Should a Christian Go to a Healing Shrine?

You don’t have to – you can be healed by faith.  The New Testament never instructs you to visit a healing shrine.  If you are critically ill, you are to call for the elders of the Church and be anointed with oil in the name of the Lord.  The prayer of faith will raise you up (James 5:14-15).

On the other hand, there are no admonitions to avoid healing shrines.  Jesus visited a healing shrine (the pool of Bethesda) where God, through an angel, was responsible for the healings.  Notice, though, that Jesus healed a man there – He didn’t pick him up and carry him to the water to get healed!  This is a good example for you.  When you have Jesus, you don’t need the shrine – you can get healed without it.

However, Jesus did not tell the other people there that they were sinning.  It was hardly a sin to wait until an angel troubled the water and get healed.  There is no record that the angel stopped troubling the water after Jesus visited the place.  For all we know, people kept getting healed that way.

I would personally not go to a healing shrine for my own healing, but I could not tell you that you’re in sin if you go.  Just be careful.  I don’t know what places do what, since I don’t frequent such sites, but make sure that you don’t get into something that denies Jesus.  If the people running the shrine don’t believe that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, stay away.  If anyone other than Jesus Christ gets credit for the healings, stay away.  (That includes His mother and His apostles and other saints who have passed on to glory!)  I know of one notorious “Christian” healing shrine in South America that seems to get a lot of visits, but the goings-on there are demonic, not Christian.  They like to emphasize certain occult manifestations, and having been involved in the occult before I was a Christian, I was shocked to learn of the things that went on at this “Christian” place that sounded all too familiar.

Different “healing shrines” do things differently, so you can’t make a blanket statement about them.  Some may have people who can teach you what the Bible says about healing and help you get it.  Others, at worst, may even have manifestations of devils, as in the case I mentioned above.  Needless to say, if the people running the place aren’t born again, you have no reason to turn to the heathen for your healing.  I have been to one shrine (out of curiosity, not a need for healing) that was pretty good in some ways and quite flaky in others.  All in all, I would expect that some people would get healed going there because the people who ran it were Spirit-filled Christians, and Jesus was correctly promoted as still healing today.  However, at this shrine, there could be decent healings going on one minute and another minute could feature people singing idolatrous worship songs to Mary and going outside to crawl up stone steps on their knees, deceived into thinking they were getting a “plenary indulgence” (forgiveness for all their sins) – something only receiving Christ can get for you!  There may be some Bible-based healing shrines, but so far I have yet to hear of a shrine where there wasn’t some kind of messed-up doctrine or questionable manifestations.

I know people who get into such things and actually get healed, but they usually end up confused in other areas.  I actually played the piano at a conference in front of 3,000 such people with the understanding that I would not worship Mary even if they did.  I was assured that these were Spirit-filled Christians who knew better.  One speaker told people how to “believe that they receive when they pray” as well as any faith teacher I’ve ever heard, and many people were healed as a result of hearing the real Word that night.  But the next afternoon, another teacher got up and taught that Mary will “lead the end-time fight against Satan.”  (It was the second-worst message I’d ever heard preached live in my life, right behind one that said that God will cause His children to fail in the last days so that they will be humble and only God will get glory.)  Later a speaker told me to do a song to worship Mary, and I walked off the stage in front of 3,000 people.  I was as subtle about it as one could be walking off a stage in front of 3,000 people; I didn’t make a scene or even say anything.  Needless to say, I was not invited back, nor did I desire to go back.  I have my convictions; you can’t pressure me to do something I know is wrong even if 3,000 people are willing to do it.

What about “mud” shrines for healing?  Who knows – maybe some places actually have mud that has the claimed therapeutic value.  I don’t plan to find out myself.  However, therapeutic mud will fall into the category of a natural cure like taking medicine, not a spiritual cure.  If the mud is truly therapeutic, an unbeliever could immerse himself in it and be healed as much as any believer.  If it works, great.  But Jesus only made mud with spit; He never ordered anyone to go immerse himself in mud to be healed.

Although the Pool of Bethesda was good for its time, in no case did Jesus or His followers counsel people to go there to get healed.  You don’t need to go to a healing shrine to get healed!  If you’re thinking of going, please be careful what you get yourself into!