Reply #44: "They believe disease- all of them- to be punishment"

[davekriss]

Actually that is not true, your claim that *all* conservative Christians believe that disease is God's punishment. Yes, some do, for example the cretins that gave birth to Christian Reconstructionism (now there's a baby that needed aborting!!).

A pastor of a charismatic church explained it to me this way: When you stand outside of God, outside of the wisdom of the Bible, you are in the wilderness and therefore subject to all kinds of dangers. The evil one roams the periphery to devour the weak like a hungry lion. When you choose (important point) to step outside of God's protection, sickness and disease are one possible consequence. All disease comes from Satan, none from God.

(Think of these things as a body of memes -- if they allow the Dawkins-esque boat to row faster and farther, then they have merit.)

This pastor, a conservative Christian, has also said that we are God's ambassadours on earth; once saved, we are here but for one purpose: To example God's good light in order to attract other souls to Him. Otherwise God would bring us home to Him the instant we are born again.

What this means (to the pastor and amongst other things) is we bring forth good works, and these good works include (most of) the works of science and medicine. We should therefore avail ourselves to the positive things emergent from these disciplines -- we should take our medicine when sick, he says, yet also think that we are already healed by Christ (faith is, he says, "believing it has happened before it appears in the natural").

His wife was cured (by faith and medicine) of breast cancer, btw.

His words are also consistent with the only other charismatic Christian I've come to know, also a pastor (of a much larger church).

One thing I find disheartening here at DU is the blanket disparagement of Christianity. Pat Robertson may be visible, he may have an audience in the millions or even tens of millions, but he is *nothing* to the other 2 billion Christians here on earth.

(Big fan of Sara Diamond here, so I am fully aware of the destructive role the Christian Right has played in American politics these last 25+ years.)