I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president, and that’s why he’s there and I think he has done a tremendous job in supporting a lot of the things that people of faith really care about.
— Sarah Huckabee Sanders, CBN Interview, January 30, 2019
Charisma News, the go-to source for charismatic excess (and outright lunacy) within Evangelicalism, recently published a story pimping the Christian fantasy show, Godwinks @ PureFlix. “Godwinks” are, according to Charisma News, miracles performed by the Christian deity. One such “Godwink” involves Toni and David Espinoza of McAllen, Texas:
Rushnell [the host of Godwinks], who tells many of these “godwinks” stories in PureFlix.com’s series “Godwinks at Pure Flix,” recently revealed the most amazing miracle story he’s ever encountered.
He told “The Pure Flix Podcast” about how Toni and David Espinoza of McAllen, Texas, were once given some truly devastating news: David, who was 50 years old at the time, suffered from a heart that was working at just 10 percent capacity, and he desperately needed a transplant.
The family turned to pray—and then something absolutely incredible happened. Listen to “The Pure Flix Podcast” at the 6-minute mark to hear Rushnell explain:
“Toni … said, ‘We are going to pray together as a family. We’re going to get our church praying, we’re going to get everybody praying,'” Rushnell recounted.
Toni soon found herself feeling convicted because she realized she was essentially praying for someone else to die in order for her husband to receive a new heart.
That’s when she totally changed her mindset and made a major adjustment to her prayer routine: She asked God to fully heal her husband.
“She had prayed that God would completely heal David [and] that he would confirm it by making it snow on McAllen, Texas, on Christmas Day,” Rushnell said.
There was only one logistical problem with Toni’s belief that God would confirm the healing with a snowfall on Christmas: it had reportedly never snowed on Christmas in McAllen, Texas. In fact, there hadn’t been snow in the area in 109 years.
But, on Christmas Eve at 11:45 p.m., Toni looked outside and saw a white coating in her backyard: it had snowed for the first time in McAllen, Texas. While some might call it a coincidence, David went back for a heart appointment three weeks later, and his physicians were stunned.
“The doctors looked at the reports, they shook their heads and said, ‘We can’t explain this, but David—you are going to live for a very long time,” Rushnell said. “It was the most amazing godwink that I think I had ever heard.”
Yes, it did snow on December 24-25 2004. However, not only did it snow in McAllen, it snowed across much of Southern Texas. According to Wikipedia:
The most noticeable, and unusual, event associated with the storm was the snowfall it produced. Much of the snow fell in southern Texas, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, but some snow, albeit less deep, fell across southwestern and southeastern Louisiana. Any snowfall in these areas is extremely unusual, perhaps occurring once every twenty years, and these events are usually airborne flurries which melt on contact with the ground. In many places the snow stuck to the ground and accumulated to an appreciable depth. In Brownsville, Texas, snow fell to a depth of 1.5 inches (3.8 cm), the first measurable snowfall at the city in years, since the Great Blizzard of 1899.The fact that the snow accumulated overnight on Christmas Eve led to a White Christmas the next morning, something completely foreign to the region. Across all of southern Texas and in southwestern Louisiana, snow fell in places where it had not for anywhere from 15 to 120 years. Near the coast, in Corpus Christi, Texas, 5.2 inches (13 cm) of snow fell, more snow than in all previous recorded years combined. This was also the case in Victoria, Texas, where a significant 13.0 inches (33 cm) fell. New Orleans, Louisiana had its first white Christmas in 50 years. In addition to the unusual occurrence of snow inland, moderate to heavy snow was also reported over the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This is the first significant snow fall in Houston since February 12, 1960, when a snowstorm hit central and south Texas with eight to 10 inches of snow
This was a WEATHER event, not a “Godwink.” Science, people, science. It snowed in McAllen, Texas because atmospheric conditions were such that it snowed — no deity needed. As with most Bible-blinded Evangelicals, Toni and David Espinoza saw a miracle where there was none.
December 8, 2017, The McAllen Monitor reported yet another “blizzard,” one that left so little snowfall that weather officials could not measure it. Yes, it technically “snowed,” but here in the upper Midwest, such snowfalls don’t count. Yet, using Toni Espinoza’s logic, a McAllen resident somewhere could have claimed it as a “miracle”; that is if they had demanded God to whip out his divine penis and show it just for them on December 8, 2017.
According to the Charisma News story, it hadn’t snowed in McAllen, Texas in 109 years. I searched high and low for evidence for this claim, and all I found was the following on the National Weather Service website. It tells the WHY of the 2004 snow event:
The Rio Grande Valley of Deep South Texas experienced one of its most memorable Christmas Holidays ever. A rare combination of weather events developed in late December that produced several inches of snowfall, which in itself is quite rare in this region. However, to have snow fall on Christmas Eve and morning is a historical first according to the more than 150 years of weather data. This White Christmas is certainly one for the record books.
….
The freezing temperatures and snowfall were expected in South Texas and National Weather Service Offices were talking about the arrival of unseasonably cold temperatures prior to the holiday. Snowfall was mentioned as a possibility and as Christmas drew closer, snowfall became more likely as the weather forecast became more focused.
We need to look back to the week before Christmas in order to recap the details of this historic event. Signals from the numerical weather forecast models suggested a strong cold front and arctic air mass would move southward along the Rocky Mountains into Texas and eventually over the Lower Texas Coast. This cold front moved through Brownsville, Wednesday afternoon (12/22/2004). A second reinforcing surge of arctic air followed the initial front, dropping temperatures into the 30s and low 40s late Thursday (12/23/2004). Maximum temperatures on Friday (12/24/2004) were in the upper 30s to low 40s across the Rio Grande Valley. Widespread moderate rain covered much of the area with most locations reporting one half of an inch to nearly one inch of liquid precipitation (Figure 1, below). The cold rain began to taper off on Christmas Eve as temperatures began to fall below freezing
…
As the event began to unfold, the meteorologists at NWS Brownsville refined the precipitation forecast to account for rainfall changing to sleet or a rain/snow mix, and eventually changing to all snow for the overnight hours between December 24th and 25th. The first in a series of winter weather warnings and advisories – Freeze Warnings – were issued by the National Weather Service at 230 AM December 23rd. Around noon on Christmas Eve, the Freeze Warnings were upgraded to Winter Weather Advisories, which were subsequently upgraded to Winter Storm Warnings later that evening for Heavy Snow, continuing until the morning of December 25th when the snowfall finally ended.
All in all, the snowfall was greeted with joy and excitement since it has been almost 110 years since the last measurable snow fell in the city of Brownsville – and for that matter, much of the Valley.
Yes, snowfall in McAllen is a rare occurrence. Yes, it snowed on Christmas Day 2004. Yes, it has snowed since then, though not in measurable amounts. Thus, the best that can be said is that there had not been MEASURABLE snowfall amounts in McAllen in 109 years, and that this is due to climate and weather patterns, not God. I am confident in saying that there have likely been other “snowfalls” to hit McAllen besides the “blizzard” of 2017. Meteorological records only go back for 150 or so years, so it is an argument from silence to say that it has never snowed in McAllen before 2004. This story is just another example of Evangelicals desperately looking for a miracle where there is none. And as far as David Espinoza’s miraculous healing is concerned, neither Charisma News, God Winks @Pure Flix, or the Espinozas provided any evidence for the claim that David was miraculously “healed.” People are just expected to, by irrational faith, BELIEVE. When asked on the TODAY show about whether the chain of events was mere coincidence or divine intervention, God Winks host, Squire Rushnell, replied “You know what that shows? It shows that if you have faith and pray, Godwinks happen.” What it shows is that with faith people can and will believe almost anything. If Evangelicals want rationalists and skeptics to “believe,” they are going to have to cough up a lot more evidence than the aforementioned story.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
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Guest post by by MJ Lisbeth
New York City and State are often seen as liberal, progressive bastions in a conservative nation. Indeed, The Big Apple was a leader in passing laws to protect the rights of tenants, workers and LGBT people, and The Empire State legalized abortion and same-sex marriage before other states and the Federal Government got around to doing the same.
Even so, the city and state have other statutes that seem retrograde and even racist compared to other states. An example of racism is in voting: It’s more difficult to do than in just about any other city or state. And the things that make voting difficult almost invariably place the greatest burdens on the poor, and on ethnic and racial minorities.
Among the laws that are simply retrograde are the ones that governed the reporting of child sexual abuse. Currently, criminal or civil charges can be brought against an abuser until the victim’s 23rd birthday. Only Alabama and Mississippi have more restrictive regulations, while nine other states have no statute of limitations at all.
So why does one of the “blue” islands in a sea of “red” have laws that, frankly, do more to protect the perpetrators than the survivors? One could argue that New York passed such legislation a long time ago, when it didn’t seem quite so restrictive, and simply didn’t bother to change. That could be said about the state’s abortion laws, which allow the procedure up to 24 weeks into the pregnancy. When the law was passed, three years before Roe vs Wade, most states still didn’t allow abortion at all. But, after Roe vs Wade, the relative strength or weakness of New York law didn’t matter, because Federal rulings supersede state statutes.
Likewise, when the state’s current regulations about reporting child abuse were enacted, they may well have been more progressive than those of other states—if, indeed those states had them. Indeed, there was little or no discussion of the issue, and there was a common belief that the victim was somehow at fault—or, at least, should just “move on.” But now the time is long past to acknowledge the pain and suffering too many of us have carried—in some cases, for decades, or even to our graves—and to allow us to achieve whatever measure of justice may be available to us.
On Monday, the New York State Assembly passed, by a vote of 130-3, a bill that would allow prosecutors to bring criminal charges against a perpetrator until the victim’s 28th birthday. It would also give victims the right to sue until they turn 55. In the Senate, every single senator, Democrat and Republican, voted in favor of that same bill, which Governor Andrew Cuomo has promised to sign into law.
If you want to know why this law is so necessary, all you had to do was watch—and, more important, listen—to the press conference that followed the vote in the state Capitol. It included testimony from survivors, some of whom were the very legislators who voted for the bill. A few of them were talking about their abuse for the very first time.
That grown men and women were breaking the silence around sexual abuse they experienced as children and teenagers is a measure of how the law is necessary—yet still inadequate. There are still many of us who grew up in places and times where such abuse wasn’t discussed because the authority of abusers wasn’t questioned. Moreover, whatever education we received included no lessons about our bodies: As I recounted in an earlier essay, when a priest molested me, I didn’t even know the names of the parts of my body he touched.
The incidents I can recall most vividly and terrifyingly happened between my ninth and tenth birthdays. I did not talk about them with anybody for nearly half a century. So, even with the new law, I would not be eligible to sue. Many other people my age, or older, are in similar situations.
If some lawyer for the Diocese of Brooklyn (where I was abused) is reading this, he or she is breathing a sigh of relief. There are surely many others like me (I’ve talked to a few), and the Diocese and Roman Catholic Church know it. So, I am sure, do many other religious organizations as well as insurance companies and the Boy Scouts of America.
Those organizations are the chief reasons why New York has taken so long to pass legislation to widen the statute of limitations for reporting child abuse. One thing about New York’s “liberalness” is that it allows freedom not only to racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, but also to reactionary religious sects. That is why, for example, ultra-Orthodox Jews can influence New York’s elections and public policy in ways they never could anywhere else in the United States. It has also, for nearly two centuries, given the Catholic Church influence it has never enjoyed anyplace else in the nation, save perhaps in Boston, Rhode Island and Louisiana.
Those religious organizations are also the reasons why the bill isn’t as strong as it could be. Lawsuits from survivors are already bankrupting dioceses in other parts of the country; the Archdiocese of New York and the Dioceses of Brooklyn and Buffalo surely know that they could suffer the same fate. I am sure that other religious governing bodies came to the same realization. Just two weeks before the bill’s passage, Cardinal Dolan wrote an opinion piece declaring that he had to protect the church from Governor Cuomo’s efforts to “single out the church and weaken its ministry.”
But the state’s bishops realized they were fighting a losing battle. They said they would support the bill as long as it applied equally to public and private institutions. Then Dennis Poust, one of their spokesmen, said the bishops would call for even stronger protections than the ones provided in the new Child Victims Act.
Those bishops, along with other religious leaders in the State, did everything they could to stop the bill from passing until they knew it was going to pass. But, just as Roe vs Wade galvanized anti-abortion activists, I believe that passage of the law—as welcome as it is, at least in comparison to what it’s replacing—will cause those bishops, as well as the clerical and lay leaders of other religious organizations, to do whatever they can to keep victims from exercising their rights under the law. That is why we, the ones who were abused by priests and other religious leaders, need to be as vigilant as pro-choice activists have had to be in the 46 years since Roe vs. Wade. Especially in “deep blue” New York.
Other posts by MJ Lisbeth
Sexual Abuse Victims Have the Right To Be Heard — Whenever They Are Ready
Forgiveness is Not Enough, When it Comes to Healing for Sexual Abuse Victims
Abuse and Alienation: In The Church, Away From Yourself
Off My Knees: A Victim Remembers
Everybody But the Church Understands
Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Eternally Shielded in Rome
With few exceptions, most scientists and philosophers think that morality is at bottom based on human preferences. And though we may agree on many of those preferences (e.g., we should do what maximizes “well being”), you can’t show using data that one set of preferences is objectively better than another. (You can show, though, that the empirical consequences of one set of preferences differ from those of another set.) The examples I use involve abortion and animal rights. If you’re religious and see babies as having souls, how can you convince those folks that elective abortion is better than banning abortion? Likewise, how do you weigh human well being versus animal well being? I am a consequentialist who happens to agree with the well-being criterion, but I can’t demonstrate that it’s better than other criteria, like “always prohibit abortion because babies have souls.”
— Dr. Jerry Coyne, Why Evolution is True, More science-dissing: WaPo’s misguided criticism of “scientism”, January 29, 2018
Recommended Books by Dr. Jerry Coyne
Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible
My friend Bob Felton recommends the book The Ethical Project by Philip Kitcher
Amazon’s listing says:
Principles of right and wrong guide the lives of almost all human beings, but we often see them as external to ourselves, outside our own control. In a revolutionary approach to the problems of moral philosophy, Philip Kitcher makes a provocative proposal: Instead of conceiving ethical commands as divine revelations or as the discoveries of brilliant thinkers, we should see our ethical practices as evolving over tens of thousands of years, as members of our species have worked out how to live together and prosper. Elaborating this radical new vision, Kitcher shows how the limited altruistic tendencies of our ancestors enabled a fragile social life, how our forebears learned to regulate their interactions with one another, and how human societies eventually grew into forms of previously unimaginable complexity. The most successful of the many millennia-old experiments in how to live, he contends, survive in our values today.
Drawing on natural science, social science, and philosophy to develop an approach he calls pragmatic naturalism, Kitcher reveals the power of an evolving ethics built around a few core principlesincluding justice and cooperation but leaving room for a diversity of communities and modes of self-expression. Ethics emerges as a beautifully human phenomenon permanently unfinished, collectively refined and distorted generation by generation. Our human values, Kitcher shows, can be understood not as a final system but as a project the ethical project in which our species has engaged for most of its history, and which has been central to who we are.
Other Books by Dr. Philip Kitcher
Life After Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism
Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith
Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism
Human skin color reflects an evolutionary balancing act tens of thousands of years in the making. There’s a convincing explanation for why human skin tone varies as a global gradient, with the darkest populations around the equator and the lightest ones near the poles. Put simply, dark complexion is advantageous in sunnier places, whereas fair skin fairs better in regions with less sun.
That may seem obvious, considering the suffering that ensues when pale folks visit the beach. But actually, humanity’s color gradient probably has little to do with sunburn, or even skin cancer. Instead, complexion has been shaped by conflicting demands from two essential vitamins: folate and vitamin D. Folate is destroyed by the sun’s ultraviolent (UV) radiation. Whereas the skin kickstarts production of vitamin D after being exposed to those same rays.
Hence, the balancing act: People must protect folate and produce vitamin D. So humans need a happy medium dosage of sun that satisfies both. While the intensity of UV rays is dictated by geography, the amount actually penetrating your skin depends on your degree of pigmentation, or skin color.
That’s the basic explanation, proposed in 2000 and fleshed out since by anthropologist Nina Jablonski and geographer George Chaplin.
….
A range of skin colors evolved at different times, in different populations, as human spread across the globe. In addition to these genetic biological changes, groups have also developed cultural adaptations to deal with variable sunlight. For instance, we can consume diets rich in folate and vitamin D. We can also build shelters, wear clothing and slather sunscreen to block UV rays.
Skin color is one of the most obvious and (literally) superficial ways humans differ. But the evolutionary story behind this variation is shared: Over the course of human evolution, complexion evolved from light to dark to a continuous gradient, mediated by geography, genes and cultural practices.
— Dr. Bridget Alex, The Crux, Why Did Darker and Lighter Human Skin Colors Evolve? January 28, 2019
See The Curse of Cain: Why Blacks Have Dark Skin
HT: Bob Felton at Civil Commotion
Who has abortions at 24 weeks and beyond?
Women who are very ill around 24 weeks where the fetus is not expected to survive and delivery is needed and avoiding a c-section (see above) is preferable. It may also be when there are fetal anomalies and a vaginal delivery is not possible, or, when it is.
Let me explain.
High blood pressure in pregnancy can lead to severe maternal and fetal health issues. It can require a very premature delivery to save the life of the mother. A good example is a woman at 26 weeks who needs to be delivered for her blood pressure — that is the cure, delivery. However, because of her high-blood pressure fetal development has been affected and her fetus is estimated to weigh 300 g, which means it can not live after delivery. She will be offered an abortion if there is a skilled provider. This is safer for her and her uterus than a delivery.
A lethal birth defect at 32 weeks. The plan is to let the fetus succumb after delivery. The pregnancy has anencephaly or any one of a thousand other catastrophic chromosomal or cellular collisions that can conspire against you in pregnancy. The pregnant person thought they could make it to their due date, but they just can’t take it anymore. Or maybe their blood pressure is sneaking up and the idea of risking their life for a non viable pregnancy is not what they want or their doctors recommend. They choose an induction of labor, which in this situation is an abortion because the pregnancy is being terminated.
Triploidy or mirror syndrome or a massive cystic hygroma or any other birth defect that can affect how the fetus is positioned and how it molds and bends to deliver vaginally. If you don’t know what these terms mean, then you are not qualified to discuss abortion at or after 24 weeks, so stop. Now.
In these situations (tripoidy, mirror syndrome etc.) the fetus can be laying lengthwise (not head or buttocks down) so labor is not an option. A c-section is needed for delivery. Maybe there are also health reasons a c-section is less than ideal. Maybe the pregnant person just doesn’t want a c-section for a non-viable pregnancy. If a person who is skilled to a D & X is available, the c-section can be avoided.
There are, of course, other cases. I tweeted about the above scenarios, but realized everyone who wasn’t a well-trained OB/GYN wouldn’t understand. So, now you know why we “just can’t do a c-section” in these cases — or if we did why a c-section would STILL BE AN ABORTION.
— Dr. Jen Gunter, Abortions at or after 24 weeks are sometimes needed medically. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong, January 29, 2019
I am a regular reader of Dr. Gunter’s insightful and, at times, wickedly humorous blog. I encourage readers to check it out. If you love science and the faithful, truthful dissemination of facts, you love and appreciate Gunter’s writing.
How many women have abortions after 24 weeks [the widely accepted age for viability]?
Very few.
Only 1.3% of the 638,169 abortions that happen each year in the United States occur at or after 21 weeks — so approximately 8,000. As I am an expert I can tell you most of these procedures happen before 24 weeks. Most are for fetal anomalies (birth defects) and maternal health, but a few are maternal request.
A couple of years ago I took a deep dive into how any abortions at or after 24 weeks occur. I looked at the states that had no gestational age limit and the best estimate I have (this data is not tracked by the CDC) is there are about 1,100-1,200 abortions at 24 weeks onwards in the United States.
— Dr. Jen Gunter, Abortions at or after 24 weeks are sometimes needed medically. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong, January 29, 2019
I am a regular reader of Dr. Gunter’s insightful and, at times, wickedly humorous blog. I encourage readers to check it out. If you love science and the faithful, truthful dissemination of facts, you love and appreciate Gunter’s writing.
Thaddeus Matthews, pastor of Liberation and Empowerment Ministries in Memphis, Tennessee, recently held a twerking contest at his church. Known as the “cussing pastor,” Matthews seems to have no problem with women shaking their assess for Jesus. Here’s video evidence:
Sweet baby Jesus!
In 2012, Matthews was arrested on child pornography charges. In 2015, he was sentenced to five years of probation.
Matthews’ Instagram page
Matthews’ Twitter account is currently suspended.
Sexuality in Western culture is a mess. Within the last hundred years or so, we’ve devolved from a society that had, broadly speaking, a general understanding of, and compliance with, the Bible’s parameters for sex to today’s sexual mores that barely stop short of child molestation and bestiality, and permits – even encourages – nearly every other form of perversion.
It can be difficult to know how to approach these issues which have been suddenly thrust upon us, and with which the average person – Christian or not – has very little experience. How are Christians to think about, believe, and address these issues in our families, churches, and communities? Do we just go with the “live and let live” flow of modern society? No. As with every other issue in life, our thinking, our words, and our actions must be shaped by and in submission to the authority of Scripture. Not public opinion. Not political agendas. Not our own personal feelings, opinions, and experiences. Scripture.
The Bible makes sexuality and gender identity very simple for us. God created two sexes of people– male and female¹. God created marriage to be between one man and one woman. God created human sexuality and confined its use to a man and a woman who are married to each other. Every form of gender identity or human sexuality that falls outside these parameters is sin.
….
Christians should not attend same sex weddings (or receptions, showers, bachelor parties, housewarmings, etc.) for any reason. (When it becomes legal, this will also apply to plural marriages and other unbiblical forms of “marriage”.) Regardless of your motives for attending, it appears to others and to the same sex couple as though you approve of their sin.
Often, the reason Christians will give for feeling they should attend a same sex wedding is that they are afraid declining to attend will cause the couple to cut off the relationship with them, closing the door to any future opportunity to share the gospel. But if you’re close enough to the couple to be invited to the wedding, shouldn’t you have already shared the gospel with them? Do you not trust that God can save someone, either immediately or in the future, from one instance of sharing the gospel? This person’s salvation does not rest on your shoulders. It can only be accomplished by the Holy Spirit, and only in His timing. And whether you have or haven’t yet shared the gospel with the couple, what could your attendance at the wedding accomplish other than creating confusion? How can you support their “marriage” by attending the wedding and then turn around later and tell them they need to repent of this sin?
Additionally, attending the wedding sends the message to your children, family, church, friends, co-workers and others that you approve of the sin of homosexuality. We all have people watching us to see whether we stand with Christ or with the world. It’s imperative that we set a godly example.
Yes, if you decline to attend the wedding, you might lose your relationship with that homosexual friend or loved one. But Christ calls us to separate ourselves from the world and be loyal to Him even if it costs us everything — including those we love the most.
— michelle Lesley, Discipleship for Christian Women, Throwback Thursday ~ Basic Training: Homosexuality, Gender Identity, and Other Sexual Immorality, January 24, 2019
Have we idolized the sickness? Has it become all-powerful to us? Has it become the center of our lives? Is it the controller of all we say and do? It is the center of every message we give? Do our words glorify Jesus as the healer of all, including this sickness, or do they insinuate this sickness is more powerful than Jesus? I know these are hard questions to ask ourselves, but in order to dethrone this sickness we need to know what we are glorifying.
Have we become a walking billboard for advertising the disease? Are we its new poster child? Are we walking down the catwalk modeling the disease for the world to see? Have we turned the spotlight onto the sickness? Are we highlighting the strength of this disease with every breath that we breathe?
I don’t think we set out to idolize the sickness. I think it sneaks into position, and before we know it, we bow down to it and comply to its every demand. Instead, we should take our stand and by a faith-filled command, curse it and bind it back to the land from where it came: the pit of hell. Take hold of our spiritual claim, the redemptive power of the blood to deliver and heal us from these filthy chains that try to bind us. It’s time to set ourselves free from this golden calf of sickness and disease.
We need to stop promulgating a false doctrine that says God gave this disease to us. This message goes against the Word of God, and devalues the blood that Jesus shed for us at the whipping post so that we could be healed from sickness and disease. With every fiber of His precious being He shed His blood for our healing.
….
Again we have a choice to make. Are we willing to admit and repent of all our doubt and unbelief to our Healer, Jesus? Or will we hold onto our right to a false doctrine and glorify this sickness? Are we ready to dethrone this disease in our lives? And are we going to lift up Jesus higher and place Him, our healer on the throne of our hearts, and cleanse our temples from the filth of this disease?
— Becky Dvorak, Charisma News, Stop Making This an Idol, December 31, 2018
BTW, Dvorak, a faith-healing evangelist, believes if you just speak that “right words” Jesus will heal you.
