Table Of ContentDeath and Life in America
Death and Life in America
Biomedicine and Biblical Healing
Second Edition
Raymond Downing
foreword by
Farr Curlin
!!
CASCADE Books • Eugene, Oregon
DEATH AND LIFE IN AMERICA
Biomedicine and Biblical Healing. Second edition.
Copyright © 2021 Raymond Downing. All rights reserved. Except for brief
quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may
be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the
publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave.,
Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Cascade Books
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-5968-3
hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-5969-0
ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-5970-6
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Names: Downing, Raymond, author. | Curlin, Farr, foreword.
Title: Death and life in America : biomedincine and biblical healing. Second
edition / Raymond Downing ; foreword by Farr Curlin.
Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021. | Includes bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: isbn 978-1-7252-5969-0 (paperback). | isbn 978-1-7252-5969-0
(hardcover). | isbn 978-1-7252-5970-6 (ebook).
Subjects: Religion and Medicine—United States. | Pastoral theology. |
Health—Religious aspects—Christianity.
Classification: LCSH: bt732.5 d69 2021 (print). | bt732.5 (ebook).
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from The Jerusalem Bible ©
1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd and Doubleday and Company Ltd.
Scripture quotations marked (RSV) are taken from the Revised Standard Version
of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches
of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved
worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW
INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica,
Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked (NASB) are taken from the New American Standard
Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977,
1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org”
To my Mother
and to Emmanuel
Contents
Foreword / Farr Curlin ix
Preface xii
Acknowledgments xxi
PART I—INTRODUCTION
1 Two Kingdoms 3
2 Death and Life 15
PART II—POLITICAL: Power over death
3 Demons: The Power of Medicine and the Power of God 25
4 “Tell No One”: The Power of Medicine vs. the Power of God 34
5 The Beast that was Healed: The Power of Medicine Imitates the
Power of God 43
PART III—CLINICAL: Healing of life
6 “Your Sins are Forgiven” / “Your Faith Has Made You Whole”:
The Roots of Healing 59
7 Healing on the Sabbath: The Essence of Healing 70
8 “He Carried our Diseases”: The Way of Healing 81
PART IV—CONCLUSION
9 Metaphors 95
10 Resurrection and Renunciation 109
11 Back to Biomedicine 115
Afterword 125
Bibliography 133
vii
Foreword
Ray Downing had the gift of prophecy, and like many of the
prophets of old, Ray wandered in the “wilderness,” practicing
medicine in East Africa, outside the centers of power. From that
vantage Ray could see what we in the West have not had eyes to
see.
I met Ray in 2004, when he introduced himself after I, as a
newly minted clinical investigator from the University of Chicago,
presented data from a study I had done of Christian clinicians
working in underserved communities in the United States. Those
clinicians saw themselves as called by God to their work, but many
were discouraged and even bewildered. They found themselves
wondering whether they should go on in their work. Why would
that be?
One might think that these clinicians struggled with the
sacrifices they had made—earning less money, enjoying less social
prestige, working longer hours, living in less resourced neighbor-
hoods, being associated with “the poor.” But as I listened, I heard
something else: as these Christians labored to bring the best of
today’s medicine—what Ray here calls biomedicine—to those who
lacked access to it, they lived with a gnawing sense that they were
not doing their patients much good.
Could it be, I asked the audience, that Christian clinicians
should stop taking it for granted that faithful practices of medicine
involve delivering evidence-based medicine to those who lack
access to it? Must they instead work to discern which practices
ix
Foreword
offered by biomedicine are actually good?—which align with the
truth about who God is and what we are as human beings?
Ray, it turns out, had been thinking about this for years, and
so began a friendship of letters in which I have been his student.
From his vantage as a Western physician practicing medicine in
East Africa, Ray observed the cultural power of biomedicine to
tell people what is going on, what they need, and how the imperial
biomedicine will save them from illness and death. In the contexts
in which he worked, he also saw that the emperor’s clothes often
were threadbare, if not entirely transparent.
Moreover, as a man who spent his life dwelling with God,
immersed in the Scriptures, Ray saw that biomedicine was among
the powers and principalities that the apostle Paul spoke about,
powers that govern our world, sharing in God’s creative goodness
but fallen and corrupted by sin. As a corrupted power, biomedi-
cine claims powers over life and death that it does not have, and it
claims authority to govern our lives that we should reject.
When the biblical prophets spoke, sometimes they told the
future, but more often they spoke the truth that the people had
forgotten. They exposed the pretenses and lies of the powers and
principalities of their time, and they called out God’s people for
their infidelity and idolatry—their patterns of going along with
and being corrupted by the practices of those who do not fear or
know God. Ray likewise calls Christians today to remember what
we have forgotten and to open our eyes to the way we are treating
biomedicine and bio-life with a reverence and fear that belongs to
God alone.
In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus unmasked and ex-
posed the powers and principalities for what they are—empty ways
of attempting to control our worlds and to avoid suffering and
death. In this book Ray takes us back to a number of Jesus’ healing
encounters to help us see the stark differences between the healing
that Christ brings and what biomedicine offers. If you are like me,
you may experience scales falling from your eyes as Ray leads you
through these stories and points to their cosmic significance.
x
