Mind Games Christians Play: Healing Prayer

Matthew Hagee is the Executive Pastor of 19,000 member Cornerstone Church. He is also a skilled practitioner of Christian mind games.

Here is a one-minute video clip in which a viewer asks Hagee a question about praying for healing. Watch his answer, and then we’ll dissect the mind games which he employs.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8gJTCbVv2GA

“Pastor, if I pray for another’s healing and ask in Jesus’ name, shouldn’t they be healed? Why would that work sometimes and not every time?”
Great question. The Bible contains some pretty clear promises of healing and this presents a problem for believers. Any Christian who regularly prays for the sick will soon discover that their prayers have no direction connection to the health of the person they pray for. Sure, luck of the draw, some sick will eventually recover (and Jesus gets the credit, of course) but others will get worse or die. Miracles are scarcer than a televangelist who doesn’t beg for money.
Matthew Hagee: “I want you to know that healing works every time. The thing we have to become aware of is when and where a healing takes place.”
Here we have an assertion of the 100% efficacy of prayer for healing, and a careful arranging of words to set up the mind game. According to Hagee, it’s not that healing doesn’t always happen - we just haven’t programmed our minds to see the healing. “The thing we have to become aware of”  (note his magical mind-control hand movements) is code for “We are about to engage in a faith-preserving mind-game.” 
“There are times when you pray for healing in Jesus’ name, and you see an instantaneous healing.”
Uhm, not likely, but we’ll play along to see where this is going.
“There are other times when you pray for healing in Jesus’ name and the healing comes in a process.”
Translation: You prayed for a person who would have recovered regardless of what you did, and *surprise* they got better. Guess what, Jesus gets the credit for healing them!
“And then there are times when you pray for healing in Jesus’ name and the person you pray for passes from this life. But that does not mean that they’re not healed. The Bible says that when we get in the presence of God, that every sickness, every infirmity, and every kind of weakness is gone – which is an absolute and total healing. We have simply changed our existence.”
Wow! Look at the size of the balls on this guy! Did you see what he just did? Forget Jesus changing water into wine – Pastor Matthew Hagee just changed death into healing. Now that is truly a miracle… of mind-twisting. Just imagine if hospitals could claim that death was healing – they could charge exorbitant fees for patients kicking the bucket! In Hagee’s hands, the ultimate failure of prayer becomes the fulfillment of prayer instead.

Unbelievable.

In this clip, Hagee conveniently fails to address the circumstance in which a person isn’t healed and doesn’t die. Perhaps it’s a super-slow healing which will reach it’s culmination in death? More than likely, he would take the usual route of blaming the sick person for a lack of faith, or for having sin in their life, or some other convenient excuse.

The point of all this is, the healing game is rigged so that no matter what the outcome, the belief is proven ‘true’. Like Vegas casinos, the house always wins. It is mind games like this which allow Christians to continue in their religion, even when the failure of of it is staring them in the face. If they have been prepped to interpret any results in a favorable light, the crisis of faith is avoided.

It is up to us to unmask the magician’s trick. The same ‘results’ could be had by praying to Justin Bieber, or… a milk jug, as in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6ILZAaAMI


Written by J. M. Green

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