Throw away your medicines!
God alone can cure!
Trust in Him, repent your sins
Make sure your thoughts are pure!
God can cure your HIV
With love that never fades
Trust in Him, and you will see
He’ll cure you of your AIDS
God’s healing is omnipotent
And infinite in worth
It brings an end that’s heaven-sent
To illness on the Earth
So throw away your medicines
Sing praises to His name!
And when your illness kills you, then
Your lack of faith’s to blame.

Deadly pinheaded faith-healing nonsense, after the jump:

The Beeb reports:

At least three people in London with HIV have died after they stopped taking life saving drugs on the advice of their Evangelical Christian pastors.

The women died after attending churches in London where they were encouraged to stop taking the antiretroviral drugs in the belief that God would heal them, their friends and a leading HIV doctor said.

I can only imagine, and poorly, the desperate straits these poor women must have been in. You’d have to be desperate to think that giving up your medicine is the sacrifice, the show of faith, that God asks of you. And the Synagogue Church Of All Nations took their desperation, used it to manipulate them, offered them false hope, and left them dead.

I have heard too many times that faith gives people hope when nothing else can. The problem is, faith gives people false hope when there are real alternatives. And when the false hope falls through, it is far easier to claim the individual had insufficient faith than to admit the whole scheme is a fraud.

And in this case, I have difficulty seeing anything but outright fraud:

In one example, the church’s website claims: “Mrs Badmus proudly displays her two different medical records confirming she is 100% free from HIV-Aids following the prayer of Pastor T B Joshua.”

“HIV-Aids healing” is listed on the church’s website among “miracles” it says it can perform.

“Cancer healing” and “baby miracles” are also advertised.

The church’s UK website promotes a monthly “prayer line” for which it says: “If you are having a medical condition, it is important you bring a medical report for record and testimony purposes.”

It has posted videos on the internet showing its services in south London, in which participants who claim to have arthritis, asthma and schizophrenia say they have been healed after being sprayed with “anointing water” provided by the church.

I can’t blame sick, frightened women for being taken in by these frauds. I can, though, blame the frauds. They are making specific medical claims, and they are lying. And people have died.