The freedom of every American to practice their religion according to their beliefs without government interference is an American innovation and our most important freedom. With extremely rare exceptions, people should be allowed to engage in whatever wacky religious practices they choose. The Worthington case is one of those rare and unfortunate exceptions.
I’m a Christian. Admittedly, not a very good Christian. I don’t go to church and I don’t think I’ll ever get the hang of turning the other cheek. All the same I believe in God, Jesus Christ, the divinity of man and the power of prayer. I also believe that God expects you to take a hand in your destiny. He is, after all, God the Father, not God the Mother. Mom wipes your nose, dad tells you to get a hankie and wipe your own nose.
If you’re fat, you can pray all you want, but unless you diet and exercise you’re going to stay fat. God gave you the power to be thin, but that power is in the form of diet and exercise. A century ago most people’s view of powered flight was summed up in the cliché “If God had meant us to fly he’d have given us wings.” He did. He gave us the brainpower and ambition to build winged aircraft.
The Worthingtons prayed to God to heal their child through the laying on of hands. Unfortunately, they were too foolish to realize that his answer was “lay your hands on her and use those hands to drag her to a hospital where men and women I’ve blessed with aptitude and intelligence have used that aptitude and intelligence to develop their skills in the healing arts.”