Childrearing "God's Way"

Blast from the Past, by Bill Fairchild

You asked if any of us know about children of cult members who died needlessly due to lack of proper medical care. I know of three anecdotes to pass on which are related to your topic, but do not exemplify exactly what you are seeking.

(1) In the late 1960s I was a member in the Greensboro, NC congregation. I remember once hearing that a married couple who were members in the Charlotte, NC congregation had a child that died. I cannot now remember their names or the reason why the child died. I suspect they were sincerely following Herbie’s INSANE orders. I remember talking to the father shortly thereafter, and he told me if it hadn’t been for God’s mercy and help during their ordeal that he and his wife could never have made it through. I can only say now that I hope it was due to God’s mercy that their child died for some reason other than the completely evil and INSANE teaching we all used to hold so dear about divine healing. I just don’t know.

(2) In 1976 a young ministerial trainee and his sweet young European bride were assigned to my congregation in Washington, DC. She was pregnant with their first child, and this happy and hopeful couple had decided to have a home delivery, as we all tried to do unless Satan’s evil system forced us to use one of its evil hospitals filled with all those satanic medical practitioners. It was “God’s natural way” of doing things. Their baby was a breech birth, there were complications, the child’s head got stuck inside for a long time, the child had brain damage, and then was finally fully delivered. A few days later the little baby died. Our whole congregation was in tears, and I still am now as I think about this long-forgotten, very sad memory. I love these people too much to use their names without their permission. I ate dinner with them in their home in Europe in 1994 and met their two teen-age sons whom they had adopted since their tragedy many years before. This was not a case of a child’s having medical attention withheld, but rather of a medically related decision’s being made, based on the false teaching of divine healing, that later resulted in a tragedy. Once their poor little baby was born there was nothing that anyone could do except cry and ache.

(3) In 1980 my first wife and I attended the Feast of Tabernacles in Rapid City, South Dakota. “Dr.” Herman L. Hoeh was there as the highest-ranking visiting speaker. One day after services he held some kind of seminar for whoever wanted to attend. My wife attended while I drove around town doing something else. She told me later about the great wisdom spewing forth from the mouth of this “evangelist” who had received his “doctor of theology” decree from a “college” founded by a high school dropout (Herbert W. HARMstrong).

Another of the people at the seminar was a man from somewhere in the Midwest who was a fellow cult member along with his wife. They had an infant child that had suddenly stopped breathing in its crib more than once. This is apparently what leads to “sudden infant death syndrome”, which is a fancy way of saying “crib death”, which is a common way of saying suddenly and mysteriously dies. For some reason an infant may stop breathing and, if no speedy intervention occurs, the infant will quickly die. This couple either had spent or was seriously considering spending about $20,000 to install some sophisticated medical equipment in their home to monitor their infant’s breathing. They were, of course, in great emotional torment over their child’s condition and the very burdensome strain on their finances this extra expense would cause.

Hoeh’s world-shaking wisdom, based on his tremendous compassion and milk of human kindness, was why don’t you just let your child die, save all that money, and you will see him again in the resurrection? This produced a great and immediate outcry from the other minister present at this seminar, whose name was Art Docken. I really know nothing about Art Docken personally other than this one anecdote, but he disagreed vociferously with Hoeh’s brilliant diagnosis. I came away from this Feast actually hoping that somebody would go shoot that bastard Hoeh and all others like him.

I don’t know what became of this distraught couple and their little baby, but I hope they had the brains to leave that sick, stupid cult immediately. I didn’t “grow” enough spiritually to do the same until 1996, much to my shame. I helped Herbie buy quite a few bottles of Dom Perignon over the years, and also bankrolled his son Garner Stud at the Las Vegas tables on more than one weekend gambling, drinking, and whoring junket.