In a city where I pastored years ago, a clergyman caused quite a controversy. When visiting his church members in the hospital, he would not pray for healing. He believed that the laws of cause and effect are constant and could not be swayed by prayer. It put me in a tight spot because his members began to ask me to come to the hospital and pray for them.

There is no doubt that Jesus was in the healing business. Indeed, healing miracles made Jesus famous. Even Rudolf Bultmann, one of the most skeptical New Testament critics of the past century, wrote: "There can be no doubt that Jesus did such deeds, which were, in his and his contemporaries’ understanding, miracles; that is to say, events that were the result of supernatural divine causality. Doubtless he healed the sick and cast out dem…