3-8-08_Ben Stein battles Darwinism & Man is Raised from the Dead

Is it a medical mystery or a miracle? A South Florida man pronounced dead from a massive heart attack and then brought back to life. His doctor says the man was raised from the dead by a simple prayer. Seven's Louis Aguirre has the story.

WSVN -- Dr. Chauncey Crandall isn't your usual doctor. The world-renowned cardiologist is a man of medicine and science, but he's also a man of faith.

Dr. Chauncey Crandall: "If you come in with a problem into our service, we are definitely going to treat you with conventional medicine, but we are going to believe it too. We are going to attack it with conventional medicine, and we are going to attack it with prayer."

He calls himself the Christian physician because he prays with each heart patient he sees at his Palm Beach practice. The difference, he says, is dramatic.

Dr. Chauncey Crandall: "The reason I pray for people is because I found, early in my trained practice, that there were miracles, unexplained healings."

But even his strong faith could not prepare him for what would happen the day Jeff Markin walked into the Palm Beach Gardens emergency room.

Jeff Markin: "I drove to the Garden's Hospital, went in, took out my wallet and fell on the floor with a massive heart attack."

For 40 minutes doctors and nurses in the ER tried to revive him. When they couldn't get his heart started again they called for Dr. Crandall, who was doing rounds in the hospital at the time.

Dr. Chauncey Crandall: "As I entered the ER it was like a war zone. Here was this lifeless body on a stretcher."

The doctor couldn't do anything and could only confirm what everyone already knew, Jeff was dead. He had gone almost an hour without a heartbeat, and his body was starting to decompose.

Dr. Chauncey Crandall: "His face, his arms, his legs were pitch black with death. I said, 'Let's just call the code, let's end it because there's no life left.'"

Dr. Chauncey Crandall: "A voice told me to turn around and pray for that man. I looked down at the body, and I said, 'Lord, what can I pray for this man? He's gone.' All of a sudden these words came out, 'Father, I cry out for this man's soul, if he does not know, you raise him from the dead.'"

Despite protests from doctors and nurses who were preparing Jeff's body for the morgue, doctor Crandall insisted they shock him one more time.

Dr. Chauncey Crandall: "So that doctor came over with those paddles and blasted that man and, all of a sudden, instantly a perfect heartbeat came up on the monitor. The stomach started moving, the chest started moving. This man started breathing on his own, and I said, 'This man has been prayed for, he has been brought back from the dead by prayer in the name of Jesus.'"

Louis Aguirre: "So where was Jeff during all of this? He believes he left his body and crossed over to the after life."

Jeff Markin: "I was actually standing in the back of the funeral home, and I came to realize that this was my funeral.

Jeff Markin: "There was a figure that identified himself as Bob, and he was going to make sure that everything was going to be OK. I'm figuring that was my guardian angel. At that time, a very peaceful feeling and very relaxed feeling came over me, and then he said he had to go and, the next thing I know, I woke up in my daughter's arms."

He woke up to a second chance, one that can't be explained by medicine or science. As Dr. Crandall puts it, the only answer is divine intervention.

Dr. Chauncey Crandall: "You are speaking to a scientist, a cardiologist, someone who loves medicine. I've never, ever seen this. There are always people that do not believe these events, and I will just tell them that it did happen. It was a real story, a real life that was restored."

Jeff wasn't exactly a believer before that day. He didn't regularly attend church or read the Bible, but this experience has made him believe there is a higher purpose for his life.

Jeff Markin: "I feel like maybe I am supposed to be a messenger. I want to get the right message across that miracles do happen."

Louis Aguirre: "Jeff says he is now attending church mainly because he wants to figure out why he was chosen for a second chance at life."

A rousing SRO preview on Tuesday of the new Ben Stein documentary, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," brought a Kansas City audience to its feet.

And with good cause. Stein's often funny, always engaging frontal assault on the oppressive neo-Darwinist establishment is arguably the smartest and most sophisticated documentary ever produced on the right side of the cultural divide on any subject, ever.

As such, "Expelled" represents still another blow to the progressive orthodoxy of government-issued science in its winter of discontent.

The winter started early when in November two separate labs, one in Wisconsin, one in Japan, announced the breakthrough discovery that adult skin cells can be reprogrammed to mimic embryonic stem cells.

Just two years earlier, the elfin journalist Chris Mooney had likened adult stem cell research to creationism and assured the readers of his best-seller, "The Republican War on Science," that this "dogma" had been "resoundingly rejected by researchers actually working in the field."

As the winter rolled on, and as all four major global temperature tracking outlets showed a precipitous drop in annual global temperature, and as snow fell in Baghdad for the first time in recorded history, only Al Gore remained in meltdown.

Meanwhile, on a seemingly daily basis, the neo-Luddites from the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front have been putting a distinctly left-wing face on the "war on science," in this case a real war on real scientists.

And into this breach, armed with his trademark tennies and bemused grin, marches Ben Stein, America's only economist/presidential speechwriter turned comic actor. The producers at Premise Media could not have recruited a better on-screen presence.

Although the role Stein plays has been compared to the one Michael Moore plays in his films, the Stein persona is conspicuously brighter and more benign.

Nor do Stein and his producers resort to the kind of editing that make Moore movies something other than documentaries.

In "Bowling For Columbine," for instance, Moore cobbles together five different parts of NRA honcho Charlton Heston's Denver speech a week after Columbine.

Moore then inserts into the mix a "cold, dead hands" remark from a speech Heston gave a year later. In the process, Moore turn Heston's conciliatory Denver address into a provocative call to arms.

Stein resorts to no such tricks. He gives certain interview subjects all the time and all the rope they need to hang themselves, unedited.

One highlight among many is Stein's one-on-one interview with Richard Dawkins, the dashing Brit who has made a small fortune as the world's most visible neo-Darwinist.

To his credit, and to the utter discomfort of the public education establishment, Dawkins does not shy from discussing the atheistic implications of Darwinism.

Indeed, Dawkin's anti-deity call to arms, "The God Delusion," has sold more than a million copies worldwide. Where Dawkins wanders into a black hole of his own making is in his discussion of the origins of life on earth.

To Stein's astonishment, Dawkins concedes that life might indeed have a designer but that designer almost assuredly was a more highly evolved being from another planet, not "God."

Stein does not respond. He does not need to. For the past hour of the film, the audience has met one scientist after another whose academic careers have been derailed for daring to suggest the possibility of intelligent design.

The choice of Stein as narrator is inspired for another reason. That reason becomes most apparent when he and two "creationist" allies, mathematician David Berlinski and nuclear physicist Gerald Schroeder, visit a remnant of the Berlin Wall, the central metaphor of the film.

At the wall, the three discuss the value of freedom, the central idea of the film, and the need for the same in science. The audience has already met Berlinski, an amusingly sophisticated American living in Paris.

Indeed, it would be hard to imagine any three individuals on the planet who less resemble the "Inherit the Wind" stereotype that Darwinists have been scaring soccer moms with for the last half century.

"Expelled" opens nationwide on April 18. The neo-Darwinists and their allies in the major media will do their best to kill it.

Co-producer Mark Mathis tells me that two network news producers have already chosen not to cover the film because it was "biased," unlike, say, the much-covered "Fahrenheit 911."

The producers have contracted with the same firm that marketed Mel Gibson's "The Passion" to get the word out. They will use much the same strategy.

Central to this strategy is the creation of a powerful buzz and a strong enough opening weekend to catch Hollywood's attention and hold it.

I encourage everyone to pass this on for the following reason. An evangelism team went out onto the beaches of Fort Lauderdale one day to share the gospel. In almost EVERY case, the person rejected the gospel because they have been brainwashed to believe in evolution. They made such comments as, “Evolution has disproved the very first page of the Bible so why should I believe the rest.” It's sad but many will go to Hell for an eternity because they have been lied to and they didn't take the time to seek the truth that is plainly there.

Although “evolution” has been disproved by just about every field of science, it is still being taught in our schools and colleges as a fact. If something has absolutely no evidence to back it after 149 years why do people keep giving ear to these neo-nazi PhD's? If you know some history on Adolph Hitler and Karl Marx you would understand what I just said.

Jesus gave some important advise that we would be wise to take heed to. Here it is. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 11:15) and also “And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear:” (Mark 4:24a).

We think today just because someone has a PHD (post hole digger) behind their name that we can trust them. You can be taught to do something wrong and you do it that way the rest of your life because you think it was taught to you right. That's not the case. Many people are just re-teaching what they were taught without doing any research for themselves. Many aren't asking themselves critical questions or using their common sense that isn't very common anymore. Hey, I got two post hole diggers.

The Apostle Paul commended the Bereans for double-checking him to see if what he said was true by searching the scriptures. My prayer is that America and especially the church in America will not be lazy and search the scriptures again. According to Jesus, in the last days, many false prophets have gone out to deceive many and to have them follow after them.

Do you know 100% that if you were to die today that you would go to Heaven? If you are not sure, how about taking the Test Below to Make Sure You are Right with God?

We have to come to the conclusion that if there really is a Creator, shouldn't we find out what His rules are and follow them?

Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.