As our beloved convenor Paul Grimmond has now left us, I shall be taking over the Saturday posts, where, in keeping with our usual practice, we present some Briefing ‘blasts from the past’. Because one of my other hats is Briefing staff editor and because we are currently working on our April issue, which is on the Holy Spirit, I thought it fitting that we look over what else The Briefing has had to say about the topic.

Our lead feature article in the April 2010 issue is a very lengthy but important essay by John Woodhouse, Principal of Moore College, on Cessationism and Continuationism. Broadly speaking, Cessationism is the view that the miraculous parts of the New Testament ceased with the New Testament era, while Continuationism is the view that those miraculous parts continued beyond the New Testament era.

John Wimber and Jack Deere are just two examples of those who subscribe to a continuationist viewpoint. So from Briefing #45, I present to you part of the discussion that took place between John Woodhouse, David Cook and Phillip Jensen, and John Wimber and his colleagues back in 1990—a discussion that illustrates John Wimber's position on healing and miracles:

Just prior to the Spiritual Warfare Conference in March, John Wimber met with three of Sydney's leading evangelicals. The discussions, which lasted just under three hours, were requested by some Sydney people who had reservations about the Signs and Wonders ministry. Present at the meeting with John Wimber were Jack Deere and Paul Cain from the Vineyard Ministries, Dan Armstrong from Kairos, and John Woodhouse, David Cook and Phillip Jensen from Sydney. Although the meeting was conducted privately at John Wimber's hotel it was agreed from the outset that what was said privately would be published openly later. Careful notes were made of the discussion.

We began the meeting by asking John Wimber if his public preaching and private views were the same. We explained that it was rumoured that there were differences.

Hurt by this accusation, John very generously and openly declared his views with the kind of humility, compassion and laid-back friendliness for which he is well known. Six areas of discussion ensued:

• the use of money
• the healing miracles
• power evangelism
• the sufficiency of the Scriptures
• the concern for truth
• the divisiveness of the Signs and Wonders ministry.

1. The use of money

We were assured by John that profits from the Australian conferences would not go to him personally, nor to his American organization, but were invested in the continued growth of the Vineyard International Ministry. We were promised that a full account of the books would be sent to us by Kairos Ministries, the local group responsible for financial arrangements.

2. The healing ministry

John seems persuaded that great miracles of healing are taking place by God's work in the world today. He rejects the idea that he is a healer; it is God who heals. He quickly and freely gives countless anecdotes of healing, and promises that documentation of the Vineyard's Ministry of healing will be forthcoming.

He admitted that not all diseases are equally responsive to healing. Blindness, for example, has a success rate of 3-8%, depending upon the cause of the blindness—blindness from disease having more healings than blindness from accidents or birth.

Three issues need to be dealt within assessing these claimed healings:

1. the facts—whether genuine miraculous intervention by God is actually taking place
2. the theological significance of whatever miracles take place
3. how we handle the issue pastorally.

1. The first issue was tackled by raising the possible healing of children with Down syndrome. This genetic disease cannot be caused or healed by psychosomatic ‘mind-over-body’ factors. It is an ideal test case disease, being relatively easy to diagnose genetically both before and after the ‘healing’.

   John Wimber claimed to have prayed over more than 200 children with Down syndrome. To his genuine disappointment, only one of the 200 have shown any sign of healing. This one child still has many of the symptoms of his problem (i.e. visual features), but has been able to reach “the lower end of the normal range” in educational attainments. John was careful to emphasize that it was the lower end, but within the normal range.

   The healing rate, then, for Down syndrome is 0.5%, and the healing that did take place was only partial (unlike Jesus' healings). Why this disease is so resistant, John has no idea. On further consultation with doctors working in this area, we have been assured that for a Down syndrome child to be in the lower end of the normal range of academic achievement is not unusual or remarkable, let alone miraculous. From a medical viewpoint, John Wimber's 0.5% success rate with Down syndrome is less than is achieved through the efforts of health professionals.

   The implication this has for other ‘healings’ of backaches and headaches seemed to escape John Wimber completely. We know that many illnesses are psychological or psychosomatic. We know of the placebo effect where a patient takes what he believes is a cure for his problem (but which is actually a sugar pill), and improves. The evidence so far suggests that John Wimber heals in the ‘sugar pill area’. The area where the New Testament speaks of healing and where he talks of healing seem to be wholly resistant to his ministry. That is, to put it bluntly, it is to be seriously doubted that any miraculous healings are taking place at all. (The failure so far to provide Christian doctors with cases to verify from the Sydney conference only contributes to the growing doubt over any genuine miracles. See Philip Selden's account on page 19.)

2. The second issue is the theological significance of healing. Given the very low percentage of healings, we asked John Wimber if he considered that his healings were like Jesus' or the Apostles'. He quickly and rightly saw that they were quite radically different. We asked about the claims of his books and his previous teaching that the powerlessness of evangelicals lay in their failure to pray for and claim the Signs and Wonders of the Kingdom, seen in Jesus and the Apostles. He replied that thanks to the advice of Jack Deere, he had come to understand that the current miracles fit into the New Testament not at the point of Jesus and the Apostles and the coming of the Kingdom, but in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and the gifts of healing.

   This change of mind seriously compromises the stance of the previous Signs and Wonders conferences, Vineyard Ministries and John Wimber's books. He was asked if he would be explaining this change of mind to the Sydney conference, but he declined. (As it turned out, both views were expressed during the course of the week.)

3. The third issue of healing is the pastoral consequences of the claims for miracles. John Wimber is very open about not being healed himself. He also said that he does not promise healing for everyone or blame lack of faith as the sole reason for lack of healing.

   However, when asked if he would be open with enquirers and tell them of the small probability of healing, he declined. He wants to encourage people to put their faith in God and call upon him for healing. He wants people to know that God can heal and wants to heal, and therefore to ask expectantly. He paralleled this to salvation/forgiveness. He said that we do not say to people that they only have a chance of being saved. We say that God can save and wants to save, and so we encourage people to put their faith in God and call for forgiveness. Such a confusion of categories is appalling.

Like a politician, John Wimber is not promising unequivocally that each person will be healed. But it would seem that his mixture of generalization and over-confidence results in all but the wary being misled.

Read the rest of the article online.

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