ST. LOUIS (RNS) For 18 years, the Rev. William Rowe has done a little improvising while celebrating Mass on Sunday mornings at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, Ill.

Now those deviations have led to his resignation in an incident that may be tied to global changes to the Catholic liturgy.

On Jan. 29, instead of saying “Lord our God that we may honor you with all our mind and love everyone in truth of heart,” during the opening prayer, he altered the phrasing to better reflect the day’s Gospel message, in which Jesus heals a man with a troubled spirit.

“We thank you, God, for giving us Jesus who helped us to be healed in mind and heart and proclaim his love to others,” the 72-year-old priest prayed instead.

Three days later, Rowe received a letter from Bishop Edward Braxton of Belleville, Ill., accepting his resignation.

“The problem is that when I pray at Mass, I tend to change the words that are written in the book to match what I was talking about, or what a song is about,” Rowe said in an interview.

The book in question is the Roman Missal, a book of prayers, chants and responses used during the Mass. Rowe has been saying some of those prayers in his own words for years.

But last December, the Vatican-mandated adoption of a new English-language translation of the missal may have given bishops an opportunity to rein in freewheeling priests who have been praying in their own words for decades.

“Since December when the new translation came out, no one has said what would happen to you if you changed stuff,” said the Rev. John Foley, director of the Center for Liturgy at St. Louis University.

“But I find it hard to believe a priest in Illinois would be forced to resign because he wasn’t using the exact words from the translation. It’s not a strong enough offense for that.”

In the wake of sweeping changes in the church as a result of the Second Vatican Council, some priests in the 1970s began using their own words and phrasing in place of the verbatim translations of the original Latin liturgy in the missal, Foley said. He said there has never been an established penalty for improvising nonalterable prayers, and bishops have traditionally looked past an individual priest’s extemporizing.

Monsignor Kevin Irwin, professor of liturgical studies at the Catholic University of America, said there are some prayers said by a priest at Mass in which he is “beholden to the structure, not to the words.”

But there are also prayers that priests are “duty-bound to say,” said the Rev. John Baldovin, professor of historical and liturgical theology at Boston College. Most of the prayers in the missal, in fact, are not optional, he said.

Rowe said his previous bishop, Wilton Gregory, had discussed his off-the-cuff prayer habit with him, referring to the practice as “pushing the envelope.” He said five years ago, Braxton also discussed the matter with him, and asked him to read directly from the missal.

“I told him I couldn’t do that,” Rowe said. “That’s how I pray.”

Last summer, Rowe said, the bishop made it clear to his priests that “no priest may deviate from any wording in the official missal.”

Braxton did not respond to a request for an interview with the Post-Dispatch.

In October, two months ahead of the introduction of the new missal translation, Braxton said he couldn’t permit Rowe to continue improvising, according to Rowe. The priest offered his resignation but didn’t receive a response.

On Monday, Braxton wrote Rowe a letter informing him that he’d accepted his resignation.

The action did not sit well with the nearly 500 families at St. Mary’s.

“The ways Father changed the Mass ritual with his words have only made it more meaningful to us as opposed to distancing us from the church,” said Alice Wirth, principal at St. Mary’s School.

“Everything he does is based on our faith; it’s not just a whim. There’s a reason for every word he prays.”

(Tim Townsend writes for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in St. Louis.)

“Black people are so lazy. They need to get off the welfare and food stamps and get jobs.”

Though that sounds like something Archie Bunker would’ve said back in the day, it’s actually the kind of stuff Gingrich people are accusing Republican presidential candidate hopefuls Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich of saying on the campaign trail.

Gingrich was criticized for repeatedly calling President Barack Obama a “food stamp president” and for saying that he’d be happy to teach young black people in economically depressed areas how to have a work ethic, so that they wouldn’t have to grow up to be pimps or prostitutes.

Santorum was criticized for saying that he didn’t want “to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

Republican presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have been criticized for saying things that could be perceived as racist on the campaign trail.

Based on what they said, it’s understandable why people are accusing the two of racism and more than 40 leaders in the Catholic Church have told the two to chill out with the race baiting.

Either they are trying to appeal to a racist element in their party or they are ignorant of the facts.

Either way, as seasoned politicians these guys should know better. They should know that when they open their mouths, they shouldn’t be espousing empty rhetoric that relies heavily ill-founded stereotypes.

If Gingrich and Santorum did the research they would know that according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one-third of the 223 million white people in the United States receive food stamps.

If you look at the raw data alone, more white people (about 74 million) receive food stamps than the total black population (38.9 million) of the United States.

I imagine that if they had been armed with this knowledge, they probably wouldn’t have let such racial diatribe come out of their mouths, and had they told the truth they would have ended up alienating their voter base.

As Christians, these guys should know better as well.

The heart of God is pretty clear throughout the Bible on discrimination (See James 2, Galatians 3:28, John 7:24, Romans 10:12) – it’s abhorrent to Him because all people were made in His image (Genesis) and He hates partiality (Leviticus 19:15, Malachi 2, Deuteronomy 16:19, Proverbs 24:23) . In the Bible, partiality is the term most often used for “bias.”

Because we are prone to bias, we have to constantly watch what we say.

In Matthew 15, the scribes and Pharisees confronted Jesus about his practice of eating and drinking with the ritually unclean–sinners.

To explain his position on the issue, Jesus called those around him to come near.

He said, He said to them, “Hear and understand: ¹¹ Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”

The Pharisees were enraged when they heard Jesus take on the matter and they left abruptly.

After the exchange, Jesus explained what he meant to his disciples: ”¹⁷ Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? ¹⁸ But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. ¹⁹ For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.”

I don’t know who is going to get the Republican nomination, but if either of these guys do, one of the questions I’ll be asking myself at the polls is, can I really trust a candidate who unabashedly repeats inaccurate information in an attempt to bolster himself, while never really trying to actually address or understand the needs of one group of people he seeks to govern?

Though  Gingrich and Santorum claim they care about “right to life issues,” and the cause of Christ, it’s obvious that they aren’t really trying to love their brothers and sisters in Christ, and the fact that are publicly proclaiming racist stereotypes shows that they are biased. These are serious spiritual deficiencies of which they need to take care.

Watch the trailer at http://filmtimes.net/joyful-noise/

Almost everyone know someone who isn’t all quite together, but you love them anyway because deep inside they are a wonderful person.

That is much like Joyful Noise, the new Queen Latifah/Dolly Parton flick about dueling choir directors and their families. Latifah can do no wrong in my book and you can’t help but like Parton. She pretty much plays herself in every role she plays, but she is so dog gone likeable.

Bernard Sparrow (Kris Kristofferson) is the choir director of Divinity Church in Pacashau, Georgia. Each year his choir enters, and loses, the Joyful Noise Gospel Music Competition.

After he passes away from a heart attack, Pastor Dale (Courtney B. Vance) appoints Vi Rose Hill (Latifah) to be the new leader instead of Bernard’s wife, G. G. (Parton). Vi likes the more traditional music while G.G. likes to mix things up.

Living practically as a single mother, Vi raises two teenagers on her own; Olivia (Keke Palmer) who is also a member of the choir and Walter (Dexter Darden) who struggles (unconvincingly) with Aspergers syndrome. G. G. Is all alone until her wayward grandson Randy (Jeremy Jordan) shows up and takes a shine to Olivia which furthers the struggle between the two choir mistresses.
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Putting Latifah and Parton in sparring roles is pure genius. Their verbal assaults at one another is hilarious especially a food fight spat that shown in a diner.

Like her real life counterpart, G.G. sports razor sharp fingernails, a plastic face incapable of frowning and tightly hemmed choir robe and pokes fun of herself. Her relatively good nature is a great foil against Vi’s uptight personality. Still, with all that spunk, Parton comes off a little fragile and the exchanges are too short.

The music, and there is a lot of it, is great. You already know that Dolly and Queen can sing, but Palmer (Akeelah and the Bee) and Jordan (in his first film role, but well known on Broadway) are a wonderful surprise. Kristofferson sings and appears only briefly.

He actually speaks instead of sings much of his duet with Parton, which was disappointing. Other cast members are fellow Broadway stars that fill out the choir well.

Joyful Noise is best when it focuses on its main characters, but instead, it insists on taking on multiple storylines that somehow waters down rather than add to the film. Overall, the plot is rather cheesy but it has heart.

Some scenes are genuinely touching and others are surprisingly realistic (don’t EVER tell Queen that she is not pretty!), but the overall it feels hollow. The message of hope and the need for Jesus in our lives is loud and clear, but the message is uneven.

For instance, it’s not clear why Randy shows up in the first place. He’s presented as a “bad boy” who never enjoyed “church music” before meeting Olivia. By the end of the movie, we know that he has a good heart, but he doesn’t show any signs of a stronger faith.

Now a warning: Don’t go in thinking you’ll be seeing a good old-fashioned Christian movie. While the music is great, you won’t be hearing any familiar standards and at least half of the songs are versions of popular pop songs that aren’t necessarily spiritual, but they are uplifting. Noise is more liberal than most faith-based movies with mild language and adult situations. It’s not a story for young children.

Watch the trailer at http://filmtimes.net/joyful-noise/

Originally posted at the Examiner.

Five hundred years ago there was a group of Christians living in Europe known as the Anabaptists. These are not to be confused with today’s Baptists, though the groups do share points of common history. The name Anabaptist was not so much a description as it was a condemnation.

The Anabaptists were “anti-baptizers,” scorning infant baptism and a heap of other cherished church doctrines. Because of this, and their refusal to join their faith to the ruling civil powers, they were violently persecuted by governments, Catholics, and Protestants alike.

One such persecution broke out in 1569 in Holland. Yes, there were some fanatics in the Anabaptist tribe, but the simple, compassionate, and innocent Jesus-followers were gobbled up as well, as is always the case. One such innocent was a man named Dirk Willems.

On a winter day a bailiff was sent to arrest Dirk on the charge that he had been holding secret religious meetings in his home and had allowed others to be re-baptized there. Dirk ran for his life with the bailiff right on his heels, throwing himself across a small ice-covered lake.

It held his weight as he ran, and he crossed safely to the other side. But the ice did not hold for his pursuer. The bailiff chasing after Dirk crashed through the ice into the freezing water.

Dirk Willems immediately turned back and rescued the struggling man from the ice. For his kindness Dirk was immediately arrested, and after refusing to renounce his faith, was later burned at the stake.

Now, here is the question asked by today’s Anabaptists: “Why did Dirk Willems turn back?” Put yourself in his vulnerable shoes.

You are running for your life, the air is so cold it can freeze rivers and lakes, but the sweat is running down the small of your back. Your pursuer is so close to snatching you, you can feel his breath on your neck.

Your heart pounds in your chest and your pulse is deafening in your ears, but from behind you still hear a crack and a splash.

There in the icy water is the man who came to take you to your death. What do you do? Do you raise your praise to heaven as God has triumphed over injustice? Do you continue running into the wilderness where eventually your hands will stop shaking and you pray you will see your family again?

Dirk Willems did none of these things. He instinctively, reflexively turned and rescued his enemy, though he knew death would be the price he would pay.

In the words of Joseph Liechty, “It was not a rational choice. It was not an ethical decision. It was an intuitive response. No combination of mental calculations could have carried him back across the ice…The only force strong enough to take Dirk back across the ice was an extraordinary outpouring of love, and the only love I know [like that] is the love taught and lived by Jesus.”

Liechty’s phrase “intuitive response” rings in my ears and pulls at my heart. Can we reach a place in our walk with Christ, that when we encounter hate, suffering, injustice, frustration, or tribulation that our immediate and reflexive response will be Christ responding through us; a place where we don’t have to think about it, we don’t have to plan a response, but supernaturally and instinctively, Jesus comes alive in our hearts.

It’s like going to the doctor and sitting on the examination table. He pulls out that little triangular, rubber mallet and strikes the patient on the knee.

Automatically, the patient kicks. There is no thinking, planning, or fretting. It is reflexive. It is your natural response.

Dirk Willems acted as he did because he had been so spiritually shaped and formed by the person of Jesus, that his response was the only response he was capable of making.

Dirk’s life and identity had been swallowed up in the person of Jesus, and it was Christ who now lived through him. That is why Dirk Willems turned back.

An interesting video was posted on You Tube on Monday, September 12 called “Caring for the Lost at Vanderbilt.” If you haven’t seen it yet, you may want to before you read the rest of this.

The video opens with a young family driving around the fraternity houses near Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

According to the narrator, they are looking for a place to preach the Gospel. While dad drives, mom describes the scene as they drive past party after party with swarms of college students and grounds littered with beer cans. It is obvious that she is worried about the students’ safety as well as their souls.

Her heart is clearly in the right place. But then it gets a little weird. She describes the students as “drunk with the wine of this world” and states that if parents are planning on sending their children to this university, that they should repent.

About two minutes into the video the mom uses a microphone to shout out to the students that “no drunkard will enter the kingdom of heaven – you must repent.”

As you can imagine, the students aren’t very impressed. Most ignore the couple, but a few engage in conversations, but not conversions. I was relieved to see that they actually did park the car to talk to the students, but every other word they said was “repent.” The message was correct but the delivery was terrible or so it appears.

At the end of the video, there is a link to a website, cheapmissiontrips.com. When I visited there today, there was no mention of this particular video, however other videos were posted there and they all seem to feature Tabitha Lovell, an International Travel Specialist.

By visiting the website, you can tell that she, and her husband Kevin, really love the Lord and really believe in missions. She and her company, MKI Group Travel, provide missionaries discount airfare. The site has tips on how to become a missionary, on traveling and testimonies.

They have a heart for reaching the lost and they are doing a huge service in helping missionaries go abroad affordably. However, I suspect that they have better success reaching the lost overseas than in their hometown.

The scenes on this video reminded me of a local town’s Fourth of July parade that I attended this year. Before the parade began, a small crowd set up microphones and speakers on the corner sidewalks to tell the crowd that they would be going to hell if they didn’t repent of their sins.

The group wasn’t obnoxious, but I don’t think anyone was moved by their actions either. In fact, a few people clapped when they finished because they wouldn’t have to hear them preach anymore. In contrast, another church group offered up their church grounds after the parade in celebration of the holiday. They gave out hot dogs and had “bounce houses” for children to jump around in.

No preaching was involved, just a fun and friendly atmosphere. I have no way of knowing for sure, but I suspect that the latter was more impactful in reaching others for Christ.

At the end of the video a verse is posted from Ezekiel 33:9: “Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked from his way, he shall die in his iniquity’ but you have delivered your soul.”

I guess the Lovell’s and others are doing that, and this isn’t to say that Christians should just stand and watch the world go to hell in a hand basket, but I think God had something better in mind than just dumping the truth and running away.

Another verse in the Bible says, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15) and that some “perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.” (2 Thessalonians 2:10) I wonder how many of those students “felt the love” as that couple drove by. How many are moved when they see the “Turn or Burn” bumper sticker on our cars? Is this is the good news?

So, what do you think? What’s the answer?

Originally here.

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Christian rapper The Ambassador has launched a new album, “Stop The Funeral,” after a long hiatus from ministry amid news of an inappropriate relationship in 2009.

Recently,  William “The Ambassador” Branch said on the 700 Club that the relationship that almost ended his marriage was “non-sexual but very inappropriate.”

That year The Ambassador, who founded The Cross Movement, was dropped by Cross Movement Records.

Now his newest album “Stop The Funeral” was produced with a new label, Xist Movement, and his marriage is intact.

The Ambassador told HipHopDX that his new album is different from the rest, because “It’s the first time where I purposely spent a little more time talking about me and less time scolding the culture, less time scolding the surroundings and do more scolding of myself and exhorting from a non-authoritarian standpoint.”

One song, Thug Joint describes his journey after the scandal broke. Part of the lyrics say:

“As truth crashed through my heart ached like a bad tooth
This hard rock got softer than brown spots on bad fruit
I came with a heart stone like a statue
then the rap group got under my skin like a tattoo
They rapped about a man diein’ and I was cryin’
They said He died so I could be saved like Private Ryan
We all could see zoomorphically He’s a lion
Coming to rule from Zion with a scepter of iron”

Of the relationship that sent everything crashing down, The Ambassador, who appeared on 700 Club with his wife Michelle, said the woman was a member of the church.

At the time he was not communicating well with his wife, while this woman was easier to talk to.

The Ambassador said, “The lack of communication made me just try to communicate with somebody that it wasn’t as much work as it would have been to communicate with my wife,” BREATHEcast reported.

Michelle, who became suspicious, learned of the relationship when she confronted the other woman.

Initially she thought of bailing, but told 700 Club, “Someone said to me, ‘Michelle if you leave, people will support you and you know people will understand, but I want you to know that the devil would’ve won’ and that struck me.”

The couple agreed that pastoral counseling helped a lot in restoring their marriage, and in enabling Michelle to forgive her husband.

She told 700 Club, “When you get hurt there’s always scars but you know the Savior has forgiven us and he has not done more to me than I’ve done to the Savior.”

“If your hand causes you to sin,” Jesus said, “cut it off and throw it away.”

That’s a pretty tough surgical intervention if you ask me, and he doesn’t stop there.

He goes on to name other body parts as well. “Cut off your foot. Gouge out your eye.” He just can’t be happy with a single loss of limb.

Yes, we could debate for the next few decades how literal or metaphorical Jesus was being. Such a debate would serve to only distract us from putting into practice the spirit of what he said.

No, I don’t think Jesus was endorsing personal dismemberment. Rather, he was emphasizing, in rather dramatic fashion, the need for life-saving, future-salvaging initiative.

Better to lose an arm than lose your whole life. Better to throw away something you consider incredibly valuable, than to throw away your future.

So it seems best to accept Jesus’ words as a simile for “Desperate times calls for desperate measures.” Simply, at times, drastic steps have to be taken to save the one and only life you have been given.

An example, also in rather dramatic fashion: My younger brother was born with a cardiac condition that resulted in a cascading catalogue of life-threatening illnesses.

Finally, with little chance of recovery and his major organ systems in peril, cardiologists completed an open heart surgery. Miraculously, he survived.

But shortly after his surgery, either from unclean needle sticks, a dirty instrument, or the constant rubbing of an oxygen tube – who knows – he acquired a staph infection in his right arm. The infection was unrelenting.

It threatened his compromised heart and fragile condition. So my parents had to make an impossible decision: Amputate the arm to save his life.

With that family crisis looming over my past, I can never read these words of Jesus without my parents’ decision playing out in my head.

Was it a horrible thing for them to have to do? Yes. Was it unfair and unjust to have been put in that position? Yes.

But it was the only real choice they had. It was better to lose the limb than to lose the life.

My parents have made peace with their decision. So has my brother, and he definitely agrees with the decision making process.

He is alive and well today, now in his thirties with a wife and son of his own, because of it. I loathe the circumstances he and my parents were put in, but I’m glad for their courage.

I pray that you never have to face such a decision, but if you do, I pray you will do what has to be done.

No, it probably won’t be a hospital amputation, but it might be an addiction, a dependence, a relationship, or a business arrangement.

It could be a place you go or an activity in which you engage. I’m not moralizing. There are just some people, places, and things that are no good for us. They are destructive, and we have to pull away.

You will have to make the hard, brave decision to “cut off your arm,” if it means saving your life and your future.

Yes, it will be painful. It will hurt.

It will bleed, but you have so much life in you, so much future joy to experience, so much living to do, you must do what you must do.

Aron Ralston, whose grisly but triumphant tale of being trapped in a Utah canyon is told in his autobiography and the recent movie “127 Hours,” knows a few things about finding the courage to do what it takes to live.

Speaking in the aftermath of his ordeal he said, “I left my hand behind in that canyon, but I gained my life back. I regained the beauty, the joy, the vibrancy and the euphoria of being alive.”

Yes, these are strong words; difficult words; hard words to hear and practice. But just like the words of Jesus, these are words that lead to life, and your life is worth it.

Ronnie McBrayer is the author of “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus.” He writes and speaks about life, faith, and Christ-centered spirituality. Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

Question: “What does the Bible say about Christian fathers?”

Answer: The greatest commandment in Scripture is this: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Going back to verse 2, we read, “So that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.” Following Deuteronomy 6:5, we read, “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (vv. 6-7).

Israelite history reveals that the father was to be diligent in instructing his children in the ways and words of the Lord for their own spiritual development and well-being. The father who was obedient to the commands of Scripture did just that. This brings us to Proverbs 22:6, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” To “train” indicates the first instruction that a father and mother give to a child, i.e., his early education. The training is designed to make clear to children the manner of life they are intended for. To commence a child’s early education in this way is of great importance.

Ephesians 6:4 is a summary of instructions to the father, stated in both a negative and positive way. “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” The negative part of this verse indicates that a father is not to foster negativity in his children by severity, injustice, partiality, or unreasonable exercise of authority. Harsh, unreasonable conduct towards a child will only serve to nurture evil in the heart. The word “provoke” means “to irritate, exasperate, rub the wrong way, or incite.” This is done by a wrong spirit and wrong methods—severity, unreasonableness, sternness, harshness, cruel demands, needless restrictions, and selfish insistence upon dictatorial authority. Such provocation will produce adverse reactions, deadening children’s affection, reducing their desire for holiness, and making them feel that they cannot possibly please their parents. A wise parent seeks to make obedience desirable and attainable by love and gentleness.

The positive part of Ephesians 6:4 is expressed in a comprehensive direction—educate them, bring them up, develop their conduct in all of life by the instruction and admonition of the Lord. This is the whole process of educating and discipline. The word “admonition” carries the idea of reminding the child of faults (constructively) and duties (responsibilities).

The Christian father is really an instrument in God’s hand. The whole process of instruction and discipline must be that which God commands and which He administers, so that His authority should be brought into constant and immediate contact with the mind, heart, and conscience of children. The human father should never present himself as the ultimate authority to determine truth and duty. It is only by making God the teacher and ruler on whose authority everything is done that the goals of education can best be attained.

Martin Luther said, “Keep an apple beside the rod to give the child when he does well.” Discipline must be exercised with watchful care and constant training with much prayer. Chastening, discipline, and counsel by the Word of God, giving both reproof and encouragement, is at the core of “admonition.” The instruction proceeds from the Lord, is learned in the school of Christian experience, and is administered by the parents—primarily the father, but also, under his direction, the mother. Christian discipline is needed to enable children to grow up with reverence for God, respect for parental authority, knowledge of Christian standards, and habits of self-control.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). A father’s first responsibility is to acquaint his children with Scripture. The means and methods that fathers may use to teach God’s truth will vary. As the father is faithful in role modeling, what children learn about God will put them in good standing throughout their earthly lives, no matter what they do or where they go.

Recommended Resource: Fathering Like the Father: Becoming the Dad God Wants You to Be by Gangel & Gangel.

The 8^th International Christian Medical Conference was held from June 11-12 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Center, with some 220 doctors attending from 27 nations.

The theme of the convention was Spirituality and Medicine.

The World Christian Doctors Network, an interdenominational group of professionals in the medical industry, hosted the event.

The WCDN seeks to propagate Christian ethics in medical practice, and is involved in the documentation of cases of divine healing around the world.

“We have uncovered many testimonies of how the power of God has healed patients and when doctors hear this kind of news, they become curious,” Dr. Joonha Hwang, a prominent South Korean doctor, told The Christian Post, adding, “They want to know if it’s true or just a story that someone has made up.”

Hwang said, “[T]hat is why we put on these ‘Spirituality and Medicine’ conferences each year and then present medical data before and after the patient got prayed for. As far as I know, we at WCDN are the only Christian medical organization that invites doctors to come and hear from other doctors and are then able to openly discuss the evidence of divine healing,” The Christian Post reported.

Healing testimony

One speaker, Dr. Sean Thomas George, told of his extraordinary healing experience, saying, “I was dead for one hour and 25 minutes, but came back to life after my wife prayed a simple prayer,” Continental News reported.

George said the incident occurred on Oct. 24, 2008. He was on his way back home after a clinic session held at the south coast of Australia, when he began to feel “unusually hot,” and experienced minor chest pains.

George said, “I decided to stop the car and, as I got out and still feeling the discomfort, I called my wife, also a doctor, to let her know what was happening. She suggested that I drove straight home to Kalgoorlie.”

However, George said he felt led by God to go to a clinic in Kambalda, which is 31.6 miles from Kalgoorlie.

An ECG revealed that he was having a heart attack, and he was given some medications.

Despite this, the pain worsened and within 11 minutes, George’s heart stopped beating. “Not only did I have a heart attack but I went into cardiac arrest,” Continental News reported.

George said within the next hour he was given 4,000 chest compressions and 13 electrical shocks by a medical team. When his wife arrived, he had already been pronounced dead.

George said, “Being a doctor herself, Sherry knew that medical science had proved that if the blood supply to the brain was cut off for over three minutes the brain would begin to die, and in 20 minutes the brain would be completely dead. But as she and I had trusted Jesus Christa as Almighty God and Savior, she decided to humbly ask Him to intervene,” Continental News reported.

His wife held George’s hand and prayed, after which, “[I]t was as though someone had breathed life into me again and my heartbeat came back.” Four hours later, he was flown to Royal Perth Hospital for emergency treatment of a severely-blocked, right-side heart artery.

He was in a deep coma and had kidney and liver failure. The doctors doubted he would survive and if ever, would be brain dead and on a ventilator.

But three days later, George opened his eyes. The following day he could move his limbs, and the day after, he was fully conscious, off the ventilator, and his brain and memory were intact. He was discharged after three months.

Speaking as both a doctor and a survivor, George said, “I don’t think there are any documented cases of patients who were clinically dead for so long, have come back to life with their memory perfectly intact and neurologically no deficits at all. This is something that only God can do, because medically it is impossible,” Continental News reported.

Other testimonies

Other healing stories during the convention was that of a 13-year-old boy from Korea, Haedong Yeo, who experienced cerebral hemorrhage and multiple skull fractures in a car accident and was close to death in the ICU, but began to immediately improve after a healing prayer by Dr. Jaerock Lee.

Another doctor, Joonsung Kim, spoke of healing skin disease through prayer and without medication.

A man shared his experience of paralysis from the waist down due to a cervical fracture.

Another man was healed from a critically deep cervical laceration.

Finally, a woman spoke of how she was healed of prolactinoma after she stopped all medications.

Euthanasia, abortion

Also discussed during the conference was the issue of the ethics of euthanasia, by Austrian doctor Lachlan Dunjey, and the issue of abortion by Dr. Sven Frederick from Denmark.

A study headed by Paul Riley and a team from University College London showed that dormant repair cells in the hearts of adult mice can be reactivated by transforming dormant cells from the epicardium with the injection of thymosin beta 4, according to Reuters.

It has yet to be seen whether similar results can be elicited in human hearts, and the research is still in a very early stage. However, it does indicate that there is the possibility that a drug could be developed that can prompt hearts that have undergone cardiac arrest into self repair, Reuters said.

The research was funded by the British Heart Foundation. Dr. Peter Weissberg, medical director said, “We have always believed that the heart has no capacity to heal itself, but this research suggests that this is not the case. We think we have discovered a natural process that brings about repair of the heart,” according to theheart.org.

Weissberg said in a press conference, “Until now, this has been science fiction. We are trying to understand what the triggers are for this process. The cells that are capable of this healing are already there in the epicardium. They just need to be tweaked and primed and the effect scaled up. If this works, we might be able to heal cardiac injury caused by heart attacks without resorting to stem cells,” theheart.org reported.

Riley, who heads the research team, told Reuters, “I could envisage a patient known to be at risk of a heart attack taking an oral tablet…which would prime their heart so that if they had a heart attack the damage could be repaired.”

Regeneration of heart tissue

In recent years, the number of deaths caused by heart attacks has gone down with medical advances. What has yet to be addressed is debilitation caused by the incidence of heart failure leading to a specific accumulation of dead heart tissue, Reuters reported.

Presently, mechanical devices are used in such case, or a transplant. But Riley’s study, which came out in the June 8, 2011, online publication Nature, targeted progenitor cells from the epicardium, or outer layer in the heart, Reuters said.

Riley said he targeted these progenitor cells because in an embryo, they become cardiomyocytes. “During pregnancy, these cells contribute to heart muscle and coronary blood vessels,” theheart.org reported.

Riley added, “In the adult, these cells sit in a dormant state. We think there is a possibility that these cells might be able to be activated to switch on the embryonic gene that causes them to make new myocardial cells,” according to theheart.org.

Thymosin beta 4

Riley found out that by injecting the healthy hearts of adult mice with thymosin beta 4, they can be “primed” to repair themselves after damage, according to Reuters.

After injecting the healthy hearts of the adult mice with thymosin beta 4, the researchers initiated heart attacks in the mice. They then gave the same mice another booster dose of thymosin beta 4. This prompted the transformation of dormant progenitor cells into cardiomycytes, Reuters said.

Riley said, “These cardiomycytes can link into the existing muscle of the heart and they home to the area of injury. [T]hey are also both structurally and functionally coupled to the heart, and therefore represent a bona fide source of new heart muscle,” Reuters reported.

The mice who received the treatment experienced a 25 percent improvement in the heart’s ejection fraction. There was also a reduction of myocardial scarring and remodeling, theheart.org said.

Preemptive treatment

Attempts are being made to see if the treatment will be effective on human cells. However, Riley emphasized that the treatment is primarily preemptive. It must be applied before heart injury, according to theheart.org.

Riley said, “We would need to treat patients at high risk of having a heart attack before that heart attack occurred. That is the key. The idea would be to identify these high-risk individuals and then give them this medication that would keep them their cells in a primed state, so that if an MI occurs repair would occur,” according to theheart.org.

Weissberg said, “If we could achieve a 25 percent increase in ejection fraction in humans, that would be a substantial effect. However, we rarely see in [humans] the same benefit as is shown in animal studies. But even if we could achieve a 10% improvement, that would make a major difference to quality of life,” theheart.org reported.