Members of an Australian religious group have gone on trial accused of killing an eight-year-old diabetic girl by denying her medical care and offering prayer instead.
Elizabeth Struhs was found dead at a home in Toowoomba - about 125km (78 mi) west of Brisbane - in January 2022, after she had allegedly gone without insulin for several days.
Prosecutors say the sect shunned the use of medicine and trusted God to “heal” the child - “extreme beliefs” which had already almost ended Elizabeth’s life in similar circumstances three years before.
The girl’s parents are among the 14 defendants, all of whom have refused lawyers.
The vast majority of Christian religions don’t have anything against modern medicine.
The fact that a girl is now dead because of these extremists is heartbreaking.
There’s a popular parable/joke that’s often told among those who are religious about a devout man in a flood who rejects multiple rescuers while saying, “God will save me.” He then eventually drowns and complains to God. God then responds with something like, “What do you mean?! I sent 2 boats and a helicopter!” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_drowning_man
For Christianity in general, there’s a saying that we should first do everything we can and then leave the rest in God’s hands. There’s a whole section dedicated to this with the most relevant part:
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? (James 2:14)
Any Christian religion that chooses to ignore modern advances in medicine (be that vaccines, insulin, or whatever) shows that they’re ignoring a fairly obvious lesson that the rest of Christianity has already learned.
