c. 1996 Religion News Service
ALBANY, Ore. (RNS)-It is written in the Bible’s book of Esther and again in Ezra that the people fasted by the river so they might merit protection from the Lord.
More than 100 members of the Church of the First Born gathered this week (April 21-27) in Brownsville, Ore., to fast and pray with Loyd and Christina Hays. The 44-year-old roofer and the 38-year-old homemaker, parents of four surviving children, stood trial in Albany, charged with breaking secular law as they obeyed religious law.
The fast was suggested by Brother Clarence Van Volkenberg, a senior church elder who drove from Snohomish, Wash., as the trial testimony ended, and the jury began its deliberations Friday (April 19).
Arnold Jensen, Christina Hays’ father, said, “We did it joyfully. It touches the heart of God to go without things that are pleasant to the flesh.”
Church members fasted throughout a 14-hour day of court proceedings at the Linn County Courthouse. They held hands and sang hymns as they waited for Monday’s (April 22) verdict.
Loyd Hays was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide. Christina Hays was acquitted.
They chose not to seek medical care for their 7-year-old son, Anthony, who died of leukemia Nov. 4, 1994. The disease often is treated successfully with chemotherapy.
But following the biblical books of James and Mark, the Hayses anointed the child with holy oil. The elders, including his father and grandfather, prayed.
Defense attorney James Egan described members of the Church of the First Born as “a peculiar people” who practice a “more exacting faith than most of us can imagine.”
It’s a religion in which it is permissible to call a veterinarian to see a sick cow, but not a doctor to treat a dying child.
It’s a religion in which one child can see a doctor for a physical to play high school sports, but his brother will die of cancer with nothing besides prayer to ease the pain.
Some church members will go to a dentist but refuse to accept medication to deaden the pain. Others will let cataracts cloud their vision to the point of blindness rather than undergo eye surgery.
Loyd Hays testified last week that he damaged one of his eyes when a bungee cord flicked it as he was securing a load on his pickup truck. He used his high-tech cellular phone to call his wife and ask her to gather the elders to pray.
It is a paradox that members of the church embrace all modern technology except medicine.
But there are a range of responses among members, Jensen said. And there is no one answer.
They believe that God’s healing rate is better than man’s, and they point to numerous examples-all entirely anecdotal. They don’t expect to convince outsiders.
They admit that their cures are individual and seemingly random. It does not bother them. It is a matter of faith. And they have seen wonderful things, they say.
“Our children are born at home,” Jensen said. “And with the help of the Lord, they die at home.”
And when that belief in divine law clashes with human law, they gather to support and bear witness, to fast and pray.
“It’s not just Chris and Loyd on trial,” said one woman who attended the weeklong trial but declined to give her name. “It could be any one of us. What happens to one, happens to all.”
MJP END FINLEY