“What do you know about faith healers?” Frank asked Father Bill.
“What do you mean?”
“Faith healing, what do you know about it?”
“I know it’s been a part of the Christian faith since the beginning. Is that what you mean?”
“No, is there anything to it?”
“Well, Jesus laid hands on people and supposedly cured them and people are miraculously cured all the time. That’s the only way I know how to answer you.”
“I guess what I’m saying is, can it be done on command? Can I just grab your head, say a prayer, yell ‘heal’, and you’re cured.”
“Not unless you want me to slap the hell out of you,” Bill laughed. “No, I’m sorry. You’re talking about those TV preachers. Isn't that what you’re talking about?”
“Yea, I’ve been watching one of them on TV.”
“Which one, oh heck, it doesn’t matter. They’re all the same.”
“Serious question, is there anything to it?”
Bill breathed out heavily. “You want a straight answer, right?”
“Right.”
“Yes, I believe one’s faith can bring about a cure. I really believe it, but that junk you see on TV is just that, junk. Those charismatic preachers have those people so wound up they think they’re cured and they shout and the audience goes wild, but there’s nothing to it. It’s just what we used to call back in seminary Glory for Gold. Every time those people in the audience seem some guy throw his walker away, or get off his crutches, a few more dollars is thrown in the collection tub.”
“So, there’s nothing to it.”
“Listen to me, Frank. People can be cured by faith. I fully believe in that, but in one of those shows. No, that’s just the old snake oil scam. And, it works. Some of those TV preachers are multi-millionaires, but I have to wonder when they meet their maker, which way they’ll be headed.”
“So there’s nothing to it?”
“No. There has never been a single documented case of faith healing. I mean a man with a confirmed disease, confirmed by a doctor, goes to a faith healer, the faith healer does his thing and a doctor confirms he’s cured. No, it’s never happened. Why the interest in faith healers?”
“Ahh, just a guy came in a couple of days ago. Said his wife had been murdered. She quit taking her meds and died. He said it was murder, ‘course it’s not.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not, the preacher didn’t kill her. She killed herself.”
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