Just Ignore Those Symptoms!

The Word Faith concept also includes a physical -symptoms-should-be-ignored principle that leads to unnecessary suffering and sometimes even death. Hagin advises that someone seeking healing "should look to God's Word, not to his symptoms." Real faith, according to Hagin, "believes the Word of God regardless of what the physical evidences may be."

Divine health is something we already possess says Word Faith teacher Jerry Savelle: "When symptoms come, it is nothing more than the thief trying to steal the health which is already ours. In other words, divine health is not something we are trying to get from God; it is something the Devil is trying to take away from us!...When the Devil tries to put a symptom of sickness or disease in my body, I absolutely refuse to accept it."

Countless tragedies have resulted from such thinking. One of the most widely publicized cases involved Larry and Lucky Parker, who, rather than giving insulin to their diabetic son, Wesley, followed Word Faith teachings and positively confessed his healing. After Wesley died in a diabetic coma on August 23, 1973, Larry and Lucky were tried and convicted of manslaughter. Thousands of equally tragic stories often go unnoticed. For instance:

Thirty-eight-year-old Christine Klear (a mother of three small children) died of breast cancer after she and her husband Douglas decided, through the influence of "TBN," to positively confess her healing and forego medical treatment.

While she was still in her mid-forties, doctors told F. Elizabeth Scott, that she had breast cancer. Instead of undergoing medical treatment, she trusted the teachings of her favourite Bible teachers, Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, and Marilyn Hickey. Mrs. Scott refused to acknowledge her physical symptoms and postively confessed a healing. Five years later the cancer-induced pain had become so unbearable that she began radiation therapy and "pleaded" with doctors to do something. She died that same year.

After Mary Turk discovered she had colon/rectal cancer, she made a vow of faith to Word Faith teacher, Robert Tilton. In order not to violate her "vow," she refused medical attention and believed that she was healed despite her symptoms. She died an agonzing death as the cancer spread throughout her entire abdominal cavity.

Word Faith leaders have responded to those deadly fruits of their labour by blaming those who died. The deceased simply did not have enough faith to bring about their healing. Price, for example, admits, "I have watched people die, and my heart went out to them, but their faith was not developed, and it couldn't bring the healing to pass, and they died. It wasn't the will of God that they died, but their faith wasn't sufficiently developed." Charles Capps agrees, "Many people die needlessly because they said, 'If I believe I am healed, I'll throw away all my medicine,' when their faith was not developed to that level."

Such cold-blooded remarks are causing even more deaths as staunch believers in Word Faith theology try to prove to themselves and to those around them that they have enough faith to be healed and that God's "best" belongs to them. According to D.R. McConnell:

The most consistent reports of abuse caused by the Faith doctrine of healing involve the treatment of those in the movement with chronic and/or terminal illnesses. Because of the belief that listening to a "negative confession" can infect one's faith, not many in the Faith Movement are willing even to be around, much less listen to, those who are seriously ill...A believer is shunned, isolated, and ostracized as though he was an unbeliever -- which, by definition, is precisely what he is or else he would not be ill in the first place...The time when a dying believer needs a word of encouragement is when he receives a sermonette on the failure of his faith...When a dying believer needs his faith the most is when he is told that he has it the least...When he needs support of a sensitive supportive body of believers is when he is ostracized and isolated as though he himself was infectious. Perhaps the most inhumane fact revealed about the Faith movement is this: When its members die, they die alone. (from Walter Martin)

Perhaps this is the reason that none of my three sons came to see me in the hospital recently when I had my heart attack. The leaders of this movement will have some serious "splainin" to do on Judgement Day.

I would also encourage my son, Glenn, who is a diabetic, not to fall for this very destructive teaching. Make sure you continue to take your insulin! Rest assured that the leadership of BVC will put you to the test if they haven't already. Remember your illness is a visible threat to their teachings on health and healing.