The Truth about Oral and Ebeneezer

Famous Pentecostal “faith healer” Oral Roberts died of pneumonia on December 15 at age 91. This act demonstrated with great finality that he was a false teacher. He often said that it is God’s will to heal every sickness, declaring, “Sickness is not part of God’s plan and not devised by God’s will.” When he breathed his last he gave conclusive proof that his teaching was false. No one dies of healthiness!

On another front, I ran across a fascinating article written in defense of the much maligned Ebeneezer Scrooge. Often we forget that great “classic” novels were written with political and social messages in mind. Dickens was such a writer. In The Case for Ebeneezer, Butler Shaffer takes up the defense of Dickens' villain in a most interesting fashion—demonstrating how the classic tail has modern overtones. In part he writes:

“Pay close attention to Mr. Dickens' allegations. His case [against Ebeneezer] down to just two points:

1. my client has managed to become very rich, and,

2. he insists on keeping his money for himself.

That's it! That is the essence of his alleged wrongdoing.”

“Taking my client as the miserable fellow Dickens has presented him, let me be the first to admit that if Ebeneezer's obsession with materialistic pursuits rendered him an unhappy person….But it is not my client's happiness that the prosecution endeavors to obtain, but his money.

“The case against Ebeneezer Scrooge is nothing more than a well-orchestrated, vicious conspiracy to extort from my client as much of his money as can be acquired through terror, threats of his death, and other appeals to fear….

“[P]ay particular attention to the utter contradiction underlying Dickens's case: my client is charged with being a greedy, money-hungry scoundrel, and yet it is the conspirators against him who want nothing more than his money! Scrooge — unlike his antagonists — earned his money in the marketplace by satisfying the demands of customers and clients who continue to do business with him, and did not, as far as we are told, resort to terror or threats of death to get it.

“Charles Dickens — writing at the peak of the Industrial Revolution — missed this essential feature of the period. To those who view wealth in such a limited way, the only question becomes "how is this fixed body of wealth to be most 'fairly' redistributed?" The question of "how can more wealth be created?" — and what conditions would be necessary for accomplishing such ends — never enters their minds, for the pursuit of such conditions would utterly destroy all socialist systems. The beneficiaries of such redistribution are looked upon as passive and dependent recipients of other people's decision making. In this connection, Bob Cratchit is the prototypical "proletarian."


“Like other opportunistic parasites who tell us that they "feel our pain" even as they are causing us more pain, let us have no more of the self-serving guilt-peddling that keeps men and women subservient to those who threaten to cut off their dependencies.”


Hope ya have a great holiday—and just so I don’t sound like a WalMart employee, “Merry Christmas!”


Maranatha!