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Faith healing or inhuman sacrifice?
by Steve Duin, The Oregonian
Saturday July 04, 2009, 10:37 AM
For the life of me, and the life of Ava Worthington, I'm not sure when during Thursday's courtroom testimony I forgot about her parents, trapped in their medieval mindset, and remembered their little girl, who was born fat and happy and didn't die that way.
Maybe it was watching defense attorney John Neidig place the autopsy photos face down in the lectern or question the deputy state medical examiner about the child's "dissection."
Perhaps it was when Dr. Sayonara Mato, a pediatrician at Legacy Emanuel, testified that Ava -- "a big baby to start with" -- spent most of her life falling "off the chart for both weight and height." When the toddler died at 15 months, anointed with oil, she was no bigger than the average 6-month-old.
Or maybe it was when Neidig tried to argue the child died not from neglect but from one of those "virulent" strains of pneumonia so common in these United States, and Dr. Christopher Young responded, "She statistically would be more likely to die from homicide than pneumonia."
Because we are desperate to believe that the familial bonds are sacred and reasonably private, her parents, Raylene and Carl Brent Worthington, are only charged with criminal mistreatment and second-degree manslaughter. They sat quietly through Thursday's testimony, as did the usual ensemble from their church, the Followers of Christ in Oregon City.
In the 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, Christ tells his followers that if they are not serving the hungry, the lost, the prisoners and the sick, they are not serving him. They will be told, Jesus says, on Judgment Day, "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."
The survivors in the Worthingtons' church apparently believe differently. They contend that trusting in doctors, hospitals and medicine betrays a lack of faith. The rows of graves in the church cemetery haven't changed their minds. Only the living, you see, have the luxury of pondering the mystery of God's random benevolence.
The prosecution is making a convincing case in this Oregon City courtroom that Ava Worthington wasn't felled by a sudden stab of pneumonia. She suffered for months. Because the swelling of the benign cystic hygroma on her neck compressed her airway and esophagus, she struggled to swallow, struggled to breathe, struggled to accept the nourishment she needed.
While Ava's head grew at a normal rate, Mato said, because the body was so desperate to protect her brain, the rest of her body steadily wasted away: "She stopped growing. That is not an overnight event. That takes months ... Her growth reflects there was a chronic problem."
Not a fatal one, however, for your average, God-fearing parent. Just a signal to go see a doctor, and gently place your child in the hands of someone who understands that bacteria and disease aren't tests of faith, but the inconveniences of life in a fallen world.
Unfortunately, the Worthingtons' faith and the Worthingtons' church shun those interventions. "I don't believe in (doctors)," Ava's father told detectives in Clackamas County's child-abuse unit. Medical treatment "is not a question. It's not even thought."
That is not love or faith or humility talking. That is pride.
In "The Prodigal God," Tim Keller revisits the parable of the son who returns home from a life of squalor and is met by the delight of his father and the bitterness of his older brother.
The son who is restored to the right relationship with the father, Keller reminds us, is the child who surrenders to the wiles of this world, not the uncompromising moralist who thinks he can win his reward and his ticket to eternal life by following a rigid set of rules that makes grace irrelevant.
The Worthingtons, and their supporters, are welcome to live by those rules, but their children -- too young to wave a weak hand of protest -- shouldn't have to die by them.
by Steve Duin, The Oregonian
Saturday July 04, 2009, 10:37 AM
For the life of me, and the life of Ava Worthington, I'm not sure when during Thursday's courtroom testimony I forgot about her parents, trapped in their medieval mindset, and remembered their little girl, who was born fat and happy and didn't die that way.
Maybe it was watching defense attorney John Neidig place the autopsy photos face down in the lectern or question the deputy state medical examiner about the child's "dissection."
Perhaps it was when Dr. Sayonara Mato, a pediatrician at Legacy Emanuel, testified that Ava -- "a big baby to start with" -- spent most of her life falling "off the chart for both weight and height." When the toddler died at 15 months, anointed with oil, she was no bigger than the average 6-month-old.
Or maybe it was when Neidig tried to argue the child died not from neglect but from one of those "virulent" strains of pneumonia so common in these United States, and Dr. Christopher Young responded, "She statistically would be more likely to die from homicide than pneumonia."
Because we are desperate to believe that the familial bonds are sacred and reasonably private, her parents, Raylene and Carl Brent Worthington, are only charged with criminal mistreatment and second-degree manslaughter. They sat quietly through Thursday's testimony, as did the usual ensemble from their church, the Followers of Christ in Oregon City.
In the 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, Christ tells his followers that if they are not serving the hungry, the lost, the prisoners and the sick, they are not serving him. They will be told, Jesus says, on Judgment Day, "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."
The survivors in the Worthingtons' church apparently believe differently. They contend that trusting in doctors, hospitals and medicine betrays a lack of faith. The rows of graves in the church cemetery haven't changed their minds. Only the living, you see, have the luxury of pondering the mystery of God's random benevolence.
The prosecution is making a convincing case in this Oregon City courtroom that Ava Worthington wasn't felled by a sudden stab of pneumonia. She suffered for months. Because the swelling of the benign cystic hygroma on her neck compressed her airway and esophagus, she struggled to swallow, struggled to breathe, struggled to accept the nourishment she needed.
While Ava's head grew at a normal rate, Mato said, because the body was so desperate to protect her brain, the rest of her body steadily wasted away: "She stopped growing. That is not an overnight event. That takes months ... Her growth reflects there was a chronic problem."
Not a fatal one, however, for your average, God-fearing parent. Just a signal to go see a doctor, and gently place your child in the hands of someone who understands that bacteria and disease aren't tests of faith, but the inconveniences of life in a fallen world.
Unfortunately, the Worthingtons' faith and the Worthingtons' church shun those interventions. "I don't believe in (doctors)," Ava's father told detectives in Clackamas County's child-abuse unit. Medical treatment "is not a question. It's not even thought."
That is not love or faith or humility talking. That is pride.
In "The Prodigal God," Tim Keller revisits the parable of the son who returns home from a life of squalor and is met by the delight of his father and the bitterness of his older brother.
The son who is restored to the right relationship with the father, Keller reminds us, is the child who surrenders to the wiles of this world, not the uncompromising moralist who thinks he can win his reward and his ticket to eternal life by following a rigid set of rules that makes grace irrelevant.
The Worthingtons, and their supporters, are welcome to live by those rules, but their children -- too young to wave a weak hand of protest -- shouldn't have to die by them.
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