What happens when a journalist who is skeptical of supernatural miracles sets out to investigate whether miracles are still happening today?
CBN News investigative journalist Billy Hallowell spoke with ChurchLeaders about his new film “Investigating the Supernatural: Miracles.”
“We really wanted to tackle some of the topics that are difficult topics in the church,” Hallowell said—topics that “maybe we talk about them but in some circles not enough.”
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A lot of vetting went into the stories featured in the film, Hallowell explained. “We wanted to make sure that we had the ones we felt we needed to focus on,” he said, “to really give people the evidence that they needed to make a decision for whether or not they believe these things can actually happen today.”
Hallowell shared that he was “super convicted” while “Investigating the Supernatural: Miracles” was being filmed.
“I believe that miracles are possible,” he said. “I’ve been a Christian my whole life. I read the Scriptures. I know that there are miracles in them. I know the church has an argument going on—and it’s not just right now, it’s all the time—over whether or not miracles have ceased.” Hallowell said he’s never subscribed to that belief.
“But I’ve also never been somebody who’s shown up to events and watched insane miracles happen in front of me,” he added. “Or watch people get up and walk when they haven’t walked in 10 years.” That, he said, has never been “something that was part of my visual experience.”
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Hallowell admitted, “So going into this, I went in a skeptic. Not like an atheist skeptic, but a skeptic in terms of, ‘I want to present the information and make sure that I’m really doing my due diligence to see if these things are actually true.’”
During his investigation, Hallowell discovered that in every one of the stories featured in the film, the people did not get immediate healings. “They were going to prayer event after prayer event,” he said. “They just did not give up, and they were so persistent.”
“It was convicting to me, because, as I was going through their stories, I’m thinking, if I had this happen to me, if I had a terminal illness [or] if my wife did, would we fight that hard?” Hallowell said. “Based on my worldview going into this, whereas I hadn’t seen those miracles, I think the answer would have been, ‘I probably wouldn’t have.’”
