This may be the worst argument a Christian can use when trying to convert someone.

Are you hoping for a miracle for, say, a family member with cancer? You can always pray for healing… but that doesn’t actually help. What do you do when God lets you down?

According to apologist Lee Strobel, you need to stop thinking like that because it suggests you are “smarter than God” by demanding recovery. Maybe God wants your loved one to have cancer for a reason and you’re the problem for thinking otherwise.

When healing doesn’t happen, “We think we know better than God. I know better than God,” Strobel tells Charisma News. “I want [my wife] Leslie to be healed right now. And God apparently is not doing it, [so I might be tempted to think] therefore I’m smarter than God, I know better than God. That’s just not true.“

Or — here’s a thought — cancer is bad and only a cruel, vindictive God would use it as part of some Divine Plan.

“Healing is never been automatic,” Strobel says. “I think the danger comes in when we make the healing an idol. … We probably don’t say it, but our attitude [says] that God, I will love You if You do what I tell You to do and heal me right now. “That puts us in a position of being God because now we’re ordering God about, and we’re putting an idol in the way. I think it’s healthier to pray the prayer of relinquishment that Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, you know, ‘Can you take this cup from me? But if not, I want Your will to be done.”

If anything, all of this sounds like a good reason never to pray. God already has it all figured out, so why bother asking Him to change the outcome? It’s a waste of time. In fact, it’s worse than that because you’re questioning His decisions.

Of course, a more reasonable person would say, “Put your hope and trust in the doctors trained to deal with this sickness.” They’re the ones best positioned to actually help, and you’ll never be shamed for asking questions about the procedures.

What Strobel wants, ironically, is the exact opposite of critical thinking. He’s saying when times get tough, just assume God is in control and don’t question it. Coming from a former investigative journalist, that’s remarkably awful advice.

At least it’s somehow better than what preacher Andrew Wommack said last year. He claimed that Christians complaining about cancer need to shut up because it’s really “no big deal.” After all, Jesus will save you in the afterlife.

(Screenshot via YouTube. Thanks to Kyle for the links)

