I’d actually heard of gold dust and teeth making an appearance way way back but I didn’t know it was making a return to Charismatic circles until I heard a sermon about it on Sunday. A lady went up after and said gold dust had appeared on her during the sermon.

My first thought was “why gold fillings or gold teeth?” Heaven is supposed to be paved with gold - now why would God fill your tooth with pavement? Why not just restore the tooth? Aren’t gold teeth status symbols of the rich? Strange that what is termed a “spritual revolution”; faith in the unseen, makes great weight of teeth bring turned into gold or gemstones appearing from nowhere. From several accounts, the people had specifically prayed for teeth fillings to be turned into gold - why pray for something of zero practical value, and something that could have been easily put in by a dentist?:

Skeptics can also point to Dick Dewert, president of CJIL-TV in Lethbridge, Alberta. Dewert claimed during a fundraising campaign that God had given him a gold tooth. But he retracted his claim March 25 after his dentist, Jack Sherman, reminded him that he had given him the filling 10 years before.

“The media tend to hit on the ones that are questionable, unfortunately. But this is why we want to move carefully, and to seek medical verification,” says Rev. Dr. John Roddam of St. David’s Anglican Church in Tsawwassen.

There was also the usual scoffing at skeptics who would rather question than believe this phenomenon; I wonder what the reaction is then for the “miracles” seen on the other side of the demoninational divide, e.g. visions of Fatima , or statues weeping tears of blood, or Hindu statues lapping up milk (I spotted posts on Catholic forums mocking this as “theology for gangsta rappers”).

Reactions from Christians themselves range from the amazed to the cautious, and the outright disbelieving. An observation I found stood out in my mind, and pretty much summed up my last thought on the matter as well:

Questions are raised in our minds about God’s goodness and open-handedness when, on the one hand, he seems unwilling or unable to prevent Auschwitz or the contemporary tragedy of Kosovo, but seems both willing and able to adopt the role of a modern dentist and provide not only cosmetic wonders, but phenomena more in keeping with the Fortean Times than the Bible.

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Before the Flood, there was a canopy over the Earth. This canopy protected the Earth from harmful UV rays. This canopy protected the Earth from harmful UV rays. During the Flood, the canopy fell onto Earth as water, meaning that after the Flood there was no longer a protective canopy.

As a result of this, life on earth is exposed to UV rays and the harmful effects of radiation. That is why we have genetic diseases today, e.g. Down Syndrome and homosexuality, as opposed to before the Flood when man could live for nearly a thousand years.

One of my earliest articles was the Just World effect, also known as victim blaming, where man reasons that misfortune occurs because one deserves it - or inversely, that if something good happens to you, you must be a good person.

The quote above illustrates the other side of the spectrum and it’s not exaggerated - it was recited to me with a straight face. It sounds like Calvinism’s total depravity, only more depressing and more irrational. Taking the Flood literally is already pretty shaky, what more trying to whip up science from a time when people didn’t know what the water cycle was! The same person declared there would have been no sicknesses or deaths if not for the Fall - I asked what would happen if a flu virus invaded the body, and from the response I got, I gathered virii and bacteria must be the products of Sin too.

I really felt like I was in the twilight zone for a moment. It has to be pretty depressing thinking you’re living in such a damned world.

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