Alun and Donna Leppitt are evangelical Pentecostals who take part in faith healing revivals and are part of a movement that claims that their prayers have enabled miracles such as women with hysterectomies having children, curing people who have cancer, and even replacing a defective heart with a new one.
Alun and Donna Leppitt are the UK end of a worldwide fellowship of evangelical Christians called Global Awakening. In countries like Mozambique and Brazil, Global Awakening missionaries are converting people to Christianity with spectacular displays that claim to heal through prayer. They say they cure blindness and deafness in big open air meetings.
It is not surprising that such alleged miracles seem to occur more often at large revival meetings. As I showed in a post a couple of years ago, if you have large enough numbers and a loose enough definition of what constitutes a miracle, you are practically guaranteed a miracle at such events, not as a result of a massive outpouring of faith but just by statistics.
Oddly enough, the Leppitt’s seem to have little success closer to home.
Last year, Donna’s brother died of a heart attack. By the time they got to the mortuary, he had been dead for eight hours. They prayed over him for nearly an hour, and although at one stage they thought they saw him move, that was as good as it got.
Are they discouraged? “Not at all,” says Alun. “Practice makes perfect,” adds Donna. “But in this country, we don’t often get access to dead bodies.”
Who knew that the hardest thing about raising people from the dead was that the people who claim to be able to do this don’t get enough access to dead bodies so that they can practice their craft?
But there is nothing that will shake the faith of these people.
And it takes a lot to shake Alun and Donna’s faith. Alun himself has serious medical problems. He was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in his 20s, has had complications, major surgery, and is now on a waiting list for an ileostomy. He needs a miracle. But so far, and despite the prayer, none has come.
At least he has the good sense to seek proper medical treatment as well. But I wonder how many of the people he preaches to at these revivals put their entire faith in prayer and suffer or even die as a result?
“Alun himself has serious medical problems.”
Schizophrenia, too, apparently. And since they’re good, honest Christians, they’ll be happy to perform under controlled scientific conditions with, say, a mouse to prove they are indeed performing miracles.
Science works better. Although it is a bit less dramatic.
Just a week ago, scientists resurrected a virus from Siberian permafrost. Technically it was only sleeping but it had been sleeping for 30,000 years.
They have resurrected two dead viruses though. The 1918 flu virus and the Phoenix retrovirus. Phoenix had been dead for 5 million years.
Phoenix had been dead for 5 million years
How can that be, the Earth is only 5000 years old. End snark.
This instantly reminded me of Tim Minchin’s “Thank You God”.
I must go listen to that again now.
“But in this country, we don’t often get access to dead bodies.”
Try the Egyptian wing of pretty much any decent natural history museum -- lots of mummies out there, all the dead bodies you could want.
What? Is there an expiration date on being dead or something? (Miracle Max quotes optional)
“But in this country, we don’t often get access to dead bodies.”
Kind of says something when even grieving people won’t allow them near their deceased loved ones.
These people don’t seem very smart.
1. Visit the meat section of any grocery store. Meat is just parts of dead bodies.
2. Road kill. One of the most common and deadly predators in the US is the…car.
3. Cats. My old feral cats used to leave dead mice on the deck often.
@ Dean Gilbert.
That was great!
Thanks for sharing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stand-up comedian backed by a full orchestra. I must learn more of this Mr. Minchin, he of the oh-so-excellent-first-name. (Hello, YouTube, there goes my weeked!)
Cheers,
Tim