The more you read about these things the angrier it makes you.
I went to a rally like Benny Hinns' in Birmingham U.K. about twelve years ago...and that was the effect it had on me...anger. People had been 'healed' during the week and now, on the evening that I went, people were being 'filled' with the Holy Spirit in order to receive the power of being an evangelist. They were called out to the front, by country, and the leader (Reinhard Bonkke) tapped them on the head and out they went, 'slain' in the Spirit. Presumably they then went back to their home locations to evangelise, without any formal training or teaching...just this experience.
CSICOP (the commitee for the scientific investigation of claims of the paranormal) occasionally do interesting articles about these themes in their magazine 'The skeptical Inquirer'...some of their stuff can be found online...though of course they have a humanist agenda.
Even so, earlier in this evangelist/healing crusade, it was claimed that a woman had been healed of seven illnesses by the Spirit. When I was there, this woman, who had been hardly able to walk, leaped and danced around the stage and was again 'slain' by the Spirit as the leader tapped her head.
One of the members of the Church of England Synod, who was also a doctor, heard about this event and decided to investigate...since if the woman was really healed, he wanted to know about it both as a Christian and a medical practitioner. He was able to gain access to her medical notes and in short, concluded that the claims were extravagant. The woman had been on a series of tablets which she abandoned after the healing event. The doctor concluded that part of her 'problems' were largely psychosomatic, since the doctors could make no final diagnosis of her problems and the healing rally had given her an extremely positive and sudden psychological boost. The tablets that she was taking had certain side effects, such that when she stopped taking them, these effects disappeared, adding to the illusion of healing. He succeeded in getting the description on the video of the event modified to something more moderate.
I also attended a seriers of healing rallies in my own town over the course of a week. The more mild and possibly psychosomatic illnesses often seemed to be cured. Those people who arrived with more serious health problems..parents bringing their brain-damaged children in search of some last desperate hope..were not so fortunate. Day after day they came...day after day their was no cure. The lack of cure was blamed on sin and unbelief...another burden for the parents to bear.
Our minister described these healing evangelists as spiritual cowboys...they ride into town, kick up a fuss and then ride out again, leaving the local churches to pick up the pieces.
Try:
http://www.csicop.org/
I went to a rally like Benny Hinns' in Birmingham U.K. about twelve years ago...and that was the effect it had on me...anger. People had been 'healed' during the week and now, on the evening that I went, people were being 'filled' with the Holy Spirit in order to receive the power of being an evangelist. They were called out to the front, by country, and the leader (Reinhard Bonkke) tapped them on the head and out they went, 'slain' in the Spirit. Presumably they then went back to their home locations to evangelise, without any formal training or teaching...just this experience.
CSICOP (the commitee for the scientific investigation of claims of the paranormal) occasionally do interesting articles about these themes in their magazine 'The skeptical Inquirer'...some of their stuff can be found online...though of course they have a humanist agenda.
Even so, earlier in this evangelist/healing crusade, it was claimed that a woman had been healed of seven illnesses by the Spirit. When I was there, this woman, who had been hardly able to walk, leaped and danced around the stage and was again 'slain' by the Spirit as the leader tapped her head.
One of the members of the Church of England Synod, who was also a doctor, heard about this event and decided to investigate...since if the woman was really healed, he wanted to know about it both as a Christian and a medical practitioner. He was able to gain access to her medical notes and in short, concluded that the claims were extravagant. The woman had been on a series of tablets which she abandoned after the healing event. The doctor concluded that part of her 'problems' were largely psychosomatic, since the doctors could make no final diagnosis of her problems and the healing rally had given her an extremely positive and sudden psychological boost. The tablets that she was taking had certain side effects, such that when she stopped taking them, these effects disappeared, adding to the illusion of healing. He succeeded in getting the description on the video of the event modified to something more moderate.
I also attended a seriers of healing rallies in my own town over the course of a week. The more mild and possibly psychosomatic illnesses often seemed to be cured. Those people who arrived with more serious health problems..parents bringing their brain-damaged children in search of some last desperate hope..were not so fortunate. Day after day they came...day after day their was no cure. The lack of cure was blamed on sin and unbelief...another burden for the parents to bear.
Our minister described these healing evangelists as spiritual cowboys...they ride into town, kick up a fuss and then ride out again, leaving the local churches to pick up the pieces.
Try:
http://www.csicop.org/
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