Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401240246
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
The two men, Dr. William Fintel and Jerry McDermott, spoke recentlyJan. 9 in Wytheville about such cases that defy medical science at a program sponsored by Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and Hospice Services of Bland and Wythe counties.
Fintel, an oncologist at the Lewis-Gale Regional Cancer Center in Salem, found that he could answer the medical and scientific questions patients asked him. He was less sure of his ground when they asked philosophical or religious questions.
When he met McDermott three years ago at College Lutheran Church in Salem, he raised some of those questions with the Roanoke College professor and later suggested collaborating on a book. The result was ``A Medical and Spiritual Guide to Living with Cancer,'' a trade paperback that sells for $13.
At a recent program on health and healing at Holy Trinity, both men cited instances where a person's cancer went into remission after medical science had given up. Many of the cases are in the book.
Fintel said one of his peeves is the attitude that, once someone is placed in a hospice program, the only thing that can happen is that the person will die. ``We have people who are our hospice `failures' who we like to brag about,'' he said.
McDermott said the scientific community no longer sees so-called miracle cures as a violation of scientific law. ``Physical healing is no longer the scientific problem that it used to be ... Physical healing is a fact of human experience,'' he said.
He defined natural law as ``simply statistical observations of what generally happens'' and that exceptions to it - some of which were called miracles in the Bible - still occur. ``God is still in the healing business today,'' he said.
Fintel said his approach to miracles used to be ``Show me, God, and I'll believe.'' And he now feels that that is what happened.
He said he and a leukemia patient, for whom none of the medical techniques were working, simply decided to withdraw medical procedures and ``turn it over to the Lord.''
``He was in the office two weeks later and I saw the first signs of recovery in his blood,'' Fintel said. Complete remission followed, ``and I hadn't done anything to affect it other than turning it over to a higher power.''
One of McDermott's stories concerned his mother. When she was stricken with cancer, people from her church met twice a week to pray for her recovery.
``To make a long story short, my mother is alive and well today. That was 16 years ago,'' he said.
That does not mean that prayers for healing will always be answered, McDermott cautioned.
``Physical healing is not in store for all of us,'' he said. ``We shouldn't feel let down if it isn't. . . . There's evidence in the Gospels that Jesus didn't heal everybody. He was selective.''
Spiritual healing, on the other hand, is always possible, he said.
McDermott cited Paul's writing in Corinthians of wanting to be healed of an affliction that is never clearly explained, but which apparently contributed to the effectiveness of Paul's preaching by its not being cured.
``We cannot control much of what happens to us,'' McDermott said. ``But we can control how we respond.''
Fintel would like to see medical schools offer some of what he and McDermott cover in their book.
``Your entire training is: `There's a body. There's no spirit and, if there is, you take that to church,''' he said. ``These are things that people ask me every day. ... I didn't know what to say to these people. I'd probably do more harm than good because I wasn't schooled in it, I wasn't trained in it.''
``There are some claims of healing that I would say go too far,'' McDermott said.
He faulted what he called radical faith healers and New Agers for preaching that, when people are not cured, it is either because they have sinned too grievously or they lack faith.
In fact, he called such an attitude dangerous. ``It's led to a lot of guilt and condemnation in a lot of good people.''
by CNB