I remember her. I was pastor here for three years (A joint arrangement with Clubmoor Church; another awesome congregation!) Though the smaller of two churches in the pastorate, the place was so very much alive. This was largely due to the work of two dedicated church leaders, Frank and Mary Baldwin. Frank and Mary were tireless supporters of the Boys and Girls Brigade groups that met within it's walls. I have no idea how many young people their influence touched in that community, or even families. Beyond measuring.

I have such treasured memories of my time there. Not just the Baldwin's, but the whole church family and community. Flo's piano playing. The kids who would run up to the car when I parked on the road alongside the church and promise to look after it whilst I was doing whatever I needed to do. (Having a few young minders was a good thing!) Remembrance Day services when there were 5 or 6 war widows in the congregation who lost their husbands in the Second World War. The gentleman who every Remembrance Day service would take me aside before the service and say, 'Now don't give us any crap about lives being given. They weren't given, they were taken'.

During the war years Liverpool had been blitzed by the Nazi war machine. Memories of those dark years still ran deep for many. The effects were long lasting as I discovered one morning when I was late for a service because an unexploded bomb had been discovered along the route I took from the manse to the church!

I remember the Brigade Parade Sundays. Even got to serve for a while as a District Chaplain and we marched with other groups in the city. Singing "At the Name of Jesus" to the fiesty tune! Not to mention "Will your anchor Hold" Even one time one of my own songs on the guitar for a Girls Brigade service, "If you want to be beautiful, really, really beautiful, Here's what you must do. look after your body, look after your mind, but most of all take care that you're beautiful inside", and how for weeks after the kids would sing it back at me in their rich and beautiful Scouse accents.Only time I ever used that song (which is almost cringeworthy corny) but oh my!

There were sad times. The Harvest service when they decorated the church so beautifully, only to arrive in the morning and found someone had broken in and taken the offerings and food baskets. Some were so ironic they made you laugh in disbelief. Like the time we passed the collection plate around and the last person took it, and then legged it out the door taking the money with him. In the elders meeting later in the week, they were cross... not because of the money, but because they hadn't been able to get the plate back!

Other sad times. The funeral for the lady who lived there all her life and had never locked her door. But some lowlife barged their way in and knocked her down the stairs ending her life. Wonderful people in the church and community who left us way too young. It was such a close knit community. Folk would greet you with 'Hello love' no matter who you were. Small, closely packed, terraced houses, inhabited by people who never had much in the way of worldly wealth but would give you the shirt off their back if they thought you needed it.

That was then.This is now. Springwell Road opened her doors in 1902 and was the first church to be built in Orrell, Bootle.  By 2008 the church had declined to only 16 people with £200,000 needed for renovations to keep it open. As you can see from the picture, it is not just the church that has been closed down, the whole community is slated for redevelopment. 

Probably just as well they didn't spend all that money renovating! It breaks my heart to see the way the area has gone. Hard to believe that what once was thriving, living and active is now no more. 

I'm sure there is a lesson in this somewhere. You can't say that they declined because of any lack of commitment or faithlessness on the part of the members and leadership. There were no church splits, doctrinal disputes or falling outs. They were a wonderful congregation. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot". I was privileged to have enjoyed sunny days at Springwell Road. 

I now serve a church, on the other side of the Ocean, in a town called 'Baldwin.' Whilst it's not named after the saints of Springwell Road, Frank and Mary, it's still hard to say  'Baldwin' without thinking of them and the community associated with their congregation. Life goes on. We have to make the most of the moment, because we never know what the future may hold. At least while we are of sound mind we still have memories to treasure and some great stories to reflect upon.

There is no doubt in my mind that God blessed Frank and Mary Baldwin and through them the church at Springwell Road and the community they served. Maybe the best we can hope for is that the seasons of our own lives may also be a blessing to somebody :-)

Only 4 1/2 years

I was checking out the Web Site of a church where I had previously been a pastor and was interested to note that on their history page the only thing recorded about my ministry there was that I 'only served close to 4 1/2 years'. Not a thing was said about the increased congregations, the members I brought in during those years who now serve on session, the survey of their property I spearheaded ... nor the fact that I temporarily reversed a membership decline of many years duration.

At first I felt a little annoyed about such a designation as 'only served close to 4 1/2 years'. Then I remembered that Jesus had a ministry that 'only lasted close to 3 1/2 years'.  He caused a heck of a lot more upset to the religious establishment than I ever could. Whilst I realise that there were some in that particular congregation I served who were glad to see me go, none of them went as far as resorting to crucifixion!

Not for a moment am I comparing my ministry in that congregation to the ministry of Jesus. I dare to believe that it was His inspiration that inspired me, but any comparisons should be ended right there! Fact is that one persons assessment is just that... their particular view. And they are entitled to state it.

I personally treasure a scrapbook of messages and cards received during my time there that witness to the grace of God that was at work in many peoples lives during those 4 1/2 years. I dare to believe that somehow I was part of helping that grace flow along. I am convinced that the only reason I was there was a call of God, and the only reason I left was a call of God.

I don't understand why it is that some of us are called to stay and build, long term, whilst others, like myself, seem to be more like gypsies. There are models for both patterns in Scripture. There are certainly huge advantages to staying, but I think there are also situations where pastors have 'outstayed' their calling. I often wonder what would have happened if I had stayed in 'such and such' a situation but then see how things have turned out in a new situation and thought, 'Well, it's a good job I moved!'

One of the negatives of moving around a lot is that it's hard to call anywhere home. Despite my actions, I do have a longing to put down roots and find a little speck on this planet where I feel I truly belong. Yet maybe that will only happen when I reach a heavenly home. Maybe till then we're all just passing through!

At the end of the day, ministry is hard. What matters is that you are true to your sense of call, not what people make of it. Whenever there is change, people are upset. Transitions are usually only welcomed by the receiving church. The ones you leave suspect anything but a call of God as the reason for your departure.

Given some of the things people face in ministry maybe the miracle is that any of us manage to stay in some situations as long as 4 1/2 years! According to a recent article in Presbyterian Outlook the average tenure for a pastorate position is 5 years. I just missed it by 1/2... so by the law of averages... I am average!  I can live with average.

 I would certainly consider it an honor if my tombstone bore the inscription  "Here lies Adrian. He only served as a pastor for most of his life."

Schismatic Sadness

Many PC(USA) churches are splitting from their denomination and joining other bodies. This makes me sad. Jesus prayed that we might be one... but we are unable and unwilling to accommodate God's will. Not even amongst the tiny fraction of Christians who describe themselves as Presbyterian can we agree to look beyond our cherished positions and seek the kind of unity Jesus prayed we may have.

How do people become entrenched in positions that cause them to be so judgmental of others that they can't be in fellowship with them any more? In a church that preaches we are saved only by grace through faith, how can some step away from that and proclaim that only they have the truth?

Sure, folk have difference of opinions about interpreting scripture, particularly in regards these days to sexuality, but are they really of such importance that they no longer believe they can work alongside their sisters and brothers in Christ? I guess so.

But I don't understand it. Not in the light of grace. Such judgment makes no sense.

I don't get it. Jesus prayed for our unity. Unity based on the love He shared with His Father God. Not unity based on doctrinal correctness or the ability to all believe exactly the same thing. Unity based on love for each other. Love for God. Love for the church. Love for love.

So I'm sad that so many of us get it so wrong. I grieve over the message our schisms offer to an already skeptical world. I totally realize that I'm no saint in the unity area. I have my personal convictions and prejudices. But are they of such significance that if you don't agree with them I presume you are going to hell? More likely, when they cause conflict, they are a sign that I need to take a little more time getting over myself.

So I'm expressing my schismatic sadness. I do not believe it is glorifying to God or in the best interests of God's Church. I can't see what long term good any of it will achieve, other than being yet another milestone in the history of our inability to be the people God wants us to be.

Of course those who know better will call me simplistic and unrealistic. They will accuse me of making light of irreconcilable differences. And they have gone and will go their own way. It leaves me with a deep sense of sadness that within an organization that supposedly is only redeemable by the grace of God we lack even the human grace to swallow our pride and accept that others have opinions that we don't share... but love them all the same... because that's just exactly how God has loved us.

The thing about faith is...

The thing about faith is that it is a matter of faith!

There are a whole lot of reasons not to believe in the existence of any kind of gods. A lot can be explained about the way people act without needing any reference to any sort of outside power or influence. At the same time many argue there are outside forces, benevolent or otherwise; intelligences and creative forces beyond the material world as we experience it.

Whenever a person enters into a discussion about the non existence or otherwise of a deity they enter it from a position of either faith or unbelief. Though some claim to hold an open mind, even they are coming at the question from either ‘I don’t know if there are gods’ or ‘I don’t know if life can be explained without positing the existence of something beyond ourselves’ coloring their thoughts. Neutrality is impossible.

The atheist, the agnostic, the believer…they all have positions to defend and places that they are coming from. Where they are coming from partly determines what they are looking for and the answer they are hoping for.

'Faith' is a term that can be applied as much to an unbeliever as a believer and all those in between. The atheist has a 'faith' in their rational abilities as being able to reveal absolute truth. The agnostic has 'faith' that an answer can’t be known. The believer seeks to state that certain things can be known that reveal the existence of something beyond them selves.

This partly explains why religious discussions can become so personal. A person’s identity is so integrally tied up with their belief system that to threaten their system is to make a personal attack upon their whole reason for being. Value judgments are automatically brought into play.

As an example consider the question… “If there is a God then why is there so much suffering in the world?”

A whole host of presumptions are in place.

• That the god proposed has the capacity and intention to intervene in peoples lives
• That the god proposed is related to some form of moral code
• That the god in question has some reason for paying attention to the plight of people
• That such a god is constrained to act in rational ways
• That such a being can be understood by human enquiry

Such a question also implies that suffering of necessity has to have a logical cause. What if suffering just ‘is’? ‘Suffering Happens’. Period.

The question of “God’ is dragged into the question because of the assumption that for God to be God (and therefore to exist) then he, she, or it, has to have the ability and compassion to want to intervene in human affairs… rather than being a two headed pixie on a distant planet who is far more concerned with the pool game she is playing to give a fig about events on a spinning globe whirling around a distant sun.

An atheist may declare that the existence of suffering makes the idea of a benevolent god seem ridiculous. An agnostic may declare that it makes the claim of god being a good god open to question. A believer in a benevolent deity may suggest the suffering is evidence that there is a need for us to allow the god who is there to intervene in human life.

Again it comes back to faith. The thing about faith is that it is a matter of faith!

Reflections on a Bad Judge

Luke 18:1-8 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' " And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

What I’m thinking, where this parable takes us, is to consider that faith, real faith, has very little to do with getting God to do anything or even God getting us to do certain things. That faith is really about allowing God to be God and allowing ourselves to ‘live and move and have our being' in God. That persistence in prayer has little to do with asking and asking and asking, but has a whole lot to do with resting in God’s love and accepting ourselves and the situations of our lives as only finding meaning through their relationship to God.

In the parable, what creates the situation that causes the woman to ask, ask, ask, ask, and ask again, is the character of the unjust Judge. So, Jesus explains, God is completely the opposite of such a judge. God is ready to help, always does the right thing, and is way above such a tawdry character as the unjust judge.

The implication is that if God is not like this bad judge, then we don’t have to be like the widow, whom can only get things done though incessant talking. That we have a God who elsewhere is pictured as having every hair on our head accounted for and knows intimately what is going on in His Creation to such an extent that even if a little sparrow falls to the ground it does not go unnoticed.

By picturing for us a bad relationship, the parable attempts to push us to consider what a right relationship may look like. We laugh about nagging wives and retreating husbands, because there is part of us that realizes that although that’s not the way relationships should be, that’s the way they sometimes go.

Putting it in that way, opens the door then for us to go beyond the kind of relationships built upon asking and receiving, towards relationships that are built upon accepting and believing. 

Why doesn't God heal amputees?

'Why won't God heal amputees?' is the name given to an atheist website that suggests that the inability of Christian prayer to effect the regrowing of amputated limbs is unmistakable evidence of the non-existence of God. All attempts at prayer are dismissed as being self delusion and any suspected answers to prayer are nothing more than coincidences.

The first thing to note is that nowhere in the Bible is a claim made that God heals amputees in response to the prayers of Christians. As far as Scripture is concerned (both Old and New Testaments) there are no incidents of such a healing ever taking place. There are of course other instances of healing and miracles that are attributed to various Old Testament prophets, to Jesus and to some of His disciples. But zero mention of christian prayer for amputees. The closest thing to an amputee is a passage in the passion narratives where the disciple Peter strikes a Roman guard and injures his ear (whether physically totally removed or just badly injured is not quite clear). Jesus heals the man. To regard such as an amputation is hardly justifiable.

As there exists no instance in biblical literature of any amputees ever being healed through Christian prayer it seems an unreasonable question to ask why God doesn't perform such acts. One could equally ask why there are no chimpanzees  driving subway trains. No one has ever suggested chimps should become train drivers (even if they have shown themselves to be reliable astronauts). The  bible never suggests God heals amputees. It's simply not a reasonable question to ask.

A logical question would be to ask if prayer for healing has ever resulted in folk having their eyesight or hearing restored. In all 4 gospels Jesus did things like that. Such a claim can be found in numerous You-Tube videos (simply do a search on 'Christian healing' or check a link like ' healing of a blind man') as well as in many accounts of Christian mission work.

The 'Why doesn't God heal Amputees?' website acknowledges that there are documented cases of healing but then follows a total red herring by suggesting setting up an experiment involving worldwide prayer and severed limbs and seeing what happens. Obviously, as such healing is outside of scripture as well being logistically impossible, such an experiment will never happen. So... on the grounds of an experiment that can't be created, seeking to demonstrate something scripture never claims....God doesn't answer prayer? Hmm.

What about those documented healings? There remains the possibility that everyone of them is false or that people were misinterpreting events that can be explained by other functions than prayer. There is also the possibility that they really happened and they were not coincidental but the result of the action of God.

The viewpoint of the website is that miracles HAVE to be coincidences because there is no God. Some may suggest a certain closed mindedness in such an assumption. Seems more like an act of faith than reason. Or at least faith in the ultimate power of human reason to solve everything, explain everything and erase the last mists of mystery for all time. Presumably, using such logic, it would only take one instance of a single prayer, anytime and in any place, throughout the whole span of human existence (past, present or future), to be beyond scientific doubt declared 'not a coincidence' and such would prove the existence of God.

In my own life I have experienced so many answers to prayer that my question for the atheist has to be 'At what point does coincidence become the least likely explanation?' There has to be a reasonable threshold that when reached causes the investigator to modify their conclusions! I have also in my work had the experience of praying with many folk for healing. Of course, one would have to define exactly what you mean by 'prayer' and by 'healing' to really unpack that statement.

If by prayer one means manipulating an unknowable God to perform certain humanly beneficial actions in accordance with biblical texts such as 'Anything you ask in my name' then I would suggest a course in basic theology may be helpful. Taking texts out of their historical and literary context is bad scholarship and a lousy basis for reasoned conclusions. A more informed reading of scripture suggests that prayer is a way of being rather than a means to an end. Also that healing is a whole lot more than the removal of physical symptoms.

Then of course there is the question of whether a healing performed by a trained medical practitioner is any less of a miracle than a healing by any other process. It is certainly more explainable and quantifiable. It does not require any attribution to any deity other than the god-like powers of the doctors themselves. Yet many medical practitioners are people of deep faith who, far from claiming their skills are god-like, are quick to humbly claim their gifts as being from God. Browsing a website such as Doctors-without-Borders reveals folk of great humanitarian concern that is often linked to their deep personal faith. Are they all Christians? No. That's not the point. Some of them are.  

If one accepts that medical practitioners have skills given to them by God (their claim... not mine!) then God is intimately involved in their works of healing. Such includes sewing back on of fingers, hands, toes, etc. In such instances it could be claimed that God DOES heal amputees... working through the skills of doctors and nurses. And... yes... they pray. Do their prayers make a difference? They would make that claim.


To which I can only say "Why won't God heal amputees (like the Bible never claims is a possibility)  except in certain cases of those that receive the care of medical staff who claim their skills are directly related to a faith experience that atheists claim isn't real?"