An Oregon City couple has been arrested on first and second degree criminal mistreatment charges related to the death of their infant child in 2023. The parents, Blair and Taylor Edwards, belong to a church called the Followers of Christ that believes in faith healing to the point of refusing to get medical treatment for most conditions. Unsurprisingly, this is very far from the first time that a child in this church has died from a treatable malady, nor the first time that adults in the church have been arrested for having denied their children medical treatment.
Baby Hayden Edwards was only two days old when his health started rapidly declining and he refused to eat. Instead of taking their child to the hospital like normal parents might have, they invited their friends and family from the church over to heal him — which the church does by praying over someone and anointing them with olive oil.
Incredibly, that did not work, his health only got worse and his lips started turning blue. By mid-afternoon he was dead. Medical examiners, upon seeing that Hayden’s skin had turned yellow, determined he was severely jaundiced. While infant jaundice can often clear up on its own, it’s obviously best to take the child to a doctor, especially if it is that severe. Certainly at the point when his lips start turning blue.
Via Oregon Live:
“When asked under what circumstances they would seek medical treatment for Hayden, [Blair and Taylor Edwards’] answers indicated that they never would and did not think they needed to here,” [Senior Deputy District Attorney Bryan] Brock wrote in records filed with the court.
Hayden was the fourth child Taylor Edwards delivered at home, records note. She is pregnant and due in June or July.
“Medical experts indicate that Hayden’s condition may have been caused by a hereditary condition and are concerned that the next child born may also have this condition, which they say is likely treatable with adequate medical care,” Brock wrote.
Yeah, it seems like it’s probably not the best idea to let these people “take care” of another newborn.
The Followers of Christ church first started in the 1890s in Oklahoma, but it didn’t really start picking up steam until the 1920s when a fella by the name of, swear to God, Walter White took over, moving to several different locations before settling in Oregon City, Oregon — though there are branches in Oklahoma and Idaho. Aside from the faith-healing thing, one of the peculiarities of the church is that they stopped accepting new members after White died in 1969, because he was the only person who could baptize anyone. Children who are born into the church are considered baptized because their parents or grandparents were baptized by White and no one is allowed to marry outside of the church. Given that it is estimated to have only about 1200 to 1500 members nationwide, jaundice may not be their only genetic issue.
Members of the church believe that if their faith healing doesn’t work and someone dies, that is God sending them a message that their faith is simply not strong enough. In No Greater Law, a 2018 A&E documentary about the Followers of Christ faction in Idaho, one of the members explained that, to them, getting a child medical treatment would be like throwing them into a fire, because of how the child will be sent to hell as a result.
Here’s my thing. If God wanted these people to faith heal themselves and their children, wouldn’t he have made them like, really good at it?
In No Greater Law, the members talk about how they do faith healing because Jesus did faith healing, because he went around healing blind people with spit (do not try at home, those of us who are not deities have a lot of germs in our mouths!), giving the lepers back their skin and what have you. Forgive my ignorance here, I’m no Bible scholar, but isn’t the whole point of those stories that when he did it … it worked?
Like, I can’t imagine that the New Testament would be a very compelling book, nevermind a Tony Award-nominated Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, if it were just full of stories of this guy walking around, trying and failing to heal people, and then telling them they better not seek medical attention.
So, clearly, it is canon in this universe that if God wants you to be able to magically heal people, you will be able to magically heal people. Would it therefore not follow that, because these people are not able to magically heal people and their kids keep dying of treatable illnesses, they should consider another route?
At the very least, it is illegal in Oregon to just let your child die because you think you have magic healing powers — it’s still not illegal in Idaho, despite several attempts to make it so.
So, yes, just to be clear, almost all abortions are illegal in Idaho, the state is currently fighting for its right to deny them even in medical emergencies … but it’s totally fine if you want to just go ahead and let your born child die because you believe in a God that will send babies to hell if you take them to see the doctor. That, they have absolutely no problem with.
It’s unlikely that sending these parents to prison is going to have any impact on the church or lead to them taking their sick children to see the doctor, but at least it will keep them from being able to kill their next kid.
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