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Hi, when i first stumbled across this site, i was extremely
overjoyed. As it is something i thought would greatly benefit
me as a Christian in my final stages of studying Chinese Medicine
(CM). But as i read some articles especially from others to you,
i was greatly let down.
Why is it that Christians need to be so narrow minded and
such followers. As christians Jesus did not ask us to follow,
but to live as he lived. Jesus was a great man who accepted everyone
who came to him. He, himself was a healer.
We can not deny where the roots of Chinese Medicine came from,
which is Daoism. Qi is an integral part of CM and I do not understand
how anyone can practice without believing and understanding it.
Our soul is energy, think of that as the Qi and everything that
lives and breathes has a soul, so there is energy everywhere,
but not everything has a spirit which is our link with our Creator.
I believe people out there need to open their minds abit and
think logically. The question about Qi Gong really took me by
surprise, how on earth is it demonic??? How do u expect to manipulate
qi with a needle, when you can not control your own qi with your
mind.
Anyways i just had to voice my views on that cause i really
believe CM is a great gift for all, Christian or not and as Christians
we should use this knowledge to eal others as Christ would want
us to do. Brian i think you have done a great job answering many
of the critics. Keep up the good work.
Carmen
Carmen, thanks for your candor. When you get licensed, please
write back and submit your practice info for our referral list,
because I frequently get inquiries and have nowhere to send Christians
for acupuncture.
Jesus Accepted All People But Not All Views
Jesus accepted people, but if you notice, he often got angry
when people got religion wrong- see the money changers, and his
frequent challenging of the pharisees- he even questioned how
Nicodemus could be a great teacher and yet not understand the
need for rebirth.
More than asking us to live as he lived, he asked us to accept
him as Lord and Savior, and his apostle Paul taught that every
word of scripture was god-breathed and useful for teaching and
rebuking.
Paul constantly grappled with "Christians" who were
getting essential Christian beliefs wrong- e.g. the gnostics,
etc. Many present day new age ideas are simply "reincarnations"
of 1st century heresies.
Real Christians
The reason I bring up all those things which may be basic and
obvious to you is to see if we do have as common a ground as you
think. There are many who call themselves Christians, but do not
think Christ is God, or do not believe in sin, who do not accept
the Bible as the inerrant word of God, etc. Many people think
Christian scientists are Christians even though they believe we
should try to "attain the Christ mind," but they deny
sin and the need for salvation.
It's true, Bible-believing Christians appear to be narrow-minded
to many, but what's strange to me is that usually it is non-believers
who see it that way... not other Christians. I mean, it's unusual
for a Christian to accuse most Christians of being narrow minded.
However, I am aware that the Church has become quite worldly,
and that many pastors and ministers no longer believe in essential
Christian doctrine. That's unfortunate, because it means we lose
Christ, the Holy Spirit, our unique identity in Christ, and we
make the world our God, instead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I've also heard several scholar-authors accuse Christians of not
using their brain enough.
If you read my site, you'll see that I lived very open-minded
to all religions for many years. Ultimately, I was still unhappy,
and I believe that's because I was avoiding Christianity, and
so not getting the difficult but ultimately more fulfilling answers
- I have found it contains all I need to answer the big questions
of life, solve the biggest problems of life, and move on through
life in a satisfying and constructive way. More than that, I have
found the Spirit, who witnesses to the Truth of Jesus Christ as
told in the Gospel.
Questions of Conflict between Christianity and Chinese Medicine
All that said, as a Bible-believing Christian, as part of the
Church (the body of Christ, the living believers), and as a Chinese
medicine practitioner and scholar, I have to deal with a few issues:
- The fact that many Christians believe and teach that qi is
demonic
- The question of how to reconcile things not mentioned in the
Bible with Biblical principles
- The cultural bias toward not questioning western medicine
but questioning things from foreign lands
- The ignorance of some Christians about Chinese medicine, their
refusal to educate themselves, and their insistence that they
know better than people who devote their lives to studying Chinese
medicine
- The fact that both the Bible and Christianity posit the existence
of demons
- The fact that there have been dangerous heresies in the past
which have led Christians astray
- The fact that Satan by nature is a deceiver, etc.
Open-mindedness about Qi
Now, at this point, I am still open-minded to the idea of qi
as a real electrical force, of the ability of people to train
and develop the ability to use it, etc. But I cannot deny that
it seems fantastic, I cannot easily shed my skepticism, and I
like being a bit skeptical because it helps me bridge between
the world of Chinese and western medicine, and between Chinese
medicine and Christianity. I know for a fact that we can still
use acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine as non-spiritual medicines,
thinking of qi as a metaphor- e.g. Spleen qi probably includes
pancreatic enzymes, and perhaps Stomach acid, though that is also
probably Stomach heat. The freedom and benefit of using qi metaphorically
is that, though it may be revisionist, it at least quarantines
a useful and innocent medicine from some of the more difficult
questions we have in trying to reconcile Chinese medicine's associations
with the taoist cosmology with the Christian world view.
An Example of a Conflict to Resolve
For example, how do you reconcile the idea that the hun, spirit
of the Liver, returns to the Tao (and the po, spirit of the Lung,
returns to the ground) when we die? Do you think they just got
it wrong? What was the source of that knowledge? Just a theory?
It doesn't include the idea of heaven and hell- naturally, since
they didn't know they were all going to hell. So the hun returning
to the Tao- isn't that anti-Christian? It kinda makes it sound
like we're all one, and when we die we all return to some blissful
state of oneness- of course that's not really there- maybe returning
to the Tao means losing consciousness forever- I don't know, and
I haven't studied the sources deeper.
Science and Qi
And how about science- if you think you can move qi with your
mind, how do you know for sure that's what happens? Since you
aren't doing a placebo-controlled study, you can't be sure that
what happened wouldn't have happened anyway. I know, we can know
things without needing a placebo-controlled study all the time,
and research has proven that prayer of any kind (not necessarily
to the "Judeo-Christian God" as they put it) can heal
people- so if we believe in qi as some electrical force, is it
measurable by scientific equipment? If not, why not? If it can
be felt, if it can "light light-bulbs," or "make
you see sparks when they touch your forehead," then why couldn't
it be measured? But so far, I haven't seen good science that reliably
reproduces measuring or mapping of qi- and again, there's a difference
between measuring something that qi could be the metaphor to explain,
and some energy that has an independent existence from other things
in the body.
Intention and Objectivity
Still, my acupuncture teacher, Robert Chu, believes that your
intention can trump the function of an acupuncture point. I have
trouble believing that, because I think even if it were true,
they say it takes years (5 - 20 years) to discipline your mind
well enough to be able to do that, and I don't believe most of
the students in my school who believed this stuff had that kind
of discipline, nor did they have that many years doing it. So
were they fooling themselves? Wishful thinking? Occasional spurts
of success in a long process of learning? Most modern scientists
recognize the danger of losing hold of objectivity- though others
disagree (e.g. the Carlos Castaneda crowd), the problem is that
once you leave objectivity behind, or ignore it, or stop searching
for it, you no longer have any hope of knowing if what you think
is true is indeed true. Now, as a Christian, you have reason to
believe in absolute truth. Jesus said he was the way, the life,
and the truth- no one comes to the Father (God) but through me.
That, and other Biblical truths negate the Christian's option
to say, well there are many truths, or everyone has their own
truth. No, everyone has their own beliefs, which are more or less
right or wrong. So back to the intention and the function of points-
Zang-hee Cho's experiments with the PET-Scan have demonstrated
some of the brain effects of various acupuncture points. My belief
is that, though points may have multiple functions in various
patient health-conditions, their effect is hard-wired into the
nervous system. So far, I've seen more evidence for this than
to the contrary.
So other than that, I'm not sure what you mean- propogating sensation
up the channel? That could just be a matter of acupuncture technique
and nervous system sensation- I usually avoid it just as I avoid
all extremes of sensation with the needle (unless the person is
particularly comfortable with acupuncture and such sensations)
since stressed out westerners are so pain and sensation-sensitive.
Hmm, I've talked long enough- if you have any feedback, please
send it.
B
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