Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, took issue with a recent post of mine:
When it comes to spiritual issues and Christians, unbelievers develop some weird and absurd views. They do not grasp the subtleties involved with God’s answer to prayer. Take for example this post Jesus Abandons Christian Woman in Hospital, Leaving Her to Suffer Horrific Pain [by Bruce Gerencser]:
Over and over and over again, for two hours, an elderly Charismatic Christian woman in a hospital bed near mine, lay on her bed with hands extended to the ceiling, pleading for Jesus/God to come to her and make his presence known….
Fortunately, after two hours of crying out to Jesus, he finally showed up! Just kidding. What showed up was a nurse with a syringe filled with high-powered narcotics. Soon, the woman fell asleep, ending her pleas to God. When she awoke, family and medical staff alike comforted her so she would no longer hysterically cry out for an imaginary pain-alleviating deity. Her suffering was alleviated, not by God, but by medically trained and compassionate human beings.
It is obvious that unbelievers will not see God or Jesus behind the kind act of the nurse. They only look on the surface of events and do not look for the real action taking place behind that surface view.
Unbelievers fail to realize that God uses people thus a human would be sent with the right medication to alleviate the woman’s pain. Given the fact that deaths due to medical malp[practice [sic] are abundant, the woman receiving the right dosage of the right medicine is an act of God answering her prayers.
Why would it take so long? Well, real life does get in the way of God answering prayers. One reason is that the nurses resisted God’s leading and disobeyed. Another is that they came when they were free as they had other patients to minister aid to and other practical and real reasons.
It is not that God abandoned this woman but that he answers in his time. Unfortunately, according to the author of that post, the woman’s faith was being undermined by family and medical staff. That is another reason God’s aid was delayed.
The post goes on to denigrate God and the Bible but that is also par for the ocurse [sic] as unbelievers never see God in any result of prayer. Not because they do not believe but because they do not look for God’s behind the scenes action.
According to Thiessen, I failed to see “God or Jesus behind the kind act of the nurse.” How could I, or anyone else, for that matter, see God or Jesus behind the nurse caring for this woman? Thiessen makes a claim for which he provides no evidence. Thiessen claims that I just took a “surface” view of the situation. How could I have done otherwise? I have no tool available to me that allows me to detect Jesus/God, so I make judgments based on what I see and hear. If God is the sovereign of the universe and hears every believer’s prayer, why did it take him two hours to show up? Jesus could have immediately revealed himself to her or alleviated her pain, but he didn’t. Instead, she lay on her bed writhing in pain, pleading for Jesus to make an appearance and alleviate her suffering.
Thiessen asserts, without evidence, that the woman finally receiving the right dose of narcotics was “an act of God answering her prayers.” How could he possibly know this? It is far more likely the charge nurse had to get in contact with the doctor before giving her pain meds and this took some time to accomplish or she had already received pain meds and it was too soon for more.
Thiessen suggests that God’s tardiness (not explaining how God could be tardy or absent when he is ever present) was due to “the nurses resisted God’s leading and disobeyed” or “they had other patients to minister aid to and other practical and real reasons.” Again, Thiessen provides no evidence for his claims. He is just making shit up as he goes, trying to make God look good. I was two beds away from this woman in a ward when the events detailed in my post happened. She had nursing staff in her room the whole time. My nurse, an RN, spent thirty minutes with the woman, trying to comfort and settle her down. She had plenty of human help, but supernatural deliverance was nowhere to be found.
Thiessen claims that the woman’s family and her nurses undermined her faith, and that’s why pain relief was delayed. I have no idea how he came to this conclusion. Besides, what kind of God withholds pain relief from one of his followers because of what others did? Why should she be punished for what others do (not that they did what Thiessen alleges)?
Thiessen concludes his post by saying “Unbelievers never see God in any result of prayer. Not because they do not believe but because they do not look for God’s behind-the-scenes action.” Saying God answered a prayer is a claim. If you want me to believe a supernatural claim then you must provide sufficient evidence for your claim. Thiessen, of course, doesn’t do this. As a Fundamentalist presuppositionalist, he believes that his claims are self-evident; and that unbelievers are deliberately deaf and blind to what God is doing in the world. Sure . . . but if Thiessen wants me to accept his claims, he going to have to do more than quote Bible verses, share personal experiences, or make bald assertions for which he provides no evidence. I am not going to take his word for it, and neither should anyone else.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Connect with me on social media:
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
I suppose I’m only endorsing what you say, Bruce, but my take on Tee would be to ask him why a better explanation of why the patient didn’t receive relief sooner is that God wasn’t involved? The annoying thing about Tee (well one of them!) is his arrogant insertion of God into the picture, and dismisssal as stupid those who don’t believe. If he were a little more humble in his posts one might take them a bit more seriously, but as it is they are actually offensive in their nature.
Yep. Pure act of god that medical people in hospitals regularly stop by patients to check pain levels and adjust medication.
It’s not like this god appears weak or uncaring when this god doesn’t fix a problem it allegedly can fix, and ignores the whiny prayers knowing someone will eventually fix the medication.
Seriously, in the great pantheon of miracles a god can perform, relieving pain should be low hanging fruit. Far easier than eliminating cancer or regrowing limbs. Yeah, sure, it’s not the big show miracle of forgiving a guys sin, then engaging in a debate about religion before the big event of curing his paralyzed body, but it’s still a miracle.
It’s a great god that let’s you lay there and suffer when all it has to do is say “no pain for you” then go on about the rest of its godly business.
I mean, Jesus rips on people for crossing the road to avoid a man who was beat up and in a ditch then praises a marginalized man for finally helping the guy, but Jesus’ daddy basically crosses the road ignoring this woman, leaving her to wait for the Good Samaritan medical staff.
But yeah, god cares and works miracles.
I don’t like how Thiessen talks positively about nurses/medical professionals and then turns around and lambasts them as undermining someone’s faith. Rude, insulting.
This is yet another example of a fundamentalist Christian making excuses for their deity’s inaction by blaming others or stating that we’re too stupid/flawed to understand. What a cop out to support one’s insupportable presuppositions.
I actually started laughing at his diatribe re: kind nurse, disobeying nurse, malpractice nurse, busy nurse blah blah blah. I only comment for the sake of one who lurks and thinks Derrick Thomas Thiessen might be the bees knees, a bag of chips and then some or standing at the right hand of Jesus himself.
Please, do not take Derrick Thomas Thiessen seriously, ever.
Some people will make up any excuse, any at all, for the lack of their deity performing so-called miraculous deeds for the sick, hurt and dying. Terminal cancer in a child who then dies? Parents “didn’t have enough faith” or “god wanted another angel”. People told me the latter when my mom died from ALS and I’m glad I was too drunk to deck them and wind up in jail.
Thiessen is absolutely ignoring that people are the ones who help others, not a deity. I saw a video about a man trapped in a car that caught fire in Minnesota. A number of perfect strangers got him out before he burned alive. These people risked their own lives and serious injury to help someone they had never met. No doubt Thiessen would call this divine intervention and those people were acting on “god’s” behalf. But if I asked him where his deity was when my coworker’s brother’s car went over and overpass due to black ice and he burned alive in his car? I betcha I would get crickets. It seems the deity is always the one who helps when good things happen and when bad things happen, it’s a person’s fault. Insanity.
Maybe letting a 12 year old child writhe in pain from an operation he didn’t need made him, (me) a better person as an adult. That’s one explanation, silly though it is, but did it need to continue days and weeks to acheive the effect? Yeah I suspect that experience factored into my adult skepticism about the God and prayer stuff. I don’t recall praying or even a visit from clergy, even in St. Vincent’s, a Catholic hospital. Just my luck.
Thiessen will continue to try to prove that God is all powerful, but mere people get in his way? Not buying it.
“[R]eal life does get in the way of God answering prayers.”
If God is omniscient, omnipresent and all-powerful, who created “real life?”
And don’t get me started on why a merciful God would allow someone to suffer—for the alleged sins of others, no less.