'Health & wealth gospel' critiqued

[jwharv]

Posted on Aug 9, 2007 | by Brent Thompson

VICKSBURG, Miss. (BP)--When Justin Peters was born in Vicksburg, Miss., in 1973, the doctors knew right away that something was wrong. They decided not to tell Peters' parents, who proudly took their first-born son home. It wasn't long before they, too, noticed something was different about their baby boy. At the age of 1, Peters was formally diagnosed as having cerebral palsy.

"Don't expect much from Justin," the doctor told his parents. When Peters tells that story today, a smile spreads across his face.

"Jesus always has the last word," he says.

Today, Peters has two master's degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a staff evangelist at First Baptist Church in Vicksburg the church where he grew up and was saved at the age of 7.

Cerebral palsy typically impacts body movement and muscle coordination, although Peters said it affects different people in different ways. For him, it limits use of his arms, hands and legs. But he lives, travels and ministers needing very few accommodations for his disabilities. He gets nearly everywhere he needs to go either on his motorized wheelchair or on his crutches. He drives his specially equipped van or flies on commercial airlines to get to his speaking engagements and revivals.

"It isn't degenerative," Peters said of his cerebral palsy. "The way I am now is pretty much the way I have always been."

He is unperturbed by his physical limitations. In fact, he is thankful to God for them, and says he likely would not be in full-time ministry if not for the effects of cerebral palsy.