Another victim of a bad theory

Here's a scenario for you:

A woman with lung cancer visits a faith healer.

Invited up on stage, she receives a "healing".

Believing herself healed, she stops taking her medication.

Soon thereafter, she dies.

In the mean time, she gave hundreds of dollars in donations to the faith healer's organization.

She acted on the theory that faith healing would be effective, and discontinued other forms of treatment. Now, lung cancer is the sort of disease that would probably have killed her sooner or later, but with the right kind of treatment, the difference between "sooner" and "later" can be significant.

This woman spent hundreds of dollars for a shortened life span, because she believed a bad theory.

In the linked article, Kyle Williams writes about the damage this person does to Christianity, as well.

Benny Hinn holds his "crusades" all over the world, collecting huge sums of money from people for his blessings and healings. His earnings, according to an interview with CNN, are between $500,000 and $1 million per year. He has a private jet, expensive cars, and a multi-million dollar home in Southern California.

Does he believe his "healings" are effective? When they fail, he chalks it up to a lack of faith. This could be a sincere belief, or it could be a con-man's way of deflecting blame back onto the victim. Who knows for sure?

Williams describes as "heresy" the notion that "all our problems are founded in lack of faith."

Belief may be subjective, but heresy is objective. A belief is either heretical or not. If it's not heretical, it can't reflect well on Christianity. It encourages the theory that Christianity encourages its followers to reject science and medicine, and rely solely on faith.

On the other hand, if it is heretical, continued silence on the part of Christian spokesmen doesn't reflect well either. That encourages the theory that Christian spokesmen don't care what people say in its name, or how much money they rake in by saying it.

Those who believe Christianity is a force for good should object to the impact this has on its reputation.

Of course, that's only my theory about other people's belief.