Once there were some standards for miracles. The hierarchy of a church, often the Catholic Church, investigated what events had taken place, and eventually made a determination as to whether the hand of God was involved.
Apparently no more. Today, in the world of what former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has labeled the "lamestream media," it appears the media itself can declare a "miracle," as Palin's hometown newspaper, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, has now done. Over the Easter weekend, the paper began running a two-part series, categorized under "news," on what it declared to be a "modern-day miracle" involving a boy named Christian whose family is of the Christian faith.
An accompanying editorial left little doubt about the paper's take on a story it first began covering last fall.
We'd hoped to share Christian's story in our Christmas edition, but his miraculous life-after-death story seems even more apropos for Easter, a season that celebrates Jesus' resurrection after three days in a tomb.
The boy's modern-day death and resurrection offers parallels to the familiar Easter story: only a powerful God could have made Christian's damaged body whole.
Ignoring the theological debate over exactly how long Jesus was in the tomb, which isn't as clear cut as the Frontiersman makes it out to be, there is a bold claim here as to a "modern-day death and resurrection."
And this claim is based on precisely what?
Apparently, this, and this alone: "Amber (Aldrich) never believed the doctors who told her Christian would likely have lifelong impacts from the 40 minutes his heart and lungs were stopped," the first part of the series says.
That's it. There are no doctors quoted as to how long Christian's heart and lungs were stopped. Nor are any paramedics so quoted. There is simply the bold declaration from his mother that for 40 long minutes there was no oxygenated blood being pumped through her son's body.
Frontiersman editor Heather Resz, who wrote the story, said Wednesday that there is more. "I have paramedics I talked to,'' she said. "I think the dead thing comes from his not having any breathing or pulse.''
She said a paramedic at the scene, who doesn't need to be dragged into this, intimated that Christian was dead. The paramedic said he can't talk about the case because of state privacy laws, and noted that he wouldn't have been able to talk to Resz about the case because of those privacy laws. But Resz said her understanding after "interviewing" him was that Christian was dead.
"That was his point of view,'' she said. "Craig, I'm not a doctor. (But) it's possible to revive someone after they're dead."
That may well be, but it is far more common for someone to be revived from the gray area that exists between life and death. That is why the paramedics here couldn't have declared Christian dead because they are required by law in a situation like this to perform CPR for at least 30 minutes -- longer if there are suggestions of hypothermia -- before making such a declaration.
Why? Because, despite Resz's assertions, people aren't dead just because their respiration and pulse are undetectable. The brain can go on functioning for a considerable time after, most notably in the cold. In fact, the rule for emergency medicine in Alaska when treating victims of hypothermia is: "They're not dead until they are warm and dead.''
Hypothermia victims have survived in a state of what might almost be considered suspended animation for hours. One survived for more than six hours. No miracle was declared.