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Hard questions about health and healingDoctors’ dilemmasHARD QUESTIONS ABOUT HEALTH AND HEALING This attractively-presented book is described as an attempt to bridge the gap between the Christian doctor and the Christian who prays for healing. The author was a GP for 12 years, and then worked with CMF before becoming chairman of the Acorn Christian Foundation. He also works with CARE and other key organisations. He writes for health professionals and anyone interested in health and healing. The ‘hard questions’ head each new section, and the answers are carefully biblical. His wide experience, and that of other doctors whom he quotes, add greatly to the book’s value. Some stories from the author’s own life seem oddly out of place. He covers a huge area and there is much compression. He discusses the mystery of suffering in illness, the meaning of health itself and many related matters. On the demonic, he believes it is only rarely part of illness. He begins with the Christian worldview and how we come to it. He extracts ‘four pillars’ of creation, fall, redemption and future hope. His approach is clear, while also seeking to help doubters. Later he sees the Good Samaritan as showing holistic health care, and explains this with much alliteration. Christians who led in providing health care, as he shows, in the Bermondsey Medical Mission (1904), the Mildmay Hospital with its AIDS work, and the hospice movement: these are exciting examples of hard work, vision and vocation. Dr. Fergusson’s career spans the CMF (a centre of clear thinking about healing, rejecting most charismatic claims) and the Acorn ministries of healing, which is frankly charismatic. Much of the book reflccts an attempt to bring these opposites together. Some may see the author sitting on the fence, or trying to straddle two contradictory views of healing. John Wimber is quoted three times by Dr. Fergusson: in Don Carson’s book How long O Lord? Wimber is quoted (p.24) as saying that his success rate was only 2%. While much of this book is very helpful, I believe that the many Christians who have not been helped by prayer, power healing and deliverance might ask for more. Gaius Davies, © Evangelicals Now - September 2005 |