PJ Miller alerted me to this post over at Phoenix Preacher about a ‘unique’ and ‘bizarre’ ministry

The Dead Raising Team

This is so wrong, heretical, weird and blasphemous…

I do believe that God can raise up a person from the dead. However, it was not done as a ’specific niche-market specialized parachurch ministry”.

There is something else that I have noticed here. The main page mentions that (and I have to type because the pages have the text as an image and i wonder why because most pages have text that can be copied and pasted) “…the DRT has comforted families in the midst of grief, as well as having one resurrection to date as a result of their prayers.”

If something that significant happened, wouldn’t we see the person who was raised from the dead give a complete testimony with a notarized statement and highlighted and plastered all over the webpage?

But there is one story buried deep on the “Meet the team” page of the “Edward and Marsha Hayes” section about a man off the coast of Florida who went out in the water, drowned, was pronounced dead, and was brought back to life.

I have alot of problems with this story

(1): In the first paragraph, they mentioned that after attending the revival for a few days, the woman and her son decided to go to the beach and relax.

WAIT A MINUTE, I thought that was the purpose of ‘revivals’; to ‘relax’ and get ‘refreshed’ and ‘renewed’. Do we have to now go and get refreshed and relax from revivals?

(2): Marsha mentions that “Though they (lifeguards) were trained in CPR and other life saving education, they could not get a heartbeat. Once they had thoroughly given their best effort to bring him back, the man was pronounced dead.”

Here is where the red flags start rising up!!!!

2-A: I went through CPR training years ago and the very first thing we were taught about arriving on the scene where an individual needed CPR was to assign one person to go call 911 for an ambulance and the trained CPR people are to administer CPR and never quit administering CPR until a registered nurse, a licensed physician, police/fire personnel, or a certified Emergency Medical Technician / ambulance crew arrived that had advanced training and advance equipment could take over and attempt to resuscitate the man.

In fact, if a doctor appears on the scene, he or she does not tell the layperson performing CPR ‘That’s enough, he’s dead’. No, they would take over the process and make further attempts to resuscitate the person under CPR.

2-B: Who pronounced the man as being dead? The way the English language semantics are stated in her sentence, it comes across as the lifeguards pronounced him dead.

In most states, a bystander/witness, EMT crew, policeman, fireman, nurse, or a lifeguard can not declare anyone dead or even establish the official cause of death. Only an attending physician, a medical examiner, or a coroner can pronounce a person as being dead and state the cause of death. Or in extreme cases as in the disappearance of Steve Fossett in Nevada, a judge declared him legally dead.

Even though it appeared that this man had no evident signs of life, by the laws of most states, he could not in any way shape or form be declared dead except by an attending physician, a medical examiner, or a coroner. Technically, the man could never be considered as dead because the man was never declared dead by an authorized person.

(3): “When they finally finished praying, the young man was without brain damage and able to move all parts of his body, completely restored from death”

Do we have the young man’s name to where the story can be verified? Do we have any medical documentation stating that the young man had no after effects? Wouldn’t this have made the local news and after being submitted to organizations such as the Associated Press, been on cable news networks as part of a ‘feel good feature’?

Even the Gospels mentioned Lazarus’ name when Jesus rose him from the dead in John 11 and Lazarus was already in the tomb for four days and in his grave clothes. Lazarus was already declared dead and buried.

Resuscitation is totally different from being Raised from the dead

Lazarus was raised from the dead because verse John 11:44 stated the words

And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”

The man who apparently drowned (if this story is even true), was resuscitated from a state of unconsciousness.

I have my doubts on the legitimacy of both the story and the ministry. Raising someone from the dead in this cable news society would have made worldwide headlines and would have created an Internet buzz to talk about. When ABC Nightline confronted Todd to provide documentation of the healings at Lakeland, none of the healings could be verified as true and none of the raising of the dead stories were ever verified as being true.