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Sunday, March 30, 2008
Did parents take their faith too far?
The three siblings of a girl who died of diabetes that went untreated as her parents prayed instead of taking her to a doctor have been removed from the home during an investigation, police said Friday. Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said. The children are staying with other relatives, though they were not in danger, he said. “There is no physical evidence of abuse or neglect,” he said. “There is no intent. They didn’t want their child to die. They thought what they were doing was the right thing,” he said. “They believed up to the time she stopped breathing she was going to get better. They just thought it was a spiritual attack. They believed if they prayed enough she would get through it.” Madeline Neumann, 11, died Sunday the Weston home of an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes as her parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, prayed for her to get better. Her mother said she never expected her daughter, whom she called Kara, to die. The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, Leilani Neumann said. {Associated Press}
The bible teaches that without faith, it is impossible to please God. In fact, Jesus even told his disciples when he caught them trying to keep some children from coming to him that unless we can become like one of those children, we couldn’t enter the kingdom of God obviously challenging us to have child like faith.
Did these parents do anything wrong? According to the report, it sounds like they just thought their daughter was just under the weather, possibly a 24 hour bug, and how many parents have not taken their child to the doctor under those same circumstances? Was this a case of fanatical Christians taking their faith too far, or was it a wrong decision that they will forever suffer the consequences?
