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TruthBook Religious News Blog



Sunday, March 30, 2008

Deep faith may lead to puzzling choices

Posted March 30, 2008

Community of like-minded people reinforces beliefs

By Keith Uhlig
Gannett Wisconsin Media


WAUSAU — Dale and Leilani Neumann of Weston relied on prayer to heal their sick child, 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann, police say. After she died from an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes, that decision seemed incomprehensible and even criminal to many.

Religious scholars say a potent mix of deep faith and a reinforcing community of like-minded people can lead believers to make choices that seem unfathomable.

Rita Swan, 64, of Sioux City, Iowa, said she and her husband, Douglas, prayed for the recovery of their son, Matthew, along with a Christian Science practitioner, or faith healer.

"We thought Christian Science worked, and we felt superior to the general public. We thought we were closer to God, and we had the kind of secret knowledge in keeping yourself well," Swan said.

After Matthew died of meningitis in 1977, the Swans broke from Christian Science, a religion in which they both grew up. In 1983, they formed Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, an advocacy group that lobbies for laws requiring parents to provide medical help for seriously ill children.

Intense faith is a powerful force, said Rob Howard, an assistant professor of communication and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It can give the devout the "ability to reinforce certain beliefs that some people can view as extreme."

For many, this kind of faith starts with a powerful feeling they can't explain.

Often people use religion to "understand these experiences, because they're sensed mind and body. It's an intense kind of certainty, an intense kind of conviction, and it might be attached to different beliefs," Howard said.

Leilani Neumann described her strong spiritual feelings in posts on a religious Web site operated by Unleavened Bread Ministries of Pensacola, Fla., led by David Eells. The site doesn't condemn the use of doctors or medicine, but it shares stories of miracle cures and bolsters the notion of faith healing.

The Neumanns told police they weren't members of any specific church, but they found a religious community of sorts through the online ministry that reinforced their faith-healing beliefs.

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