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Hello, I found your website this morning and am excited because
I am a Christian studying Oriental Medicine and have felt that
we need to reach out to other Christians in this field to lift
each other up.
I too went through a period of searching and praying to see whether
the Lord would bless me in this endeavor, last fall after I started
college here in Sarasota, Florida, I spent some weeks and months
praying and did find a release and blessing to continue my studies
with a happy heart. And it is indeed a great joy for me!!!! I
feel my light is shining bright in our little school, there are
a few other Christians, who tend to dim their lights due to the
overwhelming prevalence of new age in our school, and I encourage
them to hold their heads high, not to waver in their faith and
to walk tall. The Lord is giving me great favor with a 4.0 so
far and many many incidences of greatness of His Presence, and
I pray for more and more. My church, First Assembly of God, supports
me in this endeavor also, I have a prayer partner who prays over
my herbal books with me and prays for me in my tests, she and
my husband prayed for over 100% on my first Individual Herb test
yesterday, and lo and behold the Lord granted me a 110% on the
test!!! It's interesting because the only other one with a perfect
grade was also the most deepest into shamanism, a woman with whom
I am on friendly terms but we also know where each of us stands
in terms of where we gain our "power" to stand.
We have had a Tai Ji class and now our class is going to start
studying Qi Gong. I went to two of the classes, listened to the
material and studied the handouts, then decided that this route
is not appropriate for me as a Christian. Another Christian student
says she does Qi Gong but draws her healing power from Jesus for
it, another co-student is going into it full-speed ahead but I
feel she is always willing to compromise herself, and my Oriental
instructor had a very interesting response to me when I discussed
the fact that I do not feel I will participate in Qi Gong class:
he rejoiced and told me that he does not want to teach Qi Gong,
knowing that the majority of the students will be drawing "power"
from demonic forces....!
I am writing to ask you how you feel on this topic.
I plan to continue letting it be known that I am a Christian
practitioner of Oriental Medicine and that I feel it makes me
a better, more trustworthy doctor AND that it does make a difference
that I look to the One God and Jesus Christ for Their healing
power rather than chanting, wearing and working with crystals,
or drawing on Qi Gong power. Yes, a person can be healed from
one of them, but there is so much more that we can do as Christians
working under the Lord's blessing with this medicine.
Hope to hear from you soon on this matter,
happy studies,
Barbara
Barbara,
Nice to hear from you. It's always good to talk to other
Christians about this.
Congrats on the prayer results. Not sure I understand about the
qi gong
teacher- are you saying he was changed by your input?
Which topic do you mean? Qi gong?
It sounds as if you are in a rather polarized "battle"
at your school. It is true that you can look at it as spiritual
warfare, but when I was coming from that perspective, it took
me a while to realize that I was actually very afraid of these
people. The Bible reminded me of the power of the one true Living
God. It is very hard for me to accept that not everyone agrees,
not everyone gets along, not everyone will be converted, some
will go to Hell. But that's what they choose.
As far as Christian vs. new age, don't forget that Chinese medicine
itself has therapeutic power separate from the beliefs of the
practitioner. In fact, I would keep them separate in my mind.
So there is not just Christianity and New Age- there are three
things here, Christianity, New age, and CM.
Emphasizing the Medicine
I have a new
article in Acupuncture Today that urges all CM practitioners
to emphasize the medicine. From a scientific point of view, if
we work on an individual patient, give them acu and herbs and
pray for them, when they get better, we will not know which was
responsible for the cure. It's easier if you only do one therapy
to be sure about its efficacy- even then, you need randomized
double-blinded trials to be sure.
Witnessing to New Agers
Christian patients don't like having to see and hear new age
things from a medical practitioner, and vice verse, as a Christian
practitioner, though you may be able to talk to patients who are
new-age that otherwise you'd never meet, (and this is a great
opportunity for them to hear the Biblical truth about Christ rather
than the Hollywood version). When we witness, I suppose we have
two options- either try to convert everyone, aggressively, or
listen and give appropriate input.
Treating Versus Witnessing
Some Christians are more bold than others about this- I think
part of it has to do with each person's personality. If you are
too bold with the wrong patient, they may not come back. I don't
think it's as simple as choosing whether witnessing or CM healing
are more important. But there will be a natural conflict between
treating new-agey people, and trying to witness to them. I don't
know enough about this- perhaps there are books about Christian
physicians witnessing to patients, plus books about witnessing
to new-agers, and combining the two, we may find some guidance.
Let me know if I missed some part of your question- all the best!
B
Hello, Brian -- thanks for responding to my e-mail last week!
My question was, actually, how do you feel, as a Christian about
practicing Qi Gong? I appreciate your thoughts on this subject.
Complicated. I think it depends on which qi gong exercises. Some
of it is just breathing, or making sounds. I suppose the most
dangerous areas for a Christian would be in trying to channel
some kind of energy (what is its nature and source?), or visualizations
of things that don't fit with the Christian worldview. I've already
written a fair amount on "is qi energy?" (because if
it is, some Christians assume it's demonic energy), but I'm not
convinced that, if qi gong does increase energy, or alertness,
or well being, that it is from an occult source.
Meditation, Reflection, Imagination, Visualization
To clarify from another perspective, Psalm 46:10 says, "Be
still, and know that I am God." And Christians like Richard
Foster and Thomas Merton talk about Contemplative Prayer... so
this is meditative prayer - it is meditating on the things of
God. Point being- meditation, tho highly associated with Buddhism,
Taoism, and new age, is not essentially un-Christian. Many athletes
visualize their performance ahead of time. St. Theresa visualized
the inner sanctuary (Never could get through that book). I've
found that I can come closer to understanding the gospels when
I imagine being in them - what did Peter feel or think, or how
was it for Paul at such and such a time... this is imagination,
or visualization to help me understand things.
Guiding Physiology with the Imagination
Athletes know that when they imaginatively rehearse movements
before making them, the body is better at doing them. Is this
related? Many cancer patients are taught to use such visualizations
- immune cells eating tumors, or bright healing light destroying
them. In a qi gong exercise where we visualize healing energy
moving through our body, are we actually channeling occult energy,
or perhaps just changing the physical state of our body via
the nervous system, under the imaginative direction of our brain?
Personally, I don't know enough about psychoneuroimmunology to
answer that, nor do I know if that branch of science even has
the answer to that question (it is only a couple of decades old).
Biblical Ontology (What Exists)
I don't think we can be really sure that any visualized energy
is occult. I know that the Bible discusses demons and Satan as
an angel of light, but does it explicitly posit the existence
of "seemingly good energy that is actually evil?" If
not, the skeptics are speculating, just as much as I was about
the power of metaphor and visualization to change the state of
the body.
Chinese Medicine as Metaphor
The skeptics seem to reject my analysis that much of this is
metaphor- just the other day on a Chinese herbal discussion group,
two expert participants agreed that, "none of Chinese medicine
is true- it is simply a set of rules and ideas that we use as
tools."
Apples and Oranges
I think we can only answer this dilemma by properly categorizing
things - logically, wouldn't we be committing a "category
error" (comparing apples and oranges) to compare metaphors
(healing light, or healing energy) to spiritual realities (demonic
power)? I'm not sure of their relationship.
Just how does a saved and surrendered Christian (who is sealed
by the Holy Spirit, and who lives according to doctrine, who loves
and fears the Lord, whose mind is guided by the super-conscience
of the Holy Spirit) somehow unintentionally, unwittingly allow
demonic power into their life?
If the Bible is Silent
I may be asking more questions than I'm answering for you. I
think we need to go to the Bible, find out what it says, see what
science says, and reason from there. Whenever the Bible is silent
on a topic, we have to reason from Biblical principles and precedents.
But first, we must know our topic, and we must know the Bible.
Your Christian Acupuncture website is an answer to prayer
for me, early into my school experience last fall I was longing
for a forum to discuss the practice of oriental medicine with
other Christian DOM's and students. It's very interesting to discuss
topics and see how each of us is sifting out our beliefs and how
they affect our practice. Ultimately, we must each work out our
own salvation with "fear and trembling," -- i.e. great
respect of "testing the spirits" and looking carefully
at our walk with the Lord.
I did start a Topica
discussion group on this. In fact, this would be a great interchange
to post to that list.
I am not afraid of the New Agers in my school, as it seemed
to you in my e-mail.
It just seemed like a lot of focus was on the battle with them-
and I may
have been projecting, because when I felt most in conflict with
them was
when I was afraid of them. But of course, there will be a natural
conflict
anyway.
I like and respect a great many of my co-students, but I am
more conservative than the other Christian students in every area
of life and
as a result it is very much known that I am a Christian. And not
that I beat them over the head with it either, being confrontational
and abrasive, but, as you stated, it is turning out to be an opportunity
for them to learn about Christian beliefs and way of life; many
people today have had not contact with born-again Christianity.
That's great! I wouldn't call it conservative, though, but "real"
Christianity. After all, you either know the Bible or you don't.
And that's the sourcebook. You either live it or you don't. You're
moving toward that perfection through sanctification, or you're
not. In this vein, 1 John is a great "sifter" (very
metal phase-ish) of those who belong to Christ, and those who
do not.
I can respect your own feelings not to mix spirituality and
medicine yet I feel they are more intertwined than you do.
Well, I do think that in practice, they are inseparable, because
healing is
really about a relationship. But what we bring is not only ourselves,
and
our spiritual walk, but also the medicine we have learned. I am
only arguing
that we should have some distinction in our minds and education
about what
is medicine, and what is spirituality.
and I do not feel that I cannot treat new agers in the future
by letting it be known than I am a Christian DOM.
You don't think being a Christian will turn them off? I mean
you may not be able to treat them because they may run in the
other direction!
On the contrary, I feel that to be a wonderful part of who
I am and what I will practice and how I will practice, of course
my part of the body of Christ looks to Jesus as the true healer,
that medicine is a vehicle for healing, and I feel I can be as
low-key or as vigorous in my approach as the patient needs.
Hmm. I think that Jesus was a great healer, and certainly He
is the ultimate healing on a spiritual level, but when we physically
give someone an antibiotic, we expect there is a physical action
that works on the bacteria...
Spiritual Prayer and Physical Medicine
I expect Jesus to work through prayer, through spiritual intercession-
and of course the spiritual does govern the soul and the body,
and God is omnipotnent, so He could make an antibiotic work or
not work, but I also accept the theory that God does not intervene
unless we pray that he does, and that it accords with his will.
That's complicated.
But, for example, if we drive 90 mph toward a brick wall, and
pray that God moves the brick wall, I would still expect to crash
into it. If God doesn't want me to crash into the brick wall,
isn't it more likely he'd give me the sense not to speed into
it?
I'm not sure that you could take ex-lax and pray for constipation,
and get constipation. Medicine has an effect, and prayer has an
effect... but medicine is not always a blank slate governed by
prayer. The acts of acupuncture, and administration of herbs,
changing diet, have a physical effect.
Medicine, as a career, can be a vehicle for a healing style which
includes Christian intercession, but the physical agents of the
medicine itself (acupuncture needles, herbs, neurophysiology,
biochemistry) are independent, and usually unaffected by prayer.
Of course, I'm not 100% sure about this, but it's my educated
guess from Bible study and real life experience.
While the poll you refer to speaks of Christianity as the
major religion, I nevertheless feel we live in a new age dominated
world and I feel new age attempts to bring back the paganistic
roots of Oriental Medicine and give them new life. I know it because
I see it in school every day.
Is It Really a Small World?
The poll meant a lot to me because it didn't fit my experience.
The school I went to made me feel as if the world was dominated
by new age, but the poll said otherwise.
It's easy to think that most of the world is the way our small
personal world is. That's a fallacy. Science teaches us that we
need a statistically significant sample to get accurate results-
that means we have to ask a lot of people before we know generally
what people think.
Not too long ago I talked to a Christian writer, and she asked
me if I'd heard of such and such Christian song - I hadn't, and
she said, "you must be the only person who hasn't!"
But I asked other people about it, and they hadn't heard of it
either. I listen to some Christian music on CD's and radio...
So, their are subcultures within cultures, all in their own little
bubbles. There are multiple sets of worldviews, interest groups,
morals, values, etc. So I'm not sure that we live in a new age
world, and certainly your own personal experience is too limited
to be used as proof of that.
Keep up the good work, thanks again for your great website,
I look forward to using its forum
of discussion with other Christian students and practitioners
and am telling others about it!!
Thanks! Thanks for the dialogue- it's valuable to me personally,
and to trying to work out these issues, as you said, in fear and
trembling!
All the best, and stay in the Bible!
B
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