John H Armstrong

Climate Science and Evangelicals

One of the true hot-button issues conservatives routinely debate  is climate science and global warming. I have listened to some of the strangest and most confusing debate over this issue. Some of the worst debate over this issue is routinely endorsed by evangelical Christians who laugh at climate science and demonize those who take it seriously. Some even produce impressive looking papers on what is wrong in the ciimate science debate. Much of this makes Christians look rather foolish to those who do rigid research on this problem.

What must be understood in this debate is that there is no doubt that global warming actually exists. The question is not, “Is global warming real?” The question is what causes it and what can, or should, we do about it?

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry recently suggested that the flow of grants has led to a growing body of research arguing for human causes of global warming. In the September 26 issue of USA Today, Republican Bob Inglis, a two-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1993-99, 2005-11), laid waste to this form of reasoning when he noted that scientists do not make a name for themselves by parroting consensus by rather by finding ways that challenge it! If you know anything at all about scientific research, and about how research actually works, you know he is right. You don’t get a theory named after yourself, or a prestigious award given in your honor, for writing papers that say, “Yes, just as he/she said!” You become famous, and make real breakthroughs in science, by demonstrating new insights and by providing new understanding to the scientific community.

What conservatives have done is create an appearance of uncertainty about the science of this issue when little uncertainty presently exists among working scientists. 97% of climate scientists have concluded that the planet is rapidly warming as a result of human activity. 97%! But only 15% of the public knows this to be true. And most of them care very little about this issue. I can count on one hand the number of conservatives I’ve heard in the last year who took this issue seriously at all. Most reason, “It doesn’t impact my life right now so why should I care that much about something that will only impact people decades from now?”

Conservatives sometimes admit climate change is real but then quickly assert that human activity has little or no part in it. And if there is some human element they will then argue that the costs of correction are just too heavy, especially in bad times like now.

Bob Inglis tackled this proverbial response of conservatives when he noted that when they argue that the markets will deliver innovation and ultimately correct the problem they are right but they do not actually practice their own beliefs. This theory about the market is what has been argued about our dependence on foreign oil since 1973 but things have not fundamentally changed. Why? Inglis cogently argues that if we passed along the “real costs” of petroleum (the national security risks, the costs of protecting the supply lines from the Middle East, the cost of pollution from the tailpipes of our cars and the cost of taxpayer subsidies) then we would soon be made aware of our real problem! Markets can and would respond but not when some  fuels continue to escape accountability. Markets work best when they are most freed of interference. This is just good economic sense.

Inglis concluded his opinion piece in the September 26 issue of USA Today on how to engage climate science politically with a credible call to action:

Conservatives can restore our objectivity by acknowledging that Americans are already paying all the hidden costs of energy. We can prove out commitment to accountability by properly attaching all costs to all fuels. We can prove our belief in free markets by eliminating all subsidies and letting the free enterprise system sort out the winners and losers among competing fuels.

Or, more cynically, we can attempt to disprove science, protect the fossilized and deprive America of a muscular, free enterprise, no-growth-of-government alternative to cap and trade.

Creation, Science and the Human Genome

Recent polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center find that four out of 10 Americans believe that the creation accounts in Genesis 1-3 are to be read quite literally. In fact, it is safe to say that a literal reading of the opening chapters of Genesis is a central tenet for most conservative Christianity. This was the case in my experience but no one in my background taught me what St. Augustine said about reading such texts about creation or how theories of literature actually work in terms of certain kinds of texts and how we should read them. I thus went through several phases in my journey through the minefield of questions that touch on origins and the biblical narrative.

More recently a growing number of conservative both biblical and scientific scholars are saying publicly that they can no longer believe the Genesis account, at least not literally. When asked how likely it is that we all descended from Adam and Eve, Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, recently replied: "That would be against all the genomic evidence that we've assembled over the last 20 years, so not likely at all."

This kind of statement would have shocked me even ten years ago. I am not only not shocked by it now but I am listening with increasing interest to the debate itself. The reasons for listening are numerous but the basic one comes down to the biblical text itself. Science has spoken. But have we understood the Bible correctly? Some believe any compromise here means that we will necessarily give up the gospel there. But how are we meant to understand this “story” of Genesis about the first two human persons? How should we understand their creation and their fall? I very much believe in creation, fall and redemption. I am just not so sure the model we have assumed from a strictly literal reading of Genesis is right. We have been wrong before about how we’ve read science and the Bible. Are we wrong again? I am not sure but like I said, I remain an inquirer who is open to learning and thinking. I know, however that this stance will invite criticism. That I cannot stop even I actually wanted to do so.

This growing debate was recently featured on NPR. If you want to listen to this engaging dialog you can hear it online. My friend John Schneider, a professor of Bible for 25 years at Calvin College, was directly impacted by this debate as reported in the NPR story. There is one thing I feel rather strongly about – how you read the creation story is not a matter of orthodoxy in the end. After all, Church Fathers were not one in their reading and this ought to at least suggest we might be wrong in our dogmatic assumptions about a monochrome way of understanding the Genesis account. Science and the Scriptures are not foes. The question remains: “How do we read the Bible faithfully and continue to listen to science at the same time?”

The Science of Tornadoes

The recent wave of storms that have hit portions of the United States have been unusually deadly. In the two states in which I lived in my first nineteen years, Tennessee and Alabama, 276 people have died. In Joplin, Missouri, one town is estimated to have lost 142 people in one May storm. This got me to thinking about the science of storms. And it also made me wonder if the frequency and strength of these storms could have any relationship to global warming?

Before I proceed we need a simple definition of science. Science (from Latin: scientia meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world. Science observes facts, organizes them and offers a response to what we see and know in the world. Good science never conflicts with religious faith and vice versa.

Researchers have been to places like Tuscaloosa, where I lived in 1967-69, to study the storm's impact. Now they've been to Joplin as well. Their goal is to study the unprecedented number of twisters that have destroyed towns and killed people. Here are some of the questions they've posed and responded to in recent writing I've given time to digesting about this subject.

1. Was there any direct connection between the storms in the Southeast and the one in Joplin?

“No” says a meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. Because they were separated by three weeks they were “completely different weather systems.”

2. What caused these storms?

Warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico moved north until it encountered cold air from different altitudes. When these come together they produce wind shear and circular air motions. The air from the south was unusually warm for this time of year, about 2 degrees warmer than normal. In April the jet stream stalled and allowed a repeated series of storms to develop.

3. How severe was the Joplin storm and some of the others?

Many of these storms, and Joplin was certainly among them, were E5 storms. (The rating is called an Enhanced Fujita scale!) This scale measures intensity and this E5 means it had speeds of more than 200 mph. What is interesting is that you cannot measure the wind inside the storm. You can only determine this by the damage surveyed on the ground after the storm.

4. How common are such storms?

Between 1950 and 1994 only 1% of U.S. tornadoes were E4 or E5 in intensity. During that same period 67% of all deaths came in such storms. Deaths have increased in recent years. Experts believe this is primarily because of urban sprawl, which means a tornado has a greater likelihood of striking a more heavily populated area.

5. Is this an unusual year for tornadoes?

Over the last few decades 1,200 storms a year is the average. We were already at 1,076 before Joplin.  The real question we long to understand is why. In weather terms it is because the jet stream is moving farther south and bringing it in contact with excess moisture and triggering larger storms.

6. Does global warming have anything to do with this pattern?

Most agree that we do not know. It is, simply put, impossible to link specific storms to climate change in general. But one climate change model (note the word “model” I use here) suggests that we will see more intense storms as average global temperatures climb. This “appears” to be happening according to many scientists.

Nothing triggers more emotional reaction than to link any weather events to global warming. I confess that I do not understand this at all. I am well aware of the problems of global warming models but I also believe we have evidence (without clear and conclusive reasons for why) that such a phenomenon is taking place. The patterns are not simple and universal but there is something to be seen and studied that goes beyond what we saw decades ago. Why do we find it impossible to discuss this without it turning into a battle over theories of explanation that demonize the other side in the debate?

There are two conclusions I draw about the science in this instance. One, there is a lot we do not know and we should continue to do real science and be open to what it teaches us. When Christians have been at the top of their game, as it were, they have welcomed scientific research and study. Two, Christians should be much more interested in the planet than they often are. We are not known for loving creation and a deep desire to protect it. Why not?

So What Are You?

I began three days ago asking the question: “Are you liberal or conservative?” I suppose I think about this question more than most of my readers. One reason may be that a writer becomes the public target of critics from both sides of so many debates. Another might be the presence of the nearly ubiquitous  profile page on Facebook. I read these pages almost every day and see people list themselves as conservative, liberal or something else. My Facebook profile says that my political views are independent and my religious views are described as follows: “A Jesus follower rooted in the ecumenical confessions and creeds of the earliest Christian churches.” I have stuck with that for several years and think I will let it stand still.

I read a post recently that actually attacked people for referring to themselves as “Jesus followers.” I was surprised since I use the term a lot these days. But then I suppose the person expressing this criticism felt that this kind of answer was a wishy-washy cop-out. But I mean it in a robust and very biblically-nuanced way. But no matter, if you wish to see this as a liberal statement then you will. As I have defined liberalism, especially religious liberalism, I am not a liberal. But the problem for me is on the other end. I am not a conservative either, at least not in the way that most use that term today. Much of what passes for Christian conservatism is too far to the extreme right for my faith and calling. So if pressed I am neither a liberal nor a conservative, at least by the commonly accepted definitions.

I am a Protestant minister in good standing with the Reformed Church in America, a mainline confessional church. I loathe schism, love creeds, work with people across a very wide spectrum of ideas and practices and happily follow Jesus as I understand him primarily through the witness of the New Testament account of his life and teaching. I want to confess and live a faith that is solidly anchored in both biblical teaching and church tradition, thus the mission I lead is called ACT 3: Advancing Christian Tradition in the Third Millennium. But I still remain a seeker of truth. Some might call me a “moderate” but then that word is used as over against what is seen as two extremes. A moderate sounds like someone with no conviction at all and that is not me.

In today’s highly charged political and religious climate the ideologies of the far left and far right are very strong. These groups seem to have the microphone and the rest of us are getting drowned out by all the noise. Unlike so many conservatives I do not see every issue of faith and morals in absolute terms. “For now we see in a mirror dimly . . . Now I know only in part . . .” (1 Corinthians 13:12). For many conservatives the Bible is God’s Word, they have studied it and they believe that they know what it says and what it means, at least in most every instance. Sometimes I think they are right in their conclusions but they arrived at them in all the wrong ways. At other times I think even their conclusions are profoundly flawed. This, for example, is how some conservatives respond to an issue like women in ministry. “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” God made it very clear that women are never to teach men, or hold authority over men in any ecclesial context, so we must defend a (softened) patriarchal stance on the role of women or we will compromise the Bible’s integrity. I reject that conclusion deeply and want to move the dialogue to a wholly different place.

The other end of this conservative/liberal spectrum can be seen in radical expressions about Jesus like those of the Jesus Seminar. This can also be seen in writers like John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg (photo left). The purpose of these scholars is to sift through the New Testament picking and choosing what they keep or reject. While I believe there is much to be gained by the historical Jesus quest I reject this kind of response completely. The conclusion of the Jesus Seminar, at least to date, has been to debunk almost everything important that Jesus ever uttered, or at least everything that we believe he uttered as recorded by the four Gospels. This same approach can be seen in the misuse of the science of biblical criticism. Scholars often become radical revisionists who separate Israel’s real history from the Old Testament record/story. As an example, it is one thing to have honest questions about how to understand the way Genesis 1-3 works given the conclusions of modern science and quite another to reject the theology of the narrative which has a great deal to teach us about God the Creator, the creation, the fall of the human race, male and female (both made in God’s image) relationships and marriage.

In all my thinking and writing I intentionally seek to avoid the extremes as much as possible. I want to help ordinary thinking Christians make sense of their faith and live it out as faithfully as possible in confusing times. I reject the idea that faith and history are incompatible sources of knowledge or truth. I reject the idea that there is not a core to Christianity that is true and always will be true. I want to be able to affirm all that is true without insisting that I know all truth.

In all of this my goal is to know Christ and to make him known. Tomorrow I will develop this in one final post in this series of five.

Evolution, Science and the Constant Warfare in Evangelical Churches

For well over a hundred and forty years the church has waged an all-out battle against the idea of evolution. Some of this battle has been important in terms of protecting the centrality of God as the creator. A lot of it has been harmful to the cause of Christ and to the pursuit of truth. Witness the way many non-Christians actually think about Christians and science. No matter what you think about evolution itself you easily get my point. We look silly and foolish to millions of people. The question is simple: “Is this offense that we often give really necessary to our communication of the good news?”

One of the saddest things I have seen, for over forty years of public ministry, is the way anyone who believes in the idea of evolution is completely repudiated by large segments of the evangelical church. This simply should not be the case. A better grasp of the science, and the theology, of this whole debate would go a long way.

It has always interested me that the Catholic Church does not have this problem. They reject atheism and naturalism as rivals to real faith but they do not debate about the mechanism of evolution like evangelicals.

Reformed scholar Mark Noll wrote a wonderful and challenging classic book titled The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1995). Noll said, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” Noll’s book is particularly apropos when it comes to the debates that still plague our conservative and evangelical churches and institutions regarding evolution.

I was reminded of this not too long ago when the famous scientist Francis S. Collins published his most excellent book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Collins, a pioneer in the field of genetics, headed up the human genome project. He became a full-fledged orthodox convert to faith in Christ. But he is still treated as a enemy, a kind of “trojan horse” by lots of conservative evangelical people. Why? He openly accepts evolution while at the same time he posits that the God who is the creator used this means to bring about the physical world we know and see. This position is so untenable to many that it will get you:

• Kicked out of some local churches and even some denominations
• Removed from teaching Sunday School in some local churches
• Removed from the faculty of Christian colleges or never hired in the first place
• Hated and written about on the Internet
• Cited and opposed in creation science and young earth literature

I have personally dealt with all of these reactions on one form or another. I have seen the damage of the anti-evolution movement within evangelical Christianity that links the good news to a view of origins so tightly than one cannot breathe unless they accept a particular reading of the Genesis account as normative, orthodox Christianity. I urge every Christian I know to rethink this response, regardless of how your read Genesis. At a minimum admit that you might be wrong about your reading of the Bible. You certainly do not hold a view that was universally held by the church fathers or a view that is clearly stated in any of the great creeds of the church. You have adopted a position that probably seems like a “slam dunk” for you but what if you are simply wrong? Worse yet, what if you have used your wrong interpretation of the Bible to destroy your brother or sister in the process?

A very good friend, Dr. Douglas Hayworth, has written a most excellent article on this subject. It is part of a series of articles that I have found so helpful. You can find the introduction to this ongoing series here and you can read Doug’s marvelous essay here. But before you read these article let me tell you that Doug is the son of a mission’s pastor from one of America’s finest evangelical mega-churches, is personally deeply evangelical in every meaningful way and thus has a clear and strong view of biblical authority. Even if you disagree with me, or Doug for that matter, you could stand to back up and rethink this matter with a little less heat and a lot more light and love.

Do Celebrities Have a Vital Role in Treating Health Issues?

To ask my question is virtually to answer it at the same time. But ask it I must. Do public celebrities, popular for whatever reason, have a role to play in treating disease and illness? Some clearly think so or books and various programs would not have such a huge audience.

Take Suzanne Somers as a case in point. Her new book, Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who are Curing Cancer and How to Prevent Getting It in the First Place has created rousing interest among many. I have no doubt that it will become a bestseller. Somers is known for her crusade for non-traditional treatments. She is a cancer survivor herself, having undergone a lumpectomy and radiation for breast cancer a decade ago. She declined chemotherapy and believes it is not effective for the most common forms of cancer: lung and breast. 

Somers got her largest response when she appeared on Oprah. Oprah denies that she promotes such "cures" but she said Somers "just might be a pioneer." She added, "Many people write Suzanne off as a quackadoo" but clearly gave her the biggest stage she could to promote her thinking.

The question here is rather simple: Can, or should, people with great fame use their fame to promote medical opinions and promote their own medical advice? Well, it is a free country and freedom of the press allows it for sure. But is it helpful? When Bill Maher makes no secret of his disdain for flu shots when he says "Why should I allow someone to stick a disease into my arm?" (The ignorance of that comment is mind boggling for a liberal talk show host who prides himself on intelligence.) And Don Imus says he's eating habanero peppers and taking Japanese soy supplements to treat prostate cancer. What next? But really, what harm does this stuff really do since these are only celebrities?

The answer is that we really do not know. One thing we do know is that this kind of talk clearly feeds a public perception that traditional medical science should not be trusted. Barron Lerner, a physician who has studied this issue of celebrities influencing the treatment of illness, recalls that many desperately followed Steve McQueen when he turned to unorthodox treatment for his cancer in 1980. McQueen was treated with everything from coffee enemas to laetrile, a now debunked remedy involving apricot pits. While it is difficult to know what to make of McQueen's influence Lerner says, in his book When Illness Goes Public, that traffic to Mexico related to end-of-life cancers did increase.

What was going on with McQueen, says Lerner, is that he embodied a sense of rebellion and individualism that gave voice to a feeling in this country that mainstream medicine is not enough.

As readers know I have struggled for 13 years with an illness that has no cure and, until recently, didn't even gain the respect of the mainstream medical establishment. It took me a few years just to find a physician who had studied the illness enough to trust him as my doctor. And recently we have increasing evidence that my illness is a retro-virus that attacks the immune system, much like the one labeled HIV. A reason the mainstream did not do much research on this illness is because they were not sure they believed the patients who reported to them their symptoms.

So I am in a precarious stance somewhere between Suzanne Somers and Bill Maher and some who act as the gate keepers of mainstream medicine. I believe medical science is not perfect and anyone who thinks that it is has put entirely too much trust in mankind's achievements. Further, it is as natural as day follows night to look for alternative approaches to chronic, long-term illness when mainstream medicine says we have no answers. In a society where information is ubiquitous (especially via the Internet) we should expect people to think and study such issues for themselves. I welcome this and do it myself. But I think there is a real danger here that everyone begins to act as if they understand the type of testing that goes into serious scientific research.

But with most cancers this is not the complete story. We have made huge strides in treating many forms of cancer and with some of them we have an extremely high rate of success by using mainstream treatments. Could non-traditional forms of supplementation help? Maybe, but we are not sure. The problem here is how the scientific method operates and how we thus determine, over much time and testing, what works and what doesn't work. I have learned to respect this process very profoundly.

At the same time I have learned that mainstream medical research follows both protocols and biases like any other procedure. True science will keep exploring and searching, even in places where researchers might at first be not so open to new ideas. The very nature of real science is to follow proven traditions but to also keep searching. 

So, do celebrities help or hurt? My guess is it is a little of the first, since they can help create awareness, and a boat load of the second, since they have tended to promote the conspiratorial aspect of lay suspicions unduly. Several of Suzanne's Somer's stories features doctors who have done some amazing work. Much of it, however, is the result of people like Somers becoming "a celebrity health guru." As one who struggles with real illness I can tell you celebrity health gurus have no appeal to me at all. Somers says, "I don't have an agenda." I actually believe her since she seems to be a person who believers in what she is saying. But, she adds, "I'm just a passionate lay person. And I'm using my celebrity to do something good for people." It is this statement that I doubt quite profoundly.

Should a Christian Use Acupuncture?

In the growth of complimentary medicine over the past few decades acupuncture has become a fairly standard practice that many Christians ask me about. My first exposure to this practice led me to assume that acupuncture might have a lot to do with New Age religion and non-Christian spirituality. I decided to investigate this assumption and eventually came to an entirely different conclusion.

The first Christian question to be asked here is quite pragmatic. “Does acupuncture actually bring relief from pain?” If it does then it can be a good thing. Any procedure that can help a person recover health and well-being is good unless it inherently teaches one to deny the faith. We should avoid superstition and silly practices but acupuncture is neither of these if you carefully study it.

The general medical opinion about acupuncture has changed over the years. It was first opposed in the West because science did not have a way of explaining how it could create any positive benefit for the patient. Today the common opinion seems to be that acupuncture may work in three ways. First, it releases endorphins which are the body’s natural pain-control systems. Second, it stimulates nerves in the spinal cord that release pain-suppressing neurotransmitters. Third, it naturally increases blood flow in the needle-puncture area which in turn removes toxic substances.

Most acupuncture is rooted in Taoism and the concept of the yin and the yang. It is commonly understood in Taoism that we should become one with the forces in the universe through various means of meditation. I reject this simple understanding of acupuncture. Acupuncture itself is not religious. Chinese acupuncture is established on a belief system that is not compatible with Christian teaching but the Christian can use any medical help so long as he receives the help “with prayer and thanksgiving.” I am persuaded that the assumption that every medical contribution that comes from non-Christian systems and practices is false fails to grapple with the doctrine of common grace adequately. I have found that acupuncture helps me with some types of pain management and physical recovery from injury. In other cases it has done me little or no good at all. I think my experience mirrors that of most people I know who have used this method to help their general health.

Alternative Medicine: Real Benefits and Real Problems, Part Two

When the various attacks upon alternative medicine are considered it should be pointed out that mainstream physicians are not trained in alternative medicine. The exception, and these are growing by leaps and bounds, is that regular physicians are increasingly embracing alternative medicine as they learn the benefits it offers to patients. But they come to this view in a way that is outside their actual medical school training. This is, of course, less true for those who were trained outside the United States or in a less mainstream practice of the healing arts, like osteopathy. If you are a fair-minded reporter, and you want good information about anesthesia, who should you ask? Obviously, you would seek information from an anesthesiologist. If you want information about the benefits and problems of alternative medicine then it seems only fair that you would interview physicians who have developed an appreciation of alternative medicine by actually studying it and using it with their patients.

Another problem in this debate is that we, the general public, are done a great disservice when facts are reported out of their context. Herbs and dietary supplements have not cured any disease. There is no solid research saying that they have. But the fact is this: most of the medicines doctors prescribe have not cured specific illnesses either but they are used because there is good evidence that they can and do help. There is also, in almost every case, abundant evidence of many “side effects” (often quite serious) associated with almost every medication used in the West. The fact that people may die, or be made worse, from these side effects is effectively under reported in the media. The one major exception to my statement is antibiotics but even here there are downsides that are increasingly being discovered as our bodies resist these drugs when they are over used. Herbs and dietary supplements can be abused, and often are, but they generally have less serious side effects than prescription drugs.

One of the biggest problems with supplements is in manufacturing. Poor quality control and labeling issues are serious issues but even pharmaceutical companies are now producing supplements. In time this industry will shift and develop accountability as was done with drugs. The FDA does not regulate supplements but it has the authority to do so. Why hasn’t it done this? The answer some suggest is that the FDA is understaffed and overworked. Complete manufacturing standards are slow in developing. When a problem is found it is addressed as quickly as possible. More needs to be done.

Finally, research in alternative and complimentary medicine is a new field. It needs to be given time and be tested and held accountable. The potential here seems apparent, especially for millions who deal with chronic health issues medicine has no answer to at present.

A good example of a commonly recognized benefit of the new medicine is Vitamin D supplementation. I recently had a blood test in which I discovered that I was low in Vitamin D. We now realize the clinical benefits of Vitamin D in preventing heart disease and Alzheimer’s. I expect this will prove to be the tip of an iceberg but time will tell. I do know that cell biology is bigger in medicine than it ever was and this will have its impact over time.

All therapies and approaches to medicine should be scrutinized and studied carefully. The new alternative treatments need to be tested but when mainstream medicine refuses to take these alternatives seriously there can be no serious advance in knowledge. This is not good science, it is bias built on supposition. We need to use all therapies that do no harm and thereby offer people relief wherever possible. We also need to advance meaningful dialogue, with less passion, in an area that presents great potential to the advance of medicine and health.

Alternative Medicine: Real Benefits and Real Problems

In a recent two-part post on this site (June 18 and 19) I wrote about the new physics and the new medicine. I am very aware that this conversation has some strange extremes to be found at both ends of the spectrum. The mere mention of “new” medicine makes some people react with intense passion, pro and con. I am not on the extremes of this debate thus I want to explain how I have come to appreciate alternative medicine without buying into the “hype” that so often surrounds this subject.

One of the first questions people ask when this subject comes up is very basic: “Why are so many competent and good physicians so negative about complimentary, or alternative, medicine?” If this is really beneficial why are so many opposed to it?

If my non-scientific sense of things is accurate the mainstream media presents a lot of negative information about the flaws of alternative medicine and the hype often associated with it. The truth of the matter is that there is a lot of hype in alternative medicine. The media does us a favor by pointing this out routinely. Even if you believe, as I do believe, that there is a lot of good to be discovered in alternative medicine, you should always welcome good criticism. Every gain, in any field of research and study, has positives and negatives.

Some of the criticism provided by mainstream Western medicine reminds us that no complimentary therapies have been found to cure cancer thus we should not rely on such theories in treating it. I agree, but with one caveat. We have no single proven approach to cancer, though great advance has been made and some Western models are proving beneficial in major ways. I would opt for a combination approach to most illnesses, including cancer, for which we have no proven (single) cure. Since I have an illness that the medical world in the West offers no solid cure for I speak from some experience at this point.

However, many of these critical articles and news releases contain some implied facts that are not proven on the opposite side of the debate. For example, bio-energy fields are real and measurable. This study has been going on for more than thirty years. I gave, in my two previous articles, an example of how the new physics and the new medicine had combined in producing a way to break up kidney stones with a totally non-invasive approach based on sound waves. These studies are not based on placebo effects or “self hypnosis.” The mind is powerful and habituated patterns of thought can be changed. There is much more to learn in this field. My appeal is that we become open to learn more and to use all that science reveals to us, including the way the mind works to promote healing and wellness. Surely Christians, who have read so much in the Bible about the mind and human thought, can be open to such an approach to health.

The New Medicine Meets the New Physics, Part Two

I come from a family of physicians and dentists. I believe in the great advances of modern medicine. Heart surgery alone should convince everyone that modern Western medicine has made incredible progress and advanced human health in many ways. Furthermore, I do not reject the role that medication and drugs can have in the healing process. But I do question our almost total reliance upon these accepted patterns of treatment without being open to new science.

Anyone who reads the history of science in general, and the history of medicine in particular, knows that a great deal has been advanced, accepted and then changed over the years. This is the nature of real science and thus a major part of what makes it so exciting for earnest researchers and practitioners.

To site just one example, there was a time when electrotherapy was used extensively in treating various illnesses. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, when batteries, and other similar devices, were being developed to produce energy, medicine tried to produce machines that used energy to heal the human body. Popular magazines touted what was called radioesthesia. By 1894 over 10,000 physicians were using this science. But the ideas proved unsuccessful and were ultimately abandoned based on the evidence that little good was actually being done.

In 1895 D. D. Palmer created a science that we call chiropractic. I grew up hearing that chiropractic treatment was pseudo-science, and thus mostly bogus. I understood next to nothing about chiropractic so, like many Christians who know so little about what they so often pontificate about, I rejected chiropractic as heresy. But D. D. Palmer’s basic ideas have proven, over the past 100-plus years, to be extremely useful, and very popular in the last twenty years. His theory was based on the flow of energy in the body. He focused on the vertebral column as the conduit through which the spinal nerves passed and thus provided information to the body. He developed skills by which he could assess and fine-tune this flow of information by adjusting tensions in the backbone which relieved pressures and allowed the body to heal more naturally.

The medical profession rejected D. D. Palmer, much the same way they rejected homeopathy and radioesthesia. Why? The answer is complex, and thus defies simple answers from either side, but surely we can assume drugless practitioners were threatened by this new science. By 1910 the Carnegie Foundation published a famous report that called for all medical practice to be based on “proven science.” Bruce Lipton, once a professor of mainstream medicine at the University of Wisconsin, is a physician who has changed his thinking about this new medicine. Lipton writes: “Because physicians had not yet discovered the quantum universe, energy medicine was incomprehensible to science (Lipton, The Biology of Belief, page 119). Thus the AMA denounced everything from chiropractic to all other questionable forms of medical practice based on energy-based theories.

But now the medical world is changing, sometimes in ways few of us can keep up with from day-to-day. In 1990 chiropractors won a lengthy court battle with the AMA, proving that the AMA had engaged in illegal attempts to destroy their profession. Since 1990 chiropractic has spread rapidly. Now many insurance companies cover it and an increasing number of hospitals and physicians recommend it. And despite the discredited claims of radioesthesia in the late 1800s neuro-scientists are conducting some pretty amazing new research in the whole area of vibration (energy) therapy. Could it be that the brain, long known to be a mysterious electrical organ, is in fact subject to energy in ways that we do not yet understand? I think the answer is obvious.

While I was reading Dr. Lipton's engaging book I did my own Internet reading and came across a number of attacks upon the man and his work. Some of the criticism is fair and needed. Some of it is predictable and common from the medical community. Lipton is seen by some, if you care to go further with his name on the Web, as a quack. Here is how one mainstream scientist describes him and his work:

"Dr. Lipton claims that illness can be cured by mere belief. This isn't only nonsense; it is incredibly unprofessional and irresponsible. This is the equivalent of a TV Evangelist banging his palm against the foreheads of cancer patients, pushing them back down in their seats and proclaiming them cured, only to then say later to an investigating reporter who mentions that the patients later died that the Lord's magic stopped working because doubt entered into the hearts of the disbelieving patients. What an incredibly cruel sentiment. "

If this critic had read Dr. Lipton then I think this is not what he would have discovered. I read him and do not hear him saying this kind of thing at all. He sells his views with the passion of an evangelist, like so many in his field, but he has discovered some things that excite him. The thing that truly makes him an outsider is not his zeal, or even his mistakes about subjects like water, but his rejection of the "medical model" that is accepted by the establishment as settled fact.

Lipton believes that what is needed is serious interdisciplinary research in this new field of science. But this will not happen over night. Lipton believes this research needs to bring quantum physics to the table, as well as chemistry, biology and electrical engineering. (That doesn't sound like quackery to me.) I think he has to be right about this, at least in general. Such research has the promise of healing our bodies without all the dangerous side-effects of some drugs. Please note: I do not reject the use of drugs. I use them, but with more discernment and care than I once did. I recommend the same to you. Become genuinely proactive in understanding what a drug does and how it can harm you. (Those nasty "side effects.") By the way, use vitamins, minerals and herbs with care since they all have side effects. We are a pill-driven society and many of us have simply replaced pharmaceuticals with vitamins and herbs in pill form.

This all seems rather obvious to me now but this is still not so with many scientists. And this is especially the case with some Christians who have not thought about this deeply enough. We are not simply inert material beings! Lipton says what I feel so powerfully that I can do no better than to quote him: “When I gave up the view that we are inert matter, I realize not only that the science of my chosen career was out of date, but also that I needed to promote more constructive interference in my own life” (Lipton, The Biology of Belief, page 121).

Lipton's sentence literally jumped off the page at me when I first read it. I now realize that I need to promote “more constructive interference in my own life.” I need to address how I use my mind, what kinds of energy I expend it on, and how I can/should take responsibility for my own health in a new, pro-active, way. A physician interviewed me recently for a course I am going to take in July that relates to this whole subject. He asked me a powerful, but very simple, question: “What is the difference between taking a pill and taking a training course on your health?” I answered: “Taking a pill is entirely passive. Taking a course that has action steps is taking personal responsibility.” I then realized that if I had not answered his question in this manner he would not have deemed me ready to learn what he will now teach me.

By the way, I think every minister ought to stop preparing pills for their people who passively listen to them talk. We who care for souls should begin to equip and train people in how to understand and use the great truths given to the people of God by the dynamic power (energy is the Greek word here) of the Holy Spirit. We can all begin by “more constructive interference in [our own] life.” I am trying to do that. I am finding that it forces me to make some hard choices that ultimately have a huge benefit.