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Showing posts from October, 2018

A Healing God?

For the Feast Day of St Luke, 18th October, Evangelist and Physician How should we understand healing as Christians? What does healing and wholeness mean for us? Christianity asks us to grapple with ourselves – to take life seriously. Here, we do not escape the frustrating and complex questions that narrate our humanity. Why are we so vulnerable? Why is there death and decay? Why is nature so powerful, awesome and threatening? How can humans treat each other with such contempt and violence? Why does God let us suffer? How do I cope with the sin that drives me in my own life? Christians can be tempted when faced with such problems to preach a false message of miraculous cure and healing and in so doing they can do enormous damage. Those with life-long conditions, with disabilities and chronic illnesses can suffer the well-meaning but misdirected desire of Christians to offer them ‘healing’, usually interpreted as cure. Healing, if it is to be authentic within the Chris