Praying for resurrection (1 Viewer)

[SystemShock]

Came across an article about a church praying for the resurrection of a toddler who died unexpectedly. The article was published on a religious website, and my first thought this may have been some sort of setup for a manufactured miracle (as if there's any other kind) so I went looking for secular corroboration, and found the story in the WaPo.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/12/19/after-toddlers-death-church-has-tried-days-resurrect-her-with-prayer/

The group was praying for 2-year-old Olive Heiligenthal, who Bethel Church says unexpectedly stopped breathing on Saturday. But the worshipers were not praying for her soul to find rest or for her family to be healed. They were asking God to raise her from the dead.

The article says the body of the toddler is at the coroner's office, so I feel I can take the story at face value.

In that situation, I get that a grieving parent would hold to any hope that their child would somehow come back to them. But this story just makes me shake my head. From the pseudo-voodoo like chants, to people pouring money into a gofundme for "future expenses" ($50,000 and counting... that's going to be one heck of a funeral) ...

Then there is the religious implication of it, if one subscribes to the idea that God has a plan for everyone: if that is true, then that was his plan for this toddler; if one believes in "thy will be done", at the very least they are questioning God's will, asking him to change his plan; but his plan is his will, and his will is to be done; not to mention his plan is perfect.

 

[Brennan77]

This is a very sad story. I feel for them and cannot imagine if I had lost my child. Unfortunately, their positioning on this is a direct result of bad theology that has its roots in the 'prosperity gospel', which I think is ultimately a harmful inversion of the truth.

The basic mindset is that God has won for you material health and wealth through his sacrifice and resurrection. Therefore, if you are not experiencing these things, you are doing something wrong. The deficiency is not with God but somehow in your own faith or actions. This is simply against the tradition of the faith and ultimately not supported by scripture.

As for questions of divine providence, there's a misunderstanding in the original post. While God's will encompasses all that occurs, whether passively or actively, the world is not ultimately deterministic in this way. We are not puppets on a string and it's not necessarily against Gods will to pray for something bad not to happen, or even to pray for a miracle.