Book Review: Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine
Reviewed by Edwin A. Schwisow, July 28, 2015: I live in a “liberal” state on the “Left Coast,” where the separation of Church and State is normally profound and sacrosanct. It is here that I became acquainted with several families who hold founding membership in the Followers of Christ Church, which prohibits its 1,000 or so members from seeking medical treatment other than through prayer and anointing by/with a pastor or religious healer. Several Followers of Christ parishioners I have known personally in those families through the years have died prematurely from preventable conditions, such as high blood pressure/stroke and adult-onset diabetes. A number of their offspring have died from devastating infections that could have been arrested with antibiotics. And it is here, in a small, religious population where the child death rate stood at 26 times that of the general population, that a conscientious prosecutor finally declared “Enough!”
(In acquiring the book, I was fascinated, as well, by the similarities between some practices of deeply conservative Adventists and the Followers of Christ. Members of the Followers of Christ not only practice baptism by immersion, but also communion that includes ritual washing of feet, and they restrict their Bible study to a literal reading of the King James Version. Church authority is highly male-centric and a great deal of stock is placed in repentance and good works as pathways to merit and salvation. Those who are deemed to fall short of essential godliness are shunned.)
That my father was a missionary physician and that I personally know several members of this congregation, a mere 30 miles or so from my home near Sandy, Oregon, prompted my interest in this informative and emotionally wrenching book, written by a physician, primarily about the conflicting religious and legal aspects of faith healing among those who believe seeking conventional medical treatment is a denial of the power of God.
I have personally pled with members of these families to use modern medical science as they would the foodstuffs in a grocery store—if and when they need food in the house, do they not go to a store and buy it? Yes, God has promised to supply all our needs, but he often does so through a grocery store or even a food bank. Is God limited in His power to heal, and must He confine himself to prayer and anointing alone as agencies of His blessing? Can He not also employ the ministry of dedicated Christian health-care workers? I suggested the names of several Adventist nurse practitioners and physicians in the area.
“No,” came the reply. “The Bible clearly tells us that healing for a Christian comes exclusively through prayer and anointing. There is no such literal command in the Bible regarding food. (Apparently the same literal application cannot not be associated with Philippians 4:19, which promises complete sustenance (not just healing), with no preconditions: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”) Apparently at least some temporal effort must be invested to achieve the blessings of God.
Soon after this conversation, I learned by phone that an observant member of the Followers of Christ I had grown to know and love had suffered a devastating stroke at age 69. Yes, he had developed high blood pressure, and no, he had not sought traditional medical help for that condition. About a month after the stroke, he died an invalid in a nursing facility.
Then came the death of his son-in-law at age 47, from the effects of diabetes, a condition that had gone untreated through conventional means. His devastated widow assured me that in both cases (her father’s and husband’s deaths) everything had been done within the faith-healing tradition to restore them to health, but now the family (despite the serious economic impact of their loss) was resigned to their deaths (though she herself told me that she was very tempted to seek conventional treatment for her own diabetic condition, in the wake of her husband’s death). She told me, however, that were it to become known that she had sought such treatment, she would be seriously disciplined by fellow members, and she trembled at the prospect of being disfellowshipped.
The author respects those who believe strongly in the power of God to bring healing, but through anecdote and analysis faults extreme belief systems for failing to also factor in the role of competent human assistance, especially in cases of the under-aged.
In fact, the string of deaths among members of the Followers of Christ during the past 30 years has galvanized interest in those, like the Followers, who unflinchingly deny their members any moral grounds for seeking conventional health-care. In their experience, true healing comes exclusively from on High, and this exclusive reliance on divine healing seems to affect other manifestations of 19th-century denominational Protestantism, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, who absolutely deny their members any moral concessions to receive transfusions of blood, even in cases of life-threatening anemia.
According to Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine, faith healing has always attracted “bad faith” practitioners who for purposes of controlling others, impose draconian behavioral restrictions. The strength of the US’s laws separating Church and State have paradoxically allowed such personalities to present themselves as benevolent healers and spiritual guides.
Yet the outgrowth of such arbitrary restrictions on members has always seemed to produce social stunting and physical detriment. Today the Followers of Christ have no pastor or leader and have reduced attempts to attract new members in the Portland area. The congregation is apparently (and tragically) dying out at a fairly accelerated pace, in part because of the religious injunction against seeking traditional medical treatment.
That the Followers of Christ hold several unusual beliefs in common with Seventh-day Adventists piqued my early interest. Without the ministry of Ellen G. White and the emphasis on lifestyle improvement and enlightened healing methods, could our denomination have drifted into a Followers of Christ/Christian Science mentality during its early stages? I believe this could have happened quite easily. It was no secret that early medicine in the US was seriously ineffective in healing many illnesses it claimed power to vanquish. A charismatic leader like Ellen White could have righteously spoken out against medical science of her day, then left it at that. But in her case she envisioned enlightened medical practice as a “right arm” of gospel proclamation, and this provided an early balance in the denomination between science and faith, working together for mutually valued goals. Today there seems to have emerged a stronger tension between so-called “liberal” scientific Adventism and traditional “conservative” Adventism that seriously questions the veracity of any scientific information that seems to contradict literally interpreted Bible statements. But by and large, the linking of medical science and gospel proclamation has been a key to the rapid numerical advance of the denomination throughout the world.
But this does not resolve the religious liberty question of what to do in the many cases where the lives of children are used like the handling of poisonous serpents to test the faith of their parents. Should caregivers be prosecuted for failing to invoke the help of conventional health-care in cases of life-threatening illness? The author sympathizes with that view as one of the only ways to help break the powerful hold of charismatic teachers who even in death wield powerful sway over their flocks, compelling them to submit to draconian prohibitions and practices that bring suffering and death untold, in the name of God.
Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine
By Paul Offit
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Basic Books (March 10, 2015)
ISBN-13: 978-0465082964
Hello,
I would just like to give a view point that is more realistic. Modern medicine is absolutely wicked. Mercury in vaccines, drugs that steal health with side affects that are not worth the so called cure and nothing to help the immune system. The best medicine is preventative and avoid modern medicine like the plague. Homeopathic medicine is curing cancer and a myriad of autoimmune deceases that are caused by modern medicine,GMO and pesticide ridden foods. Be smart and get off commercial food and stay away from doctors. Or just continue with your American lifestyle and go to the Dr. regularly until your health is completely gone.
Happy Sabbath.
PS Vegi meat is not healthy. Its GMO non organic soy garbage with neurotoxins. Love Love
I would just like to give a view point that repeating the nonsense of charlatans and quacks is absolutely wicked.
It amazes me as the reviewer that mainstream healthcare is as effective as it is in the US, even though it comes at a premium financial cost, in real-world, global terms. It’s instructive that many, if not most, of the “Miracle Drugs” have come from laboratories connected with mainstream medicine, and in my father’s practice, his most challenging cases were those in which parents allowed their children to go untreated (by mainstream means) for a too long. I also believe it’s possible to be too dismissive, too prone to deny any benefit from mainstream medicine. I have met people who seem totally unable to accept most anything that is not radicalized in concept, and certainly speculative medical practitioners are often most capable in helping destroy all confidence in mainstream medicine. It’s instructive that the best results seem to come from a cocktail of treatments, some medically mainstream, some lifestyle, some herbal and naturally supplemental. The all-or-nothing dismissal of the effectiveness of any of these options usually feeds the argument and disadvantages the patient….
EGW can’t be so easily dismissed. There have been faithful followers of her writings against drug usage and applied that to all modern “drugs” that have enabled us to live longer and correct diseases that were previously deadly in past times.
I have seen children very ill with croup because their parents, faithful followers of EGW, let the children sleep in the open cold air because “she said it was healthful” never mind it improved as soon as the windows were closed and simple means were allowed. There are also other SdAs who refuse needed surgery and suffer and die needlessly because of a belief that no such methods should be used by Adventists. They didn’t find this in the Bible, except reliance on prayer, at a time when there were no modern medical treatments and relief offered.
Interesting personal note, on that matter. When we were in the mission field, I contracted strep throat from visiting kids from the States. The streptococcal disease left me with what seemed to be a perpetual sore throat, especially in the morning after a night’s sleep. We lived in a tropical mountainous area, and temperatures could go down as low as 45 degrees (F) at night. My bed was located right below a large window, and Mom (a reader of Ellen White) felt that the shutters should be left ajar at night. Problem was, I noticed that the colder the evening air, the worse my throat would behave the next morning, so I asked Mom if I could close the windows at night, once everyone was in bed and asleep. She said to give it a try, anything to help me feel better. Sure enough, on the nights I closed the shutters, I would have no sore throat to speak of the next day; when the night air got cold and the windows were left ajar, torture in the morning light! Certainly Ellen was onto something when she advocated abundant fresh air, but in this case it was clearly the better part of wisdom to adapt her general counsel to the specific situation. I eventually outlasted the bug, and have never had a strep throat in 50 years since. ….Maybe it’s all the fresh air since…. (I might add that I took antibiotics to help me lick the bug, and avoid scarlet fever and worse….)
There are many diseases that cannot be cured by the so called all natural method of healing. Wish it were like that but it is not. Earl
You are so right, Earl. In saying that avoid the hospital if it is at all possible. More and more reliable secular publications are emphasizing the problems associated with hospitals.
There are times when hospitalization is unavoidable.
Some but not all of the aversion to conventional medicine is the result of former substance abusers who have become SDA. They read the EGW anti drug statements and believe that she is referring to all “drugs” including antibiotics.
In the study of herbology, one of the first lessons is on toxic herbs which can poison unsuspecting “natural remedy” types. Ironically, the vinca alkaloids, derived from members of the periwnkle family, are among the most toxic “drugs” used in modern medicine.
In some places, like Angwin, there has been a conspiracy of silence among SDA to shield those involved in dangerous quackery from prosecution for illegal medical practice. I suspect the same is true whereever EGW fanatics congregate.
I saw how protease inhibitors worked on AIDS patients in the 90s–as miraculous as resurrection of the dead. That many returned to gay debauchery is another issue but no one will ever convince me that [all] “drugs” don’t work.
Where is the review so I can read it?