OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) A Oregon county judge delivered a clear message to a controversial faith-healing church on Monday (March 8) when two parents were sent to prison for criminally negligent homicide: If you fail to properly care for your children, a similar fate may await you.

Judge Steven L. Maurer sentenced Jeffrey and Marci Beagley to 16 months in prison after they were convicted last month in the death of their 16-year-old son, Neil.

Although children in the Followers of Christ Church have died of treatable medical conditions for decades, this is the first time church members have been sent to prison for failing to provide medical care.

In remarks issued from the bench, Maurer said he hoped the sentences would prompt church members to seek treatment for sick children.

“The fact is, too many children have died. Unnecessarily, needlessly, they died,” Maurer said, aiming his comments at the Beagleys and church members who attended the sentencing. “It has to stop. This has to stop.”

The extended Beagley family, like other church members, does not use doctors for medical care, believing it shows a lack of faith in God. Instead they rely on spiritual treatment: prayer, fasting, anointing with oil and the laying on of hands.

About 80 church members and supporters attended the hearing. They sat silently as the sentence was imposed, many of them in tears. Marci Beagley’s mother began sobbing and was comforted by family members.

The Beagleys knew Neil was ill two weeks before he died in June 2008 from complications of a urinary tract blockage, they testified. Despite the boy’s failing health, the Beagleys didn’t take Neil to a doctor. Instead, they decided to honor the boy’s wish to put his fate in God’s hands.

Maurer told the Beagleys that they ignored the boundaries and community standards should be followed when a child’s safety is at stake. Neil would be alive if you “would have done what this community expects every parent to do” and call a doctor, he said.

Maurer said the boy’s death was part of a larger, troubling pattern.

Dozens of the Follower’s children have died of treatable conditions since the 1950s, and a few mothers died in childbirth. The deaths led Oregon lawmakers to modify state law in 1999 to eliminate legal immunity in some cases for parents who treat their children solely with faith healing.

Wayne Mackeson, the attorney representing Jeffrey Beagley, said the couple would file an appeal. “To me, it’s one battle in a larger war,” Mackeson said. The case improperly turned into a referendum on the church, he said.

But prosecutor Greg Horner said “the court has the opportunity to deliver a clear message that this idea that one can let a child die while they’re praying, without medical attention, is not supportable. It must be addressed.”

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The Beagley’s son-in-law, Carl Worthington, served 60 days in jail last year for criminal mistreatment in the death of his 15-month-old daughter, Ava, who died of a blood infection. His wife, Raylene, was cleared on all counts.

Maurer, who also presided at the Worthington trial, said the Beagleys failed to acknowledge the consequences of their beliefs.

The couple was present when Ava Worthington died in March 2008. When the Worthington and Beagley children stopped breathing no one “raised the issue of calling for an ambulance or going to an emergency room,” Maurer said.

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Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote said once the emotional impact of the Beagley case subsides, he hopes to reach out to church members to make sure children receive appropriate medical care and don’t suffer needlessly..

“There is simply no excuse for it,” Foote said. “We can’t seem to get through to the members of the church that they can’t refuse to give their kids medical care, particularly when their kids’ lives are at risk.”

(Steven Mayes writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.)