I have gone on the record suggesting that Christians should concede theistic evolution. Admittedly, this is more a strategic turn than a biblical imperative. Neither the exact “length” of creation days nor the specific mechanism used to bring about organic life are considered fundamental to the faith. Nevertheless, conceding some form of theistic evolution is not without danger.
Case in point: The BioLogos Forum.
The stated goal of BioLogos is to “explore, promote and celebrate the integration of science and Christian faith.” Yet the longer I have followed BioLogos, the more skeptical I have become about the type of “Christian faith” it claims to be defending.
In Science Trumps the Bible? — An Amazingly Candid (and Disastrous) Argument Al Mohler quotes Carl Gilberson, a physicist and scholar who is part of the BioLogos Team:
… In The God Delusion Dawkins eloquently skewers the tyrannical anthropomorphic deity of the Old Testament—the God that supposedly commanded the Jews to go on genocidal rampages and who occasionally went on his own rampages, flooding the planet or raining fire and brimstone on wicked cities. But who believes in this deity any more, besides those same fundamentalists who think the earth is 10,000 years old? Modern theology has moved past this view of God. (emphasis mine)
If Gilberson is representative of BioLogos’ goal to integrate science and the Christian faith, it is particularly interesting to note the type of faith Gilberson is NOT defending. It is comprised of “fundamentalists who think the earth is 1o,ooo years old” and who cling to belief in a “tyrannical anthropomorphic deity” who goes on “genocidal rampages.” Thankfully, in Gilberson’s words, “[m]odern theology has moved past this view of God.” This “modern theology” is the “Christian faith” BioLogos apparently seeks to represent.
Translation: If science and the Christian faith are to be integrated, believers must leave behind archaic theological models (i.e., traditional evangelicalism).
Gliberson thus concludes:
… I am happy to concede that science does indeed trump religious truth about the natural world.
Science and Scripture have often been portrayed as antithetical, a charge that’s often overblown by religious skeptics. I applaud BioLogos’ efforts to harmonize Science and the Bible, and bring some academic respectability to the creation debate. Nevertheless, I can’t help but see in Gilberson’s statement an equally dangerous predicament.
If we concede that science trumps religious truth, then aren’t we elevating science to the level of religious truth? In other words, we subjugate our theology to current scientific consensus. Take the case of miracles. Since science can’t prove the existence of miracles, and the “natural world” doesn’t validate them, we are forced to construct a Jesus who doesn’t perform them. If science trumps religious truth about the natural world, science becomes the arbiter of virtually all truth, save the mystical or nonsensical (read: unverifiable) kind. And since the Bible is full of miracles, science can gut it with impunity.
Furthermore, if we concede that science trumps “religious truth about the natural world,” we undermine the Bible’s authority to speak ANY truth. Of course, the Bible is not a science book. But if Scripture was blatantly wrong about “the natural world,” this would be a serious blow to claims of divinity. (I mean, if the Bible asserted that the earth was positioned atop a huge tortoise or that the moon was made of cheese, I’d have a hard time believing its assertions about much else.) If the Bible is wrong about HOW man got here, then how can it be RIGHT about anything else? If the Bible can’t be trusted regarding “the natural world,” how can it be trusted about anything else?
All that to say, I’m afraid that BioLogos, in their effort to integrate science and the Christian faith, have in fact jettisoned historic Christianity in favor of something more malleable. Yet, in the end, trumping “modern theology” isn’t really that hard.
Mike, you always put up some very thoughtful posts.
Very interesting here. I’ve always wondered why both scientists and Believers have had such a hard time reconciling things. There’s so much already proven in the Bible on a scientific level, yet so much that still needs to be, and modern science doesn’t even consider it worth looking into. It’s always the scientists that get saved, or the preachers that dabble in science theory and get labeled “creationists” that do what they can to “fight the good fight of faith” and prove to everyone that how they read the Bible must be the correct interpretation.
As far as how long things took, who’s to say that the teachings of a pre-Adamic race led by Lucifer who was the previous ruler of this planet isn’t true? And who’s to say that to end the rebellion, God sent an ice age to this planet where “darkness covered the face of the deep”? And who’s to say that the previous inhabitants weren’t some of the dinosaurs we’ve discovered and that their spirits became the demons and that the Bible makes a clear distinction between a bodiless demon roaming around the earth and an angel (even one of the fallen ones) that has a body and can eat things. Who’s to say that the seven days of “creation” weren’t a restoration and that when He told Adam and Eve to “replenish the Earth” He wasn’t telling them in actuality to repopulate the planet? Who’s to say that Lucifer, now Satan or the Devil, wasn’t so jealous that God made Man in His own image and therefore gave Man rights and authority that Lucifer never had that he went mad and just had to trip up humanity? I mean, who’s to say?
Even if the Earth is really billions of years old and had a history longer than we realize, who’s to say that this would “trump” anything that the Bible has to say on the subject? I can’t really pull out the verses and stuff right now, but I’ve heard and read a couple of very good teachings from the Bible that show the very thing I mentioned above without doing a Creationist “gap” theory that doesn’t go farther than speculating on the wording of a verse or two at the beginning of Genesis.
And if they need modern evidence of miracles, there are plenty around, the church itself is its own detriment in that regard because of its own doubt and unbelief when other Believers start moving in the power of God and things begin to happen, doubting Thomas’s appear with their Bibles and suits and ties and declare things “for show” and “for Money” instead of “for God” as the people doing it always declares when the power of God is moving.
Just look at the current move of the Spirit of God in Alabama at this Bay of the Holy Spirit revival. I’ve seen video clips of this woman that had been paralysed with a well documented paralysis since the mid to late 80’s get prayed for and she got out of her chair and walked. She had some balance issues at first, but a couple of weeks ago I saw her live during a streaming broadcast walking absolutely fine wearing HIGH HEELS of all things! I myself am a walking testimony to the healing power of God. Also, there are testimonies of metal disolving in people’s bodies where they had replacements put in, but when prayed for, the real thing was put back in and the metal that had been there in its place simply vanished! I’ve been in meetings like this. This is real stuff!
It all comes down to whether we are going to take the Bible for what it says or not. And if we have a misunderstanding of it – no matter how many centuries or generations deep that misunderstanding of it goes back – then we need to seek God and make sure we’re on firm footing, because the Word of God is our foundation, and if we stop believing THAT, then what hope do we have?
Mike, interesting thoughts. Here’s the lynch pin in the whole issue you brought up, about science trumping the Bible.
If one believes in divine inspiration, then that which is of divine origin one would have to consider *revealed* truth from a being of perfection, the one responsible for creation, however He did it. His truth is the ultimate truth.
Then you have what we know. We deduce, we induce, we interpret, then reinterpret, in the hopes of arriving at some percentage of veracity, but a conclusion that any new evidence could effectively show to be false. A “truth” based on faulty and decidedly non-omniscient human minds.
Now, when those two truths clash, which one should take precedent? Obviously for anyone who claims to be a Christian, the revealed truth by God.
Now, the other side will point to the fact that the same fallible and non-omniscient minds are taking the Scriptures and interpreting them in a faulty way. Which is a decided possibility. Then there are understandings of Biblical inspiration that say the truths God intended for us to learn, and anything that supports them in a substantial way is infallible, but some minor detail is not. Thus reconciling small details that don’t jive, like some between the gospel accounts, or some bits from Genesis that don’t seem to support certain established scientific truths, don’t have to be infallible, but see that God used fallible humans to communicate his infallible message. And He ensures that the truth we need to be saved gets across.
Both those could account for certain things, like how long a day is in creation, to allow for seeing it as a literal 24 hour day, or a million years. I personally understand it as Hebraic poetry and the symmetry of the days are done the way they are to get across a specific point. And seeing it that way actually makes more sense out of some of the scientific data, like why God created light, then on day 4 creates the sources of light, which sounds very backwards.
So where it is a matter of interpretation, or could be considered a minor detail that isn’t critical for getting across the salvation message, but is more a note of the writer and their culture, I wouldn’t have a problem with.
But the Bible is, if anything, a record of God’s dealings with us fallen humans and our redemption. The “genocide” God is accused of committing in the OT is not a matter of wrong interpretation of the Scriptures, or of a minor element that divine inspiration could be considered to not apply to. This is part of God’s own dealings with man. To get this wrong is major.
And if we can’t trust the God of the OT, we can’t trust the God of the NT either because they are one and the same.
But the point is, this isn’t one of those interpretative instances, this is blantantly judging God, submitting Him to our uncomplete, partial, and built on sand truth of the world. St. Paul said we see through a glass darkly. And here we are peering at God’s truth through that dark glass, doing our best to discover the truth, and then judging God when it doesn’t fit into our theological constructs?
No, it’s the other way around. We allow God to judge us, and to change our theology to fit His. God had a reason for ordering the killing of those babies. To our sensibilities, perhaps it seems harsh. But we weren’t there. We don’t know what God knows. We either learn to trust Him when it doesn’t make sense to us, or we throw the whole faith into the trash. Because without that ultimate trust in Him, we can’t trust anything. Not even the science staring us in the face.
@ David, I was with you until you got the healings. Can you provide a link to the news stories that covered these great events? I searched on Google but couldn’t find any kind of documentation that these miracles were happening. I saw the video of the woman getting out of the wheelchair. She didn’t look like she’d be paralyzed for twenty years to me. My husband was paralyzed for twenty-two years and his legs were very small. How did that woman have such good muscle tone after twenty years. I also noticed the guy praying for her said she had nerve damage, not that she had a severed spinal cord. I’d really be interested in any documentation that the healings were genuine. Seriously I have two friends dying right now. And I’m close to Alabama. But it makes no sense to me that God would only be working where the Brownsville guy goes.
And I’ll tell you what…those revivals bring in big bucks. Really, really big bucks. There is no reason in the world that unbelievers wouldn’t lie to get in on the money. I’m not saying this woman lied. Just saying I don’t know her and I have no reason to believe her.
This is not to say that I don’t think God does heal. But I don’t think he necessarily heals at those revivals.
Sally,
Thanks for proving what I said to be true. I had said, “the church itself is its own detriment in that regard because of its own doubt and unbelief when other Believers start moving in the power of God and things begin to happen” and look how you responded. Your post was filled with nothing but doubt and unbelief that healings occur still. I had said, “doubting Thomas’s appear with their Bibles and suits and ties and declare things ‘for show’ and ‘for Money'” (which I accidentally left out the word “are” between “things” and “‘for show'”, my mistake!), and you actually replied with, “And I’ll tell you what…those revivals bring in big bucks. Really, really big bucks.”
Are you so doubtful or is it that you are too dense that you can only look at one solitary YouTube video where she first gets out of the chair and supposedly have done a Google search and not find the evidence that backs up what happened to this woman? It’s really not that hard to find info on this lady. If you’re on YouTube, all the info you need is already there for the taking. And if this had been a fake healing, don’t you think the media would have been all over it trying to show that she was lying? The secular media is always trying to cause trouble for the Church, why should they let something like this slide if it’s fake?
Here’s the facts, and you can look things up your own self. I’ll even give you a jumpstart with a few links from YouTube, how’s that for you?
The facts are that this woman was paralysed since a car accident in 1987. The facts are that she has gone around the world while in her wheelchair singing praises to God in various meetings. The fact is that her husband married her while she was in a wheelchair. The fact is that both her and her husband are ordained ministers and run a ministry there in the local area near where that revival took place. That fact is that her being in a wheelchair is a well documented fact. Now the new fact is that she is no longer bound to that wheelchair.
Even more, you say, “How did that woman have such good muscle tone after twenty years.” I’d like to know what video you were watching to where you could even SEE any muscle tone at all since she was wearing PANTS on the day she got out of the wheelchair. I understand what you said about your husband having small legs, but if you have X-ray vision that can see through the legs of her pants to see muscle tone – and on a prerecorded video at that – then maybe, maybe, you have a case.
Realize, I feel for your husband and what he’s gone through. You said that he “was” paralysed. Does that mean he is healed now his own self, or has he gone on to be with the Lord? Even with what your own husband went through, and I’m sure you discovered all the ins and outs of his personal case, how can you suppose that you can know all the ins and outs of what can make another person paralysed and how it can affect different people? Just because the minister praying over her didn’t say anything about a severed spinal cord doesn’t mean that the nerve damaged he mentioned – when he was simply informing the audience what he had been told by them, not that he was a doctor that had been with her for a long time or something – wasn’t a part of whatever caused her to be paralysed. It’s quite arrogant to assume things about someone and then spout out insinuations that someone is an “unbeliever” lying “to get in on the money” without doing the proper research.
You say you have friends that live in Alabama near there that need serious prayer. If they are willing to go, then take them. But I’ll tell you something no one else will: If the person going can’t believe, truly believe, that God can heal them (regardless of where it takes place or who is or is not around them at the time of healing), then they shouldn’t go. It would be a wasted trip on many levels, not just on the healing level. But also, know this: according to Delia she wasn’t even expecting to be healed, she and her husband had just simply gone up for basic prayer and then this happened, so that can mean something too in that perhaps God is doing things now even without the individual person believing for it. I know that there are Biblical examples where it was the faith of others and not the actual person that got them to be healed or delivered.
You talk against those that were a part of the Brownsville revival. Personally, I’ve only met one person that was a part of that and that was the worship leader and he was a very nice guy with a passion for God. I have, of course, noticed the minister who was involved with Brownsville being a part of this too with the church he pastors there now in Alabama, but to limit the things God is doing to just “where the Brownsville guy goes” shows further ignorance on your part of just what God has done and is doing now.
So you want to see “news stories” and whatnot? Okay, you go look up things on your own beyond what I’ll jump start you on here, but here’s some links regarding Delia Knox and her miraculous healing:
Here’s the extended version (still edited for YouTube time restraints) that isn’t the “official” one for when Delia Knox was being prayed for and when she first walked. You can see that even though she can now walk, she is having to regain her strength and balance and is at first dependent on others around her to help her keep her balance because she hasn’t done this in 23 years – perhaps because of a lack of muscle tone? 😉 Her husband is the man with the glasses that is with her through the whole clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjM4xrw1ds&feature=related
A week later, she comes back to the meeting and is able to walk even better, although still with some balance assistance, and at a couple of points in the clip that’s available with absolutely NO assistance, although the first time a person’s arm gets in the way of the camera and the second time the person in the control booth switches cameras to the evangelist that had prayed for her originally. Even with that, you can see the improvement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpWSptjG8eQ&feature=related
And if you are doubting whether she and her husband have a ministry or are established, please look at this clip. You may have different denominational beliefs than they do, but that doesn’t change the FACT that they are in the ministry together, and this was recorded and put up on YouTube about a year or so before she got prayed for at the revival a couple of months ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhJiqHC2JB0&feature=related
Of course, you don’t see a wheelchair in that last one, do you? So check out this clip from 1990 where she is doing her singing ministry. See that wheelchair underneath her? Are you now going to tell me that you think she faked it this whole time?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njbj5_0XwgY&feature=related
And here is where she comes back one more time to the revival a couple of months later and although she holds her husband’s arm as they go on the platform, you can see that in the rest of the clip she is walking and dancing around on her own as she leads people in praise and worship, wearing high heel shoes no less!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1YxJfLKF7c&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
After she got healed, she went up to where she grew up and was living when the car accident occurred and saw her mom and dad. The news covered it, and in this clip there is a splicing together between the news story and the testimony of the sister to Delia of what she did to help her sister out during the initial years of being paralysed. At one point you do see another shot of “the Brownsville guy” on a different church platform with Delia and her husband as she gets out of the wheelchair there. To circumvent any further arguing, let me clarify that the shot was taken at the church that Delia and her husband pastor at (from what I have read elsewhere back when this first occurred) and “the Brownsville guy” was there as their guest.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJzEtXsX1ZM&feature=fvw
The following is footage, without the interruption of the newscast or of her sister’s testimony, of when Delia got out of the car at her parents place and what happened afterward.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0F7vhWHgy0&feature=related
So if you have taken the time now to go over each of those videos and still can’t believe that this is true, then I wonder how you can believe in the sacrifice, burial, and resurrection of Jesus that supposedly occurred about 2,000 years ago and that you cannot ever have the chance of seeing.
On the other hand, if you are not willing to go through those videos, then any further discussion cannot take place because you will be talking to someone who has the facts and has seen them and has made the effort to present them to you, and all you will have is speculation based on willful ignorance.
Jesus said, “How can you say you love God whom you have not seen, but not love your brother (or sister) whom you have seen?”
Again, people of the Body of Christ can be the very detriment to the evidence of miracles and healings that God gave us to bring in the lost with just because of doubt and unbelief and then using that doubt and unbelief to tear each other down instead of lifting each other up. You SAY that “This is not to say that I don’t think God does heal” yet you don’t come out and say that you actually BELIEVE that He does, now do you? And your whole post is a post of doubt and unbelief that this could and did happen. Well, it CAN and it DID happen, not just for Delia, but for many others too, and not everyone that gets healed are healed so publicly and with such media attention as Delia got, so no, you probably will have a hard time “Googling” the other people’s testimonies. But as I said in my previous post, I’ve been in meetings where this stuff happens, and I’m the one telling you that from my firsthand observation, it is real. Not to mention that I have my own testimony of God’s healing power in my own life. 😉
(Mike, I apologize for the length of this post, but I hope you can see how it was neccessary to give a thorough reply in this case)
David, why did you go on attack mode? I stopped reading your post when you started calling Sally names. It didn’t seem at all necessary since she did nothing but ask you questions.
Becky
Rebecca, I can see why you would think that I went “on attack mode”, but in actuality if you had continued reading you would see that I was really making a stand and sticking to it using facts. And you should re-read what you read before you quit because even Sally saw that I was ASKING her if she was dense, not actually calling her that.
David, the choices you gave were doubtful or dense. I don’t see either one as a loving way to speak to another person. But I kept reading beyond that point. I stopped after this: It’s quite arrogant to assume things about someone
I’m sorry I couldn’t continue reading your post. You’re obviously passionate about this subject. I’m not taking a stand one way or the other since I didn’t see the video and really am interested more in Mike’s original point.
But I don’t understand why we Christians have begun to speak in such angry tones—to anyone, let alone to one another.
Becky
No, David, I’m really not dense, but thanks for asking instead of accusing me of that. And, to set the record straight, let me say in no uncertain terms that I don’t doubt God’s ability or willingness to heal. In fact I believe we should go to the elders for prayer before we go to the doctor. Maybe God will use a doctor as a tool to heal us, but maybe he’ll answer prayer in a more direct fashion and save us some money. The Bible tells us to go to the elders and confess our sins to one another if we’re ill. I think we should do those things.
I asked for documentation, meaning papers from Delia’s medical file that will tell her diagnosis before the healing and, again, after the healing. I wasn’t asking you to give me a bunch links to YouTube videos. When I said I’d seen THE video, I didn’t mean to imply that was all I’d seen. I did a Google search and I saw SEVERAL YouTube videos and read several revival sites that reported on the healing before I asked you if you could point me to any documentation. I saw the news video of her going home and her mother crying as she walked up to the house and several others. I believe that she spent a lot of time in a wheelchair over a twenty-year period. I’d love to hear what her reason was. I hear her say, “All I know is I couldn’t walk and now I can.” Well, I wish she’d tell us why she couldn’t walk. Because. “All I know is I couldn’t walk and now I can,” while being a cute echo of the lame man in John chapter nine, is not what a normal paralyzed person says. My husband and all of our many paralyzed friends, when asked what their injury was, would say, I’m a C-5 complete, or I’m a T-1 incomplete, or I’m right hemi from a stroke, or My cord is compressed but not severed and I’m not giving up on walking some day. No one says, “All I know is I can’t walk.” Everyone knows why they can’t walk.
The video of Delia’s sister saying she carried Delia up six flights of stairs whenever she visited makes me more skeptical than anything. A paraplegic, wanting to go up stairs would sit on the stairs and go up backwards on his butt. And, unless he was a glutton for punishment, he wouldn’t go up six flights unless he absolutely had to. I’ve known so many paralyzed people and always, their family members make their homes accessible or they move to accessible places. Why would her sister continue living six flights up in a building with a broken elevator? It doesn’t fit with what I’ve seen other families do. I’m not saying it’s not true. I’m saying the sister’s story is not easy to believe and I’d like to have someone who knows something about paralysis ask her why she lived in that building and why she would carry her sister up the stairs. And I’d like to see her take us to the building and carry her sister up six flights while the cameras are rolling to show us how she did it. Because her story is hard to believe. I was really strong from picking my husband up for years. And in my prime I couldn’t have carried a woman with a severed spinal cord up six flights of stairs. I might have been able to assist a woman with numb legs due to spinal compression up six flights of stairs, though.
You ask me how I can see her muscle tone through her clothes: You can easily tell through her clothes that she is not built like a para. God is certainly able to give her massive muscle growth and strengthen her bones. I’m not saying he isn’t. And I’m not saying he didn’t. I just didn’t see, from the videos that there was a time when she didn’t have that muscle tone. That video from a year ago of her with her husband that you linked to…she looked nothing like a typical para. Twenty-year paras usually have muscular upper bodies and shrunken lower bodies. Sometimes they don’t fit that pattern, but again this departure from what is typical of a person who has had a spinal cord severed, makes me want to hear her say why she was in a wheelchair to begin with.
We shouldn’t just assume she had a physical injury. Maybe the woman suffered from hysterical paralysis. (I had a friend who was paralyzed for a year with hysterical paralysis. She couldn’t even feed herself.) Maybe Delia really had a broken back. Or maybe her spinal cord was compressed, or maybe she was suffering from psychosomatic symptoms. In any case, it’s wonderful that she’s healed. (Although I have read that she’s still using the wheelchair.) But I wonder why she isn’t telling us what her medical condition was. If she was healed in August, why have they not put any documentation up on the Internet yet? They’ve had plenty of time.
But, no. From the CNN website I find this: Delia Knox didn’t want to talk about what her doctor or physical therapist think, and she wouldn’t go into detail about the medical condition that caused the paralysis.. http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1010/22/cnr.01.html
I don’t find anywhere (yet) that she has told us what her medical condition was prior to the healing.
Asking for documentation is a reasonable request. Christians aren’t supposed to believe fantastic tales without checking into things. There is nothing unloving about my saying I don’t know if I can believe this woman or not. The only testimony I’ve heard is her saying “hallelujah” hundreds of times and her saying all she knew was that she couldn’t walk and now she can. That doesn’t tell me much.
Sally,
First let me say thank you for knowing the difference between asking someone something and actually calling them a thing. I worded it that way to see how much attention was being paid as to just a reaction. Glad to see you caught it. 🙂
As far as the medical documentation, if you need that for proof, then talk with Delia. For myself, the fact that she was in a wheelchair for as long as she was is proof enough for me. I don’t need to know the details, I can see that an accident occurred that put her in that chair and she was in it for over two decades and that no one in their right mind would fake such a thing, so now that she’s out of it, that’s good enough for me. Even for my own miracle I don’t know what happened to the documentation I once had just because of all the moving and personal property destroyed or trashed because of tragedy or individuals without respect that were in my life. But I have plenty of people in my life that personally witnessed what I went through not to mention my own experiences that let me know that not only did it occur, but God has moved me beyond it. It’s apparent that Delia has people in her life that witnessed what occurred to her over time and as shown in the video from as far back as 1990 she was certainly in a wheelchair for the time she said she was. The details of what caused her to be in there aren’t as important to me as the fact that she was in the chair and now she isn’t.
You may think that echoes what she said when interviewed. And you’d be correct. It does echo it. Just as you pointed out that what she said echoes the man in John that was healed. Personally, I think that with a crowd of happy people surrounding her and with her being pulled every which a way and having the camera and mic put in her face she wasn’t ready to give a detailed explanation of what happened to her as she would if say she were to appear on the Larry King Live show or something similar. She probably realized that most of the people viewing the video wouldn’t know a C-5 complete from a C-4 explosive (not that I’m saying she’d know about C-4’s), so she kept it in simple terms that anyone can understand.
Now, as far as her willingness, or lack thereof, to share information, for all we know she is preparing to do that very thing. After all, someone has probably already approached her with a book deal and I’ve read plenty of books over my life where the details of things are found in the book, not in the testimony from the stage. Nowadays things like that move faster than before, so I think patience will win this one out instead of demanding everything upfront in a way unbefitting those with the fruit of the Spirit in their lives.
As far as her build goes, I’ve known some paralysed people in my life too, and one guy in particular was an extremely muscular dude because he worked out his upper body beyond what a normal paralysed person would do. In comparison, his legs looked shriveled, but when put up against a thin fellow that I knew, their legs were quite similar. Doesn’t mean my friend who was paralysed wouldn’t have had thicker more muscular legs if he hadn’t been paralysed, but that even with the vast amount of time he had been paralysed his legs still didn’t look that much different than a thin person’s legs. I’ve also known those with legs that were so tiny they were practically rolled up next to their body. A terrible sight for sure and quite heart-wrenching.
Now in regards to Delia, to me her upper body doesn’t look particularly big as if she worked out all the time like my friend did, yet it does seem “bigger” than it should for her size otherwise. I had made that observation long before you and I started talking on the matter. And with that, I’m mainly looking at her shoulders first and what little I can see beyond that. I have no idea what other kind of physical therapy she may have gone through or what could cause her legs to appear to you as if she wasn’t paralysed. For all I know she eats a lot and the fat goes straight to the legs. (Now don’t knock me down over a joke here) But for me I really can’t tell much about her legs when I’m watching the clip other than once she gets out of the chair they begin to move while the men help her with her balance.
And I read the CNN transcript. Tell me something, are you one to normally trust the secular, liberal media when they report on something about Christians? I mean, when an abortion clinic has a crazy lunatic shooting bullets into the windows, do you believe it when they then connect that lunatic with Christians that are pro-life? And what about when they talk about people that do hate crimes against homosexuals and then the secular, liberal media connects that to some Christian group advocating a Godly lifestyle where a man and woman get married? If you don’t normally trust the secular, liberal media in these things, why are you suddenly swallowing the way they presented things concerning this woman hook, line, and sinker? After all, the way that transcript reads, they were setting it up for people to doubt what was going on, so it is no surprise to me that if one views that broadcast or reads the transcript that one would doubt the veracity of it enough to either not investigate further, or upon investigation find everything they could to back up the doubt already there even with everything else they are viewing.
One final note on what I can comment about Delia. Both on the video I shared a link of with you and in the transcript she said something I can relate a little to, “I would stay away from revivals because I’ve been pulled, plopped and dropped.” In case you aren’t sure what that means, it means that as a paralysed person who believed in the power of God, she had gone to such meetings in the past and people had apparently pulled her out of her chair and since she wasn’t healed yet she wouldn’t be able to go anywhere and therefore she would “plop” or be “dropped” on the floor. It is unfortunate, but I have seen occurrances like this, and typically whoever did it had a lot of zeal but no discernment on the moving of the Spirit of God. Clearly she had been burned out before by this and had avoided meetings like this, but for whatever reason she and her husband went to this one (perhaps because they were friends with some of the people involved? I don’t know), and it was when they went that she got healed.
Everything else you said or asked about Delia or her family specifically you should address to them as I cannot speak any further on the matter without really getting into some wild speculation based on other things I know that really wouldn’t make any difference one way or another in this particular matter.
And if you feel you need so much documentation, I again wonder at how you believe in the miracle of the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus or how you can trust that He’ll return. Outside of a very controversial collection of letters and stories put into a best selling volume, there’s really not much proof that He existed or went through what he went through.
Also, you never answered my question about your husband, but I’ll presume the answer based on that silence and you have my condolences. Please correct me if I’m wrong in this.
David,
I think you should consider that just because I chose not to take offense at your comments, that doesn’t mean you were right to make them. I am not angry about your suggestion that I’m a dense if I don’t buy into this miracle without any proof, but you should consider that you aren’t giving me what you ask me to give Delia: unquestioning faith in a stranger.
To answer your questions very quickly:
1) I trust liberal media as much as I trust news from the revival websites. Both seem to make money off of sensational bits of information that often prove to be untrue. I don’t think I’ve suddenly started swallowing anything hook, line, and sinker, from either side. I’m the one asking that we look at the evidence, after all.
You said earlier:
…if you are not willing to go through those videos, then any further discussion cannot take place because you will be talking to someone who has the facts and has seen them and has made the effort to present them to you, and all you will have is speculation based on willful ignorance.
You consider YouTube videos to be fact and you call my hesitation to believe this woman to be willful ignorance? I am not even sure how to respond to this. YouTube videos are not sufficient evidence of anything. I don’t know anyone who would agree with you on this.
2) I believe in the death, resurrection, and future return of my Lord, because God gave me faith to believe. But he gave me my faith through the testimony of many men. And, more importantly, through his own testimony. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Faith comes through hearing God testify about himself. I’d like to hear more testimony from Delia (and from doctors–even Jesus had Dr. Luke give testimony). I don’t disbelieve that Delia was healed. Nor do I believe she was healed. I need more information before I make a decision one way or the other.
3) I’m not sure why my husband is relevant to this discussion, but to put your curiosity to rest, I’ll tell you what happened to him. He died of colon cancer three years ago.
Now Mike has been generous not to kick us out for hijacking his comments section, but I don’t want to wear out my welcome here. So I’ll give you the last word, David. I won’t answer you but I will read what you have to say with interest.
Thanks!
urgh. I think my spell check helpfully took the / from my ending italics coding. 🙂
Sally, thank you for taking note of my (dwindling) generosity.
@Mike
I don’t believe in theistic evolution because I don’t believe death entered the world until Adam sinned. And I believe that Adam really was formed from the mud and Eve was taken from his rib. I believe that if you do away with Adam and Eve, you do away with original sin.
But were the days of creation 24 hours long? I have no idea. Since the sun wasn’t made right away I don’t see how a day would have been measured.
But this judging of God to be a tyrant is nothing new. It’d awful, of course. Why do these people insist on calling themselves Christians?
I’ll quit because R. L. said everything way better than I could.
Thanks for your comments, Sally! Believing in theistic evolution — an evolutionary process guided or used by God — does not necessitate disbelieving in an historic Adam and Eve. I understand there are variations along the spectrum, with some opting for a mythologized view of Adam and Eve. I happen to think this grates against key biblical texts and potentially undermines reliability of Scripture as a historic document. All that to say, it is possible to believe in theistic evolution and an historic Adam and Eve. The real issue is not the organic processes God used to make the Man, but that He actually infused His image into one.
Mike, I appreciate your post a lot. You’ve extrapolated the key point of this method of harmonizing Scripture and science and taken it to its logical conclusion—that science becomes the new bible.
You also pointed out that science is static as we interpret, postulate, experiment, study, evaluate, and discover. I haven’t forgotten one post you did about string theory and what that might do to our understanding of “reality.”
I think it takes a lot of hubris to say God of the Old Testament is outmoded or a tyrant.
BTW, there are lots of other scientists who do not see Scripture conflicting. Yes, many of them are 7-day creationists, but they have scientific reasons for their beliefs.
Me, I think we might be flirting with those vain speculations Paul mentioned (I think it was Paul). Some things we can know. Some things we can’t. We can know God created. We can’t know how long it took (no matter what the scientists say about looking through telescopes and determining when, what they think to be “the big bang” occurred—their theory doesn’t account for a God who could speak the universe into existence or who could create a “mature” universe when He made the heavens, if He so chose to).
Becky
My father held to theistic evolution who believed in a pre-Adamic race at the start and ended up not believing Adam and Eve at all. He went from theistic evolution to throwing out large chunks of scripture that he didn’t like. He didn’t like the ogre OT God and he didn’t like most of the things Paul said. Thank God he rejected the “we don’t need a blood atonement and any God who would sacrifice his son is a cosmic child abuser” deal.
duh!
My father held to theistic evolution AND believed….
I think that’s what I meant. 🙂