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CHICAGO STUDIES
Body of Christ, and from the philosophical concept of interrelatedness, the person can be said to be in the community and the community in the siCk person. Christ's healings therefore are healings and judgments of the communities in which they occur. THE VISIBLE PRESENCE OF GOD
In reflecting upon the healing works of Christ we see that the communities of men and women who experience these works were confronted by the visible presence of God. Their response is their judgment, and their judgment is their entry into a better quality of life (e.g. life eternal, new life) or a worse quality of life (e.g. death, separation). Either they suffer their eyes to be opened or they close their eyes to the light of God. The witnesses of healing works in the New Testament are as significant as the heale1¡ himself and the patient. These witnesses are confronted by the visible presence of God, in Christ, healing men arid women in their midst. Now is the time to recognize in Christ's healing work the presence of God unto salvation. We may conclude that for the New Testament sickness in an individual is a form of crisis which offers possibilities for good or evil to all who are involved in that crisis. Christ's presence, in perfect love, offers the widest possibilities for profit or loss in that crisis. To use the terms of a professional in mental health, "crisis in a group of people is a time of opportunity, for it will always end in new equilibrium." The quality of the psychological work done by those involved decides the outcome. What we get at the end of crisis is new equilibrium. "The new equilibrium, if the psychological work has been satisfactory, results in external adaptation and internal adjustment. If the psychological work has not been satisfactory, there is also a new equilibrium, but this equilibrium is one of regression. It is a regressed equilibrium in the direction of either a neurosis, a psychosis, or some form of alienation or disintergration" (I. Bennet, Delinquent and Neurotic Children, Tavestock, 1960, pp. 158).
