RESURRECTIONS
Prayer power proves insufficient – can Russian cryogenicists help?
PRAYER POWER
A US megachurch launched an appeal to raise money for the family of a two-year-old girl who died suddenly, and at the same time attempted to bring the child back to life through the power of prayer. Olive Heiligenthal died on 14 December 2019. Her mother, Kalley, is a singer at the Bethel Church in Redding, California. The church follows the Charismatic tradition that believes God can intervene in the material world.
In an Instagram post, Kalley wrote: “We’re asking for prayer. We believe in a Jesus who died and conclusively defeated every grave, holding the keys to resurrection power. We need it for our little Olive, who stopped breathing yesterday and has been pronounced dead by doctors. We are asking for bold, unified prayers from the global church to stand with us in belief that He will raise this little girl back to life”.
Church spokesman Aaron Tesauro said: “We believe that with God, nothing is impossible, even things like resurrection”. Bethel congregants have previously turned to prayer power in attempts to cure illnesses, and the church runs a “Dead Raising Team”, founded by a graduate of the School of Supernatural Ministry. Volunteer groups tag along with first responders and pray for deceased people, hoping they will return to life. According to their website, they have “brought about 15 resurrections amidst the 60 teams worldwide”. Two weeks later, the church conceded that efforts to resurrect Olive had been unsuccessful, and it conducted her funeral service on 31 December. A GoFundMe page had raised around $72,000 (£55,400) for the family. newsweek.com, 20 Dec 2019.
WAITING IN VAIN
Residents of Nakhon Nayok City, Thailand, notified police that there was a “strong rotting odour” coming from a neighbouring house. Upon investigation, a rotting human body was found on the floor inside the dwelling together with three women, who had been hired to care for the dead man, 62-year-old Sorrawut Dechtawee. One of the three women, Puttanan Sodmanee, explained to police that Sorrawut had died naturally 10 days before, but after studying the Bible they firmly believed he would be resurrected, and were waiting for him to come back to life. nationalthailand. com, 17 Dec 2019. For the most recent roundup of successful resurrections, see FT386:20-21.
FROZEN FAMILIES
A Kansas City woman was arrested after her husband’s corpse was discovered in a freezer in their bedroom. Barbara Watters, 67, was charged with abandonment of a corpse, a felony punishable by up to four years’ imprisonment. Police were tipped off after a witness told them the corpse
LEFT: Head of Russian cryonics firm KrioRus Danila Medvedev (left) and a customer look inside a low-temperature human brain storage unit.
had been in the freezer since December 2018. The suspect is said to have unspecified “mental disorders”.
Elsewhere, A Russian company, KrioRus, is offering a service whereby the brains and/ or bodies of recently deceased relatives are preserved in deep freeze conditions in the expectation that one day scientists will be able to revive them. Bodies float, Matrixlike, in several metre-tall vats filled with liquid nitrogen at temperatures of -196°C (-320.8°F). Potential clients from nearly 20 countries have signed up for the procedure, known as cryonics. The cost for whole-body storage is £27,600 while for a mere £11,500, customers can get the brain iced and preserved. An average Russian’s monthly salary is £580. Prices are slightly higher for non-Russians.
Critics say that cryonics is pseudoscientific, in that there is currently no extant technology or medical procedure capable of reviving a corpse, with no guarantee that one will be developed in the future. Evgeny Alexandrov, head of the Russian Academy of Science’s Pseudoscience Commission, described cryonics as “an exclusively commercial undertaking that does not have any scientific basis.”
One customer, Alexei Voronenkov, has paid £30,000 to have his 70-year-old mother’s brain frozen. “I did this because we were very close and think it is the only chance for us to meet in the future,” he said, adding that when he dies he intends to undergo the procedure himself. Perhaps a declining belief in the Christian Church’s doctrine of the life eternal and the resurrection of the body is a factor in the service’s growing popularity.
(Sydney) D.Telegraph, 16 Nov 2019; , 18 Jan 2020.