.....how much of it really happens?
I know for years and years the Family was pushing faith healing to such an extent that it was dangerous. You know, don't go to the doctor, because "God is a jealous God" and He'll let you die if you trust doctors. "My glory will I not share with another" -- especially witch doctors. And we were reminded, "Asa was diseased in his feet and he DIED because he turned to the physicians and not the Lord." (Well, that was Asa's case. Maybe he should've continued trusting God WHILE he turned to the physicians.) So Family members died anyway without seeking basic medical help, and there is a significant list of people who either died or nearly died.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I've experienced miraculous healing myself, but God is not a "command-ye-me" genii in the bottle and all we need is faith and just take a stand of faith no matter how much someone is writhing on the floor in pain. The Family used to push that kind of verse-quoting faith to the exclusion of all sane medical care, but from what I understand, reality has set in a bit after all these years because, well, darned if lots and lots of Family members WEREN'T getting healed no matter how much everyone prayed.
In "Faith and Healing" Berg warned that when he got old, not to dare take him to the hospital. He preached wild eyed and frothy-mouthed against Peter Puppet taking even health-food cures, he preached against Shuly Padilla taking medicine ... and they both died trying to obey Berg. (Remember "Pill or Pilgrimage"?) But when Bergie boy himself gets old and sick, well, well, well, darned if he doesn't get checked into a hospital and darned if he doesn't start taking the drug Cortizone.
And then there's Grandmother Berg's story. She said she was bedridden for how many long years? But as it turns out later, she was well enough to have sex in the middle of her "bedridden period of invalidism", get pregnant and deliver a baby, Berg's sister Virginia. And Berg himself confessed that that was a period when she was better for a time.
I'm sure Virginia was healed to a certain extent, but folks, a little more forthright honesty about how sick she was or wasn't that whole time would have helped! Healing by faith is real, but over-stressing it can be deadly, literally fatal. And create a warped interpretation of the Bible and a warped outlook on life.
Even Luke, who wrote a gospel, was a physician, for crying out loud.