I was in town today doing chores and was slightly alarmed to find a group of Christians performing healing on Cornmarket Street.
This work is a partnership between Oxford Vineyard Church, St Aldates Church, Living Stones Community Church and Emmanuel Church. It happens in Oxford City Centre every Saturday from 1pm to 3pm according to the flyer.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a committed Christian and entirely approve of taking faith out onto the streets (I am after all about to start serving as a street pastor) but I just feel slightly uncomfortable with the claims the flyer is implying about the healing. While I’m sure faith can cure serious diseases in some cases I can’t help thinking that this sort of open air practice, with a huge banner, rather belittles and trivialises all the medical research and treatments that there are into such terrible diseases. What do you think? Comments welcome on this post.
I disagree with you. I think they are doing exactly what jesus did. He made a pretty outlandish claim–“I can heal” and backed it up. His (jesus’) brand of Christianity was not the safe “God loves you” brand we practice today–he went about doing good, healing all…
As you say, Tim, “He(Jesus) made a pretty outlandish claim–“I can heal” and backed it up.” But have the people who are out on Carfax backed it up? I’d love to see some examples.