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The "Demon-possessed" Woman and the "kindly" Deacon |
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The following account is one that still causes my head to shake in dismay every time I think of it.
It was a Sunday around 10am when our engine company was dispatched to a possible seizure at a church in our district (one of many--this one happened to be a Baptist church). We arrived to find several frantic people in the church lobby crowded around the patient, whom we soon learned to be a moderately retarded woman in her 40's with a history of epilepsy and diabetes. She was unconscious and still actively seizing (and had been for 8-10 minutes), with violent tonic-clonic contractions, cyanosis (i.e., her color was blue, which means she's not getting enough oxygen), and frothing at the mouth. In short, she was seriously ill. To my amazement, there were two people on each side of her physically holding her upright in a chair as she flailed about! I also learned that she had actually started seizing during church services (which were still in progress even now) in the chapel area and that they had carried her out into the lobby while she was still seizing (hey, the sermon must go on...)!
Our first action was to lay her down on the floor, suction her airway, and assist her breathing with oxygen. In short order a lot of other things were being done as well, such as IV's, checking glucose levels (she's diabetic so she may require sugar), and getting med orders for Valium (to stop the convulsions). No sooner had I gotten off the radio with a physician at my base hospital (who approved the Valium order) and was preparing to give the IV injection when this man in a suit, who identified himself as a church deacon, walks up to us and says, and I quote:
For a moment I just looked at him in stunned silence, trying to process his words in my mind, but not really believing what I had just heard. I looked him in the eyes and he just looked back with a smug expression, almost as if to say "Well, are you going to move her or not?" Suffice it to say this whole turn of events angered me. This guy truly needed to be pulled aside for a one-to-one talking to, but I had much more serious issues to attend to; as such, I only had time to respond with, "I think this [situation] is a little more important, don't you? The people can wait!" I gave the medication and we loaded the patient for transport to the hospital. Fortunately, the seizure broke and the outcome was good. The good outcome for the patient in this incident is not the issue, though. The issue is the incredible insensitivity displayed by this deacon, and how his Christian beliefs apparently didn't inspire him to be any more compassionate or sympathetic to this woman's needs than he might otherwise have displayed if he had chosen a different religion to follow or none at all. That's just the way this guy was. The fact of the matter is that no matter where you go in the world you are going to find people that are good, compassionate and sensitive to the needs of others, and conversely you will find people that are rude, insensitive, and who knows what else. What religion they happen to profess, if any at all, makes no difference whatsoever. The story could well end here and my point would be sufficiently made, I think, but it's not over. There is another issue I would like to address--a scriptural issue that, if true, would probably put me out of a job! Jesus on Epilepsy As was related in my story above, the woman suffered from epilepsy. And according to the Bible, what is the cause of epilepsy? Why "demon possession," of course! Matthew 17:14-18:
Many Christian commentaries, embarrassed by Jesus' obvious lack of medical knowledge, attempt to save face by proclaiming that Jesus did know that there was no such thing as demon possession, but in appearing to expel demons from afflicted persons He was really just curing them of a disease and relating it to his contemporaries in a symbolic language they could understand. The problem with this, of course, is that in passages such as Mark 5:11-13 we are told that Jesus not only expels "demons" from people, but he even sends them into another host, a herd of 2,000 pigs, and then makes them drown themselves in a nearby lake!
Other passages also demonstrate literal "demons" as being the cause of sickness and disability: Matthew 8:28-33; Matthew 12:22; Acts 19:12, 15-16. Jesus is "out of his mind" and "possessed by Beelzebul"? If we are to believe the Gospels, then Jesus actually met all the conditions of "disobedience" that would warrant his death, by stoning, according to the Jewish law outlined in Deut. 21:18-21:
Let's see, Jesus was accused of being:
There are also many passages where Jesus makes comments that are clearly disdainful if not outright rebellious against his own family, especially his own mother. In those times, it must be remembered, just acting weird, being defiant or an embarrassment to family, or being an activist against religious tradition, was all enough to get one labeled "evil" or "possessed" and subsequently executed. It makes you wonder for what reason
"his family" (mother & brothers) came to "take charge
of him" in (Mark 3:21, 31-35)? Gullible's Travels... It's funny . . . I know of no reputable medical text today that invokes the need for any sort of supernatural entities to account for the existence of afflictions such as epilepsy, cancer, blindness, psychosis and hundreds of others that man has experienced throughout recorded history--demons certainly never came up in any of the pathophysiology lectures I received during my training to become a paramedic. . . In the end we can only marvel at how gullible people can be when it comes to their sacred religious beliefs and "holy" texts. Their desire to believe in something larger than themselves is so strong that they will resort to any far-fetched explanations, no matter how extreme, in order to maintain that belief. They simply cannot fathom the simple answer--that their Jesus, if he were a real person, was just as ignorant and superstitious about disease, medicine and other mysteries of the world he inhabited, as everyone else in 1st c. Palestine. A Hospice We Will Go... Having said this, however, I have to say that I would be delighted if some true "faith healer" or "true Christian" ™ would come forth with some evidence to the reality of their, and only their religious claims. I would like for such a person to accompany me to a local hospice in Everywhere, USA, and, armed with the verse I opened this essay with (Mark 16:17-18 "...they will place their hands on the sick and they will be well.”), proceed to lay-hands on a terminally ill cancer patient and, in the name of Jesus, have them miraculously healed right then and there (i.e., exorcised of the literal demons that possess them!) and have them walk out of the building with us (along with their ecstatic family) so that we all may proclaim the wonderful event to the world! Any takers? Mr. Robertson? Mr. Falwell? Mr. Dobson? Mr. President?
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