Just a note to the regular readers of Bible Girl: In case you missed this story from yesterday's New York Times Sunday Magazine, I wanted to introduce you to Dan and Ann Stratton.
He's a former Yale football star who made a mint as a commodities trader; now, he's "the founder and pastor of Faith Exchange Fellowship, a fundamentalist Christian congregation in Manhattan's financial district," writes Zev Chafets. Dan's also "a 'five-fold minister' of Yahweh, a self-described evangelist, apostle and prophet, and spiritual warrior king." And Ann? Well, she's a "a North Jersey Catholic schoolgirl turned born-again miracle worker [and] together they are on a mission to banish Satan from the financial temples of Wall Street and transform New York City into 'ChristTown.' But first they have to find a decent piece of downtown real estate."
There. That's all you need to know. No Dallas connection. But, wait. It's coming.
Now, go to the third page of the story as it appears online. That's the part where Ann talks about how, as a baby, her mother's prayer healed her club foot. She also tells Chafets about how, "as a young woman, she was afflicted by ulcerative colitis that four-a-day doses of Librax couldn't mask, and she lost her menstrual period." She says a traveling evangelist, Kenneth Hagin, toucher her and restored her health. Prayer healed appendicitis too. While in the hopsital, Ann says, she discovered she too had the power to heal the sick -- and then some.
So, you're still interested. Good.
Now go to the sixth paragraph. There, after the writer describes how it sounds when a woman from New Jersey speaks in tongues, you will find this:
Lapsing back into English, Pastor Ann told the congregation that, while still in the hospital, she began praying for cures for other patients. A woman with brain cancer was healed, another was saved from a hysterectomy and a man came out of a seemingly permanent coma. Back in the world, a little deaf boy regained his hearing after she prayed for him. Once, in Dallas, her prayers replaced a blind eye in a woman's socket with a healthy, perfectly matched green eyeball. And then, in Englewood, the au pair came back from the dead. "Today that woman's alive and well in Germany. Say, 'Amen!' "
I have to ask: Julie -- pardon, Bible Girl -- have you ever heard this story? Seems to me, a tale of healing this extraordinary -- an eye for an eye socket, if you will -- would make the rounds. And, if not, thoughts? --Robert Wilonsky
