Faith healing vs medical healing

The term faith healing is best known in connection with Christianity. A number of its adherents interpret the Bible, particularly the New Testament, as teaching belief in – and practice of – faith healing. They claim that faith alone can cure blindness, deafness, cancer AIDS, development disorders, anemia among other diseases. Thus when one is afflicted by any of these diseases, they would rather wait for divine intervention to cure them instead of seeking medical help in hospital. Claims that prayer, divine intervention, or the ministrations of an individual healer can cure illnesses have been popular throughout history. Miraculous recovery has been attributed to many techniques commonly lumped together as “faith healing”. It can involve prayer, a visit to a religious shrine, or simply a strong belief in a supreme being. They back up their claim by citing a number of biblical miracles when Jesus cured a number of people because they had faith in him to heal them like the leper, the centurion servant, the dumb and blind man and even raising Lazarus from the dead among others. But faith healing has often drawn ridicule from secular circles, with a number of people saying that those who believe in it are just intoxicated by the “opium of the masses.” That is religion. So should churches indoctrinate its followers to believe in faith healing or should they advise them to seek medical help when they are afflicted by diseases? According to Pastor Albert Mugizi of Redeemed Christian Assembly Church in Kimironko, “available scientific evidence does not support claims that faith healing can actually cure physical ailment.” He adds that his church usually visits the sick to pray for them to heal because they believe in divine intervention but is quick to hasten that the sick should seek medical attention. “Death, disability, and other unwanted outcomes have occurred when faith healing was elected instead of medical care for serious injuries or illnesses. When parents advocate faith healing in place of medical care, many children have died that otherwise would have been expected to live. Similar results are found in adults,” Pastor Mugizi says. He adds that it’s unlawful for parents to insist that their children would be healed by divine intervention. “If a child falls sick, is it his faith or faith of the parents that is going to make the healing.” Parts of the four gospels in the New Testament say that Jesus cured physical ailments well outside the capacity of first-century medicine. Most dramatic perhaps is the case of “a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and who had suffered much under many physicians. She had spent all that she had but did not get better. Instead, her condition just worsened (Mark 5:26-27). After healing her, Jesus tells her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace! Be cured from your illness.”At least two other times Jesus credited the sufferer’s faith as the means of being healed in Mark and Luke. However, the pastor adds that Jesus endorsed the use of the medical assistance of the time (medicines of oil and wine) when he praised the Good Samaritan for acting as a physician, telling his disciples to go and do the same thing that the Samaritan did in the story.