A Misuse of Terms

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Apr 8, 1902

A Misuse of Terms

A great deal has been said the past month about the measures which the German emperor proposes to take “against faith healing and other like practices which have lately been carried on in some parts of the country.” It is evident that there is a general misunderstanding of terms. It is reported that in an interview with the police president, the emperor was anxious to know “whether the teachers and leaders of Christian Scientists and faith healers could not be proceeded against as swindlers.” But if they were really “faith healers,” how could they be swindlers? Surely it is not swindling a man to heal him; and we can hardly think that the German emperor would wish anybody to be prosecuted for doing good to another, and actually healing disease. But the trouble is, the people termed “faith healers” are not healers at all, since their patients are not healed. It should be understood that real healing by faith has no connection whatever with what is known as Christian Science. Healing by faith is all right, for whatever is healed through faith is healed indeed; but much of the so-called faith healing is a fraud, and the professed faith healers are indeed swindlers, inasmuch as there is neither faith nor healing.

“If people knew that in real faith healing there is never any uncertainty, but that the healing is sure to the one who has real faith; and, moreover, that those through whom God works to heal never advertise; and that there cannot possibly be such a thing as a “professional faith healer,” they would be safe from those who under the name of Christianity would prevail upon them while they profess to pray for them.—Present Truth.