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?"

Going to Church

Having been a pastor for many moons there is one thing that never ceases to mystify me. Why do some church members never actually attend the churches they belong to? Related to that question is why people even bother calling themselves Christians if they have no desire to be part of the church. Now I'm not talking about those whose work or life circumstances make church attendance impossible. As a pastor I realize that some of us have to work on Sundays. I'm talking about the rest of them. The ones who just choose not to do so.

My problem with folks not attending church and yet insisting on calling themselves Christians is that there is nowhere in the whole New Testament that suggests the two are remotely compatible. Jesus and the disciples went to the synagogue and temple. The earliest church met together in their homes until such a time as public places of worship were built. Even when they were outlawed they stubbornly resisted those who forbade them to meet together and worshiped in the catacombs. They would rather risk death than not meet together.

There is simply no acknowledgment of any form of Christianity in the Bible that did not feature a desire to gather together with other Christians for worship, fellowship and service.  Paul describes the Church as the body of Christ and ridicules those who say they don't want to be part of it. 'Can the eye say to the ear, I don't want to be part of you?'

I have sometimes laid down this challenge to folk. Find me one faithful believer in the New Testament who did not want to be part of a Christian community (AKA The Church). In order to be a Christian that the New Testament would recognize, a person needed to play an active part in a church community. Belief is not just about assenting to certain ideas. Belief is about actions and expresses itself in activity... in particular being actively involved with fellow believers.

Again, I state that I am not talking about those whose life circumstances make it completely impossible to play active roles in their churches. But to be honest I have found that even many of them (if true believers)  find other ways of being connected. Bible Studies, prayer meetings, using their churches online resources, attending what they can when they can. Neither am I talking about those who unwell or are caregivers. The Church should be going out to them to keep them connected.

Going to church. Not an option. An obligation.
The New Testaments unspoken expression of genuine faith.
Yet even more important... it is not about going, it's about being.
But that's another story....

First This

A blog.
A place to muse, express views and maybe even occasionally good news.
A place to ponder and wonder and sometimes ask 'why?'.
I may not always express myself clearly.
I may not always even agree with my own posts.
But... here it is.
My own little muse in cyberland.