Faith Healing

Another sad example of people misapplying the principles of Scripture.

On the last day of Kent Schaible's life, his parents and pastor intensely prayed over his 32-pound body, which, unbeknown to them, was ravaged by bacterial pneumonia. When the 2-year-old boy finally died at 9:30 p.m. Jan. 24 inside the family's Northeast Philadelphia home, the pastor called a funeral director to take the boy's remains to the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office.

At no time that day, nor in the week-and-a-half prior, did Herbert and Catherine Schaible seek medical treatment for their son despite his sore throat, congestion, liquid bowel movements, sleeplessness and trouble swallowing, Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore said in court yesterday.

"All it would have taken is a simple visit to a doctor for antibiotics or Tylenol, maybe, to keep this child alive," she said during the couple's preliminary hearing.

After the two attorneys representing the Schaibles argued for their innocence, Municipal Judge Patrick Dugan held them for trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy to commit involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child.

Taking your child to the doctor is in no way a demonstration of a lack of faith. Unfortunately, this could've been avoided had this couple's pastor known anything at all about the way God works. God is active in this world. He is not a passive spectator watching everything that happens to us. He's also totally sovereign. Each event in our lives is part of his plan, but we also must realize that he has ordained that these events come to pass through secondary causes.

God chooses to use natural events and real people to accomplish his will here on earth. That doesn't mean supernatural things don't happen, but we have plenty of evidence that secondary causes are God's chosen means for getting things done. God installs the leader of this nation, but he uses the votes of real people to do so. In the same way, God is the great physician, but he heals people through the work of doctors, nurses, and advancements in medicine.

Unfortunately, this is just another example of the dangers in not having a strong grasp on doctrine and Biblical teaching.