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Welcome!
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Brian is an evangelical Christian,
a medical professor at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine,
founder of the ChristianAcupuncture.com and the Pulse of
Oriental Medicine, and author of Powerful
Body, Peaceful Mind: How to Heal Yourself with Foods, Herbs,
and Acupressure.
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If the idea is confusing to you, here are the basics:
- God and Christian faith come first in importance and priority. Healing and medicine come after that.
- The Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God, our premiere source of truth as Christians.
- The Bible provides both two types of guidance: direct/literal, and inferred/principle-based.
- The Bible does not mention acupuncture or Chinese medicine explicitly, so we must use the second type, i.e. apply Biblical principles to it.
- To apply Biblical principles to something, we must not only know Biblical principles, but also know the nature of the thing to which we apply it.
- The nature of acupuncture and Chinese medicine (CM) is disputed - Some Christians say it is occult; some acupuncturists and patients say it is inherently new age, Buddhist, or Taoist; others say it is a medicine that has been influenced by those spiritual/philosophical beliefs; still others say that it is a medical system which, much like Western medicine, can be validated scientifically and needn't be tied to a particular religion, or to any religion at all.
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When the nature of something is unclear, a key to resolving the confusion to to choose the correct sources of information on the topic. |
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Given the foregoing ideas, we need to hear and consider the perspectives of historians, anthropologists, theologians, and scientists. |
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We must also consider the bias of those who speak- what are their beliefs, and do they have an investment in one view of Chinese medicine winning over another - and weigh that bias against their testimony and evidence. |
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Such perspectives can be found on this website and on www.PulseMed.org. See the list of resources below for you to read and consider yourself. |
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David Jeremiah (see below), Focus on the Family's Physician Research Council, and James Dobson advise that the most important thing in considering these medicines is to choose the right practitioner. I've dealt with that on this website as well. |
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- Anthropology and History: For a modern perspective
on Chinese medicine and its recent history, see Volker
Scheid's Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China.
Scheid is an acupuncturist and has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology
from the University of Cambridge in the U.K. I am not aware
of his religious beliefs.
- Anthropology and History: For the history of Chinese
medicine, Dr. Paul U. Unschuld is the pre-eminent authority.
Unschuld is a historian and anthropologist who does not practice
acupuncture, and does not appear to like or dislike it. He is
the director of the Institute for the History of Medicine at
the University of Munich (with degrees in Chinese studies, pharmacology,
public health, and political sciences). He has written numerous
books on the topic (the best ones for these topics are links):
Medicine
in China: A History of Ideas, Chinese Medicine, Huang Di
Nei Jing Su Wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese
Medical Text, Nan-Ching: The Classic of Difficult Issues (Comparative
Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care), Forgotten Traditions
of Ancient Chinese Medicine: A Chinese View from the Eighteenth
Century, Medicine
in China: Historical Artifacts and Images, Introductory
Readings in Classical Chinese Medicine: Sixty Texts With Vocabulary
and Translation, a Guide to Research AIDS and a General Glossary,
and Medicine in China: A History of Pharmaceutics (Comparative
Studies in Health Systems and Medical Care)
- History and Science: Donald E. Kendall, OMD, PhD, LAc,
surveys the history of and the research on acupuncture in his
Dao
of Chinese Medicine. Kendall is an acupuncturist with
a bacclaureate in Physicis and a Ph.D. in Psychophysiology who
appears to be Taoist in his beliefs (thus his book's title),
but whose book does much to advance the scientific basis of
acupuncture, and for the most part leaves out spiritual ideas.
- Science: The World Health Organization has released
a summary
review of all the randomized controlled trials on acupuncture,
stating which diseases it treats, and how much evidence there
is for each one.
- Science: I have reviewed a number of scientific
studies on acupuncture on PulseMed.org. I am a Christian
and an acupuncturist, I believe that acupuncture is inherently
medical and non-religious. I have made every effort to remain
objective in my Christian review of Chinese Medicine. I would
like to find out it is compatible with Christianity, but I also
am willing to move on if that turned out to be incorrect.
- Theology: David
Jeremiah, a famous, well loved and well respected Christian
(Baptist) minister and Bible teacher, whose radio program 'Turning
Point' (broadcast
archives) can be heard on radio stations all over the U.S.,
did a series of messages about New Age from July 17th through
July 19th, 2002 (I'm inquiring as I write this about which one
of their several CD's on New Age contains the acupuncture information),
and acupuncture was one of the few things he covered of which
he approved - in this case because of the scientific evidence.
(I believe he covered it under the rubric of New Age only because
it is considered that by some, and because many acupuncturists
are 'New Agey'.) I do not know that Dr. Jeremiah has ever had
acupuncture. The tenor of his life and messages is to put Biblical
truth first.
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