Silver Spring, Maryland, United States …. [Wendi Rogers/ANN]
With the term “New Age medicine” comes words such as reflexology, ear candling, acupuncture, Eastern mystical meditation, homeopathy, crystal energy balancing and iridology. With these, and many more, claimed methods of attaining better health and balance in life, what’s a Christian to do?
Some would caution that veering toward these methods can be dangerous, and that Christians should be wary of anything that has roots in New Age, a movement that is really “old age,” says Dr. Allan Handysides, director of Health Ministries for the Seventh-day Adventist world church. It goes back to the Garden of Eden, he says, noting the concept that people being like gods was a Satanic suggestion.
“When you examine several Chinese religions, there is a belief in forces, powers, meridians of power, and even herbal medications are often thought to work through these forces,” he says.
Take magnetic therapy: some claim magnets have curative powers, generating weak electric current in the blood circulating in the body and improving blood circulation to eliminate stiffness and fatigue.
Or homeopathy, said to be a “natural” medical science whose remedies are prepared from natural substances and work by stimulating the body’s own healing power. It claims to heal the person “from within.”
How do you dispute supposed evidence that such methods work? Some people have seen healing, or at least improvements in their condition.
Sometimes, there is no proven evidence that a method works and there’s no proven evidence that it doesn’t, says Charles Mills, editor of Vibrant Life magazine, a bimonthly health periodical that is published by the church-owned Review and Herald Publishing Association in Hagerstown, Maryland.
“There’s much about health that a 40-year doctor doesn’t know. Medical people say they practice medicine — they’re doing the best they can with what they know. If something works, it’s because God designed it to work. It’s not just our job — it’s our responsibility — to search out what God has already placed in our path that can make us healthier and happier,” Mills told ANN.
Mills says he doesn’t disregard things because it’s New Age, or Hindu, Buddhist, or anything else, for that matter. “Don’t discount something simply because you don’t understand it,” he says. The key, though, is to “test it by the word of God.”
Dr. Handysides says that in Health Ministries they try to maintain a sense of balance, a sense of global perspective, and a worldview to health that is both scientifically supported and supportable.
The essential difference between New Age thinking and Christian thinking, he says, is that Christians say, “‘Of myself I can do nothing. But in the Lord and Christ Jesus I can do everything …’ New Age teaches, ‘There is a personal power within me which if properly tapped will permit me to do anything.'”
New Age medicine, Handysides says, is often a pantheistic type of package. “It’s putting God into created objects rather than [realizing it’s] God who created them. It’s deifying.”
Most New Age remedies are based in theories of lines of force, or powers within, he says. “They reject the concept that God formed man of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. … Because Mother Earth is power and force, the force comes within us, its as though we formed ourselves. … This is everywhere you look today.”
As Adventist Christians, Handysides explains, the body is viewed as a created organism that works under chemical and physical laws and is predictable, rather than magical. “When you start talking about electrical energy, magnetic energy, [immeasurable] energies, you’re getting to the realm of magical thinking. New Age has in it this element of magical thinking. It gets people propounding therapeutic regimes that are not based on science, but are based on ideas, theories, hypotheses, that are not measurable or subject to analysis.
If we get into that sphere of thinking, then our health message becomes totally irrational.”
What about meditation? Dr. Peter Landless, an associate in Health Ministries, said in a 2003 interview, “The neuro-physiological benefits of meditation include positive effects on the emotions, slowing down of the heart rate, decreasing the breathing rate, lowering the blood pressure.”
“Jesus said ‘calm down, meditate,'” Mills adds. “Yoga is meditating. It uses methodologies of different practices, but [the] focus [is] on things spiritual.”
And Manuel Vasquez, who wrote books on New Age issues, said in a 2003 interview, “The claims for mystical meditation are great, especially by doctors, by psychiatrists, and the bottom line is it works. They need to ask themselves beyond the question, does it work? They need to ask themselves who makes it work? Because there’s divine power and there’s demonic power and both can bring healing.”
Going to a yoga class can be very relaxing, Mills says, but he adds, “If that yoga class takes your thoughts away from God and plants them on you, then you’re going down a wrong path. People tend to throw all their eggs in one basket and then throw the whole thing away. Truth be told, there’s an awful lot of good in elements of New Age. … The problem is that the good sometimes is confused with the bad, or a blending in such a way that you don’t know right from wrong.”
But Handysides includes a note of concern: When one goes into a Yoga or Tai Chi class, or enters into any other kind of activity that is has its roots in New Age, there is the possibility of getting involved with New Age ideas and thinking.
“When you go to a cooking school in [an Adventist] church, you know you will be exposed to Adventism,” he says. “We’re nuts if we think other religions aren’t doing the same thing. We need to have eyes open as to what we’re getting involved with.”
You cannot make a blanket statement that one thing works or doesn’t work, Mills says. For some people, everything may work, and for others, nothing will work. “That’s the beauty of trying to be healthy. What works for me doesn’t work for you. If we are all doing our best to search for God’s healing in our lives, the process and the methods may not be the same for you as for me or for my neighbor.”
He adds, “The danger as I see it is that any health system that runs contrary to what the Bible says is wrong. Whether that is something advocated by a New Ager, or your local doctor. The problem is not New Age. The problem is separation from truth.”
Copyright (c) 2005 by Adventist News Network.
