Faith healing

===Fraud===
Skeptics of faith healers point to fraudulent practices either in the healings themselves (such as plants in the audience with fake illnesses), or concurrent with the healing work supposedly taking place and claim that faith healing is a [[quackery|quack]] practice in which the "healers" use well known non-supernatural illusions to exploit credulous people in order to obtain their gratitude, confidence and money.{{sfn|Randi|1989|p=10}} [[James Randi]]'s ''[[The Faith Healers]]'' investigates Christian evangelists such as [[Peter Popoff]], who claimed to heal sick people on stage in front of an audience. Popoff pretended to know private details about participants' lives by receiving radio transmissions from his wife who was off-stage and had gathered information from audience members prior to the show.{{sfn|Randi|1989|p=10}} According to this book, many of the leading modern evangelistic healers have engaged in deception and fraud.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/faith.html|title=Some Thoughts about Faith Healing|website=www.quackwatch.com|date=27 December 2009|access-date=2016-04-07}}</ref> The book also questioned how faith healers use funds that were sent to them for specific purposes.{{efn|"[Some] faith-healers have been less than careful in their use of funds sent to them for specific purposes."[[James Randi]]{{sfn|Randi|1989|page=141}}}} Physicist [[Robert L. Park]]<ref name="Park"/> and doctor and consumer advocate [[Stephen Barrett]]<ref name= "Barrett2009"/> have called into question the ethics of some exorbitant fees.

There have also been legal controversies. For example, in 1955 at a [[Jack Coe]] revival service in [[Miami]], Florida, Coe told the parents of a three-year-old boy that he healed their son who had polio.<ref name="Courier19561218">{{cite news |url= http://www.newspaperarchive.com/newspapers1/na0040/6776104/33436272_clean.html |archive-url= https://archive.today/20130129191538/http://www.newspaperarchive.com/newspapers1/na0040/6776104/33436272_clean.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= January 29, 2013 |title= Faith healer dies – Victim of bulbar polio |newspaper= [[The Daily Courier (Arizona)|Daily Courier]] |location= Yavapai County, AZ |date= December 18, 1956 |access-date= 2007-11-12 }}</ref><ref name= "Salina19561217">{{cite news |title= 'Faith-healer' dies of polio |date= December 17, 1956 |newspaper= [[The Salina Journal]] |location= Salina, KS |page= 5 |url= https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/40757536/ |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Coe then told the parents to remove the boy's [[leg braces]].<ref name="Courier19561218"/><ref name= "Salina19561217"/> However, their son was not cured of polio and removing the braces left the boy in constant pain.<ref name="Courier19561218"/><ref name= "Salina19561217"/><ref>{{cite news |last= Davis |first= Mike |title= Lost faith: Mother's story of healer |url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19560208&id=AJ0yAAAAIBAJ&pg=3001,2779353 |date= February 8, 1956 |page= 7A |newspaper= [[The Miami News|The Miami Daily News]] |location= Miami, FL |access-date= 2014-01-23 }}{{Dead link|date=December 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> As a result, through the efforts of [[Joseph L. Lewis]], Coe was arrested and charged on February 6, 1956, with practicing medicine without a license, a felony in the state of Florida.<ref>{{cite news |last= Roberts |first= Jack |title= $10,000 dares Oral Roberts to prove faith healing |url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19580119&id=4bwyAAAAIBAJ&pg=631,1236440 |date= January 19, 1958 |newspaper= [[The Miami News]] |location= Miami, FL |access-date= 2014-01-23 }}{{dead link|date=September 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> A Florida [[Justice of the Peace#United States|Justice of the Peace]] dismissed the case on grounds that Florida exempts divine healing from the law.<ref name= "WashPost1956"/><ref>{{cite news |title= The Week In Religion |newspaper=[[Walla Walla Union-Bulletin]] |date= July 1, 1956 }}{{Full citation needed|date=January 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=etsOAAAAIBAJ&pg=7419,2676337 |title= Charges against Texas faith healer dismissed |newspaper= [[St. Petersburg Times]] |location= St. Petersburg, FL |date= February 21, 1956 |access-date= 2014-01-23 |page= 9 }}{{Dead link|date=December 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Later that year Coe was diagnosed with [[bulbar polio]], and died a few weeks later at Dallas' [[Parkland Hospital]] on December 17, 1956.<ref name= "Courier19561218"/><ref>{{cite news |url= http://interactive.ancestry.com/51212/News-TE-CO_CH_TI.1956_12_17-0015 |title=Faith healer Jack Coe dies |newspaper= [[Corpus Christi Times]] |location= Corpus Christi, TX |date= December 17, 1956 |access-date= 2007-11-12 |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/121322882.html?dids=121322882:121322882&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=DEC+17%2C+1956&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=Jack+Coe%2C+Evangelist%2C+Dies+of+Polio&pqatl=google |title= Jack Coe, evangelist, dies of polio |newspaper= [[The Washington Post]] |date= December 17, 1956 |access-date= 2007-11-12 |url-access= subscription |archive-date= 2009-08-26 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090826014435/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/121322882.html?dids=121322882:121322882&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=DEC+17%2C+1956&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=Jack+Coe%2C+Evangelist%2C+Dies+of+Polio&pqatl=google |url-status= dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00614FB3A54157B93C5A81789D95F428585F9 |title= Jack Coe is dead at 38; Texas evangelist succumbs to bulbar polio |newspaper= [[The New York Times]] |date= December 17, 1956 |access-date= 2007-11-12 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>