Infant dies from overdose of faith

A tragedy struck four-month-old Caleb Tribble. He was killed by faith.

And now his parents, both devout Christians are defending themselves in court accused of manslaughter. Young Caleb was had blood poisoning form a urinary tract infection.

The father, David, says that the night before he died the child’s eyes rolled back into his head and he couldn’t bend his limbs. The infant had diarrhoea and vomiting. David and his father instead tried to heal the child through prayer.

It would be hard to think that they lacked faith. Certainly they had enough faith to let the child die instead of seeking medical care. But faith doesn’t move mountains nor does it heal sick children. David Tribble claims he has seen his father heal broken bones with faith. And he testified that his father had “removed a spirit of death from Caleb” and the child was assured to get better from that point onward.

The defence for the family says they would have taken the child to a doctor if they had been told he so ill. Of course since they kept the child at home and away from a doctor then who precisely was about to tell them that faith wouldn’t work and that the child was severely ill?

Obviously both parents and the grandfather believe faith was sufficient. The family excluded the very person most likely to inform them of the seriousness of the infection. The ignorance they operated under was self induced.

The shame here is that a small, innocent infant had to die to disprove the healing power of faith. Usually in cases like this the believers try to blame the lack of healing on a lack of faith. But these parents proved they had faith --- faith enough to let a child die instead of seeking medical care because they believe the child could be healed by prayer.

And the Bible seems to support what they did. Remember when Abraham was asked to kill his only son to prove to God that he was willing to obey. Now, in the Bible, God supposedly told Abraham not to do it at the very last second. But Abraham had to prove he willing to let his son die in order to prove his faith to God.

One would think that a Divine Being who knows everything wouldn’t need proof for anything! So today parents read the Bible and some are willing to lay their child on the altar and metaphorically, at least, hold the knife in their hands and be ready to plunge it into the heart of their child. They hope that at the last second God will intervene. But what if he doesn’t?

He didn’t for Caleb.